Helsinki Blood

15

We go out to the Wrangler. The Ripper sits in front beside Sweetness. I sit in the back beside the Raper, my silenced Colt pressed against his side. They might try to bolt and run while we’re at a traffic light. This gives them incentive to stay in the vehicle and behave. We park down the street from King’s Royale. To reach the back of the club and the delivery entrance, a vehicle has to pass through an alley. The buildings on both sides of it make the alley a perfect shooting gallery, while hiding and protecting the guards at the club door around the corner at the back of it. I have no visibility for the first leg of this operation.

How to do this? The Harper brothers could just forewarn the guards that police are coming, walk in, the door locked behind them, and earn some points from Pasi Palo for the tip-off. No doubt they’ve both already considered this.

“You two remember who you’re dealing with,” I say. “Two cops from the National Bureau of Investigation.” They don’t know Sweetness is officially employed as a linguistic specialist. “If you screw us, we’ll kill you tonight if we can. If not, we’ll ruin your business, charge you with all sorts of shit, have your books examined and nail you for tax fraud. I’ll make it my personal business to see you get max prison sentences. The list of our ways to fuck up your lives is long, and if you fuck us over, it’ll be your own asses you’re peddling, as if anyone would want them, instead of spending your evenings drinking cognac with spies and getting your dicks sucked.”

I take the Raper’s cell phone, put my number in it, and give it a speed dial with the number one. I call my own phone number, give it back to him and tell him to keep the line open so I can hear everything that’s said.

I ask Sweetness for his Taser, take out my own, and show the brothers how they work. “You two are going to talk your way into getting the door unlocked, then zap the men guarding it with these. Keep shocking them until they’re unconscious. Look for security cameras and get out of sight of them. Then you tell me and we’ll be there in a heartbeat.” I pull the sawed-off in its black garbage bag out from under the seat and show it to them. “We’ll be right behind you with this, and when we get there, I’ll tell you what to do next.”

I smell fear sweat and they both tremble. “Pull yourselves together, goddamn it, or you’ll end up dead.” I hand Sweetness the bag with the lockbuster shotgun and he takes a roll of duct tape from the glove box.

They nod, and we pile out of the Wrangler. They have trouble making themselves walk down the street. Sweetness kicks the Raper in the ass. “Move.”

Off they go, and we trail a little less than a minute behind them, shotguns hidden in the bags, but cocked with our fingers on the triggers. It gets dark a little earlier every night as summer progresses. The light is dim. For a moment, I think it makes us unobtrusive, but realize my limp and Sweetness’s size make that impossible.

We reach the corner and peer into the alley. The brothers walk into it. We give them a head start and follow. They reach an inner courtyard and turn right. I listen to them blabber inane bullshit to security about why they want to attend the game. But they flash the cash and it gives them an appearance of veracity. I hear electric zaps.

The Raper unpockets his phone and speaks to me. “The blokes are out cold. Me satchel full of cash made ’em believe we’re here to play. I got me foot keepin’ the door open, an’ there’s a security camera on top a the door.”

Sweetness peers around the corner and blows out the camera lens with his pistol. He motions for me to follow.

I recognize one of the bodyguards. He answered the door once when I visited Veikko Saukko’s home. I take it he’s on loan this evening. He had an iPad and used it to check Saukko’s appointments, appeared to serve as Saukko’s secretary as well as security. We use zip-lock plastic ties to cuff their hands and feet. Saukko’s man is an obvious powerhouse. I double-shackle him to make sure he can’t use his strength to snap the zip-locks. I take his iPad, it might have some useful information in it. We tape their mouths shut. They start coming around.

“Can we scarper now?” the Raper asks.

“Soon,” I say. “Take us to the game, put on happy faces, and tase the guards outside the door. Same deal. I’ll listen. Tell me when they’re down.”

“Yer a God-rotted bastard,” he says, and does as he’s told.

We follow the brothers through the kitchen storeroom, they motion for us to stop, and they start down a hallway. Upstairs in the nightclub, the music must be blaring. Here in the staff area, I can’t hear a goddamned thing. The soundproofing is excellent. The Raper gives me the go-ahead. We start down the hall. I go as fast as I can, which isn’t very. Two more guards are down. We secure them, disarm them, pull the batteries out of their phones and fling them back toward the storeroom. I tell the brothers to get the fuck out of here.

