Helsinki White

18

We met outside my apartment building at seven a.m. The media had honored Jyri’s wishes that they deal with him, as I dealt with the investigation and matters of national security. There were no reporters outside my home, no tagalongs as we drove around the city. The only calls and e-mails were from news agencies outside Finland, and I ignored them.

Body disposal fell into the category of subjects off-limits in front of Kate. My keen intuition told me she wouldn’t approve.

The thermometer was on the plus side now, and I noted that the series of grimy icebergs lining the street was shrinking. Not the result of global warming, but of spring. The first tiny buds were appearing on the trees.

We went to a kiosk around the corner and got coffee. A small high table meant for standing rather than sitting made for a good spot to converse, sotto voce.

“Ideas?” I asked.

“I ain’t cuttin’ up no fuckin’ bodies,” Sweetness said.

Milo and I agreed. None of us had the stomach for something that disgusting.

“The head and hands have to go,” Milo said. “I made a thermite bomb last night, and I have enough gunpowder from my reloading outfit to pack his mouth. We can put the bomb in his hands. It will burn at about three thousand degrees. His hands will disappear, along with most of the rest of him when the bomb goes off. When the gunpowder ignites, his teeth will be reduced to powder. The car will explode and there won’t be anything left but a smoking black frame.”

“How did you make the bomb?” Sweetness asked.

“It’s mostly just aluminum and iron oxides. Stuff you can get at hardware stores. I had some lying around.”

“Isn’t there a less dramatic way to get rid of him?” I asked. “We just need to make him disappear. No body, no murder.”

Sweetness takes some nuuska and jams it into his gum. “Dad worked as a welder at the shipyards. He got me a job there one summer. They got barrels of acid in shipping containers. They’re for industry, like paper and nuclear factories. We could just stick him in one and seal him up.”

Milo’s eyes sunk deeper into their black pits as he pondered. “Do you remember what kinds of acid?”

“Hydrochloric and hydrofluoric are two that I remember.”

Milo half grinned. The less-than-gentle giant knew such big words.

I tried to sip my coffee. It was still too scalding to drink. “There are workers around the shipyard. And we have to dump out part of the barrel so he fits in it. So we need an empty barrel. And those barrels are big and heavy. We need something to pick it up with so we can tip the full barrel and pour part of the acid into the empty one. And we need protective clothing, head to toe, in case we slosh it and get it on us. The concept is right, but we can’t do all that at the shipyards.”

Milo slapped the table, slopped everyone’s coffee and burned Sweetness’s fingers. “Goddamn it,” he said.

Milo laughed. “I got it. Filippov Construction. Everything we need is there, and we have the privacy.”

Filippov Construction had been closed since Arvid murdered its owner, Ivan Filippov, a few weeks ago, and his wife, Iisa Filippov, disappeared. The business specialized in industrial waste disposal. Work there had ceased, the site stood empty.

“How do you know they have acid, and the right kind?” I asked.

“I read their inventory.” He looked at Sweetness and, for the sake of one-upmanship, because Sweetness knew big words, said, “I remember almost everything I read. They have sulfuric acid. It’s not as effective as hydrochloric or hydrofluoric for our purposes. The body will take some weeks to dissolve. It will turn to goo, then viscous liquid, and eventually just be gone. Not even a trace of DNA will be left.”

“And the other problems I mentioned?” I asked.

“There are six two-hundred-twenty-gallon barrels of sulfuric acid, and four empty barrels designed for storage. Closed-loop portable tanks that meet safety requirements. Reusable three-eighths-inch-thick stainless steel construction with extra protection for valves and fittings. Minimum one-hundred-psi pressure design meant to be handled with a forklift, so Sweetness can use one and tip the forks to pour acid from one container to another. And of course, all the protective clothing is there, too.”

“Maybe after, we should take the car to the woods and burn it up with your bomb,” Sweetness said.

“I can’t picture the place re-opening within the next few weeks while the gangster decomposes to goop,” I said. “Sounds like a plan.”

I drove for the first time since my surgeries. It was no problem. My knee was more than strong enough to depress the pedals without bad pain. We took my Saab and located the Ford with the body in the trunk. Milo has master keys that fit almost any vehicle. He and Sweetness took it-I was trying to make them spend more time together-and I followed them to Filippov Construction, in an industrial park in Vantaa.

