by Selena Kitt
Ovide handed Zoledowski a cup with the logo ‘California Bail Agents Association’ on it, and filled it with coffee. Conrad picked up his mug, blew in it, and shoved it at Ovide. Ovide filled it to the rim, and smiled pleasantly at Conrad. Conrad’s hand got shaky, and he spilled some of the hot brew as he brought the mug up to his lips. Ovide filled a paper cup with water for himself.
Conrad used a bail application to mop up the spilled beverage, and asked: “What’s up?”
Zoledowski grinned sheepishly. His teeth were small and stubby like his fingers, only cleaner. “Well, uh, you guys do private investigations, don’t you?” He looked from one man to the other. “I mean, you’re P.I.’s as well as bail bondsmen, aren’t you?”
Conrad blew a blue stream of smoke into the air.
“We offer many services, Mr. Zolewdoski,” Ovide replied. “My associate and I,” he gestured absently at Conrad, who frowned, “are both licensed private investigators in the state of California, as well as licensed bail agents. So, how can we be of assistance?”
Conrad chugged his coffee and slammed the mug down on his desk. “This about your wife again, Zoledowski?”
Zoledowski nodded, and shunted to the edge of his chair. “Yes, it is. She’s been missing for ten and a half days now, and the police can’t seem to find her. I’m sure they’re trying,” he pointed out democratically, “but I don’t know how hard.” He clenched his hands together and stared down at the floor. “She took our daughter with her,” he added, in a broken voice.
A fly buzzed against the window, trapped in the smoke-heavy air. It wasn’t going to find much better outside.
“I don’t do domestics,” Conrad stated brusquely. “I handle most of the bonding business and insurance investigations. You better talk to Mr. Lambert – he’s our domestic man.” He grinned at Ovide.
“Yes,” Ovide said, rising smoothly. “Come into my office, Mr. Zoledowski, and we’ll discuss your situation.”
The two men filed out of Conrad’s office. Zoledowski threw a disappointed look back over his shoulder. Conrad stared at him with unblinking, frog-like eyes, grunted, then spat into a waste paper basket labeled ‘suggestions’ next to his desk. He ground out his cigarette in the helmet, pulled out another, and lit it. The screen saver on his computer shoved against the back wall blinked ‘Uzi does it’. He opened a thick file, hit the handsfree button on the phone, and punched in a number. “Mrs. Johnston?” he asked gruffly. “Where the hell is your boy?” He listened to the plaintive wailings for a moment, then said: “He’s got a court appearance in half an hour. He said he was coming to see me fifteen minutes ago.” He listened again. “Yeah, well, get his ass down here – you hear!?”
* * *
Conrad shoved his way out of the Law Courts building and trudged back to his office. The sun beat down on his blistered neck. The sun was too damn close to the Earth at this latitude, he thought. Made everyone just a little nuts; fried people’s brains – like in the Middle East. He was used to cooler climes. Like St. Paul, Minnesota, where he had banked fifteen years as a police officer before a pedophile with matching black eyes and a split nose had forced him to resign.
Johnston had been neatly squared away for two years less a day, but Conrad wasn’t wasting anymore time thinking about him. He was thinking about Dwight Zoledowski and his pale, sweaty face and his pudgy, nervous hands. He pushed open the office door and the bell tinkled its welcome and warning. He waited for fifteen seconds, but Ovide didn’t make an appearance. He banged his knuckles against Ovide’s closed door.
Ovide shouted: “Come in!”
Conrad pushed the door open. It got stuck halfway on a strategically-placed wooden doorstop lying on the floor. Conrad shoved the door so hard it almost broke free of its hinges. “Debbie’s away, you know, recovering from some imaginary illness. So when I’m gone, you gotta answer the bell.”
Ovide mumbled something into the phone like, “See you tonight”, and hung up. “Huh? Yeah, sure, won’t happen again.” He smiled, and all was forgiven.
