The Lion of Justice (10 page)

Monika was supposed to cook everyday food from Mozambique for an hour in a studio kitchen that introduced people to foods from various cultures. I’d demanded the blueprints for the space beforehand, and I saw that the nearest exit could only be reached through narrow hallways—death traps to people stuck in them if there was a panic. The organizers had offered to provide ingredients, but I’d told Monika not to use them. I wanted to double-check each package. Sans Nom had raised some interest and hubbub in Finland’s restaurant scene, and it wouldn’t have been the first time Monika had enemies. A public kitchen at a convention was a great place to prove how incompetent she was.

“Hilja, I know you’re looking out for me, but aren’t you being a bit too paranoid?” Monika asked as we drove past Muurla on the Turku highway. Cars were whizzing past us while the van was going at its maximum speed of fifty-five. Monika thought our van was ecological, and if we hadn’t brought a bunch of ingredients with us, she’d demand we take the train.

I didn’t reply. Monika knew my background. I’d made mistakes before. Anita Nuutinen had been killed, and although I had technically quit before it happened, I still felt responsible. Helena Lehmusvuo was kidnapped after I’d left her alone one afternoon. I wouldn’t make these mistakes with Monika.

A Brazilian chef had taken over the convention center kitchen, preparing steaks so thick they’d feed an entire village. Monika shook her head. The meat counter had a banner: “Conventionsale.” It was written in enormous letters, and Monika asked me if those words were really supposed to be written together. I laughed at her pickiness.

After the steaks, people wouldn’t be interested in cassava or chicken marinated in piri-piri. We might as well have been showing French people how to cook mac and cheese. I was, however, happy that the crowd was at a controllable size. A couple of excited older ladies in colorful caftans talked with Monika after her show, and the hostess responsible for the kitchen tried to shoo us off the stage. These ladies worked for a small publishing house specializing in alternative books, and they were trying to convince Monika to write a cookbook.

“Let’s get Sans Nom’s name out there first,” Monika said, and the ladies giggled at her pun. Working at Chez Monique had shown me how some people treated Monika like a guru. I’d never understood people who put someone on a pedestal and followed every word and suggestion. Weren’t we supposed to think for ourselves? That’s what Mike Virtue had always told us: the security academy would provide us with tools to protect others, but the way we used those tools was up to us.

After her gig Monika wanted to look around the book convention. I reluctantly let her go. Someone played an alto violin in the lobby. I was afraid of a certain type of classical music, although I didn’t know who the composers were; I didn’t care for some symphonies and operas, but then there were tunes that forced me to look deep into myself. The blond-ponytailed violinist was playing exactly that type of tune, and of course it made Monika stop in her tracks. I breathed as deeply as I could and tried to think about something else, but the music forced its way into me, forced tears down my cheeks, made me uncomfortable yet immensely peaceful. To make matters worse, he played directly to us, looking from Monika to me, back and forth. His music saw through me. When the tune was over and Monika went to chat with the man, I had to walk away.

I pushed through the crowds to the book convention. Luckily the corner café wasn’t very crowded. I could’ve had a beer right then, but I had to drive home. I was walking back to Monika and the violin man when I noticed a familiar face at a café table. Apparently Martti Rytkönen was the literary type. He had a pile of thin poetry books, and he was drinking something bubbly.

The music had made me careless, so I snuck closer until I was only a few feet away from Rytkönen. The different sections in the convention center were separated with large curtains, and I slipped behind one and pretended to be interested in the young adult novels. Then I pulled out my phone, called Kassi, and watched Rytkönen. He furiously patted his pockets. First he pulled out an iPhone, then another phone, then a third phone, an ancient bright-red Nokia.

“Rytkönen.”

“I hear you,” I whispered in Swedish.

“Lanotte, is that you?” Rytkönen’s Swedish had as bad a Savonian lilt as mine. “Are you all right? Some scam artist called me a few weeks ago, speaking in Finnish and saying your phone was stolen. Nobody has heard from you since April, not even Jaan. What on earth is going on?”

