Helsinki White

by James Thompson

  Kate has never been to Turku. I get back in the car. “Kate, how would you like to go on a road trip tomorrow, to Turku? It’s about two hours east of Helsinki.”

  “Just us?” She sounds hopeful.

  “No, I have to do some cop stuff, but Milo and Sweetness will come with me, so I thought maybe Mirjami and Jenna could go with you. You can give your new Audi a good breaking-in. My brother Timo has a farm near there. After we do our business and you do your sightseeing, if he’s available, we could pay him a visit.”

  She’s in happy-drunk mode at the moment. “Sounds fun,” she says.

  We go home. I thank Jyri’s aunt, give her a fifty, pre-pay a taxi for her, send her home and get on the horn. Kate passes out on the couch.

  I promised Moreau he could accompany me while I conduct interviews. He promised to teach Milo how to use the advanced weaponry he bought, doesn’t need, and doesn’t know how to use. Sweetness has never fired a gun. We’re searching for, I believe, military trained killers, perhaps mercenaries. He needs to learn to shoot. I’d like to kill all these birds with one stone.

  “I have business in Turku anyway,” Moreau says. “It suits me.”

  I tell him to meet me here at eight a.m.

  Step two. Call my brother. This is harder. “Jesus, Kari,” he says, “I haven’t heard from you in two years, seen you in four. To what do I owe the honor?”

  “I have some business in Turku and thought I’d drop by, if that’s OK with you.”

  “It’s more than OK. It would be great. I hear you have a baby now. You gonna bring her?”

  “Actually, I may bring a few people. Cops and their women. And we’d like to do a little weapons training while we’re there. Is that all right with you?”

  Anger creeps into his voice. “For a minute there, I thought you wanted to see me. In fact, you want something from me. That’s it. Right?”

  The truth is, I don’t give damn if I see him or anyone else, because of my lack of emotions. But I’m trying to do what I view as my duty toward my family, and I neglected my duty toward him when I felt emotions because of those emotions. It’s easier now. “No, I want to see you. I can shoot guns anywhere. I’m a fucking cop, if you recall. We have practice ranges. I can come see you and not shoot, if you prefer. Or I can go to a practice range and not see you, if you prefer that.”

  He goes quiet for a minute. “Just tell me why you haven’t come to see me.”

  I tell the truth. “I don’t know. Why haven’t you come to see me?”

  He’s quiet again. “It’s complicated. Just fucking come visit. Take target practice with a panzer if you want. And you’re all welcome to stay the night. We have lots of room.”

  “It’s good to hear your voice, big brother,” I say.

  “Yours too.” He rings off.

  Next, Milo. “We’re going on a road trip tomorrow. Bring that nuclear arsenal or whatever it is you bought. Moreau is going to teach you to use it.”

  “Cool! Where are we going?”

  “Different places around the Turku area. We’ll probably stay the night, maybe at my brother’s place. And Mirjami is invited.”

  “I don’t know if she can come. She might have to work.”

  I recall that Mirjami told Milo she loves me. She pays me no undue attention. I find this strange. “Tell her if her love for me is true, to trade out shifts or something. Kate is coming in a separate car, and it will suck for her if she’s alone. In fact, she probably wouldn’t come and be disappointed.”

  Milo says he’ll try. I tell him to be here at eight.

  I make a similar call to Sweetness, and invite Jenna. It’s no problem for her, she doesn’t go to school and she’s unemployed. The girls are too young and immature to become close friends with Kate, but she seems to enjoy their company, at least on a superficial level.

  I save the worst for last and call Jaakko Pahkala. I have a love-hate relationship with him. I love hating him. His little rat face, his squeaky voice, his attitude—everything about him annoys me. Pre–brain op, I would have gotten an adrenaline hate surge just by picking up the phone to call him. He refers to himself as a journalist, and is employed as such on a freelance basis by our most yellow skank rags. He loves skank. Lives and breathes skank. The uglier and more loathsome, the more he reveres it. Also, he’s petty and malicious. He once tried to have me fired because I refused him an interview.

  Jaakko is like vile medicine. Sometimes it’s required, and in the same vein, at times he has his uses. This is one of them.

