James Thompson - Helsinki Blood

Her voice doesn’t waver. She offers no more reaction than she would to a waiter describing the evening specials. “What is it you wish from me?”

“A chat. Nothing more. I’m unconcerned with Sasha Mikoyan or your. . incident. He was involved in human trafficking. I would like to discuss it with you.”

“Very well. My husband is in St. Petersburg. Meet me here at the embassy at three p.m.”

“Unfortunately, some people in the embassy have negative feelings toward me. If I walk in, I might never come out again. Can we choose a more neutral location? I have no power to arrest you, or rather, to have you prosecuted, as you well know.”

“Then meet me on the Esplanade, across the street from the coffee shop, near the fountain. The weather is supposed to be beautiful. Perhaps we’ll have a walk.” She rings off.

“We need to have a talk,” Sweetness says.

“Let’s see what happened to Kate’s brother first,” Milo says, “while Kate is asleep.”

“Milo,” I say, “can’t the voyeur in you wait until you get home? I don’t even want to know what happened to him.”

“Won’t take but a few minutes,” he says, and commandeers the computer’s mouse. I get up and go to my armchair, to give him the computer driver’s seat. Milo the voyeur. A guy who B amp;Es people’s homes, not to steal from them, but just to see how they live. If I don’t let him look, I won’t have his attention while we talk, because all he’ll think about is this. Our computers are networked, so he’s run John’s to his to mine.

“I used a motion sensor to activate his webcam,” Milo says, “so the only things recorded are when he sits on his couch, where he likes to sit when he snorts drugs.”

I pet Katt and ignore Milo while he plays.

Sweetness watches with him. After a few minutes, I hear them start making noises and swearing under their breaths.

“Ouch.”

“Fuuuccckkk.”

“Jesus fucking Christ.”

“God fucking damn.”

“Fuuuuucccckkkkk.”

Milo turns to me. “Jesus, that was enough to puke a dog off a gut wagon. Well, that’s one problem you won’t have to deal with again.”

I suppose I have to see. I sent Milo there. Whatever happened is in part my responsibility. I push myself out of my chair and lean on the table to keep the pressure off my knee.

Milo starts at the beginning. John lays two big bags of dope on the table, side by side. He pours some powder from each and cuts it into rails with a razor blade. He rolls up a twenty-dollar bill, snorts them and cuts two more. And then two more. And then two more. He sits straight up, eyes wild, like he’s plugged into an electrical outlet. I expect his hair to stand on end.

Milo fast-forwards. John slumps forward. Blood shoots out of his nose and mouth. He jerks and twitches. The blood keeps gushing. He pulls a pillow up to his mouth and bites it, as if it will stanch his internal bleeding. He topples over, out of sight.

I’m not sure if I should be angry or not. “Did you give him bad dope?” I ask.

“Of course not. I stole it from his dealer. It’s the same shit he’s been using.”

“So,” I say, “he did the coke, and then heroin. The coke ran through his system too quickly, and without it to hold him together, he ODed on heroin and his heart pretty much exploded.”

“You are correct, sir.”

“Erase it,” I say, “and forget it ever happened. My marriage would be over if Kate found out.”

“He did it to himself,” Milo says. “He could have gone to rehab.”

“I know,” I say, “but I never want to speak of it again.”

Milo knew that John, given that amount of drugs, would OD. Milo killed him as surely as if he put a gun to his head. He set up the webcam so he could view his handiwork, but he did it for Kate and for me. Kate can never go to her brother to self-destruct again. I feel only gratitude.

I sit back down with Katt for a few minutes until the mind movie of John dying fades. Suddenly, the pain is excruciating. My knee screams a shrill throb. I’ve done everything Jari told me not to when he shot it up with cortisone, and I’m paying the price. A half glass of water sits on the table beside me. I drop a couple codeine and Tylenol tabs in it and wait until they stop bubbling, then chase a couple tranquilizers with it.

I take back the chair in front of the computer. I still have all the files from the kidnapping of Veikko Saukko’s son and daughter in it. Included in them is information concerning his employees. I look at Phillip Moore’s file. At the time of the kidnapping, going on two years ago, he had a boy, now age eleven, and a wife, although they were estranged.

His son attended the International School of Helsinki. His wife taught English in a high school. Pictures of both of them are in the file. I bump the pics over to my cell phone, and find Moore’s number in the download from Saukko’s iPhone. I send him a message with the photos attached. The message is short. “Burned car. Girl dead. Blood debt.”

Moore calls me straightaway. “What is the meaning of your message?” he asks.

“We had that discussion before you got out of our Jeep. Knowledge equals collusion.”

“I told you I’m a soldier and a bodyguard, not a murderer, and I disapprove of hurting women and children.”

“I’m uninterested in what you approve or disapprove of.”

“I had no prior knowledge that your car would be firebombed.”

“You’re a bad liar. Tell me the truth.”

“I only know that his girlfriend had a miscarriage, and that the girl who was burned so badly is your subordinate’s cousin and your mistress.”

I don’t bother to clarify the mistress comment. “Lie to me again,” I say, “and I’ll hang up and proceed to make good on my word.”

“So you’re ready to take me on. It could prove fatal.”

Sweetness sets a kossu on the table beside me. “I agree that people will die. Who they are remains an open question.”

He hesitates, thinking. “In the interest of saving blood from being spilled, I’ll tell you what happened. In return, you give me a chance to get my family out of the country.”

I sip the kossu . The pain in my knee is calming down. “I’ll agree to make that part of the arrangement. Tell me the story, and I’ll decide if I feel it fair to place other demands upon you.”

“We have to come to an arrangement,” he says, “or I have to hunt all of you down to save my family and my own skin.”

I say nothing.

“I had nothing to do with firebombing that car, and I didn’t know about it until after the fact. It was Veikko’s idea, I believe after consulting with some Russians. NBI Captain Jan Pitkanen and the two Corsicans carried it out.”

“Even if you didn’t learn about it until after it happened,” I say, “you failed to inform me. I told you that you work for me now. Kill the Corsicans.”

“Are you shitting me?”

“You’re lucky I’m not demanding that you kill Veikko Saukko, but especially after the kidnap-murder of his daughter and shooting death of his son, it would spark the biggest manhunt in Finnish history and you would be caught. Kill the Corsicans, and they’ll just have their bodies dumped and be forgotten.”

“That’s a fucking lot to ask,” he says. “I’ll have to leave the country as well.”

“Not my concern. No Corsicans, no Shit List until they can be replaced. It buys me time. Call me when it’s done.”

“I’ll get you for this one day.”

“Fine. I’ll see you then.”

He rings off.

“Damn,” Sweetness says. “You’re not fucking around, are you?”

I close my eyes and think. It goes against my nature to threaten a man’s family, but my own comes first.