Helsinki White

33

An excellent basic rule of thumb for a policeman, or anyone for that matter, is never to anticipate. The reality of what we imagine seldom meets our expectations. I expect the neo-Nazi headquarters of Turku to be a run-down house with an unkempt yard with a couple of junk vehicles resting on concrete blocks rusting away in it. I anticipate a dwelling littered with empty beer cans and the air thick with marijuana smoke. Thugs passed out. Love pulp magazines with the pages stuck together.

The address Marcel gave us is an upscale and expensive apartment building. I was given no name, but don’t need one because on the resident list alongside the door buzzers, instead of a name, is a swastika on a red field. I ring it, and when asked my name, say “Hans Frank.” The front door opens. In the elevator, we all attach silencers to our Colts and pocket them.

I ring and the door opens. A young, well-dressed man with round wire-rim glasses answers. “May I help you?” he asks.

I show my police card. “I hope so.”

“Do you have a warrant, Officer?”

“No.”

“Please return when you have one.”

He tries to shut the door. I jam it open with my foot. “Warrant or not, you and I are going to have a conversation. What’s your name?”

“I don’t intend to give you my name,” he says, but relents, having little choice, and opens the door. We all step in and look around. Seven young men are in a well-furnished and spotless home. A bay window looks out on the river and beyond. There is no television. Only well-stocked bookcases.

He sits down. The other young men are equally well-groomed. Only one stands out, because of his size. He’s bigger than Sweetness. The only clues that these men are neo-Nazis are their skinhead haircuts. They’re all seated around a coffee table covered with cups and saucers and a plate of cookies. A large Waffen SS flag dominates one wall. I walk over and look at it.

“That’s a family heirloom,” the young man says. “My great-grandfather served in SS Viking and brought it home from the war. In case you don’t know, SS ‘Viking’ was the 5th Heavy Panzer Division, recruited from foreign troops. A number of Finns served in it with distinction.”

“We’re off to a bad start,” I say. “I only want to ask you a few questions and we’ll be on our way.”

“First, it’s extremely discourteous for you to walk around my home with your shoes on. I would request that you remove them, except you won’t be staying. Come back when you have a warrant.”

I sigh. “There are a number of things we could discuss, such as trafficking in heroin, but I’m investigating a murder and I’m not interested in your criminal activities at the moment. But I could become interested.”

“Warrant,” he says.

I cross the room and examine his bookshelves. No pop fiction to be seen. He reads philosophers with related beliefs: Heidegger, Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant, Hegel, John Stuart Mill, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Ayn Rand, Plato, Aristotle. He’s educated in philosophy, but the education isn’t wellrounded.

I say, “It’s up to the judgment of an investigating officer to proceed without a warrant if a crime is imminent or in progress or causes peril of some sort. The officer must have reasonable cause. I’m told you have narcotics and suspect you have illegal firearms on these premises, and I view this as reasonable cause. We’re going to search this apartment.”

“I have no narcotics and my firearms are registered. I’m in full compliance with the law.”

“What’s your name?” I ask again.

He remains defiant. “Fuck you.”

“What is your name?”

“None of your fucking business.”

I didn’t want it to come to this, but Lisbet Söderlund was murdered, and it pleased people like him. Come mud, shit or blood, he will cooperate. I light a cigarette.

“I don’t allow people to smoke in my home,” he says. “Extinguish your cigarette.”

“OK.” I take a deep drag to heat it up, then grind it out in the dead center of great-grandpa’s flag. It leaves a nasty hole with scorched edges.

He shoots out of his seat, but then freezes, uncertain what to do.

The big man stands. “Jesper,” he says, “I will deal with this.”

He’s about six foot six, upwards of three hundred pounds. His build says he’s a power lifter. “You’ve gone too far,” he says to me. “Your position doesn’t give you the right to disrespect the homes of others and destroy their most precious belongings. I’ll sit my time for assaulting an officer before I’ll stand by and watch this.”

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 Söderlund?”

“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 & 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 Söderlund 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.