“A lesson! From you? Toope! I won the Scandinavian freestyle championship three years in a row. Tell me, what makes men so vain and stupid?”
Practice, I thought.
I stared into her arctic blue eyes trying to figure it out. A windsurfing lass from Finland frolics in the water off Miami Beach, pretending she needs a lesson. Now, she’s playing games with a Russian who most likely held a potato in front of the gun that shot Francisco Crespo. Small world, isn’t it?
“Jillian… Eva-Lisa, whoever you are, what are you doing here?” I asked, and not for the first time.
“I told you, I’m on assignment. I am working. What are you doing here?”
I didn’t answer her. I couldn’t. I didn’t have a clue.
17
You work for Yagamata,” I said, dusting myself off, my voice I an octave higher than an hour earlier.
We had untangled, said mutual apologies, and were walking toward Ocean Drive. She shook her head. “For the Finnish government under contract to Yagamata, who in turn works for your government.”
No wonder I couldn’t tell the players without a scorecard. “What are you, some kind of spy?”
That made her laugh. “I am little more than a clerk.”
“What were you doing with Kharchenko?”
“Making him a delivery boy for Yagamata.”
“I don’t get it.”
She looked at me from under the white hat and dark glasses. Though I couldn’t see her eyes, I thought they were appraising me. “I am not sure I can trust you.”
“Funny, I was thinking the same thing about you, or if I wasn’t, I should have been. The way I figure it, you’re part of a conspiracy to steal Russian art.”
“Nothing is as simple as it seems,” she said, and I wondered if Charlie could put that in Latin for me.
“Tell me about it. Tell me why an old friend of mine got killed and why I’m getting set up.”
“Give me some time,” she said. “Maybe we are on the same side.” We stopped in front of the News Cafe on Ocean Drive, and she motioned me toward a silver Saab parked at the curb. I let her unlock my door, and I settled into the seat, buckling the shoulder harness.
Eva-Lisa got behind the wheel, turned the key in the ignition, and asked, “Do you know what tonight is?”
“Sunday,” I said, “June twenty.”
“ Seuraasaari. Midsommareldarna. Midsummer’s Eve, a national holiday in my country. It is the way we welcome the longest day of the year. In Helsinki tonight it will be cool and clear, and it will not grow dark. The sun will seem to set, but it will hover at the horizon, casting a most beautiful glow. Then it will slowly rise again.”
Of course, Finland, land of the midnight sun.
She swung the car into traffic, heading south past all the trendy sidewalk cafes. “You probably know of the Finnish community in Lake Worth.” When I nodded, she continued. “My father has a house there. It is reminiscent of our home in Tapiola. Very Finnish, made of stone and wood, an authentic sauna on the edge of the lake. We Finns try to keep up our traditions. My family is in Spain on holiday, and I was going to spend the night alone. If you would like, you may be my guest at the festivities tonight. It is really rather simple. Just a bonfire, some folk songs, and dancing, but we can talk there about Yagamata and Kharchenko if you wish.”
It sounded better than being chased by Robert Foley, so I said fine, and we turned onto Fifth Street, which led us to the MacArthur Causeway. The ferry to Fisher Island was just pulling out, taking home all the rich folks who need a moat to protect them from the realities of life. We passed the real estate developers’ dreams of Star Island and Palm Island, dredged landfills transformed into million-dollar lots. On the Miami side of Biscayne Bay, we swung onto 1-95 and headed due north. Lake Worth is a few miles south of Palm Beach, a straight shot on the expressway. If I were looking for me, it would be the last place I would look. But then, I wasn’t looking for me. Somebody else was.
D espite its substantial Finnish population, Lake Worth is not Helsinki. At midnight, the sun was not hovering on the horizon. The air was not crisp and cool. There was no lemon glow across the water. Instead, mosquitoes hummed around the mercury vapor lamps on the patio behind the large flagstone house. Still, it was pleasant enough, a quiet, placid place unlike Miami. Beyond the patio, a lawn sloped toward a lake. A three-quarter moon hung in the eastern sky, casting a pearly glow on the dark water. A hint of a breeze kept the temperature tolerable, though the air was soggy with tropical humidity. From the rear of the house, a stone path led down the lawn to a small building made of pine. The building sat at the edge of the lake on a wooden dock, and a chimney poked out of the roof. The sauna, my hostess told me, pronouncing it sow-na.
She looked across the water toward a small island. A band played what I took to be Finnish folk songs. Children’s voices carried across the bay. On an outcropping of rock at the island’s shoreline, dozens of trees were lashed together in a pyramid. A dinghy was tied on top, fifty feet above the water.
“It is almost time for the bonfire,” Eva-Lisa said. She had changed into khaki shorts and a matching blouse, and was reclining in a chaise lounge made of light wood and covered with a blue cushion. I sat in a matching straight-back chair looking at her pale, muscular legs.
She told me her father, Reino Haavikko, was in Finnish intelligence, an expert on what used to be the Soviet Union. Then she gave me a quick history lesson. Since the end of World War II, living in the shadow of the Russian bear, Finland has walked a tightrope. It was a Western democracy toeing a line of neutrality while paying homage to its massive, dangerous neighbor. She said something in Finnish and then translated. “The only good thing from the east is the vodka.” The Finns scorn the Russians for their inefficiency and laziness but dread their armaments and temperament. “Finlandization” became a catchword for the way to get along with the Soviets when the U.S.S.R. was a fearful entity. When the Union broke apart, Finland and the other Scandinavian countries were the first to recognize the independent Baltic states. Now, after more than forty-five years of tiptoeing around the Russians, Finland was ready to profit from them. Along with the rest of the West, the Finns were queuing up to build factories and apartment buildings, to sell tractors and hamburgers and VCR’s to a nation starving for decent shoes, microwave ovens, and Nintendo games.
She poured a red drink from a pitcher. I took a sip. Syrup with a kick. “ Poron kyynel,” she said, hoisting her glass.
“Cheers,” I returned.
“No. What you are drinking is Finlandia with lingonberry juice. We call it poron kyynel, tears of reindeers.”
Earlier, she had fed me a platter of four different kinds of herring, a Finnish favorite, plus salmon soup with vegetables and a casserole of potatoes, ham, eggs, and anchovies. Sturdy country fare. While I ate, she apologized again for practicing her placekicking against my ribs. I had looked vaguely familiar, a Russian perhaps, someone dangerous who hadn’t been bought by Yagamata. When I asked what she meant, she clammed up. She seemed to be bursting with the desire to tell me what I wanted to know and more, but something was holding her back.
I had showered and changed into a pair of her father’s gray pants that were too big and a white short-sleeve shirt that was too small. The drink was too sweet but bearable. The company was attractive but evasive. I wasn’t getting anywhere except slightly potted. I like to think of myself as an astute questioner. I can be deft and subtle, can parry and thrust. But sometimes I just wade right in.
“Okay, Eva-Lisa, I’m getting different stories about what’s going on, so how about setting me straight. What were you doing in Miami, and what’s happening here? Who’s behind the theft of Russian art and what’s Yagamata really up to? What’s Kharchenko doing here, and what’s arriving on the freighter? Why did Kharchenko kill Crespo, and why am I being set up for his murder?”