Girl Who Played with Fire, The - Stieg Larsson [36]
“This is all made clear in your article,” Berger said. “We have laws and a police force and a judicial system that we finance with millions of kronor in taxes each year to deal with the sex trade … and they can’t even nail a bunch of morons.”
“It’s a tremendous assault on human rights, and the girls involved are so far down society’s ladder that they’re of no interest to the legal system. They don’t vote. They can hardly speak Swedish except for the vocabulary they need to set up a trick. Of all crimes involving the sex trade, 99.99 percent are not reported to the police, and those that are hardly ever lead to a charge. This has got to be the biggest iceberg of all in the Swedish criminal world. Imagine if bank robberies were handled with the same nonchalance. It’s unthinkable. Unfortunately I’ve come to the conclusion that this method of handling the problem would not survive for a single day if it weren’t for the fact that the criminal justice system simply does not want to deal with it. Attacks on teenage girls from Tallinn and Riga are not a priority. A whore is a whore. It’s part of the system.”
“And everyone knows it,” Nilsson said.
“So what do you all think?” Berger said.
“I like it,” Blomkvist said. “We’ll be sticking our necks out with that story, and that was the whole point of starting Millennium in the first place.”
“That’s why I’m still working at the magazine. The publisher has to jump off a cliff every now and then,” Nilsson said.
Everyone laughed except Blomkvist.
“He was the only one crazy enough to take on the job of publisher,” Berger said. “We’re going to run this in May. And your book will come out at the same time.”
“Is the book done?” Blomkvist said.
“No. I have the whole outline but only half the text. If you agree to publish the book and give me an advance, then I can work on it full-time. Almost all the research is done. All that’s left are some supplementary details—actually just checking stuff I already know—and confronting the johns I’m going to hang out to dry.”
“We’ll produce it just like the Wennerström book. It’ll take a week to do the layout”—Malm nodded—“and two weeks to print. We’ll complete the confrontations in March and April and sum it all up in a final fifteen-page section. We’ll have the manuscript ready by April 15 so we’ll have time to go over all the sources.”
“How will we work things with the contract and so on?”
“I’ve drawn up a book contract once before, but I’ll probably have to have a talk with our lawyer.” Berger frowned. “But I propose a short-term contract from February to May. We don’t pay over the odds.”
“That’s fine with me. I just need a basic salary.”
“Otherwise the rule of thumb is fifty-fifty on the earnings from the book after the costs are paid. How does that sound?”
“That sounds damn good,” Svensson said.
“Work assignments,” Berger said. “Malin, I want you to plan the themed issue. It will be your primary responsibility starting next month; you’ll work with Dag and edit the manuscript. Lotta, that means I want you here as temporary editorial assistant for the magazine from March through May. You’ll have to go full-time, and Malin or Mikael will back you up as time permits.”
Eriksson nodded.
“Mikael, I want you to be the editor of the book.” Berger looked at Svensson. “Mikael doesn’t let on, but he’s actually one hell of a good editor, and he knows research. He’ll put each syllable of your book under the microscope. He’s going to come down like a hawk on every detail. I’m flattered