KISS OF SANTA

BY LEENA LEHTOLAINEN

Stockmann Department Store

Translated by Jill G. Timbers

1.

It was a bitter-cold December evening. The wind whipped sleet into my face as I crossed Mannerheimintie Street. The lights changed and I barely managed to whisk a half-blind old woman safely out of the way of an approaching streetcar. The conductor rang the warning bells and the old woman thanked me effusively in Swedish. She called me “young man.”

Stockmann Department Store was festively lit, as always in the weeks before Christmas. The employee entrance was on the Mannerheimintie side. A man was waiting for me at the elevators. He was about four inches shorter than me. His Boss suit fit elegantly. The frames of his glasses were the latest thing, straight out of Vogue.

“Miss New York?” he asked. On the phone he had insisted we use no names.

I nodded. The man summoned the elevator and took me to the basement level.

“The employee lounge is on the eighth floor, but there’s a secret conference room down here where we’ll be left alone.” He opened a four-inch-thick steel door. Behind it was an interior reminiscent of a Töölö drawing room in the center of old Helsinki: a deep cushiony sofa, two classic Le Corbusier armchairs, a glass table with an orchid arrangement on it. The windows opening onto a park were of course just artful photo-realistic paintings. My sleet-drenched parka and worn boots did not fit the setting at all.

“Please sit down.” The man used the formal form of address, rarely used in Finland. “May I bring you coffee or tea?”

“Neither, thank you.” I steered clear of unnecessary stimulants while working. They just clouded my focus.

The man pulled a file from his briefcase and flipped through the papers inside it. His face was pasty and pale, his black hair oiled into place. His eyebrows had been plucked into narrow streaks. His voice was low and expressionless.

“Hilja Ilveskero, age twenty-eight. Graduated from the Queens Security Academy in New York with excellent marks three years ago. Employed privately by Finnish individuals after graduation, but currently unemployed. Why?”

“My former employer moved to a company in Tokyo that provides security services to its key employees. You’ll find his letter of recommendation among my papers.”

The man smiled. “Of course, I have checked your background. In today’s world one cannot be too cautious.”

I snorted. It appeared that Stockmann Department Store Security Chief Henrik Bruun and I spoke the same language.

“You are accustomed to carrying a weapon in your work and employing direct physical force when necessary,” he stated. “Precisely the man . . . the person . . . we need. We are looking for an extra guard for the Christmas season. I did not wish to say more than that to the employment authorities. The job is not quite the normal lying in wait for shoplifters and removing troublemakers. It’s a question of in-house scrutiny. Thieves have infiltrated our staff. Your job is to expose them. You will need a suitable disguise: you will thus become one of the house Santa Clauses.”

 

2.

It tickled terribly under my nose. I was accustomed to using mustache glue to dress as my male alter ego Reiska Räsänen, but the Santa Claus disguise also involved a beard down my chest. I glued the eyebrows over my own; they shaded my bespectacled eyes. I rouged my nose to a drunkard’s red and added a few moles with makeup. Long white hair covered my ears. I wore a fat suit under the red Santa Claus coat, overalls that added about forty pounds and also hid my meager maidenly curves. It felt strange to sit, because the suit’s stomach and chest squeezed together and the thighs bulged to the sides. My walk became more ponderous and imposing than my usual spring. I stretched often so I’d be ready for action when I needed to be quick. I slipped the gun and spare cartridge under my left arm, between the fat suit and the Santa coat. I opened a seam and attached it with Velcro. I was used to do-it-yourself repairs and sewing from a childhood spent on the remote island of Hevonpersiinsaari, a backwoods locale whose very name means Horse’s Ass Island, far removed from department stores like Stockmann.

I pulled on thin red mittens edged with fur, because my bare hands looked feminine even though I kept the nails short and unpolished. I entered the elevator on the lowest level of the parking garage. Bruun and I had agreed that I would get into costume in the secret room. That way I could best hide my identity.

“When the employees leave the building, they have to exit through this well-lit corridor,” Bruun had explained to me after the department store closed. The security measures appeared sound: employees carrying anything from the store would have to show a receipt. No system was 100 percent sure, but Bruun and the guards had been checking the exits for over a month now and no one would have been able to smuggle through the large amounts of expensive goods that had been disappearing from the store: cameras, phones, PDAs, expensive jewelry, as well as cosmetics worth hundreds of euros. Design cutlery had been taken from the housewares department. All together, the losses had already climbed to nearly 30,000 euros.