We take the shotguns out of the bags. I cradle the sawed-off under my arm and take two flash-bangs out of my pocket. I press myself against the wall to avoid shrapnel. Sweetness angles himself away from the door to do the same. We do it fast. He fires and kicks the door open. The roar is deafening in this confined space. I pull the pins on the grenades and toss them into the room, turn, plug my ears and close my eyes. Three seconds. Thunders like the cracks of doom and flashes like supernovas.

We charge in. Some made it under the table when the door flew open. Those standing went down. Six players at the table. Two gunmen bodyguards. They’re all deaf, blind and disoriented. A couple puke from inner-ear-liquid imbalance. We start screaming. “Everybody facedown on the floor. Lock your fingers behind your heads.”

I realize I’m shouting in Finnish. I scream it again in English. Sweetness takes my cue, shouts orders in Russian.

All but two players suck floor. A bodyguard behind the bar must have understood what was happening, closed his eyes and ears. He comes up shooting. He turns his head as I let the right barrel go. Smoke and flame blast out of it. I cut loose with only one hand gripping the gun. It almost flies out of my grasp from the recoil jolt. The guard gets his side and the back of his head scorched with rock salt. He drops his pistol. Not out of fear or pain, but because he sees what he’s done. He put a bullet square between Pasi Palo’s eyes. That won’t be forgiven. As Milo would say, before long he’ll be dead as a bag of hammers.

The only man left upright is Veikko Saukko. He’s in a chair on the right side of the poker table, resting his right elbow on it and resting his head on his hand. He’s drumming on the table with the fingers of his left hand, as if all this bores him. I guess he recognized the flash-bangs, plugged his ears and covered his eyes as well.

I chuck the spent shell and replace it with a fresh one. We keep shouting, keep the fear and confusion maximized. They think this is a heist, that we’re taking down their game. I cover the room, Sweetness goes through all their pockets, looks for weapons and electronic devices. Veikko Saukko is an arms dealer. One of the players is Arab. Another is black, so perhaps African. Each has a man of his own race beside him, I assume translators. This really is criminal planning on a global scale. None of them are packing, except for security. Their communications devices-BlackBerrys, Androids, iPads and iPhones and others-go in a pile on the table, so that they neither call for help nor record this event.

It’s a nice place for a game. The card table on the left of the room is covered in green felt. Its walnut trim has drink holders built into it. On the right side of the room, leather armchairs are arranged in a semicircle around an entertainment center. A full bar lines the back wall. Another door leads out of the room. I check it out and find a sauna.

I pat down Veikko Saukko myself and pocket his iPhone. Further, I get a pen and paper from beside the game bank, which has hundreds of thousands of dollars in it, and instruct him to write down his e-mail user name and password. I test it to make sure it’s correct. There might be messages in it concerning the attacks against us. If he’s behind the assaults and threats leveled against my family and me, I intend to find out and put a stop to it. How, I don’t know. The uber-rich aren’t subject to the rule of law as the rest of us are. But I’ve learned a valuable lesson over these past months: All men are subservient to the laws of pain.

By the time we’ve secured the room, tended to our own safety, and made certain our activities aren’t on video, its occupants have pulled themselves together for the most part. I tell them all to be seated with their hands placed in front of them on the table, and assure them that we’re not here to steal from them and mean them no harm. Sweetness simultaneously translates from my English into Russian.

“Which of you is Russian Ambassador to Finland Sergey Merkulov?” I ask.

“I am.” The man is in his late fifties or early sixties, tanned and running to fat, has thinning hair and an Armani suit. He lights a cigar and motions for the flunky who killed Pasi Palo to bring him a drink.

I shove Palo’s corpse out of its chair onto the floor, take his seat, lay the sawed-off on the table in front of me, and address the ambassador. “Sir, my business here is primarily with you.”

Palo was a billionaire and a man of great power. His death seems not to disturb the other men in the room, his colleagues, one iota. I file this away in the tome in my head titled What I Know About Human Nature.

