Helsinki White

by James Thompson

  “And the other problems I mentioned?” I asked.

  “There are six two-hundred-twenty-gallon barrels of sulfuric acid, and four empty barrels designed for storage. Closed-loop portable tanks that meet safety requirements. Reusable three-eighths-inch-thick stainless steel construction with extra protection for valves and fittings. Minimum one-hundred-psi pressure design meant to be handled with a forklift, so Sweetness can use one and tip the forks to pour acid from one container to another. And of course, all the protective clothing is there, too.”

  “Maybe after, we should take the car to the woods and burn it up with your bomb,” Sweetness said.

  “I can’t picture the place re-opening within the next few weeks while the gangster decomposes to goop,” I said. “Sounds like a plan.”

  I DROVE FOR THE FIRST TIME since my surgeries. It was no problem. My knee was more than strong enough to depress the pedals without bad pain. We took my Saab and located the Ford with the body in the trunk. Milo has master keys that fit almost any vehicle. He and Sweetness took it—I was trying to make them spend more time together—and I followed them to Filippov Construction, in an industrial park in Vantaa.

  Milo picked the gate lock. Sweetness hit his flask. The area was surrounded with a heavy chain-link fence topped with two strands of barbed wire and lined on the inside with corrugated green fiberglass, so no one could see in.

  We drove into a spacious asphalt lot filled with small-grade heavy equipment. A couple Bobcat dozers, a cherry picker, a forklift and other machines, along with industrial waste, yet to be disposed of, and containers to hold it. I stayed outside in the morning sunshine while Milo and Sweetness suited up.

  They came out looking like mad scientists from a bad sci-fi movie, covered head to toe in everything from respirators and goggles to rubber aprons. They carried tools to open the barrels and set to work. They decided the best method was to dump the gangster in the empty barrel and then cover him over with acid.

  They backed his Ford up to the tank and popped the trunk. Lifting him out was no easy task. He had been dead just long enough for rigor mortis to hit its peak. He was ironing-board stiff. Luck was with them, though, because he had lain in the trunk in a near fetal position. Otherwise, they would have had to break nearly every bone in his body to make him flexible enough to fit in the barrel. Luckily as well, Sweetness was with us. He lifted the gangster by himself from an awkward position, using only his arms, as there was no way to angle himself so he could get his back into it. Milo and I never could have accomplished it.

  They opened the barrel of acid and the empty barrel, too. Sweetness fired up the forklift and, slow but sure, began drizzling sulfuric onto the gangster.

  I wore no protection and leaned against my Saab, a good thirty-five yards away, to keep from breathing the fumes.

  “I hope I haven’t interrupted you at an inopportune moment,” a quiet voice said to me.

  It scared the shit out of me and I jumped.

  Sweetness must have seen sudden movement in his peripheral vision. He kept cool and eased the forks back, stopped pouring. He gestured with a black-rubber-glove-covered hand to Milo and pointed in my direction. They came toward us, taking off their headgear and gloves as they moved. I saw Milo rip a hole in the back of his paper suit, and saw what was coming.

  The man beside me waited without speaking. He wore a black cloth bomber jacket, jeans and boots. His head was shaved. He had large and ornate French paratrooper wings tattooed on the sides of his head. He looked like the devil incarnate.

  Milo smiled as he neared, and reached into the hole in his paper suit. He drew down on Satan, but the man produced his pistol so fast that it seemed magical. “Deputy Dawg,” he said, “will never outdraw Yosemite Sam.”

  Milo scowled and lowered his Glock, beaten. “Who are they?”

  “American cartoon characters. I have a great affection for classic American cartoons. My favorites are Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner.” Satan paused. “I don’t think guns are necessary,” he said. “Shall we put them away?” He made the first gesture by replacing his Beretta in the holster at the small of his back.

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  “A man of wealth and taste.” It was as if he’d read my mind and thought about Satan and came up with the Stones riff.

