Helsinki White iv-3

by James Thompson

“Don’t worry,” Moreau says, “he won’t arrest you. But I promised him that in return, you would answer some questions he has for you.”

  Moreau turns to me. “As former Legionnaires, they live pleasant lives here, but the boredom hurts them, so sometimes they play at crime. I supply them with heroin, out of friendship.”

  The two young black men, known drug dealers, on the day they were executed by carbon monoxide poisoning, came to Turku. Jussi Kosonen, kidnapper of Kaarina and Antti Saukko, was executed with a bullet in the back of his head, on the riverbank here in Turku. And now here I stand, in a shop with a kilo of heroin lying on the counter, in Turku. Hmm.

  I snap open the lion’s mouth on my cane, let the razor teeth press into the flesh of my fingers. “And what questions am I supposed to ask them?”

  “Ask them who they sell heroin to and who they know.”

  I don’t bother to repeat it.

  Marcel says, “By far our biggest clients are neo-Nazis. We wholesale to them. We also sell Ecstasy from a source in Amsterdam, but have a different customer base for it.”

  “Are you racists, selling to neo-Nazis for political reasons, or is it simply an economic issue?”

  “I admit we are racists,” Thierry says, “and we are active in the racist community, but we are not rabid racists who commit our lives to the cause of hate.” He chuckles. “We are excellent haters, but we are smart haters. Hate is like a drug. It will consume a person if excessive. I wasn’t a racist until I served in Africa and lived amongst niggers, by the way, and discovered what vile creatures they are.” He gives a disgusted shiver.

  “Because we have killed many people of color, we are well liked by the racist community-hero figures, if you will. And so we have been shown off and introduced to many people.”

  “I’m investigating the murder of Lisbet Soderlund. Who do you know that might have been involved?”

  “Well, the Nazis, of course, and possibly Real Finns or members of Finnish Pride, or a person acting alone.”

  “Do you know Antti Saukko?”

  “Oh yes, and his father. It went like this. We already knew Antti. We were talking to Roope Malinen and he discussed the failure of the Finnish authorities to bring the persons who kidnapped and murdered his children to justice. We told him we knew one of the best policemen in the world, Adrien. Malinen told Real Finn party leader Topi Ruutio about Adrien, thinking that if Adrien found the criminals who violated the Saukko family, Veikko Saukko would show his appreciation in the form of a generous campaign contribution. Veikko asked to meet us, and our recommendation led to Adrien’s presence here today.”

  He clasps Moreau’s shoulder. “It’s so good to see you, old friend.”

  “I have a theory,” I say, “that the knowledge of who killed Lisbet Soderlund is an open secret. A sign of prestige. Tell the truth. Do you know who murdered her?”

  “No, I do not. And neither does Marcel.”

  “I have no interest in your drug dealing at present, and will give you a permanent free pass to sell limited quantities of dope if you tell me who killed her. If I find out that you lied to me and you know the identity of her murderer, I will heap suffering on you far beyond your legal punishment. Do we understand one another?”

  “Yes, Inspector, we do. But we do not know and cannot help you.”

  The prim racist dope dealers make delicacy samplers to take with us, give us the address of neo-Nazi HQ in Turku, and send us on our way.

  33

  An excellent basic rule of thumb for a policeman, or anyone for that matter, is never to anticipate. The reality of what we imagine seldom meets our expectations. I expect the neo-Nazi headquarters of Turku to be a run-down house with an unkempt yard with a couple of junk vehicles resting on concrete blocks rusting away in it. I anticipate a dwelling littered with empty beer cans and the air thick with marijuana smoke. Thugs passed out. Love pulp magazines with the pages stuck together.

  The address Marcel gave us is an upscale and expensive apartment building. I was given no name, but don’t need one because on the resident list alongside the door buzzers, instead of a name, is a swastika on a red field. I ring it, and when asked my name, say “Hans Frank.” The front door opens. In the elevator, we all attach silencers to our Colts and pocket them.

  I ring and the door opens. A young, well-dressed man with round wire-rim glasses answers. “May I help you?” he asks.

