Lucifer's Tears

24

I step out onto Ratakatu. The temperature has dipped to near minus twenty again. A little snow is falling. My phone rings and I answer.

“It’s John.” His voice quavers.

“Hi, John. How’s my new best buddy?”

“I’m in trouble. Please help me.”

The disclosure comes as less than a bombshell. “Anything for you. You know that.”

“I’ve been robbed.”

This strikes me as suspicious in the extreme. I test him. “I’m near a police station. Get in a taxi, then call me back. I’ll give the driver the address and pay him when you get there.”

“That’s not a good idea.”

I thought not. “And why might that be?”

“Please come and get me. I’ll explain then. I can’t go far. I’m outside and don’t have any shoes, and my socks are wet. I’m freezing.”

No shoes? I have him walk to the nearest corner and spell out the names of the cross streets. “I’ll be there in ten minutes,” I say. JOHN ISN’T FAR FROM JUTTUTUPA. I make the short drive and pull over to the curb. John hops in. He’s the picture of misery, takes off his socks and pulls his legs up so he can warm his bare feet with the car heater. I park the car in a space next to the water. “Let’s have it,” I say.

“I went for a walk and was headed toward downtown. A guy mugged me. He took my boots.” He sniffs. “I loved those boots.”

“He didn’t take your wallet?”

Head shake. “No. But he took the money in it.”

“The truth, John.”

He wants to concoct a better lie. He reads my face, knows I won’t buy it. He averts his eyes, stares at the floor of the Saab.

I roll down the window and light a cigarette. Frigid air turns the car into an icebox, and barefoot John shivers in misery. I don’t care. “You promised me you wouldn’t upset Kate,” I say.

He sighs. “I wasn’t trying to. It’s a long story.”

I check my watch, have an hour until I meet Milo. “I’ll make time for it.”

“I’m not a teacher anymore. I lost my job a few weeks ago.”

Big shock. “And?”

“It wasn’t all a lie. I was a Ph. D. candidate with a doctoral fellowship. I was a graduate teaching assistant and a good one, but I showed up drunk to teach a couple times and got warnings. Then I got tanked at a party and let a freshman seduce me. Word got around. I got fired.”

“You should have taught at a Finnish university. You can fuck your students.”

“You can?”

“Yep. Two consenting adults. And?”

“I turned into my dad. I got depressed and started drinking from the time I get out of bed in the morning and using drugs. The truth is, I didn’t come here just to be with Kate. My life is shit. I came here to get away from it for a while.”

But instead, he brought his life and its attendant shit here with him and dumped them in our laps. “I’m curious,” I say. “The expensive clothes and boots, your-shall we say discriminating-palate for food and wine. How did you develop such expensive tastes on a grad student’s budget?”

He smirks. “I had a girlfriend with a rich daddy. We lived high on the hog on his money. When I fucked the freshman, I lost my cash cow along with my position.”

“Bummer. And how did you come to lose your fancy boots?”

“When I was in that bar-the one where you bailed me out of trouble-I hung out with a couple guys. We did some lines of speed. One of them told me how much he liked my boots.”

John pauses.

I light another cigarette. “And?”

“I really didn’t know all my cards were maxed out. I thought I had a little credit left. I told you I wouldn’t upset Kate.”

“You’re a considerate human being, but you digress. And?”

“I still had a hundred-euro bill in my wallet. He told me to call him today, said he had more speed and we’d party all day.”

I resist the urge to slap him. “After what happened to you yesterday, are you so incredibly stupid that you were going to do the exact same thing again today?”

He nods.

“And this speed freak set a trap for you. He thought you’re a dumbass drunk druggie foreigner, unable to do anything about it, so he ripped you off for a few euros and your boots.”

He nods again.

My headache begs me to smack his head off the windshield. “You fucked up bad.”

The muscles in his face twitch. “I’m broke. It’s twenty below and snowing. I don’t have any shoes or money to buy them. I don’t know what to do.”

“Let me think for a minute.” I light Marlboro number three and shut my eyes. The migraine issues an earsplitting shriek. I open my eyes again, look out the driver’s-side window and see a cash machine across the street. “Wait here,” I say.

I take two hundred and forty euros from the machine and give it to John. “Now you have money, you can maintain your pretense for Kate. Make it last. How bad are your drug and alcohol problems?”

His face goes sheepish. He massages his pale feet. “I can make it without the speed. I mostly use it to keep from getting sloppy when I binge-drink. I found a bottle of kookoo or whatever that vodka is called in your house this morning and took a couple hits to get rid of the shakes.”

“Did you do what I told you and lie to Kate about your outing yesterday?”

He holds his soaking socks up in front of the heater. It blows wet dog smell around the car. “I went to the National Museum. The prehistory of Finland archeological exhibit was incredible.”

“Today you went shopping,” I say. “You wanted some warmer boots and got some just like mine.”

“What happened to my Sedona Wests?”

“You’re a humanitarian. You gave them to UFF, our version of Goodwill. I’m going to fix this. What did the guy who ripped you off look like?”

“Tall. Thin. Stringy shoulder-length black hair. He wears a worn-out black leather biker jacket.”

I check received calls in my cell phone and their times, and find the number that must belong to Securitas Arska. I call him and tell him I’m looking for a speed-head that hangs out in Roskapankki and repeat John’s description of him. Arska knows who he is. I offer Arska a hundred euros if, when he sees the speed-head again, he’ll detain him and call me. Arska agrees.

I pull the car out into traffic and give John instructions. “I want you out of the country as soon as you can do it without rousing Kate’s suspicion about why you’re leaving earlier than planned. Until then, I’ll keep booze in the house for you. Hide your drinking from Mary and Kate. And no drugs. I want you on your best behavior.”

“Okay,” he says. “Thank you.”

Migraine screams deafening loud. I light cigarette number four.

“Kari, I’m grateful for what you’ve done for me,” he says, “and I’m sorry that I’ve put you in such an awkward position.”

He’s sincere. It makes it hard for me to hate him.

I wear army combat boots in the winter, and have since I was in the service. They’re warm, comfortable and durable. I take John to an Army-Navy store near our house, so he can get a pair for himself, give him directions to the nearest liquor store, tell him to get semi-tanked and go home.