10

Damn. So Rytkönen knew as much about David’s whereabouts as I did, and he knew about David’s fake identity. Was I supposed to swallow my pride and walk over to beg for information? Rytkönen had no reason to tell me anything. If David Stahl had a lady friend, what was the big deal? David didn’t seem to think it was important. It had been almost six months since he’d taken off.

“Are you still there?” I saw Rytkönen furrow his brow. “Who had your phone?”

I was really tempted to mess with Rytkönen, and I was startled when I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Monika. I had to hang up. I could hear Rytkönen cursing in Swedish.

“I tried to reach an old friend, thinking she might be here.” I didn’t like lying to Monika, but it had become habit. I saw Rytkönen shoving his phones back into his pockets. The women at the table next to him were amused. Then he got up. He didn’t have a ring on his left hand, but that didn’t mean anything these days. Rytkönen was storming toward me, so I quickly turned to peruse the books. I could feel him walk past me. I suggested to Monika that we head back to Helsinki because we had a lot to do before the grand opening.

It was so typical of Monika to organize an opening that embraced everyone. It was such a risk in a myriad of ways. Some of the people who were used to VIP treatment would get huffy and not show up—they didn’t want to be lumped together with commoners—and an open house attracted questionable members of society. Monika was planning on serving a two-euro lunch soup every Monday, and everyone was welcome. Those who could afford it could pay a bit more if they wanted.

A couple of staff members were skeptical before the opening. They were worried about the business model. I calmed them down, convincing them that with Monika’s savings from before, they’d always get their paycheck and that the restaurant’s concept would catch on.

Wealth was a weird thing. I had always been a penny pincher, and when the euro came, I switched to pinching cents. The reason I’d been able to go to school in Queens was because of an inheritance from my grandmother on my father’s side, but all that money and any other savings I’d scraped together before that was spent in New York. Uncle Jari had left me the cabin in Hevonpersiinsaari. He’d used all of his money to make sure I had food and shelter. I’d watched some of my wealthier employers blow ten thousand euros on furs and luxury vacations and not bat an eye. That money would’ve lasted us a year in Hevonpersiinsaari. Monika’s wealth was also the worst kind: inherited money. I strongly believed she was trying to buy herself freedom from the sins of wealth.

David claimed he worked for the highest bidder. Where had Europol gotten the money to hire him as a hit man, and who had given his orders? Why did they have the right to kill terrorists? My American classmates accused Europeans of being morally prudish and not realizing that sometimes the only option would be vigilante justice and the death sentence. Mike Virtue silenced those voices quickly.

Oh, Mike, what advice would you give me now? I considered writing him an old-fashioned letter asking for help. I just couldn’t find the right words. Mike would’ve told me off for the risks I had taken.

Mrs. Voutilainen used to be my source of good advice, but she had no idea about my problems, and I had no energy to make up stories. A couple of days before the grand opening, I saw her for tea, and the lynx painting Yuri Trankov made for her was still hanging in the living room. She’d thought Trankov was a nice young man who was artistically gifted. Mrs. Voutilainen thought of herself as a good judge of character, but even the best were sometimes mistaken.

The night before the opening, I dreamed about David. We were sitting on the Montemassi ruins, watching swallows. Suddenly David took flight with them and glided down into the valley. As he flew he grew wings on his back. I woke up sobbing. I got up for tissues and tried to forget the dream. It meant nothing. It was just a dream.

Monika wanted the restaurant to be spacious and bright. The walls were painted sunny yellow. The tables, chairs, and shelves were all ecologically selected domestic pine, and the upholstery was made of bright-red and black fabric. Soft elements had been added to the space to minimize echoing. Monika said it was hard to taste food if there was a lot of noise. The outside of the building looked fairly uninviting, its dark brick reminding me of a prison. Monika tried improving the look with potted cypress trees on both sides of the front door—you couldn’t plant trees in cement.

