Helsinki Blood

by James Thompson

  In the morning, I changed Anu, had coffee and cigarettes. I was worried sick about Kate. Was she putting me through some sort of test? Was she safe? I thought about calling the hotel, about hunting for her, but this might be a failure of the test, if it was one. I promised myself I would wait a few hours, then do whatever it took to find her.

  As I had for weeks, I turned the course of events that led up to this family disaster over in my mind, tried to pinpoint the moments where I went wrong and set this debacle in motion.

  My thoughts were always random and scattered. Kate and I had faced many trials in the two years of our life together, not the least of which was the discovery of my brain tumor. It caused a personality change graphically illustrated by my complete and utter disregard of the law in organized-crime fashion. These choices suggested a man not in complete control of his faculties. Had I now regained control? I didn’t know. Perhaps partially. Pain prevented calm and rational thought.

  The facts, as best as I understood them, still exposed little to me about where and how I went wrong. I recognized, though, that there were two poignant reasons for this. One, I was too emotionally distraught to analyze much of anything. Two, I’m not a fucking psychiatrist. I understood a couple things. My experiences and actions, even though they were the result of brain trauma, had changed me.

  I would, for instance, kill without hesitation for my family. Arvid Lahtinen, Second World War mass murderer, expert in such matters, good friends with my grandpa, also a mass murderer, and myself as well, told me killing was in my family blood. That to kill I only needed a sufficient pretense to preserve my self-image as a protector of people. I saw now that I would have made many of the same choices pre-surgery that I made post-surgery, but would have constructed a pretext to defend my actions. Post-surgery, I no longer needed a pretext.

  Anu and Katt had both been quiet while I thought. Damned courteous of them. Katt had some kind of sixth sense about Anu. He kneaded me with his claws and purred with enjoyment while he scratched and tormented me, but never did so with her. The smell emanating from Anu told me it was time for a diaper change. I decided to give her a bath as well, after which I would search for her mother. Anu hated baths, screamed bloody murder when I wet her head. I heard myself sigh. The process of struggling with her in the bath would be difficult in my state. I had to admit, I was nearly an invalid.

  I picked up my bad leg with both hands from the stool and lowered my foot to the floor. Bending the knee sucked. I slipped her carryall over my neck and slid her into it, then with care forced myself to a standing position. I took my cane and we headed off to her bedroom for changing. Katt followed us. The crash of glass scared the hell out of us. I left Anu howling in her crib and hurried to investigate.

  The new window had exploded inward and the object that broke it was spewing mist beside my chair. I recognized it for what it was: a tear gas grenade. It would be screaming hot. I held my breath, whipped off my T-shirt, reached over, snatched it up with the cloth, and flung it back out the broken window onto the street below. I glanced down at the street and sidewalk. They were empty. No innocents were being poisoned.

  Given my condition, I had dealt with it fast, before it permeated the apartment. I closed Anu’s bedroom door, then opened the balcony door and all the windows in the house. We had gone from bricks to tear gas in a couple days. I wondered what the hell would be next.

  I went to the bathroom and, when I was done choking and crying, ripped all the bandages off my knee and took a shower so I could touch Anu without getting tear gas on her. Then I went to the living room to assess the damage. Being left alone in her crib again angered Anu and she shouted. She has a real pair of lungs for a tyke, and it grated on me.

  Once again, the large window was shattered and slivers of glass were everywhere, including in and on my armchair. A big shard shaped like a butcher knife skewered the top of the chair, where Katt took naps, at a forty-five-degree angle. If we hadn’t gotten up, Katt would be dead. Closer to the window, as Anu was on my right side, I would have taken the brunt of the glass, but she would have been cut God knows how badly. Tear gas would have shredded her tiny fragile lungs.

  Aware that my judgment was bad, I did my best to bear it in mind when deciding how to handle this. The decisions I had to make now were critical and I had no margin for error. I needed help. It was time to call in the cavalry.

