Helsinki Noir

by James Thompson

  “I don’t know why I even want to say this, but . . .” Laukia found himself swallowing a sob. “Promise that you won’t hurt her too much.”

  “Too much?”

  “Jesus Christ!” Laukia snapped. “Promise you’ll do it quickly.”

  “I’ll do it however I feel like doing it in the moment,” the man replied carelessly. “You have to understand that after this conversation is over we have a binding agreement, and if you try to break it, the consequences for you will be horrific. What you are doing in this conversation is handing her over to me. She is my property now, and I’ll do to her whatever I have to do.”

  Laukia cleared his throat and dabbed at the sweat coursing down his face.

  “Are we crystal-clear on that?” Tapsa insisted.

  Laukia nodded in agreement. “Do you want to see her photo?”

  “No,” Tapsa said sharply. “I want to see her face for the first time at the same instant she sees mine.”

  “Goddamn,” Laukia muttered, turning his face away and pressing his palms against his eyes so hard that his knuckles glowed white.

  “Do you have a security system in your house that I should know about?”

  “No. And the nearest neighbors are a hundred meters away.”

  “Then we have nothing to worry about,” Tapsa said with a sweet smile.

  Laukia rested his face on his palms, breathing heavily through his mouth. Tapsa got up out of his chair and came to stand briefly next to him.

  “If this all seems way too easy, believe me, it’ll get tougher,” the pleasant bureaucrat lookalike killer said, and laid a hand on Laukia’s shoulder. “But no matter how tough it gets, remember that you won’t get caught. It can be a bitch, at first, living with the guilt, but weigh that against what you’re gaining.”

  Laukia looked up at Tapsa and saw on his face the same warm smile he was wearing the first time they met.

  “Thanks,” Tapsa said, and stuck out his hand for Laukia to shake. Laukia noticed now for the first time how muscular it was, how inappropriate it seemed at the end of that body. He hesitated for a moment before taking the hand that would end his wife’s life.

  “Thank you,” Laukia said, an exhausted smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

  The anonymous alcoholic picked up his bag and his umbrella and headed through the restaurant toward the door. Then he disappeared into the faceless and nameless current of humanity coursing through the station, and Laukia never saw him again.

  IV

  If the week before his meeting with Madame Kismet had zipped by as if on fast forward, the seven days before the next AA meeting crawled by at a snail’s pace. Laukia didn’t sleep at all that week. Every night he lay in bed awake and stared at the unsuspecting person lying beside him. The wee hours of the morning were the worst. Then his subconscious came alive, tormenting him with the most lurid storms of guilt.

  Could I be the one after all? What if our marital problems are my fault? Could we start over? Maybe flee together? What if he found us?

  Night after night that last thought threatened to fibrillate Laukia’s heart. He saw Tapsa standing over in the corner of their darkened bedroom with a bread knife in his hand, his black eyeballs gleaming with death—and after that vision it was pointless to hope for sleep.

  * * *

  Laukia had “forgotten” his phone, left it lying on the bedroom floor in front of the wardrobe, when he headed out for the AA meeting a little early—deviating only slightly from his usual routine.

  When he left, his wife was down in the basement drying the autumn potato harvest.

  What if she hears Tapsa breaking into the house, manages to close the fire door, and call the cops? What if Tapsa is still in the house when I come home?

  Laukia realized that he was facing an evening that would mercilessly try his mental stability. How on earth am I going to act normal? Tapsa had even asked him to go out for dinner after, to a restaurant! No way is that going to work! Everyone will see the guilt shining on my face like a neon sign.

  On the train ride from Kirkkonummi into downtown Helsinki, Laukia managed to calm himself just enough so that he was no longer trembling or sweating. A couple of stiff drinks would have worked wonders, but tonight of all nights it was important not to backslide and give the cops the slightest cause for suspicion.

  * * *

  The AA meeting seemed to last forever. Laukia could remember having spoken up every week before, but had absolutely no memory of what he’d been saying today. As the other members took their turns, said their bit, all he could think of was his house, and his wife in the basement.

