“I did wrong. I deserve punishment.”
“Your father is a piece of shit who put you up to the attack in the first place. If you go to jail, your mother has no one. Your request for incarceration is denied.”
He didn’t expect this. It stuns him to momentary silence. “Well,” he stammers, “what am I supposed to do, then?”
Jyri sits across from me, still disconcerted. He wanted something, I told him no. He’s not used to it.
I say, “What you’re supposed to do, Sulo, is get on with your life and make something out of yourself.”
He stares down at the table. I slide him a pint of beer. He says, “I don’t know how to do anything.”
Jyri says he wants a black-ops team. It needs tough guys, and Jyri says I can staff it as I like. I test Jyri’s sincerity. “Sure you can. Do something about people like the ones that killed your brother. Be a cop. I’m starting a new unit and could use a mountain-sized kid who’s not afraid to take out two bouncers with a box cutter.” I look at Jyri. “That’s okay with you, right?”
We’re playing big dog/little dog again-only this time our roles are reversed. “Sure,” he says. “Whatever.”
“And you’ll see to it that Arvid Lahtinen is released from custody tomorrow. Right?”
Jyri nods.
“Don’t you have to go to school to be a cop?” Sulo asks.
I do this because I feel my power, because I can. “Your employment is contingent upon studying while you work.” I point at Jyri. “He’ll see to your admission into a law enforcement program. I’ll pay you two thousand a month cash out of my slush fund while you study.”
Sulo can’t grasp his sudden change in fortune, toys with his glass, sloshes some beer on the table. “Okay,” he says.
“Of course,” I say, “I don’t know you, and your employment is subject to termination at my whim. You have to prove yourself. Don’t fucking disappoint me.”
Jari is baffled, can’t comprehend the conversation. I guess he thinks the booze is confusing him. Milo gets it all. He loves watching me abuse Jyri, is working hard to keep from bursting out laughing.
I feel satisfied, even giddy. “Well, gentlemen,” I say, “I believe I’ve done my duty pertaining to alcohol here this evening. It’s time for me to go home. I have a wife and a child to attend to in the morning.”
“Don’t forget, you have an MRI in the morning,” Jari says.
I had forgotten.
“Is Kate coming home tomorrow?” he asks.
“She should be.”
“We have some things to drop off for your family. Do you mind if we come over? It’s important to Taina. She wants to make amends.”
“Jari, you never have to ask if you can come to my home,” I say, and don my coat.
Except for John, who didn’t understand the conversation but is content to drink heavily, the men I leave at the table look mystified, furious or amused, each for his own reasons.
48
I get up early the next morning. I drank a fair amount, but wasn’t out too late, so my hangover is mild, and despite it, the migraine remains absent. The snow has stopped falling for the time being, and the drive to Meilahti hospital isn’t difficult. I make my nine o’clock appointment, and technicians roll me into something resembling a thrumming spacecraft. They put earphones on me to dull the MRI machine’s cacophony. I lie still and listen to classical music for half an hour while they shoot hundreds of pictures of my brain. As hospital tests go, it isn’t so bad.