  5

  Tear gas leaves an oily mist that would have made my home a health hazard for months if not removed with thoroughness. I called a service that specializes in crime scene cleanup. It charges exorbitant prices. Scraping shotgunned brains off ceilings and suchlike messes warrants a good wage. I paid double for instant service.

  I wanted to think this through, narrow down the suspects, figure out who was turning my home into a war zone. I guessed the brick through the window was just the first shot off the bow—the note written on it combined with this escalation made that clear.

  Letting these questions gnaw at me, like a dog worrying a bone, had to wait. The living room was a glass-covered danger zone in an apartment with a gimp, an infant and a cat living in it. Sweetness said to call when I needed him. I did.

  He answered. “So the hermit reemerges.”

  I was shaken, at a loss for words, and took a second to collect myself.

  He knows me. “What happened and what can I do?”

  I sighed. “I need you to stay here with me.”

  He laughed. “You’re lonely and you miss me?”

  I explained about the broken window, what was written on the brick, and about the tear gas assault. “This is about the ten million we took, so we could all be in danger. We should talk. And I have Anu with me. I need protection.”

  “Where is Kate?” he asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  He got it then that I was living a train wreck in progress. “Sit tight,” he said, “I’ll be there soon.”

  “No,” I said, “wait. The house is toxic. I’ll take Anu and Katt to the park and call you when it’s safe.”

  Next, I tried to call Milo. His cell phone was turned off. Milo and I are well-known figures because of the cases of international interest we’ve solved, a school shooting we ended—we were called saviors of children, but in truth it was little more than an execution when Milo put a bullet into the assailant’s brain—and, to a lesser extent, because we’ve killed more men and been shot more times than any policemen in modern Finnish history.

  Anu and I went out. I used the time to order new windows. I own a second house, in Porvoo. My old friend Arvid left it to me, and it fell into my possession when he committed suicide not long ago. I asked them to install bulletproof glass in both my apartment and the house, and air conditioners as well, in case the thick glass made the places airtight, like living in bubbles, and left us sweltering. They had never done such a thing, had no idea what it would cost. “It costs what it costs,” I said, “and I’ll pay you double if you can get it done in three days.” This provided sufficient motivation to get an instant affirmative.

  When the cleaners called and said they were done, I called Sweetness back.

  Sweetness showed up with his girlfriend, Jenna. She’s sixteen, a teen beauty, five foot nothing, has lush white-blond hair that hangs to her ample bottom, and is brick shithouse built, like a miniature Brigitte Bardot with more curves. She’s also his third cousin once removed. Jenna follows him puppy-dog style wherever he goes. He doesn’t appreciate Jerry Lee Lewis jokes about their relationship.

  She has pale white skin, cherry red lips, and large breasts that look almost comically out of place on such a tiny woman. I wished he hadn’t brought her. Pain and worry hadn’t lessened my attraction to women, and she was a potential distraction.

  Sweetness is only twenty-two, a happy-go-lucky giant of a man—his size would frighten children like an ogre if not for his baby face—but he’s an al
coholic and a dangerous sociopath. Jenna and Sweetness: Beauty and the Beast.

  They brought enough food, beer and booze for an army. Jenna emptied the bags and started filling the fridge. All the food was meat and eggs.

  “Jenna goes where I go,” Sweetness said. “And with Anu in the house, Jenna can help take care of her. I don’t know anything about babies. Jenna insisted.”

  I thanked her. “What’s with the food? You feeding wolves?”

  “We’re on a solid-protein diet,” she said. “No carbs. Except for alcohol, of course.”

  “Of course,” I said.

  The traditional Finnish breakfast is rye bread with cheese. Maybe with some lunch meat, cucumbers and tomatoes on it. Nowadays breakfast is often bacon and eggs. This fad is driving bread companies out of business. No one seems to get that most between-meal snacks are solid carbs—cookies, chips, et cetera—and they lose weight on protein diets because they cut the snacks out, not because meat causes lean, healthy bodies. I didn’t care. I could eat eggs and burgers.

