“The Russians are here,” Milo said. Two men walked away from the bar. One carried a bottle of Smirnoff in a champagne bucket.
The girls came back, then went for so-called nose powdering.
“How in the fuck did you guys pick up those two girls?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Milo said, “they’re a little out of our league. Mirjami is my cousin. She’s got a thing for cops. Plus, I flash my cop card and get us in places so she doesn’t have to wait in lines or sometimes even pay, and she’s my chick magnet. I like going out with her because it gives the impression that I’m cool enough to get a girl that gorgeous, and we’re pretty good friends, too.”
“And I guess they don’t card her if she’s with you.”
“She’s twenty-two, she doesn’t need me for that.”
“Jesus, I thought she was a kid.”
“That’s just her club thing. She works at it. Actually, she’s a registered nurse and more mature than I am. That’s for sure.”
“Same with me,” Sweetness said. “Jenna is my cousin, and she’s only sixteen.” He went all glum, knocked off a
I had the girls’ ages backwards. “What’s with the sad face?”
“I like her a lot. You know, not like a cousin.”
“Bummer,” I said.
He nodded. “Yeah. And what’s worse, I think she likes me, too. We just can’t do anything about it. Plus, she’s so young.”
The girls were on their way back. The Russians lucked out and got a table two down from ours. I changed the topic. “When they get halfway through the bottle, let’s make the snatch.”
“I can do it alone,” Milo said. “It won’t look obvious that way.”
“You sure?” I asked.
He rolled his eyes. “It’s going to take, like, two minutes.”
“Is Kate mad at me?” Sweetness asked.
“For what?”
“What I said. It’s the truth. I ain’t got nothin’ against niggers.”
“No, she’s not mad. Just don’t say ‘nigger’ in English or she’ll get furious. And in Finnish, call them ‘black people.’ How did you get to be such a good dancer?”
“I took lessons when I was a kid. Mom made me.”
The girls sat down. “I’m kind of afraid to go back home today,” Jenna said. She looked like a child with huge breasts.
“Why?” I asked.
“I live in East Helsinki, and it ain’t safe there.” Her eyes met Sweetness’s and I saw affection there. He was right about that.
The Russians drank fast. Their bottle stood half empty. Milo excused himself. When he came back, he brought more drinks.
I watched the news earlier. Anger over the bank robbery murder, in addition to Vappu boozing, equaled vandalism and violence. Drunken whites had beaten blacks, knocked out storefront windows, burned a couple cars. A black girl was even raped. Blacks had retaliated.
“We’ll get you home safe,” I said.
The Russians finished the vodka bottle, turned it upside down in the ice bucket and left.
Mirjami kicked off her flip-flops and propped her feet up in my lap. I was too embarrassed to move and my dick went stiff again. She felt it and giggled. She wiggled her toes against it to tease me. I liked it, stroked her brown feet. She liked it. She was chewing bubble gum. She blew a bubble until it got so big that it exploded in her face. Pow! She laughed and picked it off her cheeks.
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
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.”
Because our experience with people of color is relatively new, the Finnish language has yet to develop the wide range of hate vocabulary compared to, say, the United States, but write-in commentators did their best. Little nigger children should be vaporized, or at least sterilized, before they reached breeding age. Quotes by “Martin
