Tea Leafing: A Novel (27 page)

“Nothing, Grace’s here.
Just told her what happened.”

“You can tell the
girls, but don’t let this get out. We don’t want leaks until we’ve had more
time to investigate.”

“No problem. I, uh, I’m
at a loss for words. I mean, we weren’t close but I wouldn’t have wished her
dead.” Sam paused, “Was Fedya there?”

Grace scrambled through
her bag for her cell phone. She speed dialed Mary Jane as she walked to the
bathroom.

“Well, sort of. He was
on the island, but the two were booked in separate rooms. He paid cash for her
room but put his on a card. The hotel staff remembered it because he’s a
regular guest and, although it goes against policy, he insisted his card not be
used for her room. Said it was so his wife wouldn’t find out. Buncha bullshit.”

“So, did he find her,
or what?”

“I can only tell you so
much. A lot of this is classified you realize?”

“Yeah, so go ahead
anyway.”

“He was apparently
having lunch with some South American friends at a nearby cafe. The maids found
her when they went to make up her room. He’s not putting much effort into
playing the grieving boyfriend. Spent the morning tanning by the pool.”

“Wow,” Sam chewed her
lip. “I wonder if it was really an OD. Not that it would surprise me, but how’d
she get a hold of the drugs? I’m sure it’s not that difficult to find in the
Caribbean, but she didn’t travel with them, did she?”

“They flew down on his
private jet and made it through customs okay. He’s booked to take a British
Airways flight to London, then on to Yekaterinburg on Sunday. So far, he’s not
a suspect in the investigation there, so he’s free to go. He’s got solid
alibis, no matter how shady they may be.”

“We’ll keep our ears to
the ground for you.”

“How about laying low
for a while? I get the feeling you four are up to something. We don’t need help
that badly and I don’t want you ladies stirring up trouble. Understand?”

Sam’s stomach tightened
with the same knot, it always had when she
lied
, “No
problem. I’ll pass the word along.”

“Sam?”

“Yeah?”

“My boys wanted me to
pass along the thank you for the creative refresher course in surveillance
techniques you girls piped in for them. I’m hoping you were just messing
around, not covering something up.”
 

Sam gave a nervous
laugh she hoped would sound natural, “We’re just trying to keep them on their
toes, that’s all.”

“Be careful.” The line
went dead.

CHAPTER 59

“What the fack is
this?” Birdie pointed to the typewritten list of rules taped every two feet
down the mirrors in the dressing room. “Since when did gum chewing become a
punishable offense?”

Mary Jane shook her
head as she double wrapped her apron strings around her waist.

“Just ignore it, Bird,”
Grace soothed.

“No! This is outrageous!
They treat us like slaves when we’re the ones puttin’ porridge on their tables!
Fack this!”

Grumbled obscenities echoeded
through the dressing room. Lucille stood at the edge of the central mirror,
clipboard pressed to her sagging chest.

“Ten minutes, girls!”
She sounded the countdown to the mandatory floor time.

Dancers shuffled
quickly around one another trying to make the cut-off and avoid what was now a
seventy-five dollar fine. Lycra and stretch knits flew from bags, heavy shoes
thudded against the floor and make-up cases rattled in a last ditch effort to make
the cut-off.

Sam grabbed Birdie’s
arm. “Just cool it, Birdie.”

Yanking her arm away,
Birdie stepped close to Sam “Yer not me mum, so just shut the fack up Sam.”

Sam stood to her full
height of six foot one in her heels. “Back up, Birdie. We don’t need to do this
here.” Her hands trembled. “You know you need to relax.”

Birdie stood her
ground, nostrils flaring. Grace and Mary Jane jumped to attention and wedged
themselves between the two.

“We’re all on the same
side here guys.”

Let’s handle this
later, okay?” Mary Jane whispered.

“Beat each other to
hell next week if you want, but not now,” Grace added.

Birdie blew out an
angry breath and stomped toward the door.

Sam was shaking too
hard to bother with her liquid eyeliner.

“Fuck it.” She threw
the tube against the mirror.

Grace and Mary Jane
grabbed her hands and led her to the floor where they would have a few minutes
to compare notes before plunging into the Thursday night crowd.