The missing items were all small in size. They would have been easy to conceal in clothes or under a bag’s false bottom. But how had the alarms been deactivated and the locked cases opened? These were the questions that had turned the security chief’s suspicions toward the staff.

I started with routine work, running the data on any new hires in the past several months and checking the security camera tapes. I had worked earlier as a store detective at a shopping center in Vantaa. The kleptomaniacs and candy snatchers didn’t interest me, but since I was a foot soldier in the security field, I had done everything they paid me for. One of the compulsive thieves I’d caught, an R&D director for a big corporation, had tried to bribe me not to report his crime, swearing it was a sickness. I’d refused; he didn’t offer me enough.

After the foundation, it was time to pull on Santa’s boots. My grandfather had made them; he had been the village shoemaker. My late Uncle Jari had added roughness to the soles.

The leather boots with their upturned tips gave a Finnish stamp to the corny Coca-Cola Santa’s red garb, and they made it easy for Bruun to distinguish me from the store’s other Santas, of which there were five, working in two shifts. I didn’t envy them: to listen to spoiled brats’ overblown wishes and pose with tots on their laps, careful not to take hold of the wrong place and send the parents screaming pedophilia. I had a bag of candy in my pocket to give the kids when necessary, but I’d tell them to send their wish lists straight to the North Pole.

People stared when I stepped into the department store’s elevator, even though Santa was an everyday sight in Finnish stores in December. A little boy about two stepped back into his mother’s coat. I tried to smile, since my purpose was not to arouse attention but to observe. The mustache tickled more than ever.

The cosmetics department was still quite empty. I made my way over to the counter from which the most products had been taken. The most expensive cream, a gold-toned fifty-milliliter bottle of night cream promising eternal youth, cost over 500 euros. Six bottles of that had been stolen from the display shelf over the last few weeks. The security camera had not disclosed the guilty.

A woman in her fifties with pleasant laugh lines approached me. “Is Santa thinking of a present for Mrs. Claus?” Her name tag read, Merja.

“The lady’s already 300 years old but I love her old too,” I quipped back, and the woman gave a warm laugh. She was the brand’s dedicated consultant. She of everyone would have had it easiest to pinch the creams. Even if she sold them under the store price, the profit would be considerable. But who would recognize the value of a 500-euro night cream? It made more sense to steal things with a market ready and waiting.

Mike Virtue, founder and director of the Queens Security Academy, had repeated that the greatest security threats often come from within organizations, from their trusted employees. The cosmetologist named Merja was one I resolved to watch. Santa could pretend to be interested in her. Flirting with women didn’t bother me, I’d done it before, both dressed as a man and as myself. Not likely I’d manage to break Merja’s heart.

The Stockmann Department Store contained nine floors of dreams. It was a downtown Helsinki institution. Next I headed down to the basement-level entertainment and electronics department.

The gender distribution of customers here was different than one level up: teenage boys playing hooky were at the game displays while middle-aged men focused on the phones. Santa Claus did not interest them. Real men don’t believe in fairy tales.

I picked out the junkie instantly. The man’s age was hard to guess, could have been anywhere from twenty to forty. His nondescript brown hair hung to his shoulders and a black ski cap was pulled down to his eyebrows. He had last shaved a month ago. He’d wrapped himself in an oversized black wool overcoat he’d managed to grab from an Uff secondhand store or recycling center. His body twitched and trembled. I knew the symptoms from my Manhattan landlady’s body language. Mary had used every substance in existence that could screw with her head. I had saved her life a couple times, though I wondered why on earth I’d bothered. I was just postponing the inevitable.

I slipped nearer to the man. The phone display was an open shelf where the devices were attached at the base with a metal coil that couldn’t be cut with ordinary scissors. The druggie was fooling around with the latest Nokia model. I waited for his next move. Not many addicts were clever thieves. They’d just pocket anything easy to snatch and then sell it cheap to pay for their next hit. The professional leagues were a different story: they calculated the potential supply and then created a demand for it. At Tallinn’s Mustamäe Market no one asked where the bargains came from.

When I approached the junkie I saw that his left little finger was cut off above the top joint. So the chap hadn’t paid his debts. I slipped forward slowly, like a cat stalking a mole. The man kept looking around nervously. Both nearby salespeople were keeping an eye on him and I also saw one of the store detectives appear at the back left. Damn. I would have liked to see the man try to steal.