  He introduced himself as Adrien Moreau. He was a French policeman, Finnish by birth, but spent fifteen years in the French Foreign Legion, hence his name. He’d exercised his right as a Legionnaire and taken French citizenship and identity. He asked if we could have a private conversation while my colleagues finished disposing of the body in the barrel of acid, and I agreed.

  The looks on their faces said they didn’t like missing out on the conversation with this interesting new character, but they respected my wishes and went back to sloshing acid without complaint.

  “I believe you and I could have a mutually beneficial relationship,” Moreau said.

  “And how might that be?”

  He tried not to laugh, but the upturned corners of his mouth reflected amusement. “I’ve been following you for some days. I watched you commit a robbery last night. You looked like a bizarre version of the Three Stooges turned criminal. Your trigger-happy friend fumbled with lock picks. You stood nearby on crutches, and the big man reminded me of the monster Grendel from the Beowulf legend. I could help you improve your technique in this regard, but I have a more specific and practical matter in mind.”

  “Under whose authority?”

  “I am employed by Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure. The DGSE is France’s external intelligence agency. It functions under the direction of the French ministry of defense and works in conjunction with the Central Directorate of Interior Intelligence, DCRI, in providing intelligence and national security, including paramilitary and counterintelligence operations abroad. I am a superintendent in the Action Division. We are responsible for planning and performing clandestine operations and other security-related operations.”

  Moreau was about my age, perhaps a little older. He spoke perfect Finnish, but as if it was long out of use. It lent credence to his story. Despite his jacket, I saw that his carriage and muscular frame suggested a lifetime spent in the military. His manner was easygoing and confident in a way that was somehow reassuring. He spoke in a blithe way that suggested he was a man at peace with himself. His appearance and manner were at such odds with each other that it disconcerted. In every way, he seemed an unusual man.

  “And this specific and practical matter you spoke of?”

  “My hope is that once you have concluded your business here, we could perhaps have coffee and discuss it in leisure and at length.”

  I lit a cigarette, considered it. He made me a little too comfortable. That might lead to a lack of wariness. Always a mistake. “At the risk of seeming rude, I’d prefer if you began with a concise explanation.”

  His smile said it bothered him not at all. “As I am sure you will recall, the Saukko family had two children abducted last year. The ransom was paid as per instructions. The daughter was released, but shot in the head by a sniper three days later. The son never resurfaced. I am in Finland at the request of the father of the family, who has connections with the French government via the armaments industry. He suspected the boy might have escaped and run to Switzerland, where the stepmother now resides, as it is possible they had a, shall we say, ongoing Oedipal relationship. The Finnish police were reticent to search Switzerland, and the task fell to me. The son is not in Switzerland. He has ties to racist groups in Finland, as does the father, but the father had a falling-out with them because they believed his monetary contributions not sufficient to prove his devotion to the cause of hate, and hence a possible reason for the kidnapping. I am at once to search for the son and assess the racist situation in the Nordic area. The racists may have performed the kidnapping. If so, I will return the son and money to the father, and mete out justice to the murderers of the daughter.” />
  “‘Mete out justice’?”

  “In the biblical, eye-for-an-eye manner.”

  “And how do our interests coincide?”

  “I search for racists who shot a woman’s head off with a sniper rifle. You search for racists who cut a woman’s head off. Few people in Finland are capable of such violence, especially for relatively unemotional motives such as money and politics. It is entirely likely that we’re looking for the same man or men.”

  It was possible, even plausible. “Not coffee today,” I said. “I need to burn a car at the moment. I’m having a party tomorrow. Come to my house around four, we’ll discuss it then.”

  “Very well,” he said. He extended his hand and we shook.

  He turned and began to walk away.

  I called after him. “My wife will be there. Don’t mention this body dump in front of her. And bring me a present.”

  He turned and grinned. “A present. Why a present?”

  “Because it’s my party, and I like presents.”

  “And you can cry if you want to?”

  “You never know,” I said.

  He slipped out through the fence gate, chuckling.

  I had the sneaking feeling that I was about to make some kind of Faustian bargain.

  MILO AND SWEETNESS followed me in the now liquefying gangster’s Ford. I headed into the countryside, took a back road into the forest and drove without aim. The roads weren’t plowed, and I slipped and slid, but they were passable. At last, a road ended and opened up into a field with nothing in sight.

