Russian Roulette Read online

  “Hey, I could be wrong, maybe, but it sure seemed that way. You should probably give her a call? Your client.”

  Chapter 16

  After leaving Bon Vie and promising Amy I wouldn’t return for a while during their lunch hour, I phoned Kerri. Or at least I tried to.

  The phone rang three times, then flipped into an official message center.

  “The number you have reached, six five one, blah, blah, blah, has been disconnected. No further information is available at this time.”

  I phoned Aaron, and as usual left a message.

  “Aaron, Dev. Hey I’m among the walking wounded today. I’ve got a couple of questions I thought you might be able to help me on. Give me a call when it’s convenient, thanks.”

  He phoned back right away. Right away for Aaron, meaning the same day.

  “So let me guess, you’ve taken it upon yourself to find out who tried to put a bullet into your fat head, and you’ve run into a dead-end or two.”

  “Thanks for returning my call. Yeah, sort of. How’d you know?”

  “Well, for starters, the list of people who know you and don’t want to shoot you would probably be a lot shorter than the ones who do. Then there’s the matter of a brief, and I emphasize brief, conversation I had with Detective Crowley in homicide. He assured me in no uncertain terms that you were of no help. I think ‘worthless fuck’ was the actual description. I, of course, was unable to disagree.”

  “Crowley, that was his name?” I said making a mental note. “To tell you the truth that whole interview is just sort of a hazy blur.”

  “Why would it be different than the rest of your life? What do you need?”

  “I’m not sure. I tried to phone my client earlier in the day…”

  “Kerri Mathias?”

  “Yeah, the number I have for her has been disconnected.”

  “And this is news?” Aaron said sounding genuinely surprised at my reaction.

  “Ahh, well, I don’t know, I thought I could at least get in touch with her. She is my client after all.”

  “Yeah, well you’re the great super sleuth, find her.”

  “Which is why I called you.”

  “I’ve already checked, nothing. Not so much as a driver’s license for a Kerri Mathias, at least in Minnesota.”

  “Property records, auto, nothing?”

  “Oh Jesus Dev, let me just drop everything and look for your client. Come on. You know if you’d spring for an office instead of conducting business out of a half dozen bars maybe you’d meet a better class of client, at least someone who was occasionally straight with you. The way you describe this deal, it almost sounds like she gave you a roll in the hay for a down payment.”

  “Well,” I paused.

  “Oh man, I knew it.”

  “Okay, okay I get it, Aaron. You’ve got a point. Look, let me just say you didn’t see the woman, okay. And then there’s the matter of a couple of adult beverages.”

  “You idiot.”

  “Point taken.”

  “So what do you want, not that I’m agreeing to help?” Aaron said.

  “Well, for starters, I’d like to go through your photo books, see if I come across Kerri, or maybe the sister.”

  “Are you sure you’d recognize them? You know they still have their clothes on in all our mug shots.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “I’m busy now, look, come on down tomorrow morning around ten-thirty. It’ll take a good two hours to go through our books, the Vice stuff. I’ll round up what I can on your pals the Lee-Dee boys. Maybe we’ll get lucky. By the way, bring your wallet, you’re buying lunch.”

  Chapter 17

  The following morning Aaron popped his head out into the hallway where I was waiting.

  “I’m on something right now, take a seat for about fifteen minutes,” he said then quickly ducked back into the office area. There was nowhere to sit in the hallway so I leaned against the wall for twenty-five minutes until I thought my head would explode from the blinking fluorescent light overhead. I fled back down to the main floor in search of the cafeteria or at least a machine with lousy coffee. My luck held. I found the cafeteria and the coffee was lousy. I sat by myself at a table and stared absently out the window at a nondescript brick wall across the street. Twenty minutes later Aaron called to me from the doorway.

  “Didn’t I tell you to wait for me upstairs?”

  “You did, sort of, actually you told me it would be about fifteen minutes and to take a seat, that was an hour ago. There was nowhere to sit, unless I used the floor, and I shouldn’t have to remind you I’m still recovering from my wound. Besides, I always like to have some coffee here so that any cup I have, anywhere, for the rest of the week tastes better than this rotgut.”

