* * *
Salmela blew a plume of cigarette smoke through a gap in the Peugeot’s passenger side window. The smell of smoke lingered in the car, but Suhonen didn’t mind. The remains of the kebabs, the jalapenos Salmela had picked out, and the garbage from the meal were in a plastic bag at his feet.
On any summer night in Hietalahti, scores of people would be about, but now the place was deserted. Rain pattered on the car roof and the wet windshield scattered the light from the street lamps. It would probably pass for modern art at the Kiasma museum if some artist came up with the idea to build a dark room where people could look at a couple of street lamps through a car’s sprinkler-doused windshield.
“I thought maybe I’d rob a bank,” Salmela said.
“It’d never work. You won’t get twenty Gs out of it, anyway. They keep a total of ten grand in the tills and you wouldn’t get access to the vault.”
“Two banks, then.”
Suhonen shook his head.
“Armored truck?”
“Won’t work. You’d need a bunch of guys for that.”
“Diamonds? We gave it a good try a few years back, anyway,” said Salmela.
Suhonen remembered it well. Salmela’s gang had intended to hit several jewelry stores in various parts of the city simultaneously, but the scheme fell flat in the planning stages. Preparing for robbery was not a crime, but the NBI had nailed the perps for drug trafficking. As a member of the gang, Salmela wound up in prison too.
“You should’ve hired some pros from Estonia.”
“Haven’t you ever thought of switching sides?” Salmela ventured, finishing off his water. “You’d be quite the expert.”
Suhonen chuckled. There were certainly plenty of officers-or former officers-who had shifted to the dark side, but they hadn’t fared well. Traitors always got harsher treatment than other criminals. “Nope. This works just fine for me.”
“Low pay and long hours.”
“At least it pays the bills and I choose the long hours.”
The banter went on for some time and Suhonen was glad they had plenty to talk about. Perhaps he should hold off on the proposal for a day or two. It was possible he could ruin the whole plan if he pushed Salmela too hard or too early.
Infiltrating the Skulls wouldn’t be easy; they’d need a detailed game plan. One idea would be to devise a “robbery” where Salmela would get the money to pay his debt. Maybe that would elevate his status and allow him to penetrate the gang. From the pen, Salmela knew Larsson-the gang’s recently-released leader-so it wasn’t out of the question. Of course, a fake robbery would be a complicated trick since it would require publicizing false information, but it could be done.
“So, guess where I’m working at?” Salmela asked.
Maybe this could be the opportunity, Suhonen thought. Earlier, Salmela hadn’t wanted to talk about it. “You said you were cleaning and I picked you up in north Helsinki, so it’s probably some company over there. Judging by the smell of detergent on your clothes it’s a pretty filthy place.”
“You got that right,” Salmela chuckled. “Filthy for sure.”
“Well, let’s hear it.”
“I cleaned the Skulls’ shitter today.”
“Huh?”
After hearing about the day’s events, Suhonen was stunned. Salmela decided not to mention the nature hike in the forest, however, since he didn’t want to involve his friend in it. He remembered the letter he had left on the sofa-that would have to be burned.
Suhonen tried to keep a poker face. There was no longer any need for Salmela to infiltrate anything-he was already on the inside, and in a role where he could access any part of the club house on a daily basis without suspicion.
“So you’re their slave now,” said Suhonen.
“You could put it that way. But I’m alive.”
“They threaten you?”
“No,” Salmela snapped. “This is how I’m gonna pay up. It’s not completely fair, but it works for me.”
Suhonen knew his friend had left something out. Of course, threats had been part of the deal. Somehow he had to get Salmela bitter enough to offset his fear of the gang. Or get him to fear the police more than the gang, but that was a poor alternative, Suhonen thought.
“Listen, Eero,” Suhonen began. “You know that Estonian drug shipment that was supposed to get you out of debt?”
“What about it?”
“I asked Narcotics about it. Guess how much speed they found on your mule?”
Salmela was confused. “The four pounds, of course.”
Suhonen shook his head. “One and a half.”
“What? Not possible.”
“She had twenty ounces on the dot. The bags were taped to her sides.”
Suhonen reached into his breast pocket and pulled out her mug shot and a document listing the confiscated goods. Salmela turned on the dome light and looked at the picture for a long time. Afterwards, he read the document.
“Fuck. They ripped me off,” he snarled. “Damned Estonians. Charge me for four and send me one-and-a-half. Were they the ones to rat out the mule too? If you hadn’t said anything, I would’ve never known.”
“There’s another piece to this story. You remember Vesa Karjalainen?”
“The junkie? Yeah.”
“Well, he was found dead this morning on the bathroom floor of the train station. OD.”
“Not surprising.”
Suhonen decided it was time to up the ante.
“I’m going to give you a couple facts. One: I chatted with his girlfriend, and apparently, he was flat broke. Two: the narcotics cops who busted Mägi with the drugs also saw Karjalainen coming off the same boat.”
Suhonen pulled out a screenshot of Karjalainen at the harbor and handed it to Salmela, who was still dumbfounded. Suhonen pushed on.
“Three: Just before he died, Karjalainen went to settle a debt with some friend, which is why he was at the station. Four: I searched his apartment myself and found an ounce and a half of speed.”
Salmela was floored by what he heard; his ears were red.
“And five: I spoke with Karjalainen’s girlfriend during the search. She had nothing to do with any of this, but guess who picked him up just before he went to Estonia?”
“Who?” Salmela asked, raking his fingers through his hair.
“She didn’t know their names, but she knew they were Skulls and gave me a description: one fat guy and a couple younger ones. Can you put the pieces together?”
“Son of a bitch!” Salmela was seething. He felt the throbbing start at the base of his skull. “They scammed me and had me foot the bill for everything. Goddamn sons-of-bitches.”
Salmela had financed the drug shipment and taken the downside risk. But the Skulls had reduced their risk by splitting the shipment into two. It still wasn’t clear to Suhonen whether Mägi had been deliberately smoked so the larger-and possibly stronger-shipment would make it through. Karjalainen’s overdose indicated a potent batch. If that was the case, Mägi had been intentionally sacrificed for something she had done in Estonia.
Suhonen was pleased at Salmela’s reaction. Now he had only to channel the man’s anger in the right direction.
“Fuck,” Salmela went on. “I don’t suppose you’d care if I take a shotgun to work tomorrow morning and rid this world of those shitheads. Come pick me up around noon and throw me in jail, but let me burn down their goddamned shack first.”
That’s one option, Suhonen thought, though not such a good one.
“Listen, Eero,” said Suhonen quietly. “I have a proposal for you to think about.”
Suhonen and Salmela continued to converse in the parking lot for another half an hour. Afterwards, Suhonen drove his friend home to Salmela’s apartment, a tall eight-story building on the corner of Sture Street in Kallio.
The rain had picked up and Suhonen stopped the car in front of stairwell F. The curb was packed with cars, so he double-parked. Salmela got out, bade his friend goodbye, unlocked the frosted-glass door on the ground floor and went inside. Suhonen sped off.