  How would Tapsa get in? Boldly ring the doorbell? What would he do to his victim first? Stun her and tie her up, or kill her quickly and cleanly? Would his wife realize before dying that her husband was behind the whole thing?

  Will the last breath she takes be spent screaming my name?

  Laukia was torn out of his thoughts when the leader adjourned the meeting and wished everybody present strength and a blessed week ahead.

  Laukia headed down Bulevardi toward Stockmann’s, where he managed to kill almost half an hour. He wandered through the departments, stopped to chat with a few salesladies, and hoped they would remember him as a polite and good-natured person—someone who wasn’t acting strangely.

  To his great fortune he ran into a couple who used to live near him, caught up on the news with them, and managed to get his wife into the conversation: “She’s doing fine, thanks, I’ll pass along your greetings! And please come see us around Christmas!”

  Laukia began to feel relief setting in as he exited the department store.

  Maybe the deed is already done. Maybe Tapsa has filled his annual quota and disappeared from my life. So has my wife. Permanently.

  Laukia stopped one more time, to down a couple of nonalcoholic drinks at Casa Largo, before heading home. At the bar he chatted for a while with a Swedish businessman, offering him tips on Helsinki restaurants. The bartender put his oar in on the subject as well, and Laukia felt that he had found himself two more witnesses who would confirm his alibi.

  As he left the bar, Laukia was filled with the kind of warm feeling he imagined a convict would feel upon being released from life in prison.

  Remember that you won’t get caught, Tapsa had said. Now, for the first time, Laukia began to let himself believe it.

  V

  It wasn’t a long walk from the Kirkkonummi train station to the Laukias’ home. Would the cops be there already? Laukia considered this, then shook his head. No: who would have called them?

  He now realized that it was his job to find the body.

  What if Tapsa used a bread knife again? Laukia felt a stab of fear pierce him. Nausea roiled up in his stomach. Let’s just hope he broke a window. I can call the cops if a window’s been broken. They would tell me to stay outside in the yard, in case the intruder is still in the house. And since I left my phone at home, I’d have to go to the neighbors, and they would see too how scared I am.

  The thought nearly brought a smile to Laukia’s lips, but he managed to keep a poker face. Even now a random dog-walker could ruin everything: Yeah, I saw Laukia walking home from the train station. He was smiling like he’d won the lottery!

  He turned into the cul-de-sac that led to his house, and saw the blue lights flashing against the dark late-evening sky. He took a few running steps, and the house’s silhouette emerged from behind the thick firs. Then he stopped as if hitting a wall: their front yard was full of vehicles—an ambulance, police squad cars, and crime-scene investigators’ cars. The cops had cordoned off the yard, but a few neighbors had already shown up.

  Laukia gulped and ran a hand through his hair. Did Tapsa blow it? Panic swept over his mind like a tidal wave. Should I turn and run?

  Maybe Tapsa had killed Laukia’s wife in the yard, and someone had seen the body? That must be it.

  He forced his legs to propel him forward. He slogged toward the emer
gency vehicles. His eyes fell on the ambulance, its rear doors gaping open. A uniform cop and two EMTs stood there talking to the figure lying on the gurney.

  Laukia felt his legs growing heavier with every step. His heart was pounding like a sledgehammer. His ears were filled with a loud rushing sound.

  The uniform cop turned toward the street, saw Laukia, and shouted something. Laukia didn’t hear a word.

  The EMTs stepped away from the gurney, and at that instant Laukia’s eyes met his wife’s. He felt the blood drain from his head, and his consciousness crash. His legs buckled underneath him, and he dropped to the wet asphalt on his back.

  Running footfalls echoed somewhere out on the peripheries of his consciousness. The EMTs kneeled beside him, bent over him. Only with great effort could he keep his eyes open.

  “My wife,” Laukia whispered. “What happened?”

  “Someone broke into your house,” the uniform cop said, as one of the EMTs supported Laukia’s head. “Your wife is alive, but . . .”

