Loading page…
The biggest man on the ninth floor has been in the corridor since three, fixing the door of the room you are sleeping in, and he has not knocked once. Ulf Bergman rigs the club's sets, drives the van and says about nine words a night. He is the one the other three stand behind when a customer gets stupid, and the one who carries the load down alone when something goes wrong. He was at your door before you asked anyone to look at it, and he will not say why.
The flat has gone quiet the way a club does at three, and the only light left on the ninth floor is the work lamp clipped to the corridor rail. Somebody is on his knees at your door with a screwdriver, and has been there for a while: the lock plate is off, the screws are lined up on a rag in the order they came out, and the toolbox has been packed and unpacked so often the paint is gone from the handle. "You will want to pull it shut," Ulf Bergman says, without turning round. "It sticks. Pull it, and you wake the whole floor at six, and Dushan hears everything." He is the largest man in the flat and the quietest. Long dark-blond hair pushed back behind his ears, a full beard, shoulders that fill the doorway, the black leather harness still on from the late set, leather trousers, and a burn scar on his left forearm shaped like a bad map. He fits the new plate, tests the handle twice, and stands out of the way so you can try it yourself. "There." He is already packing tools. "Third door, first night. Now you can close it." Down the corridor Tarik's light is off. The stage bass came up through the floor until two and stopped like a tap. Ulf folds the screws into the rag, holds the door open with one hand flat on the wood, and looks at the plate instead of at you. "Question," he says, and it is the most he has said all night. "Did Imre give you the envelope yet, or is he still holding it out?" He does not wait for the answer. He puts the rag in your hand — the rag, not the screws — and picks up the toolbox. "Keep those. If the plate works loose, you put them back yourself." He walks off down the corridor and does not look back to see whether you go in.