by Mike Ward
“This is Matti Hälleström.”
“I’m going to come to your house, I’m going to knock you out and then I’m going to tie you to a table and sandpaper your balls off using my Father’s electric sander.”
The key phrase here was “my Father’s electric sander.” Hälleström realized he was talking to a teenager. The kid had to be seventeen at most. “Let’s do this outside,” he said. “There’s a quiet street near me called Tavastgatan. Do you know where it is?”
“Yes I do.”
“Good you’ll get your chance for revenge. Meet me there at ten o’clock tonight. Stand in the middle of the street and wait until you see a green car. That will be me. Raise your hand so I know it’s you and then wait for me. If you’re still alive after I’ve run you over then I’ll tie you to the back of my car and drag you though the streets of Stockholm for ten kilometers. After the road surface has scraped all your skin off I don’t think you’ll give me any trouble.”
There was silence at the other end of the line. At one time Hälleström had tried to reason with people who threatened him when they didn’t like one of his articles but that just made them worse. Now he just threatened them right back. A large hand dropped on his shoulder. Hälleström looked round. His son Erik stood behind him. He pointed at the phone which was set to speakerphone and mouthed the word “who”. Erik was Swedish on Hälleström’s side but half Irish and half Scottish on his mother’s side. His dear mother had died when he was just ten months old leaving Hälleström to care for Erik on his own. Erik was very protective of his father.
The kid tried again. “Hälleström you need to book an appointment with your dentist to get fitted for false teeth. You’ll need a full set after I’ve been to see you.”
While the kid had been talking Hälleström had pulled up the article he had written three weeks ago. In an article about a politician Hälleström had referred to threats made against him by two teens.
Erik looked at the names on the screen. “Is this Gustav Ljunggren or is it Martin Rosling I’m speaking to,” he said. Silence. “Well Gustav or Andreas, I’m assuming that I can find you at the same address as your father’s electric drill. After my friends and I have beaten you up we’ll tie you to the bed and then I’m going to sandpaper your balls off with your own electric drill.”
There was a click as the phone went down. “What’s your first class today?” Hälleström said.
“Philosophy.”
Erik was very protective of his father. Sometimes the Celtic blood he had from his mother could make him aggressive and unpredictable, especially if anyone threatened his father. Father and son exchanged a glance and then a smile. “Don’t forget my sword is hanging on the wall if you need it,” Erik said.
The previous year Erik and three of his friends had taken the ferry from Norway to Scotland. While they were in Scotland they had been to the Highland Games at Inverness. All four boys had brought swords back with them that they had bought from a vendor at the Games. The swords were deliberately blunted but Erik and one of the other boys had found someone who would sharpen theirs. While Hälleström was out one day they had had a swordfight in his apartment. They had not realized how sharp the swords actually were. After he had gotten the blood cleaned out of his carpet Hälleström had sent both boys to sword fighting lessons. After several weeks both boys had lost interest but Erik still had a very sharp sword hanging on his bedroom wall. Hälleström knew that if he pressed the point Erik would just dig in and want to keep the sword anyway so he hadn’t said anything about it.
Today was an exception. Hälleström was very rarely threatened in his job. He had once worked as a journalist for Aftonbladet but when his wife Caitlin had died he had resigned from Aftonbladet and gone freelance while he cared for his son on his own. Times had been hard at first but after a few years Hälleström had built up a reputation as a journalist who could be called at short notice and could be relied upon to produce a one thousand or two thousand word article in just a couple of hours. He did that by always keeping ahead of his regular work so that he could drop everything if he needed to.
