Helsinki White

9

The next morning, in front of Kate, I made a show of asking Arvid to stay with us for a few days. After a couple refusals for the sake of pretense, he reluctantly agreed.

Sweetness was to be my chauffeur for the day. First, a trip to NBI headquarters to fill out his job application, then to Arvid’s to pick up some clothes for him, and then to my physical therapy, which I loathed, because it hurt like hell.

We took Sweetness’s car, a 1998 Toyota Corolla with a hundred and twenty thousand miles on it. He was new to driving. Milo broke into the registry computers and created a license for him. Sweetness was so proud when he received it. Completing all the courses necessary for a license: normal weather daylight driving, winter driving, nighttime driving, et cetera, is a lengthy process and before all is said and done, costs some thousands of euros. Poor people can’t afford one. The car had been his father’s, but since he was doing a long stretch for double murder, he had no use for it.

He picked me up in front of my building. On crutches, on the ice, even making it from our steps to his car was difficult. We went straight, banged a left onto Helsinginkatu. We stopped at a red light by Vaasanaukio—Vaasa Square, often referred to as Piritori, Speed Square—because it’s an infamous hangout for the alkies and dopers in Sörnäinen, not far from our house, that haunt the area.

Finland’s number one killer is alcohol. According to statistics, despite our small population, we also have more heroin users than the rest of the Nordic countries put together. I don’t know if that’s true or if we’re just better at keeping statistics, at which we excel, than the other countries in the region. We also have problems with amphetamine and tranquilizer addiction. Plus, about a quarter of us use or have used anti-depressants. And studies show that depression remains severely undertreated. What is it about this place that causes so many of us to seek oblivion and be so miserable?

In the square, it’s quiet in winter because of the cold. Minus ten and a little windy that morning, but thriving in summer. Druggies and drunks hang out and sip beers, listen to boom boxes. Police often park their vans in the square and keep watch, but don’t often interfere with anything non-violent. A big S-market grocery store dominates one side of the square, a subway station the other, and a porn shop called Seksipiste—The Sex Point—sits off to one side. It’s been there for many years. I never see anyone go in or out of it. It must do the majority of its business via the Internet.

Kate and I often shop in the S-market. It’s interesting how quickly we adjust to things in life. The druggies don’t harass us, and so become invisible unless they fight or cause scenes. Like much of Helsinki, normal middle-class inhabitants, even the well-to-do, exist side by side with the scum.

A bank ATM is attached to the wall beside the S-market. A little squab bones of a girl inserted her card. The machine spit her card out instead of money. A young man in a black bomber jacket with a bloated alcoholic face slapped her. I told Sweetness to pull into the square. We watched.

Squab Bones was underdressed in a tattered coat, had little ears and a low forehead, small pointy teeth inside a scarlet smear of a mouth, sores on her face. Crystal meth or heroin had whittled her down to nothing. Best guess, she buys whatever it is from him. The man looked simian and his mean eyes were glazed. She tried to speak. He grabbed her by her short dirty hair and jerked her head to and fro. She slipped, fell to the ice, started to sob.

Something should be done. I couldn’t do it myself. “Sweetness,” I said, “go over there and punch that guy in the head. Hurt him.”

“OK, pomo.”

He reached in his coat pocket and took out a flask, had a pull from it and put it away. I checked my watch. Ten forty-five a.m.

Sweetness meandered over, the simian paid no heed. I rolled my window down to listen. Sweetness hit him with a right hook, lightning fast. So fast that at his size, I wouldn’t have thought it possible. Simian’s teeth were clenched in anger. I heard Simian’s jaws both crack broken. His mouth hung funny. Blood shot out of his mouth like a burst water balloon.

Somehow, he kept on his feet. Teeth flew. He spat bridgework. He gagged on a tooth he swallowed that went down the wrong way. He hacked and coughed it out of his airway, spit it out, started crying, and the expression on his face asked Sweetness why. He leaned over, put his hands on his knees. Blood drooled from his mouth in a thin stream and puddled on the ice at his feet.

Sweetness hit him again. A straight jab angled down to the face. Simian’s front teeth broke out. His nose crunched flat. He flew backward, hit the ATM and collapsed.