  “You look like shit,” Jenna told me.

  I said nothing, just shrugged.

  She’s spent plenty of time here and made herself at home. I heard her talking on the phone.

  Sweetness took a flask from the pocket on the leg of his cargo pants, had a slug from it and offered it to me. I shook my head no. He put it away. In sealing the deal for his relationship with Jenna, he promised to quit carrying it and stop drinking all day long. He’s in love with her. He’s in love with booze as well. He was too young to see he couldn’t have both and would have to choose between them.

  Jenna noticed the look on my face when I examined the slash the shard had made in the top of my armchair. She knows how fond I am of it. “I can mend it,” she said. “You’ll never even know it was there.”

  I wanted to get on the phone and start looking for Kate, but decided to wait and chat with Jenna and Sweetness for a bit. It had been a while, and especially given all they were doing for me, it only seemed polite to do some catching up. The door buzzer rang. Sweetness answered it. Mirjami, object of my desire, was in the hallway. She looked at me and her face sagged. I must have looked so awful that it frightened her.

  “Jenna called me and told me you’re in trouble. Invite me in,” she said.

  “Do you need an invitation?”

  “When I left, I told you to call me if you want me. You haven’t called. The devil is on the doorstep. You have to invite her in before she can cross the threshold.”

  It got a laugh out of me. “Come in.”

  Mirjami is Milo’s cousin, and stunning. They sometimes went out together, as friends. She thought it was cool because they never waited in lines at nightclubs or events. He flashed his police card for special treatment at every opportunity. He theorized that beautiful women competed, and if they saw him with Mirjami, it would make them want to take him away from her. He told me he would fuck her, cousin or not, if she would let him. “That’s why God made birth control,” he said. As a group, we’re a tight-knit, incestuous bunch. I view it as a good thing. We can trust each other.

  Mirjami coming here evoked mixed feelings in me. She’s a registered nurse, a born nurturer, and she cared for Kate, Anu and me after the fiasco on the island in Åland that led to all our misery. She loved me—I didn’t know why or if that still held true—and, despite my refusal to have sex with her, insisted on sleeping in the same bed with me.

  I asked her to stop more than once. I was too doped and too injured after getting shot up in Åland to do anything about it. In my condition, I didn’t care where she slept or who slept beside me. She would wait until I was asleep before crawling into the bed with me, and get up before either Kate or I woke.

  Kate was in her dissociative stupor and, as far as I know, had no clue Mirjami was trying to steal her husband. Not long before Kate came back to herself, I told Mirjami in gentle but no uncertain terms that I was married and intended to remain faithful to my wife, that she was wasting her time. If anything, it made her love me more. “Unrequited love is sad and beautiful,” she said.

  She entered and sat on the armrest of the chair, looked me up and down with a speculative eye. “You’re not getting better, are you?”

  I looked up at her. “No.”

  Beautiful Mirjami. Tall, thin and lithe. Long russet hair pulled back. Lovely, coffee-colored, almond-shaped eyes and a dark golden-brown tan. Because I felt no emotions during the short time she lived here, I didn’t realize that I missed her until she showed up on my doorstep again. I still didn’t feel anything for many people, but she sparked something. Lovely though she is, it was her humor, playfulness and kindness that I missed.

  “How bad is it?” she asked.

  “Bad enough so bending my knee at all is excruciating, and the bullet in my face tapped some nerves. It makes it hard to eat or talk.” I pointed at the medicine bottles and boxes on the end table beside my chair. “This shit helps. And kossu.”

  She pulled up my pants leg, careful not to hurt me. I hadn’t rebandaged it yet. “It looks like it’s healing properly. It’s just that the wound was so bad. And I can’t see what it looks like inside. You need to have a specialist get in there and have another look, see what can be done. The same goes for your jaw.” She went through my meds. “You should take stronger painkillers.”

