Darling by Jarkko Sipila Page A

knew. Ain’t got too much left to hide. They say heart attacks tend to recur.”
    A few nurses and robed patients walked by.
    “What were you doing here in Helsinki?” Suhonen asked. Salmela had been living up north in Oulu for a couple of years now.
    “I came to see a buddy of mine ; we had some drinks, and I stayed over in his apartment. The next morning when I went to get bread from the corner store, I was tired as hell and suddenly got a terrible pain in my chest. Next thing I knew I woke up in the hospital. Someone happened to walk by and called an ambulance.”
    “Good thing they did.”
    The men sat down in a small area behind a glass wall where there were half a dozen tables and a sofa.
    “They’re takin’ good care of me here. I’m embarrassed to admit I haven’t paid any taxes in years.”
    “No need to worry about that,” Suhonen said with a smirk.
    Salmela told him about the pain killers, examinations, and equipment monitor ing his condition. He said he was supposed to make some lifestyle changes, too.
    “I always thought this sort of thing only happened to people over seventy. I’m still young.”
    Salmela’s life ha d been a roller coaster. He’d been a hardened criminal, but his downward slide began when his son was shot in a drug deal gone bad in 2005. Salmela had been swindled in another drug deal by the notorious motorcycle gang Skulls. He had helped the police with an operation, which resulted in head injuries from being attacked with an iron pipe while in prison. It took him a couple of years to recover, and his life returned to normalcy when he rekindled an old flame and found out he had a twenty-year-old daughter.
    Everything was finally going well, and then the heart attack. But Salmela was tough—he’d get through this, Suhonen mused.
    “How’s Salla?” Suhonen asked. The girl had given Salmela some heartaches over the past few years.
    “She’s doing well. M oved to Berlin last winter and is studying something media-related. I’m not sure exactly what. She can afford to live over there. I haven’t told her about this yet.”
    “You should. She’d come see you right away.”
    “Yeah,” Salmela said quietly. A tear blurred his vision. “You know, Marita and I decided to get married, come January. Nothing big, just at the courthouse. We were gonna invite you. We were gonna honeymoon in Berlin and see our daughter. But now, thinking about the close call, I’m a little scared of what’s next. I’m not afraid of dying, but things are looking up for once, and I’m actually enjoying life.”
    “You’ll change your lifestyle, take the meds, and it’s all going to be alright.”
    The men sat in silence for a moment.
    “One thing I gotta tell you,” Salmela said after a while. “In case I end up having another episode. Remember that night in Lahti?”
    “Of c ourse,” Suhonen replied. They had both been in a youth gang involved in attic break-ins. One night Suhonen stayed home with a fever, and that’s when the others were nabbed by the police, sending Salmela down the career track of a criminal.
    “I never told you this, but that night when the cops questioned me, I snitched on you. I told them you’d been in on the other gigs.”
    Suhonen was confused. Over the years everybody, including Salmela, had insisted they never told the cops about his involvement, and that’s why he’d stayed scot-free.
    “They pressured me and threatened to throw me in jail, and I was so green I believed them. So I spilled it about you.”
    “They never came after me.”
    “I know, and I’ve always wondered why.”
    “Maybe they just got busy with something else.”
    “Yeah, hard to say.”
    A female pastor came into the room, cloaked in a purple robe.
    “Excuse me, we’re about to start a service here. You’re welcome to stay, of course.”
    “No, thank you,” Salmela said, getting up gingerly.
    He headed out, sat down in one of the chairs on the other side of the hallway and