Because people didn’t need to RSVP to get in, we couldn’t predict how much food and drink we would need. Monika had prepared for a crowd of hundreds. We were supposed to open the doors at six, so at five thirty, the staff came together in the dining room to make sure everything was in order. I was supposed to keep an eye on the room; the assistant became a bodyguard tonight.

Chaos broke a little before six. Monika received hugs, kisses, congratulations, and flowers. The youngest hostess and I did our best to rush the gifts out of the way. Monika was dressed in the slacks I’d picked up for her from Tapiola and a sunshine-orange blouse, but her face was as pale as ever.

Helena Lehmusvuo was among the first guests. She and Monika had met through a climate-change association as teenagers. Thanks to Monika, Helena had hired me and trusted me. In my own way I had screwed up that gig, too, so I wasn’t particularly happy to see Helena. She looked frailer than I remembered, and her black hair and red lips made her look like a doll. Looks could deceive; Helena wasn’t afraid of even the most powerful men in the world. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was one of her rivals because Helena felt Putin was restricting freedom of speech in Russia and abroad.

Helena gave Monika a Swedish cookbook. Just what she needed. I supposed she could use it for researching the genre if she was going to write a book about Sans Nom’s recipes. Uncle Jari had owned one cookbook: a red waxy-covered
Home Cooking
from 1961. We’d done just fine with it, especially as Uncle rarely needed to check recipes for the foods he liked to make. I remembered the pictures. As a ten-year-old, to me the decorative tower cake covered in almonds looked fascinating, and I’d asked Uncle if we could bake one.

“That’s beyond my skills, but go ahead, make one. Maija can probably help you,” he suggested.

But even Maija from next door had been in over her head. She’d never made anything that fancy, and it was in a different category than sweet buns and sugar cookies. I remained stubborn like I always did when I really wanted something. I cut the patterns out of wax paper and shredded the almonds, then mixed the almonds with eggs and powdered sugar. The mixture behaved like it was supposed to in the oven, but building the tower was impossible. I managed to create a ten-inch-tall lump that looked nothing like the picture in the book and showed it to my uncle, slightly embarrassed. He stared at it a while, then did his best to sound encouraging: “My girl, you’ve baked the Leaning Tower of Pisa!”

The almond dough was so overly sweet that neither one of us could finish the cake. We left it in the yard for the birds, and it was soon gone. It became a funny memory. If Uncle or I said “Leaning Tower of Pisa,” we’d laugh and almost taste the overly sweet cake. Once, in New York, I had bought a cake like the one from the book, and it didn’t taste any better than the one I made. I told Uncle Jari about it in my last letter to him. The two of us would have preferred glazeless cinnamon rolls and
kalakukko
over those oddities from around the world.

Helena greeted me. A photographer for a magazine wanted her to pose with Monika, and they were pulled away from the crowds. People were congregating at the punch bowl; it looked like Monika’s brother, who was in the visual arts, had parked himself next to the drinks. One of my missions for the evening was to make sure Petter didn’t get too wasted, and if he did, I had to make sure he got home in a taxi. I liked Petter; even when he was completely plastered, he was never mean. He just got too emotional. Once, he was so drunk that he proposed to me. I’d given him at least fifty-three refusals.

Monika had set the food on a long table in the middle of the room, and the guests ate at smaller tables. I tried to eavesdrop, but I could only hear words without context.

“Bold.”

“Very personal.”

“Won’t be around, come summer.” This last snippet came from a mean-looking woman whose nose was shaved really small, and she had heavy eyelashes. I wanted to play clumsy and bump into her, spilling her glass of red wine all over her white satin shirt, but that would only hurt Monika.

Suddenly, Helena grabbed my wrist. She was upset and doing her best to remain calm.

“The man who drugged me is here,” she said.

“Where?”

“At the large window next to the door.”

I turned sixty degrees. Trankov was looking pleased with himself while he surveyed the crowd, as if he were the one netting the profits. He wore a perfectly fitting black three-piece suit, a black shirt, and a white silk tie. His hair was slicked back. He looked like a cheap mobster.