  “Yeah, you’re braver than I am,” he said shaking his head at my coffee cup.

  We rode a crowded elevator up three floors in silence. Walked down the hallway toward the still-blinking fluorescent light, then turned and entered a large room of cubicles. Aaron’s office was in a distant corner.

  His desk was piled with files, his computer hidden beneath yellow and pink post-it notes. A family photo of his parents and siblings, two brothers and three sisters from about 1995 hung on the wall.

  “Make yourself comfortable, toss those files on the floor,” Aaron directed. He pointed to a government-issue gray vinyl and chrome steel chair opposite his desk that looked like it been there since the Korean War.

  “I got three books of shots for you to go through, take your time, see if anything clicks. You want a water or something instead of that battery acid you’re drinking?” He asked, pushing three large albums across the desk toward me.

  I’m aware that having a mug shot taken isn’t quite like the photo portrait experience. That aside, I was examining the images of a lot of really rough-looking women. Most of them had been booked on prostitution or solicitation charges. The obvious question was who would be desperate enough to pay these women in the first place? The hand-in-glove combination of no education and poverty seemed a likely component in their background. A lot of health and life-style issues came across. Prime among them alcohol and chemical abuse. The occasional black eye, missing teeth, battered face. A number of identifying characteristics consisted of stabbing scars, bullet wounds, and homemade tattoos with misspelled words.

  So much for the fairy tale of erotic escorts in million-dollar condos or making all sorts of money just lying on your back enjoying yourself. The vast majority of the women I was looking at were old before their time. If life hadn’t already spit them out, they were certainly being chewed on.

  I found no one remotely resembling redheaded Nikki Mathias, nor her sister, Kerri. After an hour and a half I closed the third and final album, then returned to the second album where I had marked a page.

  I opened the album and stared at three images of the same black woman. Her skin seemed to be the color of coffee with the slightest bit of cream. Her physical description listed among other things, a silver front tooth and a heart-shaped, homemade tattoo on her left breast. The tattoo was described as “Homemade, of a bluish ink in the shape of a heart with the initials DB + DB”. he sported what I assumed was a chemically induced grin, her silver tooth prominent along with an eighth-inch gap between her front teeth. Her name was listed as Da’nita Bell and I guessed she might hiss as she pronounced certain words and just maybe called me Devil the last two times I spoke with her on the phone.

  “What about this woman?” I asked turning the album around so Aaron could see who I was talking about.

  “That’s Kerri, your client?” he looked at me more shocked than surprised.

  “No, but I may have spoken to her when I phoned Kerri,” I went on to explain.

  “So based on her first name and the fact she’s got a space between her teeth, you think she might have some sort of information?”

  “Couldn’t hurt to ask.”

  “Except I could lose my jo
b telling you her name was Da’nita Bell and that I happen to know she spends virtually all of her free time at Boxer’s Bar on East Fourth Street. You know the place?”

  I nodded.

  “Good, ‘cause it would be against the rules for me to give you that sort information.”

  “I’ve only driven past, never been in there,” I clarified.

  “It’s memorable,” Aaron said and slammed the album closed.

  Chapter 18

  After buying Aaron lunch I went home to nap. The combination of a splitting headache and a pain pill had wiped me out. I woke about 4:30 from a fitful, twitch filled nap, the pain pills seemed to have that effect on me. I sorted through my mail. It consisted of an expired ten-dollar-off coupon for an oil change and a circular announcing a cosmetic sale. Both got dumped into recycling. I decided to try and find Da’nita Bell down at Boxer’s.

  Boxer’s is located on the corner of East Fourth Street and Garfield. The building is a two-story red-brick from 1904 according to the iron plaque just below the roof line. I’m guessing it wasn’t the best of buildings in 1904, and not much had changed over the ensuing hundred-plus years.

