Helsinki Noir

by James Thompson

  “I’m protecting myself from being victimized by a pedophile.”

  He saw I was serious, and nervous, and might accidentally blow his balls off. “I’m not a pedophile. I’ve treated you not like a son, but like a friend. I’ve taken care of you and your mother. And you’re gonna pull some crazy stunt like this on me. Are you fucking crazy?”

  I told the truth: “Yeah.”

  He didn’t know what to do. He was king of the hill, and all of a sudden, a disabled teenage boy had a cannon in his crotch. He radiated bewilderment. “What now?”

  “Drive over to Lintulahti, and park where they keep the rental vehicles, behind the gas station.”

  Most of the vehicles were moving trucks. Parking between two of them made for zero visibility into the little Lada, and not a lot of people came and went anyway. It was just a few minutes away. We rode in silence. I could smell fear-sweat roll off him.

  “Cock your shotgun, put the safety on, and put it on the backseat,” I said.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “Because I might need it later. Empty your pockets and put everything in the glove box.” His dope was already there. He put in his fat cash roll with a rubber band around it—a lot of money—and then his wallet. He asked if he could have a smoke.

  “No. Drive to your supplier’s place,” I said.

  “You’re getting in way over your head,” he said.

  “It’s my head, just drive.”

  We went back up the hill to an apartment building on Vaasankatu. I didn’t even try to hide the guns. Just tucked the tactical shotgun in the crook of my bad arm and held the sawed-off in both hands, pointed at him, but just out of his reach, in case he tried to take it away from me. People in that neighborhood tend to not want to get involved.

  He rang the buzzer, a voice answered, and Jari said, “It’s me.”

  The front door unlocked. We took an elevator up. The apartment door was open for us when we got there. We went to the living room. A pretty woman in her twenties was smoking a joint and watching TV. She didn’t even bother to glance at us. “What’s up?” she asked.

  Jari said, “We’re being ripped off by a child.”

  She looked up and showed no emotion. “Put the guns down and I’ll let you live.”

  I set the sawed-off at my feet. The tactical shotgun was actually lighter, despite the bells and whistles and big magazine. I flipped the safety off. An air rifle was propped against the wall, next to an open window. A box of pellets on the sill. It looked like a nice gun, was scoped and everything. “What’s that for?” I asked.

  “I shoot pigeons when I’m bored.”

  “Jari, use it to shoot her eye out.”

  “You’re making a mistake,” she said.

  “Your stash and cash, or your eye,” I answered, though it was a lie. I had already decided that she would track me down and kill me, probably torture me first. I had already decided to kill them both.

  I pointed his shotgun at him. He looked at her and shrugged, as if to say, What can I do?

  It was a powerful kind of air rifle that runs on nitro cylinders, not the pump-up kind. He stuck a pellet in it.

  “If I give you my dope,” she said, “I’ll be killed for it. No one will believe this story. Don’t do this.”

  “With just one eye left, and the possibility of Jari shooting out the other, you might decide to take your chances.” I aimed at Jari’s head. “Shoot,” I said.

  She closed her eyes. He put the muzzle to her left eye and pulled the trigger. Her head slumped back against the couch. Jari checked her pulse. “She’s dead,” he said.

  Damn. The projectile penetrated all the way into her brain cavity. I didn’t know a pellet gun could do that. “Reload it,” I said.

  He was soaked with sweat, stunk, didn’t say a word, just stuck another pellet in it and propped it against the wall, where it was when we came in.

  I told him to sit beside her on the couch. “Where is her dope and money?”

  “I don’t know. She keeps it in another room. She only brings it out here so I can watch her weigh it.” He’s talking about her in the present tense. Reality hasn’t set in yet.

  “Last chance,” I said.

  Panic showed in his eyes, and a tear ran down and dripped off his nose.

  “Lay on the floor, facedown, arms and legs spread eagle.”

  “Please,” he said.

  “Like you said, you’ve been good to me and Mama. I’m not going to kill you. Just stay put while I search the place.”

  This calmed him a bit. It was difficult to hold two weapons, but I took the pellet gun and shot him in the temple with it. Motherfucker. I wished I could have killed him ten more times.

  Now I had all the time in the world. I turned the place upside down. She hadn’t hidden anything well, but she was organized. All the drugs were in big freezer bags and clearly marked: heroin, cocaine, methedrine, marijuana, ecstasy. I also came up with three handguns.

  Jari had taught me to drive. I took it all downstairs and put it in the Lada. Including her set of scales. My future had become clear.

  I bagged it all up and took it home. Mama was on the nod. Had overdone it a bit. Her dope and rig were there on the table. I shot her up. She moaned. Her eyes closed. I shot her up again. And then once more, just to make sure. I brought everything inside while she was dying.

  It was hard, but she was skinny. I dragged her to the bathroom and left her on the floor. I laid her on her stomach with her face down and neck over the shower drain. The electric carving knife went through her throat like butter and the blood flowed. No muss, no fuss.

  I went through the IKEA online catalog and ordered a coffee table sort of like a coffin. The top opened and there was a lot of space inside. And I ordered two hundred kilos of lime, paid them a big delivery charge. And another tip for the guys from IKEA to assemble the coffee table in front of my throne. I can’t manage a hammer and nails, so I bought the local grocery out of Krazy Glue.

  Mama went into the table, a piece at a time, each chunk covered with a generous portion of lime. I glued the top down with as much care as if I was handling nuclear waste. Mama finally got cured, and makes a nice footrest as well.

  * * *

  I bought myself a cool bicycle, and have a little route that I run around Kallio every day after school. No one picks on me because I have what they want, and a snub-nosed .357 Magnum further convinces them that there are plenty of other people they would rather bully.

  This story was originally written in English.

  ST. PETER’S STREET

  BY RIIKKA ALA-HARJA

  Eira

  Translated by Kristian London

  Water is flooding out of the bathroom.

  Klaus has been here.

  I shut off the valve to the washing machine and throw my sweater on the hallway floor. The heavy wool soaks up the water. I throw the bedspread on the kitchen floor. I walk over to the bed, lie with my head against the wall the way Klaus always does. I listen to a truck backing up on St. Peter’s Street.

  I saw Klaus this morning on my way to the island. He turned in the direction of St. Peter’s Street and disappeared. I was in a hurry, my shift was about to start. I jumped onto the ice, walked across its foot-thick lid until I made it to the island. I opened the door to the sauna, checked that the janitor had cleaned the showers, and then I clicked on the electric sauna stove. I went into the coffee shop, tied on my apron, and put the cinnamon rolls in the oven. I sold hot coffee and cocoa for eight hours.

  * * *

  I toss the soaking, heavy blanket and sweater into the bathtub. I get the sleeping bag from the cupboard and crawl into it. I can’t sleep. I take off my nightshirt. The light is on in the bathroom; Klaus forgot to turn it off again. Klaus never flushes the toilet, Klaus flicks Q-tips onto the bathroom floor, Klaus munches on Finn Crisps, Klaus doesn’t let me sleep.

  Klaus and I are always cooking together, making love, surfing our phones, laughing at
our mutual friends’ updates. In the summertime, we sail an old-fashioned wooden boat, we walk, and we breathe. People who live in our neighborhood are active and well-balanced, people who live in our neighborhood don’t do bad things to each other, people who live in our neighborhood know what they want.

  At night we lie in our double bed. My feet are pointed toward the wall, Klaus’s feet are pointed at the window. One time when we were arguing about our sleeping arrangements, he asked if I had ever thought about the name of the street we lived on.

  No, I answered.

  St. Peter’s Street, Klaus explained. Peter, who said that if he was going to be killed, he wanted to die a more horrible death than Jesus.

  Peter was crucified upside down.

  Stupid Peter. What did he achieve by hanging there?

  I doze off for a moment, then snap back awake.

  Is Klaus staring at me from over by the stove?

  I bend my knees inside the sleeping bag and stare at the ceiling. It’s clean, white, and dry. The floor is already dry too.

