Cold Trail hh-4

by Jarkko Sipila

  The men stood there, face to face.

  “Listen here. I’ve helped you because your father wanted me to. He asked me in the hospital, on his deathbed, to help you if you came here. Well, I’vedone that.”

  Repo looked at Karppi. “He asked you to do that?”

  Karppi nodded.

  “Thanks for the help, then.”

  “He also told me some other things.”

  “I need coffee,” Repo growled, gently thrusting the old man out of his path. The escapee continued toward the kitchen.

  The infuriated Karppi raised his voice and circled around in front of Repo: “You will not push me around in my house!”

  “Take it easy,” Repo said, passing the other man without touching him.

  Karppi huffed, but took a couple of steps backwards. Repo turned and ran water from the tap into the coffee pot. Two, three cups would do it. The coffee was in the cupboard, and Repo eyeballed roughly the right amount as he poured it into the filter.

  Repo turned and noticed that Karppi was crouching down at the end of the couch, where he had left his shoulder bag. Repo marched into the living room. Karppi rose. The couch stood between them.

  Karppi looked Repo in the eye. “What is it you’re planning on doing?”

  “I’ll say it one more time: it’s none of your business.”

  “Where’d you get that?” Karppi asked, glancing into the shoulder bag. “Tell me.”

  “Found it in town,” Repo said. He started circling the couch from the right.

  Karppi took a couple of steps left. Even though he leaned against the couch as he moved, his voice remained forceful. “Timo! You’re doing something I don’t want to be a part of; as a matter of fact, I don’t even want to know about it.”

  “So stop asking then,” Repo said from the foot of the sofa. Now he was closer to the bag.

  “I’m asking for your own sake. You’re planning on doing something evil.”

  “In prison, you have time to think about all kinds of things,” Repo said, taking a step toward the old man, who was now standing about ten feet away.

  “I think we need to call this game off right now,” Karppi said, picking up his cordless phone from the table. “I’m going to call the police and tell them what’s going on before you can do anything irreversible with that.”

  “Life is irreversible,” Repo said, lunging at Karppi.

  “Stop!” cried the old man. “Wait.”

  Repo stepped closer and Karppi stepped back. Karppi looked at his phone and typed in 000 before he realized that the emergency number had changed; it was now 112 everywhere in Europe.

  Karppi raised his hand from the phone just as Repo came within arm’s reach. His right hand grabbed for the phone.

  “You’re not calling anyone.”

  “Stop! Listen!” Karppi, terrified, stepped backwards. Repo’s palm smacked the old man’s shoulder hard. Karppi lost his balance and fell. He tried to break his fall with his hand, but his head cracked against the corner of the oak dining table.

  A voice came from the phone: “112, what is your emergency?”

  Karppi felt a blackness filling his head. He could see the ceiling, and the pain gradually faded. He tried to talk, but was incapable of making a sound. He heard a rattling in his breath, and then the blackness ended too.

  What Repo saw was an old man sprawled on the floor with a bleeding head. Karppi’s mouth was agape, but he was silent.

  The woman’s voice repeated: “112, what is your emergency?”

  Repo raised the phone from the floor, “Sorry, it was a mistake.”

  He gazed at the old man from a distance of a couple of yards. The pool of blood slowly began to grow.

  “Sir, is there an emergency?”

  “Everything’s fine,” Repo said. “My kid was just playing with the phone. Sorry,” he managed to say.

  “All right, sir.” The operator ended the call.

  Repo bent over and felt Karppi’s throat for a pulse. There wasn’t one. Goddammit, he swore. He stood and rubbed his face. Why did this have to happen? He hadn’t intended for things to go this way. He hadn’t wanted to kill Karppi. Repo wanted to shout that it had been an accident. This wasn’t supposed to happen!

  He tried to calm himself, but he couldn’t. He looked into the dead man’s gaping eyes. Why did Karppi have to try to resist him? It didn’t make any sense. Why had he come to the old man’s house in the first place? You should never mix others up in your business, but that’s exactly what he had done.

  Repo couldn’t stand looking at the body, so he went and took a sheet from the old man’s bed. The fugitive spread it across the corpse. A corner of the sheet was immediately soaked in blood.

