If I wanted criminals locked up, either Finnish or foreign, I had various options. Drugs or guns discovered during B&Es could be left in place, or moved to the home of a criminal I had a particular disdain for and used for a frame-up. A simple phone call to the police would lead to an arrest. I had yet to exercise this option. Gangsters running free could be robbed again.
Unforeseen consequences. We did our job so well that we ran Helsinki dope dry. Junkie suicides and pharmacy break-ins reached astronomical proportions. A pharmacist was shot to death.
Milo and Sweetness stopped any pretense of comradeship. Milo called Sweetness “the court jester,” “doofus,” “clown,” “the other half of a halfwit.” Sweetness responded with a long list of insults suggesting Milo was effete: “Mary,” “sissy,” and my favorite, “Miss Froufrou.”
On March third, I went to Fazer, the best bakery in Helsinki, and bought the fanciest cake they had. Fazer makes some of the world’s best chocolate, and this was Karl Fazer’s first shop. He opened it in 1891. I had a coffee and a pastry while I was there, because the back room is built under a dome that echoes. You can eavesdrop on conversations around the room from reflecting voices.
Then on to Alko, the state-run liquor monopoly. I had specialordered a bottle of Rémy Martin Louis XIII cognac. Price: one thousand five hundred euros. The youngest cognac in the blend is fifty years old. The oldest, about a hundred years. I hid them until the evening, then set them on the table. Kate and I waited until Arvid ambled in. “Happy ninetieth birthday,” I said, and we sang to him.
It moved him so much that he almost shed a tear. He opened the cognac box and took out the crystal decanter. “It was the only gift I could find that’s older than you,” I said. It made him laugh and we passed a pleasant evening.
On March seventh, Anu was christened and officially named. Winter hung on as if it would never end. The temperature was minus ten that day. We asked my brother, Jari, and his wife, Taina, to be Anu’s godparents. They’re good people, have two fine boys of their own. I invited Jyri Ivalo to the ceremony, and to our house afterward for coffee and cake. He took it as a sign of respect, a gesture meaning that I wanted to solidify our relationship. He attended and gave Anu the traditional gift of a silver spoon set.
Milo didn’t attend. During the ceremony, he was busy black-bagging Jyri’s home. He made a mirror copy of Jyri’s hard drive and photographed relevant papers. We now had the user names and passwords for all information available to the national chief of police. Milo said Jyri was so fucking stupid he didn’t even password protect his home computer. He also planted a MAC-10 and eight balls of heroin and cocaine in various places around the house. More insurance, should Jyri choose to betray me.
On March fifteenth, my sick leave officially ended and I returned to duty, whatever that meant. I supposed I had an office at NBI headquarters with my name on the door. I had no intention of ever going there to find out. The date, the Ides of March, struck me as a harbinger.
13
Wednesday, March seventeenth. It was late morning. I lounged around in bed. Katt had crawled inside my shirt, shredded my chest with his claws and fallen asleep. Anu chewed on the little finger of my left hand. I was doing nothing, thinking nothing. Just existing. My cell phone rang. I reached over, careful not to wake Katt, and took my phone from the nightstand. Jyri Ivalo was calling. To answer or not to answer? I answered.
“Good morning,” I said.
“And good morning to you. I have a job for you.”
We’d heisted the town dry. I had nothing to do, wanted to do nothing. “I’m covered up in work,” I said.