He put the phone back on the stand and moved over to the next. I could smell the sweat of fear on him. Evidently he needed to get the next payment to the dealer ASAP. The store detectives didn’t know I was hunting the same prey they were. I tried to figure out how to warn them to stay back.

I snuck over to the other side of the phone display, and this time the junkie noticed me.

He lurched and bumped against the phone shelf, and a cell phone hurtled from his pocket and slid across the floor. I managed to grab it before he could, even though my fat suit made it hard for me to bend over.

“I’m thinking you haven’t been a good boy,” I murmured as he tried in vain to yank the phone from my hand. He was my height, about five-nine, but seemed shorter, sunken down, as if his bones had been softened by the drugs. He didn’t have enough meat on him to feed a hungry dog.

“Give me my phone!” he rasped. I noted that the guard had taken off. Evidently he had more important tasks.

“Don’t even try. You swiped it, anyway.”

“I did not! Just look at the screen! It’s mine! That’s Paula’s gravestone . . .”

The phone was Nokia’s granny model. It wouldn’t have brought more than twenty euros on the street and the screen was cracked. I brushed the scroll key and a photo appeared. The gravestone was dark gray with an image of a swan flying away and a simple bit of text: Paula Johanna Salo, 1985–2012.

“What business does Santa Claus have with my phone?” The man’s voice had a stronger ring now.

“How else can Santa figure out who’s been naughty and nice? May I see your ID?”

“You don’t have any right, you’re not the police—”

“I can get the cops here in a flash if you want them. I’m guessing you’re an old buddy of theirs.”

The man wiped the sweat from his brow and claimed that he’d left his wallet and papers at home. I asked him if he wanted me to pat him down right there in front of everyone or in the back room. He tried to whine something about me not having the authority, but I grabbed hold of his broken-off finger with a grip that a bit tighter would have dislocated the remaining stump. The junkie was right: I did not have any authority to do this. I just needed to act as if I did.

“I guess my wallet is in my pocket after all. Hang on.” Fear was making him sweat, and the younger of the salesclerks, a girl of twenty-five at most, was gaping at me in astonishment. The forty-something male clerk was pretending not to notice the whole incident.

The junkie’s wallet was as flat as a sick flounder. No sign of plastic, of course; the unfortunate did not even have a Stockmann loyalty card. The health insurance card had a photo and the name Veli-Pekka Virtanen. The birth date listed meant the man was twenty-eight years old. Place of birth, Vantaa.

“Now listen up, Virtanen. If you’re hoping Santa brings you even one gift this Christmas, you’d better not show your ugly mug here again. Tell your boss that this source has dried up.” I let go of the man’s finger. “Looks like the white Christmas you wanted isn’t coming. You’re not getting money for snow from here, in any case.”

Virtanen grimaced at me like a snared wolverine and vanished. He was such a pathetic case that he’d hardly have been capable of the thefts that had taken place, but at least I’d driven away one disturbance to the gentlefolk’s gift-purchasing orgies. That’s what they were paying me for.

 

3.

Virtanen was the most dramatic thing that happened in the store the first week of my gig. The Christmas crush grew worse each day and the sugary carols I heard dozens of times a shift hurt my ears. I tried to stay far from the guards as well as from the other Santas, because the child customers mustn’t see two redcoats at the same time. Might lose their belief altogether. My own I had lost at the age of five when I had seen my uncle, who’d raised me, leave to be the sports club’s Santa Claus. I had confronted him and he confessed that Santa Claus was make-believe. Uncle Jari said everyone needed miracles. But you couldn’t expect miracles on the slush-covered streets of early December.

I did not place my hopes in anything but my own efforts. I had lost enough loved ones not to rely on anyone but myself, but to achieve my wishes I might disguise myself as anyone, even Santa Claus.

Merja of the cosmetics department told me that the thefts from her shelves had stopped. She sounded relieved.

“Must be Santa’s miracle-working powers,” she smiled, and then told me that some of the products were good for men’s skin too. Santa must need makeup remover, at the very least. I flirted back; it reinforced my identity as a man. Was Merja sharp enough to see behind disguises? Perhaps she sensed that I wasn’t an ordinary Santa Claus, but rather keeping an eye out for thieves.