  Repo stepped back over to the couch and sat. He was tired, but he wondered whether the woman at emergency response believed him. Did she think everything was all right, or were an ambulance and the cops already on their way? Repo picked up his bag from the floor and pulled out the Luger. He was exhausted, but he couldn’t stay here.

  God-fucking-dammit. What just happened? And why? Why did things always have to turn out this way?

  CHAPTER 14

  WEDNESDAY, 10:20 A.M.

  KALLIO NEIGHBORHOOD, HELSINKI

  Suhonen was at home in his one-bedroom Kallio apartment, lying in bed in his underwear. He wasn’t asleep, but he didn’t have the energy to get up either. He had made it home around four, and Raija had left at seven without saying a word. Suhonen had tried to give her a kiss, but she had just walked out.

  I could get up in a bit and make some coffee, Suhonen thought. Or maybe he’d wait until the noon meeting that Takamäki had sent him the text message about. Suhonen ruminated about breakfast, but couldn’t decide: cold cereal, granola, hot cereal, sandwich? Maybe he wasn’t hungry yet; he had dropped by a 24-hour deli around three and chowed down a double-sausage meat pie.

  Suhonen rubbed his face-stubble. His hair felt greasy, too. He needed a shower.

  His phone rang. Suhonen could tell it was his off-the-record phone and rushed into the entryway to dig it out of his jacket pocket. The phone displayed the caller’s number, but Suhonen didn’t recognize it.

  “Yeah,” Suhonen answered.

  “Is that Suikkanen?”

  “Yeah,” Suhonen said. He was standing in front of the mirror and could see all his scars. He turned his back to the mirror.

  “Hey, man,” answered a male voice. “We met at the bar yesterday. Yugi.”

  Suhonen remembered Arsenal Fan. “Yeah, what do you want?”

  “You promised me a C-note for that clown Saarnikangas.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Right here in my kitchen. I found him at Itäkeskus Mall this morning and brought him here. Tied him to a chair.”

  Fuck, thought Suhonen.

  Yugi continued, “He says he doesn’t have any money. I can take care of him for you for five grand. No one will ever hear from him again.”

  “No!” Suhonen said emphatically. “I need to talk to him.”

  “Can I take care of him afterwards?”

  Suhonen felt like being the man from Del Monte and saying yes. Because the world would doubtless be a better place if Saarnikangas weren’t in it and Yugi were behind bars, but unfortunately that wasn’t an option. “Where do you live?”

  “Eastern Helsinki,” Yugi said and gave Suhonen the address.

  “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Don’t touch him.”

  Yugi’s voice sounded disappointed. “Okay. He’s in pretty bad shape, though. Shivering and whining, says he needs a fix.”

  Suhonen ended the call and swore. He went into the bathroom and took a zip-lock bag from the medicine cabinet that contained several packs of drugs. He dug out three packs, wrapped a rubber band around them, and put them in the inside pocket of his leather jacket.

  He had to keep Saarnikangas coherent. He retrieved an ancient light blue Nokia cell phone from his nightstand drawer and inserted a prepaid SIM
card into it.

  * * *

  Ten minutes later, Suhonen parked his car on Manor Road. The building’s balconies protruded from its brown stucco wall in the style of the ’60s. It was only three stories tall, but it had several entrances. Suhonen mused that in the US such buildings had been built upwards, while in Finland they had grown horizontally.

  He got out of the car and walked to the door leading to Yugi’s stairwell. He pressed the buzzer, and a few seconds later the lock clicked.

  Suhonen took the elevator up to Yugi’s floor and checked on the landing to make sure that his Glock was within easy reach. Suhonen didn’t actually think he needed the weapon; the gesture was primarily directed at Yugi, just in case he was watching through the peephole.

  Suhonen pressed the doorbell and the door popped open.

  “Hey,” Yugi said. There was a victorious smile on his face and a touch of fear in his voice.

  Suhonen handed over two fifties to Yugi, who was still wearing the same Arsenal tracksuit. “Where is he?”

  “In the kitchen.”

  “You lead the way.”