  I told Milo to drive to the middle of the field or until the car got stuck, whichever came first, and blow it up. He had made a thick, crude fuse, much like for a big firecracker, and said it was a rough guess, but we had about five minutes after we lit it. He and Sweetness looped it around inside the car so snow wouldn’t snuff it out, then pulled off the license plate, lit the fuse and ran.

  I couldn’t go into the field because of my crutches, so I turned the car around and waited for them. Another small post-surgery revelation. My conscience was gone, or nearly so. A gangster died because of my actions, we desecrated his body, and it meant less than nothing to me. And yet another revelation came to me. The famous Helsinki Homicide record. No unsolved homicides since 1993. A quick tally. They’ve investigated around twenty thousand deaths since then, but not one unsolved murder. Not even one?

  I’d bet good money I’m not the first cop to make a body disappear. Further, I think maybe there may be a tradition of employing a small group to extort, strong-arm, or disappear people on occasion.

  Or maybe not cops, but criminals allowed to act with limited impunity for the occasional favor. Rationale for said revelation: Jyri never mentioned the possibility that there would be no black-ops unit if I died on the operating table. He had no concern about the surgery. My conclusion: because he didn’t care if I lived or died. He had someone else already chosen in the event that I shuffled off this mortal coil. None of this bothered me, but it interested me. It was something to look into. Collecting skank on Jyri Ivalo had become a hobby with me.

  They ran across the field. To fuck with them, I made them buckle their seat belts: for safety, I said, before I would move. Then I hit the gas and we bolted. After a couple minutes, at a safe distance, we stopped to watch. The thermite lit up the day sky with a crack, and then the gas tank went with a boom. Flame and dirty smoke shot into the air. This job was becoming more interesting with every passing day.

  19

  Milo and Sweetness were curious about what Moreau wanted. I told them he would stop by tomorrow and explain it himself. I dropped them off and went shopping. Milo and Sweetness had complained that I demanded that they be subdued in their appearance and actions, so as to not attract attention to themselves. They chided me because my own appearance, limp and facial scar, made me stand out in a big way. I would set an example. Tomorrow was my “Welcome back to the world” party, an ideal time to unveil the new and improved, surgically enhanced and nondescript Kari Vaara. I bought a cane. Plain and cheap. My knee surgery was so successful that I wouldn’t need it long.

  Then I shopped for hair color. I had no idea the selection would be so large. Should I enhance my natural hair color, go subtle or dramatic? My natural color was now gray, and my hair has the feel and consistency of squirrel fur. I hadn’t had it cut in two months and had gone from a close-cropped military look to unkempt and messy. Kate pestered me to do something about it. Tomorrow, she would see why I hadn’t.

  Afterward, I went home. Kate had come to accept that she must endure nine months of motherhood leave. The Finnish lesson was finally drilled into her: We do things a certain way because we’ve always done them a certain way, and we do them in that certain way because it’s the way we’ve always done them. Attempts to change our accepted norms breed disdain.

  Without the sociopaths that work for me lurking about, home was tranquil. Kate seemed content. She seldom asked about my work, but when she did, sometimes she called me Michael Corleone. She didn’t smile when she said it. We got along well, though. My practiced smile carried me through the sham of emotion. We sat together for a while, talked the banalities of couples with a newborn, and then I told her I had to go back to researching my murder case.

  I considered the Finnish French Foreign Legionnaire turned French policeman and figure of international intrigue and wondered if he was all that he said he was. I would grill him tomorrow. He spoke of a mutually beneficial relationship. I had all the resources of government at my disposal. What did he think he could bring to the table to entice me? I agreed with him, though. There weren’t many people capable of calculated assassinations, far fewer with the skill and wherewithal to successfully execute them without being apprehended. And in a country with a population of only five and a half million, the pool of qualified suspects was small. We might very well have been looking for the same man.

