James Thompson - Helsinki Blood

It’s made of thick ash. The handle is a lion’s head made of gold and weighs about half a pound. A cane meant for a big and strong man. Bang down on the floor hard with the tip, it spring-loads the lion’s mouth and snaps it open. The teeth are steel razors. Sharp contact, like swinging the mouth against something, forces the fangs backward, they trigger the mechanism, and the mouth clamps shut and bites with about three hundred pounds per square inch of pressure, about the same as a Rottweiler’s jaws. Pressing the eyes-one is a ruby, the other is an emerald-disengages the spring and the mouth lets go. Unscrew the shaft and another weapon, a twenty-inch sword, is unveiled.

Chunky has gone silent, sucking up pain. I picture what the tear gas might have done to my six-month-old little girl. I slam my cane’s tip into his solar plexus. It knocks the breath out of him and the pressure opens the mouth of the gold lion that comprises the cane’s handle. I run my fingers over the lion’s razor-sharp teeth, draw a little of my own blood. I shrug my shoulders. The lion’s mouth opening means that the fates have intervened and given me a sign. I smack him on his side with the lion’s mouth. It snaps shut and gouges a deep wound in his beer-swollen belly. Blood drizzles out of him.

“I think I just invented a poor man’s liposuction,” I say.

He chokes from pain and vomits.

“Just wait here a few minutes,” I say, “while I run an extension cord out here and get the Hoover. We’ll have you as trim as Celine Dion in the twinkle of an eye.”

He looks up at me and tries to mouth some words, but just pukes again.

“Or you and your buddy seem close. Maybe he’ll show his friendship by sucking the fat out of your wound.”

I look at Skinny. “And if I tell you to do it, believe me, before I’m done, you’ll beg me to let you.”

I return my attention to fat fuck biker. “No, wait. That means I have to gouge more pieces out of you, so the fat is removed from various places to create symmetry. It’s important to me that you feel svelte and attractive, like an improved person when we’re through. It will be good for your self-image. I think a poor self-image is what brought you to this moment of ignominy that you’re now suffering. We give you a makeover, put you in a suit, your confidence will skyrocket, and before you know it, you’ll have your own office in the World Trade Center, trading stocks and bonds.”

I smack the tip on the sidewalk and the lion’s mouth springs opens. “Yuck,” I say. “On second thought, you really should have a doctor look at that,” and shake the bite of beer fat out of the lion’s mouth and onto his head. “Well,” I say, “now you’re going to walk like me.” I lift my shirt and show him the handle of the Colt sticking out of the waistband. “Look at my face. Do you want to be handsome like me, too?”

He manages to talk through gritted teeth. “Sir, I apologize for my bad attitude. Would you please stop hurting me now?”

I notice there’s a woman standing at the front door of my building, watching. I ignore her.

Back to Skinny. “The story,” I say.

“Sir,” he says, “we got a get-out-of-jail-free card on a drug bust, plus a hundred euros each a day to watch you.”

“So, a cop put you up to this?”

“Yes, sir.”

“His name?”

“He didn’t give one, didn’t even show us ID.”

“Then how do you know he’s a cop?”

“Because he got us out of the can and got the charges against us dropped. The apartment he put us in is vacant. We didn’t know you’re police officers.”

Like it would have made any difference. “Have you been smashing my windows, writing notes, playing dirty tricks?”

“Yes, sir. But we didn’t teargas your house. The cop did it himself.”

“You’ve frightened and endangered my friends and family. How do you intend to make that up to me?”

His voice quakes. “Sir, I apologize for the trouble we’ve caused you, and we’ll do whatever you tell us will satisfy you.”

“Tell me about the cop.”

“He didn’t look too good. Broken nose. Fake front teeth. Some scars on his face and what looks like a surgery scar beside his left eye.”

He’s describing Captain Jan Pitkanen of SUPO, the minister of the interior’s hatchet man. Milo destroyed Pitkanen’s face, reduced it to pulp with the butt of his pistol. Milo beat him half to death, but it was Pitkanen’s own fault. When Milo approached him, he failed to identify himself and reached inside his jacket. He might have been reaching for a gun. I told Milo he went too far, though, and Pitkanen wouldn’t forget it. However, he wouldn’t be harassing me without the knowledge of the minister, Osmo Ahtiainen. Further, he almost certainly ordered Pitkanen to do so.

“You know who it is?” Sweetness asks.

“Yep. You squeezed his partner’s shoulder so hard that you dislocated it and broke his collarbone.”

“What do you want to do with these fuckwads?” he asks.

I lean against the side of my now windowless Saab. “Be creative,” I say.

I look up. Jenna and Mirjami watch through my window.

Skinny’s hand is on the hood of my car. Sweetness grinds a cigarette out on the hand, looks thoughtful, pensive. Skinny doesn’t move or protest, just grimaces. “You guys ever seen the movie American History X ?” Sweetness asks.

They both nod.

“You remember near the beginning, when Edward Norton makes the guy open his mouth so his teeth are against the curb, and then he stomps on his head and it mushes like a melon?”

Their eyes go wide with panic.

“Let’s do that,” Sweetness says.

They don’t move. Sweetness twists Skinny’s arm behind his back, jerks up and dislocates his shoulder, then throws him onto the asphalt. The two bikers exchange a look that says, We’re helpless, we’re better off taking our chances than having this ogre keep wrecking our bodies one piece at a time. They crawl to the curb, put their arms at their sides, open their mouths and suck concrete.

Sweetness looks at me. I shake my head no. Sweetness stands over them, stomps a combat boot as hard as he can on the pavement between their heads. Skinny recoils, lifts his head and drops it again, knocks his own front teeth out. Sweetness finds this funny, chuckles and says, “Dumbfuck.”

“Boys,” I say, “you fucked with my family. You come back and we’ll hurt you a lot worse than this. I’ll kill you both slow. I don’t want to see your faces again. My suggestion is that you vacate Helsinki. Do you understand me?”

They’re both too fucked up to speak.

“I asked you a question.”

They each manage to spit out, “Yes, sir.”

“Tell your police buddy I’ll be paying him a visit.” I gesture to Sweetness to come with me, and we leave them where they lie.

The woman still waits on my stoop. “Are you Inspector Kari Vaara?” she asks. Her accent is thick and hard for me to understand.

She’s fortyish, has salt-and-pepper hair done up in a bun. She looks older than her years, has the look of hard work and a difficult life that changes people’s faces. She has on a plain dress and shoes that speak of a limited income. I expect a complaint for beating people to jelly on the street on this fine summer morning. “Why do you ask?”

“Need help.” Her accent is Estonian-Russian, her Finnish broken.

Sweetness tells her in Russian that he can translate for her if she likes. A nasty little piece of history is that during the Soviet occupation of Estonia during the Second World War, Stalin had tens of thousands of Estonians shipped off to Siberia. Russians were brought in to repopulate. Most of the forcibly emigrated Estonians froze and starved to death. Part of the population now speaks Russian as a first language.