Russian Roulette Page 8

  “I think it’s normal. Look, at least no one was hurt, were they?”

  She shook her head no, then changed the subject,

  “So, tell me what you have there?”

  “Oh this,” I said reaching for the laptop resting on her coffee table.

  “Yes, the reason you came in the first place.” She smiled coldly, then sipped some wine. She was curled up in the corner of the couch, her legs tucked beneath her, the gas fireplace was on even though the evening wasn’t cold. She brushed her blond hair off her shoulders, looked me in the eye, and raised her eyebrows as if to say get to the point.

  I took out the page I had printed off, handed it to her and told her most of what I knew, which wasn’t a lot. I couldn’t see much point in worrying her about the murders of Leo Tate, Dennis Dundee, or little Mai. I didn’t bring up being grazed by a bullet. I neglected to mention what I assumed was Da’nita’s hit-and-run murder. Skipped the part about Tibor or actually breaking into the Lee Dee office. Then wound up my request by saying,

  “So anyway, I’m just trying to figure out what was going on. I’m guessing based on that page,” I nodded at the page I printed off now resting on her lap, “all this is coded. I don’t have passwords to get in there, and once I did I probably wouldn’t know what I was looking at anyway. I’m trying to find out how to contact Kerri, or her sister, Nikki. If there’s anything obviously illegal, I’ll take it to the police. I’ll most likely do that anyway, but I just want to see if you can find anything out.”

  She poured herself another glass of wine, sat back, and thought for a moment.

  “Okay, it might take a bit. I’ve got some programs and algorithms I can work. You know what might help. The woman you mentioned, what’s her name?”

  “Da’nita Bell?”

  “Yes, if you could get her date of birth, her son’s full name, his date of birth. Those are standard password sources. It’s at least a starting point,” she said.

  “I think I can get that for you.”

  “You didn’t happen to see a Rolodex or Post-it notes around the desk in the office, did you?”

  “No, there wasn’t, well actually there was a Rolodex, why?”

  “Amazingly it’s not uncommon for people to put their passwords in their Rolodex or tape it right to their computer. If you could ask to borrow that Rolodex it might help.”

  “I’ll ask them,” I said not even blinking.

  “All right then. I’ll get started tomorrow.”

  Chapter 24

  My phone rang before eight the following morning. Although I was awake I had to crawl out of bed to answer it.

  “Hello,” I couldn’t read the phone number displayed on the cell-phone screen.

  “You called,” Aaron said.

  “Hunh?” I was crawling back into bed.

  “I had a message from you, said to give you a call. What, don’t tell me you were still in bed?”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Okay what?”

  “Okay I won’t tell you I’m still in bed.”

  “God, you are so worthless.”

  “I was wondering if you could run Karina Vucavitch and Nikolaevna Mathias through your system, let me know what comes up.”

  “Let you know?” emphasizing the “you” in his question.

  “Yeah, look, I got you the names, Kerri Vucavitch and Nikki Mathias. If you get a hit on anything it’d be nice to know. I think I got something else that might at least be connected.”

  “Like what?”

  “You gonna run the names?”

  “Already did, once you get out of bed you might drift down this way and maybe learn a thing or two.”

  “I’m there within the hour,” I said jumping out of bed.

  “I can hardly wait,” Aaron said and hung up.

  Chapter 25

  Actually he wasn’t kidding. He was waiting for me in the hallway when I got off the elevator.

  “Did you sense my magical presence as I ascended in the elevator?” I asked.

  “No, I glanced out the window and watched as you pulled that piece-of-shit car of yours into a no-parking zone. You’ll probably get ticketed.”

  “Good thing I know you, then.”

  “I’m not fixing a ticket for you. I only do that for friends and gorgeous women.”

  We were passing a series of blue and burgundy cubicles, walking back to his office as we spoke. I saw two figures seated in his office. Even a hundred feet away one looked to be in a pressed suit, starched shirt, trendy tie, blond crew-cut hair. He screamed FBI. The other guy was a little more casual. Striped shirt, slacks, dark hair, and more of it. He was cracking a piece of gum, working it.

