Helsinki White (22 page)

We men go to the bar and get
kossu
and beer. Sweetness orders four
kossu
s, downs three of them at the bar, and brings one back to the table, for sipping purposes. We get
caipiroska
s for the girls. I don’t know if the drink is a Finnish invention or not. Kate had never had one before coming here. It’s half a lime and a couple teaspoons of sugar in a short glass, muddled, packed over the brim
with crushed ice, snow-cone style, filled with vodka and mixed. The sugar makes the vodka go to the head quick, and they taste good as well, hence their popularity.

On the way back to the table, Milo stops me. “You’re a lucky man,” he says.

“How so?”

“Having two beautiful women.”

And a child was born in Bethlehem. He’s about to do what he enjoys most, and stretch a simple statement into a story of epic proportion. “As far as I know, I’m married to Kate and monogamous. Did brain surgery make me forget I’m a Mormon?”

“On the way over here, Mirjami told me she’s in love with you.”

“That’s just silly. She doesn’t even know me.”

He shrugs. “She wasn’t joking.”

I ignore this foolishness, take Kate’s drink to her, and sit beside her.

None of us had ever been in such company before. Prime Minister Paavo Jokitalo. Minister of Finance Risto Kouva. Minister of Foreign Affairs Daniel Solstrand. Minister of Foreign Trade and Development Sauli Sivola. The head of the Social Democratic Party, Hannu Nykyri. Member of European Parliament and the head of Real Finns, Topi Ruutio, and Minister of the Interior Osmo Ahtiainen. Most of them are accompanied by husbands or wives, girlfriends, mistresses. It’s a big do, decided upon last night, on Vappu, when they were drunk. They decided to continue today. Their country and their hangovers can wait.

The band is great. I eavesdrop on conversations held in loud voices that carry over the music.

I don’t know what I was expecting. Maybe great people discussing weighty matters of state. It was the gossip of the smashed. So-and-so had a bad scrape job and now she’s sterile. So-and-so gave so-and-so snout. She’s a tampon—a stuck-up cunt.

Given my recent problem with teen-type hard-ons and sexual preoccupation, I thought having Kate, Aino, Mirjami and Jenna surrounding me might cause slavering and maybe even auto-ejaculation. The effect is the opposite. It’s a bit like eating at a gourmet buffet. All that sumptuous quiff in one place adjusts my perspective and has a calming effect. The others are young beauties, but I still think Kate the most gorgeous.

At a certain point, the prime minister stands and taps his glass with a spoon for quiet. When he has the attention of all, he says, “We have special guests with us tonight.” He asks Milo and me to stand. “These men are national heroes.”

He talks about me being shot twice in the line of duty, and recounts the story of how Milo and I, without backup, entered a school for dysfunctional children under attack by a maniac and ended the siege. Who knows how many young lives we saved?

I imagine the school shooter’s head slump after Milo put a bullet in the back of it. And then the prime minister both pisses me off and makes me cringe.

“And now,” he says, “along with this young man…” He gestures for Sweetness to stand. Sweetness plays the role, lazily stretches his arms in a way that seems natural, and shows the twin monster .45s in their holsters under his jacket. The crowd is drunk and over-impressed. Sweetness gets up. “…they’ll soon bring to justice the murderer of Lisbet Söderlund, an event of such
horror that it will be remembered as a dark nadir in the annals of Finnish history. These men are our Untouchables.” He slurs the word. “Untushables.”

Milo shoots me a “Told ya so” smirk. “Inspector Vaara,” the prime minister asks, “would you tell us how the case progresses?”

Rounds of shots start hitting the table at regular intervals. The true boozing begins.

Jenna gazes at Sweetness with an adoration that extends far beyond familial love. A Jerry Lee Lewis scenario is in the making.

I put on my practiced in the mirror smile, the extra-wide version. “With strong-arm tactics, shakedowns, extortion, threats, intimidation and beatings, we intend to terrorize Finland’s racist community until they give up the killer of their own volition, to save themselves more pain.”

The crowd doesn’t know if I’m joking or not. Either way, they like it. They laugh and clap. I notice Kate does neither. The crowd gets drunker and mills around. All the men make it to our end of the table at some point. Whether they’re interested in us crime fighters or not, we’ve got the young primo tail and they want a closer look. Of course, the nation’s leading politicians combined with said primo tail makes our group the focus of attention of all the other patrons in the restaurant.

