The ring of my cell phone breaks my thoughts. Securitas Arska calls. He’s at Roskapankki. The guy who stole John’s boots is there. “Give me half an hour,” I say.
I change direction and start toward Helsinki, drive fast despite the snow. I call John and tell him to meet me at Roskapankki. He says he’s busy right now. I hear a squeal and giggle in the background. I’m interrupting a fuck session. Good for John. “Too bad,” I say. “Go there now. I’m going to get your boots back for you.”
He brightens. “I can be there in twenty minutes.”
Headache Alien screeches. I find myself furious. John is a decent guy, problems or no, didn’t deserve to have a speed freak steal his boots and leave him barefoot in the snow in minus twenty degrees. Then I realize the real reason for my anger is that said speed freak was mean to someone Kate loves. Same difference, I’m enraged.
I enter Roskapankki. John skulks near the bar, ashamed. Arska sits on a bouncer stool near the door, says he didn’t have to detain the guy I’m looking for, he isn’t going anywhere. He points at a table with four losers sitting at it, half-full pints of beer in front of them. I slide Arska two fifties. I order six beers at the bar, tell John to bring them to the table. I pull up two chairs and sit with four derelicts in their mid-twenties. Their eyes tell me they’re flying. They look at me, amused and curious. John sets beers in front of all of us and takes a seat beside me, huddles close for protection. I note, to my surprise and pleasure, that he’s sober.
“Hi, guys,” I say. “My name is Kari. Let’s be friends.”
They check out the gunshot scar on my face. Their laughs are bemused. They’re thinking, what the hell, free beer. We clink glasses. John doesn’t have to tell me who stole his boots. The lankhaired greaseball fuckwad beside me is wearing them. I don’t have to tell him I’ve come for the boots. My presence here with John announces it.
“Nope,” Fuckwad says.
I smile. “Nope what?”
“Haista vittu.” Sniff cunt. His friends tense up, smell violence brewing and start working themselves up to beat the shit out of me, en masse.
My dad says that to me when he’s drunk and angry. I don’t like it. “I’m a cop,” I say, “and I’m prepared to overlook your stealing John’s boots if you kindly and quietly return them. I also won’t shake you down for drugs.”
He shakes his head. “I’m not holding, and I’m keeping the boots. Fuck off and run along now.”
He wants to be tough in front of his friends. They chuckle. I sigh. “I’d rather not go to the trouble of arresting you.”
One of his buddies says, “I recognize you. You’re one of the cops that killed that retard down the street yesterday.”
“Yep,” I say.
Fuckwad laughs, has no respect for anyone or anything. “Please, arrest me. It will make a great story. Retard killer arrests boot thief.” He points at John. “You should have seen the look on that guy’s face when I told him to take his boots off and give them to me. He didn’t even put up a fight, just sat down in the snow and did it.”
He cackles at the memory. He’s serious, he’d rather go to jail than return the boots. I suppose he’s arrested on a regular basis and it makes no difference to him. John stares down at the floor, humiliated. Fuckwad’s friends howl and knee-slap.
Of course, humiliating John was the point of stealing the boots in the first place. Disgracing others is Fuckwad’s idea of a good time. Both my headache and temper flare. I won’t arrest Fuckwad. At least not today.