  He answers his phone. “Inspector Vaara, this is an unexpected pleasure. How may I be of service to you?”

  “I’m starting a new publication,” I say, “and I’d like you to be editor.”

  “I’m intrigued.”

  “‘Editor’ is euphemistic. You’re the sole employee, the publication date is uncertain, and you’re not to let anyone know the publication exists until I authorize you to do so.”

  “And the nature of this publication?”

  “We’re going to revamp the classic Be Happy.”

  “The best magazine ever made in Finland,” he says. “I’m honored.”

  I describe it as the minister defined it to me, but with my own spin on it. “It’s to be a hate rag under the guise of a scandal sheet. For instance, Lisbet Söderlund. You’ll paint her black, invent vicious details concerning her private life, and leave the reader feeling she was a traitorous slut who deserved to die.”

  “My, my, Inspector. That is the skankiest skank that ever skanked a skank.”

  “You’ll go after blacks, Jews and Muslims. Blame all our social ills on them. Picture 1920s American KKK hate materials, or pre-war German and French hate propaganda. I assume you’re familiar with those styles. As with the old Be Happy, do some career destruction. It’s OK if we get sued, but stay just on the side of the line where we don’t have criminal charges pressed against us for incitement of racial violence.”

  “My familiarity with those styles would be better termed expertise,” he says. “I have a large personal collection of the literature.”

  “In your first mock-up issue, go after the leading center and left political figures, as well as celebs. A lot of drug-and-alcohol-problem material, nympho and fag accusations, with the requisite images.”

  “I have the latest version of Photoshop,” Jaakko says.

  “At the same time, however, you’ll be collecting an equal amount of dirt on the right wing, Kokoomus, and Real Finns. You’ll keep these files secret for now. And of course you’ll have copies of everything for me. Everything.”

  “Inspector, are you our new minister of propaganda?”

  “You may consider me so.”

  “And my compensation?”

  “Two thousand euros a month.”

  “Make it three.”

  “Two and half, and don’t try to bargain.”

  “Very well. May I ask your sudden interest in the collection of blackmail material?”

  “No. You have a duplicitous nature. You receive no unnecessary information.”

  He snickers. “We all have our flaws.”

  “In this instance, you’ll suppress them, or you’ll pay a high price.”

  He snickers again. “Will you have me shot?”

  “No, but given the choice, you might prefer it. You’ll be fired by all of your employers. You’ll find your bank account emptied. You’ll lose your home. You’ll receive bills for loans you never took out. You’ll be convicted for crimes you didn’t commit, and I’m pretty sure they would make you the jailhouse sissy.”

  “Inspector, you seem to have become a man of importance. I’m impressed.”

  “I’m so pleased. It’s important to me that you hold me in high regard.”

  “I’ll do a good job. And I’ll be your lapdog. No duplicity.”

  “I’m glad we understand one another,” I say, and ring off.

  The skank dreck sheet will never be published. It will, however,
be written and prepared, and the mock-up will be in the possession of the minister of the interior in the event that I need to entrap and extort him. My own version of the slander skank rag, featuring such gems as a round-heeled slattern giving him skull in the alley behind a bar, might just possibly make it to print.

  I received messages while I talked to Jaakko. Mirjami and Jenna will be coming with us tomorrow. Kate is coming to on the sofa. I tell her all the arrangements have been made for the trip to Turku.

  “What trip?” she asks.

  30

  Kate pretends that she’s just sleepy, acts as if she hadn’t blacked out. With a little assistance from me, she remembers everything and exhibits enthusiasm for the trip. Whether real or feigned, I don’t know. I see that she has that kind of nerve-jangled hangover that comes from days of drinking, but puts on a perky face rather than admit how bad she feels. She doesn’t comment when I feed Anu with formula from a bottle rather than hand her over for a suck on a tit. She doesn’t want to discuss her behavior. I don’t want to make her. She sits with her laptop and researches Turku, plans her day as a tourist. I go to the grocery and load up on snacks, beer and soft drinks for the trip.

  EVERYONE SHOWS UP at eight a.m. sharp. The men will take the Jeep Wrangler, since we have Milo’s guns to transport, and the girls will ride in the Audi. Kate is nervous but excited and looking forward to her first long-distance Finnish driving experience. Mirjami, once again in Hello Kitty attire, has a license, and says she’ll give Kate driving pointers.

