And then there was her driving. The best thing you could say for it was that Carolyn Blue would never get a ticket. She was one careful driver. You had to tell her a turn was coming up about a half mile in advance because she wouldn’t change lanes if there was anyone in sight on her side of the road. The result was that I’d forget, and we’d have to go back. Of course she wouldn’t make a U-turn. It was eleven before we got to Brazen Babes, and then she decided maybe we shouldn’t go in there after all. Maybe we could meet Ignatenko for lunch somewhere.
Right. Like I was going to be seen in public eating lunch with that pendejo. I dragged her in, and when the bouncer tried to tell us ladies didn’t get admitted without escorts, Carolyn said that was discriminatory. I told him to get lost or I’d disable him for life. Then I found us a table. Carolyn didn’t want to order a drink. She thought it wasn’t a good idea for us to be under the influence of alcohol in a place like this. At that point she was taking surreptitious peeks at the dancers and shuddering. I’m guessing at the shuddering. It was so dark in there, except for the spotlights on the girls, that I couldn’t see her very clearly, which was probably just as well. I might have said something more insulting than what I actually said, which she didn’t like.
“Don’t be a baby,” I told her. “Order a drink. It’s that or a cover charge. You don’t have to drink it if you don’t want to. Hell, I’ll drink it myself.” Muttering to herself, she ordered some frou-frou thing with fruit juice in it. I ordered a shot of tequila, which I shouldn’t have been drinking with my meds, but hell, I wasn’t driving, so it seemed like a good idea at the time. I hadn’t told her yet that we’d have to order two drinks.
I informed the waitress that we wanted to talk to Boris, preferably in his office; that was in case I had to pull a gun on him—not that I told the waitress that last. Our drinks arrived, and Carolyn had, by then, actually watched a whole dance—right down to the buff—the dancer’s, not hers. When the drink was set in front of her, she took a gulp and said, “That’s disgusting.”
“Yeah, well the men don’t come here for the great drinks,” I said.
“I meant the dance,” she snapped.
“That’s what they come for,” I agreed, and sipped my tequila. I’d ordered by brand, and this wasn’t it, so I called the waitress over and said I was going to call the state licensing commission if she didn’t get her ass over here with what I was paying for. She mumbled that the bartender must have made a mistake.
“Maybe you shouldn’t pick fights with everyone before we ever get to see Mr. Ignatenko,” Carolyn suggested in that oh-so-polite tone that raised my hackles.
Oh boy. Table dance coming up, I thought. The proper Mrs. Blue is going to freak. Oh, Christ, she’s waving. If she tries to stop the girl, we’ll get our asses kicked out of here even if I do pull a gun on the bouncer.
No one waved back, and Carolyn settled down for another gulp. The blonde girl, now up on the table with two guys watching avidly, began to do her thing. Carolyn drummed her fingernails on our table loud enough to provide a percussion undercurrent to the music. One of the guys ran his hand up the girl’s leg. She stopped dancing and tried to brush it off. Carolyn got up, stomped over to the table, yanked his hand off, and gave it a slap. “Shame on you. I’m sure that’s against the rules.” Then she said, “Good evening, Polya. Can I help you down?”
“Hey, we paid for a dance,” whined the guy who’d kept his hands to himself.
The bouncer showed up and told us to go back to our table or leave. By that time the blonde girl had climbed down, whispered to Carolyn, given her a hug, and left.
“Maybe it’s about time you took us in to see Boris,” I said, giving the bouncer a killing look. The audience was booing us. “You oughta know that having a proper-type lady in the club during performances is bad for business. What if she goes home and starts calling preachers? Or the cops?”
There was a brief conversation between the bouncer and the floor manager, after which the bouncer, a one-eyed fatty with big arm muscles, told us to follow him. Carolyn insisted on going back for her drink, so I told her to bring mine along too.
“I’m sure I read in the newspaper that the patrons are not allowed to touch the performers,” Carolyn said to Boris Stepanovich before they’d even been introduced. “One of them just grabbed the thigh of Polina Mikhailov.”
