hear them start making noises and swearing under their breaths.
“Ouch.”
“Fuuuccckkk.”
“Jesus fucking Christ.”
“God fucking damn.”
“Fuuuuucccckkkkk.”
Milo turns to me. “Jesus, that was enough to puke a dog off a gut wagon. Well, that’s one problem you won’t have to deal with again.”
I suppose I have to see. I sent Milo there. Whatever happened is in part my responsibility. I push myself out of my chair and lean on the table to keep the pressure off my knee.
Milo starts at the beginning. John lays two big bags of dope on the table, side by side. He pours some powder from each and cuts it into rails with a razor blade. He rolls up a twenty-dollar bill, snorts them and cuts two more. And then two more. And then two more. He sits straight up, eyes wild, like he’s plugged into an electrical outlet. I expect his hair to stand on end.
Milo fast-forwards. John slumps forward. Blood shoots out of his nose and mouth. He jerks and twitches. The blood keeps gushing. He pulls a pillow up to his mouth and bites it, as if it will stanch his internal bleeding. He topples over, out of sight.
I’m not sure if I should be angry or not. “Did you give him bad dope?” I ask.
“Of course not. I stole it from his dealer. It’s the same shit he’s been using.”
“So,” I say, “he did the coke, and then heroin. The coke ran through his system too quickly, and without it to hold him together, he ODed on heroin and his heart pretty much exploded.”
“You are correct, sir.”
“Erase it,” I say, “and forget it ever happened. My marriage would be over if Kate found out.”
“He did it to himself,” Milo says. “He could have gone to rehab.”
“I know,” I say, “but I never want to speak of it again.”
Milo knew that John, given that amount of drugs, would OD. Milo killed him as surely as if he put a gun to his head. He set up the webcam so he could view his handiwork, but he did it for Kate and for me. Kate can never go to her brother to self-destruct again. I feel only gratitude.
I sit back down with Katt for a few minutes until the mind movie of John dying fades. Suddenly, the pain is excruciating. My knee screams a shrill throb. I’ve done everything Jari told me not to when he shot it up with cortisone, and I’m paying the price. A half glass of water sits on the table beside me. I drop a couple codeine and Tylenol tabs in it and wait until they stop bubbling, then chase a couple tranquilizers with it.
I take back the chair in front of the computer. I still have all the files from the kidnapping of Veikko Saukko’s son and daughter in it. Included in them is information concerning his employees. I look at Phillip Moore’s file. At the time of the kidnapping, going on two years ago, he had a boy, now age eleven, and a wife, although they were estranged.
His son attended the International School of Helsinki. His wife taught English in a high school. Pictures of both of them are in the file. I bump the pics over to my cell phone, and find Moore’s number in the download from Saukko’s iPhone. I send him a message with the photos attached. The message is short. “Burned car. Girl dead. Blood debt.”
Moore calls me straightaway. “What is the meaning of your message?” he asks.
“We had that discussion before you got out of our Jeep. Knowledge equals collusion.”
“I told you I’m a soldier and a bodyguard, not a murderer, and I disapprove of hurting women and children.”
“I’m uninterested in what you approve or disapprove of.”
“I had no prior knowledge that your car would be firebombed.”
“You’re a bad liar. Tell me the truth.”
“I only know that his girlfriend had a miscarriage, and that the girl who was burned so badly is your subordinate’s cousin and your mistress.”
I don’t bother to clarify the mistress comment. “Lie to me again,” I say, “and I’ll hang up and proceed to make good on my word.”
“So you’re ready to take me on. It could prove fatal.”
Sweetness sets a kossu on the table beside me. “I agree that people will die. Who they are remains an open question.”
He hesitates, thinking. “In the interest of saving blood from being spilled, I’ll tell you what happened. In return, you give me a chance to get my family out of the country.”