CHAPTER 60

“Such a shame.” Fedya
said nonchalantly. He touched the corner of each card, fanning them in his hand
before lifting his cigar from its tray and drawing deeply from the chewed tip.
His eyes moved to the other four players at the table, one at a time, trying to
read their faces. He loved playing competitive games with his associates
because it helped him learn their game faces and more importantly,
their
tells.

“What do they say? Just
say NO!” He grinned at his own joke and was rewarded with the sinister chuckles
from his opponents. “Such beauuuty wasted. She will be missed.” He paused and
studied his cigar. “By someone, I’m sure.”

Hoarse chuckles.

The portly Colombian
man across the table from Fedya leaned back in his chair “Eef more peeple say
no, wee would be out oof beezness,
mi
amigo
.”

Fedya tapped the edge
of his stacked cards on the table, “This is truth.”

The group sat around a
large, round table set up for them to play their usual game of poker. The
location always changed, but the players remained the same. Tonight it was in
the back room of a small bodega in Charlestown, situated on the western coast
of Nevis. Since the island had its own system of government, it was a safe
place to meet. The local police and business owners were easily quieted through
healthy donations. Prior to their arrival, the building had been swept for
listening devices. Guards for the various bosses patrolled the perimeter.
Staring into the darkened jungles surrounding them, the safeties of their automatic
weapons were disengaged.

“Thank you Aldo, for
helping me with this problem. I owe you.”

“No problem Feedya, you
do enough for me. We haf boullion to move and money to make, so
salud
, to my partneers in crime!” Aldo
raised his glass.

“
Budem zdorovy
!” Fedya joined the toast.

CHAPTER 61

 
After the narrowly averted scuffle in
the dressing room, the night was uneventful. That is, until the club closed.

Birdie passed her
evening in one of the VIP rooms while Sam and Grace worked the floor. The money
was flowing, and despite being invited into several rooms themselves, both were
nervous and preferred to stay busy dancing. VIPs were great, but they required
more skilled conversation and mental energy than either girl could muster at
present. They didn’t see Birdie at all, since she’d tipped her way out of stage
sets and full dress walkout, preferring instead to hole up and lick her wounds.
Toward the end of the evening, one of the waitresses reported to Mary Jane that
Birdie was three sheets to the wind and was way past the point of belligerence.

Standing in a group
outside the dressing room, Sam, Grace, and Mary Jane saw Gio poke his head into
the Pussycat Powder Room and ask, “Any of yous seen Nikki?” The response must
have been no because he lurched back out, made a face, and walked toward the
trio.

“Gio.” Grace reached her
hand out as if to stop him, “Is everything okay?”

“Just lookin’ for
Nikki,” he paused “Seen her?”

The three shook their
heads “No,” each one maintaining a poker face and trying not to glance at the
others.

Seeing that he was
truly distressed, Sam touched his sleeve. And lied. “She’ll turn up.”

He gave a frustrated
nod and was a few steps away when Birdie appeared, stepping from the elevator.
One of the bouncers was helping her across the floor past the main stage. Her
eyes lingered lazily from chair to chair rather than on the floor in front of
her.

“One a’ you gonna be
able to get her home?” Gio nodded toward Birdie.

Grace and Mary Jane
looked at Sam. Sam was torn. Was it worth the risk to demand that they send
Birdie home in a cab? That could backfire tenfold if Birdie reacted in an
unpredictable way. Unpredictability was the only predictable thing about her.
Sam chewed her lip. If Birdie self-immolated, she might just take
their
meticulously crafted plan for Saturday night with her.

“All right. We’ll take
her.”

Gio raised his eyebrow
as if surprised by her reluctance.

Birdie and the bouncer
had trotted up next to the group and Birdie’s gaze locked on Sam.

Lunging forward, she
connected with Sam’s jaw in a well-placed uppercut. Everything went into slow motion
as Sam’s head snapped and she lost her balance. Sam scrambled to a crouch and
plowed into Birdie, taking her down onto the sticky wood floor in a low tackle.
Shoes, earrings, and a random clip-in hairpiece flew. Crowding around the
brawl, Grace, Mary Jane, Gio, and the bouncer all tried to grab hold of the
girls, but Sam and Birdie were too quick. Rolling away in a tangled mass, they
continued to pummel away at each other. In a squatted run, the team of referees
chased after them grunting and swearing.

