Wolves and Angels (15 page)

You’re probably right, Koskinen thought. Then he asked his other question. “Did
Raymond and Pike get along
?”

Harjus hissed
.
“Money makes the world go round, and even a cripple can buy love with enough cash.”

Koskinen couldn’t help but sense the sudden change in mood. Jealous anger was apparent in both men, smoldering in their eyes. He tried to wheedle more out of them about Pike and
Timonen
, but it was no use. Their lips were sealed as if by common agreement.

Harjus banged his empty glass on the table and set off
rolling towards the karaoke stand. The woman with the curlers in her hair had just finished, and two men who had been leaning against the bar lifted Harjus and his chair onto the stage. One of them even pushed the microphone over to where Harjus could reach it.

“I love the life born anew each morn
...
” Another old Finnish standby, but this time one with real pathos.

Koskinen felt cold chills run down his spine—Tapani Harjus knew how to sing. His voice wasn’t quite equivalent to Martti Talvela’s operatic bass, but it surely ran rings around all of the other karaoke soloists at the Cat’s Meow. The buzz of conversation quieted, and Koskinen noticed eyes being dabbed surreptitiously at a couple of tables.

Ketterä didn’t seem to care much for his compatriot’s singing. He lit another cigarette and stared, nauseated, at the trail of smoke before his eyes. Koskinen decided to take the opportunity.

“Tell me a little about Raymond.”

“Like what?”

“Anything at all. Did he sing karaoke?”

“Raymond just mewled like a sick moose. He made enough fucking noise, but had trouble formin
g
words…
I guess his bump on the head caused that too.”

Ketterä stopped to suck on his cigarette before continuing. “Not
that I care about that yodelin’
anyway, but I don’t
mind banging on a piano. I got
my own in my apartment...a Hellas T
apiola model with a rigged hand
damper pedal.”

A flash of warmth flickered in Ketterä’s narrowed eyes. Apparently his piano was an important part of his
austere life. But Koskinen didn’t have the patience to continue on that topic, and his interest turned elsewhere.

“What did you mean by Raymond’s bump on the head?”

Ketterä didn’t think long, instead rattling off an explanation from memory. “It
’s the usual story. In June of ’
86, Raymond dove off a dock
into a lake
and hit his head on a rock.”

Koskinen thought about how many similar cases he had run into during his career. He couldn’t even count them anymore. He stared at his beer glass and sighed. “Such a waste.”

“It was even more pointless with me.”

Koskinen raised his head, and Ketterä continued: “You would’ve asked anyway what happened to me...so I might as well just tell
you
. On
e
Christmas Eve I went out skiing in Hervanta. Someone had pulled a little prank on the trail around the lake and stretched a white nylon cord across the bottom of the steepest hill…
I saw it way too late
and flew fifty feet head-first.”

Ketterä lit another cigarette again and closed his eyes. “So that was the turnin
g
point of my life. I came to a couple of minutes later and immediately knew what had happened. I couldn’t feel my legs. I lay
there
for almost an hour in ten-degree weather before the next skier came by. It was Christmas Eve after all, and people were at home decorating their trees, and the most impatient ones were openin
g
their presents already. I lay in the forest and thought about my future. I knew I’d never walk again, let alone ski.”

Koskinen remembered the incident. He hadn’t investigated it, but it had rocked everyone at the station.
They couldn’t understand who would set such a cowardly trap, or come up with a motive. They tried to profile the perpetrator—was it just kids playing a prank or some sick sadist? But they never made any arrests. Koskinen rewound the calendar in his brain. “But that was only five years ago!” he said, taken aback.

Ketterä stroked his red beard between his fingers and nodded. “Not any more than that.”

Koskinen tried to come up with something sympathetic to say, but everything that came to mind felt too trivial in that moment. And Ketterä didn’t need anything like that anyway.

“No sense cryin
g
in my beer,” he said, raising his glass.

Harjus had begun a second song, another golden age
sentimental
Finnish
schlager
complete with accordion accompaniment.

Koskinen pointed his thumb at the karaoke stage. “What happened to him?”

“Tappi went diving
too.”

“Onto
a
rock?”

“No, the street.”

Ketterä paused to take a swig from his glass, leaving beaded drops of beer in his tapered mustache. “Nine years ago Tappi jumped off the roof of the Olympia restaurant onto the sidewalk.”

“He attempted suicide?”

“Well, he wasn’t tr
ying
to learn
how
to fly.”

“Why did he jump?”

“He’s never said. I doubt anyone at the house
knows.”

Ketterä rocked his head back and forth and smiled to himself. “Our Fallen Angels had a skier and two divers. Now there’s only one
of the
diver
s
left.”

“Fallen Angels?”

“That’s the name of our Hell’s Angels gang. Originally there were six of us. But then the group split in two
,
and we
were
what
was
left. Raymond, Tappi, and me. Now there are only two of us.”

“Where did the others go?”

“Lindkvist died of bone cancer, and Ruomala
found
Jesus. He moved somewhere in Ostrobothnia to a nursing home run by the Laestadians.”

Koskinen remembered that the taxi driver, Laine, had talked about three that had moved away from Wolf House. “And the third?”

“That was Simo Supala.”

Ketterä smashed his cigarette in the tray with an angry motion, and ash spread around the table. “Simo got evicted.”

“Why?”

“He tried to rape one of the summer interns and a couple of weeks later tried to kill Raymond.”