He smiles, reptilian, and answers in English. “I doubt that, unless you’re referring to the horrendous diplomatic incident now taking place as ‘business.’”

“This is business that, if I went through official channels to discuss with you, would be dismissed as insulting fiction and result in me being tossed out of your embassy on my ear. Our dramatic entrance was required to get your attention and cooperation.”

I take Loviise’s photo from my pocket and slide it across the table to him. “I’m looking for this girl. I want you to find her for me. She was lured here from Estonia, was promised work. She’s easily identifiable. She has Down syndrome and it makes her stand out.”

His smile broadens, then turns to laughter. “Why in the hell would you think I have any idea where this foul little creature is?”

“I don’t think you do, but that you know who does.”

He exhales a voluminous plume of smoke and knocks his double vodka back in one gulp. “And to what do you attribute this certainty?”

I say nothing.

“And if I refuse?”

I return his smile and still say nothing. The way we made our way in here speaks volumes.

“And if I do locate this child for you, are you going to piss off and let us play cards in peace?”

“Most certainly.”

“Then give me my phone.”

“In a moment.”

I turn to face Saukko. He still wears his facade of boredom. “I’ve had some problems with harassment. My windows broken out. My family threatened and home teargassed. Insinuations concerning your ten million euros in ransom money that someone believes I stole and wants returned. Which is impossible for me to do,” I lie, “because I don’t have the money. And as whoever is threatening me hasn’t identified himself, I wouldn’t know who to give it to even if I did have it.”

He sits upright, drains his glass and folds his arms. “You stupid piece of shit. I know goddamned good and well you and your buddies stole that fucking money. I couldn’t give a fuck less. That’s candy money to me. I sent you to find my son and bring him home to me, and you killed him. And you killed his pregnant girlfriend and deprived me of a grandchild. You think I would play kids’ games like knocking out your windows? If you believe that, you really are one dumb son of a bitch.”

I glance over at the security flunky. “Get my friend and me beers and vodkas.” He looks at Saukko. Saukko nods assent.

“Your son called you ‘a human monster,’” I say, “‘the worst sort of pig.’ He hated you. He shot at me and tried to kill me. He would have killed my partner if a bullet hadn’t stopped him. Adrien Moreau, who you hired, killed his mistress. He shot her through the belly to kill the fetus and watched her bleed out. It may be that I bear guilt for those deaths, but you share it.”

The security flunky parks drinks on the table for me and Sweetness, took the liberty of making a fresh gin and tonic for Saukko. Flunky’s white shirt is streaked and speckled with blood from the salt that blew through it. His head is seeping blood. I’m guessing that, as the salt dissolves into his system, he’s going to be really thirsty for a couple days.

My pain is bad from so much activity. I chase painkillers with beer.

“None of this makes any difference,” Saukko says. “You were sent to do a job, you failed, and my boy died. You’ll pay dearly, far more than ten million is worth to you. An eye for an eye. Your child belongs to me now. Her name is Anu, isn’t it? We’ll forget tonight ever happened, because I have dibs on you and want to see you suffer before you die. No one here will have you killed. Finish your business with Sergey and get out.”

Sweetness says, “This is a card game. I want to play cards.” He points at Palo’s dead body. “You’ve got an empty chair.”

The gangsters around the table laugh. The ambassador says, “It takes a hundred thousand to get in the game.”

“I’m good for it. An IOU OK for now?” A frank admission that we’re crooked cops.

The ambassador waxes indulgent. “Sure.”

This is bizarre. I give up my seat for Sweetness. The other bodyguard, not the drink flunky, brings him a hundred thousand in chips. “Whites are a thousand. Blue five thousand, red ten thousand. Max bet is twenty-five thousand, unless upped by mutual agreement.”

“Gosh,” Sweetness says, “and we’re playing for keeps?”

Saukko says, “The money is only a metaphor, now rendered meaningless. We played for blood. Who won and lost the real game is already decided, only the debts remain unpaid.”

“It might interest you to know that Inspector Vaara didn’t kill your son. I did. I dumped two clips of.45 caliber hollow points in his face and chest. Shit, what a mess. But I guess you saw it at the morgue.”