“Who are you?” he retorted. “Her mama? And what you do here, Lieutenant? I hear you retire.”
“We’re here about the late Vladislav Gubenko. This is Carolyn Blue. Carolyn, Boris Stepanovich Ignatenko. He owns this dump.”
Boris is a scary-looking guy. Real tall. Maybe six four or five. Bony with long arms and big spider hands, wide, bony, squared-off shoulders, and a long face out of a ghoul movie—lantern jaw, thin-lipped mouth, long creases from forehead to chin, a jagged scar across his forehead, and these sunken eyes circled in black. He’d be easy to pick out of a lineup. No way you’d get any other guys looking even halfway like him.
“How you know Polya?” he asked Carolyn.
“I’m a committee member of Opera at the Pass and an opera lover,” she replied tartly, “and I don’t like to see her mauled by drunken perverts.”
Boris let out a big, booming laugh. “You calling my customers perverts? So okay, who else you expect to see here? Pillars of community? Well, we got some of them too. I take you see lap dance. A little hand on thigh nothing. Right, Lieutenant?”
“I hear the city council wants six feet between dancers and customers. That ought to screw up business,” I replied.
“Hey, I not near church or school. My girls artists, not whores. City should leave me alone.”
“Wonder why nobody believes that crap you’re putting out. Artists, not whores, huh? Bull shit.”
“Vladik,” Carolyn reminded me. “We understand that you knew Vladik Gubenko,” she said to Boris.
“Sure, I know him.” Boris went to the chair behind his desk, stretched out in it, and smiled widely. “You think man like me wouldn’t know a professor? That right, opera lady? I know Vladik since little boys. We climb trees together, sled in snow, go to school, get in troubles together. Good friends, long time. Then Vladik go to Moscow for study opera things, and I get drafted in army, end up in Afghanistan.” He touched the scar on his forehead. “Bad place. Bad peoples. Now Americans finding out. Think they go home quick? Ha! Still there. Twenty years from now—still there. Or be smart, give up, go home. Who want Afghanistan anyway? Shit-pile place, I say. Maybe Iraq better, but I think that shit-pile place too.”
I smothered a grin. Carolyn was wincing again. “So you and Vladik were boyhood amigos, huh Boris? Where were you the night he was murdered?”
“Vladik murdered? No way. Vladik know how to take care of self. He die from drinking too much tequila. He drink good vodka, he be okay. That’s what I hear.”
“You heard wrong. So where were you?”
“Where I be? Here. Girls come from big opera party, late for work, but I good boss, let them go sing for fancy peoples. They no say Vladik sick. No say that next day. I read in newspaper. American citizen now. Read American newspaper. Better than Pravda. Can believe what read. Say Vladik choke on vomit. Girls come in. I say, ‘Why you no tell me?’ They say not hear till that day.”
“And you were doing what the night he was killed?” The man talked a lot and said very little. Typical criminal. Maybe he killed the other Russian because he wanted the free Russian dancers for himself.
“I here all night. Open till four, five in morning. I here. I have apartment.” He gestured behind him. “Sleep after close. Wake up at noon. You think I kill Vladik? Ha! Vladik my friend. Not so many Russians Boris can be friends with. Talk about mother country.” His laughter boomed again. “Hard mother, Russia. America better to us. Don’t draft me, send me to shit-pile Afghanistan. Probably be in Chechnya now; get shot at if I didn’t desert. But I immigrate and get nice business.”
“Really nice,” I agreed
sarcastically.
“We were hoping, Mr. Ignatenko,” said Carolyn, “that you, being Vladik’s friend, could give us a name. Other friends. Or enemies. No one seems to know with whom he associated, besides you.”
“Ha! You think I give him something make him sick. He don’t come here at all Saturday night of opera.”
“So who do you think killed him?” I snapped.
He kept his eye on Carolyn, ignoring me. “So you like opera? What Russian opera you like?”
“Eugene Onegin,” she said promptly. “The duel scene with Lenski’s aria and the beautiful duet. Prince Gremin’s aria. Did you know Caruso once sang it when the bass lost his voice?”
Obviously you only had to mention opera to get her to forget about the subject at hand.