Kate makes friends with Mirjami and Jenna. Kate wears an evening dress and her Manolo pumps. Mirjami has forsaken Hello Kitty garb and
stadin slangi
for a white and pretty, rather conservative summer dress that accents her tan, and she speaks standard Finnish. Jenna wears nice jeans and top that shows her magnificent cleavage to good advantage. Casual dress is fine in Juttutupa—I’m wearing jeans myself—and I don’t think Jenna has a big wardrobe
budget. She doesn’t drop her East Helsinki dialect. I doubt she can. She doesn’t try to be anything but herself, and with her looks, she doesn’t have to. Mirjami asks Kate questions about me. “What’s it like to be married to a famous cop?”

Kate gives a smirk and drunken snort. “Like being married to Tony Soprano.”

Mirjami asks more personal things, what I’m like as a person. Sneaky. Kate doesn’t catch on. I don’t care for it.

The male politicos all introduce themselves at some point. They’re at that state of drunkenness where they’ve forgotten their own escorts and that our girls are taken and hope our lookers will shoot them some trim.

The prime minister isn’t so drunk, just polite. He strikes up a conversation with Kate, finds out she manages Kämp, and suggests the possibility of making a deal for all foreign dignitaries to stay there at a fixed rate. She gives him a business card. He promises to call. She beams excitement. Everyone drinks too much, except me. A little after midnight, the interior minister suggests a continuation of affairs of state aboard his yacht tomorrow. All present are invited and should meet at the Nyland Yacht Club Blekholmen clubhouse at noon. He asks who’s in. All shout approval.

The interior minister and Jyri approach me. “Allow me to introduce Inspector Vaara, my hatchet man,” Jyri says.

I say, “I prefer the term ‘enforcer.’”

The minister says he’d like for me to be at the yacht club, and hopes I’ll bring Kate. He would like to speak with her as well. This piques my curiosity. I thanked Jyri for arranging the babysitter, she seemed perfect, but said I would need another tomorrow.

“She’s my aunt,” he said, “and she loves kids. She’d probably
pay you to let her babysit again, just ask her. Come to the bar with me,” he says, “and I’ll show you something.”

We walk over, lean against it, and Jyri keeps his voice hushed. “Did you know,” he says, “that there are now more spies in Finland than at any time since the Cold War?”

“No, I didn’t,” I answer.

“Russia has by far the most here, around thirty trained operatives, followed by the U.S. and China, and then there are small representations by other countries as well. They’re seeking information about our defense policy and intentions toward NATO, and countries economically and technologically behind us are looking for shortcuts through espionage.”

“And the point is?”

“I know who they are, and some of them are quite upset about heroin revenues lost by theft. Your campaign against the drug trade ends now until the Söderlund murder is solved, for the obvious reason that you’re under scrutiny. You were upset because we’ve taken no steps to interdict the human slave trade. You made an attempt and it ended badly.”

I start to speak, but he raises a hand to silence me. “Yes, I know all about it. I had you move money and drugs from one criminal’s house to another. I then spoke to a Russian spy, told him I knew about his problem, gave him names and the address where you left the money and dope, and said I prefer they take care of it in-house. The men who raped and murdered the women you tried to help were among them. I asked him for proof when the matter was resolved.”

He takes out his iPhone and shows me an image. Five men are in a warehouse, naked. Chains hanging from a crossbeam have hooks
on the end. These hooks are driven into the soft flesh behind the chins of five men. Their toes are inches from the floor. They’re in various states of being tortured to death. Electrodes are attached to tongues and genitals. A couple lack genitals and or other body parts. A couple have most of their skin flayed off.

“One would assume that they were told they wouldn’t be allowed to die until they revealed the location of the rest of the drugs and money they’ve stolen,” Jyri said. “Of course, they couldn’t. I’ve seen the dossiers of these men. They’ve trafficked in hundreds of women and subjected many to unthinkable abuse. Now they’ve paid, and gangsters will no longer be searching for the real thieves, meaning you and yours. You have indeed done something to, as you put it, ‘help people.’ That was my gift to you.”