By Saturday evening I was so beat I decided to stop at a bar. I changed clothes in the secret room as usual. Security Chief Bruun had assured me no one knew of its existence besides the store management and him, not even the house detectives. It wasn’t even marked on the building’s official floor plan. I checked the security camera to make sure no one would see me leaving the secret room. I circled the parking garage so it looked as if I’d come by car and then I entered the elevator. I was myself again, a tall blond woman who looked like a white version of Grace Jones. My jeans and black suede jacket offered little protection from the wind that blasted in from the Mannerheimintie Street doors. I darted across the street to the Hotel Marski bar and ordered a tequila. That would get my blood flowing. There was old-time jazz playing, soothing as a bubble bath after listening to endless Christmas carols. I pretended to read the free newspaper while I played with my phone. I was used to sitting alone in bars and chasing away any unwelcome company.

A familiar-looking man was seated beside the window. He had an athletic build, and black hair cut very short and spiked with gel. The thick-rimmed glasses confused me for a moment before I realized that he was the Stockmann store detective who had been in the electronics department when I’d confronted the junkie. On the job, the guy didn’t wear glasses and dressed in bargain-basement jeans that bagged at the knees and butt and a sweatshirt with tattered sleeves. Finer ladies averted their eyes from him. The man’s civilian clothes were more stylish, and I noticed that the young women sitting at the table next to him were trying their best to attract his attention. He wore no wedding band, but I knew from experience how easy that was to remove.

I shifted my position at the bar counter just enough to be able to watch the women’s attention-drawing rituals without turning. The man did not appear interested in them. He was nice-looking in a safe, ordinary way, and men like that did not turn me on. I didn’t look for bums, either, and had zero interest in wasting time on whiners, for I was not the sympathetic sort.

To the pair’s disappointment, the store detective folded the paper, in which he had already finished the crossword, and rose. He had to pass me on his way to the men’s room. He smelled of musk and lemon, a pleasant scent. I noticed it again when he walked past me to the bar and ordered another Christmas ale. He sat at the bar to drink it. Since he had evidently not come to the bar in search of female company, I stayed silent. I ordered another tequila.

“Outside of Mexican restaurants I’ve never seen a woman who liked those,” the store cop said.

“To the best of my knowledge liquor bottles don’t state gender restrictions.” I looked at him scornfully. Moron. That had an effect.

“Drink whatever you want. Just usually women drink sparkling wine or cider.”

“I’m not any just usually woman.” I appended a small smile to my retort.

The man asked if I had ever visited Mexico. I confessed never to have made it farther south than New Mexico, though I had spent several years in New York. I told him the same false story as usual, that I was in the restaurant field and had worked as a guard for the organic gourmet oasis Chez Monique, among other places. The man introduced himself as Petri and explained he was in the security business and could say no more about his work. I told him my name was Kanerva, which is actually my middle name. Petri thought the name lovely.

The women on the hunt left. The dyed-blond boob bomb threw me a knife-sharp look and deliberately bumped my back with her bag. She didn’t even bother with what serves as the typical Finnish apology, O-ho! We both knew what was in question and I didn’t have the energy to teach the young miss her manners. It was best to conceal my true nature from my prey.

Petri was talkative, which suited me fine. He mostly talked about his travels. He enjoyed windsurfing and snowboarding and his work appeared to be merely a means to fund his hobbies. He lived in a small rental in Kallio and owned only a bicycle. His whole salary went to traveling.

By the time I’d finished my second shot I was mulling over whether Petri was attractive enough for me to take the risk of exposure and sleep with him. Of course I couldn’t take him to the place I shared in Käpylä, but what if I went home with him? In the end I nixed the thought—not because I was shy of one-night flings but because the danger of being caught was just too great. My security guard ID and driver’s license were both in my wallet, and I for one would riffle through someone’s wallet if given the chance.

The man, in contrast, was ridiculously trusting. When he went to the men’s room he left his phone on the bar counter. The bartender was occupied mixing cosmopolitans for a trio of girls full of holiday cheer, so I took a quick peek at the gizmo, a simple Oyster Nokia no longer even sold.

Not a single message. Just first names in the address book, like Mom and Boss. Maybe Petri had left the phone on the counter because it didn’t contain any secrets anyway.

Almost by accident I opened the picture gallery. The first shot showed a snow-covered mountain scene. The next was considerably darker. It showed a gravestone. A swan flying away, and the words, Paula Johanna Salo, 1985–2012.

Santa Claus must indeed have magic powers.

 

4.