  “But?” Laukia felt the tears running hot down his cheeks. He raised his head and saw his wife on the ambulance gurney. Her face was distorted with an unfathomable agony, and she was screaming at the top of her lungs.

  An older cop bent down nearer to Laukia and looked him in the eye. “Your daughter was found murdered in the house.”

  Laukia stared back at the cop in horror, his eyes like saucers. “That’s not possible,” he whispered, an invisible fist tightening its grip on his windpipe. “Kaisa . . . lives in Berlin . . .”

  “Your wife wasn’t home when it happened. Your daughter had come in with her own key. Preliminary investigations suggest that the perpetrator was already inside the house, waiting . . .” The police officer’s voice faded out to nothing.

  “A killer like this,” one of the EMTs said to his colleagues, “always gets caught.”

  “This one won’t get caught!” Laukia’s sharp retort startled the EMTs and older police officer.

  The man sitting there on the asphalt stared into his wife’s eyes, a strange, disturbed smile spreading slowly across his ash-gray face. “This was a dead cinch.”

  PART III

  WINDS OF VIOLENCE

  GOOD INTENTIONS

  BY JESSE ITKONEN

  Itäkeskus

  The girl wore white. A sleek summer dress that grasped her hips like a lover. She had jet-black hair that hugged her milky-white shoulders. She sat opposite Koskinen on the metro for the long ride from the city center back home and he found himself staring. She caught his eye and they both looked away awkwardly. When the train rumbled into the Itäkeskus stop, they were the last two in the car. A tall man stood at the platform, waiting. She ran into his arms as Koskinen quietly sidestepped them and ascended the escalators.

  He crossed the bridge over Turuntie and the girl and her man followed. He heard her crooning and him responding in monosyllables. The cracked boulevard led them toward a hive of cheap apartment buildings. The man and the girl ducked into an underpass and disappeared from view. Koskinen played with the thought of one day escorting a girl like that home, then dismissed it as fast as it occurred to him.

  Behind him, he heard a sharp scream cut short. He knew the sound all too well. No matter the source, it always rang the same. The panicked yelp and sudden comprehension of things turning sour. He’d heard it from women at the bar, when their men had too much to drink and even more to prove. He’d heard it from his mother, when she wasn’t quick enough to evade his father of the week. He turned on his heels and looked back at an empty street. He thought of the girl with milky-white shoulders and black hair and found himself walking toward the underpass.

  Koskinen wasn’t a big man. He wasn’t short, but in that massive pit of average that infuriated him so. In the seventh grade, he had shaved his head to fit in and the habit stuck. There was no ideology behind it, he told himself, and often believed it as well. When you fought someone, it didn’t matter what the color of his skin was. Everyone bruised the same.

  The girl was pressed against the wall of the underpass, her man’s hand around her chin. “Where’d you put it?” the guy was saying over and over. “Where’d you put it, you bitch?!” Again and again she whispered something frantic and each time he repeated himself louder and louder. Koskinen saw as the tall guy’s hand rose from her mouth and, just as she was about to respond, returned back with force. The slap knocked her head backward. Koskinen didn’t waste time with pleasantries. He dove at the guy and both of them toppled to the ground. The guy squirmed and Koskinen sat on his chest. He pressed his knees on the guy’s hands and applied pressure. The girl yelped in panic and skirted out of the way.

  “What the fuck?” The tall guy’s eyes focused on Koskinen, who answered the stare. “I’ll fucking kill you, asshole!” he squealed, and Koskinen slammed him in the face. “Fucker!” Another hit.

  He kept punching until the responses stopped coming and a soft, helpless whimper took their place.

  Koskinen picked himself up and wiped his hand on the guy’s shirt. His knuckles were bleeding and already swollen. He turned to the girl and suddenly felt guilty about something. She pushed him aside and tended to the tall guy who whimpered her name and cried. She shushed him and said they’d be home soon. She took Koskinen aside and told him to leave, her boyfriend meant no harm.

  He watched from one end of the underpass as she helped the tall guy up and carried his weight while they stumbled out the other end and out of view. He wasn’t sure who he was more angry at.

