Helsinki White

by James Thompson

  An hour goes by, a doctor breezes in, also smiling, and asks, “How are we doing today?”

  I wish I could hit him.

  “Do I still have a jaw?” I ask.

  He looks at my chart. “Your jaw is fine. All the bone is intact. In fact, you suffered little damage in that regard. The teeth that were shot away were prosthetics, weren’t your own anyway. The bullet inflicted injury on a previously damaged area. You may have some additional nerve damage and some trouble with mobility on that side of your face. Only time will tell.”

  “And my knee?”

  He sighs. “The original gunshot to your knee destroyed a great deal of cartilage, and more was worn away through normal use over the years because the damage made it fragile. During your recent partial knee replacement, some of that damaged cartilage was removed. The new gunshot destroyed the prosthesis. I doubt a new one is viable. Again, time will tell. But best guess, you’ll have the same problems you had before the replacement, only worse. I doubt you’ll be able to walk without aid, at least a cane. But you keep the leg. Be thankful for that.”

  “My wife and colleague were also injured. Can you check on them for me?”

  “Of course.”

  “And I want some cigarettes. Can you help me out?”

  “I’ll go to the office and see what personal effects you have locked up there.” He gives my shoulder a pat. “I’ll buy you some and take you outside myself, if need be.”

  He comes back a little while later. He has my wallet, cell phone, cane, cigarettes and lighter. My other things are in police custody. He wheels me outside to smoke and I find Milo there. “Your friend can relate his own condition. Your daughter is in our nursery, and your wife responds only to her. Your wife is suffering from acute stress disorder, as evidenced by her inability to comprehend stimuli, disorientation, and dissociative stupor. She’s heavily sedated. Her condition will likely improve, it’s just a question of when. Days, or weeks, at most.”

  “When can we all go home?”

  “You need professional in-home care, since neither of you can take care of the other, and your conditions need close monitoring. The changing of your bandages, for instance, must be done precisely. I can bring you the contact information for in-home care firms. If you can’t afford it, you can remain here until the situation improves.”

  The doctor takes me back to my room and Milo comes with us. I thank the doc and he leaves us alone. “The room is probably bugged,” I say, “don’t say anything private. How are you?”

  His head is also wrapped in bandages. “They saved my ear. It may hang funny. My hand will never work right again, if at all. Physical therapy may or may not help.”

  “I guess you have to learn to shoot left-handed.”

  He sighs. “I guess so. I can go home tomorrow, though. That’s something, at least. I hate this fucking place.”

  “I don’t want a stranger in my home. You said Mirjami is a registered nurse.”

  “If you recall, she’s in love with you. I doubt she’ll say no.”

  I also recall she turns me on so much, I almost came in my pants when I met her. But sex is very low on my list of wants at the moment. “She doesn’t pay much attention to me. I think she got over it. Would you call her for me? Tell her I’ll pay her anything she wants.”

  “Yeah. And I’ll stop by again in a while and take you out to smoke.”

  That’s all I have to look forward to at the moment. “See you later.”

  As he walks out, two SUPO detectives walk in to take my statement. I give it to them. They ask no interrogation-type questions, just tape-record it. Then they congratulate me on breaking the Saukko case, shake my hand, and wish me godspeed in my recovery. I find myself nodding off.

  _________

  I WAKE UP and Sweetness is sitting in a chair beside the bed. “Here,” he says, and hands me a bouquet of flowers and a box of candy. I don’t know if it’s a joke or not.

  “It was supposed to make you laugh,” he says.

  I put on the fake smile. “Sorry, everything hurts. Watch what you say. I’m sure the room is bugged. Everything OK with you?”

  “Everything went as planned, and yeah, things are good. I’m dating Jenna now.”

  “That’s great, you must be a happy man.”

  “I had to bargain to get her. No more carrying the kossu flask.”

  “That’s even better. Wise girl. The shit was going to kill you.”

  He shrugs. “Something kills everybody. Just ask my brother.”

  Milo wanders in. “Hey! The gang’s all here.”