Although I didn’t have to, I went in to work on Saturday too. The temperature had dropped to minus 14° Fahrenheit during the night, and pale stars still strove to be seen on the horizon when I awoke at six. Petri had not given his last name, but I’d get that from the Stockmann employee directory. I had two guesses: Virtanen or Salo. The night before I had pleaded exhaustion and when I left I had given a false Facebook address with the name Kanerva Hakkarainen.

I pulled on a sweat suit and walked to Stockmann. The sun had not shown itself for weeks, but now it rose over the Vanhankaupunginselkä Bay to the east, red as a Christmas tree ornament. The world was silver white, dogs lifted their paws quickly in the snow and tried to fluff out their fur against the biting cold. I tightened my parka hood, pulled on an extra brown ski hat over it, and donned sunglasses to hide my face from the cameras when I punched in the alarm code. I walked behind the Old Student House to reach the elevator to the parking garage. It was always possible that Petri was watching the security cameras.

A store detective and a junkie—was that the team of thieves? Though a burglar alarm deactivator was not part of a store cop’s regular equipment, it would have been easy enough for Petri to obtain. Maybe he had also gotten his colleagues to see Veli-Pekka Virtanen as harmless. Or had the men perhaps figured that a junkie was too obvious a suspect to fall under suspicion?

In the secret room I opened the employee directory Bruun had given me. Petri’s full name was Petri Ilmari Aalto, address Pengerkatu Street, as he had said. Military rank, reserve second lieutenant; age, thirty-one. I googled Paula Johanna Salo but didn’t find anything to help with the gravestone woman. It would have been useful to have access to the police database.

Fortunately, I had connections. Tommy H. and I had been in the army together and in our spare time we had trained together for the police academy entrance exams. Tommy H. had been in love with me and imagined we’d build a career together, but in the end I didn’t apply to the police academy. They’d hardly have accepted a murderer’s daughter. On our last long march, Tommy H. had sprained his back, but he wouldn’t let himself quit. I had carried his pack as well as mine for the last part of the trip, and the resultant debt of gratitude had already provided me with some information I’d needed. Tommy H. had gotten married a year ago, so I could no longer repay his services au naturel. His marital status wouldn’t have stopped me, but for the time being Tommy H. had shown himself to be the faithful type.

“Hello, Tommy H.!” I tried for a syrupy voice, though I doubted I could bullshit my old buddy. After a minute of small talk I got straight to the point: “I have three names I need data on fast: Veli-Pekka Virtanen, Paula Johanna Salo, and Petri Ilmari Aalto.”

I’d barely gotten into the fat suit, Santa coat, and beard when Tommy H. called back. Petri was totally clean, nothing on him in the police files. Virtanen had done two short stints for drug dealing, and before that there’d been a pile of fines for the same thing. Paula Johanna Salo’s charges stopped at one. She’d driven into a truck in the middle of the night on busy Kustaa Vaasa Street. The blood tests had found alcohol, benzodiazepines, and strong pain medicine. Salo had left behind a three-year-old daughter.

“Who’s the father?”

“The papers give only the mother’s name. The child is currently in her grandmother’s care.”

“I’ll spring for the next round.”

“We’ll see. Jenna’s pregnant and she feels lost without me.”

I congratulated Tommy H. He’d been a satisfactory bedmate, if uselessly romantic at times. It was better for him to spend his emotions on his wife.

Merja waved at me from behind her counter. I blew her a kiss and left to do my security rounds. Petri was nowhere to be seen that day. I caught a pair of teenage girls trying to snatch some push-up bras. I threatened no gifts for the rest of their lives unless the young ladies straightened out their ways. Their response would have made gang members in the Kerava Juvenile Prison blush. Long live gender equality. I left them waiting for the police in the store detectives’ room.

On Sunday the sleet blew horizontally. The storm winds brought down one of the Christmas light garlands over the store’s main entrance and it knocked a passerby unconscious. From the coffee shop window next to the cosmetics department, I watched as Petri called an ambulance for the old woman. After it had come, he stayed standing on the sidewalk even though the sleet had soaked his light-blue Oxford shirt so thoroughly his nipples showed through it. I turned away when he changed position. His profession required him to be able to distinguish one from another among us Santas. I drew back into the shadows beside the escalator and watched him come inside. He walked straight over to Merja’s counter and took some tissue.

“Goodness, you’re wet,” Merja said. “Wait a minute, I’ll get you a whole package.”