  * * *

  That night Koskinen spent his time drinking and counting the lines on the ceiling. The apartment above his echoed and he listened. Finnish sounded like machine-gun fire when people spoke angrily. A blitzkrieg of rolling r’s and emphasized v’s. At one point, the police had responded to domestic disturbances quite quickly in the area, but now it was easier to get a taxi on a weekend than it was to find a police car.

  He thought of the people living up there. The woman was a redhead, he knew that much. The man he’d seen once or twice and didn’t much like him. They’d lived there for about six months and had maybe exchanged three words in the hallway. You could pack us like sardines in a can, he thought to himself, and we’d still do our best to avoid communication. Koskinen didn’t have a girlfriend to call his own—not if he was honest with himself—but he was certain that if he did, he’d never be mean to her.

  The next morning he saw the redhead. She was taking the trash out as Koskinen leaned over the thin railing of his French balcony and practiced blowing smoke rings. Her chin touched her neck and every step she took was deliberate and careful, like she was dancing in a minefield. When she turned back toward the apartments, she glanced up, her eyes focusing in the sunlight. Koskinen gave her a wave; she didn’t respond.

  When he got to work that night, Koskinen wasn’t feeling like himself. Most nights he could navigate the bar like he was wearing blinders; today he felt raw and exposed like a nerve.

  “What you need,” said Nalle, as they were bringing up crates from the basement, “is a woman.” He waggled his eyebrows and grinned. He looked to Koskinen like a pug dog that had collided with a wall at top speed. Koskinen assured him that he was fine, which Nalle took to mean that he was looking for a guy and replied that Koskinen should forget it as he was already spoken for.

  At home again, he listened to the neighbors shout. Someone threw dishes. They shattered on the floor directly above him and the house fell silent. As the sun came up, he thought he heard sobbing echo in the pipework. After breakfast, he sat smoking on the benches near the trash shelter. After three smokes, the redhead came down with trash bags that jingled with empty bottles.

  “Morning,” Koskinen offered. She responded quietly. Her bangs were brushed over her right eye and her face was heavy with makeup. “I live downstairs,” Koskinen said, more bluntly than he had intended.

  She threw the trash into the bin. “I’m sorry,” she responded.

&nb
sp; “It’s not me you need to apologize to.”

  She shrugged. “Force of habit. Can I bum one?”

  Koskinen lit a smoke and handed it to her. He offered her a seat; she remained standing.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  She blew smoke. “You lived here long?”

  Koskinen nodded.

  “Then do you really need to ask?”

  They continued to smoke in silence for a bit. She took long drags and held the smoke in longer. Koskinen sipped at his smoke, not in a hurry to go anywhere. He stole looks at her and thought of something to say. She did it for him.

  “How long did it take you to gather up your courage to come and talk?”

  Koskinen coughed, the smoke going down the wrong pipe.

  She grinned and he felt a rush go through his stomach like he was on a roller coaster. “My guess is a week.”

  He had no answer.

  She dropped the rest of her smoke, now down to the filter, and stepped on it, then held out her hand. “Kati.”

  Koskinen shook her hand. “Jari.”

  She smiled and he returned it. “I’ll be fine, Jari, he doesn’t mean it.” She turned and walked back into the apartments, leaving Koskinen to wonder if someone could be both turned on and angry at the same time.

  * * *

  Weekends were a time to vent. The bar would fill up with people and you had no time for thoughts of your own. Koskinen worked the downstairs—where the people could escape the dance floor located above—alone. As the lights flickered for last call, Nalle wobbled down the stairs and came behind the bar. “You’re off early tonight, get outta here.”

  “Something wrong?” Koskinen asked, and handed a beer to a young guy who could barely stand.

  Nalle placed his hand on Koskinen’s shoulder. “You, sir, have a date.”

  He pushed the hand off. “No, I don’t.”

  Nalle shook his head and pointed at the stairs. “Yes, you do.”

  Koskinen looked and Nalle grinned. By the stairs lounged a petite blond girl who was wearing something Koskinen didn’t think qualified as a whole piece of clothing.