Milo picked the gate lock. Sweetness hit his flask. The area was surrounded with a heavy chain-link fence topped with two strands of barbed wire and lined on the inside with corrugated green fiberglass, so no one could see in.

We drove into a spacious asphalt lot filled with small-grade heavy equipment. A couple Bobcat dozers, a cherry picker, a forklift and other machines, along with industrial waste, yet to be disposed of, and containers to hold it. I stayed outside in the morning sunshine while Milo and Sweetness suited up.

They came out looking like mad scientists from a bad sci-fi movie, covered head to toe in everything from respirators and goggles to rubber aprons. They carried tools to open the barrels and set to work. They decided the best method was to dump the gangster in the empty barrel and then cover him over with acid.

They backed his Ford up to the tank and popped the trunk. Lifting him out was no easy task. He had been dead just long enough for rigor mortis to hit its peak. He was ironing-board stiff. Luck was with them, though, because he had lain in the trunk in a near fetal position. Otherwise, they would have had to break nearly every bone in his body to make him flexible enough to fit in the barrel. Luckily as well, Sweetness was with us. He lifted the gangster by himself from an awkward position, using only his arms, as there was no way to angle himself so he could get his back into it. Milo and I never could have accomplished it.

They opened the barrel of acid and the empty barrel, too. Sweetness fired up the forklift and, slow but sure, began drizzling sulfuric onto the gangster.

I wore no protection and leaned against my Saab, a good thirty-five yards away, to keep from breathing the fumes.

“I hope I haven’t interrupted you at an inopportune moment,” a quiet voice said to me.

It scared the shit out of me and I jumped.

Sweetness must have seen sudden movement in his peripheral vision. He kept cool and eased the forks back, stopped pouring. He gestured with a black-rubber-glove-covered hand to Milo and pointed in my direction. They came toward us, taking off their headgear and gloves as they moved. I saw Milo rip a hole in the back of his paper suit, and saw what was coming.

The man beside me waited without speaking. He wore a black cloth bomber jacket, jeans and boots. His head was shaved. He had large and ornate French paratrooper wings tattooed on the sides of his head. He looked like the devil incarnate.

Milo smiled as he neared, and reached into the hole in his paper suit. He drew down on Satan, but the man produced his pistol so fast that it seemed magical. “Deputy Dawg,” he said, “will never outdraw Yosemite Sam.”

Milo scowled and lowered his Glock, beaten. “Who are they?”

“American cartoon characters. I have a great affection for classic American cartoons. My favorites are Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner.” Satan paused. “I don’t think guns are necessary,” he said. “Shall we put them away?” He made the first gesture by replacing his Beretta in the holster at the small of his back.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“A man of wealth and taste.” It was as if he’d read my mind and thought about Satan and came up with the Stones riff.

He introduced himself as Adrien Moreau. He was a French policeman, Finnish by birth, but spent fifteen years in the French Foreign Legion, hence his name. He’d exercised his right as a Legionnaire and taken French citizenship and identity. He asked if we could have a private conversation while my colleagues finished disposing of the body in the barrel of acid, and I agreed.

The looks on their faces said they didn’t like missing out on the conversation with this interesting new character, but they respected my wishes and went back to sloshing acid without complaint.

“I believe you and I could have a mutually beneficial relationship,” Moreau said.

“And how might that be?”

He tried not to laugh, but the upturned corners of his mouth reflected amusement. “I’ve been following you for some days. I watched you commit a robbery last night. You looked like a bizarre version of the Three Stooges turned criminal. Your trigger-happy friend fumbled with lock picks. You stood nearby on crutches, and the big man reminded me of the monster Grendel from the Beowulf legend. I could help you improve your technique in this regard, but I have a more specific and practical matter in mind.”

“Under whose authority?”

“I am employed by Direction Generale de la Securite Exterieure. The DGSE is France’s external intelligence agency. It functions under the direction of the French ministry of defense and works in conjunction with the Central Directorate of Interior Intelligence, DCRI, in providing intelligence and national security, including paramilitary and counterintelligence operations abroad. I am a superintendent in the Action Division. We are responsible for planning and performing clandestine operations and other security-related operations.”

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.