  I show my police card. “I hope so.”

  “Do you have a warrant, Officer?”

  “No.”

  “Please return when you have one.”

  He tries to shut the door. I jam it open with my foot. “Warrant or not, you and I are going to have a conversation. What’s your name?”

  “I don’t intend to give you my name,” he says, but relents, having little choice, and opens the door. We all step in and look around. Seven young men are in a well-furnished and spotless home. A bay window looks out on the river and beyond. There is no television. Only well-stocked bookcases.

  He sits down. The other young men are equally well-groomed. Only one stands out, because of his size. He’s bigger than Sweetness. The only clues that these men are neo-Nazis are their skinhead haircuts. They’re all seated around a coffee table covered with cups and saucers and a plate of cookies. A large Waffen SS flag dominates one wall. I walk over and look at it.

  “That’s a family heirloom,” the young man says. “My great-grandfather served in SS Viking and brought it home from the war. In case you don’t know, SS ‘Viking’ was the 5th Heavy Panzer Division, recruited from foreign troops. A number of Finns served in it with distinction.”

  “We’re off to a bad start,” I say. “I only want to ask you a few questions and we’ll be on our way.”

  “First, it’s extremely discourteous for you to walk around my home with your shoes on. I would request that you remove them, except you won’t be staying. Come back when you have a warrant.”

  I sigh. “There are a number of things we could discuss, such as trafficking in heroin, but I’m investigating a murder and I’m not interested in your criminal activities at the moment. But I could become interested.”

  “Warrant,” he says.

  I cross the room and examine his bookshelves. No pop fiction to be seen. He reads philosophers with related beliefs: Heidegger, Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant, Hegel, John Stuart Mill, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Ayn Rand, Plato, Aristotle. He’s educated in philosophy, but the education isn’t wellrounded.

  I say, “It’s up to the judgment of an investigating officer to proceed without a warrant if a crime is imminent or in progress or causes peril of some sort. The officer must have reasonable cause. I’m told you have narcotics and suspect you have illegal firearms on these premises, and I view this as reasonable cause. We’re going to search this apartment.”

  “I have no narcotics and my firearms are registered. I’m in full compliance with the law.”

  “What’s your name?” I ask again.

  He remains defiant. “Fuck you.”

  “What is your name?”

  “None of your fucking business.”

  I didn’t want it to come to this, but Lisbet Soderlund was murdered, and it pleased people like him. Come mud, shit or blood, he will cooperate. I light a cigarette.

  “I don’t allow people to smoke in my home,” he says. “Extinguish your cigarette.”

  “OK.” I take a deep drag to heat it up, then grind it out in the dead center of great-grandpa’s flag. It leaves a nasty hole with scorched edges.

  He shoots out of his seat, but then freezes, uncertain what to do.

  The big man stands. “Jesper,” he says, “I will deal with this.”

  He’s about six foot six, upwards of three hundred pounds. His build says he’s a power lifter. “You’ve gone too far,” he says to me. “Your position doesn’t give you the right to disrespect the homes of others and destroy their most precious belongings. I’ll sit m
y time for assaulting an officer before I’ll stand by and watch this.”

  He’s about four yards away from me. I take the silenced Colt out of my pocket and aim it at his chest. In my peripheral vision, I see Sweetness take a swig from his flask.

  “Shoot me, then,” he says, and takes a step toward me.

  “Fight me first,” Sweetness says, and gets in between us. It’s Godzilla versus Rodan.

  Big Man laughs. “Did you need some liquid courage, little girl?”

  “Naw, it just relaxes me,” Sweetness says, and takes a fighter’s stance. He shuffles his feet, fakes, draws a punch from Big Man so his weight is too far forward for him to escape the countershot, then Sweetness splits his left eyebrow open with a jab. There’s a lot of blood. They circle.

  A neo-Nazi starts to record the fight with his cell phone video camera. Moreau puts his Beretta to the man’s head.

  Big Man is dumb, falls for the same fake and jab. Sweetness is fast. Now both eyebrows are split bad and his eyes are full of blood and flesh hangs down into them.