She turned and opened the case where jars were kept. The package of tissue was bulging; it looked as if someone had tried to stuff it with extra paper. Petri thanked her and began to wipe off his hair.

“Don’t much want to be seen this way,” he said with a grateful smile to Merja. Then he resumed his path toward the watch department. I waited a short while before I walked over to Merja.

“You’re cheating on me with that handsome youngster,” I teased. Merja jumped but recovered quickly.

“Him?” she giggled as if delighted. “Don’t be silly. I’ve known Petri since he was a little boy. He was one of my daughter’s best friends.”

“Was?”

There was no time for an answer before I felt someone tugging at my coat.

The child was at most three. Thick overalls and a sleet-drenched fur cap concealed the gender. The kid wanted a pellet gun because Julius at day care had one. The mother standing beside her shot me looks indicating that was not a present she favored. I told the kid we’d see what Santa could do. By the time the child was gone, Merja was busy showing face packs to a customer. Had she realized I’d seen everything? I couldn’t be sure.

During my break I glanced at the employee directory. I was not even surprised when I saw Merja’s last name. It was Salo-Virtanen.

 

5.

Sunday night I tossed and turned in bed wondering whether to mention my suspicions to Henrik Bruun. I did not have any concrete proof against Merja and Petri. Giving him the package of tissue had taken place carefully outside the range of the security camera. On the face of it there was nothing peculiar in the occurrence other than that Petri was not wearing an overcoat. Usually the store detectives dressed like the customers for the season at hand.

But were there more involved than Merja, Petri, and Veli-Pekka? Someone in the watch or electronics department? The regular salespeople knew that Petri was a store detective, but wouldn’t they become suspicious if items disappeared each time he pretended to be a customer looking at them? I must have fallen asleep for a short time, because I dreamed that half the Stockmann staff belonged to a league of store thieves and Bruun was shouting that he’d hired me just so he could set me up as guilty. They’d punish me by suffocating me with my Santa Claus beard. I woke up to find I’d stuffed the corner of my sheet into my mouth.

Monday was quiet. Merja wasn’t at work and I circulated for over an hour before I saw Petri in the menswear department half a floor up. He was looking at bathrobes. A dyed-blond silicon babe crept up beside him. When I looked more closely I saw that it was the same woman who had slammed me with her purse in the bar Friday evening. Was she following Petri?

Petri pushed his hand into the pocket of a luxuriously thick terry bathrobe. I saw that his hand was closed in a fist. When he pulled it out his palm was open. He shook his head as if to indicate that the robe did not suit him and moved over to look at the next. The blonde moved along with him to the bathrobe he’d just left and she, too, pushed her hand into the pocket. Then she raised her purse in such a way that she could drop into it whatever object she had taken from the pocket. Petri had already left the bathrobes and moved on to the underwear. The blonde, in contrast, set off purposefully toward the exit on the Esplanade side. No exit alarms sounded when she headed outside into the storm gales.

I stepped onto the escalator. Petri was fingering long underwear patterned with hockey sticks. I walked over to him and murmured, “Tasteless. Wouldn’t allow those in my pack. I’ve been keeping an eye on you. Seem to have left the path of good children.”

Petri did not lift his eyes from the long johns but he hissed, “What the hell are you babbling about?”

“I know how you stole the stuff. That blond bird is one of your mules and junkie Virtanen is another. He’s apparently Merja Salo-Virtanen’s son. Are you in debt for Paula Salo’s gravestone? Or just looking for the good life?”

The color drained from Petri’s face. “What do you know about Paula?” He was clearly struggling not to yell.

I bent over to whisper into his ear: “Paula chose death over life.”

“Who are you? Did Jansson send you? You can see I’m sticking to our deal. Another thousand euros’ worth of cameras just left in Milla’s bag. The debt will be paid off by Christmas. Then Jansson can go to hell. Tell him I said so!” Petri glared at me, his eyes burning with hatred.

“Hey, Santa, can I have some candy?” I was again surrounded by creatures the height of fire extinguishers, there were at least four of them. I said Captain Cavity had forbidden me from handing out candy and that no one wanted false teeth for Christmas when they grew up, anyway. That got the crowd of mothers giggling.

“Could we at least take a picture?” one mother asked, and I couldn’t refuse. By the time that was done, Petri had disappeared. I, too, vanished to my secret place. Time for Tommy H. again.

