things, and she got excited about it. Salme told her not to trust strangers, but three days ago she didn’t come home. Salme thinks these men have bad intentions and Loviise is in trouble. Like most people with Down, she’s small, only four foot eleven, but her features are close to normal.”
Salme seems to understand Finnish, if not speak it. She takes a picture of Loviise from her purse and hands it to me. She’s pretty in her own way. It’s not hard to get a handle on what happened. Her diminished intellect makes her easy to manipulate. Her diminutive size makes her excellent fodder for pedophiles, a good earner. Some men involved in the human slave trade duped her, likely brought her to Helsinki, took her passport and whatever money she had, and told her she had to reimburse them for the cost of bringing her here. A scam, as the cost is only about twenty euros. And that she will work off the debt whoring. At the moment, she’s locked up somewhere. Not much time has passed yet, it’s hard to say what damage has been done to her.
I look up from the picture to Sweetness. “What do you think?”
“You’re a physical wreck. People are playing deadly games with us. We have our own to look after at the moment.”
An image comes into my mind. Kari Vaara rides a white steed. It runs at full gallop, hooves pounding and thundering. The wind is at Vaara’s back. Trumpets sound. Milo bought tickets to bring Kate home three days from now. If all goes well, she arrives to find Loviise here, safe and sound. Vaara has saved a disabled girl from the clutches of villains, from the worst of fates. Loviise can’t begin to express her undying gratitude. Everything Vaara has done in the past is vindicated. The horror Kate suffered is given meaning, and her emotional problems stemming from it disappear in the face of goodness. Kate flings her arms around Vaara, the savior of innocents, and declares her undying love.
Kate is constantly on my mind, and I turn ways to earn her love back over and over in my mind. But this isn’t just about her. I need this for myself. If I could truly save this one girl, in some tiny way, it would justify all I’ve done. It wouldn’t make things right or restore balance to my inner world, but the symbolism would be there, proof that doing good is possible for me.
“No,” I say, “tell her if Loviise is in Helsinki, that you and I will find her and return her to their home.”
“You’re insane,” he says.
“A valid assessment, but I’m going to do this, with or without you.”
Sweetness tells her we’re going to do our best. I understand well enough to get that he downplayed my phrasing so as not to make her hopeful, and he takes her contact information. She throws her arms around me, careful not to hurt my face, and thanks me over and over. After that, there’s no way I can let her down.
12
After Salme Tamm leaves, Sweetness gives me a stern look, as he would a wayward child. “What the fuck is the matter with you?”
“I started this black-ops garbage of ours so I could do things exactly like this. You know, help people, especially young women in trouble. This girl is in deep shit.”
He has a pull out of his flask and sits forward with his elbows on his knees. His big frame nearly fills my oversized armchair. “Before you can help anyone else, you have to be able to help yourself. You can barely get around the house. How are you going to investigate a missing person? Who was most likely conned and abducted by criminals, I might add.”
I finish off my coffee. “The cortisone shots are working. My jaw is almost pain free at the moment, and my knee is improved. And I have you to help me.”
“Pomo, you hardheaded asshole. This is beyond foolish. We have enemies watching us, and we don’t know what their limits are, if they have any. We have two women and a baby in this house that we have to take care of. Safeguarding them is our first priority. Call the cops that deal with human trafficking in Helsinki, pass it off to them and let it go.”
He made salient points. I weave my way through them. “There are hundreds of prostitutes in Helsinki. There are seven detectives mandated with