“Tried to kill?” Koskinen was alert now. “How?”

“Wolf House has two floors on the one side. Downstairs are the saunas and a gym fitted for us cripples with bench presses and everythin
g
. We go down in the elevator, but there
’s
also stairs. Simo shoved Raymond down. Unfortunately, his attempt failed.”

“Wasn’t
Raymond
hurt?”

“If he hadn’t been a cripple already, then he would’ve been after that. He lay in the hospital for two months. Just got out this Easter.”

Koskinen counted the months in his head. It had been just a year since the incident. He was so astonished that all he could do was ask why.

“Wolf House wasn’t big enough for Simo and Raymond. Not even close. Both of them always had to be king of the dunghill and be the center of every conversation.”

Koskinen shook his head in disbelief. The Fallen Angels appeared to be a perfect copy of the real thing. Both gangs had wheels under them—they had just traded two-wheeled hogs for four-wheelers that accelerated somewhat more slowly.

Harjus had been lifted down from the karaoke stand, and rolled his chair back to the table.

“
How’d you like it?”

He addressed his words to Koskinen, who didn’t even have to pretend. “It was beautiful.”

“So go get some beer. I don’t croon for free here.”

Ketterä jumped in too. “Be a man and drink the legs out from under us.”

Koskinen collected the glasses and went to get refills. It didn’t take long before those were empty too, and he had to go visit the counter one more time.

He thought about whether he would dare file an expense report—the information he had gotten was valuable enough.

He tried to pry more out of them, but Harjus and
Ketterä were starting to get intoxicated, and it was hard to get clear answers. Koskinen was interested in Raymond’s finances; he had heard about his casual spending from two people now. But Harjus and Ketterä didn’t know where his money came from, or they just didn’t want to say. Both claimed that Raymond had never talked about his money—he had just flashed his big bills, using them to buy himself comfort and attention.

After their fourth beer, Koskinen saw how differently alcohol affected each of the men. While Ketterä started to nod off, Harjus became more and more aggressive.

He glared at Koskinen from under his bushy eyebrows and then suddenly hissed: “Pig! Why the fuck did you come down here?
Now t
he whole fucking place smells!”

Strange thanks for four free rounds, Koskinen thought, but didn’t say anything in response.

“Do you have a blue
-
and
-
white waiting out in the parking lot?”

“No, bicycle.”

“A bike?”

“Yeah.” Koskinen smiled good-naturedly. “I always bike to work.”

“You’re some sort of fitness nut?”

“Something like that.”

Harjus slammed his fist on the table. The butts flew out of the ashtray onto the table, and everyone in the bar turned to see what was going on.

“So you’re a fucking biking nut?” he announced in a
loud voice. “You’ve got a lot of nerve coming down here and bragging about how fit you are to guys like us, pig.”

“I didn’t do that,” Koskinen began, but Harjus wasn’t listening. He waved his fists in Koskinen’s face. “All I have to do is snap my fingers and half of the guys in this bar will come over and lay you out, flatfoot!” he shouted.

Koskinen was getting tired of it—he tapped his mobile phone through his jacket pocket and mimicked Harjus: “All I have to do is make one phone call and half of the Tampere police department will come down here and smash this whole bar to pieces.”

Harjus looked at Koskinen appraisingly and fell silent for a moment. Ketterä had woken up from his nap at the bang of the fist and started egging Koskinen on. “Do it! Tappi’s always a killjoy when he starts off the day on the wrong foot.”

“That piece of shit couldn’t put me away if he tried,” Harjus started again. “He’s tall enough, but otherwise it’s all cardboard from his balls to his brain.”

Harjus’ shaved head was flushed red and his lips were trembling. Koskinen realized that it was a sudden, uncontrollable burst of anger
,
and he had ended up as the target by chance.

Suddenly he felt a wet droplet on his cheek. Harjus had spit in his face. That was too much. Koskinen jumped up and took a threatening step. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed how men stood up all around the room and started moving
toward
them. Apparently they were ready to defend Harjus and Ketterä. The old military
esprit de corps
was alive and well here. You didn’t leave buddies behind, and you defended the
weaker ones to the last drop of your beer.

Koskinen was barely able to control himself. It was only when he had taken a few deep breaths of the bar’s smoky air that his emotions calmed down enough for him to be able to comprehend the possible repercussions. The old discrimination article in
Hymy
would be child’s play compared to these new headlines: DRUNK POLICE OFFICER ASSAULTS HANDICAPPED KARAOKE SINGER…

He turned around and walked out. It wasn’t until he was on the saddle of his bike that he realized he was drunk. At two hundred pounds, he usually didn’t feel four beers. But on an empty stomach it was a different matter. After his lingonberry mush that morning, he hadn’t eaten anything except the chocolate bar Milla had given him. The thought ignited an uncontrollable hunger in his belly. A salami sandwich layered with pickles appeared before his eyes, and he took off pedaling home with his mouth watering.

11.

On Thursday morning things started happening immediately. Koskinen slunk through the door of the police station in his biking gear and tried to slip into the elevator without anyone noticing. It didn’t work.

“Koskinen!” someone yelled from the front desk. “Come over here for a sec!”

Irked, Koskinen turned and took his wet baseball cap off. The rain had started halfway through his ride. He dug a paper tissue
from
his pocket and dried his face on it, but his beard was still wet. Water dripped on the counter as he leaned in to hear what Tiikko, the officer on duty, had to say.