Nights of Awe (19 page)
Authors: Harri Nykanen
“That’s a shame, and you were such good friends… The army? Not any more, I guess. I don’t really know what he does these days, but they’re doing well. Nice house and a new car. My son doesn’t talk much about his doings.”
“Has he brought his family over to Finland yet?”
Salomon Kaplan’s friendly eyes were strangely bright for someone his age.
He squinted a little. “Oh, I’ve asked them, but they haven’t deigned to grace me with a visit.”
“I heard somewhere that Dan was in Finland.”
“I’m pretty sure I’d know if he were. Who told you that?”
“Someone mentioned it in passing. It would have been nice to see him again after such a long time.”
Kaplan gazed off into the distance. For a moment it looked as if he were about to say something important. Then he said, a little wistfully: “Sometimes when I look out the kitchen window, it’s almost as if I can see you two playing there in the yard while Ethel prepares the Sabbath meal… Ethel was so fond of you…”
I knew it. And that Ethel adored her son. Dan was the son every mother wished for, and every mother-in-law’s dream son-in-law. Fun, bright, athletic and handsome.
We had known each other since the first grade. The Kaplans had moved to Helsinki from Turku, and Dan started at the Jewish school in the middle of the school year. I remember when Ethel brought him there. It was raining, and we were floating boats made from wine-bottle corks in the schoolyard gutters. Dan had come over to watch us play and introduced himself precociously. It turned out that he lived in the building next to ours. We walked home from school together, and from that day on we were best friends until he moved to Israel.
Salomon Kaplan raised his cane and headed towards the door, dragging his right leg slightly.
I watched him go and felt like a real jerk. Here I was playing my best friend’s elderly father – and in the synagogue, too. For once I’d really have something to repent for on Yom Kippur.
Eli was talking with Silberstein in the foyer. I hung back a couple of yards.
“Have you considered what we discussed yet?” Silberstein asked, like a teacher who imagined his punishment had proved effective on a lackadaisical student.
“Haven’t had time.”
Eli glanced at the stone-faced Silberstein.
“You go ahead, Ari, I’ll be out in a couple of minutes.”
It was cold outside. A sliver of moon and a couple of the brightest stars could be seen among the clouds.
I had to wait for Eli for almost ten minutes. We walked over to his Audi, which was parked on Freda.
I sat down in the leather passenger seat. The car smelt new. Eli started up the engine, and the car purred softly to life.
“You have a new car,” I remarked.
“Buy my old one. I would have got so little in exchange that I didn’t have the heart to give it up.”
Eli’s former car was a five-year-old BMW hatchback.
“It’s too hard finding parking downtown.”
“Get a spot in your garage.”
“You’re overestimating a cop’s salary.”
“Fair enough.”
“What are you mixed up in?”
“What do you mean?”
“Where did you get your information?”
“There are rumours going around.”
“When you know more than you should about things you shouldn’t know about, you might end up being suspected of complicity. Six people are dead.”
“That’s why Silberstein and I came to meet you. We don’t want anyone else to die.”
“Who is Ben Weiss?” I asked sharply.
“A fur dealer from Israel.”
“No, he’s not.”
“Then I don’t know. I met him when he came to the office to see Max. Max advised him on some contractual matters.”
“Have you heard that a car was stolen from Max’s father?”
“No. How so?”
“It was found at the Siilitie metro station in Herttoniemi. Ben Weiss used it. He was found a day later in Kerava, dead.”
I could see from Eli’s expression that he didn’t know about Weiss’s death. His alarm was genuine.
“Believe me, he’s no fur dealer,” I said. “And everyone who tells you so is lying.”
I almost felt sorry for my brother. He started desperately trying to figure out what he was mixed up in.
I asked him: “Who told you that Weiss is a fur dealer?”
“Silberstein.”
“Why, where did he hear that?”
“He said that Weiss came to the synagogue. He had asked if Silberstein knew some Jewish lawyer who could advise him in local banking matters. Silberstein directed him to us.”
“To your office, or did he mention Max specifically?”
“Silberstein said he gave him our firm’s name. Max happened to be there when Weiss contacted us and got the job.”
Eli was beginning to see that he had got mixed up in something that he could most easily extract himself from with my help.
He stopped at the traffic lights at the old opera house. The restaurant Bulevardia was being remodelled. When Dad was still alive, he’d take us to Bulevardia for Sunday lunch now and again. We’d always sit upstairs at the window table. Maybe the choice of restaurant came from the fact that Dad had been born at the corner of Hietalahdentori Square and Lönnrotinkatu. The building had been damaged in the first bombings of the Winter War. A disco that Dan and I used to go to all the time was near the same place.
The lights changed. Before he started off, Eli glanced over at Bulevardia.
“Bulevardia’s being turned into some trendy joint too. You remember Dad’s Sunday lunches? One time he admitted to me that the manager was some army buddy of his. That’s why we always went there. He got a discount.”
Eli’s revelation amused me.
“Is that why?”
“That’s why. Our clan’s known for its stinginess.”
“Speak for yourself.”
We arrived in my neck of the woods. Eli pulled up in front of my building.
“At whose instigation did you come to ask me for information about the investigation?”
“Silberstein’s. He was certain that the deaths were related to the foreign minister’s visit. He doesn’t believe in coincidences.”
“I suppose he had some theory to support his suspicions?”