  However, they have differing ideas about how to spend the day. Turku was Finland’s original capital—its cathedral was consecrated in 1300, and it still has remnants of the Middle Ages, or re-creations of it along cobblestoned streets. Established by Sweden, it still feels more Swedish than Finnish, and Swedish is spoken at least as much, if not more, by its residents. The Aurajoki divides the city.

  Kate would like to see handicrafts and go to the tourist area, where people in authentic clothing, blacksmiths and weavers and such, make things the old-fashioned way. Also, Turku Castle is, if not the biggest in Finland and the Scandinavian region, close to it. She suggests that exploring it could also be a fascinating way to spend the day.

  Mirjami and Jenna want to go to Muumimaailma—Muumin World. Kate doesn’t know what it is. We’re all surprised. The Muumit—Muumi plural—are one of those things you just take for granted everyone knows about.

  Jenna laughs. “You’ll know about it soon. All little kids love the Muumit.” She explains that the Muumit are characters from a series of books by Tove Jansson. They’re round white trolls with big hippopotamus noses who live in Muumin valley, and they and their friends have adventures in the forest.

  I think it finally sinks in that she’s twice Jenna’s age. “And of all the things to do in Turku,” Kate asks, “you would most like to spend your day with the trolls?”

  Jenna grins wide and gives a vigorous nod of her head. “Uh-huh.”

  They compromise. Muumin World is on the island of Kailo beside the old town of Naantali. The town grew around an old convent, and is composed mostly of wooden houses along narrow cobbled streets that house handicraft shops. They can all have their fun.

  Sweetness wants to drive. I say sure, but no kossu. He hands me the keys. I toss them to Milo. He likes to drive, I want to think. I notice Moreau has stubble blurring his wings of Icarus. I ask why. He says he believes we’ll wrap this up soon. He’s growing hair for changing identities.

  We load up the vehicles and agree to meet in the market square for lunch. I put Anu’s car seat in the back of the Audi, strap her in, and we get on the road.

  In my mind, I replay my conversation with the minister of the interior. He said that in early 2009, Veikko Saukko promised to donate a million euros to Real Finns. A short time later, his son and daughter were kidnapped. Welshing on a million-dollar promise causes hard feelings. This provides motive.

  Veikko’s son, Antti, was himself affiliated with the racists. This provides potential accomplices. He disappeared, although the ten-million-euro ransom had been paid. The kidnappers had made good on their bargain to release the daughter. Why show good faith in her instance, and then dispose of the son? Unless Antti took part in the kidnapping, rather than being a victim of it. And if he then fucked his racist buddies somehow, it could have sparked the shooting of his sister as payback. Antti had recently been stripped of his position as chairman of the board of Ilmarinen Sisu Corporation. Fucked in the ass by his father without provocation. Well, there was that fucking-Daddy’s-wife thing, but still, this provides additional motive.

  Jussi Kosonen supposedly perpetrated the kidnapping. He’s dead. His three children are missing. It stinks of a setup. Kosonen was a patsy. If they kidnapped his kids while his wife was away and forced him to keep Kaarina Saukko in his basement and later deliver her, he would be useless after retrieving the ransom money for them. Hence, a bullet in the back of his head. It would be the most practical thing to do with him. His children likely got the same treatment.

  And I was right, our black-ops unit had predecessors, and they were military. My guess would be sheep-dipped Erikoisjääkärit, Special Forces, and they had gone to Russia on a mission concerning the human slave trade. So, like me, they had higher motives than ripping off dope dealers. And they were pros. And they died. And we’re bunglers. We’d better goddamned well improve our paramilitary skills.

  The quiet has gone on for too long. Nervous puppy Milo has to break it. “Want to hear a joke?” he asks no one in particular.

  No one answers. This doesn’t stop him.

  “A priest checks into a hotel and says to the clerk, ‘I assume your porn is disabled.’ The clerk answers, ‘No, Father, it’s normal porn, you sick fuck.’”

  Moreau chuckles. Sweetness guffaws. I smile. I never thought to practice laughing.

