filled with a pedestrian mass of sweating, sun-dazed Finns.
“Anyway, after I developed that teen market, I found this other thing. These cute little animals. ‘Froofies.’ Major hit in Japan. Froofy Velcro shoes, Froofy candy, sodas, backpacks, badges, lunchkits … Froofies are what they call ‘kawai.’ ”
Aino drove on. They passed a bronze Finnish general on horseback. He had been a defeated general, but he looked like defeating him again would be far more trouble than it was worth. “What’s kawai?”
Starlitz rubbed his stubbled chin. “ ‘Cute’ doesn’t get it across. Maybe ‘adorable.’ Big-money-making adorable. The kicker is that Froofies come from Finland.”
“I’m a Finn. I don’t know anything called Froofies.”
“They’re kids’ books. This little old Finnish lady wrote them. On her kitchen table. Illustrated kid-stories from the forties and fifties. Of course lately they’ve beenmade into manga and anime and Nintendo cassettes and a whole bunch of other stuff.…”
Aino’s brows rose. “Do you mean Flüüvins? Little blue animals with heads like big fat pillows?”
“Oh, you know them, then.”
“My
mother
read me Flüüvins! Why would Japanese want Flüüvins?”
“Well, the scam was—this old lady, she lives on this secluded island. Middle of the Baltic. Complete ass-end of nowhere. Old girl never married. No manager. No agent. Obviously not getting a dime off all this major Japanese action. Probably senile. So the plan is—I fly over to Finland. To these islands. Hunt her down. Cut a deal with her. Get her signature. Then, we sue.”
“I don’t understand you.”
“She lives in the Åland Islands. Those islands are crucial to your people, and the Organizatsiya, too. So you see the general convergence of interests here?”
Aino shook her green-braided head. “We have serious political and economic interests in the Ålands. Flüüvins are silly books for children.”
“What’s ‘serious?’ I’m talking plastic action figures! Cartoon drinking glasses. Kid-show theme songs. When a thing like this hits, it’s major revenue. Factories churning round the clock in Shenzhen. Crates full of stuff into mall anchor-stores. Did you know that the ‘California Raisins’ are worth more than the entire California raisin crop? That’s a true fact!”
Aino was growing gloomy. “I hate raisins. Californians use slave ethnic labor and pesticides. Raisins are nasty little dead grapes.”
“I’m copacetic, but we’re talking Japan here,” Starlitz insisted. “Higher per-capita than Marin County! The ruble’s in the toilet now, but the yen is sky-high. We get a big shakedown settlement in yen, we launder it in rubles, and we clear major revenue completely off the books. That’s serious as cancer.”
Aino lowered her voice. “I don’t believe you. Why areyou telling me such terrible lies? That’s a very stupid cover story for an international spy!”
“You had to ask.” Starlitz shrugged.
They found the safehouse in Ypsallina. It was a duplex. The other half of the duplex was occupied by a gullible Finnish yuppie couple with workaholic schedules. Starlitz produced the keys. Aino went in, checked every room and every window with paranoid care, then went back to the Fiat and woke Raf.
Raf wobbled into the apartment, found the bathroom. He vomited with gusto, then turned on the shower. Aino brought in a pair of bulging blue nylon sports bags. There was no phone service, but Khoklov’s people had thoughtfully left a clone-chipped cellular on the bedroom dresser.
Starlitz, who had been in the safehouse before, retrieved his laptop from the kitchen closet. It was a Japanese portable with a keyboard the length of a cricket bat, a complex mess of ASCII, kanji, katakana, hiragana, and arcane function keys. It had a cellular modem.
Starlitz logged in to a Helsinki Internet service provider and checked the metal-band’s website in Tokyo. Nothing much happening
“Anyway, after I developed that teen market, I found this other thing. These cute little animals. ‘Froofies.’ Major hit in Japan. Froofy Velcro shoes, Froofy candy, sodas, backpacks, badges, lunchkits … Froofies are what they call ‘kawai.’ ”
Aino drove on. They passed a bronze Finnish general on horseback. He had been a defeated general, but he looked like defeating him again would be far more trouble than it was worth. “What’s kawai?”
Starlitz rubbed his stubbled chin. “ ‘Cute’ doesn’t get it across. Maybe ‘adorable.’ Big-money-making adorable. The kicker is that Froofies come from Finland.”
“I’m a Finn. I don’t know anything called Froofies.”
“They’re kids’ books. This little old Finnish lady wrote them. On her kitchen table. Illustrated kid-stories from the forties and fifties. Of course lately they’ve beenmade into manga and anime and Nintendo cassettes and a whole bunch of other stuff.…”
Aino’s brows rose. “Do you mean Flüüvins? Little blue animals with heads like big fat pillows?”
“Oh, you know them, then.”
“My
mother
read me Flüüvins! Why would Japanese want Flüüvins?”
“Well, the scam was—this old lady, she lives on this secluded island. Middle of the Baltic. Complete ass-end of nowhere. Old girl never married. No manager. No agent. Obviously not getting a dime off all this major Japanese action. Probably senile. So the plan is—I fly over to Finland. To these islands. Hunt her down. Cut a deal with her. Get her signature. Then, we sue.”
“I don’t understand you.”
“She lives in the Åland Islands. Those islands are crucial to your people, and the Organizatsiya, too. So you see the general convergence of interests here?”
Aino shook her green-braided head. “We have serious political and economic interests in the Ålands. Flüüvins are silly books for children.”
“What’s ‘serious?’ I’m talking plastic action figures! Cartoon drinking glasses. Kid-show theme songs. When a thing like this hits, it’s major revenue. Factories churning round the clock in Shenzhen. Crates full of stuff into mall anchor-stores. Did you know that the ‘California Raisins’ are worth more than the entire California raisin crop? That’s a true fact!”
Aino was growing gloomy. “I hate raisins. Californians use slave ethnic labor and pesticides. Raisins are nasty little dead grapes.”
“I’m copacetic, but we’re talking Japan here,” Starlitz insisted. “Higher per-capita than Marin County! The ruble’s in the toilet now, but the yen is sky-high. We get a big shakedown settlement in yen, we launder it in rubles, and we clear major revenue completely off the books. That’s serious as cancer.”
Aino lowered her voice. “I don’t believe you. Why areyou telling me such terrible lies? That’s a very stupid cover story for an international spy!”
“You had to ask.” Starlitz shrugged.
They found the safehouse in Ypsallina. It was a duplex. The other half of the duplex was occupied by a gullible Finnish yuppie couple with workaholic schedules. Starlitz produced the keys. Aino went in, checked every room and every window with paranoid care, then went back to the Fiat and woke Raf.
Raf wobbled into the apartment, found the bathroom. He vomited with gusto, then turned on the shower. Aino brought in a pair of bulging blue nylon sports bags. There was no phone service, but Khoklov’s people had thoughtfully left a clone-chipped cellular on the bedroom dresser.
Starlitz, who had been in the safehouse before, retrieved his laptop from the kitchen closet. It was a Japanese portable with a keyboard the length of a cricket bat, a complex mess of ASCII, kanji, katakana, hiragana, and arcane function keys. It had a cellular modem.
Starlitz logged in to a Helsinki Internet service provider and checked the metal-band’s website in Tokyo. Nothing much happening
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