Conrad sank into a chair. There wasn’t enough room to even cross his legs in the tiny office. “You file your license renewal education form?”
“Just about to do that,” Ovide replied. “What’s the deadline again?”
“Beginning of this month.” Conrad lit up a smoke. “What did Zoledowski tell you? Something that should be accompanied by violins, no doubt.”
Ovide gave Conrad an oral summary of the information Zoledowski had provided. Roxanne Zoledowski, wife, disappeared 10.5 days previous with a thousand dollars and change from the Zoledowski joint bank account and the fruit of their loins – one year old Lydia Zoledowski. Dwight had no idea where the pair had gone, and such an occurrence had never occurred before in the couple’s one and a half year old marriage; a marriage, according to Dwight, that was chalk full of the kind of bliss you only read about in human ecology textbooks from the 1950’s. Roxanne had originally met Dwight through an international marriage broker, and had emigrated from the worker’s paradise of Kazakhstan to tie the knot. Dwight had phoned the broker as soon as Roxanne had gone missing, thinking that the guy might know where she could have gone, but, like any good after-sale salesman, the line was disconnected and the internet site only listed a post office box. Roxanne didn’t know a lot of English, but she had worked at a coffee shop on Laurel Canyon Boulevard until her sudden and unexplained departure. She was twenty-five years old and Dwight was forty-two. Dwight worked at the Department of Motor Vehicles, Long Beach office. He had a clean record except for the domestic assault incident six months previous, in which his wife had alleged that he had used her face as a toilet brush - then subsequently dropped the charges. The benevolent, dead hand of the State, nevertheless, guided Dwight to a prison cell despite his wife’s retraction. He was currently on full-pay family leave from the DMV, and had a couple of unrelated grievances pending.
“A real servant of the taxpayer, huh?” Conrad remarked. He was impressed with Ovide’s presentation. “Does he have any idea where his Kazakhstani wife with the pigeon-English and the bawling spitball could possibly go?”
“He thinks another man,” Ovide replied, smoothing his hair back with both hands.
Conrad grunted. “Good looking?”
“You make the call.” Ovide held up a photo. It was a wedding picture. The wedding party consisted of Dwight, Roxanne, and a heavily-sideburned minister ensconced in a rhinestone frock and a six-string. Viva Las Vegas! Roxanne was wearing a simple, green, sleeveless dress. She had long, blonde hair, big, brown eyes, slightly crooked teeth, a slim waist, and heavy-caliber breasts. “Not bad, eh?”
Conrad took a long pull on his cigarette and exhaled through his nose. “Cops got any leads?”
“Just the Dear Dwight letter that Roxanne left behind.” He held up a photocopy. The writing on the page was sloppy, and there wasn’t much of it. “She says that she and her daughter can’t take anymore of his ‘abute’, so they’re leaving.” He paused. “Dwight claims it’s synthetic hogwash, the kind of stuff Pravda used to print, but admits that it is her writing. Cops aren’t so sure it’s hogwash.”
“You talk to Quigley?”
“That I did. The ancient veteran cracked open the file for me – after I promised to introduce him to Debbie. He says that his flat-footed comrades aren’t looking too hard. They think that the evidence points to a mail-order marriage gone past due – return to sender.”
Conrad nodded. He squinted. “Don’t blame ‘em.” He pointed meaningfully at Ovide. “You never know who the hell is telling the truth in a domestic.”
Ovide revealed his gleaming teeth in a smile, then waved his hand in front of his face to dissipate some of the blue haze. “You never know, you’re right. However, all I have to do is find Mrs. Z and the little Z.”
Conrad stood up. He dug around in his left ear with a sausage-like finger. “You find them and bring them back, or you tell Dwight where they are, and he’ll probably buy a
gun, draft a woe-is-me confessional, murder the pair, and then kill himself - so they can all be together forever in the Promised Land outside Waco, Texas.”
“Not much of a romantic are you?”