“Good to know,” Saukko says, “you son of a bitch. You can join Vaara on The List.”

“The List?” I say.

“The Shit List. That’s where my worst enemies go. Bad things, horrific things, happen to people on The List. I plan them with care. You, for instance, have some kind of preoccupation with saving women. I’m going to take your child, maybe tomorrow, maybe in ten years, and have her tortured to death. Waiting appeals to me. The older your daughter gets, the more you’ll love her. Maybe after I bust her prepubescent cherry, I’ll sell her for an Asian snuff film. What do you think, Vaara?”

He wanted to scare the mortal hell out of me, and he succeeded so well that I don’t even feel anger, just terror. I unscrew the handle from the shaft of my cane and pull out the thin twenty-inch sword contained within it. I reach across the table and press it against his chest, over his heart. “I think I should just end your miserable, bitter life right now.”

On his shirt, a bloodstain flowers around the blade. He pays no attention to it. Instead, he proffers a grin worthy of Satan. “I wouldn’t, if I were you. You don’t know how The Shit List works. The hits are prepaid, like a debit card for death. It’s called the ‘button down’ method. My death takes the finger off the button, the punishments are carried out, and my enemies join me in hell.”

I return the sword to the cane. I’m speechless.

Sweetness, however, isn’t. “Are we gonna play or not?”

Saukko laughs out loud. “Boy, you have style. If I wasn’t going to kill you, I’d offer you a job. It was Palo’s deal. Since you have his seat, I guess it falls to you.”

“Give me a new deck,” Sweetness says. “I don’t trust you criminal fuckers.”

The bodyguard who gave him his chips hands him a pack of Bicycle cards. Sweetness breaks the seal, tosses out the jokers and shuffles with speed and thoroughness. Everyone antes. He passes the deck to the right and the Arab cuts the cards.

“Seven-card stud,” Sweetness says, and deals with confidence. As dealer, he runs the hand fast, calls out the cards as he flips them faceup. He bets high, but not high enough to drive anyone out of the hand. When he deals the last card facedown, they’ve already bet seventy thousand per player. No one folded. He tosses in a red chip. Ten thousand more. Everyone sees and calls. Around the table, the players throw their cards down by turn. All have good hands. Saukko has aces and eights, the hand the Wild Bill Hickok legend says he held when he was shot dead. Sweetness flops down three kings, says, “Thanks, guys. I’ll cash out now. You know how it is, places to go and people to see.”

I give the ambassador his phone. Sweetness takes all the electronica from the table, to make sure we have time to get away. Whether we live through the night is still up in the air. He dumps all the junk into a gym bag one of the players must have brought to carry cash. He takes his half million euros and tosses it in the bag, too.

The ambassador makes a quick call and rings off. He gives me an address and tells me to be there in half an hour. I take his phone from him. Whoever he called knows where the abducted girls are kept. I can track that person through his dialed numbers.

Sweetness says, “Thanks, guys. We’ll have to do this again sometime.”

The painkillers are kicking in, I push myself to my feet and gimp out the door. Sweetness covers me until I’m out of the room and then follows. “Plug your ears,” he says, and tosses in two more flash-bangs behind him as a parting gesture. Even with my ears protected and eyes shut, it’s like a nuke went off in the room. We step over the two cuffed guards in the hall and walk away.

We get to the delivery entrance. The guards there remain as we left them. I point at Saukko’s personal bodyguard and ask Sweetness, “Would you cut the zip-lock cuffs off his legs and pull the tape off his mouth? I want to take him with us. Men with their mouths taped shut tend to draw attention on the street.”

“Why take him with us?”

I want to puke from anxiety. “This Shit List thing. He knows Saukko’s business. We have to interrogate him and find out if it’s true, and if so, how to nullify it.”

Sweetness cuts him loose. This guy is a trained killer. I’m a crip with guns I barely know how to use. I cock the hammers of the shotgun and keep him at arm’s length. “Don’t say a word. Don’t make sudden movements. Or you get both barrels. Walk in front of us out to the street.”

He nods.

When we get to the Wrangler, I order him to get in the rear of the vehicle, rebind his ankles, retape his mouth, and throw a tarp over him.