He deletes the image. I thank him. Now I can believe that, in some small way, justice has been served by my activities. I go back to my seat beside Kate.

Real Finn boss Topi Ruutio stops by and one of his redneck nationalist supporters comes to worship. We’re speaking English and the devotee, loud, drunk and rude, tells Kate to learn to speak fucking Finnish. He must think it will score points with Ruutio, who seems like a nice guy. Ruutio calls him an ill-mannered cunthead and tells him to fuck off.

On the way out, Milo hands Kate a set of car keys. He points down the street at a brand-new Audi S4. “That belongs to you,” he says.

“Why?”

Milo looks at the ground, hands in pockets. “I upset you the other day when I slipped and you found out about the body dump and I wanted to make it up to you.”

Kate is second-day drunk and weaving a bit. She kisses his cheek. “You think you can buy my affection,” she says, “but you can’t.”

He reddens, turns away. She giggles. “You don’t have to, I already like you. But if you want to keep showering me with expensive gifts, I’ll let you.”

The guy that yelled at Kate is smoking in the corner of the patio as we come out. No one is looking. Sweetness ambles over and slaps him. Even openhanded, the blow lifts the guy off his feet, onto his back. He rolls over and pushes himself up onto all fours, tries to get up. Sweetness rests his foot on his back, puts his weight into it and slams him hard onto the ground. “Be rude to her again,” he said, “and I’ll kill you.”

Sweetness walks away. The guy stands up. In the streetlight, I see the slap left about a thousand millimeter–sized little blood blisters on his cheek and jaw. He reaches in his mouth and pulls out a molar, then another tooth, and another tooth, and he cries.

I drive Kate home in her new Audi.

I
get up early the next morning. I have a post-op checkup with my brother Jari. In his office, we do the usual stuff. He tests my reflexes and blood pressure and so on, but mostly we talk.

“Do you have any physical problems at all? Coordination. Weakness. Headaches. Any more seizures?”

“No, I’m fine.”

“What about going flat? Have you had any improvement there, felt any emotions?”

“Of a kind,” I say. “I don’t feel anything, but sometimes I like or want things.”

I pick up my cane. “Like this. I love this thing, would sleep with it if I could.”

“What about people?”

“Women. I see a beautiful girl, it drives me crazy. Picture the wants of a six-year-old combined with the libido of a sixteen-year-old.”

“Have you acted on those feelings?”

“No, but I could. I don’t seem to care about what I do, either. My existence is binary. Want/don’t want. Like/don’t like. Will/won’t. I have no shades of gray.”

“What about your family. Anything there?”

“Not a damned thing. I practice smiling in the mirror. I remember what my feelings were, and act according to what I think I should do based on memories. It seems to work. I know what my duties are, and I fulfill them.”

“I advised you to talk to your wife about this. Have you done it, or even considered it?”

“No, and I won’t. I don’t think Kate could accept it.”

He leans forward in his chair, rests his elbows on his desk and his head on his hands. “It’s been three months. No progress at all doesn’t bode well. You
need
your wife and her support.”

I say nothing.

“Do you really think you’ve hidden the change in yourself from her? How do you think this is affecting her?”

I think of the gifts she now accepts, knowing the source of the money that bought them. She never would have even contemplated accepting them a short time ago. She’s trying to find a way of coming to terms with what I do now, and she refuses to complain because I asked her, openly and honestly, before all that has come to pass began. I realize, although she isn’t coming to terms with it, that it isn’t fair to hold her to the agreement, because she didn’t understand what it might entail. Nor did I.

I was naïve and used. Arvid once told me that my naïveté would be the death of me. For the hundredth time, I think: this black-op was never for the forces of good. I was misled. I’m a rogue cop and a criminal. Sooner or later, I’ll outlive my usefulness and they’ll find a way to get rid of me. Probably set me up, discredit me, and see that I get a long prison sentence. The public will applaud such excellent skank. The mighty brought low. Even a savior of
children. I can’t quit because first I need to find a way to not only get free of the corrupt politicos that control me, but to destroy them in order to do it.

It occurs to me that her acceptance of the Audi last night symbolizes Kate’s acceptance of the situation, that she’s so fed up that she doesn’t care anymore, and maybe my marriage is in trouble.