  “Feds?” I asked Aaron.

  He ignored me. As we approached his office he broke into his good-cop routine.

  “Hey Dev, come on in, let me introduce you. Gentlemen, here is the man with all the answers, the guy I’ve been telling you all about, Mister Devlin Haskell.”

  I smiled grimly, felt like I was being delivered to the lions and wondered exactly how much Aaron may have told them as I extended my hand.

  “Agent Peters, FBI,” Aaron introduced the suit.

  “Kimball Peters,” he said, springing out of his chair like a jack-in-the-box, giving me the rock solid, vice grip Bureau handshake. He wore a dark suit with just the slightest hint of a pattern in a not quite as dark blue. Black wingtips shined to a high gloss.

  “Agent Hale, I.C.E.” Aaron directed me to the dark-haired guy in the striped shirt.

  “Billy Hale,” he said not getting up but nodding in my direction. “Nice to meet you, man.”

  “I wonder if you wouldn’t mind telling us in your own words what you know about this Vucavitch business,” Agent Peters said as he sat down. He pulled at his trousers just above the knee so he wouldn’t ruin the crease.

  “I was thinking of some coffee first,” I joked.

  Peters looked at me deadpan, didn’t crack a smile.

  “Lieutenant LaZelle has been filling us in, but we’d be interested in your take on things,” Hale said. He’d smiled at my coffee request.

  “What’s I.C.E.?” I asked.

  “Everyone asks that, sounds sort of sinister, doesn’t it? We were in the old INS up until 9/11. Now we’re rolled into Homeland Security. It stands for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. But I.C.E. sounds so cool, I can’t resist, you know,” he joked.

  “The Vucavitch woman?” Peters asked, giving an exasperated glance in Hale’s direction before he brushed imaginary lint from his immaculate trousers.

  “Not much to tell you,” I said and then reiterated most of what I knew. I forgot to mention my drunken, sexual romp with Kerri the night she hired me and I skipped the part about my visit to the Moscow deli and grabbing Da’nita’s laptop. I’d be turning that over to Aaron soon enough, anyway.

  “And you didn’t think to contact the authorities about any of this?” Peters asked.

  “Contact them about what? A woman can’t find her sister? That was the information I had and operated under. It turns out that was incorrect, but I had no way to know it at the time.”

  “Russian gangs shooting up the place, trafficking illegal’s for sex between here and Chicago. We’ve got a number of homicides. Tate, Dundee, the Asian Jane Doe to name just three. A probable fourth with the Bell woman just the other night. You seem to have at least a tangent relationship in all four instances,” Peters suggested, reminding me why I so disliked Federal agents.

  “Hey, I didn’t know Kerri was Russian, she told me she was French, not that it makes a difference. This is the first I heard about any illegal’s. Over the years I’ve been with a couple of women who’ve had accents. I think it’s kind of sexy. But it’s never really crossed my mind to call the FBI. I get into a tangent relationship every time I watch the St. Paul Saints win or lose, doesn’t mean I had shit to do with the outcome of the game.”

  Peters gave me a very practiced FBI glare.

&nb
sp; “By the way Dev, I checked, those paint-chip samples, from the Da’nita Bell hit and run. You owe me lunch, they were red, not dark blue,” Aaron added, getting the discussion back on course.

  I nodded.

  “We’ll be moving on those samples, I don’t want to wait,” Peters said, then looked from Hale to Aaron. “Does anyone have any more questions for Mr. Haskell?” He asked, apparently concluding my portion of the meeting before I could ask anything.

  I.C.E. Agent Hale shook his head, pulled a business card out of his pocket, and handed it to me.

  “Please give me a call if anything else comes up, or if you want to catch a Saints game,” he smiled.

  “You can reach me through Lieutenant LaZelle, here,” Peters said as he stood, dismissing me.

  “Can’t thank you enough for the time,” I said looking around the room. Aaron sported a crafty grin. They knew something and I wasn’t going to be a part of it.