  Moreau removes the memory card from the guy’s cell phone and hands it back to him.

  Big Man is blind now. I count punches. One two three. Sweetness hits a little harder each time, to make sure Big Man can’t fight back, before throwing the big hard punches that will take Sweetness a little off balance and put him at risk. Four: nose breaks. Five: teeth come out and patter on the carpet. A glop of blood sprays the bay window. Six: jaw breaks and more blood and teeth fly. Seven: a right roundhouse crumples Big Man’s eye socket. He falls. His head bangs the coffee table. Cups turn over and spill. Big Man is on the floor, semiconscious. The eye bulges because there’s not enough solid bone left to hold it tight in the socket.

  I pick up a cookie, take a bite and turn to Jesper. “These are really good. Did you bake them yourself?”

  The room is corpse silent except for Milo. The looks on the neo-Nazis’ faces have given him the giggles. He takes a cookie. “You’re right. These are really good.” He asks Jesper, “Have you got any coffee left? Don’t make a fresh pot on my account.”

  Jesper, in a daze, doesn’t understand that Milo is teasing him and goes to the kitchen. “Do you take milk and sugar?” he asks.

  “No, black is fine.”

  Jesper returns with a cup and saucer and Milo thanks him.

  I say to Jesper, “Now, either we have a conversation, or you become that.” I point at Big Man.

  I take a seat on the couch and pat the cushion beside me, gesture for Jesper to sit beside me.

  “My friend needs medical attention,” Jesper says.

  “And he can have it as soon as we’re through here. So please cooperate. None of this was ever necessary in the first place. Where’s your gun safe?”

  “There are three. In my bedroom. The keys are on top of the middle one.”

  Milo goes to check them out. He’s looking for the sniper rifle that killed Kaarina Saukko.

  I say to Jesper, “My question to you is: Who killed Lisbet Soderlund?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You sell heroin. Correct? This conversation is off the record.”

  “We’re performing a public service. We wholesale to people who only sell to blacks, in an effort to sedate the nigger-well, actually, the entire immigrant population. And the proceeds don’t line our pockets, they go to political causes.”

  “Such as donations to Real Finns?”

  He doesn’t answer.

  “I’m curious,” I say. “You don’t want immigrants in Finland, but why Nazism?”

  “Because it offers societal protection. Is it too much to not want cultural diversity, to want to preserve everything I hold dear? To live in a country with others who share the same race, values and beliefs that I do? Jews, Slavs, blacks, Arabs-they’re genetically and culturally inferior. They hold beliefs antithetical to our own and would destroy the fabric of this nation. In fact, I’m glad we’ve had our little experiment with immigrants, so that our citizens can see the havoc it carries with it on even such a small scale. Look at Belgium. Immigrants overran it and their culture and way of life is destroyed beyond repair. Given the relatively few immigrants we’ve taken in, we can still get rid of them and correct our error.”

  “You want another Holocaust?”

  “There was no Holocaust. It’s a myth. Tell the truth, Officer. Don’t you want our race and culture preserved?”

  Given the ordeal I’ve put him through, he at least deserves an answer. “I think your beliefs and everything you hold dear are a myth.” I stop our political discussion here. My curiosity about his hatred is satisfied.

  Milo comes back, grinning. “He’s got seven Sako AK-47-style rifles, but they’re not full auto and so legal. A dozen Smith amp; Wesson 9mm automatic pistols. Four riot shotguns, but no.308 sniper-type rifle. Check these out.” He holds a target up in each hand. One is a man in profile with a huge nose. A supposed Jew. The other has huge lips and an afro. A supposed black man. Nice.

  “Two young black men,” I say, “known to deal drugs, came to Turku and later that evening were murdered in Helsinki, in a garage that had a running car in it, turning the place into a gas chamber. This has Nazi overtones. Did you or anyone you know have contact with those men on the evening they were murdered?”

  “We have no truck with niggers under any circumstances,” Jesper says. “We don’t sell drugs directly to niggers-we let others taint themselves-and we’re not murderers. We seek to accomplish our goals through political means. And it’s working.”