  “How are you guys?” Sweetness asks.

  Milo says, “Fucked-up and permanently damaged, but alive. How is everything from your end?” meaning the money.

  Sweetness gets the drift. “Under control.”

  “Mirjami took a leave of absence to care for you,” Milo says to me. “They didn’t like it until she told them she was going to take care of the great fallen hero. She’ll be at your house as soon as you give her the word.”

  “Then we can leave. Sweetness, would you do me a favor and take us all home in the SUV?”

  “Get your stuff together. It’s parked outside.”

  I’m a shot cop, get VIP treatment. I ask a nurse if they can dress my wife, get my child, and meet us in the lobby. She says give her half an hour.

  We get outside, have a moment without listening devices monitoring us, and in turn walk, gimp on crutches, and are pushed in a wheelchair to the SUV. “I have a plan,” I say. “We’ll wrap these murders up in a couple days, and make some people unhappy along the way.”

  40

  The guys help us get our stuff into the apartment. Mirjami shows up, all business. She’s wearing jeans, no makeup and a plain gray sweatshirt. Kate walks to the couch and sits down. She shows no signs of cognition, but this, evidently, is where she wants to be. She holds out her arms. I put Anu in them. Kate’s eyes don’t so much as waver, but she seems satisfied. I ask Sweetness to go with Milo and get the anti-surveillance gear. They go through the house. Every room is bugged. They de-bug the house and leave to let us get settled in.

  I call my former psychoanalyst, Torsten Holmqvist, explain about Kate and her condition. I tell him I have an opinion from the hospital, but I’d like a second opinion and follow-up care, and I’d like all this done in my home. I can almost hear him scoff, and then I tell him cost is no object. He’s the best money can buy and that’s what I want for my wife. He agrees.

  Mirjami tells me she would like to examine my wounds and takes me to the bedroom. She unwraps them, spends a long time examining them, tut-tuts concern, and applies new dressings.

  Torsten arrives. I don’t tell him the story, just that Kate’s been through a terribly traumatic experience. He diagnoses her with acute stress disorder, and cites the same symptoms as the first doctor. So the original diagnosis was correct. She responds only to Anu, whom she will hold and allow to nurse. He deems this a good sign.

  The condition will probably last from two days to four weeks. He prescribes eighty milligrams of the tranquilizer Diazepam per day, spread out over four doses, for a few days, during which she’ll sleep most of the time, and then, depending on how things go, cut it back to sixty milligrams. He’ll check on her in a few days and tells me to let him know if anything requires his attention.

  Within the day, I expect everyone from Heinrich Himmler/Saukko to Jyri Ivalo are going to call or pound on my door and tell me to give them that ten million euros. Even if it were true, they wouldn’t accept that I don’t have it. They want it too badly to allow themselves to believe it’s lost.

  I think about calling Saukko myself. He would want to know about his son. Then I think, Fuck him, he’s a pig. And he never even bothered to call me to ask how his son died.

  I decide I want to proceed with the investigation now, whether I can directly participate or not. I call Sweetness and ask him to go to Turku, to B&E the houses and business of the two former Legi
onnaires and find their heroin and the rifles used in the murders. I call Milo and tell him what we’re up to, and he wants to go too, shattered hand be damned. Unless they’ve been cleaned, the rifles used in the murders should be the only ones with gunpowder residue. They get to Turku and find both men in Marcel’s home, both dead.

  Sweetness calls me over our encrypted phones. They ODed. One had a needle in his arm, the other a needle in his dick. As Moreau said, they died badly. Vomit everywhere. Face and bodies twisted from convulsions. Strychnine. They weren’t users. They bore other needle track marks, though, to give the impression that they were users, undoubtedly created by empty syringes, possibly after they were dead. Moreau murdered his old friends in one of the most painful ways imaginable. I say to leave them there for now to decomp. Mostly so I can rest for a couple of days before the denouement.

