by Faricy, Mike
“Did she hear you?”
“No, she’s picking a couple of songs over at the jukebox. Want me to put her on?”
“No, no, Jesus don’t do that. I don’t want her to know we’re talking.” I peeked around the corner again, the SUV was still in the same place.
“You coming in or you want me to tell her to take off?” Jimmy was finally getting on board.
“I’m at the back door, can you slip back here and let me in?”
“The back door?” he paused and I could almost hear him thinking on the phone. “Okay, yeah I can be there in just a minute, hang on.” He’d obviously set the phone down on the bar, ‘cause I was still listening to background noise when the door clicked open.
“What the hell is it with all the secret stuff? You trying to surprise this chick or something?” Jimmy asked.
“Look Jim, we’re going to leave out this door in just a half minute or so. Can you leave it unlocked.”
“You’re going back out this door? You must have a husband or boyfriend on your ass?”
“Yeah, that’s it.”
“Well, she might be worth the risk. Like I said before, I wanna see the pictures, man.”
We walked across the nondescript little back room that used to serve as a kitchen and into the barroom. Kerri had returned to her stool at the far end of the bar and sat sipping her free martini. She was staring at the front door, looking bored. Jimmy stepped behind the bar. I walked the length of it and came up behind her.
“Kerri?”
She turned and stared at me with a shocked look on her face. Then looked over my shoulder like she expected something to happen, maybe the side door was supposed to burst open.
It didn’t.
“Kerri?” I asked again.
“Oh, Dev, what a surprise. I was hoping I might run into you here. Sorry you had to leave so quickly the other day.” She said it like I’d had to make a meeting instead of fleeing a carload of her thug pals. One of whom was promptly drilled between the eyes.
“Yeah, that was unfortunate. Hey let’s you and I take a walk, okay?”
“I would like that. Can I buy you a drink first? I guess I wanted to tell you how sorry I am if I caused you any trouble, you know, with shooting you in the head and all. Of course, I feel bad about doing that.”
Trouble? I thought, lady, you have no idea what I got planned for you. But then again, neither did I. So I said,
“No problem. Look, leave the drink and let’s go outside for a minute.” I looked to either side then raised my shirt, showed her the pistol shoved into my belt. I took her by the arm, not too forcefully.
She didn’t protest, didn’t appear concerned about the pistol either, for that matter. She just smiled and led us toward the side door.
“Oh, not that door, there’s another one back here,” I said, directing her by the elbow again. There was some slight hesitation and she looked up at me, unsure.
“Relax, if I was going to do something like hurt you, you think I’d want all these witnesses around who can place us leaving together?”
“I suppose you are right. Mind if I just phone a friend? I’ll tell her I might be a little late.” She smiled nastily, slowly licked her lip, then produced the cell phone in her hand, opened it up to call.
“Yeah, actually I do mind, let’s go.” I took the cell out of her hand, closed it, and steered her into the back room and out the door.
We stepped outside, and she looked furtively from side to side.
“I promise I won’t hurt you, Kerri. I just have a couple of questions to ask and then you can go.” We were walking back down the alley, retracing the route I’d taken three or four minutes before.
At the end of the alley I directed us left instead of right. My car was parked fifteen feet from the alley. I opened the passenger door for her, and she slid in after the slightest hesitation. I went around the front of the car, climbed in the driver’s side. Kerri looked at me with large eyes, shoulders hunched, hands stuck in her coat pockets. She shivered slightly.
“To tell you the truth, Kerri, I’ve got so many questions I don’t even know where to begin.”
“Questions about what?”
“Well, for starters, who in the hell is Nikki?”
“I told you she is my sis…”
“Nikolaevna Mathias is your sister?”
“Who told you that name?”
“Same person that told me your name is Karina Vucavitch.”
Her eyes widened but she didn’t say anything. Eventually she just shrugged her shoulders, answered,
“So.”
“So, what’s going on? I start looking for your sister, and the next thing I know people are getting shot. Like me for instance and the …”
“I already told you I was sorry.”
“Gee, thanks. And, the guy with the license that said his name was Andrew Quinn. Who the hell was he?”
I caught the slightest hint of surprise cross her face.
“He’s called Sergie.”
“Sergie?”
“Sergie Alekseeva.”
“Any relation to your main squeeze Braco?”
“His son.”
“And you, your son?”
“Don’t be a stupid,” she said then said something in Russian, given the tone I didn’t really need a translation, then she switched back to English.
“He was a pig, he raped me. Braco would give us to him, they all thought it was funny.”
“Funny? I thought you were Braco’s I don’t know, what, partner?”
“I’m whatever Braco wants me to be. I’m soulless, a ghost, his whore of the moment.”
“Well, don’t sugarcoat it, Kerri. Gee, you make it sound really healthy. Why not just leave?”
“You would not understand.”
“Try me?”
“It is all very simple. If I do not do what Braco wants he will kill my family back in Russia. My mother, my father, my two brothers, and my little sister. I know this. He will do it. Then he will show me pictures of their bodies. Then he will make me a five-dollar whore. And then, just before I die, he will turn me into your police because I have no passport and I stay here not legal. There is no one who can help me, and I am the only one who can save my family.”