  Does the floor really dry this fast? Is the incident over this fast?

  * * *

  In the morning I head out onto the ice. I pass the island but I don’t go into the café. Today is my day off, today they don’t need me at the café, someone else gets to bake the cinnamon rolls. The island cinnamon roll oven heats up every morning, the island sauna stove heats up every morning.

  * * *

  Two women in swimsuits run down the wooden planks to the hole chainsawed into the ice. The women take steady strokes in the ice-cold water; I walk toward the low-hanging sun, the snow crunches under my winter boots. I walk up to the edge of the ice. I’m never the one who goes out the farthest. Klaus is, though.

  * * *

  When I return to the island, I glance in the sauna. The sauna is empty, the women have left. I take off my clothes, climb onto the bench, and toss water onto the stones.

  Once, Klaus and I reserved the entire sauna for ourselves; money had come in from the ad agency, the sauna was just for the two of us.

  I put on my swimsuit and walk along the wooden planks to the hole in the ice. The sea is frozen, but a hole has been sawed in it. The de-icer keeps water circulating so that the hole doesn’t freeze over. I lower myself into the sea one step at a time, the water is ice-cold but my toes can’t feel a thing. I lower myself in up to my waist. I slide out, my heart pounding. It’s a hundred yards to the shore, but there’s ice in between, you can’t swim there from here. The shoreline of the city’s most expensive neighborhood is full of free swimming spots: public beaches and ice holes.

  I climb out of the water. I’m instantly bitten by the cold. I walk along the wooden planks toward the warmth. I open the door, I take a hot shower, the water sprays, my toes start to melt, I let the water from the shower flow. I drop my swimsuit to the tiles, turn off the shower, and step into the sauna.

  Klaus, can you turn on the tap so I can get some more water for the sauna, will you let it run? Klaus, come sit next to me on the top bench. I slap more water onto the stones. I lean into you, Klaus. Klaus, say something to me, you have something to say. Tell me about Peter, tell me about the crazy disciple or whatever you want, you know how. It makes me laugh when your mother says that you live in London now, that you moved back there in November. That’s what your dad says too and your best friend Pete, but why would I believe them, since I see you every day. That’s what I tell Klaus’s mother over the phone, but Klaus’s mother hangs up.

  Klaus, if I change the locks at St. Peter’s Street, will you climb the ladder to the second floor?

  No, no, I won’t change the locks, you can always use the door. You can come whenever you want, as long as you come. When you leave the tap on, I’ll throw the mattress onto the floor to soak up the water, and in the morning everything will be dry again.

  * * *

  At home, I drop my bag on the hallway floor and hang my swimsuit up to dry. Heat is rising from the radiators, the air crackles.

  Klaus, are you coming?

  Klaus, are you coming right now?

  Yes, Klaus comes, Klaus comes and turns on the faucet, Klaus lets the water flow, Klaus is the one who runs the show.

  We lie in the dry bed, Klaus’s head is on the wall side and my head is toward the window. Water streams across the floor.

  Hard Rain

  BY TAPANI BAGGE

  Esplanadi

  Translated by Kristian London

  The entire rail line was an enormous graveyard: tombstones of concrete, steel, glass, of people standing at stations, of scrubland trees and bushes. As fall went on, people fattened with clothes, trees and bushes stripped naked. The rain stripped them.

  First thing at the station, a bald young monk in an orange robe walked up and tried to pass off some book with a bright cover. Tried to pull a fast one. Just wanted to talk, he said, but wouldn’t stop plugging his Buddha. Said there was a meal in it too, some shitty vegetarian crap way the fuck out in the middle of nowhere.

  Marko didn’t say anything, he just crushed the monk’s windpipe with a flick of his fingertips as he walked past. The guy dropped his books and flyers and stood there, windmilling and hacking. So much for that conversation. Marko kept moving with the crowd. No one noticed anything.

