“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?”
“Yeah, but just for a minute.”
“She good, she’s that fast.”
“No, I didn’t mean it like that, and I don’t really want to see her again.”
Da’nita nodded at the empty glasses. When I returned with a new round I thought she was looking slightly glassy eyed. Her head seemed to wobble for a brief moment.
“So, you were gonna help me get in touch with Kerri and tell me what went on there.”
“You sure you’re not a cop?”
“No, I’m not a cop, honest.”
“It’s against the law to lie about that. You tell me you’re not a cop and you are, you’re not gonna have a leg to stand on in court, Devil.”
“I promise, Da’nita, cross my heart. Believe me the cops are very happy about the fact I’m not one of them.” I traced a small cross over my heart as I took the oath.
She downed a good portion of her drink, slammed the glass harder than she meant to as she put it back down on the table.
“Kerri?”
“What about her? She’s Russian, I know that. I had to sit there and listen to her talking all that yik yak on the phone enough times to know that much. Nikki, she’s not her sister.”
“What’s Nikki’s last name?”
“Nikki? I thought you said you knew? It’s Mathias.”
“So just the same as Kerri?”
“Kerri? Nah, not hardly, her’s was Vucavitch.” She spit out the ‘vitch’ pronunciation. “First name’s actually Karina, Karina Vucavitch, but she always goes by Kerri because it sounds more American.”
“How’d you meet her, Kerri?”
“We danced together a few years back. You might not have guessed it to look at me now, but I was something. They all wanted little Da’nita.”
“You mean stripping?”
“It was way more than that. A girl had to have real talent back then. I was dancing one night, some drunk son of a bitch shoots at someone in the bar, misses, of course, and hits me. Next thing I know, when I wake up I can’t walk and my ass in this damn thing for the rest of my days. Kerri comes out a nowhere, gives me a job answering the phones and all. She contacts the girls. I’m their voice to the public. Hell, most of those girls can barely speak English,” she said sitting up a little straighter in her wheelchair.
“So, it’s an escort service?”
“Gee, really, you think?”
“How’d they get the girls?”
“They were all Russian as far as I know. Even Mai. Nikki too, her name was something like Nikolaevna. She told me once it meant ‘On the side of God.’ I thought that was kind of funny, you know, she being a working girl and all.”
“You ever meet a guy named Leo Tate, or a guy named Dennis Dundee?”
“Some guy named Leo used to come in. He and Kerri never really got on that well. They argued all the time. The arguments seemed to get worse as time went on. To tell you the truth, every time he came in I sort of made myself disappear. I really don’t need any more trouble.”
“What was the problem?”
“I can’t be sure, but if I had to guess I’d say money. They just seemed to argue more and more every time he came in. Then the last time I saw him he slapped Kerri around pretty good. I never saw him after that and then I heard he was killed.”
“How’d you find out?”
“I’ve got my ways, Devil, I’ve got my ways.”
I talked with Da’nita through another Cosmopolitan but didn’t learn much more except that she was slurring her words. I think I left knowing more than when I arrived but I had no idea what it was I knew. If Da’nita Bell was to be believed, I had Kerri and Nikki’s names, knew they weren’t sisters. I also learned that the heart tattoo, DB + DB stood for Da’nita Bell plus Darius Bell. Darius was her son, currently in the middle of doing eighteen months up in Lino Lakes.
I phoned Aaron, and as per usual left a message. I thought he should at least have Kerri’s real name.
Chapter 20
I wasted the next day looking for Kerri and got absolutely nowhere. I would have had better luck checking under my living-room couch. In between times I worked on not taking a pain pill. I placed two more calls to Aaron, figuring any more than that would put me into the pest category. He phoned the following day.
“Hey, I got your messages, quit being a pain in the ass. If I had something to tell you I would have called. God forbid I drop any of the fifty or sixty things I’ve got hanging fire to deal with your little bump on the head.”
I wondered if pain in the ass ranked above or below pest but decided not to pursue that line of questioning.
“Well, I just wanted to add some information, keep your investigation moving forward.”
“Such as?”
“Kerri, real name, Karina Vucavitch, nationality believed to be Russian. Nikki Mathias, first name Nikolaevna, also believed to be Russian. Her name means…”
“Means close to God.”
“Actually, on the side of God, I think,” fudging, remembering my source. “How in the hell do you know that?”
“Whatever. Where’d you pick up all this new information, Holmes?”
“A little investigative effort at Boxer’s bar on behalf of your boy. You were right by the way, not a very nice place.”
“You talk to Da’nita Bell there?”
“Yes, I did.”
“You read the paper or listen to the news in the past twenty-four hours?”
“Hunh?”
“Da’nita Bell’s dead. Hit and run about a block away from Boxer’s. Apparently she left the place shit faced, nothing unusual there, got hit crossing the street. No witnesses, pizza-delivery guy spotted her under a parked car sometime after midnight. Her wheelchair was all smashed up about twenty feet further down the street. When did you last see her?”
“I think it must have been around six thirty or so. Actually, when I phoned you I was on my way home after talking with her. Whatever time that call came in, I had left her maybe five or ten minutes before that.”
“You shouldn’t phone while you’re driving.”
Aaron’s joke was lost on me, I was working the odds in my head of a hit and run not being related to my conversation with Da’nita, not having something to do with Kerri and Nikki. The odds seemed about one in a million.
“You there?” Aaron asked.
“What? Yeah. No idea who hit her?”
“Does the term hit and run mean anything? No, no idea. They got some paint chips off her wheelchair. They’ll analyze them, maybe get a color if not a vehicle type. That should only take about twelve months before the results get back to us.”
“You working it?”
“No, thank God. I got enough stuff not going anywhere. I don’t need that headache.”
“Aaron, I’ll bet you lunch it was a dark blue vehicle, and if you could find Nikki Mathias you’d have a good chance of getting your hands on the driver.”
“I’ll pass it on. We should probably talk but I’m up to my ass in alligators right now. Stay in touch, okay.”
“Yeah, hey can you run Karina Vucavitch through your computer see what comes up. I, hello, Aaron, you there? Hello?” he’d already hung up.
I thought about Da’nita Bell. Was she killed because she talked to me? Because she worked with Kerri? Did she know more than she’d told me? I thought maybe I could start to get some answers at the deli Da’nita mentioned, and check the escort office while I was there. Who knew, maybe Kerri might even be there, sitting back with her feet up on the desk, just waiting for me to show up so she could help get all these nagging questions off my chest.
Chapter 21
The Moscow Deli was located in a fifties-era strip mall constructed of singularly unmemorable beige brick. Despite the fact it was a bright, sunny afternoon the neon sign outside the door was on. The “M” in the sign was out and the red letters read “oscow Deli”. All the storefronts opened on to a cracked sidewalk beneath a rusty sheet-metal canopy. The view from inside the deli was of a sparsely filled parking lot, with just a hint of faded white lines and more than a few potholes. The traffic on the street raced past constantly. Rarely did a vehicle risk venturing into the parking lot.