Helsinki Blood

by James Thompson

  A well-thought-out system designed by an evil fuck. He must have lain awake many nights dreaming it up. I suspect he enjoys pulling the wings off of flies. “How much money do you think is in that box right now?”

  “In fact, I heard them discussing the addition of you and yours to The Shit List. Since you’re a cop, the price was in six figures. And most of the hits are against high-profile people in other countries, and so expensive to set up. There are at present nine names and nine hundred seventy-five thousand euros in the box.”

  That’s a great deal of money. It makes me wonder about the monetary value of human life. “How much does a murder usually cost?”

  “Interestingly enough, most hits are against intimates, jilted lovers and such. A normal hit, the run-of-the-mill murder for hire, killing someone of little or no importance located in the same vicinity as the hit man and so incurring no expenses, runs an average of about twelve thousand U.S. dollars. That’s pretty much standard here in the Western countries.”

  Damn, life really is cheap. “How would you suggest I deal with this problem?”

  He shrugs. “Fucked if I know.”

  I ask Sweetness to bring a pen and paper from the office, tell Phillip to write down the names of the Corsicans and their passport numbers, and his own as well.

  “You think I memorized their passport numbers?”

  “I’m certain of it.”

  He laughs aloud. “You’re right.” He writes them down.

  “Would you be interested, Phillip, in helping me fix this? You said you’re in the business of saving lives. My infant daughter is on that list. I can’t even bring myself to talk about his plans for her.”

  “You needn’t. I already know them. The obvious way is to empty the safe-deposit box at Nordea. The Corsicans won’t carry out the murders for free. But Veikko is a billionaire many, many times over. The money in that box is pocket change to him, and even if you could figure out a way to get through the bank’s security, Veikko could just put the money back. So he would have to be dead, and thus unable to replenish the fund. That would mean dealing with me, as I keep him alive, and I hope you’ll excuse me for saying so, but I don’t think you two are up to the task.”

  I point out the obvious, sarcastic. “A bold statement for somebody who let two shit-for-brains pimps zap him with a Taser.”

  He smiles and shakes his head at the irony. “True enough. They’ve been to games before and had cash to play, and I made the mistake of letting them get within arm’s reach of me.” He chuckles. “Plus, I never would have thought those idiots would have balls that big.”

  “The choice of being executed with bullets in the backs of their heads or taking their chances with you made their balls grow.”

  He smirks. “You, a Finnish policeman, intended to execute them? I find that a little hard to believe. When was the last time you killed a man?”

  “Since we abducted you earlier, I’ve shot and killed two.”

  He senses the truth of it and pauses. “You’re thinking, then, that you should kill me now. I’m replaceable and it wouldn’t change anything. Veikko would hire another elite soldier with my skill sets to protect him before my corpse is even cold.”

  I can’t think of anything else to say.

  “You’re not giving my iPad back, I suppose.”

  I shake my head. “No.”

  “No matter, I’ll get another today.”

  “What would you want for helping me, if we were to come to an arrangement?” I ask.

  He smiles. “Retirement. The contents of that safe-deposit box, of course. However, given the circumstances of my employment, we can’t come to an arrangement.”

  A sudden weariness comes over me. I’m too tired for more of this. I look at Sweetness. “Do you have anything to say about all this?”

  He bends over in front of Phillip Moore so their faces are inches apart. “You got one thing wrong. If anything happens to someone I care about—I mean anything—I’ll kill you. I’m up to the task.”

  Moore says nothing, probably because he senses any response at all might result in a bullet in his head, then and there.

  “If you play hardball with us,” I say, “you’ll discover we have skill sets of our own. Skills that you don’t possess. I’m not a police inspector for nothing and,” I nod toward Sweetness, “I believe his are self-evident.”

  We cuff his hands behind his back and drive to downtown Helsinki in silence. It gives me time to think. “What are you going to tell Veikko Saukko?” I ask him.

  “The absolute truth. I find it really is the best policy, as I never have to lie my way out of it later.”

  “I’ve come to a decision,” I say. “You work for me now.”

  He smiles, indulgent. “And how do you figure that?”

  “I’m starting a Shit List of my own. Your position allows you access to prior knowledge of actions against me. Knowledge is tantamount to culpability. Should something happen to any of us, I’ll consider it a blood debt and I’ll collect. I suggest that you ensure the safety of me and mine. And I’m searching for an Estonian girl named Loviise. She was kidnapped for the purpose of forcing her into prostitution. If you gain knowledge of her whereabouts, I expect you to call me.” I toss a business card into his lap. “I’ll also consider failure to do so as grounds for punishing you. Are we clear on everything?”

  “You got a pair on you. I’ll give you that.”

  I cite the SAS motto. “Who dares, wins.”

  He looks thoughtful, says nothing. I’ve made another dangerous enemy.

  Sweetness cuts him loose, he gets out of the Jeep and ambles away in damp clothing. I hear him whistling a tune, as if none of this had ever happened. Sweetness squirts the vodka from the syringes into his mouth.