“I could be the last of the red-hot lovers for all you know, but I’m first and foremost a realist.”
“Well, they’re going to have to meet eventually,” Ovide responded, picking up the phone. “Like Gorbachev and Reagan. I’m just helping things along – at two hundred and fifty a day, plus expenses. Remember?”
* * *
“Excuse me, please, but you’re from the what again?”
Ovide smiled. He adjusted his tie with his long, smooth fingers. “I work for the California Payroll Association. I just started there a month ago, actually. Fresh out of the auditing program at Redondo College, you know.” He grinned sheepishly. “And Hava Java was my first assignment.”
“And a Mrs. Roxanne Zoledowski is owed five hundred dollars? I just want to make sure that I understand you. You said it all so quickly.”
Ovide nodded. “Sorry. I’m a little bit nervous.”
The woman smiled warmly, seeking a connection. “That’s quite all right,” she said. “But why have you come here – this I do not understand?”
“Well, we know that Mrs. Zoledowski is a landed immigrant from Kazakhstan, awaiting U.S. citizenship, and since there is no Kazakhstan-American Association that we know of, we thought we’d try the Russian-American Association. And you, Ms. Krutov, are the California branch President. So here I am!”
The woman nodded. “You are indeed. But, please, call me Svetlana.”
Svetlana Krutov was a thick, middle-aged woman, short, with dyed-blonde hair and a moon face, enormous breasts that jutted out like twin Scud missiles. She was dressed in a polka dot dress and plenty of make-up and perfume. “Let’s reconvene on the couch, shall we?” she said. “It’s far more comfortable.”
Ovide smiled his agreement and they sat down together on the small, cream-colored couch. It was more love-seat than couch.
“Why don’t you try to relax, Mr. Lambert, and we shall discuss your request,” Svetlana said soothingly, drawing Ovide closer towards her.
The office door suddenly banged opened and the receptionist briskly waddled in. She was carrying a gun-metal teapot and two bone-china cups upon a silver tray.
Svetlana looked up, annoyed. “Set it down on the desk, please, Mrs. Garenko. Thank you.”
Mrs. Garenko was an even heavier-set woman, with a slight hunchback and the trace of a Stalinist mustache on her flabby upper lip. She looked sourly at the pair sitting side by side on the couch. “Ah, a couch meeting,” she snorted indignantly through a thick Ukrainian brogue. “You will be in good hands, Mr. Lambert,” she added, looking at her boss and grinning harshly. Her teeth were green and spaced far apart, like the Russian pickets at the Battle of Tannenberg.
Svetlana stamped her foot impatiently on the thick shag carpet, making a sound akin to someone’s bottom being whacked with a velvet banana. “That will be all, Mrs. Garenko!”
Mrs. Garenko sniffed grimly and exited the room. She left the door slightly ajar.
Svetlana quickly jumped to her feet, shut the door, and returned to the couch in one flowing motion. It left her a little breathless. “A good woman, Mrs. Garenko,” she remarked bitterly. Her eyes rapidly filled with Ovide again, who was looking young and fresh in his off-the-rack blue business suit.
“So you deduced that I might have some information regarding Mrs. Zoledowski,” Svetlana stated. “Very clever. The California Payroll-”
“The CPA,” Ovide said.
Svetlana smiled, and patted Ovide’s leg, up around the quadriceps. “Yes, the CPA. They seem to go to great lengths in their work.”
Ovide nodded. He moistened his lips with his thick, pink tongue. “Money owed is money due.”
Svetlana frowned. “How’s that?”
“That’s our motto. And, like I said, I was assigned to do the payroll audit of the Hava Java chain. They have three stores in Orange County, you know.”
“Do they?”
“Oh yes. And I found out that they owed a number of employees retroactive pay as a result of the change in minimum wage rates on January 1. A lot of companies, especially smaller ones, weren’t even aware of the change. Or chose to ignore it.” He concluded: “It was an error, either way, and a correctable one.”