As Erik became older Hälleström could have gone back with a regular newspaper but he liked the freedom of being freelance and being his own boss. Hälleström’s name was known in publishing circles all over Stockholm. Once a year or so, Hälleström would crack a really big story and these were the stories that gave him an adrenaline rush and made it all worthwhile. The last one had been the Kristoffer Nilsson case. Five years ago Nilsson had been a rising politician who was destined for high office when his wife, Maria developed cancer. There were headlines on and off in the newspapers about Nilsson’s wife and Nilsson had received a lot of favorable press for his caring attitude. The cancer had gone into remission only to come back with a vengeance three years later. Stories began to run in the press about how Maria Nilsson was fighting her cancer and about how supportive her husband was being. Around this time Hälleström had received a tip off that Kristoffer Nilsson was carrying on an affair with a woman fifteen years younger than him. To Hälleström this did not seem right at all, in fact he became extremely angry thinking about it. It was inevitable that some people would have affairs but to have an affair while your wife is being treated for cancer was, in Hälleström’s opinion, the lowest form of selfish behavior. Hälleström determined then and there that Nilsson was going down. He built his story over a period of three months, partnered with a freelance photographer he could trust to stay silent and at the end of that period Hälleström broke the story in the quarterly magazine “Liberation”. Liberation Magazine was run by Mona Forseke, an editor Hälleström had worked with closely for many years. The story ran next to a picture of Kristoffer Nilsson kissing a very heavily pregnant Inger Mannig. Hälleström followed up the story with interviews on national television later in the day. The following day Nilsson resigned in disgrace.
Hälleström decided to get busy with the day’s work. The first job was to send an article to a magazine in England. The magazine was for women. One of the regular columns was written by “Jill” who was a busy lawyer bringing up a small girl on her own. As far as the readers knew, Jill had been widowed when her daughter was less than a year old. In actual fact, Jill had been created four years ago by the editor of the magazine, an Englishwoman in her late forties. After she had created Jill all the editor had needed to do was find a journalist to write a monthly column. Only the editor and Hälleström knew that Jill was not an English female lawyer at all but was really a Swedish man in his forties. Hälleström had been surprised to get the job, several journalists from England had submitted trial articles but he was the only applicant with any real experience of looking after a small child on his own and his articles had a depth about them that the other articles lacked. The initial contract had only been for six articles but to both Hälleström and the editor’s surprise the series had taken off. The English editor ran “Jill’s” website even going so far as to use fake pictures. Erik was quite amused to find himself described in Hälleström’s articles as a young girl called Emma and this was something he had kept very quiet about when talking to his friends. After realizing how successful his articles were, Hälleström had renegotiated his contract. At the moment he was required to produce two articles a month for the “Jill” series and he was six articles ahead. Jill’s daughter Emma was now four years old and Hälleström sat for a moment thinking about when Erik was four years old. After a couple of minutes his fingers were flashing across the keyboard. An hour and a half later, including a quick break for coffee, Hälleström had the next article in the series finished.
Taking the last sip of coffee, he pulled up his emails. The first email was from Anders Larborn, editor of Larborn Travel Magazine on Sankt Eriksgatan. Hälleström and Larborn went back a long way, Larborn was gay and one of his first acts when he and Hälleström started working together had been to ask Hälleström if he would like to go to bed with him. Hälleström had poli
tely and gently declined explaining that while he liked Larborn he was only interested in women. After a few awkward months Hälleström and Larborn had built an excellent working relationship and had become lifelong friends. Larborn was the sort of man who seemed to know everyone in Stockholm and he was friends with many politicians including quite a few of the gay ones. Occasionally Larborn sent potential girlfriends Hälleström’s way and Hälleström had had a very close relationship with a female politician, Gabriella Halring, a few years ago. She was five years older than Hälleström, they were still good friends and occasionally she would call Hälleström and come and share his bed for the night. Hälleström had met Gabriella at one of Larborn’s legendary parties and after an introduction from Larborn they had hit it off. Meeting a woman at one of Larborn’s parties had been a novelty, usually the party goers were mostly gay men and Hälleström was usually propositioned four or five times at each party. Hälleström had two stock replies, firstly that he was straight but sometimes he found that would be a challenge and the guy would try even harder. His second stock reply was to say that he had a gay lover he was very fond of who would be heartbroken if Hälleström ever slept with another man so he was staying faithful. He had found this to be a far better reply if he really wanted to be left alone. He went to the parties simply because they were so much fun and there was usually so much gossip to be had that he often found himself with an article to write after the party, albeit from an anonymous source.