  19

  We drive around the corner. It’s a little after ten a.m. Thank God I slept all day yesterday, or I never would have made it through the night. There are no parking spaces, so we use a parking garage and walk a couple blocks. Walking is the last thing I want to do right now. It hurts like hell and I want to go to bed. But our missions aren’t yet complete. It’s Mirjami’s birthday. We go to Fazer, the city’s best bakery, and too tired to shop, I just ask the girl behind the counter to give me the biggest, richest chocolate cake they have and to write Hyvää Syntymäpäivää Mirjami—Happy Birthday Mirjami—on it in frosting.

  We sit and have coffee while she writes it and boxes it up. Sweetness adds a little something to the coffee from his flask. “Jesus, what a night, huh?”

  “Yeah,” I answer.

  I pay. We go to the Alko in Stockmann department store, I buy a bottle of Veuve Clicquot champagne and a gift bag and we head back to the car. Before starting the engine, Sweetness takes a healthy gulp out of a Stolichnaya bottle. I’ve never said anything in the past because I thought he would stop this on his own, and because since we’ve been associated, I’ve been too physically fucked up to drive and, good-natured as he is, he’s always offered to take me wherever I’ve needed to go. More or less been my man Friday. But drunk driving rankles me.

  “Has it occurred to you,” I ask, “that every time you drink and drive, you’re putting innocent lives at risk? You just threatened to kill a man if anything happened to your loved ones. You could kill someone else’s loved ones.”

  He turns to face me, grim. “Am I good driver?”

  “Yes.”

  “You ever seen me sloppy drunk behind the wheel?”

  “No.”

  “You wanna get out and walk?”

  He’s never taken this tone with me before. “No.”

  “Sitten turpa kiinni”—Then shut your face.

  It’s my fault. He’s exhausted, frightened and frustrated. I picked exactly the wrong time to bring it up. I shut my face, or more literally, my muzzle.

  I stop the exchan
ge by calling Mirjami. “Happy birthday,” I say.

  “Thanks. It’s heartening to know I’ll never be as old as you.”

  I giggle. Old cheap jokes always get laughs out of me. “We’re on our way to pick you up.”

  “Did your night work out? Did you find the girl?”

  “We found her and lost her. It’s a long story and it’s been a long night. We haven’t slept.”

  “We’ll be in the lobby. Jenna is sick.”

  “Hungover?”

  “No, just sick. She vomited last night and this morning. And I’ve got Anu, so we didn’t even touch the minibar.”

  We arrive at Hotel Cumulus and escort them to the vehicle. Jenna, even with her normal Snow Queen coloring, looks pale.

  We get a parking spot near my apartment building. I get out of the Jeep first, scan the windows and rooftops for watchers but see no one. We tramp inside. I can’t remember being this exhausted since before I had brain surgery, when my constant migraine gave me insomnia. Still, there’s more to do before I can sleep. I have to download the information from the daunting pile of electronica I’ve stolen into my computer. The owners will call the service providers, report them as stolen and have them locked. Some already will have. I need to salvage all the info I can before the others get around to it.

  I boot up my laptop, stick a USB cable in it and begin. Mirjami asks what I’m doing and I explain. She calls me a stupid jerk, says she’ll do it and tells me to go to bed. I protest, jabber about Blu-ray transfer and the right cables for different devices. She tells me to be quiet, she knows all that.

  I double up on everything: tranquilizers, pain medication and muscle relaxants, and wash it all down with a double kossu. Mirjami checks my knee and rebandages it. I say, “Wake me up in late afternoon so we can celebrate your birthday.”

  I force myself onto my feet to make my way to the bedroom. Mirjami kisses my cheek. “Sleep well.”

  But I don’t. Not right away. When it comes, though, I sleep the sleep of the dead.

  20

  I wake up on my own around five. Jenna is watching Anu. Sweetness and Mirjami sit at the dining room table, have open beers, shot glasses, and a bottle of kossu on it. They’ve already made a good dent in it. As usual, Sweetness doesn’t show it, but Mirjami is a bit giggly and bleary-eyed.

  “Give me a birthday hug, then sit down and have a drink,” she says.

  I’m still a little groggy from my sleeping potion. “I smell like a goat and need a shower,” I say. “Give me a few minutes.”

  I shower and shave, put on new clothes, jeans and a shirt, to look party presentable. Kate bought these clothes for me. I hide it for Mirjami’s sake, but I don’t care about her birthday. If all goes well, Milo will bring Kate home day after tomorrow. Worry that all won’t go well preoccupies me.

  I discover they’ve finished one kossu bottle, taken another from the freezer and opened it. It’s still early. My prognosticative powers tell me this night will end badly. Also, Jenna refusing alcohol is oddly disturbing. Possibly, she’s being sweet and staying sober to watch Anu so Mirjami can drink, but I could remain sober and do it. I’ve never seen Jenna turn down a drink. Forgoing booze on my account is out of character for her. I hug Mirjami and sit beside her. Sweetness pours a shot and pushes it across the table toward me.

  I raise my glass. “To you, Mirjami. I hope your twenty-fourth year brings you all you wish for. You’ve been a godsend to me. I don’t know what I would have done without you.” This is true.