“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of this. Trankov won’t attack you again,” I assured her.

“But he’s not even supposed to be in Finland.”

“I know. I don’t want to call the cops to the opening—it’ll cause a ruckus. Just calm down.”

Trankov had kidnapped Helena and drugged her enough that she barely remembered the incident, but she was able to recognize Trankov. I slowly moved toward the door because people I hardly knew wanted to greet me, and Petter gave me a hug on his way out to have a smoke. Trankov stood at the window like the king of the world and didn’t seem the least bit surprised to see me.

“Good evening, Hilja Ilveskero,” he said in English, pronouncing my name poorly. “It’s been a while.”

“You better leave. You’re not welcome here. Or do you want me to call the cops?” I asked.

“But this event is open for everybody,” he said innocently.

“Not for you. Get out.”

Trankov remained calm. His smile annoyed me.

“I’m a free man in a free country. I’m not interested in Representative Lehmusvuo now that the decision to build the gas pipe has gone through. She’s just a small fry. But you and me, we have some unfinished business. Women don’t get uppity with me.” Trankov said these last words tenderly, as if admitting his undying love for me. The old man next to us glared at Trankov.

“You put on quite a show for Valentin that one time. I’m pretty interested in all the sides you still haven’t shown me,” Trankov said. “Although, it looks like you’ve lost your touch since you’re this easy to find. Do you still dress up as a man and look for me at railway stations? Did you miss me?”

“Don’t flatter yourself.” It was pretty impressive that he had figured Reiska out when I had tried to find Trankov before he found me. Of course I wouldn’t tell him about this newfound respect.

I rested my hand on his shoulder. It was time for action. I could see in his eyes that he was ready to fight, but I didn’t want Sans Nom in the papers because of a scuffle.

“You fooled Valentin, but you’ve never been a Vasiliev woman. Just a fuck for his apprentice, David Stahl.”

Hearing David’s name got to me. I couldn’t hit Trankov out in the open, but I had a hard time controlling myself. I squeezed his shoulder harder.

“What do you know about Stahl?”

“A lot. Probably things you have no idea about, and Stahl’s so-called employers are just as ignorant. But this is not the place for that conversation. Don’t worry, Ilveskero. I’ll find you again. We’ll have a nice chat,
dorogaya maya
.” Trankov took my hand off his shoulder and kissed it.

I had to will myself not to slap him.

“Hilja, is this your new boyfriend?” Petter had smoked his cigarette pretty quickly. He saw that I wasn’t enjoying Trankov’s company.

“You’ll always be my number one,” I said to Petter and put my arm in his. I thought of how hard it would be to get in touch with the minister of the interior or the national police commissioner. Helena would know. Trankov had to be thrown out of the country, preferably in handcuffs. I followed Petter without taking another look at Trankov. When I glanced at the door a few minutes later, he was gone. Petter poured me some punch, but I refused. I had to stay alert.

I didn’t have a chance to chat with Helena until later. Usually she didn’t drink more than a glass of wine every now and then, but tonight she had more than usual. Her face was flushed, and her eyes were glazed. She seemed to be having such a good time. I hated to bring up Trankov.

“I’ll get my police friends to find out why Trankov was allowed into Finland. Or do you want to take it up with the minister of the interior?” I asked her.

Helena waved in a way that showed she was tipsier than I thought.

“If he doesn’t bother anyone, let’s not get into it. I can’t imagine anything worse than gossip magazines finding out about my kidnapping. I’m all for transparency, but everyone doesn’t need to know about what happened.” Even the wine couldn’t hide the fear in her eyes.

“I’ll have a word with Chief Constable Laitio nevertheless. You remember him—he was in that meeting at the Government Palace.”

“I think I do. The cigar smoker with the bushy mustache.”

“That’s the one. And I have a question,” I continued, although Helena probably wasn’t in the mood for politics. “What would it take for a public recreation property to become private?”