trust you. Just consider it part of your paycheck. Trust me, you’ll get used to it.”
I didn’t know how to respond for a moment. I stumbled on my words. “What happened to your speech about helping people?”
He shrugged. “Then help people.” He snickered. “You know what they say the three biggest lies are?”
Disillusioned, I just shook my head no.
“I love you, the check is in the mail, and I won’t come in your mouth.”
“Wow, great joke.”
“Actually, the point is that the joke is wrong. The biggest lie is that altruism exists.”
I just stared at him.
“I’m moving you and Milo from Helsinki Homicide to the National Bureau of Investigation,” he said. “You’ll work directly under me and be out from under public scrutiny. And I’ll make sure the oaf gets a job, too. Invent some specialization for him. There isn’t a checkbox for giant attempted murderer on the job application. Why the fuck do you want him anyway?”
“Mostly to piss you off.”
“I don’t give a shit,” he said, and got up. “Since you just got a big raise, you can pick up the check.”
I got an idea. “Ask the interior minister if, in return for this fifteen percent, he’ll do me the occasional favor, beginning with this one. Ask him if he can supply me with the dossiers of every known criminal taking the morning Tallink ferry to Helsinki on”—I pick a date at random—“Friday, February nineteenth.”
“I’ll ask,” he said.
He started to walk away and then turned back to me. “And I want ledgers kept.” He walked out, whistling the Irving Berlin song “Blue Skies.”
5
I walked in the front door, knelt down in the foyer and took off my boots. Put away the money Jyri refused to take. Kate sat at our dining room table, nursing Anu. One of the advantages of my new position, so far, was that it was much like shift work for people with factory jobs. I was often home during the day and could spend time with my family, and when I worked at night, they were usually asleep, except for nighttime feedings. They were hard on Kate. I saw the fatigue in her face. When I was home, I helped out as best as I was able. We did normal things. Watched TV. Made meals. Took Anu for walks in her stroller. I hoped, once child rearing got easier for Kate, our life would be this way forever.
I walked over and sat beside them. “How are my girls?” I asked. Anu farted, smiled and cooed, as if to answer, “Just fine, Daddy.” I leaned toward Kate to kiss her. Said kiss wasn’t returned.
“Little girl fine,” Kate said. “Big girl not fine.”
I saw that Kate was in a rage, preventing herself from screaming only to keep from upsetting Anu. Judging by the smell, Anu’s coo signaled more than a fart. I took her to the other room to change her. She pissed in my face. I made myself not laugh aloud because of Kate’s mood. After I cleaned myself up, I came back to the living room with Anu. Kate’s controlled rage hadn’t abated.
“My boss called me from corporate. She more or less called me an incompetent asshole and insinuated that whether I still have a job is an open question.”
I started to move closer to comfort her, thought better of it. “Why?”
“Because I never resolved the matter of my maternity leave. I asked Aino”—Kate’s assistant hotel manager —“if she could look after the hotel until we had settled things between us.”
Kate didn’t want to take the traditional nine-month maternity leave, wanted to do things the American way. Have the baby, take a few weeks, put the baby in childcare, and go back to work. Or alternately, for me to exercise my paternity leave, since I was less than enamored with my job anyway, but paternity leave is only a few weeks long, so I didn’t really understand what her idea was in that regard.
But then there were family problems when her brother and sister were here, supposedly to help Kate when the baby arrived, in truth to escape their own troubles. Anu arrived early, we found out I had a brain tumor and might very well be incapable of taking care of an infant. Aino seemed to be doing fine at the hotel, and dealing with the issue in an official way went to the wayside. Under the circumstances, it was perfectly understandable.
“She ripped me a new asshole,” Kate said. “She informed me that as head of the hotel, I was under an obligation to understand and obey the rules governing the treatment of my workers.”
It didn’t help that I pressured Kate to take the normal nine-month maternity leave. I had a feeling it just wouldn’t work out otherwise. Anu switched nipples. Kate continued. “She said no one from corporate was there to look over my shoulder, and foreigner or no, I had better goddamned well learn the Finnish union rules and abide by them. Under no circumstances could Aino perform my job for an indefinite amount of time without being given a contract authorizing her to do that job and an adjustment in pay to reflect it. She said she wrote a nine-month contract and Aino signed it. My boss said, and I quote, ‘We’re fucking lucky she’s good-natured. She could have complained to the union. I gave her pay retroactive to the last day you deemed to come to work.’ The bitch closed with ‘When you come back—
“Damn,” I said. “Happy fucking Sunday.”
“Yeah. Happy fucking Sunday. Look at us. We’re sitting at a dinner table that seats ten that we bought so we could have dinner parties, except we don’t have any friends to have a dinner party. I don’t know if I have a job. I’m going to sit here playing milk cow for the better part of a year, and my husband may die on the table in surgery two days from now.”
She realized the ugliness of what she just said and the cruelty of pushing that truth in my face. I thought she was going to cry, but she didn’t. Instead, we stared at each other for a long time. Her expression was blank. For the first time, it struck me that part of her was furious at me for being sick. It made me sad. I imagined myself in her position, overwhelmed by anxiety, trepidation, anger, fear of the unknown and of being left alone.
I felt guilt for being sick, for doing this to her, especially because I looked forward to brain surgery, because whether I lived or died, the pain would be over. I’d learned to hide it well, even from Kate, but my migraine throbbed hard and constant. I scarfed drugs, slept as much as I could, sought oblivion to escape the agony. It had been going on now for about almost a year continuous. The toll it had taken was so great that if it weren’t for my responsibilities and the possibility that surgery might end the suffering, I would have ended it myself. Just two more days. Two more days.
Anu had fallen asleep. We took her to her bedroom and put her in her crib. The closet door was half open. Kate noticed an unzipped backpack, cash spilling out of it. Grocery bags full of cash sat beside it. Her voice was calm. “What’s all this?”
“Proceeds from the weekend,” I answered.
She opened the door wide, plunged both hands into the backpack and tossed money into the air like confetti. She looked inside it again, reached in and pulled out a Bulldog revolver we had stolen. She held it up in front of her face and stared at it.
“Careful,” I said, “it’s loaded.”
She put it back into the backpack and this time pulled out a clear plastic bag of Ecstasy. “So this is the new you.”
“I was honest with you about everything.”
“You think stuffing your daughter’s closet with dope money and guns is OK?”
“I tried to give the money to Jyri. He wouldn’t take it. It’s to bankroll our project, and I just haven’t gotten rid of the other stuff yet.” This was not quite, but mostly true. I was keeping some of it. “And I’m pretty sure Anu doesn’t know what any of it is, and she can’t even roll over yet, so I can’t picture her overdosing or shooting herself.”
She whisper yelled. “That’s not the point and you know it. Get this shit out of my house.”
I didn’t know what the point was, but if she wanted it, in the mood she was in, that was enough. I called Milo, asked him if he would come over, get the swag and keep it in his place.
“You’ve seen how small my place is,” he said. “Where am I supposed to put it?”
“Please,” I said. “And if you’re not busy, could you come over now?”