  We drink our shots in one go. I get a beer from the fridge and put on the soundtrack from Pulp Fiction. It’s one of Mirjami’s favorites. We drink, and drink some more. I’m starving and they need some food in them to sop up some of the alcohol in their systems. The head start they got on me has left them coherent but whacked.

  “Let’s eat,” I say.

  “I want to go to a nice restaurant,” Mirjami says.

  Not a good idea. She’s already too drunk. I’m not sure a restaurant would even want to let her in. I might have to throw my cop weight around to make it happen. I don’t feel like muscling anybody.

  “What do you want to eat?” I ask her.

  “Sushi.” She nods her head with vigorous certainty. “A mountain of sushi.”

  Sweetness and Jenna both make faces, but it’s not their birthdays. Sushi sounds great to me.

  “Why don’t we eat out in?” I ask.

  Mirjami slurs a little. “Whaddaya mean?”

  “I’ll call Gastronautti.”

  She pours us all more kossu. “That place where you call and they’ve got about a dozen different restaurants and you order and they pick it up from the restaurant and bring it to your house?”

  “That’s the place. And they have three different sushi restaurants to choose from on their list.”

  She smiles a drunken smile that’s both sad and wistful. She forgets the sushi for a minute. “I had the windows in your Saab replaced with bulletproof glass,” she says.

  Mystifying. “How could you get it done so fast?”

  She toys with her glass. “I used my feminine charms.”

  And her charms are many: She’s entrancing, excruciatingly beautiful, intelligent, responsible, has a good sense of humor, is a born nurturer with a great capacity for empathy, and pleasant company as well. She has vittuväki, the power of the vagina. I don’t know the etymology of the term, perhaps it’s lost in the sands of time, but it stems from the era of pagan ritual and the celebration of the feminine, when it was believed the vagina possessed mystical potency. If anyone possesses vittuväki, it’s Mirjami. Only one downfall prevents me from falling in love with her. I’m already in love with my wife.

  Kate is my wife and the mother of my child, and I love her to the exclusion of all others. I lost the ability to feel emotion as a result of having the tumor removed from my brain, but it’s drifting back, slow but sure. For some weeks, my primary emotion was irritation. That’s fading, too. For Mirjami, although my sexual attraction toward her is magnetic—there are few heterosexual men who wouldn’t feel it—my primary emotion is tenderness.

  “Thank you,” I say. “Let me repay you in sushi.”

  “Isn’t Gastronautti extravagantly expensive?”

  I smile. “It ain’t cheap.”

  “What’s it like to be rich?” she asks.

  I consider it. “Mostly, it relieves some of the pressures of life that plague most people.”

  “How much did you, Sweetness and Milo steal from drug dealers?”

  The questions of a drunk girl, childish in their innocence. My smile broadens and I sip kossu. “Oodles.”

  “This seems like a good time to give Mirjami her present and crack the champagne,” Sweetness says.

  I had forgotten about the champagne. It’s the last thing she needs. But what the fuck, it’s her birthday. I hid the liquor store gift bag stuffed with cash in a closet. I get it and set it in front of her, then play the good host and set out champagne glasses.

  “Ugh,” Jenna says, so out of character that I wonder if she’s pregnant and has morning sickness. I say nothing and pour for the rest of us. “None for me.”

  Strange indeed. I pour for the rest of us, we toast Mirjami’s birthday again and I tell her to open her gift.

  She fumbles with the drawstring, gets it open and stares into the bag. She looks confused, shakes her head as if to clear it. She turns the bag upside down and shakes wads of cash onto the table.

  “How?” Struck speechless, she can’t say more.

  I don’t know if she wants to ask how much it is or how we got it. “Half a million, give or take. Proceeds from the evening. It was Sweetness’s doing. He should get the thanks.”

  Drunk, she doesn’t hear the part about Sweetness, just throws her arms around me and starts at once laughing and crying. She’s got that
annoying girl-drunk-weepy thing going on now. She gulps champagne and pushes the cash toward me. “It’s too much. I can’t.”

  I laugh and push it back. “You can and you will.”

  She doesn’t argue, just stares at the money with a disbelieving grin on her face.

  From a wooden box on the bookcase where I keep miscellaneous odds and ends, I take an unopened pack of playing cards and hand it to Sweetness. “Show me the trick you cheated with.”

  He says, “I’m pretty drunk, don’t know if I can,” but opens the pack and discards the jokers. He shuffles, I cut, and he deals. I get a royal straight flush and he gets a pair of deuces. He puts the cards back in order and does it again, except this time he gets the royal straight flush and I get the deuces. I saw nothing. He’s wearing a T-shirt, so has nothing up his sleeves.

  “How the fuck do you do it?” I ask.

  He zings out the deck in a long string in the air almost too fast for me to see, collapses it back together, hands it to me, and shoots me a sly smile. “Let’s just say it’s one of those things you learn when you have way too much time on your hands. I could try to teach you. You won’t be able to do it, though. You don’t have the dexterity.”

  True. I have the grace of a bear, and a lifetime of weight lifting has left my stubby hands as thick as they are wide. I often break things by accident because I’m too rough with them. My hands have only two settings. Stop and go. It comes to me that, at least in that way, I must be a lousy and clumsy lover.