Helsinki White

32

Moreau directs us to a shop, La Cuisine, in downtown Turku. It specializes in French food: Chaource and Epoisses de Bourgogne cheeses, pates, fine fruit preserves, game and ham, beef from Charolais cattle, Geline fowl. Moreau claimed he hadn’t been to Finland for many years, but his explicit directions indicate either that he has the proverbial memory of an elephant, or lied.

The store has no customers at the moment. Two men recognize him, and their pleasure at seeing him is evident. They greet him with smiles and kisses on both cheeks, and the three of them converse in French for a bit.

Moreau introduces them to us as Marcel Blanc and Thierry Girard. They greet us in Finnish with accents much like Moreau’s. The three of them entered the French Foreign Legion together. Blanc and Girard gave up military life after ten years, and after their careers as Legionnaires came here and opened this shop together.

The store’s interior is attractive, obviously designed by a talented interior decorator. Soft new-age music plays. Sounds of chimes and rippling water. The proprietors are middle-aged, dress preppy. Marcel wears Nantucket Reds and a Lacoste shirt. Thierry, a button-down oxford cloth shirt and an argyle sweater. I picture the business model. They pretend to be French and a touch effete. Customers think maybe they’re a couple. Gays and bored, rich housewives come in for the tony eats and to chat with the high-brow owners. They sell foie gras, reveal their heterosexuality, act surprised that the women thought otherwise, and bang the boredom out of the hausfraus. Not a bad racket.

“Ten years,” I say. “Why didn’t you re-up, stick it out and draw your pensions.”

Marcel has black muzzle scorch scars on the left side of his face. Got a little too close to the barrel of a blazing machine gun. I wonder how he explains them to said fraus. “The Legion,” he says, “is all about marching. I must have marched enough to circle the planet. I just didn’t want to do it anymore.”

Thierry takes a couple steps to show me. “The marching wore out the cartilage in my knees. I just couldn’t take it anymore. So we came back here and retired. It’s not a bad life.”

Moreau unzips his backpack, takes out two plastic bags of white powder identical to the one he gave to me at my party. “It’s already cut to fifty percent pure. Don’t step on it. That’s all you get for a while. I won’t be back to Mexico. I suspect the next will come from Afghanistan.”

Marcel and Thierry eye me with fear and suspicion.

“Don’t worry,” Moreau says, “he won’t arrest you. But I promised him that in return, you would answer some questions he has for you.”

Moreau turns to me. “As former Legionnaires, they live pleasant lives here, but the boredom hurts them, so sometimes they play at crime. I supply them with heroin, out of friendship.”

The two young black men, known drug dealers, on the day they were executed by carbon monoxide poisoning, came to Turku. Jussi Kosonen, kidnapper of Kaarina and Antti Saukko, was executed with a bullet in the back of his head, on the riverbank here in Turku. And now here I stand, in a shop with a kilo of heroin lying on the counter, in Turku. Hmm.

I snap open the lion’s mouth on my cane, let the razor teeth press into the flesh of my fingers. “And what questions am I supposed to ask them?”

“Ask them who they sell heroin to and who they know.”

I don’t bother to repeat it.

Marcel says, “By far our biggest clients are neo-Nazis. We wholesale to them. We also sell Ecstasy from a source in Amsterdam, but have a different customer base for it.”

“Are you racists, selling to neo-Nazis for political reasons, or is it simply an economic issue?”

“I admit we are racists,” Thierry says, “and we are active in the racist community, but we are not rabid racists who commit our lives to the cause of hate.” He chuckles. “We are excellent haters, but we are smart haters. Hate is like a drug. It will consume a person if excessive. I wasn’t a racist until I served in Africa and lived amongst niggers, by the way, and discovered what vile creatures they are.” He gives a disgusted shiver.

“Because we have killed many people of color, we are well liked by the racist community-hero figures, if you will. And so we have been shown off and introduced to many people.”

“I’m investigating the murder of Lisbet Soderlund. Who do you know that might have been involved?”

“Well, the Nazis, of course, and possibly Real Finns or members of Finnish Pride, or a person acting alone.”

“Do you know Antti Saukko?”

“Oh yes, and his father. It went like this. We already knew Antti. We were talking to Roope Malinen and he discussed the failure of the Finnish authorities to bring the persons who kidnapped and murdered his children to justice. We told him we knew one of the best policemen in the world, Adrien. Malinen told Real Finn party leader Topi Ruutio about Adrien, thinking that if Adrien found the criminals who violated the Saukko family, Veikko Saukko would show his appreciation in the form of a generous campaign contribution. Veikko asked to meet us, and our recommendation led to Adrien’s presence here today.”

He clasps Moreau’s shoulder. “It’s so good to see you, old friend.”

“I have a theory,” I say, “that the knowledge of who killed Lisbet Soderlund is an open secret. A sign of prestige. Tell the truth. Do you know who murdered her?”

“No, I do not. And neither does Marcel.”

“I have no interest in your drug dealing at present, and will give you a permanent free pass to sell limited quantities of dope if you tell me who killed her. If I find out that you lied to me and you know the identity of her murderer, I will heap suffering on you far beyond your legal punishment. Do we understand one another?”

“Yes, Inspector, we do. But we do not know and cannot help you.”

The prim racist dope dealers make delicacy samplers to take with us, give us the address of neo-Nazi HQ in Turku, and send us on our way.