Svetlana solemnly nodded her head. “Yes, now I see. It comes clear. You did a very good job of explaining it, Ovide.” She clapped her hands together, then put them down flat on the couch, her right hand sliding gracefully under Ovide’s left buttock. “Ovide Lambert,” she murmured, looking deep into Ovide’s shallow eyes. “What a lovely name. Tell me, have you ever been to Europe, Ovide?”
Ovide shook his head, and a sad frown blossomed on his crimson lips. “No, I haven’t. But I do love all things European.”
Svetlana smiled. “What a coincidence! I love all European things.” Her laugh tinkled.
Svetlana’s enveloping perfume, applied by the gallon drum, apparently doubled as a muscle relaxant, because Ovide found that his eyelids were drooping. “Roxanne Zoledowski,” he said finally, breaking the spell.
Svetlana shuddered. “Oh yes, of course. I only met Mrs. Zoledowski once, you understand, and I have no idea where she is living presently, but I do know of a Russian gentleman who, uh, helps women such as Mrs. Zoledowski emigrate from foreign lands and achieve U.S. citizenship. I believe that he performed such a service for Mrs. Zoledowski.”
Ovide grinned. “That’s great! I can mail the cheque to him, if you think that’d be all right, and get it off our books. The other employees at Hava Java told me that Mrs. Zoledowski has been having some, uh, marital troubles, so we don’t want the cheque to fall into the wrong hands.”
“Very wise,” Svetlana agreed. “Domestic problems can be very unpleasant for the well-intentioned outsider.”
Silence fell across the room like a chenille bed curtain. Svetlana studied Ovide’s mouth.
“Uh, could you give me the address of this Russian gentleman you mentioned, Ms. Krutov?”
Svetlana considered the request. “Well, Ovide, that really is confidential information, you know.” She crossed her legs and her left foot touched Ovide’s knee. “I normally only give that type of information to people with whom I am on a more intimate basis. Do you understand?”
Ovide pretended to look confused, yet eager to learn.
“Stand up, please,” Svetlana directed him.
Ovide stood, and Svetlana slid down his pants zipper, pulled his cock out. She stroked him, swirling her soft, warm, pudgy hand up and down, until he was poling out in front of her open mouth seven inches or so. Then she opened her mouth up wider and took his cock inside her hungry maw, ravenously sucked.
Ovide grabbed onto the woman’s puffy hair and groaned, pumped his hips, feeding Svetlana her need and his sudden want. She throated him like a Russian circus performer, and Ovide churned his hips, fucking Svetlana’s shining face.
“Yes!” Ovide groaned, suddenly making real progress in his investigation.
Svetlana wrapped his clenched butt cheeks up in her big hands and really vacuumed, gulping cock, consuming. Until Ovide bleated, bucked, blew hot sperm down Svetlana’s eagerly chugging throat.
Just as the office door burst open again and Mrs. Garenko waddled back inside.
“I told you to always knock!” Svetlana roared around Ovide’s spasming cock.
Ovide hurriedly jerked back and tucked in his dick.
“The ambassador is on the red line,” Mrs. Garenko stated deadpan.
Svetlana swallowed even harder, wiping off her thick lips. “You will excuse me,” she told Ovide, quickly ushering him out of the overheated office.
Mrs. Garenko dilated her nostrils, watching the smouldering bulge in Ovide’s suit pants, then his buttocks as the young man departed.
* * *
Conrad pounded the brak
e pedal and the van stopped with a jolt - two houses short of 1046 Shasta Street. He turned off the engine, pocketed the keys, and glanced over at Ovide. The rented van’s heavily-tinted windows kept the sun’s hot glare out and the interior impenetrable. “You’re sure Roxanne and the kid are in there?”
“Almost positive,” Ovide responded immediately. He took a sip from his bottle of water. “I’ve been here on and off for three days and the only person to come or go has been Teldov.”
“The marriage broker?”
“Right.”
“So?”