Helsinki White iv-3

by James Thompson

  She had a dozen white roses in her hands. “Just a small expression of love,” she said. “I have something else for you too, but it’s physical in nature. You have to wait, though, to let the anticipation build.”

  A blow job. About the most thoughtful gift she could give me at the moment. The way I’d felt since surgery, if I couldn’t eat it, drink it or fuck it, I didn’t want it.

  My knee hurt. We sat on the sofa. She opened her gift. A Kalevala necklace with a silver oak leaf, and matching earrings.

  I put the necklace on her. She stood in front of the foyer mirror and tried on the earrings. “They’re lovely,” she said. “Delicate and feminine but with a Viking air about them.”

  “They’re about as traditional Finnish as you can get,” I said. “Kalevala jewelry is based on ancient Nordic combined with modern designs.”

  The door buzzer rang. Kate answered. Arvid stood there with the taxi driver, who had helped him carry the mountain of packages up the stairs. The driver left. Arvid extended his hand to Kate. “I’m Arvid Lahtinen,” he said. “I’ve heard so much about you, it’s a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance.”

  “And yours,” Kate said. “Kari has said nothing but good things about you.” She gestured at the piles of gift-wrapped packages. “What is all this?”

  His smile was shy. “Some odds and ends for baby Anu.”

  I was unable to help them. Arvid and Kate moved the boxes into the middle of the living room floor.

  “Good to see you, Kari,” Arvid said. “You look well. And younger. Without that scar, you look like somewhat less of a thug.”

  “Kind of you to say so.”

  Kate also said it makes me look younger. It wasn’t entirely gone, but almost. The skin was smooth, but there was a slight red discoloration, barely noticeable. The surgeon said the results are seldom this good. Also, I hadn’t been to the gym since well before the beginning of the year. I was slimmer as well.

  “Please,” Arvid said, “open the boxes.”

  Kate and I were both awestruck. There were clothes of different sizes to last Anu for a year. An antique musical mobile decorated with wooden fantasy animals. A jumperoo. A variety of stuffed animals. Everything designer brands. The best money could buy. After the last package was open, Arvid took one more from his coat pocket and handed it to Kate. Inside was a silver box with Anu’s name and birth date engraved on it. It’s to keep Anu’s baby teeth in. Arvid had spent a grand, maybe two, on all this. I was taken aback. Kate was moved to tears. The old man knew how to make an impression.

  He was actually eighty-nine, not ninety as he habitually stated. I knew, from reading his secret police dossier while investigating him for murder, that he would turn ninety on March third. His appearance and movements, though, suggested a well-kept man in his seventies. Despite his advanced age, mentally he was sharp as a tack, and he had a good sense of humor. The three of us sat down for coffee and pulla, sweet rolls flavored with cardamom. He asked to hold Anu, and bounced her on his knee while we talked. He told stories from his life and travels. He had the social knack, spoke neither too much nor too little. He was charming the pants off Kate. If he were fifty years younger, I wouldn’t have left him alone in the same room with her.

  With a powerful blat, followed by a giggle, Anu announced that she needed her diaper changed.

  When we were alone, I asked about feeding Arvid’s four cats while he stayed here.

  “That won’t be necessary,” he said.

  It was hard to imagine that he gave them away after his wife, Ritva, died only weeks ago. They were all the company he had left, and they had been with him and Ritva for many years.

  “How come?” I asked.

  “They mourned Ritva and meowed non-stop. You ever read the Edgar Allan Poe story ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It felt like that. They never stopped crying for her. I felt like I was going out of my mind. I couldn’t give them away. They belonged to Ritva. So finally, I put them in a burlap bag and drowned them in the bathtub. Next to helping Ritva die, it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

  And he’s killed hundreds of men in war, so that’s saying a lot. Arvid must be the toughest man I’ve ever met. The image it conjured was horrible. The cats choke, gag and struggle while he holds them under the water. Bubbles rise to the surface of the water as their lungs empty, until finally, they go limp.