“Jansson?” he sighed when he heard my question. “Sometimes I think Jansson’s as mythical as Santa Claus. In any case, no one’s been able to catch him at anything, though it’s general knowledge that he deals drugs and sells stolen goods. But Jansson’s vassals won’t talk. Quite a number of them have just happened to get their fingers caught in a saw or their toes run over by a lawn mower. Be careful with him. He takes no pity on women, either.”

I reminded Tommy H. that I was not just any woman, and I promised to let him know as soon as I got more information on Jansson’s doings. I straightened my beard and returned to work. There were rarely children in the furniture department, so I headed there to think things through. I had accomplished my assignment; I just needed proof. Who would be easier to break, Petri or Merja? Women were often tougher, especially when it concerned their children. What if I were to approach Merja as my real self, Hilja?

I waited to see if she’d come in for the night shift, but she did not appear. A pretty young coworker said she would be back at work the next day. “So Santa’s fallen for Merja?” she teased, and I clutched my hands to my heart dramatically. This wasn’t the first time I’d acted at acting.

In the final weeks before Christmas the department store stayed open till nine. It was quarter past nine when I took the elevator toward the ground floor. The customers had already left and the elevator was empty. I was terribly tempted to take off my hot wig right there. Luckily I didn’t, because at the P2 level the elevator stopped. Petri stepped in.

“So, Santa Claus,” he said, as the elevator jerked and came to a stop, “looks like we’re stuck between floors. My, my, after closing it can take quite awhile before they get the elevator running again. I hope you aren’t claustrophobic. Now take off the stupid disguise and we’ll have a face-to-face talk, man to man. Or shall I take it off myself?” Petri whipped a knife from his pocket, one from the souvenir department. I backed to the corner of the elevator, trying to feign fear.

“For God’s sake, don’t wave the knife around. I’ll take it off . . .” I raised my hand toward my beard and trusted myself to my luck. I had practiced the move many times, and I was quick enough. Petri’s menacing expression vanished when he saw the Glock in my hand.

“Scissors beat paper, and guns beat blades. Fine with me to chat, but I pose the questions. Santa’s not taking wish lists right now.”

Of course my gun was not loaded, but how would Petri know that? He evidently hadn’t the slightest idea whose sack I was bagging prey for.

“Drop the knife. Hands clasped behind your neck. On your knees. Santa expects respect.”

Slowly Petri obeyed.

I kicked the knife to the side and demanded, “How’d a boy with clean papers like you and Merja Salo-Virtanen get mixed up with Jansson’s gang? Who joined first, Paula or Veli-Pekka?”

“So you don’t know the whole story?” A glimmer of hope flickered in Petri’s eyes but dimmed when I held the gun closer to his temple.

“I know enough. Now I want to hear the rest.”

“There’s not much to tell. I’ve known VP since we were kids, even before his mother remarried and had Paula. VP was always in trouble and I couldn’t do anything about it. Paula . . . It was too bad we ended up in bed together, sometimes that just happens. We had fuckin’ bad luck, she got pregnant. She wanted to keep the kid and Merja, her mother, was excited too. We agreed to raise it together even though we weren’t in love.”

Petri had fastened his gaze on the floor and was blinking away tears. “But Paula had postpartum depression. VP, the goddamn idiot, gave her speed to help. And it did. Merja and I tried to get her to stop, but what can you do when someone’s hooked? Paula fell into debt to Jansson’s gang. She saw what they did to Veli-Pekka and she couldn’t take the fear. She killed herself. But you don’t skip out on a debt to Jansson. He knew Paula had left a kid. He sent Veli-Pekka to pay a visit to Merja: if she didn’t pay off Paula’s debt, he’d take the kid and sell her to the highest buyer. The world has plenty of markets for cute four-year-olds.”

“Why didn’t you go to the police?”

“He said that Petriikka would die instantly if we went. That he had eyes everywhere.”

Petri might be an experienced store detective, but the role of father trumped the professional. It was a mistake to take anyone into your life whom you’d start to care about.

“And the blonde? Is that your current girlfriend?”

“Milla? No. She works for Jansson. Sometimes picks up the payments.”

“Do you ever hand things directly to Jansson?”

“Tomorrow it’s his turn to come again. But please don’t get the police mixed up with this. I beg you—” Petri raised his clasped hands over his head for a moment—“this is about my child! Merja’s already lost one and VP is more or less gone. Needs a new liver, but with what money?”

I faked a Santa’s ho-ho-ho. “Let the elevator move again now. Back to the first floor. Don’t try to follow me. Leave a message at Merja’s counter where and how you’re meeting Jansson. How much does he still need?”

