The Lion of Justice (20 page)

It wasn’t unlikely that David had killed Carlo Dolfini. It wouldn’t have been his first murder, and Dolfini had worked for Gezolian, the man with the dirty bomb. I just didn’t understand what had happened to Rosa Dolfini. I remembered her anxious voice over the phone. She may have been completely supportive of her husband, and David had had to get rid of her, too. Maybe David Stahl was a murderer many times over and only thought of himself.

That was the kind of David I had no desire to know. He deserved to meet his maker at the hands of Belarusian torturers. I turned my computer off and knew this night would never end. Even if I poured all the tequila in the world down my throat, I wouldn’t be able to drown this sorrow.

The Sunday morning sun took a while to light up Helsinki. As I drove toward Långvik, the gray of November felt like a thick blanket that muffled my feelings. Maybe it was finally time to let go. I had been hanging off this loose noose with David as the rope, and it was time to take it off my neck and leave it behind. The most vivid memories of our relationship were disappointing: secrets and doubts, passion that wiped everything else away, two bodies physically and mentally naked, pressed against each other. I put on an Eläkeläiset album and hoped Reiska’s favorite band would make me feel better.

My overnight bag contained my Glock. I’d also equipped myself with something less noticeable but just as deadly as a gun: a few slices of dried webcap. These mushrooms had accompanied me on my trips through customs in various countries, and no one had ever suspected they were lethal. Most recognized false morels and white amanitas as poisonous, but the webcaps were less recognizable. I’d claim them to be gypsy mushrooms should anyone ask. I wasn’t entirely sure why I was carrying these mushrooms. I guess they could have worked like cyanide. Suicide by mushrooms didn’t sound too tempting, though, knowing I’d suffer for days before dying.

Once I reached the gate, I called Trankov to open it. I didn’t want to reveal I had memorized the code from our previous trip. Within seconds the gate began to move, and I barely made it in before it slid back into place. The yard in Syrjänen’s rental villa was decked out in Christmas lights, although it was mid-November. LED light strings were thrown over trees and draped along gutters and window frames. The art studio was dark—no decorations there. When I parked the van, I saw Trankov appear at the studio door. Once I got in we went through the usual ceremony of kisses on the cheek, which didn’t feel completely unappealing. A red fold-out loveseat had appeared in the studio since my last visit, and there was a small table next to it. I was glad to see the stuffed lynx was gone. Paintings had been stacked out of the way against one wall, and only the canvas stretched tight in the easel remained. I rushed over to see it. Trankov followed so closely that I could smell him and feel his warmth.

The lynx looked even more alive. A sun was setting behind the mountaintops in the background, and it colored the fur in gold. Water roiled in the foreground, right below the woman and the lynx. I wasn’t sure if the landscape existed somewhere or if Trankov had just used his imagination.

The woman wasn’t finished. The flower wreath was still covering her hips and tops of her thighs. The roses in it were the same shade as the lynx fur, and the green vines waved in the wind. Both the lynx and the woman looked like they had just stopped running. The woman’s thighs looked powerful, and her bare toes grasped hold of the moss beneath her. One of her hands was spread open as if in a greeting, while the other rested on the lynx’s neck. The upper body and face were still just a sketch.

“I gave up on giving the lynx princess long hair. It has to be short, the same length as the lynx hair. Like your hair,” Trankov explained. “Can you take your clothes off again? The upper body is enough, but do as you please. It should be warm enough.”

Trankov’s tone was practically humble. I took off my jacket, then the sweater, and finally my T-shirt. I had once felt a sudden attack of romance at an airport and bought myself a lynx shirt that matched the one I had given to David in Spain. I wore it now because it no longer had meaning for me.

Trankov helped me into the pose from before, but he didn’t bring out the roadkill lynx.

“Where’s my posing partner? Don’t you need it anymore?”

He looked confused. “I thought you didn’t like it, being dead and all. I gave it to a restaurateur I know.”

“You’re right. I didn’t. And the lynx on the painting looks done. But I need something to rest my hand on. Do you have a prop that could help me look more natural?”

He walked to the pile against the wall and found a stool. He adjusted its height and set my hand on it. His touch gave me goose bumps and made my nipples hard. If Trankov noticed, he hid it well. He walked around turning all the lights on, then turning them off one by one, adjusting their brightness with a remote control. He looked concentrated, like a real professional. I had always admired people who were good at what they did, which almost made me forget about how I’d originally met him. I gave myself a quick reminder.

“Is everything all right? You’re not too cold or thirsty?” Trankov asked when he was finally pleased with the lighting.

“Everything’s okay.”

“We can start then. Remember, you’re alert. You know enemies lurk nearby. You two know that hounds have almost caught up with you, but you’re not afraid. You’re more cunning than they are.”

The way Trankov was evoking this imaginary world brought back weird memories from Mike Virtue’s classes in Queens. I didn’t even want to think about what he’d say if he saw me now. Instead, I thought about Frida. I had seen the way she’d reacted when she detected dogs nearby. Her eyes widened, her hackles stood up, and her tiny nub of a tail began to whisk furiously like a domestic cat. I let Frida enter me, and I saw the shores of Hevonpersiinsaari and the islands across. The hot rock smelled like summer, and the patches of moss were soft under my feet.

Trankov glanced at me occasionally, but he didn’t actually see me. He only saw the subject of his painting. Sometimes he stopped to mix colors, wipe a thin strand of hair off his forehead, marking it with brown paint. He’d switch between slow, concentrated brush strokes and quick slaps on the canvas.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement on the shore outside. This brightly lit room enclosed by large windows was like an aquarium, and anyone could see inside. I wasn’t particularly turned on by the thought that Usko Syrjänen could be roaming the yard, staring at my tits, but I was willing to pay that price if I found out how he was planning on acquiring the land he needed for his recreational villas. And I wanted to know how David tied into it.

Trankov painted for an hour and a half before he stopped. His forehead beaded with sweat, and his eyes glistened like Frida’s when she’d caught a rabbit.

“Time for a break. Want some tea or something to eat?” he asked.

“Tea’s fine.” I threw on my lynx shirt, took off my shoes, and went to the restroom. Only then did I remember I should’ve kept an eye on Trankov brewing the tea. When I returned I inspected my empty teacup carefully and waited for Yuri to pour the tea. I let him scoop honey for himself first and took my tea and walked over to the couch. Trankov followed, and we sat down.

“So how have you been?” he asked, like an old friend. “Looks like the restaurant’s keeping you busy.”

“Yeah, but it’s just the right amount of activity.” This may have been a suitable time to ask about Trankov’s impressions of his dinner buddy, Rytkönen, on Friday, but he started talking again.

“Do you still miss David Stahl?”

I lowered my eyes from his investigating gaze.

“Why should we talk about Stahl?” I had to muster all my acting skills to sound bored with the topic. I stared at Trankov’s wrists that were covered in paint splatters. The bones jutted out sharply.

“Hm. Did Stahl ever tell you he has a son?”

I looked at Trankov wide-eyed. David had always been sad about not having kids. In Montemassi we’d dropped hints about the possibility of having a child together, and I had started liking the idea.

“No? I guess he found out about the child only recently,” Trankov added.

“How do you know about this? Or are you just making this crap up?”

“Knowledge is power. Surely you’ve learned this by now. The more you know, the more intimidating you are. I happened to bump into a woman in Moscow I’d met before. She’s from Lithuania, named Gintare. Once she was just as beautiful as you are, but now she’s a fraction of her past beauty. In the early 2000s she was Stahl’s lover and got pregnant. Gintare didn’t want Stahl in her life. She had told Stahl about an abortion, and I guess she was planning on going through with it, but then she changed her mind. The child was born in the spring of 2002, and Gintare gave it away to an orphanage. I hear the kid is mentally disabled, thanks to Gintare’s drug use during pregnancy. And an addict is easy to bribe. I got all this information from her for only one hit.”

David had told me about Gintare, but he thought she went through with the abortion. Trankov moved closer and wrapped his arm around my shoulders.

“You see, Hilja, Stahl was a fool. They forced Gintare to tell Stahl there was a child after all, and that the kid was kept in terrible conditions in a Lithuanian orphanage. A clever way to lure Stahl into a trap. Stahl is gone. But don’t worry, my dear. Let me help you forget.”

19

I didn’t resist when Trankov leaned in to kiss me. Actually, I kissed him back. It was a soft, searching kiss that was asking for permission for more. I set my teacup on the table and clamped my arms around him. His body felt fragile. I could feel his spine and the hard muscles of his shoulders. Trankov traced his hands on my cheeks and hair, but all his movements were light, as if he was prepared for me to pull away quickly, just like last time. I moved my hand down his back and under his smock, feeling for his belt, and I slid my fingers inside his pants, touching his skin. I located the vertebra and the dent where a lynx would have a tail. Trankov kissed my neck and began to pull my shirt off, but then stopped.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked.

“I am, but not without a condom.” I didn’t want another incident like in New York. I didn’t want a kid even if it would level the playing field with David. I hadn’t checked the date on the condoms I always carried in my bag—maybe they hadn’t expired.

Yuri kissed my lips, then went around dimming the room lights with his remote control and pressed a button that brought down the automatic shades. I could have still backed out of it, but I didn’t want to. After all, I wasn’t cheating on anyone; I belonged only to myself, and for a short while I could belong to Yuri and Yuri to me. He returned, and we began to undress each other. Yuri was completely different from the self-assured, shameless David. He let me lead, made sure he wasn’t hurting me. He wouldn’t be leaving bite marks on me. I couldn’t believe how horny I was, how much I had desired someone against me, on top of me, inside me. I wrestled myself on top of Yuri and had an orgasm. I came again when he was on top of me, whispering something in Russian into my ear. It was probably for the best that I didn’t understand him. I couldn’t think of a single word I wanted to tell him, not “love” or “dear.” Words weren’t needed now.

Finally his entire body arched, and he let out a moan. He opened his eyes, his large, dark-blue eyes surrounded by long lashes that beaded with drops of sweat. I closed my eyes when his shaking body fell over me. Hell no. Was Trankov one of those men who cried after he came? I was expecting to hear a confession about a wife and two kids in Moscow. I wouldn’t stick around for that.

My heartbeat began to slow down, while Trankov’s pulse was still fast. I felt his lips on my shoulder and his wet eyelashes on my neck. I was glad his body had stopped shaking. I finally dared to open my eyes. Trankov’s eyes looked so sad, and he looked way too young. I didn’t remember seeing his birthdate in the Bureau files. I would’ve remembered it; that’s what I was trained to do.

I was thirsty. I reached for my now-cool tea while Trankov pressed his head against my chest. The room was way too warm, and the pale-red lighting made it look like a lukewarm hell.

“Is everything all right?” Trankov asked and hugged me tight.

“Yes. Just feeling a bit dehydrated,” I quickly told him and pushed him off me. I got up and filled my teacup with water from the tap, drank, and poured some more. I took a third cupful over to Trankov and sat on the couch next to him.

“Want some?” I asked.

He grabbed the cup and drank. The condom was slowly, comically sliding off him. David had claimed that Gintare had broken their condom on purpose, and Rick, my landlady Mary’s friend from her performance group in New York, hadn’t bothered to check whether the condoms he’d been carrying in his pocket were still useable. They hadn’t been. I didn’t realize I was pregnant until I didn’t get my second period in a row. The academy had beaten me up physically, so I’d just assumed the changes with my period were because of heightened exercise—it had happened to me before. But then my breasts began to swell, and the pepperoni pizzas I’d gorged on before began to nauseate me. I knew something was wrong, and I’m glad I went to see someone. I didn’t second-guess my decision when my doctor asked me questions about my situation. The abortion was performed as soon as possible, and I missed only two days at the academy. I didn’t even let Rick know what had happened, although I ran into him a couple of times at Mary’s parties. I had asked the doctor to insert an IUD right after the abortion, but I didn’t trust it. I hardly ever thought about the child; I hadn’t wanted to see whatever had been taken out of me. It was my only choice. Whenever I saw news about antiabortion rallies in the United States, I told them to go screw themselves. These idiots had no idea what they were talking about.