  “I built a wooden box for a coffin,” he said, “and buried it in the snow. In the spring, when the ground softens up, I’ll dig a grave out back behind the house for them.”

  “Why did you buy all those things for Anu?” I asked.

  “I told you, I think you’re a good boy. You remind me of your grandpa, my friend. I felt like doing something nice.”

  “That was more than nice,” I said.

  He just smiled.

  After a while, I didn’t have to prod her, Kate asked Arvid to stay for dinner. He played his role well, changed Anu himself once, with deft movements. He told Kate that he and Ritva had two boys, but both died before adulthood. One from cancer, one from a car crash. The story brought tears to her eyes. After a meal, a cognac and a little more conversation, it was as Arvid said. He drifted off to sleep. It had been a much more action-packed day than he was accustomed to. I prodded him awake and asked if he would like to spend the night in the spare bed. He nodded agreement, made it into Anu’s room and was asleep again within minutes.

  Before bed, I asked Kate if she would mind if I invited Arvid to stay with us for a few days.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Because he’s lonely, and I think the company would help him get past the death of his wife. They were together for fifty years. He’s suffering.”

  “He’s got too much pride. You can’t say that to him.”

  “I can say he can help me out with Anu and give you a little more freedom, and that would be true. Carrying Anu around while I walk on crutches is hard.”

  “Is he really a mass murderer?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “He’s so sweet, and he’s wonderful with Anu, but he killed a man in cold blood, in a restaurant I manage. I suspect he’s a charming sociopath. And now he’s sleeping in our house. The situation is bizarre. I have … reservations about this.”

  “He only kills Russians, not babies. Not even baby Russians,” I said.

  The joke combined with the strange situation made her start to giggle. “A few days,” she said. “I don’t want a permanent houseguest.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  She kissed me, and gave me my Valentine’s Day present.

  9

  The next morning, in front of Kate, I made a show of asking Arvid to stay with us for a few days. After a couple refusals for the sake of pretense, he reluctantly agreed.

  Sweetness was to be my chauffeur for the day. First, a trip to NBI headquarters to fill out his job application, then to Arvid’s to pick up some clothes for him, and then to my physical therapy, which I loathed, because it hurt like hell.

  We took Sweetness’s car, a 1998 Toyota Corolla with a hundred and twenty thousand miles on it. He was new to driving. Milo broke into the registry computers and created a license for him. Sweetness was so proud when he received it. Completing all the courses necessary for a license: normal weather daylight driving, winter driving, nighttime driving, et cetera, is a lengthy process and before all is said and done, costs some thousands of euros. Poor people can’t afford one. The car had been his father’s, but since he was doing a long stretch for double murder, he had no use for it.

  He picked me up in front of my building. On crutches, on the ice, even making it from our steps to his car was difficult. We went straight, banged a left onto Helsinginkatu. We stopped at a red light by Vaasanaukio-Vaasa Square, often referred to as Piritori, Speed Square-because it’s an infamous hangout for the alkies and dopers in Sornainen, not far from our house, that haunt the area.

 
Finland’s number one killer is alcohol. According to statistics, despite our small population, we also have more heroin users than the rest of the Nordic countries put together. I don’t know if that’s true or if we’re just better at keeping statistics, at which we excel, than the other countries in the region. We also have problems with amphetamine and tranquilizer addiction. Plus, about a quarter of us use or have used anti-depressants. And studies show that depression remains severely undertreated. What is it about this place that causes so many of us to seek oblivion and be so miserable?

  In the square, it’s quiet in winter because of the cold. Minus ten and a little windy that morning, but thriving in summer. Druggies and drunks hang out and sip beers, listen to boom boxes. Police often park their vans in the square and keep watch, but don’t often interfere with anything non-violent. A big S-market grocery store dominates one side of the square, a subway station the other, and a porn shop called Seksipiste-The Sex Point-sits off to one side. It’s been there for many years. I never see anyone go in or out of it. It must do the majority of its business via the Internet.