  I needed to acquaint myself with the Saukko kidnapping-murder. Saska Lindgren was in charge. I called him and explained that it was possible our cases intersected, and asked him to send me some files so I could get a handle on the Saukko case. While I waited, I skimmed the Internet, looked at almost year-old newspaper articles, and got a take on the press’s views of the crimes. After reading Saska’s files, I felt I had a reasonable picture of the sequence of events and the people involved in them.

  VEIKKO SAUKKO: captain of industry, alcoholic, lunatic, art collector.

  His collection includes more than five hundred pieces. Many are Finnish, but there are also works by Chagall, Dalí and Picasso, among many notable others. His estranged wife fled the country and is wanted for tax evasion, among other crimes.

  Born in Helsinki on 22 April, 1941, into a prestigious and politically influential family, Saukko went his own way early and began building his career as a magazine publisher, specializing in scandal sheets. Launched in 1959, his best-known and most successful publication was Be Happy magazine. It focused on so-called human interest journalism. In the 1960s and 1970s, Be Happy achieved overwhelming popularity with indecent gossip about celebrities. The articles were sometimes fact, sometimes fiction, often a combination of the two.

  Suicides, divorces, destroyed careers. Be Happy paid well for skank, and the skank was good. A teen idol gets tossed from a nightclub, the doorman sells skank. Teen gets tossed in drunk tank, cops snap skank photos. Said teen gets fucked in ass in drunk tank, guard sells skank story for big money. Such hard-core skank is never stated outright, but implied in a house style that always leaves the message crystal clear. A politician fucks a minor. Be Happy. A tough guy movie star sips fruity rum drinks in fruity swish bar. Finland knows. Be Happy.

  Saukko got stinking rich because, better than anyone, he understood the Finnish zeitgeist. No one must try to rise above the masses. To do so is more than to risk contempt, but abject hatred. No one must try to accomplish something special. No one must be unique or gifted. The very attempt at virtuosity of any
kind suggests that a person thinks he’s better than others. Frequently heard: “Kuka sekin luulee olevansa?”—Who does he think he is?

  Yet, when an individual does succeed, he or she is beloved by the nation until that fateful day when, as they almost always do, the celebrity suffers a humiliation, either large or small. And then, proven right in their contemptuous beliefs, the nation rejoices. How Finns love to see the mighty brought low. How we hate people for trying to make the most of their talents. “Who did he think he was?” We know. He is, and always was, good only for skank.

  In fact, stars are often OK with this, because after being reduced to skank fodder, they often turn it around and use it to rejuvenate their careers. Finnish stars turn alkie, dry out or claim to, then tell their sob stories to the media. A celebration of humiliation. Public applause and adoration. A common ploy. The price paid for the admission that they were no one after all. Dumped wives of stars do the same, rebuild their lives and start their own careers based on Oprah-type “Boo hoo hoo but aren’t I brave?” crap.

  Finland was Skank Exultant. Finland was Skank Ecstatic. Daddy Saukko grew Skank Rich. Daddy Saukko is a good businessman and realized the limitations of wealth that can be accrued with Finnish skank, because it has no international interest. He sold Be Happy to a publishing conglomerate for hundreds of millions of Finnish marks, the equivalent of around a hundred million U.S. dollars.

  Saukko invested part of this fortune in art and constructed his luxurious Villa Veikko, a mansion on a large tract of land fronted by the sea. Beside Villa Veikko is the family museum run by their foundation. Saukko diversified his corporation, Ilmarinen Sisu, and invested in the machine tool, ice cutter and paper industries, all of which flourished. After some years, Saukko foresaw the future. He divested his interests in the aforementioned industries and reinvested in securities and quantitative investment, the arms industries of various countries, investment fund management, technology and media. He believed the future of fortune building lay in technology and media manipulation, and arming Third World nations for small wars. He bought heavily into Nokia and Sanoma. As of today, his corporation controls nearly a quarter of Sanoma Corporation, his interest in it is valued at more than three hundred million euros. Forbes recently named him the five hundred and fifty-sixth richest man in the world, and the richest man in Finland, with investments in around fifty nations totaling 1.7 billion dollars.