He sighed, leaned back in his chair and folded his arms.
“As your doctor, brother and friend, I’m advising you to have an open discussion with your wife, go on sick leave, stop whatever it is you’re doing, and seek psychotherapy. I’ll find you a good therapist. You’re not getting better on your own, and you need rest and assistance until your brain repairs itself.”
I stood up and thanked him. “I’ll give everything you said consideration.” I left, having no intention of doing any such thing.
28
Noon. The Nyland Yacht Club. The whole gang from last night reappears, except for Aino. She had to go to work. Breakfast libations. Mimosas. Bloody Marys. Beer. The legal blood alcohol content for piloting a boat is twice that for driving a car. You can get pretty smashed and stay law compliant. Everyone dresses warm, coats with sweaters underneath. It’s forty-two degrees Fahrenheit, and cold on the Baltic, especially with the boat in motion.
Living with a foreigner causes unusual habits. Kate can conceptualize minus temperatures in Celsius, but not the plus side of the thermometer, so I’ve gotten in the habit of automatically converting in my head for her benefit. Now I often think in Fahrenheit too, but only on the plus side.
The prime minister has a thirty-one-foot motorized cruiser, a sharp-looking newer vessel. Below deck, it has three double-berth cabins, a big saloon and galley, a head, and seating for navigational equipment.
I text messaged Milo before we left the house, told him I wanted heroin and a throw-down gun hidden in the vessel, along with a GPS tracker, so we always know where it is, and keys to the boat, in case we wanted to use it. I had in mind that it would make for a more convenient way to dump bodies.
We set sail, make our way out to deeper waters, and the blender starts churning. It’s got a motor strong enough to power a car. Down in the saloon, mojitos and frozen drinks made of dark rum and fresh fruit start flowing for the women. I stay away from the hard stuff, crack a beer, find the fishing gear. I pull in perch, pike and sea trout. Milo and Sweetness felt ill at ease around the politicians, without me alongside them for the purpose of social lubrication. They looked for me, saw my catch, now seven decent-sized fish, and took the other two deck chairs on either side of me.
Sweetness had never fished before. I taught him the basics: casting and reeling, how to avoid tangling a line, how to bring a fish in and get it off the hook. He caught his first fish, a good-sized pike, and got little-kid excited. Milo is a good fisherman. The other men come up on deck and sip scotch, to fight the chill, they say. They watch us reel in more fish, want a turn at it themselves. We give up our seats. The interior minister says he’d like a word with me.
We lean against the rail. The wind covers our voices. I hand him an envelope. I decided to deliver his cut personally today. This is one of the things he would like to discuss with me. At present, he takes a fifteen percent cut, which goes to necessities, such as the Kokoomus party’s campaign funds. And yachts. I don’t say it. He doesn’t know I’m out of the drug-dealer-destruction business for the moment.
He needs another five percent bump out of the slush fund. Not retroactive, just from future earnings. He knows I don’t like it and offers an explanation. The money is to go to the Real Finns.
I ask why he would ensure that his competitors have adequate campaign funds.