Helsinki Blood

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 Hyvaa Syntymapaivaa 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 exchange 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.