“You mean amputate a leg instead of kill it?” Milo asks. “You said it was a special dog. You shouldn’t eat a special dog like that all at once, and believe me, you’re going to fucking eat it.”
I say, “The threat was to amputate Kaarina Saukko’s limbs when she was kidnapped. If it was good enough for her, it’s good enough for your pooch.” Then: “Somebody get this asshole on his knees.”
Sweetness whips out his steel sap, flicks his wrist and telescopes it to full length, and hits Malinen hard in the back of his thigh with it. He screams, falls down on all fours. “You may think you’re an important man,” I say, “but we’re all subservient to the laws of pain.”
He grovels something incomprehensible.
“Do I need to repeat my questions, or do you eat Sparky?” I ask.
Malinen breaks, starts rambling. He sits up, but is afraid to stand. He gives me five names of members of the Facebook group. Heinrich Himmler, who rambled about gas chambers for Somalis, was none other than Veikko Saukko. Malinen was himself a member. His user name was the same as commandant at Auschwitz. Rudolf H?ss.
Malinen rambles defenses. Neo-Nazis would like to firebomb mosques, but Real Finns keep them in check. With their numbers growing so rapidly, they’ll win a majority of seats in the 2011 parliamentary elections and maybe take the presidency in 2012. The right wing will take the country back through legitimate means and through the will of the people.
“Tell me everything,” I say, “so I don’t have to come back. Lisbet S?derlund. Who killed her?”
“I don’t know. A rumor started that whoever killed her would get enough support to guarantee winning a seat in Parliament and would take her place as minister of immigration. That wasn’t true. I’m going to be minister of immigration.”
“To take her place, the killer has to be known. Who is her murderer?”
“I swear I don’t know.”
“Who started the rumor?”
He doesn’t answer. I take this to mean he started it himself. That makes him accessory to murder.
“Kaarina and Antti Saukko. Who killed her? Where is he?”
His fear is passing. He grasped that answering my questions would truly stop the cruelty and beating. He looks up at me. “I don’t know those things. It’s true that Saukko lied to us but to my knowledge no one in our party had anything to do with it. I knew Antti. Topi Ruutio knows Saukko and introduced us. Saukko wanted to meet me because he likes my blog and I met Antti and I introduced him to other Real Finns and I know that through those other Real Finns he met neo-Nazis but that’s all I know except he hated his father.”
I hear a boat engine. His family is on their way home.
“More,” I say.
The sound of the engine instills panic. “The neo-Nazis sell drugs and they donate part of the profits to Real Finns. Please go now.”
We walk back out through the forest to the SUV. I take a last look back. He’s still on his knees, unable to move. He’s a piece of shit.
He finds his courage and calls after me. “I’ll get you for this!”
I answer. “If you do, I’ll burn down the cottage while your family is sleeping inside it.”
He has no recourse to “get me.” And I wouldn’t hurt his family. But it’s something for him to think about, to give him some nightmares, as he has done to so many immigrants with his hate tracts.
We get back in the SUV. “I’d like to conduct the business I told you I had to take care of now,” Moreau says. “You’re welcome to come along. In fact, that’s part of the point. I would appreciate it though, if you don’t arrest anyone you meet.”
“That’s fine. When we get back to Helsinki, I think I should meet Veikko Saukko. Could you arrange it? I get the impression he likes you.”
“I’d be happy to. I’ve killed many persons of color. I’m one of his favorite people.”
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