She took her sweet time. I could hear the rustle of paper grocery bags, the occasional kitchen-cabinet door closing. Eventually she appeared in the doorway.
“What the hell happened to you?” I asked, beginning to sit up until the cramps kicked in again. Her hair was an Easter Egg pink.
“Oh, Harold thought it would be really radical,” she said, tossing her head, seemingly not too convinced.
“The boy toy?”
“Yeah, he’s a hairdresser, too.”
“He does your hair?”
“Oh, please don’t go there. I never want to see that disgusting little piglet ever again in my life.”
“Gee, who would ever imagine gnarly old Harold might come up with a bad idea?”
“Arghhh. On a happier note I’ve got some Imodium and a glass of Pedilite for you.”
“Pedilite?”
“It’s for babies, so they don’t get dehydrated, which you certainly are. A baby and getting dehydrated. God, you look like shit, pardon the pun.”
“I don’t know…”
“That’s right, stop right there. You don’t know. You called me for help so that’s what I’m doing. Take these and just shut up.” She thrust a glass and two small pills at me.
I swallowed the pills, then chased them down with a couple of swallows of something that tasted like bubble gum. Felt the cool liquid run all the way into my empty stomach, begin to splash up only to eventually settle. I must have had a cautionary look on my face.
“Staying down?” Heidi asked, ready to jump aside if necessary.
“Yeah, I think so. Look, I just wanted you to…”
“I know what you wanted, Dev. Wouldn’t it be nice if I could just sit around and waste my time rubbing your back and attending to your every need for about forty-eight hours? Then clean your bathroom on my way out the door? Forget it. Listen, under the circumstances I brought you a twelve-pack of extra gentle Charmin and a container of baby wipes with aloe. You got any white wine in your fridge?”
“I’m not ready for white wine,” I groaned.
“I wasn’t thinking of you.”
I pulled some sweats on and exited my bedroom for the first time in about thirty hours. It was just after seven in the morning. My pink-haired Nurse Ratchet was asleep on the living-room couch under a faux leopard skin throw, snoring softly. An empty bottle of my white wine had rolled halfway under the couch. The remnants of a devoured package of Oreo cookies rested on the coffee table next to a wine glass with barely a swallow left. From what I could ascertain she’d downloaded Sex in the City 2, 2010 from Netflix the night before. I decided not to wake her.
Just to play it safe I had another Imodium and a Pedilite over ice for breakfast, sipping as I looked out the window and thought about Braco Alekseeva.
Chapter 38
It was another twenty-four hours before I felt strong enough to venture outside. Even then I was subsisting on dried toast, Chamomile tea, and the dreaded Pedilite. I carried the Imodium in my pocket just in case.
According to what I could find out, which wasn’t much, Braco Alekseeva resided in a penthouse suite on the thirty-sixth floor of St. Paul’s Twin Towers, a condo saddled with an unfortunate name choice made in 1999. Actually Alekseeva didn’t reside in a penthouse suite, he resided in the only penthouse suite. Making it virtually impossible to get anywhere near the thirty-sixth floor. Amazingly, there was a heliport up there, which might make it rather difficult to follow Mr. Alekseeva should he travel by that method. The Twin Towers made it downright impossible to closely watch who came and went since you’d have to watch the common lobby servicing both towers. In the interest of sanity I took up a position at the rear of the building, on Robert Street. Down half a block from where the entrance and exit to the underground parking garage was situated. It was a monitored entrance, with a twenty-four hour manned security desk, which eliminated any option of casually ducking in and wandering through underground parking looking for a blue BMW Z4 that smelled like Kerri’s perfume.
I sat in my car armed with thirty dollars worth of quarters to stuff the parking meter and a six pack of Pedilite, which I was beginning to acquire a taste for. On day three, with about a dollar seventy-five worth of quarters remaining, a blue BMW drove up the exit ramp from underground parking and headed north. I followed.
The car wove a circuitous route through downtown, eventually turning one hundred and eighty degrees before traveling west following the Mississippi river along Sheppard Road. The road is eight miles of four-lane and then just beyond a cloverleaf interchange Sheppard Road becomes the River Boulevard, a wooded city street riding along the edge of the river bluff. There are scenic overlooks all along the route where cars can pull into a tailored parking area and view the sights. The BMW pulled into one of these and Kerri climbed out of the car, leaned against the trunk smoking a cigarette with her arms crossed looking like she was waiting for someone. She held the cigarette between her thumb and middle finger, like a French movie star, or someone smoking dope, come to think of it.
I pulled into the parking lot, circled around, then stopped just opposite her, perpendicular to her BMW. I lowered the window, but kept the car in gear, not sure what was going to happen. I had my.45 resting on my lap, just to feel comfortable.
“God, it is about time,” she said, taking a final drag from her cigarette, then dropping it to the ground, crushing it with her toe and exhaling a cloud of smoke. She took a step or two toward my car and crossed her arms. Not in a sense of inflexibility as much as she seemed to be hugging herself, making things safe. She glanced quickly over the roof of my car checking up and down the road.
“So Dev, what is new, have you found out anything for me?” she asked, sort of shrugged her shoulders and smiled innocently. She was anything but.
What’s new? I thought. Aside from you not answering my phone calls? How about I’ve been shot, chased, arrested, poisoned, I’ve still got whisker burn on my inner thighs, my beverage of choice is now Pedilite and the last woman I spoke with for more than twenty minutes was run over by a red Lexus LX11. Which, I’m willing to bet, belongs to your boyfriend. And all of this is connected to you, in some way. Instead I said, “Oh you know, not much, same old same old,” trying to act coy.
“Have you learned anything of my sister, Nikki?”
“Your sister? Would she have been born in France, too?”
“What? That really is not the point is it, Dev? Have you learned where she is?”
“Not really Kerri. Other things keep popping up, you know.”
“We’re all busy, but when I hired you…”
“Like your boyfriend, old Braco, there. What can you tell me about him?”
“I don’t think Mr. Alekseeva is the point, Dev. I hired you to find Nikki, for me.”
“Your sister.”
“Yes.”
“Was she born in France?” I asked again.
“I don’t think that has anything to do with what I hired you to learn.”
“Look, Kerri, I’m walking. I’m off the case, I quit.”
“Quit. You mean you’re not going to find Nikki for me?”
“Not exactly what I said. I said I quit. I’m not working for you anymore. I am going to find Nikki. While I’m at it, I’m going to find out who ran over Da’nita Bell. Make sure someone gets held accountable for that. Then, I’m probably going to press my luck and introduce myself to your little fuck buddy Braco.”
“I wouldn’t advise you bothering Mr. Alekseeva,” she said, looking over the roof of my car, checking up and down the road again.
“I’ve never been one to heed advice, Kerri, even if it’s good.”
“Are you doing this because of the shooting? Did the bullet make you cuckoo or something?”
“Me, no, I’ve always been like this. We call it pig headed, you familiar with the term?”
“I’m familiar with pigs,” she scoffed.
“I’ll bet you are.”