  Two feet inside the door, just as my eyes began to adjust to the dim interior, a bouncer blocked my forward progress.

  “Gonna have to wand y’alls,” he said looking down at me. I pegged him at about six four.

  “I can save you the trouble. I got a piece on my right hip, just under the jacket. I’m licensed,” I said almost under my breath hoping not to cause a scene.

  “Really?” he nodded, ran the wand over me anyway, smiled when it chirped loudly over my hip. He ran it over and over my hip, it chirped every time, loudly announcing my armed presence to the entire bar. Not that I needed any announcement, I was the only white face in the place other than the bartender.

  “That’s okay, officer. Don’t you worry none, go get a drink at the bar.”

  I was going to tell him I wasn’t a cop, but what was the point? Everyone in the place was watching and knew I was armed. Just in case someone had been asleep and missed my entrance, he called to the bartender as I stepped away.

  “Charles, give the good officer a drink, on the house.”

  The wooden floor was worn, the room was dim, neon beer signs illuminated the back of the bar. The place had a musty smell and at barely five in the afternoon the clientele looked like they’d already been there for quite a while. Despite the statewide smoking ban there were more than a couple of cigarettes glowing. Something like hip hop or rap assaulted my ears and my headache returned with a vengeance.

  People resumed talking but the level of conversation was decidedly muted. Charles the bartender gave me as slight a nod as possible when I stepped in front of him. I placed both my hands on the bar.

  “Charles, I think I’ll have a Coke, please,” attempting polite kindness.

  “On duty,” he said not really asking.

  “No, I’m not a cop, honest. Your doorman made a mistake.”

  “A mistake,” sounding not at all convinced.

  “I’m just here to meet someone.”

  “Well, in that case, since you’re not a cop, its two-fifty for the Coke.”

  There, I’d made my point and I could relish in the fact I was deliberately overcharged for the soft drink poured into what I guessed was a fairly dirty glass.

  When Charles returned with my change I worked at being polite.

  “I’m supposed to meet Da’nita Bell here. Has she been in yet?”

  “What you want with her ass?”

  I felt myself beginning to harbor ill will toward Charles. I decided to smile and fake it.

  “Look Charlie, how’d you like it if the city inspector showed up in here tomorrow and shut you down for a week or two because of code violations? Then maybe someone might call the license inspector and have him look into reports of underage individuals being served in your fine establishment. Maybe some reports of controlled substances being sold on the premises could reach concerned ears. Would that make your day, Charlie?”

  He seemed to think about that for a moment, looked me up and down, then came up with the right answer.

  “That’s her, at the end of the bar.”

  I looked down the bar but couldn’t see anyone, the place was dim but not dark.

  “Where?”

  “End of the bar, you can just see her head. Hey, Da’nita,” he yelled. “Wave your hand for the nice officer.”

  A small hand slowly rose above the bar. I could just make out dark, curly hair an inch or two above the top of the bar.

  I walked down the length of the bar, rounded the corner, and nearly knocked over a small woman in a motorized wheelchair. I spilled a little Coke on her.

  “Watch where you’re going, asshole. You’re spilling on me, wasting good whiskey,” she shrieked. As she did I caught the flash of her silver tooth, caught the subtle hiss when she called me asshole.

  “Da’nita?”

  “Maybe, maybe not, what’s it to you?”

  “I wanted to talk to you for a moment, I…”

  “I haven’t done anything. You get away, leave me alone,” she shrieked again, then began hurriedly reversing the wheelchair, ramming into a table behind her, and knocking over a couple of beer bottles. I reached over her and righted the bottles, said to the couple at the table,

  “Oops, sorry about that, let me get you a couple more. Ouch, damn it.” Da’nita raced across my foot, gaining speed backing toward the ladies room. Fortunately no one made a move to come to her aid.

  “Hey, Da’nita, hold up will you? I just want to talk, it’s me, Devil. Remember from the phone?”

  That stopped her, although she kept her hand firmly on the throttle, just waiting for an excuse.

  “Devil?”