“And the end when Onegin realizes he’s lost Tatiana forever.” She beamed.
Jesus Christ! Did she really think that Boris cared about opera? He was just stalling. Pulling my chain maybe. “Ignatenko, do I have to call friends in Vice and have them toss your place and hassle your customers to get a name out of you? If you didn’t kill him, and don’t think I won’t check that out, then who do you think did?”
“Why you care if you no more cop, now running around with an opera lady. Very rude, Vallejo. Interrupting we have opera conversation.”
“Bullshit. You wouldn’t know opera from rap.”
Boris sighed dramatically, as if anyone would feel sorry for a ghoul like him. “Excuse this woman, Mrs.” This was to Carolyn and about me. I could have kicked him. Then to me he said, “Vladik liking three things best: women, opera, and gambling. He is doing very good with women and opera. With gambling, he is losing pants.”
“Shirt,” said Carolyn. “The English idiom is Losing one’s shirt.”
“So shirt,” said Boris agreeably. “You want a name, used-to-be-lieutenant. Salvador Barrientos. Is called Palomino. Lives in Juarez. Vladik owe him maybe forty, fifty thousand. Could be Barrientos get tired waiting for money.”
“Your friend Vladik have other business across the river besides gambling?” I asked.
“Why? You know Barrientos?”
I shrugged.
“Me, I don’t know this Barrientos. Only what Vladik tell me. Go bother him. I am not killing my friend. I am sleeping. With—Carmen, maybe. You ask her. Maybe she remember she warm my bed Saturday.” Then he turned back to Carolyn. “Nice to meet you, lady. Better you find other friends. Lieutenant here is mean woman. No one like her in my world.”
20
“Who’s Prissy?”
Carolyn
Once we were safely back in the car, I breathed a sigh of relief and turned the key in the ignition. I couldn’t get away from Brazen Babes fast enough. And I had to rescue those two poor girls. “Did you recognize the name he gave us?” I asked Luz. “Salvador . . .” I couldn’t remember the rest.
“Barrientos,” she supplied. “Yeah, I know the name. I just didn’t know he was into gambling, but if your Russian opera guy owed the Palomino money and wasn’t paying off, well, Barrientos might have killed him and never given it a second thought.”
“So what do we do now?” I pulled out of the lot and turned left.
“Turn back,” she said. “You’re going the wrong way.”
I had to drive a half mile before I found a place where it was safe to turn around. “You could have stopped me before I turned the wrong way,” I said, peeved.
“Hey, I got you out here. I figured you’d remember the way back.”
“I don’t know why you’d think that. It’s dark. Everything looks the same,” I muttered. “Now, tell me the next time I have to turn, and please do it in plenty of time.”
“You’re only driving about twenty miles an hour. Speed up a little, will you? At this rate, I won’t be able to walk without a cane by the time you get me home.”
I wondered exactly what she meant by that. Maybe that she’d be old by the time we got home. But I had noticed that sometimes she limped. I wanted to ask about the limp, but that wouldn’t be very polite. My mother wouldn’t have approved.
Luz broke into my thoughts. “I have to hand it to you. You may be prissy, but you’ve got the courage of your convictions.”
“Who’s prissy?” I demanded angrily. Here I’d come out to this disgusting place, got out alive while she was threatening everyone in sight and scaring me to death, and now she was calling me names.
“You are. Every time you hear a word you don’t approve of, you wince. Makes me want to swear just to see you do it.”
“How charming!” I snapped. She was really very rude. Boris Ignatenko had that right.
“I was paying you a compliment. When you slapped that guy who put his hand on your friend’s leg—well, that was pretty cool. I’ll bet he won’t forget that any time soon. Comes to a skin bar looking for a hard-on, and some prissy woman walks up, says ‘Shame on you,’ and slaps his hand. Bastard probably thought his mother had caught up with him.”