  Kate and I often shop in the S-market. It’s interesting how quickly we adjust to things in life. The druggies don’t harass us, and so become invisible unless they fight or cause scenes. Like much of Helsinki, normal middle-class inhabitants, even the well-to-do, exist side by side with the scum.

  A bank ATM is attached to the wall beside the S-market. A little squab bones of a girl inserted her card. The machine spit her card out instead of money. A young man in a black bomber jacket with a bloated alcoholic face slapped her. I told Sweetness to pull into the square. We watched.

  Squab Bones was underdressed in a tattered coat, had little ears and a low forehead, small pointy teeth inside a scarlet smear of a mouth, sores on her face. Crystal meth or heroin had whittled her down to nothing. Best guess, she buys whatever it is from him. The man looked simian and his mean eyes were glazed. She tried to speak. He grabbed her by her short dirty hair and jerked her head to and fro. She slipped, fell to the ice, started to sob.

  Something should be done. I couldn’t do it myself. “Sweetness,” I said, “go over there and punch that guy in the head. Hurt him.”

  “OK, pomo.”

  He reached in his coat pocket and took out a flask, had a pull from it and put it away. I checked my watch. Ten forty-five a.m.

  Sweetness meandered over, the simian paid no heed. I rolled my window down to listen. Sweetness hit him with a right hook, lightning fast. So fast that at his size, I wouldn’t have thought it possible. Simian’s teeth were clenched in anger. I heard Simian’s jaws both crack broken. His mouth hung funny. Blood shot out of his mouth like a burst water balloon.

  Somehow, he kept on his feet. Teeth flew. He spat bridgework. He gagged on a tooth he swallowed that went down the wrong way. He hacked and coughed it out of his airway, spit it out, started crying, and the expression on his face asked Sweetness why. He leaned over, put his hands on his knees. Blood drooled from his mouth in a thin stream and puddled on the ice at his feet.

  Sweetness hit him again. A straight jab angled down to the face. Simian’s front teeth broke out. His nose crunched flat. He flew backward, hit the ATM and collapsed.

  I called out. “Go through his pockets.”

  Sweetness took his wallet. Dope in eight-ball packets. A switchblade.

  “Any money in the wallet?” I asked.

  He pulled it out and counted. “Three hundred and sixty.”

  “Give it all to the girl except the switchblade and the wallet. Throw it in a trash can.” To force Simian to go to the trouble and expense of replacing the cards and ID.

  Squab Bones snatched the drugs and money and, dope greedy, didn’t bother to say thank you. Wounded animals are like that. She ran into the subway station.

  Sweetness got behind the wheel, hit the flask again and we pulled out.

  “You’re fast,” I said. “Have you trained?”

  He grinned. “Naw, just another of my natural gifts.”

  We rode in silence for a while. Something rolled back and forth under my seat. Judging by the sound, it was a bottle of booze to refill the flask throughout the day.

  “How much do you drink?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “I don’t keep track.”

  “Been drinking hard long?”

  “More since my brother got killed. It’s not so much that I like to get drunk. It just steadies my nerves.”

  Sweetness is one of those rare juicers. You never know when they’re tanked: they never slur, their eyes don’t droop. He always seems sober. He drove fast, wove in and out of traffic along the icy roads with careful precision. I said nothing, wanted to give it some thought. What I said wouldn’t make any difference anyway. Sometime there would come a point when he’d have to choose whether to self-destruct or build a life for himself.

  At NBI HQ in Vantaa, he filled out his application for a job as a linguist. He got the job through nepotism, but it wasn’t a sham. Our team needed a linguist with exactly his abilities, for translation of electronic eavesdropping on foreign criminals. He only lacks Dutch. We could use someone who speaks it, because so much pot and Ecstasy comes from Amsterdam. We got it done and started out toward Arvid’s. We wouldn’t be taking his Toyota again. The shock absorbers were worn out, and every bump in the road jarred my knee, sent pain shooting through it. I have a Saab 9–5, 2007 model, which I love. We’d be taking it from now on.

  On the way, I asked him about his plans for an education. Since he was now an NBI employee, he didn’t have to go to the police academy in Tampere. He could stay here and attend the University of Helsinki or a polytechnic trade school.