“What the fuck is wrong
wit’ you?” Gio shouted over the shrieks.

Sam managed to twist to
the top and straddle Birdie, pinning her to the floor with her knees. Birdie
held a wad of Sam’s hair in a death grip, trying to pull her off. Being sober,
Sam had the upper hand in speed. She pulled Birdie’s tube dress up over her
head as she jumped to a squat over her writhing legs. The effect was the same
as “shirting” an opponent in a hockey match, and in this case it worked. The
ruckus had attracted four other bouncers who got control of Birdie.

Sam collapsed to the
side, ignoring the nasty grit from the floor, in which she was now covered. A
trickle of blood seeped from a split on her lip. But aside from a multitude of scrapes
and scratches, she seemed okay. Looking up at Gio, Grace, and Mary Jane, she
said, “Scrappy little bitch, ain’t she?”

Laughter broke the
tension. Grace and Mary Jane knelt down on either side of her. Gio bent down in
front, checking her over to make sure she was all right, or maybe to make sure
the club wasn’t going to get sued.

“Remind me never to
piss you off, Sam.” He smiled.
An unusual act for him.

“Too late for that,
Gio.” Sam returned the smile.

They could still hear
Birdie screaming obscenities as the bouncers dragged her into the dressing
room.

“Still wanna take her
home?” Gio raised his thick eyebrows and glanced at Grace.

“Oh, yes!” Sam
interjected, “I’m gonna kick her ASS once I get her off your property!”

Gio winked. “I’m sure
you awe, Sam. Maybe yous should take it easy tonight and go at it again
tomorrow.”

“We’ll take care of it,
Gio.” Mary Jane said, removing her work apron and wrapping the long ties around
the bundle.

“Am I suspended again?”
Sam dropped her head fearing they may have just blown their chance.

“Nope. You were just
defending yourself.”

Sam looked up at Gio,
not sure whether to believe his unexpected burst of rational thought.

“Birdie is though. One
week and five hundred bucks.” His eyes skimmed the group. “She’s becoming a
fuckin’ liability. I just can’t afford to have her screwing shit up here.”

“We understand. Can you
cut her a break though? Let her finish Chicken Plucker’s and suspend her
starting Monday?”

“Sorry, hurting her
money is the whole point. She gets away with this, she thinks I’m a fuckin’
pushover.”

“We’ll get her back in
line,” Mary Jane touched Sam’s head and looked at her rapidly bloating lip, “Or
at least, we’ll try.”

“I’ll have the boys
bring your cars around. What do you want me to have them do wit’ her?” Gio said
nodding toward the dressing room.

Sam looked up, “Hog tie
her and carry her out front.”

“Are you serious?”

The three quickly
nodded. “It’s the only way we can keep her under control until she sobers up.
Would you want to drive on I-85 at four-thirty a.m. with a Tasmanian devil in
the car?”

“Consider it done.”

CHAPTER 62

 
“It was pure, as in uncut.
Hard to come by a grade like that, even if your connections are
excellent.
Usually the cutting process starts at the processing plant,
then it’s cut again at several stops along the way,” the agent on the other end
reported.

“Okay.” Joe’s eyebrows
gathered as he jotted notes into his small tablet.

“To get a chemical this
pure, it had to come from someone very close to the grower.
That,
or someone powerful enough to get an untouched product.
In any case, it
looks like this girl amped up with what she thought was her normal dosage and
it literally blew her mind.” The agent on the other end of the line chuckled.

Joe understood that morgue
humor was the way a lot of investigators dealt with the constant stream of
carnage, but it still bothered him. “Mmm. So what was the actual cause of
death? A hemorrhage?”

“Yeah, looks like she
had a stroke then went into cardiac arrest. Not a pretty way to go.”

“What’s the word on the
Russian?”

“Can’t pin it on him.
Other than the room charges being paid in cash he’s kept himself squeaky clean.
We couldn’t even find his prints in her room. He’s a sleazy
mother
fucker
, no question about it. But he’s also slick as a greased eel in a
tub of Jell-O.”