“I am not prissy,” I mumbled, but still I was pleased. She’d said I was cool. Of course it had been a foolhardy thing to do, which I’d realized when the dreadful doorman came over, but still, it was cool. I’d have enjoyed telling Jason about my compliment from the grudging, tough-talking Luz Vallejo, but of course that would mean telling him about the visit to Brazen Babes. The chances that he’d think that was cool were minimal. Then I wondered if Luz was really carrying a gun. If so, where? In the pocket of her jacket? Could you just drop a firearm into your pocket? What if your pocket were picked. She probably had a permit to carry a concealed weapon. Texas issues those. Or maybe she didn’t need a permit since she’d been a police person.
“As for Barrientos, I’ m going to make a few calls. See what he’s up to these days. Used to be drugs. Signal for a left. You gotta turn at the next light.”
I was so shocked at the mention of narcotics that I missed the turn. She swore, but under her breath. I turned around as soon as I could and went back to make the turn. “What did you mean about needing a cane before we get back?” I asked. That wasn’t as bad mannered as asking about her limp.
“My knee is aching like a son of a bitch, and it’s not getting any better. I need to rub some chile glop on it and go to bed,” she replied, her tone rancorous.
“Is it an injury from your days as a police person?” I asked.
“You mean did I get shot in the knee? Or kicked? Well, I did get kicked. More than once. But this is arthritis. Rheumatoid arthritis.”
“Oh dear,” I said, remembering Connie French, a friend at our last school. “I knew a woman who got it in her thirties. She had a terrible time. But I’ve read that the medications are much better now.”
“They are, and they’re much more expensive.”
“Is that why you retired?” I asked, unable to suppress my curiosity.
“That’s why I retired, and no one was more pissed off than me. I thought I was on the fast track to being the first woman chief in El Paso. Instead I was on the fast track to being a cripple. Of all the crappy luck!”
“No one in your family had rheumatoid arthritis?” I asked matter-of-factly. I doubted that she’d appreciate any overt sympathy for her plight.
“Not a soul. Diabetes, sure. Heart disease. Hepatitis.”
“Good grief!” I couldn’t help exclaiming. “At least the arthritis won’t kill you.’
“No, but the meds may. Turn at the next light. Left. There’s an arrow.”
“Thank you.” I made the turn. I was beginning to recognize the area and felt relieved. Now if I could just find my way up the mountain to the gates of her condo community. The streets twist around because of the arroyos that run down the mountain. They carry off the water when it rains farther up. If there isn’t an arroyo handy for that purpose, the water rushes down the streets, sometimes in torrents, sometimes carrying cars away and drowning people. Not that any such thing had happened since we’d been here. The whole Southwest was suffering a dro
ught with tighter water rationing and a good deal of public grumbling about it. Fortunately, since our house is fairly new, we have desert vegetation and underground drip irrigation in the yard.
“You want to go right, left, right,” she ordered after we got off the main street and headed up.
I managed it.
“About Barrientos, like I said, I’ll ask around. Be interesting if your Russian was in the drug trade as well as the white-slave trade.”
“He’s not my Russian,” I protested. “My husband just served on a committee with him. And Mr. Ignatenko said the connection was a gambling debt.”
“Maybe. Or maybe it was a drug debt. Barrientos supplied the product, and Gubenko saw that it got onto the streets.”
I started to protest, but she said, “I don’t mean he was out on street corner peddling coke. I just mean maybe he had students selling for him.”
What a horrible idea. If it turned out to be true, I’d have to tell Dr. Tigranian, who would have a temper tantrum, shouting the news so everyone in Fine Arts heard.
“Turn right,” said Luz. “You can pull into my driveway.”
I insisted, against her wishes, on walking her to the door, and as much as she protested, she did lean on my shoulder, which meant her knee must have, indeed, been painful. And she thanked me for the help. Maybe we’re becoming friends, I thought as I drove home.
Once in bed, and thinking back over the evening, I had to admit that it had been interesting. An adventure. Had Jason ever been to a place like that? He certainly hadn’t wanted to take me into the New Orleans club with the tassel-twirler from New Jersey. The tassels had been on surprising parts of her body, and the fact that she could make them twirl was truly amazing. Obviously some women are able to develop muscles that rest of us never even know we have. Not that I’d want to do that.
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