Moreau was about my age, perhaps a little older. He spoke perfect Finnish, but as if it was long out of use. It lent credence to his story. Despite his jacket, I saw that his carriage and muscular frame suggested a lifetime spent in the military. His manner was easygoing and confident in a way that was somehow reassuring. He spoke in a blithe way that suggested he was a man at peace with himself. His appearance and manner were at such odds with each other that it disconcerted. In every way, he seemed an unusual man.
“And this specific and practical matter you spoke of?”
“My hope is that once you have concluded your business here, we could perhaps have coffee and discuss it in leisure and at length.”
I lit a cigarette, considered it. He made me a little too comfortable. That might lead to a lack of wariness. Always a mistake. “At the risk of seeming rude, I’d prefer if you began with a concise explanation.”
His smile said it bothered him not at all. “As I am sure you will recall, the Saukko family had two children abducted last year. The ransom was paid as per instructions. The daughter was released, but shot in the head by a sniper three days later. The son never resurfaced. I am in Finland at the request of the father of the family, who has connections with the French government via the armaments industry. He suspected the boy might have escaped and run to Switzerland, where the stepmother now resides, as it is possible they had a, shall we say, ongoing Oedipal relationship. The Finnish police were reticent to search Switzerland, and the task fell to me. The son is not in Switzerland. He has ties to racist groups in Finland, as does the father, but the father had a falling-out with them because they believed his monetary contributions not sufficient to prove his devotion to the cause of hate, and hence a possible reason for the kidnapping. I am at once to search for the son and assess the racist situation in the Nordic area. The racists may have performed the kidnapping. If so, I will return the son and money to the father, and mete out justice to the murderers of the daughter.”
“‘Mete out justice’?”
“In the biblical, eye-for-an-eye manner.”
“And how do our interests coincide?”
“I search for racists who shot a woman’s head off with a sniper rifle. You search for racists who cut a woman’s head off. Few people in Finland are capable of such violence, especially for relatively unemotional motives such as money and politics. It is entirely likely that we’re looking for the same man or men.”
It was possible, even plausible. “Not coffee today,” I said. “I need to burn a car at the moment. I’m having a party tomorrow. Come to my house around four, we’ll discuss it then.”
“Very well,” he said. He extended his hand and we shook.
He turned and began to walk away.
I called after him. “My wife will be there. Don’t mention this body dump in front of her. And bring me a present.”
He turned and grinned. “A present. Why a present?”
“Because it’s my party, and I like presents.”
“And you can cry if you want to?”
“You never know,” I said.
He slipped out through the fence gate, chuckling.
I had the sneaking feeling that I was about to make some kind of Faustian bargain.
Milo and Sweetness followed me in the now liquefying gangster’s Ford. I headed into the countryside, took a back road into the forest and drove without aim. The roads weren’t plowed, and I slipped and slid, but they were passable. At last, a road ended and opened up into a field with nothing in sight.
I told Milo to drive to the middle of the field or until the car got stuck, whichever came first, and blow it up. He had made a thick, crude fuse, much like for a big firecracker, and said it was a rough guess, but we had about five minutes after we lit it. He and Sweetness looped it around inside the car so snow wouldn’t snuff it out, then pulled off the license plate, lit the fuse and ran.
I couldn’t go into the field because of my crutches, so I turned the car around and waited for them. Another small post-surgery revelation. My conscience was gone, or nearly so. A gangster died because of my actions, we desecrated his body, and it meant less than nothing to me. And yet another revelation came to me. The famous Helsinki Homicide record. No unsolved homicides since 1993. A quick tally. They’ve investigated around twenty thousand deaths since then, but not one unsolved murder. Not even one?
I’d bet good money I’m not the first cop to make a body disappear. Further, I think maybe there may be a tradition of employing a small group to extort, strong-arm, or disappear people on occasion.
Or maybe not cops, but criminals allowed to act with limited impunity for the occasional favor. Rationale for said revelation: Jyri never mentioned the possibility that there would be no black-ops unit if I died on the operating table. He had no concern about the surgery. My conclusion: because he didn’t care if I lived or died. He had someone else already chosen in the event that I shuffled off this mortal coil. None of this bothered me, but it interested me. It was something to look into. Collecting skank on Jyri Ivalo had become a hobby with me.
They ran across the field. To fuck with them, I made them buckle their seat belts: for safety, I said, before I would move. Then I hit the gas and we bolted. After a couple minutes, at a safe distance, we stopped to watch. The thermite lit up the day sky with a crack, and then the gas tank went with a boom. Flame and dirty smoke shot into the air. This job was becoming more interesting with every passing day.
19
Milo and Sweetness were curious about what Moreau wanted. I told them he would stop by tomorrow and explain it himself. I dropped them off and went shopping. Milo and Sweetness had complained that I demanded that they be subdued in their appearance and actions, so as to not attract attention to themselves. They chided me because my own appearance, limp and facial scar, made me stand out in a big way. I would set an example. Tomorrow was my “Welcome back to the world” party, an ideal time to unveil the new and improved, surgically enhanced and nondescript Kari Vaara. I bought a cane. Plain and cheap. My knee surgery was so successful that I wouldn’t need it long.
Then I shopped for hair color. I had no idea the selection would be so large. Should I enhance my natural hair color, go subtle or dramatic? My natural color was now gray, and my hair has the feel and consistency of squirrel fur. I hadn’t had it cut in two months and had gone from a close-cropped military look to unkempt and messy. Kate pestered me to do something about it. Tomorrow, she would see why I hadn’t.
Afterward, I went home. Kate had come to accept that she must endure nine months of motherhood leave. The Finnish lesson was finally drilled into her: We do things a certain way because we’ve always done them a certain way, and we do them in that certain way because it’s the way we’ve always done them. Attempts to change our accepted norms breed disdain.
Without the sociopaths that work for me lurking about, home was tranquil. Kate seemed content. She seldom asked about my work, but when she did, sometimes she called me Michael Corleone. She didn’t smile when she said it. We got along well, though. My practiced smile carried me through the sham of emotion. We sat together for a while, talked the banalities of couples with a newborn, and then I told her I had to go back to researching my murder case.
I considered the Finnish French Foreign Legionnaire turned French policeman and figure of international intrigue and wondered if he was all that he said he was. I would grill him tomorrow. He spoke of a mutually beneficial relationship. I had all the resources of government at my disposal. What did he think he could bring to the table to entice me? I agreed with him, though. There weren’t many people capable of calculated assassinations, far fewer with the skill and wherewithal to successfully execute them without being apprehended. And in a country with a population of only five and a half million, the pool of qualified suspects was small. We might very well have been looking for the same man.