James Thompson: Helsinki White

When he turned out the lights, we gave him a half hour to pass out and, using flashlights dimmed with red lenses, went through the house like we owned it. We found several grocery bags behind a shoe rack in a hall closet. They were filled with loose, used bills, mostly in small denominations. Milo booted up the dentist’s computer and installed viral software so that he could monitor every keystroke, track his e-mails. Milo could use the computer as if he owned it from the comfort of his own home. He also installed software into the dentist’s cell phone so he could eavesdrop on his calls and read his text messages. We now owned the dentist. These technological intrusions became our modus operandi.

When I got home, I changed Anu and fed her with breast milk we kept in the fridge. This became my nightly post-heist habit. I also usually manned the breast pump. It made me feel more like part of the process.

The next day, I asked Milo and Sweetness to help me sort, band and count the dentist’s money. In early afternoon, they came over. Kate and Anu were napping in the bedroom. Sweetness wanted to play DJ, put on a Thelonius Monk album. We dumped out bills from seven grocery bags, sat on the floor and start sorting them. Milo and I went out to the balcony once in a while for smoke breaks. Sweetness uses nuuska .

The first time Kate saw Sweetness stick nuuska in his lip, she was both curious and disgusted. He took out a can of snuff, packed a syringe tube with it, and pressed it into his upper lip. I explained to her that it’s like American snuff, but drier, and users don’t have to spit juice. She asked why she couldn’t see a lump under his lip where he put it in. I told her it had salt or some irritant in it, which abraded the tissue, so that nicotine would hit the user’s system faster.

Over time, it cuts a hole deep through the gum. Nuuska users like it better after the hole cuts and rots through, because the nesting place made it unnoticeable and less messy. She was appalled. Sale of nuuska is illegal in Finland, so people buy quantities of it from the shop on the ferry to and from Sweden for themselves and their friends, and tobacconists keep it under the counter for preferred customers. Police ignore the infraction. Some of them enjoy their nuuska as well. I got hooked on nicotine with it when I was a young athlete. It’s popular among hockey players.

Sweetness took breaks and went outside, he claimed, for fresh air. He was lying, and I wondered what he was hiding.

After a couple hours, I noticed that a car, an Acura, had been parked across the street for a couple hours, wedged in a slot cut by a plow in the snowbank. I thought I caught a glimpse of binoculars. I asked Milo and Sweetness to go out and investigate.

“Yes, pomo- boss,” Sweetness said, put on his coat and made for the door. Milo trailed behind. I went out on the balcony to watch. I must have asked Sweetness not to call me pomo at least a dozen times, told him that if he has to call me anything, to call me Kari. Milo approached the driver’s-side door, Sweetness the passenger’s side. Milo held his police card up to the glass. The driver’s-side window rolled down. The man reached toward an inner coat pocket. Milo drew his pistol so fast that I barely saw it. Milo hammered the man in the face and head with the butt of his Glock multiple times. I heard him scream.

The other watcher went for his pistol. Sweetness smashed the passenger’s-side window with his elbow-protected by his overcoat-and reached through the window. He grabbed the man’s shoulder with a massive hand and the man howled in pain. Sweetness held the man in check. Milo took their wallets, checked their identities. He tossed the wallets back into the car. The men drove away.

Milo and Sweetness came back inside. Milo laughed. “I just beat the fuck out of a SUPO agent,” he said.

“I asked you to investigate, not rearrange his face,” I said.

“He reached inside his coat. He could have been reaching for a weapon.”

I didn’t criticize further. Milo was right to stop him, even if he was overzealous.

So the secret police were watching us. I didn’t know if it was a big deal or not. I had a meeting with Jyri the next day. I would ask him about it then. We finished counting the money. Two hundred and fifty-two thousand euros. We’d stolen almost half a million that weekend. A good start. I figured what the fuck, and tossed the boys packets of ten thousand each. “This is a onetime event, I’m not even taking one for myself, but these are bonuses for a job well done,” I said.

It was a pleasant Sunday afternoon. I met Jyri for coffee at Cafe Strindberg, which overlooks Esplanade Park. Most of the customers at Strindberg are rich forty-something face-lift fraus with little manicured rat dogs. Jyri asked about the weekend.

I told him the total, minus a ten percent skim, not because I intended to steal it, but because he might take every cent, and we couldn’t do without funding. In this scenario, he might just keep it all and tell us to fuck ourselves. He’s not above that.

“All told,” I said, “we took in about three hundred and fifty thousand. It’s in the trunk of my car. I’ll give it to you when we leave.”

He smiled so wide I thought his face might rip. “Hang on to it for now. But three hundred and fifty thousand. Jesus fucking Christ. That’s incredible!”

He’s a snatch hound with a Casanova complex. His eyes darted out the window at every woman that walked by. “Now that we know it works,” he said, “let’s discuss the details.”

I had no doubt that the “details” had nothing to do with crime fighting.

He took a thin tri-folded sheaf of papers from the inner pocket of his immaculate suit jacket and pushed them across the table to me. “These will explain,” he said. “The minister of the interior gave them to me himself. He just wanted to make sure I’m doing what I told him I would do.”

EYES ONLY: INTERIOR MINISTER OSMO AHTIAINEN.

Document summarizing Operation Poronnussija-Reindeer Fucker (referring to me and my Arctic roots)-by agent Captain Jan Pitkanen, at the behest of the Interior Minister.

As the minister expected, extra-legal activity is being conducted by at least four men, one the national chief of police, two police officers under the direct authority of the national chief of police, and a man who is not a police officer. Only the most pertinent information concerning them and their recent activities for our purposes is discussed here.

JYRI IVALO:

DOB 16.10.46

SSN# 161064-4570

Height: 6?0?

Weight: approx. 165 lbs.

Ivalo has been national chief of police for eight years. There is no reason to consider Ivalo anything other than confident and astute. The investigation leading to this report suggests that Ivalo has developed a small but competent team to work, sometimes outside the law, to achieve objectives in those areas in which the national police force has had less then desirable results. Ivalo has vulnerabilities. A minor drinking problem. A desire to be in the social company of people of note, and especially a taste for beautiful young women are his major weaknesses.

KARI VAARA:

DOB 02.06.1968

SSN# 020664-2656

Height: 5?10?

Weight: approx. 190 lbs.

Vaara has the distinction of being the only current policeman to have been shot twice in the performance of duty. He is also one of only two policemen to have killed a suspect in the line of duty. The other is his partner from Helsinki Homicide, Milo Nieminen. They should be considered dangerous. Vaara has twenty-two years in law enforcement, including service in the military police. He has a reputation for acting alone and without respect for the authority of his superiors. Vaara is violent. He has shot and killed one perp and is rumored to have used extreme force against others. Whether that force was warranted is unknown. It is noteworthy, though, that he is capable of it. He inspires admiration from his underlings.