Only now did I look at Trankov’s body—before I’d only felt him against me. You could have almost called him skinny, but his strength couldn’t be underestimated. His shoulders and arms were powerful, and his stomach was like a washboard. I wondered what sort of martial arts he was into. I remembered how easily I had knocked him out in Bromarf, but I had surprised him. I wouldn’t be able to pull that again.

“Can you stay the night?” Trankov asked. “I should continue painting, and then I want to make you dinner. We’ll stay up late.”

I told him I could stay. Then I went to the restroom to pee and rinse myself. The room was so warm I didn’t bother putting any clothes on, and the shades were still down. Trankov, however, got dressed and flashed me a bashful smile when I settled into my pose as a lynx princess. Now he worked slowly and deliberately and at times watched me for a while. His lover’s eyes were gone, though; he was back to being an artist.

My lunch had been fairly substantive, but after another thirty minutes of posing I was feeling really hungry. This was one of my most unattractive features: being hungry like a wolf after sex. Many men had been thrown by it. I usually told them professional athletes had to eat after exercising, too. Chewing on a steak was often a convenient method of getting rid of men I didn’t want to see again. It probably wouldn’t work with Trankov, and besides, I still needed information from him.

“How old were you again, Yuri?” I asked when he was lost in thought, staring at the painting.

“Does it matter?” His blue eyes flashed.

“Not really. But you seem to know a lot about me, so it’s only fair if you tell me this insignificant detail about yourself.”

“Twenty-six. But I’ve seen more of the world than most,” Trankov said boastfully, sounding younger than he was. We had less than ten years between us, so it wouldn’t count.

I remained quiet until he finally set his brush down and wiped sweat off his hairline. I rolled my shoulders, realizing that at some point during our lovemaking, I’d held the weight of two bodies. My muscles would be sore tomorrow.

“Are you done?” I walked over to my clothes. I didn’t feel like being intimate. I was just hungry.

“You’re done for the evening. I’ll work on this a bit longer,” Trankov said.

I got dressed, then asked to see the painting. Trankov spread his arms as if to say, why not.

“Just remember two things. It’s not completely finished yet, and it’s not your portrait—I didn’t try to make it look like you. I wanted to capture your soul, if that’s even possible,” he said.

I’d rather Trankov paint my face than my soul, but I doubted he had succeeded. Heck, even I didn’t know who I really was half the time. Still, I approached the painting suspiciously. The woman in the painting had lynx spots in her hair, and her eyes were lined with black and white. Thankfully she didn’t have long tufts of hair on her ears. That was me in the painting, and I was getting goose bumps. There it was, a piece of my soul, and there was no way I could take it back.

Trankov watched me. I appreciated how he didn’t interrogate me for an opinion. I looked from another angle, backed away from the painting, glanced at it from left to right. The woman’s gaze kept following me, and that was evidence of artistic skill. I could almost smell the lynx.

When I couldn’t find words to describe what I felt, I gave Yuri a peck on his cheek. He responded with a relieved hug and asked if I was hungry. For once I could answer without lying.

“Syrjänen is in the building, along with Julia, his current girlfriend, and Hanna, the housekeeper. I told Syrjänen I was bringing a guest,” Trankov said.

“Are we having dinner with them?” I asked.

“I’m not sure.” He looked at his watch. “It’s almost nine. I’m guessing they already ate.”

Damn. I would’ve loved to get to know Syrjänen over dinner. Sharing an experience like that connected people and made them trust each other. But now I had to play it by ear. I had brought a change of clothes, so I wore them for dinner: a flowery tunic with a plunging neckline that showed off the lace of my bra, turquoise earrings Monika had brought from Africa, and purple knee-high boots. The leather on the boots was so thin I couldn’t walk long distances, but they worked fine as indoor shoes. Trankov changed out of his smock to a gray zip-up knit jacket. His white jeans had speckles of paint on them, but he didn’t seem to mind.

I brought my purse along. The Glock was weighing it down, so I couldn’t let Trankov carry it. He slipped his arm into the crook of mine as we walked together through the brightly lit yard.

I’d only seen the foyer, the kitchen, and the dining area in the house. We followed the smell of cheese into the kitchen.

“Hanna?” Trankov called out and knocked on the door at the end of the kitchen hallway. A woman in her forties peeked out. Her hair was up in a bun, and she wore a red-and-white gingham apron. Trankov gave her a kiss on both cheeks.