“Three thousand. Can I get up to press the code?”

“No tricks.”

“Who are you, really?” Petri asked when the elevator door opened.

“I’m Santa Claus. You’d better believe in me.”

I did not dare go to the secret room. I went out by a different elevator and walked to the streetcar stop. I took the Number 6 to St. Paul’s Church and walked the last part, though the wind whipped my beard and blew my coat hem over my ears. For God’s sake, why hadn’t I left well enough alone? Why did I want to help Merja and Petri? And above all—how could I do so?

 

6.

Merja tried her best to keep up the usual flirting, although we both knew it was fake.

“Here’s my list for Santa,” she said coquettishly, extending a folded piece of paper to me. Twelve fifteen at the men’s overcoats. Hope you know what you’re doing. P

I wasn’t sure I did. That’s why I had turned to Tommy H. for help. Because Jansson had long been under police observation, Tommy H. had been eager to work with me. He’d gotten me the needed three thousand from the snitch fund. It was in my coat pocket, wrapped as a gift.

Petri was waiting for me at the time we’d agreed on. I gave him the package and moved aside. Tommy H. and two other plainclothes police were in the store watching what would happen.

Jansson arrived at the prearranged time. He was an unremarkable-looking man a little over thirty with no distinguishing features. He stood looking at the overcoats. Petri for his part watched him as a store detective should. Jansson took one of the coats into a dressing room. Petri followed him. The package would change owner under the stall divider.

A few minutes passed. Petri returned to the men’s clothing department, perspiration on his brow. Would Jansson fall for the trap? The bills had been marked with ink, visible only under ultraviolet light. The police would track their use. It could take years, and in the best case scenario Jansson wouldn’t even know which money had finally caused the demise of his money-laundering operation. The foundation of the plan was that once Jansson got the debt payment in full he would leave Paula Salo’s family alone. Petri and Merja had not earned a cent from their thefts, and though they had committed crimes, it was not my place to judge them.

The next morning I told Bruun that the thief had been an external one after all and that I had frightened him so thoroughly that the game would end there.

“But the penalty? The damages?” he asked.

“The police are on his trail, but because of the investigation they can’t disclose any more. Nor can I. And you of course want to keep your own secret—the secret room.”

I could see that Bruun was seething, but I didn’t care. Even if I didn’t get a job reference, the important thing was that I got my final paycheck. I told him I’d be gone at the end of the shift.

As the afternoon wore on, the crowds in the store became unbearable. Merja left after the morning shift, but Petri was doing a long day. Later, after closing time, I saw Petri waving at me from an escalator heading to the ground floor. I set off after him as fast as my fat suit permitted. Most of the staff had already left the store; only the cashiers remained counting their sales. Petri entered a door that read, Employees Only, and beckoned me to follow him. His face was pale, his eyes red, and his skin peeling.

“I got a message from Jansson that the debt’s been paid. I can’t believe it. Are the police really going to get him without dragging us into it? Will we get off scot-free?”

“Let’s try our best.”

“Why did you do this? Weren’t you supposed to rat on us to Bruun?”

“Does it matter?” I didn’t know the answer myself. I seized him by the shoulders and kissed him on the mouth. The surprise was so great that it took a minute before he wrenched free and stepped back, gasping.

“Who are you? Are you police too?”

I pulled off my Santa hat and tore off the beard and mustache. Petri gaped at me in disbelief.

“You’re a woman?! You have to be kidding. Are you the . . . Did I meet you in the bar that time Milla was trying to get away from her friend?”

“We may have met.”

“But Kanerva Hakkarainen isn’t your real name. At least, I couldn’t find you on Facebook.”

“My name isn’t important.” I stepped closer to Petri again. He reached out his hand and tried in vain to feel my shape under the fat suit. We kissed again, and there was a moment when I thought I’d go all the way and take the man right there on the spot. Then I came to my senses and pulled away from his embrace.

“Present distribution ends here. Time to head back to the North Pole.”

I picked up my things and took off. I left the Santa gear in the secret room, walked up the stairs from the parking garage to the Old Student House and through the underground tunnels to Forum and from there to Yrjönkatu Street. I rode to the Hotel Torni’s Ateljee Bar and ordered tequila-spiked cocoa. I watched the snow blowing in over the sea from the southeast, and I savored Santa’s kiss, still on my lips.