Helsinki White

24

Kaivohuone opened its doors in 1838, and began its life as a spa with a sea view for the Russian elite. It’s now a national landmark, not far from embassy row. For many years though, the stately white building has served as a nightclub. Legally, it holds a thousand people inside and four hundred outside, but in summer the place is oversold, so jammed you can barely move. Its prices, from cover charge to drinks, are outrageous, and the people that spend a great deal of time there do so partly to show off that they can afford to. Kaivo is the place to be on Vappu.

Others go to rub shoulders with the wealthy, so that for a brief, shining moment, they can feel themselves one of them while they gawk around, hoping to catch a glimpse of a B-class star.

It has traditionally catered to the children of wealthy Swedish-speaking Finns. Young people, many of them students, who can afford three-hundred-euro bar tabs two or three times a week, drinking themselves stupid under the midnight sun, despite never having had jobs.

The city owns it. The neighbors hate it because the noise level makes it like living next to an airport with jets constantly taking off and landing during the summer months. It changed management a few years ago. It’s falling apart, shaken to bits by years of abuse from the throbbing sound system. Through some sort of backroom deal, it came into the hands of a Helsinki nightclub tycoon, with the agreement that he would put ten million into its restoration and convert it into a fine dining establishment the city could be proud of.

Instead, he put about fifty euros into paint, gimcracks and doodads, made some cosmetic changes so that he could say he lived up to his word and renovated it, and kept operating it as a nightclub. The building still stands, the kids keep rockin’.

I went to the front of a hundred-meter line to the outdoor patio, showed the doorman my police card, said I was there on official business, and was ushered in ahead of the crowd, gratis. The place was oversold and I could have shut it down as a fire hazard if I chose to, and they knew it. They would have plied me with free Dom Perignon for the evening if I asked for it. The patio was packed with beautiful young people weaving and staggering, their eyes glazed from their second-day drunk.

I saw Milo wave at me. He’d managed to get a table, a small miracle. He’d probably showed his police card, intimidated some kids and commandeered it. Sweetness was with him. I pushed and shoved my way over to them. They had saved a seat for me.

I noticed that Milo, Sweetness and I had all adopted the same style. Cargo pants. Clothes with lots of pockets for things like Tasers and silencers. Bowling shirts that didn’t need to be tucked in, to cover the waistband repertoire: pistols, knives, saps, etc.

They had girls with them, a surprise in itself, because Milo and Sweetness aren’t exactly ladies’ men, but these girls astonished me. The official age for admission at Kaivo was twenty-four, but that in truth only applied to men, and it was discretionary, to enable the doormen to weed out young testosterone-tweaked troublemakers, but the legal age was eighteen.

These girls were young, one about twenty, the other maybe sixteen. Even that didn’t really surprise me. Girls as young as fourteen made their way in if they were beautiful enough and with the right people. What got me was that these girls, on a patio jammed with gorgeous women, were so stunning that they made the others look like a coal miners’ convention. They drew open stares, even from other women.

It was only about fifty degrees Fahrenheit, but the tables had heaters in the shape of beach umbrellas overtop them that made it hot sitting there. The girls introduced themselves as Mirjami and Jenna. They were tipsy and giggly. They sparked my six-year-old self in an adult body, and I had an insta-hard-on in moments.

I sat next to Mirjami, the teenager. She was tanned, told me she had just returned from vacation in Malaga. She was long and thin and dressed in a Hello Kitty outfit. A short pink Hello Kitty top with spaghetti straps showed a piercing in her belly button and golden nut-brown skin surrounding it. Hello Kitty regalia: handbag, cell phone cover, necklace, watch, earrings and bracelet adorned her.

Milo went to the bar to get us all drinks. He made it back fast with a full tray, said he cut the line, flashed his police card and held up a C-note to make his intentions clear. He dropped the bartender a twenty. The girls got two cosmopolitans each. Milo, Sweetness and I got two shots of kossu each and a beer. I had little desire for alcohol since my brain surgery. I enjoyed my increased sharpness of thought and didn’t like to dull it. Now, though, seemed like a good time.

Mirjami and I clinked glasses and said “Kippis”-cheers. She downed the cocktail in one go and I did the same with the kossu. Milo inserted an earbud connected to his cell phone. He was monitoring the dealers’ conversations. I asked him if he heard about Arvid. He nodded. Neither of us wanted to talk about it right now, but we drank to his memory.

The almond shape of Mirjami’s eyes made me think she had Sami blood. She made me think of cherry pie. Yum. She wore pink lip gloss, glitter polish with heart and moon designs on little brown fingers and toes. I imagined her small breasts were like scoops of chocolate ice cream with cherries on top. She had big, heart-shaped sunglasses over them, but I later saw that she had brown doe eyes with long lashes. She wore flip-flops and white pedal pushers, like she was ready to hit the beach. I could have wrapped my hands around her waist. I imagined my tongue in her belly button. She sat close to Milo, and so I thought she must be with him.

Jenna. Apple pie. She had big, baby blue eyes in a round face. White perfect skin. Ruby lips that required no lipstick. A button nose. Waist-length white-blond hair. She was a snow queen. A blond Cinderella. She also wore a revealing top, but jeans and sandals. Even though she sat, from my angle to her, I saw she had a wonderful ample bottom. And huge high breasts like the proverbial ripe melons. Height: Five foot nothing, tops. Apple and cherry pie. A slice of each would be a great combination. It was Mirjami who really got to me, though.

A Dusty Springfield song came on. “Son of a Preacher Man.”

“I love this one,” Mirjami said. “Dance with me.”

“I’d love to”-I tapped the lion’s head on my cane-“but I can’t.”

No one else was dancing. “Then I’ll dance for you,” she said, got up and started swaying to the rhythm. Jenna joined. Then Sweetness. And finally Milo. The girls radiated sexy. Mountain-sized Sweetness was light on his feet, a good dancer. This was a day of revelations. Milo danced like most men, incompetent, but he made up for it with enthusiasm. The song ended.

The guys came back to the table. The girls didn’t stop. They danced playful. They did the swim. The mashed potato. The twist. They vogued. They mimicked John Travolta and Uma Thurman dancing in Pulp Fiction. They did it well. People applauded. The girls grooved on the attention.

“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 kossu.

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 stadin slangi-city slang. I didn’t understand half of what she said. The kids have developed a slang dialect so rich that a dictionary of it was recently published. It’s about three inches thick. Mirjami started talking to me, telling me a story, and I finally admitted, “I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. Can you speak something resembling standard Finnish?”

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.