Repo turned back toward the living room. On the left was a door bearing a small plaque-“Toilet.” Next to it was another door, which Repo guessed was a combined shower and sauna space.
One final door stood before him.
He carefully placed the shoulder bag on the floor and quietly opened the zipper. He found everything he needed except the Luger and Karppi’s cell phone. Goddamn Saarnikangas must have snagged them, which meant he now knew what else was in the bag. Repo pulled a red-handled, all-purpose Mora knife from the bag. He had found it in one of the Anttila sale bins, too, for four euros.
Repo slowly thrust the door inwards and hoped it wouldn’t creak. It didn’t. The house was well tended. The owner probably paid someone good money for that.
It was the bedroom, as Repo had guessed. First he saw the red numbers on the digital alarm clock-00:45 a.m.-and heard the breathing of two people. The man was wearing black pajamas and sleeping on the far side of the bed, near the window. The woman slept closer to the door.
The knife was in Repo’s hand, and he moved closer. His advance was cut short-the man turned over under the blue blanket and cleared his throat, but didn’t wake up.
Repo held the knife in his right hand. The woman’s mouth was slightly open. She was a blonde, about fifty years old. I could do it this way, too, Repo thought, twirling the hollow-handled blade in his hand: slit her throat just like that. The thought horrified him.
He bent down next to the woman’s head just as her eyes flashed open. Surprise and disbelief morphed into fear when she saw a man in a black suit standing over her. “What…?”
“Death comes to call,” Repo said in a low voice, clicking on the nightstand lamp. The woman shrieked, and the man sat up in bed.
“What the hell?”
“Judge Fredberg,” Repo said with feigned politeness, yanking the woman over in front of him so the knife was at her throat. “Nice to see you again.”
“What is this? Who are you?” Fredberg managed to spit out. “Put that knife away immediately.”
Repo simply smiled. “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.”
The insanity of the situation began to dawn on Aarno Fredberg, chief justice of the Supreme Court. “What do you want?”
“What do I want?” Repo said, pressing the blade more tightly against the woman’s throat. “What do you think? If I slit your wife’s throat…”
Fredberg tried to pacify him. “Don’t hurt my wife. Leena, stay calm. Everything’s going to be fine.”
“…who would you send to prison, Judge Fredberg?”
Fredberg didn’t answer. He tried to think of who this man was, but couldn’t come up with the answer.
“Answer me,” Repo shouted. “If I slit your wife’s throat, who would you send to prison?”
Fredberg hesitated. “You, because you’d be guilty, but I wouldn’t be able to judge the case, because it would be a conflict of interest. What is it you want? I have money.”
“If I wanted money, I would have robbed you,” Repo said. “Do you know who I am?”
Fredberg shook his head. “No. Should I?”
“Yes. You sentenced me to life in prison for the murder of my wife eight years ago in the Kouvola Court of Appeals. Timo Repo, nice to see you again.”
For a long moment, Fredberg wondered if he should lie and say he remembered the man. Maybe it would be best to keep up the conversation.
“I’ve seen thousands and thousands of cases over my career. Unfortunately I can’t remember all of them.”
“Have you ever made a mistake?”
“As a judge? I don’t think so. Everyone is innocent until proven otherwise.”
“But you did make a mistake!”
“Did I?” Fredberg said. He thought about how he could surprise the knifed man, but under the circumstances it would be impossible. Fredberg was in decent shape and believed he could beat the intruder in a struggle. But the knife at his wife’s throat dampened his enthusiasm.
“You sentenced me to life in prison for murder.”
Fredberg was still unable to connect the man to any of his cases. He was a little ashamed and afraid, because admitting this could lead to catastrophe.
“What mistake did I make?”
* * *
Suhonen left the silver-gray Peugeot on Mannerheim Street across from the Swedish Theater. It was parked illegally, but Suhonen didn’t care. He stepped out of the car, locked it with the remote, and headed into the Chaplin Bar.
Four black men were scrapping on the sidewalk in front of the bar. Suhonen didn’t get involved in the Somalis’ argument, but was pleased to note that the refugees had evidently successfully integrated into society, because the men were screaming at each other in Finnish.
Suhonen stepped into Chaplin. There was a bar at street level and a billiards room in the basement. Suhonen wove between tables toward the basement stairs. A blond guy with a long-haired woman tattooed on the back of his hand was sitting at one of them, alone. Suhonen tried to place the guy but couldn’t. He definitely looked shady, though.
The basement billiards room was divided into two areas: smoking and non-smoking. On the smoking side, there were about ten billiard tables; on the non-smoking, five. Saarnikangas had said he’d be in non-smoking. There was also a big screen TV and a bar on the smoking side.
The link between tobacco and the game invented in France five hundred years earlier was apparent. The tables on the smoking side were full, while on the non-smoking side there was no one but Saarnikangas. He had racked the balls and was just about to break when Suhonen stepped into the doorway. Behind the billiard table stood a lonely-looking pinball machine.
Saarnikangas noticed Suhonen and didn’t strike. Suhonen stepped up to the table. “You had something to tell me,” he said in a serious voice.
“Chill,” Juha said. “That last tip was a good one, wasn’t it? I’d guess Repo wasn’t there, but some other bad boys were.”
Suhonen wondered whether he had a disagreement with someone from the criminal crew, maybe Salmela.
“You had something to tell me,” Suhonen repeated.
“Should we play a round?” Saarnikangas suggested. “You can’t be in that big of a hurry.”
“Actually, I am,” Suhonen said. “I gotta go to bed.”
“Then I don’t think I’ll tell you anything.”
“I’ve got chalk in my pocket.”
Saarnikangas didn’t get it. “Huh?”
“I’m going to draw your outline on the floor in a second,” Suhonen said. He felt like smacking the druggie in the head with one of the billiard cues and putting an end to his games. Instead, he took off his leather jacket and hung it on the back of a chair. “What are the stakes?
“If you win, I talk. If I win, I get one more pack of Subu…”
Suhonen snorted. The guy was incorrigible. On the other hand, he seemed to know things, for instance about the apartment they just raided, so it was a relationship worth cultivating.
“You’re on.”
The tattooed guy from upstairs walked up to the pinball machine. “You guys probably don’t mind if I punch the machine a bit, do you?”
Suhonen shrugged and prepared to break.
Tattoo Guy dropped a two-euro coin in the South Park pinball machine, which, as was only befitting, came to life with a fart. He hit the flippers and the machine squawked, “They killed Kenny. You bastards!”
Suhonen’s break dropped a stripe into the corner pocket and he continued. His next hit sank a second ball.
“I am not gay,” announced the pinball machine. Mr. Hankey the turd howled softly in the background, and the machine farted at a steady pace. Evidently Tattoo Man knew how to play, since Mr. Hankey yelped in delight and announced “Multi-ball!” But the noise from the machine didn’t distract Suhonen.
He sank the balls one by one, without Saarnikangas ever getting a chance to hit. At the same instant as the winning shot, the eight ball, dropped into the left center hole, the pinball machine popped out a free ball and yelled, “Kick ass!”