  “Yeah, that’s me, I was always calling for Kerri, remember?”

  She thought about that for a moment, then said,

  “I might. A drink might help me remember.”

  “Sure, sure thing. What’ll it be?”

  “Make it a Cosmopolitan, with a shot of Grand Marnier on the side.” The way she said it made me think it wasn’t the first time she placed that order.

  Chapter 19

  I didn’t believe Charles knew how to make a Cosmopolitan, and I was sure this dump didn’t stock Grand Marnier. I was wrong on both counts. I returned with her drinks after dropping two beers off at the table she’d rammed. The couple at the table grabbed the beer bottles and never said thanks. I set her drinks on a back table, sat down and pulled a chair out so she could wheel in. She did so hesitantly. I wasn’t sure what she expected me to do. Finally she reached for the Cosmopolitan, sucked down a goodly portion of the thing and didn’t even blink.

  “Da’nita. I’m hoping you can help me. I’m having trouble getting in touch with Kerri and I need to talk to her.”

  She downed the Grand Marnier without so much as a shudder.

  “You see that bitch, you tell her she better not cross where I’m driving, I’ll run her down.”

  She looked serious, hit and run with a wheel chair.

  “You two have a little falling out?” I asked.

  “Falling out? That’s your term. Shit, more like getting pushed out. The bitch fired my ass is what she did.”

  “Fired? When did this happen?”

  “Just the other day. Middle of the afternoon she runs in all hot and bothered. Cleans out her desk in about one minute flat, literally pushes me out the door, and leaves me sitting in the damn hallway with my thumb up a hole. Then she locks the door, runs out to her car and drives off. Never looks back. I still got all my shit in there. Think she cares? Hell no. She don’t give a damn bout little ole Da’nita,” she said, then drained the last of the Cosmopolitan and quickly pushed both empty glasses toward me.

  “Where was this office?”

  “I might take a minute to try and remember,” she said, glancing at the empty glasses.

  “I’ll be right back,” I
said.

  “She didn’t tell you why she locked up and ran off?” I asked, sitting back down with the next round.

  “She didn’t say a thing.”

  “Where’d you say this was, again?”

  “You’re slick Devil, I didn’t. Right next door to that Russian store. You know the one, on West Seventh?”

  I nodded.

  “Kerri was always eating that red cabbage, I couldn’t touch it, lord save me, fartin’ like a race horse.”

  I gathered she was growing a little more accustomed to me because she only downed a third of the Cosmopolitan.

  “Bitch Kerri just ran in, mumbled something about closing the business. Them damn Russians, who can even tell?”

  “Russian? She’s French. Isn’t she?” I asked.

  “French? You fall for that too, dumb ass? She was always saying that and everyone always believed her, idiots.”

  “She’s Russian?”

  “That’s what I said. Were you paying attention?”

  “What about her sister?”

  “Sister?”

  “Yeah, Nikki. She said that…”

  “That, God Nikki isn’t her sister. Nikki was the only smart one. She ran off after what happened to Mai. You ask me she’s probably long gone from this town.”

  “Mai?”

  “Yeah, little Mai. She got connected, but they had her ass on the street. Had her turning a dozen tricks a day.” She was back to draining the Cosmopolitan.

  “This Mai, was she Asian, small, big boobs, with…”

  “Those are fake, Devil, bolt on’s, and are you listening? Why do you think she’s called ‘Little’? It’s not because she’s tall.”

  “Did she have a tattoo, a sunburst around her navel?”

  “Her bellybutton? Yeah. Gee, Kerri and now little Mai, wow, you are a player, aren’t you, Devil?” She looked at me slyly.

  “No not really. But I might have seen Mai just lying around. Has she got a last name, Mai?”

  She pushed the empty glass in front of me, downed her shot, and set the empty next to her Cosmopolitan glass.

  “You saw her and you want to see her again, right? You can tell me, Devil. I might know her name, I might know lots of what went on there. Maybe all sorts of things I’m not supposed to know. You said you saw her? Little Mai?”