  I tell Sweetness to find the rifles used in the race murders and leave them somewhere not too hard to find. To locate the .308 Winchester used to murder Kaarina Saukko, go to Malinen’s summer cottage, use print transparencies from his possessions and transfer his fingerprints to the rifle, then plant it somewhere semi-hidden in the cottage, along with a quantity of heroin. He orchestrated murder, he can pay for it. Morally, I can see no difference if he pays for the murder of Lisbet Söderlund, which he caused, or that of Kaarina Saukko, for which the weapon was used. I ask Milo if he’s capable of cleaning out Jyri’s bank account. He says consider it done. I tell him to wait until I give the word.

  Mirjami does a good job. She’s attentive and, I discover, quite intelligent as well. Kate remains in a state resembling catatonia. Mirjami’s attention doesn’t waver from her, Anu and their needs. She also changes the bandages and cleans the wounds on my reconstructed knee, now deconstructed, and the wounds in my mouth and face. She sleeps in the spare bed in Anu’s room.

  That first night at home, I’m doped up and exhausted. I fall into a deep sleep. I have a sex dream about Kate. It’s vivid, intense. It wakes me, but it’s not a dream. Mirjami has my dick in her mouth. The beautiful girl. The rush of pleasure amidst pain. The dope. I close my eyes and sigh. Then I hear Kate stirring in her sleep in the living room. It’s hard to remember what I would have done when I felt emotion, but I dig deep and try.

  I twist Mirjami’s hair in my hand and pull her away from me. “No. Please.” My strength is sapped. I can muster only those two words.

  She says nothing, makes her way up the bed. Her body is near mine, but not pressed against me. She puts an arm around me. It means nothing to me. I let it rest there and drift off to sleep again. When I wake, she’s gone from the bed, spoon-feeding Kate. I ask myself if it really happened. We don’t speak of it.

  My wounds have taken a great toll on me. I’m in much pain. I use a lot of narcotics. I mostly sit with Kate and Anu or in my massive chair, read, watch TV. I sleep a lot. I don’t read newspapers. I don’t watch news. I don’t answer calls unless I recognize a friendly name on my cell phone.

  The next morning, Jyri comes to my home uninvited. He sees me and my condition, sees Kate and her condition. I tell him the story minus the ten million. It was never found. Antti Saukko is dead. Moreau is dead. Three children murdered. All over Helsinki, junkies are dying of strychnine poisoning. Twenty-nine at current count. Twenty-two are black.

  He doesn’t believe me, or thinks the money is there but I just couldn’t find it. I tell him to let it be. This is over. Jyri threatens me, tries to intimidate me. I counter, “Watch and see what happens if you don’t fuck off. Go home, take a look around your attic, on the rafters, and in the second snow tire from the bottom of the pile of four in your garage. Check your bank account.” He storms out.

  He calls a couple hours later. His voice is controlled. I think he’s both shocked and awed, and finally developed respect for me. “A MAC-10 and an assortment of drugs,” he says. “And I’m broke.”

  Jyri asks if I think I’m in charge now. I answer no, but I took this job and started this illegal operation after being promised that it was for the purpose of helping people. At the time, Jyri specified young women being forced into the slave trade and prostitution. That was a lie. This has been nothing but a corrupt scam to make the rich richer. A travesty that cost lives. No longer.

  He hems, haws, agrees. I tell him he’ll have his money returned today. But next time, if I’m ever duped again, more contraband and unaccounted-for money will come to light. After I fly a video on YouTube of him with a big green dildo stuck up his ass by a murder victim, I’m going to kill him in the process of arresting him. I ask him if he understands and force him to say yes.

  I call Saska Lindgren and give him a tip, with the promise that it didn’t come from me. The rifle used to kill Kaarina Saukko is in the back of a closet in Roope Malinen’s summer cottage. The murder is solved, he just has to concoct a story to go with it. Also, I’ve solved the Lisbet Söderlund murder and will announce it today. Evidence I find should also prove that her killers murdered the black people who were gassed and napalmed, and committed the bank robbery. He starts to ask me how I know. Thinks better of it. Thanks me and hangs up.

