James Thompson: Helsinki Blood

“Were I to take the job, I would take a hands-on approach, investigate cases of my choosing, handpick my staff. I won’t be a paper pusher.”

“I don’t care how you choose to do your job, as long as you get it done. Why should I give a shit if you delegate paper pushing?”

“You asked if I want something. If I take the job, I want punishment of the people trafficking in women, both Finnish citizens and Russian diplomats.”

“There were fourteen Russians implicated. How am I supposed to accomplish that?”

“I’ll accept five convictions, provided the sentences are lengthy, served in Russian prisons. Of those too well-connected to face prosecution, I want five shot and killed. Call Putin. You have that power. The Finns involved all get prosecuted.”

He snorts, exasperated. “It can be done.”

“When do you need an answer?” I ask.

“Now. That’s obvious, or I wouldn’t have come here at your beck and call.”

“By the weekend OK?”

“No. A commission has to be formed to investigate this clusterfuck. You have to oversee it.”

It just gets better and better. Now I’m investigating my own crimes and those of my accomplices. To ensure that the lone-gunman theory is accepted, and that Milo, Sweetness and I walk free, I have to take the job. If not to protect myself, then them. I owe them that.

“I have to leave,” he says. “All this death, mayhem and shit bad publicity is a nightmare for me. What’s it going to be?”

“Deal,” I say. “Want me to stay in touch so you can be with me for the photo ops?”

“Yeah,” he says, “that would be good.”

We shake on it, I see him to his car. I go in the house and sit down to rest my knee. Katt takes his customary place on the back of the chair, paws around my neck in choking position, and I go back to reading Cop Hater .

October 1, 2011

I sit down at the Hotel Kamp bar. “And for the commissioner?” the bartender asks.

I’m now the commissioner of the National Bureau of Investigation. They put my knee back together well enough so that I can drive again. The pain is and likely always will be constant, but it’s bearable, and one learns to live with such things.

“A martini. You know how I like it.”

“The commissioner has made an excellent choice.”

Loviise Tamm brings clean glasses from the back and puts them in their proper places behind the bar. Since the moment Yelena walked in and found her on her knees in front of Sasha Mikoyan, she has never been in any danger. Yelena demanded Loviise be handed over to her, and her husband, as always, acquiesced. Yelena hid her in Hotel Marski, dropped a credit card, told the staff to cater to her every whim, gave her my phone number and ordered her to remain in her room and live on room service until she saw me on TV. Then she was to call me and tell me her whereabouts. Which she did.

Yelena’s faith in me must have been great, to believe I would succeed and be on television because of it. Perhaps, like me, the idea of saving one person caused her to imagine the thundering of hooves and the blaring of trumpets. I hope she heard them as she died. Perhaps she felt her sacrifice would raise her from chattel to savior, a Jeanne d’Arc. If so, in my eyes, she succeeded.

Loviise didn’t get her promised secretarial job, but seems happy busing tables and doing menial kitchen tasks here in Kamp.

When I introduced her to Kate, I heard no trumpets or thundering of hooves, but felt satisfaction nonetheless. Sweetness was right, saving Loviise and those other more than a hundred girls didn’t cause Kate to come running into my arms, proclaiming all was forgiven, but it certainly didn’t hurt my cause either. Slow but sure, our marriage is getting back on track.

It seems we’re all healing an inch at a time. Sweetness is attending the police academy. He likes it, although it put a stop to his morning-to-night boozing. It was harder than he thought. Last week, Milo managed to move the tip of his index finger a fraction. That brings hope that he may regain some use of his right hand.

The Finnish recipe for a martini is three parts gin and one part vermouth. It sucks the mop. The vermouth overpowers the gin. The bartender makes a double with Bombay Sapphire and a hint of vermouth, rubs a lemon peel around the edge of the glass, gives the shaker a couple swirls and pours. In addition to two olives in the drink, she puts a few on top of crushed ice in a second martini glass.

The bartender is Kate. This is her first day back at work after maternity leave. She’s giving the bartender on duty a break.

“Anything else for the commissioner?” she asks.

I take a sip. Perfect. “Such a well-made drink deserves a generous tip.” I slide a gift-wrapped box across the bar to her. She opens it to find diamond earrings and a matching necklace with a diamond pendant.

She gasps. “Kari! Why?” It’s all she can get out of her mouth.

“I just felt like it.” It’s true. I bought them on impulse this afternoon. “Want to stay here after work and have dinner?”

“We need a babysitter for Anu.”

“I already took care of it.”

“Then yes,” she says, “let’s have a date. Maybe catch a movie afterward.”

“Sounds great,” I say, and admire her smile as she serves the next customer.