Helsinki Blood

13

I roll out of bed at six p.m. I slept all day after sleeping fifteen hours last night. I tell myself it’s because I tire easily and we have a long night ahead of us, but I know damned well sleeping near round the clock is a sign of depression. Milo said I’m in “shock.” I don’t know, maybe I am. I don’t much care.

The girls are sitting side by side at the dining room table, somber, speaking sotto voce. Sweetness is sitting on the floor in front of the TV, playing the video game Grand Theft Auto. With our watchers incapacitated and the message sent, I think my apartment is safe, at least for now.

Some burgers are in a pan on the stove. We have no bread in the house because Jenna and Sweetness are avoiding the dreaded carbohydrates that would turn them into slobbering fat monsters. I add some salt and eat two with my fingers. I ask Sweetness, “Ready to roll?”

He snaps off the TV and stands up. “Just let me get my stuff.”

Said stuff includes a bulletproof vest. It’s made of lightweight material, like a mesh T-shirt, with pouches that hold Kevlar inserts. It won’t stop a big-bore Magnum round, but is sufficient protection for the greater majority of gunshots, and is unobtrusive, hard to spot under a loose shirt. He puts a windbreaker overtop to provide sufficient pockets and hide his pistols and other necessities: twin.45 Colt 1911s in shoulder holsters that accommodate their silencers, a sap in his waistband, razor-edged knife, Taser and extra magazines for the Colt, and a second backup.45 Colt with a three-inch barrel in an ankle holster. Plus a small flashlight.

I’m carrying all the same gear, except that I only pack one full-sized Colt in a shoulder holster and the smaller backup. Since he’s ambidextrous, two benefit him, but not me. It’s a warm evening, I’m already sweating from the added clothing and weight. If we’re to find Loviise, we have to play to our strengths. I’m a gimp with a modicum of common sense. Sweetness is a physical powerhouse with little of it.

I see now that Milo rounds us out as a team. He possesses little common sense or physical prowess, but his intellect, IQ 172, stoned or not, allows leaps of thought that have moved cases forward in ways I wouldn’t have been able to without him. I wish the little bastard were here with us now. Without him, playing to our strengths means strong-arm work and intimidation, methods I hoped to get away from, effective as they may be.

I wish we could carry out this investigation in the proper way and use standard police work. Having experienced both, I prefer it to gangster-style tactics. But police protocol, although effective, is slow and painstaking. Leaving a swath of fear and dread behind us moves cases along at lightning speed.

Sweetness got the girls to pack while I slept and we all go out to the Jeep Wrangler. I install Anu’s car seat and belt her in. Sweetness opens the driver’s door.

“Nope,” I say.

“Nope what?”

“Nope, you can’t drive after drinking when Anu is in the car.”

His face turns red, embarrassed. “Keep your voice down. I don’t want Jenna to know.”

Like most juicers, he believes he’s boozing on the sly. “She already knows. Everybody knows. Give the car keys to Mirjami.”

He goes hangdog but says nothing and hands them to her.

She drives through both the main arteries and back streets of Helsinki for the better part of an hour, until I’m convinced we’re not being tailed, and we eventually take the girls to Hotel Cumulus, a ten-minute walk from my apartment, and see them inside.

Then I give the keys to Sweetness-I have no choice, my knee won’t allow me to drive-and actually, I trust him behind the wheel, or almost, but not enough to endanger my child. He’s the best drunk driver I’ve ever seen, better than most people sober. I’ve only seen him obviously drunk once. In quantities of a bottle a day of vodka or less, usually chased with beer, alcohol has no visible effect on him, and also, he has far and away the fastest reflexes I’ve ever witnessed on such a big man. He even dances well and with grace.

I tell him to swing by Milo’s place around the corner and we take the elevator up. I open the door of the tiny apartment. God, what a shithole. Piles of everything from dirty clothes to unread newspapers to filthy dishes cover every surface, except for his worktable, which is neat, orderly, even polished. His reloading kit and all the accessories-brass, lead, powder, some things I don’t recognize-are lined and stacked in rows with obsessive-compulsive precision.

Mounted on the wall behind the table is a long case that displays his war memorabilia, including the Hitler Youth dagger his mother stabbed his father with for philandering. The rest of the apartment is a borderline health hazard, but the display case hasn’t so much as a single fingerprint on it. No doubt about it, Milo is three bricks shy.

“Notice something missing?” Sweetness says.

I look around. “Yeah. Where the fuck is the gun cabinet?”

“Stolen,” Sweetness says.

I sit down on the edge of the bed. It’s cold and hard. The sheet and blanket hang to the floor. I pull them off to reveal a futon mattress on top of the gun cabinet, which lies on its back. I pull the mattress off and fling it aside. “I guess happiness really is a warm gun,” I say.

Sweetness yucks and shakes his head. “Fucking Milo,” he says.

I open it. Our armory is inside. It’s a big one. We’re ready for war. I ask Sweetness, “What do you think we need?”

He scratches his head, adjusts his crotch. “We’re looking for a girl that’s probably locked up. Maybe she’s locked up with other girls, and maybe they have a minder with them to keep them in line. Maybe even a few men. We need stuff to B amp;E them and then take on a few guys if we have to.”

I see it the same way. I grab the Remington 870 tactical shotgun and load it with ceramic ballistic breaching rounds, to blow the locks off doors. Then we both take a couple flash-bang stun grenades each, to make a grand entrance if need be. I pocket a.357 snub-nosed that we lifted from a drug dealer a while back, in case we need a throw-down gun to manufacture a frame job. And last, I grab Milo’s pride and joy, a 10-gauge Colt shotgun made around 1878. As an antique, it doesn’t even require registration. Sweetness is a crack shot with both hands. I can’t shoot for shit. Milo has ammo for the sawed-off on his reloading table. Every shell is labeled: rock salt, bird shot, triple-aught buck and flechettes-shot tipped with razors to cut people in half. Kate shot Adrien Moreau with flechettes.

When Milo first bought all this, a mini-armory, I thought it ridiculous. His wisdom stands proven. I load the sawed-off with rock salt and pocket some extra rounds. It will tear the hide off people without killing them.

I hunt around his kitchenette, find an unopened package of big plastic garbage bags-thinking he might actually use them when he bought them was a glaring case of self-denial-and put the shotguns in them so we can carry them around without scaring the citizenry. Good enough. We lock up behind us and go in search of Loviise Tamm.