  Yugi led. The apartment was grim, with hardly any furniture. On the way, Suhonen glanced into the bedroom, where there was only a mattress, no bed. The living room was the exception, containing a sofa, a thirty-two-inch flat-screen TV, DVD player, Xbox 360 console, and three piles of movies and games on the floor.

  Yugi hadn’t lied; Saarnikangas was sitting at the kitchen table, with his hands tied to the chair behind his back. Suhonen had seen the mug shot taken of Juha during his last trip to the clink, but he probably wouldn’t have recognized this crater-faced skeleton from it. His cheeks were hollow and his brown hair matted. He was wearing a brown T-shirt so splotchy that Suhonen wondered if it had originally been white.

  “Here,” Yugi announced.

  “Good. Untie him.”

  Yugi was visibly disappointed. No doubt he wanted to watch Suikkanen rough up the poor junkie. He unknotted the laundry line. Saarnikangas tried to say something, but couldn’t get form the words.

  “Did he have a coat?” Suhonen asked.

  “Yeah,” Yugi said, stepping over to the balcony door. “I had to put it outside, because it smelled so fucking bad.”

  He retrieved the coat and handed it over to the quivering druggie.

  “I hope you get what you deserve.”

  “All right, let’s move,” Suhonen said, pushing Saarnikangas in front of him. Despite the brief airing, the army jacket reeked like a disgusting blend of dirt, dog shit, and puke.

  In under a minute, Suhonen and Saarnikangas were out of the apartment. Yugi came to the door. “Hey, Suikkanen, don’t you think I deserve some thanks?”

  Suhonen pressed the elevator button and gave Yugi a cold stare.

  “One. Never say my name in the presence of the target. Two. You already got your money.”

  Suhonen opened the elevator door and shoved Saarnikangas in. Luckily he was able to stand, so Suhonen didn’t have to carry him. The junkie leaned against the brown wall as the elevator shuddered downwards to the floor. Suhonen dug a white tablet out of his pocket, peeled off the plastic, and handed it to Saarnikangas. The junkie gave the man in the leather jacket a questioning look.

  “Subu,” Suhonen said.

  Saarnikangas snapped the pill in two. He put half under his tongue and slipped the other half into the pocket of his jeans. Suhonen was sure he would shoot it. Subutex-brand buprenorphine had taken a firm foothold in the Helsinki drug market as the fighting in Afghanistan was cutting into heroin production. In France a Subu pill cost two euros; in Helsinki, twenty.

  Suhonen quickly escorted Saarnikangas to the passenger seat of his car. Suhonen got in behind the wheel and headed out. He opened both front windows a good couple of inches so the worst of the stench would dissipate. The car clock read 11:09 a.m.

  By the time they hit the Itäkeskus Mall on the Eastern Expressway, Saarnikangas had found his tongue.

  “Who are you?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “What’s up with all this? That Arsenal retard kept talking on and on about some debt.”

  “Forget the debt.”

  “But there’s gotta be some reason for all this.”

  Suhonen pushed it up to fifty-five, passing a red Volvo with a ski rack. Traffic was heavy. “I need your help.”

  Saarnikangas didn’t respond, he just looked at Suhonen. “He said your name was Suikkanen.”

  Suhonen eyed the gaunt junkie. The trembling had stopped.

  “Look, Suikkanen, are you a cop?”

  “How so?”

  “No real gangster that looks like you would give a rat’s ass about a speed freak like me. They would’ve let that Arsenal spaz take care of me. You’re not from the AIDS support center either, and I’ve never seen you at the needle exchanges, so that doesn’t leave many alternatives.”

  Suhonen thought for a second. “I’m not a cop. Cops don’t give junkies drugs,” he said with a smile.

  “There’s a first time for everything. At least for me.” Saarnikangas grinned. Suhonen wished the guy would have kept his mouth shut. A few teeth were missing, and the ones he had were in bad shape. “What do you want?”

  “I’m looking for a friend of yours.”

  “Do I have any friends?”

  “From what I’ve heard, you know this guy.”

  “Who?”

  “Timo Repo.”

  Saarnikangas furrowed his skinny brow. “Repo? That sap who wrapped a pretty necklace around his wife’s throat? He’s still in the hole.”

  “Not any more.”

  “He skipped out?”