  Chapter 26

  I was still pissed off thirty minutes later, not because I was cut out of the information line, that was fine. But the superior act, the “we’ll let you know if and when it suits us”, that frosted me. After all I was the one who had the bullet bounced off his thick skull.

  I parked in the shadeless, mostly empty parking lot about forty feet away from the Moscow Deli. I thought if I could grab Da’nita’s Rolodex, get it to Sunnie, I’d be able to point to accomplishing something productive over the course of the day.

  The Lee-Dee office door was unlocked and the lights were on. The Rolodex was still sitting undisturbed on the desk, but the rest of office had been tossed. The larger office, the one I assumed was Kerri’s, had sheets of paper scattered all over the floor. The seats and cushions on the couch had all been sliced open and the stuffing scattered around the room. The printer lay smashed in a distant corner looking as if someone had lifted it over their head and tossed it fifteen feet. Bits of plastic from the shattered paper tray were all over the floor, toner sprayed across the wall.

  I came to the quick conclusion this maybe wasn’t the best place to be. I picked up the Rolodex and made for my car. I was just climbing in behind the wheel when a shout came from the direction of the Moscow Deli. I glanced at three large individuals funneling out the door and quickly decided nothing positive would result from my meeting them. So I did what any red-blooded male would do. I fired up the engine and fled the scene.

  I was two stoplights farther down the street when I caught a red Lexus in my rearview mirror. They were swerving in and out of traffic in an effort to catch up to me. I didn’t know if they had seen me yet. If they hadn’t, it was only a matter of a minute, possibly two. I placed my pistol on the passenger seat.

  The light ahead turned yellow, then red when I was maybe fifteen feet from the intersection. I leaned on the horn, pushed the accelerator down, then cringed as I sailed through the intersection. A high-pitched screech followed by an angry horn blast almost shattered my passenger side.

  I checked in the rearview mirror but didn’t see the Lexus. So I raced on for three more blocks then dropped down to the posted speed and checked the mirror again. This time I saw them, coming up fast in the oncoming traffic lane.

  I took a half right at the next light, shot onto St. Clair Ave and dodged a thin, elderly woman in some unflattering tweed outfit. She was wearing sensible shoes and just stepping off the curb to cross the street as I shot past. She had to jump back, then gave me the finger, and shouted a string of obscenities.

  St. Clair followed the edge of the river bluff here and curved back around. I swerved into the oncoming lane to avoid two kids on bicycles and then swerved back into the right lane after almost hitting a car head-on. The driver hit the brakes and leaned on her horn as I streaked past. Unfortunately my actions were not lost on the police squad just behind her. I heard the siren, then watched as the squad made a U-turn and roared after me. I immediately pulled over figuring at least I’d be safe with the police.

  The squad car pulled up behind me, two officers climbed out. One stood at the ready about five feet off to the rear of my passenger door. The other officer approached cautiously and called to me, none too gently.

  “Place your hands where I can see them.”

  I put my hands on the dashboard. They studied me for a very long minute.

  “Exit the vehicle. Keep your hands where I can see them.”

  “I’m gonna have to open my car door,” I called to him.

  “Do it carefully,” he cautioned.

  I opened the door, pushed it all the way open with my foot.

  “I’m getting out,” I said holding my hands in front of me.

  “Move back here to the rear of the vehicle,” he instructed.

  I did as I was told, moved to the back of my car, and had just placed my hands on the trunk and spread my feet in anticipation of what would come next. I guessed wrong.

  My feet were suddenly kicked out from under me. My forehead bounced off the trunk of the car with a decidedly hollow-sounding thump.

  “Oh cool! Did you see that?” it was one of the two kids on bikes, they had pedaled up and stood watching my predicament.

  One of the officers knelt on my head while the other pulled my right arm back and cuffed my wrist, then attempted to twist off my left arm. When that didn’t work he bent it back and cuffed it. Once they’d ground enough sand and pavement into my face they lifted me up and slammed me onto the car trunk.

  “What the fuck, you guys having a bad day?”

  “Going a little fast there, sir, you been drinking?”

  “Me, no, I mean, not recently.”