“But there must be something you can do?”
“When Braco wants something, there is nothing you can do.”
I almost couldn’t hear her she said it so softly.
“That’s bullshit.”
“Bullshit, is that what you would call it? Really? You will see, because Braco wants you now.”
“Me? What the hell does he want with me?”
“Now he blames you for Sergie. He thinks you tricked him.”
“Tricked Sergie? I didn’t even know he existed until a moment ago when you told me. Now what’s going to happen?”
She looked at me out of the corner of her eye, then slowly pulled a pistol from her jacket pocket.
“I wish it was someone else, Dev,” she said.
“Jesus, don’t point that thing…” I slapped the pistol off to the side, just as it went off. I grabbed her wrist and forearm in my hands and slammed them hard against the dashboard. She gasped each time I slammed her arm into the dash. I held onto her wrist but let go of her forearm and punched her on the chin, punched a second time, and she dropped the gun. I let go of her wrist.
“I’m so sorry, Dev,” she said as she rolled out the passenger door, sort of landing on all fours. She began crawling, then quickly picked up speed and was on her feet running back up the alley. I could have chased her but there was that SUV at the other end of the block, and in all honesty, I just sat there. My ears were still ringing, the inside of my car smelled like cordite, and I had a bullet hole in my windshield with a spider web pattern running around it the size of a dinner plate.
It would only be a matter of thirty seconds before she made it to the SUV and told whoever was in there where I was. I thought the prudent th
ing might be to just calmly get the hell out of there.
“I wish it was someone else, Dev.” Did she mean someone else she was going to shoot or someone else who was going to shoot me?
Chapter 43
I drove a zigzag route over to Jefferson Avenue, then headed west in the general direction of Heidi’s, driving on side streets to make sure I wasn’t being followed. My first call was to 911.
“Nine-one-one, Ramsey County Dispatch.”
“Yeah, I want to report an SUV with some guys in it parked on Randolph Avenue. They had a gun.”
“A gun, sir?”
“Yeah, I was just walking past, I was in the Spot Bar across the street. I came out, walked past their car, and they had a gun.”
“Were they pointing it at you?”
“No, they were yelling at this woman in a blue sports car, a BMW, I think. I just got out of there.”
The dispatcher asked my name, the number I was calling from, a call back number. I didn’t expect anything to happen, but it would be nice to have a police cruiser or two driving up and down the street just to keep those clowns out of the area.
My next call was to Aaron. I got dumped into the usual message center.
“Aaron, Dev. Hey look, it’s about 10:15. I might have a name for you on that Andrew Quinn body. The guy who lost his head, it may be Sergie Alekseeva. That would be the son of ‘Braco the Whacko.’ Give my regards to your close pal Kimball Peters. Later, man.”
Chapter 44
I drove over to Heidi’s. Although the street was nearly empty I parked up on the next block, just in case I was unlucky enough to have some hapless Russian stumble across my car. I phoned Heidi from her front door.
“Hey, you feeling any better?” I said once she answered her phone.
“Oh Dev, that’s so sweet of you to check on me. Yeah, long day but I think I’ll live.”
“Listen I was thinking if you’re not too busy and it isn’t too late I might swing by just to…”
“Why, what’s wrong?”
“Why does something have to be wrong? I’m on your end of town is all. Look, if it’s a problem, just say so.”
“Well, no I guess it’s okay. You can come over.”
I rang the doorbell, heard it echo back in my phone.
“Oh, God, hang on there’s someone at the door. What idiot is ringing my doorbell at this hour of…” She opened the door and stared at me then shook her head.
“You idiot,” she said and hung up.
“Thanks for inviting me over,” I said stepping in, closing the door behind me.
Heidi looked out at the empty street.
“Where’s your car? You didn’t walk here did you?”
“Car? Oh, I parked a couple of houses away, just in case you looked out the window, didn’t want to ruin my joke.”
She seemed to buy that.
“Get you a glass of wine or a beer?” she asked walking back into the kitchen. She was barefoot, wearing a T-shirt and gray sweatpants. Across the rear of her sweatpants the word PINK was spelled out in pink letters. As if her perfectly firm butt needed anything to draw attention to it.
“You having anything?”
“I’m having a glass of wine,” she said opening her refrigerator.
“Little hair of the dog?”
“No, it’s white wine.” She was serious.
“Beer for me, no glass is fine.”
We chatted in her living room about everything and anything. I really do enjoy her company. I also noticed she was in one of those guarded drinking modes. She would raise the glass and then begin to set it down just as the wine touched her lips. I was opening my third beer.
“I like your hair,” I lied.
“No you don’t. I’ve got an appointment the day after tomorrow, so save it, it’s going back to normal.” She got up and walked into the kitchen. I could see her set her mostly full wine glass in the sink. She walked back out into the living room, turned off the light on the end table, then picked up my nearly full beer bottle.
“Come on, let’s go to bed,” she said, put her free hand in mine, and led me through the kitchen. She set the bottle on the counter as we walked past but never stopped.