  Marko may have had blue eyes, but he could see when people were trying to pull a fast one. He saw it every morning in the square between the station and the department store. They lay there on the pavement with a plastic cup in front of them—crippled or old or otherwise humble—some tortured a note or two out of a broken-down accordion or a beat-up sax, acting jolly. And every evening he watched as young, less humble men came around to collect the day’s take and carry it over to the mustached man sitting in the Benz with tinted windows outside the post office. There wasn’t an ounce of humility in that old bastard. The tiniest traces of humility had been scraped off with a steel grater. You could see it in his face, the cheeks like raw hamburger. You couldn’t see the eyes, his eyes were covered with mirrored shades. Maybe he was a blind old-timer, a panhandler who had risen to this preeminent status after having begged on the streets for years.

  Maybe, but not likely.

  It pissed Marko off, but what were you going to do? You couldn’t whack them, or you were a racist. You couldn’t whack drunks or junkies either, no matter how belligerent they were or how much they spat on you or mouthed off or waved their bottles and bloody needles at you. Besides, it was easier to take bullshit from them than from kids, and Marko remembered how just a few years ago he had talked back to security guards and rent-a-cops. And then got the hell out of there.

  But Marko had to earn a living somehow, since he didn’t feel like sitting at college till his ass got numb or begging for scraps from the unemployment office or welfare. A week’s training was all it took to become a guard. The job was so shitty that there weren’t a lot of people who felt like doing it for long.

  On Saturday, a scum of grease and crap had flooded out of the sewers of the department store and into the square, where the human scum also accumulated. People had slipped and fallen in the shit. Even after the square had been cordoned off with red-and-yellow barriers and tape. People had been determined to go and soil themselves in shit-scum.

  And although sewage trucks had sucked the sludge into their tanks and the maintenance men had rinsed and scrubbed the sidewalks and a street cleaner had done the same, it wasn’t until the Sunday rain came that the stench had been washed away.

  Someday there was going to be a real rain. A hard rain, like in that song. So hard that it would wash away all the beggars, drunks, junkies, whores, and punks. And fags and trannies and foreigners. All the filth. They would wash out to sea and stay there.

  Until then, Marko was going to be pissed off.

  The thing I hate most is everything. Now that was a good title for a book, even though Marko didn’t read books.

  It was raining now too. Hard, but not hard enough. You
could smell the stench of human scum in the air.

  Normally when it rained, Marko took the tunnels. There were plenty in downtown Helsinki, and it meant you didn’t have to smell the outdoors so much. Despite the fact that it smelled worse underground. Like piss and shit and vomit and jizz and blood. The whole spectrum of life. And death. Death is the best time in life, after all.

  Now Marko walked down the street, didn’t care when his mohawked head and trench coat got wet. The rain cooled his scalp but not his thoughts.

  Usually when Marko ranged the downtown streets it was in his company coveralls, with his nightstick, pepper spray, and handcuffs at his waist and combat boots on his feet. He was wearing them now too, but he was also wearing a long leather trench coat. His gestapo coat. He had confiscated it from some junkie, stolen goods anyway. It was perfect for concealing weapons. He had stood in front of the mirror and shaved the mohawk with an electric razor before he left, it was just like in that movie—Taxi Driver.

  “You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me?”

  A young fundraiser holding a light-blue Unicef folder got spooked at the corner and turned around, didn’t walk up to ask Marko, Do you have a minute?

  Good. Marko didn’t have time today. Marko had a destination.

  * * *

  “Marko? What’s the Suburban Stud doing here?”

  Marko snapped out of it. Marina was standing at the stoplight in her loose black coveralls, standing there radiating light. Her hair was spiked too, but it was short and black. He felt like stroking it. He had to shove his hands deeper into his coat pockets.

  “I thought you never came downtown. Nice coat, new hair too! You got a date?”

  Marko mumbled something even he couldn’t make out. He was careful not to look into Marina’s dark eyes. It was so easy to get drawn in by them. Marina was his only coworker with any brains, the rest were complete tools. A few shots short of a full round.

  Across the street, the pairs of stone men stood stiffly on either side of the station doors—abandoned there, holding their glass spheres as if they didn’t know what to do with them and were in constant fear of dropping them.