  “I got a job,” he said. “What do I need school for?”

  “That was our agreement when I hired you,” I said. “I expect you to earn a degree. What you study, though, is up to you.”

  “I don’t care,” he said. “You can pick for me.”

  Then I got it. He would apply for whatever I suggested, then fail the entrance exam but claim he tried and acted in good faith.

  “No,” I said. “It’s your life, and what we’re doing now won’t last forever. You make a decision, and you study like hell for the entrance exam. If you don’t go to school, you can’t work for me. End of story.”

  This made him mad. He didn’t speak to me for the next hour.

  After we picked up Arvid’s clothes, I asked him if Milo had been teaching him some computer skills. “No. I don’t like being around him if I don’t have to. He calls me names, makes fun of the way I talk and tells me I’m stupid. I’m not stupid.”

  Sweetness has an East Helsinki accent and uses the area’s slang. Sometimes I don’t get what he’s saying. Helsinki is funny that way. Dialects vary so much that you can often place a person’s roots to within half a mile. East Helsinki dialect screams lower class.

  “I’m not going to take much more of that shit from him,” Sweetness said.

  “You want me to speak to him about it?”

  He scoffed. “Pomo, I don’t need you to fight my battles for me.”

  “Just don’t hurt him like you did the dope dealer.” I was curious. “Did that bother you?” I asked.

  “Naw, he deserved it. I couldn’t care less.” He switched topics. “Milo taught me a little about surveillance, though. I got some good pictures to show you.”

  “I told you to stay in the car and out of sight.”

  “Milo said that was bullshit, that I had to learn to be-what do you call it? — surreptitious. I gotta say, he was right. I got some great pics.”

  After physical therapy, Sweetness took me home, and I invited him to eat with us. It was like watching a pig at the trough. He ate at lightning speed, watched with an empty plate to make sure we had our fill, then devoured every last bite left on the stove. Why did I think my relationship with Sweetness was going to equate to Henry Higgins and Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady?

  10

  February ei
ghteenth, Thursday. Nine days since my brain tumor was removed. My luck was extreme. My headache disappeared. I suffered no common physical side effects. No weakness, motor control or problems with coordination. No difficulties with speech. No more seizures. No mental deficiencies. Quite the opposite. Each day, I felt that my powers of cognition and memory increased. I remained, however, emotionally flat.

  I continued my one-month sick leave. It didn’t go as Kate and I had imagined: quiet time together, just us and our child. Milo and Sweetness were always underfoot. Arvid, though, knew how to make his presence unobtrusive. Kate liked him more and more over time. He mostly kept to himself, listened to music with his MP3 player, tended to Anu, grocery shopped and often cooked. He was an excellent chef, and taught Kate much about traditional Finnish cuisine. As a longtime world traveler, his English was good.

  Sweetness played chauffeur, took me to physical therapy three times a week, stopped by to see if we needed anything approximately every ten minutes. At night, he surveilled politicos. He bought a good camera. He showed me his videotaped victories with pride. He had a close-up of Hanna Nykyri, head of the Social Democratic Party, with a dick in her mouth. A wider shot proved said dick didn’t belong to her husband. He had a picture of Daniel Solstrand, minister of foreign affairs, with a dick in his mouth. Owner of said dick appeared underage. Sweetness had pics of the national chief of police and the minister of the interior with a variety of woman, a veritable bevy of quail.

  The minister, Osmo Ahtiainen, is an overweight pig not choosy about his quiff. A video showed the fat fuck minister in the saddle of a woman who looked like she might be the village blacksmith. She changed the TV channel with a remote control. The sound was off. He didn’t notice. He came, squealed and grunted. She fake came with him, gave him the “Oh, baby, you’re the best” patter.

  One morning, while we were alone, I had a talk with Arvid. I asked him if he would like to be our bookkeeper, since Jyri wanted ledgers kept. “The murder you’re accused of falls under the National Security Act,” I said. “If I get caught, and you have the books, they can’t be used against me.”