Chapter 45
I woke to her kissing me good-bye. She was dressed, smelled of perfume and hair conditioner, and was out the bedroom door after telling me to lock up when I left. I drifted back to sleep until Aaron’s phone call rudely interrupted my dream recounting the previous night.
“Sergie Alekseeva? Where’d you get that information?”
“Fine thanks, how are you?” I answered.
“Sergie.”
“Someone who would know. You can check it with his old man if you want. Might be a way to get on his good side, you know giving him his son’s body. On the other hand it…”
“I don’t really need to be on Braco Alekseeva’s good side, should he have one. You know anything else on this, like maybe who pulled the trigger?”
“Believe me if I did I would give them a medal and then tell you who it was. From what my source told me, old Sergie was a bit of a jerk.”
“To put it mildly,” Aaron said.
“So you know him?”
“I know of him. The old man’s the power. Sergie was just the idiot son in line to take the reins someday. This is the logical result, it’s just ahead of schedule. Something ever happened to the old man Sergie wasn’t going to last the day. We’d have to rent the main ballroom at the Crown Plaza just to hold all our suspects.”
“Gee, he sounds like a real charmer.”
“Aren’t they all?” Aaron said, added his good-bye and hung up.
Chapter 46
Given the state of Heidi’s pantry I felt fortunate to find coffee and some mint crème Oreos for breakfast. I wondered how someone could look so good on such a constant diet of crap. Following her parting instructions I locked up on my way out the door.
I’d barely left Heidi’s front steps when I spotted two guys sitting in the front seat of a nondescript car. It was a Ford or Chevrolet, maybe a Buick, I wasn’t sure, but American made, burgundy, no white walls on the tires. They were parked across the street from my car, maybe two houses farther down the block. They seemed to be talking, sipping coffee. I didn’t think they’d seen me yet.
All they needed was a rack of flashing lights across the top of their car. City cops would have been a little more discreet, maybe parked around the corner. Bad guys probably would be under a front porch or up in a tree with a high-powered rifle. I was half a block away and these two screamed Feds. I could only hope it was FBI agent Kimball “Dickhead” Peters because I wanted to make him run in his shiny wingtips.
As I walked toward my car I could see them looking back and forth at each another discussing something. Then the guy behind the steering wheel passed something to his partner. He glanced up and down, from me to whatever he was holding, and then back up to me. I guessed it was probably a copy of my driver’s license photo. Maybe they couldn’t recognize me because I was wearing my St. Paul Saints baseball cap or because my license photo looked like I should be arrested for war crimes.
I was maybe ten feet from my car when they opened both doors simultaneously. I took an immediate right, climbed three steps toward the front door of a house, then followed the sidewalk around the corner of the house toward the back.
That stopped them for a moment. I could see them look at each other out of the corner of my eye, not sure what to do. They wore dark suits, ties, and although neither one looked like Kimball Peters I could tell from here their shoes were shined.
“Haskell?” one of them called to me.
I kept walking around the side of the house, disappeared from their view.
“Haskell, wait, FBI. Stay right where you are,” they yelled, like that was supposed to work.
I hopped a picket fence, ran across the backyard, hopped the far side of the fence then up along the side of the house, and peeked around the front corn
er. They were just charging across the front yard of the house next door, heavy on their feet. I could hear one of them gasping and either pocket change or car keys jiggling. I waited a moment until they’d cleared the corner and headed toward the backyard. I figured they’d probably run at least to the alley and look up and down. I jogged to my car, shook my head at the bullet hole in the windshield, as I started it and drove up to their vehicle.
I was right, it was a Ford. Sections of newspaper were spread across the front seat and an enlarged copy of my driver’s license photo rested on top of the dashboard. There was a takeout cup from Starbucks on the street with a sizeable puddle of coffee slowly running across the asphalt. What a waste. I grabbed a screwdriver from the floor of my backseat, jammed it into their front tire, pulled it out to the sound of an audible hiss, jammed it in again. Then got behind the wheel and drove off. I still didn’t see them in the rearview mirror as I turned the corner.
It occurred to me that driving to my house may not be the best of ideas. So I went down to the Spot Bar.
Linda was there, working the lunch-hour trade. Not that the Spot served lunch, they didn’t, but it was reasonably busy with the liquid-diet crowd.
“Hi, Linda. Anyone been looking for me?”
“You mean like that blond with the big ones.”
“Big eyes?”
“Shut up. No, no one. Who needs the kind of headache or heartbreak that follows you around?”
“I’m just misunderstood. Look, do me a favor, if someone comes looking, let me know.” I pulled a ten out of my pocket and put it on the bar.
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah, just sort of dodging some possible trouble, you know.”
She rolled her eyes.
“Which one this time, husband or boyfriend?”
“Would it make a difference?”
“Not really,” she said pocketing the ten. “Anyone asks, I’ll give you a call.”
“Thanks.”
“Get you something?” she asked, pulling a beer tap for the couple two stools down.
“Nah, I just finished breakfast.”
“What do you think this is?” she said and pushed the fresh beers across the bar, then picked up two empty glasses.