  The strychnine-laced heroin that has killed so many is traced back to the neo-Nazis. They claim innocence, try to pin it on the two ex-Legionnaires. Unfortunately, they’re dead, unable to provide evidence or testimony. Forty-seven neo-Nazis in total are arrested.

  I go to Turku with Milo. For some reason I want to appear strong, not crippled. I use my cane instead of crutches, despite additional pain. We find the meat saw that was used to decapitate Lisbet Söderlund. A forensics team goes over the room. They find her DNA on the saw, and in nearly invisible blood spatter surrounding it. A tough job, separating her DNA from the hundreds of animals the saw has dismembered.

  I suppose we’re once again heroes. I continue my media blackout and tell Milo and Sweetness I need a few days alone. I go home to rest, to take a sick leave and let my wounds heal.

  I still have no emotions. Each night, after I’m asleep, Mirjami clambers into bed with me. I never realize it until I feel her hand stroking my hair or brushing my arm. I once told her to go away and she did, but I think she came back. I’m not sure. She never comes too close or attempts seduction. For myself, in terms of meaning, it could be a dog in the bed with me, so I let it be.

  We never speak of it, it’s not happening. Until one day, while eating lunch, while Kate sleeps.

  “You know I’m in love with you,” she says.

  “You don’t even know me. You told Milo that about five seconds after you met me.”

  “You never heard of the lightning bolt?” she asks.

  “I’m honored,” I say. “You’re a beautiful woman and a lovely person, but I’m married and my emotions are…not as they should be.”

  “You’re damaged. I see your pain. I want to heal you.”

  I don’t know what to say.

  “It’s OK,” she says, “unrequited love is sad and beautiful. In a way, I’m at least able to borrow you for a little while. And you’ll never forget me.”

  “No, I won’t.”

  I feel as if I’m getting worse, not better. I’m sleeping even more. When awake, I’m zonked on painkillers and tranquilizers. And I need them. The pain is severe. I’m living on soup again, as I did the last time my teeth were shot out. My knee throbs and something like knife stabs shoot through it. I can feel it, don’t have to be told they won’t be able to put it back together again.

  That afternoon, Kate reaches over and takes my hand. She’s back.

  She’s not only back, but lucid. And I snap back, too. Just like that. In the blink of an eye. Emotions start rushing, surging through me. It’s overwhelming. So much so that my mind blanks, just swirls. It’s both agonizing and joyful. The shock freezes me for a minute. I can’t move and the room disappears first into blackness, then to blurry white light.

  As Jari told me it might, an event brought my emotions back. I feel love for the first time since my surgery. I fe
el relief that Kate has come back to me. I make my way over to her. We hold each other for a long time without speaking.

  “The last thing I remember,” she says, “is shooting Adrien. Where have I been and what has happened since then?”

  “Mostly, you’ve been right here. I’ll tell you what’s happened later.” I remained faithful, but I won’t tell her about Mirjami falling in love with me. I explain, though, that she’s been caring for us.

  Finally, Kate lets me go, picks up Anu so she can nurse. She’s quiet for a long time, a couple hours. Then she says I’ve done terrible things. She doesn’t know if they were the result of my surgery, or if she doesn’t know the man she married. And now she’s become a killer, too. She’s become everything she despises.

  Mirjami asks if her services are still required. I say I’m not sure, but Kate and I can get by for at least one night. We need the time together.

  Mirjami gathers her things. “If you want me,” she says, “just call.”

  Kate doesn’t catch the double entendre.

  Kate rarely speaks through the evening, and we sleep together, but the distance between us is great.

  In the morning, she says, “I’m taking Anu and going to stay at Kämp for a while.”

  I lost her to brain surgery, finally got her back, and now she’s leaving me. I say as much.

  “I’m not leaving you, I just need time to think. Are you able to care for yourself?”

  I nod. In fact, it will be difficult. I’ve realized that I’m in such bad shape that I’m in trouble. The pain is at times exquisite.

  She offers me no sign of affection. The door clicks behind her.

  41

  Over the next twelve days, we have dinner twice. It was a mistake to try. She didn’t want to be with me. The silence roared.