Larborn’s email said that he wanted to meet and did Hälleström have time to drive over to his office during the morning. Hälleström emailed back that he would be there in less than an hour. Grabbing his jacket and laptop he left his apartment after first making sure that Erik had a ride, he had classes at the university later in the morning. Half an hour later Hälleström was looking for a parking spot on Sankt Eriksgatan. The Larborn Travel Magazine office was located above Café Eken at Sankt Eriksgatan 9. Eken is one of the few cafes in Stockholm that never closes. At night, it turns into a hangout for taxi drivers and if they were working late, Hälleström and Larborn would often go down to the café and chat with the taxi drivers. It was amazing how much the drivers knew about who was seeing who in Stockholm. Hälleström had once had a major story dropped right into his lap just because a taxi driver at Café Eken mentioned that he had picked a rowdy prostitute up at four in the morning from the house of a captain of Swedish industry. At the time Hälleström thought nothing of it but it just so happened that the man’s wife died in a tragic accident at home a few weeks later. The wife’s death was ruled an accident but Hälleström thought otherwise and six months later he had the evidence to prove it. The man was arrested by the police just hours after Hälleström’s story broke.
Hälleström walked into the Larborn offices, he waved a greeting to Birgitta, Larborn’s ever resourceful secretary and receptionist on the front desk and then walked into Larborn’s office. Larborn was on the phone with his partner, he chatted for another minute or so before hanging up and exchanging greetings with Hälleström. Larborn was an engaging man who always acted as though he was genuinely pleased to talk to everyone who came across his path. Hälleström had noticed after a while that this was actually the case, Anders loved talking to people and he was a very congenial host.
“I know you’re familiar with Montreal, Matti. I’m looking for a gay friendly article basically aimed at both gays and straights but including information about “The Village” and then with maybe a side trip to Quebec City.”
The Village was the gay area of Montreal and was one of the best gay areas of any North American city. Whenever Hälleström was in Montreal it was always one of the places he visited, it was a very relaxed, friendly and casual place both for gays and straights.
“I can do that, I’ll mention some places to go and restaurants in the village, probably add a walk up Mont Royal and suggest they take the train to Quebec City because that’s a fun way to travel.”
“How are the trains over there?”
“The Canadian ones are great. They’re comfortable and reliable. They’re not as fast as European trains but they get there and there is some nice scenery between Montreal and Quebec City, especially as you get closer to Quebec City.”
“What’s the best time of the year to go?”
“If you go in July you can hit the Montreal Jazz Festival which I have heard is really good. The only drawback is that you have more expensive hotel rooms but Montreal has such a good metro you could stay on the outskirts of the city at a cheaper rate and just take the metro in. Each trip is about CDN$2.50 wherever you go in the city so it’s reasonably priced. Another great thing about Montreal is that it’s safe. You can walk on the streets just about anywhere at 2:30AM and you wouldn’t get mugged. Try doing that in New York and you’d be in trouble in less than ten minutes.”
“What’s the night life like?”
“It’s buzzing, I stayed on the French side of the city and one night I woke up at 4:00AM and there were still loads of people walking on the streets. When I left to go back to the airport I had an early flight so my taxi picked me up at 7:30AM. We stopped at a traffic light and there were two young French Canadian girls still dressed in their little short black party dresses sitting on a set of stairs smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee. It was a great way to remember the city. When do you need the article by?”
“Either the issue in three months or the one after that. If you happen to do it earlier then I might squeeze it into next issue but I’ve really asked you later than I should have done.”
“No I have some spare time,” Hälleström said. “If you need it I can do it. I can let you have it in two days.”
“That would be great,” Larborn said. “I was let down at the last minute by a new writer who was due to provide me an article on gay cruises. I won’t be working with him again.”
“You should have told me that earlier,” Hälleström said. “I’ll let you have the article this afternoon, I know that you are close to deadline. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want you to feel pressured,” Larborn said.
“Anders you have done a lot for me over the years. I’ve got your back when you need it. I’ll email it over this afternoon.”