I called out. “Go through his pockets.”

Sweetness took his wallet. Dope in eight-ball packets. A switchblade.

“Any money in the wallet?” I asked.

He pulled it out and counted. “Three hundred and sixty.”

“Give it all to the girl except the switchblade and the wallet. Throw it in a trash can.” To force Simian to go to the trouble and expense of replacing the cards and ID.

Squab Bones snatched the drugs and money and, dope greedy, didn’t bother to say thank you. Wounded animals are like that. She ran into the subway station.

Sweetness got behind the wheel, hit the flask again and we pulled out.

“You’re fast,” I said. “Have you trained?”

He grinned. “Naw, just another of my natural gifts.”

We rode in silence for a while. Something rolled back and forth under my seat. Judging by the sound, it was a bottle of booze to refill the flask throughout the day.

“How much do you drink?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I don’t keep track.”

“Been drinking hard long?”

“More since my brother got killed. It’s not so much that I like to get drunk. It just steadies my nerves.”

Sweetness is one of those rare juicers. You never know when they’re tanked: they never slur, their eyes don’t droop. He always seems sober. He drove fast, wove in and out of traffic along the icy roads with careful precision. I said nothing, wanted to give it some thought. What I said wouldn’t make any difference anyway. Sometime there would come a point when he’d have to choose whether to self-destruct or build a life for himself.

At NBI HQ in Vantaa, he filled out his application for a job as a linguist. He got the job through nepotism, but it wasn’t a sham. Our team needed a linguist with exactly his abilities, for translation of electronic eavesdropping on foreign criminals. He only lacks Dutch. We could use someone who speaks it, because so much pot and Ecstasy comes from Amsterdam. We got it done and started out toward Arvid’s. We wouldn’t be taking his Toyota again. The shock absorbers were worn out, and every bump in the road jarred my knee, sent pain shooting through it. I have a Saab 9-5, 2007 model, which I love. We’d be taking it from now on.

On the way, I asked him about his plans for an education. Since he was now an NBI employee, he didn’t have to go to the police academy in Tampere. He could stay here and attend the University of Helsinki or a polytechnic trade school.

“I got a job,” he said. “What do I need school for?”

“That was our agreement when I hired you,” I said. “I expect you to earn a degree. What you study, though, is up to you.”

“I don’t care,” he said. “You can pick for me.”

Then I got it. He would apply for whatever I suggested, then fail the entrance exam but claim he tried and acted in good faith.

“No,” I said. “It’s your life, and what we’re doing now won’t last forever. You make a decision, and you study like hell for the entrance exam. If you don’t go to school, you can’t work for me. End of story.”

This made him mad. He didn’t speak to me for the next hour.

After we picked up Arvid’s clothes, I asked him if Milo had been teaching him some computer skills. “No. I don’t like being around him if I don’t have to. He calls me names, makes fun of the way I talk and tells me I’m stupid. I’m not stupid.”

Sweetness has an East Helsinki accent and uses the area’s slang. Sometimes I don’t get what he’s saying. Helsinki is funny that way. Dialects vary so much that you can often place a person’s roots to within half a mile. East Helsinki dialect screams lower class.

“I’m not going to take much more of that shit from him,” Sweetness said.

“You want me to speak to him about it?”

He scoffed. “Pomo, I don’t need you to fight my battles for me.”

“Just don’t hurt him like you did the dope dealer.” I was curious. “Did that bother you?” I asked.

“Naw, he deserved it. I couldn’t care less.” He switched topics. “Milo taught me a little about surveillance, though. I got some good pictures to show you.”

“I told you to stay in the car and out of sight.”

“Milo said that was bullshit, that I had to learn to be—what do you call it?—surreptitious. I gotta say, he was right. I got some great pics.”

After physical therapy, Sweetness took me home, and I invited him to eat with us. It was like watching a pig at the trough. He ate at lightning speed, watched with an empty plate to make sure we had our fill, then devoured every last bite left on the stove. Why did I think my relationship with Sweetness was going to equate to Henry Higgins and Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady?