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 drinking 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.