“We’ve received several threats in Arabic. They say the synagogue is going to be blown sky-high.”
“Letters?”
“And a videotape. We turned it over to the Security Police.”
“What was in it?”
“An armed man with a scarf around his face holding a sign that read ‘Free Palestine’ in English. He spoke Arabic and said that Jews are not safe anywhere in the world and that we had been selected as the target of a strike by al-Qaeda and the Martyrs’ Brigade unless we publicly denounced Israel’s policy of occupation.”
“Al-Qaeda and the Martyrs’ Brigade. Almost sounds like we’re part of the big bad world that’s out there. Little Finland has finally had the honour of making it onto the terrorists’ hit list.”
“Are you making fun of this?”
“No, I’m surprised.”
“When we heard about the killings at Linnunlaulu, Silberstein said that al-Qaeda and the Martyrs’ Brigade had planned a joint attack during the foreign minister’s visit, but then the organizations had had a falling out over something and started killing each other.”
I had no doubt that Silberstein had a taste for fabricating conspiracy theories, but his theory tasted too ready-digested, just like Meyer’s explanation of his and Weiss’s cooperation in the fur trade.
“Pretty bold conclusion from so little information,” I said. “What’s it based on?”
“I don’t know, but Silberstein and Meyer have good contacts in Israel.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’m not sure. But I know that Silberstein went and visited Meyer a few days ago, even though they’re not on speaking terms. Meyer’s son-in-law is in the Israeli army.”
“Meyer’s son-in-law is a pilot. How the hell would he know what al-Qaeda and the Martyrs’ Brigade are up to here?”
“Maybe he has connections in Mossad.”
“And Mossad would tell Meyer’s son-in-law, ‘Now be sure and warn your father-in-law that al-Qaeda and the Martyrs’ Brigade might attack in Finland’?”
“I’m just telling you what I know.”
“How does Weiss fit into the picture?”
Eli shook his head.
“And what about SUPO, what did they do when you told them about the threats?”
“They promised to organize security for the synagogue for the duration of the visit and protect the foreign minister.”
“Was Sillanpää the one you talked to?”
“Yeah, Inspector Sillanpää.”
“Have you guys been in touch with the Israeli embassy or has anyone from there been in touch with you?”
Eli gave me an irritated look.
“Are you interrogating me? Even though you’re a cop, you’re still my little brother.”
“I want to know what you’re mixed up in and how deep. Have you been in touch with them?”
“Silberstein and I met the ambassador and the embassy’s head of security once.”
“Why?”
“We were discussing the foreign minister’s visit and the related arrangements.”
“Did the ambassador mention anything about risks related to the visit?”
Eli thought for a minute. He was by nature timid and satisfied with his lot; he didn’t want to put what he had achieved at risk. And now we were talking about matters more significant than screwing a female client on his desk or on the oriental rug in his office.
He had told that story once when he was with me and my subordinates in the sauna at the police-guild cabin. He didn’t do it because he was drunk; he did it to spike his status among the coarse, crude police officers. He had later regretted his revelation so much that he had gone to synagogue every night for two weeks to ask God for forgiveness – not for what he had done, but for the fact that he had blabbed.
“Silberstein told me that Mossad had provided intelligence – or I mean he didn’t talk about Mossad, he said the Security Police – indicating that there were several Arabs living in Helsinki who had connections to terrorist organizations, two of whom were suspected of participating in multiple bombings against Jewish targets. So you can understand why we were worried. The foreign minister of Israel was coming here on a visit, and at the same time hard-line terrorists with false identities who were known to have procured explosives and weapons from Russia were hiding out here.”
“If Mossad knew that there were terrorists here, why didn’t they just go ahead and tell us who they were?”
“Maybe they did, but only to SUPO.”
Eli looked at his handsome watch. He had received it as a birthday gift from his wife. It cost twice as much as Lieutenant Toivola’s Toyota.
“I promised I’d be home before ten.”
I knew I’d been a little rough on Eli. I still wanted to know one more thing, though.
“When were you tapped for the congregation’s security gig?”
“It’s been a couple of months already.”
“The decision about the Israeli foreign minister’s visit had already been made then, hadn’t it?”
“Yeah. It takes months to organize a visit like that, because…”
Eli wasn’t an idiot. He turned to me.
“Why are you asking me that? Are you saying that the whole thing was planned so…”
“Goodnight, Eli.”
I got out of the car and shut the door.
I had only slept a few hours the previous night, and those few poorly. I was bushed.
I made myself an egg sandwich, listened to Billie Holiday for a minute, and then fell asleep. That night I didn’t play table tennis with a beautiful Israeli soldier, but with Karmela Meyer. She was naked and played a lousy game. I hit a sharp backhand and the ball got caught between her melon-sized breasts. Right when I was dislodging the firmly trapped ball, my phone rang. I had just got my hands full of Karmela and I didn’t want to wake up. But the caller was sadistically persistent.
I glanced at the clock as I answered. It was already ten past seven. I felt like I hadn’t slept a wink. It was Simolin.
“Got a good tip-off about Hamid’s cousin. According to the caller, Tagi was renting a studio apartment in Kallio. The caller was Tagi’s landlord. He read this morning’s paper and ID’d him from it. I promised I’d come by right away.”
“What’s right away?”
“I could pick you up. I’m at HQ.”
“Thanks. In half an hour in front of my building.”
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