  “When was the last time…”

  “Weapon in the front seat,” his partner called. Ever the sleuth he’d seen my pistol sitting in the passenger seat.

  “I’ve got a license to carry that weapon.”

  “May I see some identification, sir?”

  “Yeah, sure, just undo these cuffs for me and I’ll get it out of my wallet,”

  “That your wallet, in your back pocket?”

  “Yeah, help yourself, but be gentle, my pet,” I gave him my sexy smile with a little wink.

  He reached for my back pocket and tore it almost completely off. My wallet tumbled to the ground.

  “Gentle enough for you?” he asked, then winked back.

  I read the name Jorgensen, V. stitched in gold above his pocket.

  “Look Officer Jorgensen, I don’t know what your problem is, but if you’ll check with Lieutenant LaZelle, Aaron LaZelle in Vice, he’ll vouch for me. My name’s Devlin Haskell. I’m a private investigator. I’m licensed in the state of Minnesota, and I’m licensed to carry a firearm.”

  He nodded to his partner who went back into the squad car, that’s probably where they kept the doughnuts. A few minutes later the partner returned, whispered something into his ear.

  “Really, no kidding, okay,” Jorgensen chuckled.

  “You getting it straightened out?” I asked, figuring Aaron had read them the riot act and I was eager for the cuffs to be taken off before I gave him a piece of my mind.

  “Yeah, Lieutenant LaZelle cleared everything up, sir. In fact, you’re under arrest. You have the right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be held against you…”

  “You gotta be kidding, you’re fucking arresting me? Did LaZelle tell you to do this?”

  “Wow, cool,” said the kid.

  “Taser him,” cried his sadistic little pal.

  “You have the right to speak to an attorney. If you cannot afford…”

  Chapter 27

  I learned on the way down to the station that somehow the FBI had gotten involved. Jorgensen’s partner, Officer Elling, never even talked to Aaron. Friendly FBI agent Kimball Peters intercepted the call and told them to arrest me. I was pretty sure he would approve of them tearing my back pocket and kneeling on my head just as long as he didn’t get his hands dirty. I was having a tough time seeing any humor in the situation. I decided it
might not be the safest move to call Aaron if that douche bag Peters was hanging around.

  I called Heidi instead, figuring she’d understand.

  “What?” she answered.

  “Heidi, I need a little favor.”

  “Not now, please.”

  “Yeah now, why?”

  “I’m kind of in the middle of something here,” she half whispered. “Can it keep until tomorrow?”

  “I’m in fucking jail!”

  “No kidding? God, now what’d you do?”

  “I didn’t do anything. Look, it’s kind of a long story but I need you to get down here and post bail for me so I can get out of this hell hole.”

  “Bail? That’s the little favor?”

  “Okay, okay, a big favor. I’ll consider it a big favor, honest, but I need you to come down here and spring me, please.”

  “Now?”

  “No, next week. Of course now.”

  I could tell she had put her hand over the phone and was discussing my options with someone. The voices went back and forth for a bit.

  “Okay, I suppose, I’ll be down in a while.”

  “Heidi, I need you here right away, not hours from now, more like thirty minutes ago, okay?”

  “As soon as I can, I have to get dressed,” she whispered.

  “Just hurry up, this place is not conducive to my well being,” but she’d already hung up.

  It wasn’t thirty minutes, more like two hours and thirty minutes. It was evening and the moon was up when I walked out with Heidi and Harold, the boy toy she had in tow.

  Surprise, surprise, Heidi looked like she just rolled out of bed.

  Harold was fairly good looking in that too skinny, lounge-lizard sort of way. Dirty blond hair, longish and parted in the middle, a carefully trimmed three-day growth of beard. Sandals, loose-fitting jeans topped by an untucked grayed T-shirt touting Insane Clown Posse, a band I despise. A line of pizza or taco sauce was dribbled down the front of his T-shirt. I guessed him to be a day or two past his eighteenth birthday, barely legal.

  “Dude, that was way cool. I’ve never been inside a cop shop before,” Harold said brushing his hair back behind his ear, the hair fell forward almost immediately.