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.
19
Milo and Sweetness were curious about what Moreau wanted. I told them he would stop by tomorrow and explain it himself. I dropped them off and went shopping. Milo and Sweetness had complained that I demanded that they be subdued in their appearance and actions, so as to not attract attention to themselves. They chided me because my own appearance, limp and facial scar, made me stand out in a big way. I would set an example. Tomorrow was my “Welcome back to the world” party, an ideal time to unveil the new and improved, surgically enhanced and nondescript Kari Vaara. I bought a cane. Plain and cheap. My knee surgery was so successful that I wouldn’t need it long.