  “Somebody tell a story,” Milo says.

  Sweetness asks, “What kind of story?”

  Milo thinks about it. “A fuck story. And it has to be true.”

  No one volunteers.

  “Kari, you taciturn bastard. Tell us a story.”

  I’ve never told a sex story, although I have a number of them. I spent years as chief of police in an area with a major ski resort. A perk of being a single cop in a tourist area is the availability of women looking for short-term affairs—vacation entertainment. I never went overboard with it, but if I felt the need, women were almost always there for me. I’ve seldom listened to sex stories, either. The kind of people I’ve mostly spent my life around don’t brag about intimacies, don’t need that kind of self-esteem reinforcement. I decide I’ll try it, just this once, to see what it’s like, even though I know this is some kind of brain surgery post-op quirk manifesting itself.

  “OK. This one time. Some years ago, back when I lived in Kittilä, it was the night before Christmas Eve. I was making rounds, stopped in Hullu Poro, a big bar there. I was in civilian clothes but had my Glock in a belt holster. This girl comes up to me. She’s a half-Arab and half-German aerobics instructor, about five foot five, had on a tight T-shirt and jeans, and I could tell she had a six pack and an ass so high and firm you could sit a beer can on it. Skin the color of milk chocolate. Black hair down to her ass. Perky breasts. Around twenty-five years old. A beautiful girl. She took a plane to Levi by herself for Christmas on a whim.

  “She walked up to me, I didn’t even see her coming. ‘Can I see your gun?’ she asked.

  “I said ‘No.’ She asked if I was a cop, and I said ‘Yeah.’ ‘Will you show it to me later?’ she asked. I said ‘Maybe.’

  “She asked me what time I got off and I said midnight. She wanted to go techno dancing and asked if I would take her. I said I would be honored. She said it was too bad I was a cop, she’d like to do some X.

  “As it happened, I busted some Austrian Eurotrash rich kid that night for speeding, going about a hundred and thirty miles an hour. Baron von Dogfucker or something like that,
who had brought about a hundred of his closest friends to celebrate Christmas with him in Levi. He had enough Ecstasy with him for all of them to celebrate in high style for days. He had a baggie full of the shit and I had never tried it, so I thought, What the fuck, and stuck four hits of it into my pocket before I entered it into evidence.

  “After work I went up to her room and brought a bottle of wine. We had a glass, I said ‘Surprise,’ and took a couple of tabs out of my pocket. We ate one each. I didn’t like it at first, it felt like my mind was shaking apart, but it didn’t last long and then it was a really enjoyable high.

  “I took her to a place where they were spinning techno. She kept falling over, laughing, had no sense of up, down or sideways. I kept scooping her up and setting her back on her feet. She swept all the drinks off the bar with her arm. I bought us more.

  “She wanted me to take her home. She wanted to hear Finnish language and asked me to read to her, so I pulled a Bible off the shelf and opened it at random to the book of John. Just when I got to ‘and the Word was made flesh’—I’ll always remember the citation. It’s 1:14—she made her move and we started fucking. The floor, the bed. The sauna. The snow. You can do it in the snow after the sauna for a few minutes when your body temperature is high enough, just don’t get your genitals in it. I tacked a sleeping bag to the roof and we climbed up and fucked under the moon.

  “And she was an expert at sucking cock. Every time I came, she sucked me again and made me hard, over and over. At some point, we took the other hit of X. She loved 69, had almost no bodyweight. I was three times her size and turning and lifting her was no more difficult than rolling myself over in bed.

  “The date lasted thirty hours. After maybe the tenth time, my orgasms were dry, just powerful contractions. We did it nearly twenty times. Afterward, my dick was so tender it was hard to touch it without discomfort for days. I took her back to her hotel. She called me to say good-bye and I gave her a ride to the airport. We never spoke again. I never wanted to do it again. The experience was unrepeatable. At Baron von Dogfucker’s hearing, I learned that the Ecstasy was in four-way hits. We were supposed to break them into pieces, so we were really high. When I drove her to the airport, she told me that her father had just died, and she came to Levi after his funeral with nothing but the clothes on her back. She was just escaping. She was a nice girl.”