After receiving his civilian clothes, Larsson was given a Certificate of Release verifying that he had served his time. The guard had cautioned him not to lose it-the police database wasn’t updated immediately, so in the interim, Larsson would be considered a fugitive without the certificate.
Next stop was the teller. Some inmates had earned thousands of euros by working, but Larsson hadn’t been interested in that. He signed for eight euros, all that was left in his prison account. Prisoners weren’t allowed to carry cash, so all transactions in the cafeteria were paid electronically.
Larsson reached the checkpoint in the perimeter wall. Beside it was a large metal gate for cars and trucks. The guard in the booth pressed a button and the lock on the interior door buzzed.
Larsson yanked the door open. Freedom was less than five yards away. On the left was a plexiglass booth and directly in front of him, a metal detector. The guard almost made a crack, but then bit his tongue. “Papers,” he said dryly.
Larsson said nothing, just dug the certificate out of his pocket and handed it to the guard. His escort had stepped aside to wait by the door.
The guard examined the document and pushed a second button. The exterior door was now open. Larsson took his certificate, folded it back into his pocket and left without a word.
Once he was outside the walls, the guard in the booth looked at Larsson’s escort. “So… You think he’s been reformed?”
* * *
Suhonen lay on the bed of his Kallio apartment. Two minutes ago, his clock radio had kicked off the day. For some reason, he had tuned it to Radio Suomipop, and at 8:30 sharp, the morning DJ had played a classic Finnish hit “Adult Woman.” Before that, he had joked about condoms that were tough enough to be passed from father to son.
Suhonen listened to the tired Finnish pop song, unable to summon the energy to get up and change the station.
“All that we share, together we bear,” the singer crooned over the airwaves.
His trip to Tallinn had been worthwhile. Toomas had revealed an important name, even if Suhonen didn’t know why Sergei Zubrov was in Finland yet. Today he would dig. Maybe the Narcotics guys would know something about the man.
Dinner with Marju had been enjoyable. Just for fun, they had decided to dine at one of the tourist restaurants in Old Town. After strolling hand in hand down the cobblestone streets, Suhonen and Marju had settled on the Olde Hansa Restaurant, where the wait staff was dressed in medieval garb and served beer in ceramic steins. Ordinarily, Suhonen wasn’t fond of the tourist traps, but then it had felt good. If he only could’ve stayed the night. Rocky seas had made the return trip less than pleasant, but Suhonen had napped in his chair the entire trip.
His thoughts were cut short by the ringer on his phone, which lay next to the radio. Suhonen flicked off the music as he picked it up. The caller was displayed as “private.”
“ Ye-eah,” Suhonen answered.
“Ainola here,” a man said. Suhonen recognized the voice of the Helsinki Prison warden. “Bad time?”
“Not too bad. I’m at home in bed.”
“At home? In bed? Aren’t real civil servants supposed to be out there fighting the evils of the world?”
“What evil is transpiring now?” Suhonen said, stretching his toes. He hoped he could make it to the station gym today.
Ainola’s voice became serious. “I don’t know if you’ve heard yet, but you should know.”
“What’s that?”
“Tapani Larsson is getting out today. Vantaa Prison is releasing him this morning. Actually, he’s probably already out, since it’s half past eight.”
“That I didn’t know.”
“You do now,” Ainola said. “I thought I’d call, just in case.”
Suhonen wasn’t really afraid of Larsson, but it was always good to know when gangsters were released. Especially since the Skull had put a bounty on Suhonen’s head a year ago.
The summer before last, Suhonen had been shadowing Larsson’s girlfriend and had wound up in the pair’s shared apartment. Larsson had managed to surprise Suhonen, and had mistaken him for a small-time criminal. He had demanded a ten-grand ransom, but got the S.W.A.T. team instead. The District Court had convicted him of extortion, but according to the Court of Appeals, Suhonen should’ve shown his badge in the apartment, thereby defusing the situation.
Larsson’s lawyer had stressed that the situation had escalated only because Larsson mistook Suhonen for a member of a rival gang, and felt threatened. Were Suhonen to have identified himself as a police officer, the matter could have been settled with words. As a result, the Court of Appeals had shortened Larsson’s sentence.
Suhonen had laughed aloud when he read the decision. Had he shown his badge to Larsson, the only thing discharging would’ve been Larsson’s CZ pistol.
“How’d his time go? You hear anything interesting?” Suhonen asked.
“He served most of it in Turku, so I haven’t heard much. He’s a pretty sullen bastard, or so I’m told, so be careful. Never worked, just loafed around in his cell, lifted weights and read books.”
“Read books? Well, I guess he’s not dumb,” Suhonen said.
Larsson’s background differed from most other criminals. He wasn’t raised in a reform school or by alcoholic parents-nor was he known to have been abused. A child of a “good” family, he had graduated high school with top honors, but had drifted into the Skulls during his college years. His ruthlessness lifted him quickly through the gang’s ranks.
“Smart, but dangerous,” Suhonen muttered. “That’s true of many women too, adult women,” he added.
“Yeah, yeah. You go back to bed-I’ve got a pile of parole requests to go through,” the warden said.
“Deny them all. With Larsson on the loose, we don’t need any more criminals on the streets.”
“Okay,” Ainola said. “Watch your back.”
“Thanks for the call,” replied Suhonen. He hung up the phone, slid out of bed, did twenty push-ups and stepped into the shower.
* * *
Larsson stopped briefly in front of the prison’s brick perimeter wall. He listened as the gate clanged shut behind him. The sound caressed the gangster’s ears. A fucking year and a half. Well, at least the time hadn’t been a total loss.
He looked up at the gray skies and a light drizzle wet his face. Couldn’t he at least get a proper rain? It’d wash the stink of the pen right off of him.
He was standing at the end of the road. On the right was a parking lot about the size of a football field. On the left and to his rear was a graveyard for German soldiers from the first and second World Wars. A good four hundred bodies had been moved there in the 1950s. He could clearly hear the hum of the nearby Lahti Highway.
Larsson spotted a light-blue BMW sports car standing about fifty yards up the road. It started to move toward him.
The Beamer accelerated quickly and Larsson stopped.
When it was about twenty yards off, Larsson recognized the driver. The coupe pulled up and Larsson opened the passenger door.
“Hey. Nice to see you,” said Sara Lehto. She was pretty: tall and thin, with a nice figure. Her bleached hair was gathered into a ponytail. She had appeared in various domestic adult videos and magazines.
Larsson circled to the rear of the Z3 and tossed his bag in the trunk.
No sooner had he slid into the car than they began to passionately kiss. Larsson’s hand pawed at Sara’s heaving breasts.
“Sure is,” Larsson said.
Sara Lehto had been convicted as an accessory to the same extortion charge as Larsson, but had received a suspended sentence as a first-time offender.
She swung the car around and punched the gas. Even on a short stump of road, the Z3 gained impressive speed.