“Can we still eat something?” he asked, like a little kid. “Did Usko and Julia eat already?”

“Two hours ago. They’re watching a movie. They wanted fondue. Would you like some? It’ll take a while to melt the cheese, but you can start with a salad.” Hanna stared at me while she spoke. Her eyes seemed to classify me as an easy girl. Whatever.

“This is Hilja. She’s been modeling for me,” Trankov said. “When do I finally get a chance to paint you, Hanna?” Trankov flirted with the housekeeper, who was obviously pleased.

“When hell freezes over,” Hanna said.

“But that’s already happened, Hanna. You forget that I’m from Siberia.”

If Hanna had been equipped with a dishcloth or a duster, she probably would’ve taken a swing at Trankov. Now she just scooted us over to the kitchen, muttering to herself in a Tampere dialect.

“Let’s go see Usko and Julia,” Trankov suggested, and I followed him, although I would’ve preferred gorging on Hanna’s salad.

Trankov took me by the hand and walked me through a ginormous living room. It was lit only by a couple of dim spots of light, but the yard and the seashore were lit with bright lights, like it was still daylight. Syrjänen—or rather the owner of the house—had probably never heard of climate change.

I heard shooting and a woman screaming behind the door at the other end of the living room. Trankov knocked on the door and pulled me in.

“We just wanted to say hello,” Trankov said in English with a Russian accent that was much thicker than minutes before. “This is Hilja.”

The room was a home theater, and the screen was so huge you could barely watch it comfortably. They were watching a Western from the fifties. Syrjänen sat in a large armchair but got up to shake my hand. The woman remained splayed on the couch. She appeared to be as tall as I was, but that’s where the similarities ended; she was all legs and breasts. Her C-cups were the result of obvious plastic surgery, like the glossy plumpness of her lips. Her hair cascaded down her back in a black river, and her face was layered in too much makeup.

“Syrjänen—or rather—Yuri’s friend should call me Usko.” Syrjänen’s amicability had been well rehearsed and was almost genuine. “How’s the art making going?”

Instead of responding, Yuri blushed and said a few words in Russian to Julia. She shrugged and said, “
Ne hotsit
,” not feeling like it, which made Trankov blush even more.

“It’s great to have Yuri here as my interpreter. You see, I was never good with languages, and I dropped out of school at fourteen. But hey, I’ve done pretty well for myself, right? Are you a professional model?” Syrjänen asked me.

“No. I work at a restaurant.”

I’m sure the ministers had told their buddy and financer Usko Syrjänen about the reasons why his boat had been blown up, but I suspected I was just a minor character for Syrjänen, not the lover of the man who destroyed his boat.

“Good, good. You know, we sometimes have these big parties, and we could use some additional staff. Give Hanna your phone number.” Syrjänen was acting like a good guy.

Julia paused the DVD, freezing the cowboys and women clad in corsets as they rode away from the Indians.

“Let’s go eat,” I told Trankov as I slipped my arm around his waist and gave him a kiss on the cheek. I felt like he was expecting me to behave this way. Syrjänen said something under his breath about us meeting again later, but the movie was in full swing again before we’d left the room.

Hanna had set the table with salad, bread, and wineglasses. The cheese smelled stronger now, mixing with the fragrance of the white wine. I was pretty sure I was drooling by the time Trankov pulled out a chair for me and began to uncork the bottle of wine. The bread looked homemade, and besides the usual fixings the salad had avocado, mushrooms, and roasted cashews in it. I decided to trust that the oil and vinegar bottles weren’t spiked with something while I piled my plate high. Hanna appeared in front of us like a homely hostess straight out of the old black-and-white movies I used to watch with our neighbor, Maija Hakkarainen. These were exactly the types of people I had to keep an eye on. My classmate Edgardo had gotten himself into big trouble when his client, an oil millionaire from Miami, hired a friendly looking gray-haired lady to help around the house. She had worked for his ex-wife and turned out to be the best blackmailer around. Edgardo had been so upset that he wanted to share this information with all of us, and of course Mike Virtue told him off for breaching confidentiality.