Aleksanterinkatu. I walk to the corner and wait for the crosswalk light to change. I have the Rolling Stones song “Gimme Shelter” stuck in my head. The Stones and techno syncopate, reverberate and annoy.
Sulo, or Sweetness, as my lovely American wife has dubbed my new young protege, would say, they bop, bebop, rebop some more. Sweetness admires and emulates me. One of the forms Sweetness’s veneration had taken for me is renunciation of his former obsession with death metal for a love of jazz.
Jyri’s smooth way of moving reflects confidence. His suit is impeccable and coif perfect. I don’t know him well, but believe him to be a complete narcissist. Egocentric, sybaritic, amoral, at one with himself, and untroubled by his all-inclusive lack of empathy for others. Whatever he is, it works for him. His career is marked by one achievement after another. We meet on the traffic island in the middle of the four-lane street, don’t waste time with greetings or handshakes.
He gives me a large manila envelope containing dossiers of criminals and their planned activities. I pass the national chief of police two envelopes filled with cash, a hundred and fifty thousand euros in hundred-euro bills, the skim for Jyri and other politicos from yesterday’s heist. It was a Vappu to be remembered. We trade the envelopes.
“Would you and that American wife of yours be interested in an evening out with me and some of my friends and colleagues?” he asks.
The concept fascinates me. I can’t imagine socializing with Jyri and his cronies.
“The evening is on me. An excellent jazz band is playing, and some people would like to meet you.”
So he’s run his mouth, and our black op is now an unknown shade of gray. “It’s not much time to arrange a babysitter, and I’ll have to ask Kate.”
“Call now and ask her. Promise her that I’ll arrange a dependable babysitter.”
I move a couple of steps and turn away from him for privacy. Kate has a terrible hangover and I expect a firm no. I extend the invitation and mention that she’ll meet people that might be valuable contacts in her work as general manager at Hotel Kamp.
She takes me aback, agrees without protest. “Sure,” she said, “sounds great. Thank him for me and tell him I’ll look forward to it.” She pauses. “Can I bring Aino along?” Her assistant restaurant manager, new best friend, and object of my desire.
Kate was puking this morning. Enthusiasm? We ring off.
I turn back to Jyri. “We’d love to. OK if she brings a friend? She’s good-looking,” I add, because I know pussy-crazed Jyri would crawl through hell soaked in gasoline for the chance to even glimpse a beautiful woman.
He smiles, as if truly pleased. “Of course. Great. Invite your team as well, and tell them they’re welcome to bring dates if they like. The babysitter will be at your place at eight thirty.” He turns on his heel and his brisk walk, probably due to the hundred and fifty K in his hands, says he’s on cloud nine.
The purpose of the dossiers is to provide info for me and my black-ops crew to target criminals, so we can rip off their money, drugs and guns.
I can remember, almost word for word, the conversation Jyri and I had during the Filippov investigation, when he talked me into heading up a black-ops unit while begging me to suppress evidence against him.
“I’ll give you anything you want,” he said, “just make this go away.”
“That’s a problem for you,” I said. “I don’t want anything.”
He leaned toward me. “I’ve been thinking of putting together a black-ops unit. Anti–organized crime. The mandate is to go after criminals by whatever means necessary, to use their own methods against them. No holds barred.”
“We already have such a group. Our secret police. They’re called SUPO.”
“There’s a problem with SUPO,” he said. “They don’t work for me.”
“So you want to be some kind of Finnish J. Edgar Hoover?”
“Yes.”
I laughed in his face. “No.”
“You think I don’t know you, but I do,” he said. “You suffer from a pathetic need to protect the innocent. You think you’re some kind of a Good Samaritan in a white hat, but you’re not. You’re a rubber-hose cop, a thug and a killer, as you’ve demonstrated. You’ll do anything to get what you view as justice. Let me give you an example of how badly we need this kind of unit. Only seven cops in Helsinki investigate human trafficking full-time. Here in Finland and the surrounding countries, thousands of gangsters orchestrate the buying and selling of young girls, and hundreds or thousands of those girls pass through this nation every year, most on their way to their destination countries. With our limited law enforcement resources, we can’t possibly make even a dent in the human slavery industry. Picture all those victims and how many of their bright shiny faces you could save from abject misery, abuse and terror, from being raped time and time again.”
He sensed my interest.
“Milo”—referring to my partner—“knows black-bag work,” he said. “He’s a genius with great computer skills, and he’s also a killer. He could be your first team-member acquisition. Then you can staff it with whoever you want.”
Milo learned black-bag work because he’s a voyeur. He B&Es homes just to go through people’s things. He’s a violent nutcase with an IQ of a hundred seventy-two.
“I’m not killing anybody,” I said.
“I’ll leave that to your discretion.”
“Milo is a loose cannon and a liability.”
“Milo is a nervous puppy. He needs a firm hand to guide him. Yours.”
“It would take a hell of a lot of money,” I said. “Computers. Vehicles. Surveillance gear.”
“In two weeks, Swedish and Finnish Gypsies are going to make a drug deal for Ecstasy. A hundred and sixty thousand euros will trade hands. You can intercept it and use the money for the beginning of a slush fund. I’ll get you more money for equipment later.”
“No.”
Frustration gripped him, resonated in his voice. “I told you I know you, and I do. You hate your job. You’re frustrated because you can’t make a difference. You’re a failure. To your dead sister.” He brings up the high death toll from a previous investigation: “To Sufia Elmi and her family. To your former sergeant Valtteri and his family. To your dead ex-wife—and in your personal life—to your dead miscarried twins and, as such, to your wife. To that pathetic school shooter Milo capped. You’re a failure to yourself. You’ve failed everyone you’ve touched. You’ll take this job to make up for it. I’m offering you everything you ever wanted.”
“Why me?” I asked.
“Because of your aforementioned annoying incorruptibility. You don’t want anything. You’re a maniac, but you’re a rock. I can trust you to run this unit without going rogue on me.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“No one ever finds out anything about my involvement in this case,” he said. “I’ll organize everything, get you the manpower. Fix this for me,” he said, “and run my black-ops unit.”
I bought into Jyri’s specious diatribe like the naive fool that I am. I’ve helped no one, but hurt several people, and there are more to come. I’ve succeeded only in alienating my wife, the person I remember being dearest to me.
There’s a great myth believed by nearly everyone that Finland is corruption-free. Police and politicians are scripture pure, dedicated to the good of the nation beyond all things. Foreigners even write about it in travel guides for tourists. The best thing going for our black-ops unit is that no one would believe such a thing could exist, or that corruption could be so widespread at such high levels of government.
I run a heist gang. I’m a police inspector, shakedown artist, strong-arm specialist and enforcer. Three months ago, I was an honest cop. I’m not sure I care how or why, but I reflect on how I could have undergone such a drastic change in such a short time. Jyri wanted me to recruit some other tough cops, but I refused. More than four people is too many in on a secret. The group is just me, Milo, and Sweetness. Milo is a sick puppy, but he’s grown on me over time because of his enthusiasm. Sweetness is a baby-faced behemoth, whom I hired out of sympathy, because of his size and capacity to commit violent acts without enjoying them, and to piss Jyri off. Which it does. Jyri refers to him as “the oaf.” Sweetness often seems a simpleton, but he’s far from it.
To quote Sweetness: “Life just is. Ain’t no reason for nothing.”