  “Then why are you stockpiling such a large quantity of firearms?”

  “As an insurance policy.”

  I address the group. “I believe that quite a few people know who killed Lisbet Soderlund and that, most likely, some of the people in this room are among them. You’re all guilty of various crimes that carry heavy jail terms. If one of you tells me who murdered her, I ignore the crimes. If not, I see to it that every neo-Nazi in Turku goes to prison.”

  I walk around the room, hand out business cards, and make each and every one of them put them in their wallets. “I wouldn’t expect you to rat out your comrades here and now, but you can call me. If you took no part in the killings, you’ve nothing to fear and everything to gain.”

  Doubtless, some of them have been recording this conversation or managed to make a video clip. We take the memory cards from all their phones.

  “I don’t care about your politics,” I say to the group. “I just have a murder to solve.” I point at Big Man. “I’m sorry it had to come to this.”

  And we leave.

  34

  I call Kate and tell her our business is done for the day. She says they’re in a bar called The Cow, not too far from where we are right now. My first thought is if she’s drinking again. I’m not sure why her drinking over the past days concerns me. She’s never been a heavy drinker and she started on Vappu, when drinking is almost enforced by law. She’s been spending time with people who drink a lot, like Mirjami and Jenna, and so it’s natural that she would drink a little more, too.

  I suppose my concerns are twofold. One: it’s interfering with her responsibility as a mother. It prevents her from breast-feeding. Two: I’m concerned it’s the result of something deeper, caused by me or my job. I know this is going to be a drunken evening, so I brought baby formula in case she gets three sheets to the wind again.

  We meet up with them at The Cow. Mirjami and Jenna are drinking Lumumbas. Kate is having hot chocolate. One might say, a virgin Lumumba. I observe Mirjami’s reaction to me. There is none. She still turns me on, but I suppose her love for me has waned, thank God. The girls are half in the bag. The day didn’t go as planned.

  They went to Naantali, but it’s early in the season. Muumimaailma isn’t open for a couple weeks yet, so they couldn’t play with the trolls. Kate got her fill of handicrafts and the old town. It’s on the chilly side, so the girls thought the wise thing to do would be to start drinki
ng early. Kate is a little bored, sitting in the bar watching the girls drink, but she says they have good senses of humor and keep her entertained. Also, she can’t quite get accustomed to the idea that it’s acceptable to bring a baby into a bar. But it’s different here than in the States, she’s come to realize. People come to bars to meet, drink coffee, read newspapers. It isn’t all about boozing. Bars are also social centers.

  We’ve had quite a day and sit down for a beer-Sweetness lines three shots of kossu up at the bar and downs them one after the other-and after relaxing for a few minutes, we head out to my brother Timo’s place. Sweetness shows no sign of inebriation. It’s mostly because of his size, but I’ve never met anyone with a head for alcohol like his. It’s often considered a manly attribute, but also often leads to liver failure and early death. It concerns me.

  Timo is five years older than me and the black sheep of the family. Dad always told him what a worthless piece of shit he was. Timo took it to heart and set out to prove him right. As a teenager, he was always in trouble, committed petty crimes, skipped school more than he attended it and dropped out at sixteen. At age twenty-five, Timo did a seven-month stint in prison for bootlegging. Because of this, Mom has spent years singing his praises as an angel and proclaimed him her favorite child. It’s obvious she does this because his criminal past is an embarrassment and disappointment to her, and it humiliates him when she goes on about him.

  He was too much older than me for us to spend much time together or get to know each other well while we were growing up, but we’ve always gotten along. There are four of us brothers. He and I are big men. Jari and my other brother, Juha, are little guys. Juha, the oldest of us, settled in Norway years ago and I don’t even remember the last time we were in contact.

  Timo is bright and foresaw the future. He drifted for a while before eventually settling in Pietarsaari, in western Finland. He got a job in a paper factory and worked there for seventeen years. It was a union job, he made a lot of money and he saved. When the plant got outsourced to India or China or somewhere, he bought this farm outright. Timo’s got the full-fledged redneck thing going on. Overalls, beer belly, full beard and baseball cap.