Only one word came to mind to describe her. Yummy. She captivated me. Prior to the removal of my tumor I would have paid her scant or little attention, barely noticed her at all. A ninny half my age. I desperately wanted to fuck the daylights out of her. Other than Aino, I hadn’t wanted another woman since I met Kate. Surgery had changed me.
Milo monitored the Russians’ cell phones. “Hey, Kari,” he said, “it’s your round. Come on, I’ll go to the bar with you.” We stopped halfway between our table and the bar. He whispered in my ear. “One of the Russians just called his boss to say he got ripped off and killed the guy from the other gang. When they saw the empty trunk, he stabbed the guy fast, pushed him into the trunk, and shut it. We’re going to have to get rid of another body.”
“Fuck,” I said.
“Yep, fuck.”
We stood there for a minute and thought about it.
Milo said, “This is an easy one because we have a half-empty barrel. We don’t even need the forklift, we just have to stuff the body into the barrel. We have a half a million in dope and half a million in cash. Sweetness and I will dump the body. You take the swag, buy the girls another drink to make them happy and take them home. We’ll do the rest.”
It was a kind gesture. “You trying to keep me out of the doghouse with Kate?”
He sniggered. “Yeah.”
“Thanks.” I put the stuff in my car, the guys left, and I bought a last round. The girls were tanked anyway.
I stayed quiet, listened to them talk. Jenna spoke East Helsinki Finnish, and Mirjami spoke stadin slangi—city slang. I didn’t understand half of what she said. The kids have developed a slang dialect so rich that a dictionary of it was recently published. It’s about three inches thick. Mirjami started talking to me, telling me a story, and I finally admitted, “I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. Can you speak something resembling standard Finnish?”
This made her laugh. “Sure,” she said, and made the transition for me. “It’s like my outfit,” she said. “When I go out, I play ‘let’s pretend.’ Normally, I speak like somebody with an education.”
I took them home, first Jenna, then Mirjami. As she got out, she said, “You like me, don’t you.”
“Yeah,” I answered.
“I thought so,” she said. “See ya,” and bounded up the sidewalk to her door.
When I got home, Aino and Kate sat drinking a bottle of sparkling wine together. I checked the fridge, there was plenty of breast milk. It was still early. I was close to sober. I suggested they get out of the house, celebrate Vappu, have a few drinks. They leapt at the opportunity.
25
The post-Vappu blues. Kate woke, scurried to the bathroom, retched and vomited. I was asleep when Kate got home, but she and Aino must have really tied one on. Kate isn’t much of a drinker. She was becoming more and more Finnish every day. She made it back to bed by way of serpentine tacking, too dizzy to walk straight.
Anu heard the heaving and woke up crying. I changed her diaper and used breast pump milk to feed her. I had coffee and a cigarette, got comfortable in my man chair, and Anu laid in my lap while I browsed the Sunday paper. Katt perched on my shoulder, as if reading along with me.
The violence, turmoil and rioting was downplayed, described as “displays of discontent and anger, as demonstrated by friction between blacks and whites and a lack of order in those areas in which immigrant populations were concentrated.”
Cover-up.
Editorials discussed “the justified fear of whites, confronted by armed and violent malcontent foreigners.”