  Suhonen nodded. “A couple of days ago.”

  They passed the Kulosaari metro station on the right.

  “So where’s this taxi headed?”

  “You get to decide. If you promise to help me, I’ll take you wherever you want, but if you don’t I’ll take you straight to police headquarters. You’ve got a big stack of unpaid fines on the books, and society needs you in jail to make good on them.”

  “So Repo escaped,” Saarnikangas said.

  “Does that surprise you?”

  “A little. He was basically a nothing. Losers always stick together, and that goes for the joint, too. That’s why we used to talk. Okay, so he’s bitter, but I always thought he’d tough it out. If you’ve already done eight years of a life sentence, it doesn’t make any sense to cut out.”

  “Why did he take off?”

  “He had a chip on his shoulder a hell of a lot bigger than Lance Armstrong’s, but he didn’t really talk about it in recent years. You could sense a stifled rage in him. See, I’m a good judge of people. And sensing what they want.”

  Once they hit the end of the Eastern Expressway, Suhonen turned into the lane leading to Teollisuus Street. Police headquarters was more or less just down the road.

  “Well, then you probably know what I want.”

  “Repo back in the pen.”

  “Right. You are good,” Suhonen said. “So what’s it gonna be? You decided where we’re headed?”

  “One more question. What do I get?”

  “A pack of Subu,” Suhonen said. That was seven tablets.

  Saarnikangas tried to bargain: “Two.”

  “This isn’t an auction. So, police headquarters it is.”

  Suhonen drove under the Sture Street bridge, and the smell of the coffee factory reminded him that he hadn’t had his morning coffee yet.

  “Okay, Okay. One’s good,” Saarnikangas said. “But I need a phone. Mine’s…at the pawnshop.”

  Sure, thought Suhonen. Pawnshops didn’t take phones. Suhonen dug the old Nokia 6110 out of his pocket and handed it to the junkie.

  “What the hell is this? No one uses these anymore.”

  “That’s why I happen to have an extra one,” Suhonen replied. At one point he had bought a few from Salmela precisely for situations like this. “Do you have your own SIM card? Beca
use there’s a new one in there.”

  “What good is that going to do me?” Saarnikangas said, taking the phone’s back cover off. He dug his old SIM card out of his inside pocket of his jacket and switched it into the phone. But somehow Suhonen’s SIM card still disappeared into his pocket.

  “So the deal is simple. If Repo calls you, you set up a meeting with him and you tell us. After that, you get…”

  Saarnikangas shook his head. “No way. I’ll get a rep as a snitch. I’ll find out where he is and tell you. You guys grab him in a way that I don’t get burned.”

  “That’ll work,” Suhonen said. The car was stopped at a red light at the end of Teollisuus Street. The Pasila rail yard was in front of them, and beyond it the forbidding office blocks of West Pasila.

  “Where am I going to drop you?”

  “How about the Neste station?”

  “Done.”

  “But you gotta buy me a coffee. I don’t have any cash. That Arsenal idiot grabbed me when I was collecting empties at Itäkeskus Mall. It’s a pretty tight race out there every day, you know. The fastest one gets all the dough.”

  Suhonen pulled out a twenty and handed it to Saarnikangas. “Okay, I’ll get your coffee.”

  “And a sandwich? I’m starving.”

  “I’m pretty sure that’ll get you a sandwich, too,” Suhonen chuckled, turning toward the service station.

  CHAPTER 15

  WEDNESDAY, 12:00 NOON

  HELSINKI POLICE HEADQUARTERS, PASILA

  “All right,” said stony-faced Deputy Police Chief Skoog, glancing at his watch. About twenty detectives were sitting in the biggest conference room at Helsinki police headquarters. The room had windows giving onto Pasila Street, but the blinds were lowered and the curtains were drawn. It was right next to the canteen, and the smell of almond-baked fish was wafting in.

  Takamäki and Suhonen were sitting side by side near the windows. On Takamäki’s right sat Captain Karila, the brawny head of the VCU, and on Suhonen’s left sat Lieutenant Ariel Kafka. Takamäki knew everyone: the head of Narcotics and three of his most experienced team members, a slate of Intelligence officers, and the higher-ups from Financial Crimes.