  “No, thanks.” But the mention reminded me to take my afternoon dope.

  “Then call your doctors and make appointments. If you’re in so much pain, there may be problems.”

  “They’ve done all they can.”

  “If you don’t, I’ll call an ambulance.”

  “You win. I’ll do it later.”

  “You’ll do it now.”

  Fuck. I called my neurologist brother, Jari. My problems weren’t neurological, but it would placate her. I explained my situation. He said he would look at my X-rays, speak with my doctors, and come over later to check me out himself. I reported. Mirjami nodded satisfaction and went off to check on Anu.

  Sweetness took out the trash, and I looked around. The place was clean and tidy, and except for the broken window, hadn’t been this nice in weeks. The window was no big deal, it was warm outside. The drug combo kicked in and I drifted off to sleep in my chair.

  6

  The door buzzer rang. I woke up and looked at my wrist to check the time, then remembered I had reduced my watch to tiny expensive fragments. I checked my cell phone instead. It was six forty-five in the evening. Mirjami had scooted into the chair beside me and had Anu in her arms. It seemed, as far as our relationship went, or rather lack of one, nothing had changed for her. For me, it was just one more problem and irritation to deal with.

  My Colt was under her legs. I asked her to answer the door. She got up. I took the pistol and leveled it. She looked at the gun, showed no surprise and opened the door. Jari stood there. He registered shock at the sight of the .45 pointed at him. I tucked it back in its place under the seat cushion. He looked at the broken window. He didn’t ask about either it or the pistol, just took a seat on the couch and set a black doctor’s bag beside him. I didn’t know physicians used them anymore.

  Sweetness and Jenna had disappeared into Anu’s bedroom. I could tell what they were up to by the sound of the spare bed squeaking and the headboard banging against the wall. It made Jari laugh. Mirjami put Anu in her stroller and offered to make coffee. Jari asked if he could have a beer instead. She brought three, one for each of us, sat beside him on the couch and introduced herself.

  Jari looked at me, asked without speaking if I wanted our talk to be private.

  “It’s OK,” I say. “She’s a nurse and was looking after me in the days after I got shot. She’ll just ask me to repeat what was said anyway, so she might as well get it from the horse’s mouth.”

  “How much pain are you in?” Jari asked.

  �
��A lot.”

  “Are you functional, or incapacitated to the point that you’re nonfunctional?”

  This was hard to admit, even to myself. “I’m nonfunctional.”

  “I’ll give it to you straight,” Jari said. “First, your knee. It’s stuck to the rest of your leg with the medical equivalent of rubber bands, paper clips and chewing gum. You came within a hair of losing it. You’re in such bad pain because the thing is trashed. As to your jaw,” he paused and swigged beer, “you know when you watch boxing, and a punch to the jaw that didn’t look like much is a knockout?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s not the force behind the punch that causes it. It’s the twisting motion of the fist as it makes contact with the bundle of nerves located there that turns the lights out. Damage from the gunshot has impinged some nerves in that bundle—swelling, some small bone fragments and so on—and that’s what causes you such misery.”

  “Can you take it away?”

  “Pain exists for a reason. It’s often a warning signal that movement is causing further damage. Your knee is a prime example of this.”

  “That’s all well and good,” I said, “but I have a baby to care for.”

  He looked around. “Where is Kate?”

  “Missing in action.”

  He got it that my life had gone awry in every way and grimaced, but continued to refrain from comment. “Where are your crutches?”

  “I threw them away.”

  “Why in the name of fucking God would you do something that stupid?”

  “Because I’ve been alone and need at least one hand to use.” I held up my cane. “This suffices.”

  “No, it doesn’t.”

  I wanted to say something caustic, but I didn’t. I was just cranky, as usual these days, and he was trying to be a good doctor.

  “We have two options,” he said. “We can increase your dosages of Oxapam and Norflex—the tranquilizers and muscle relaxants—and start you on Temgesic, a stronger painkiller.”