We stepped outside, and she looked furtively from side to side.
“I promise I won’t hurt you, Kerri. I just have a couple of questions to ask and then you can go.” We were walking back down the alley, retracing the route I’d taken three or four minutes before.
At the end of the alley I directed us left instead of right. My car was parked fifteen feet from the alley. I opened the passenger door for her, and she slid in after the slightest hesitation. I went around the front of the car, climbed in the driver’s side. Kerri looked at me with large eyes, shoulders hunched, hands stuck in her coat pockets. She shivered slightly.
“To tell you the truth, Kerri, I’ve got so many questions I don’t even know where to begin.”
“Questions about what?”
“Well, for starters, who in the hell is Nikki?”
“I told you she is my sis…”
“Nikolaevna Mathias is your sister?”
“Who told you that name?”
“Same person that told me your name is Karina Vucavitch.”
Her eyes widened but she didn’t say anything. Eventually she just shrugged her shoulders, answered, “So.”
“So, what’s going on? I start looking for your sister, and the next thing I know people are getting shot. Like me for instance and the …”
“I already told you I was sorry.”
“Gee, thanks. And, the guy with the license that said his name was Andrew Quinn. Who the hell was he?”
I caught the slightest hint of surprise cross her face.
“He’s called Sergie.”
“Sergie?”
“Sergie Alekseeva.”
“Any relation to your main squeeze Braco?”
“His son.”
“And you, your son?”
“Don’t be a stupid,” she said then said something in Russian, given the tone I didn’t really need a translation, then she switched back to English.
“He was a pig, he raped me. Braco would give us to him, they all thought it was funny.”
“Funny? I thought you were Braco’s I don’t know, what, partner?”
“I’m whatever Braco wants me to be. I’m soulless, a ghost, his whore of the moment.”
“Well, don’t sugarcoat it, Kerri. Gee, you make it sound really healthy. Why not just leave?”
“You would not understand.”
“Try me?”
“It is all very simple. If I do not do what Braco wants he will kill my family back in Russia. My mother, my father, my two brothers, and my little sister. I know this. He will do it. Then he will show me pictures of their bodies. Then he will make me a five-dollar whore. And then, just before I die, he will turn me into your police because I have no passport and I stay here not legal. There is no one who can help me, and I am the only one who can save my family.”
“But there must be something you can do?”
“When Braco wants something, there is nothing you can do.”
I almost couldn’t hear her she said it so softly.
“That’s bullshit.”
“Bullshit, is that what you would call it? Really? You will see, because Braco wants you now.”
“Me? What the hell does he want with me?”
“Now he blames you for Sergie. He thinks you tricked him.”
“Tricked Sergie? I didn’t even know he existed until a moment ago when you told me. Now what’s going to happen?”
She looked at me out of the corner of her eye, then slowly pulled a pistol from her jacket pocket.
“I wish it was someone else, Dev,” she said.
“Jesus, don’t point that thing…” I slapped the pistol off to the side, just as it went off. I grabbed her wrist and forearm in my hands and slammed them hard against the dashboard. She gasped each time I slammed her arm into the dash. I held onto her wrist but let go of her forearm and punched her on the chin, punched a second time, and she dropped the gun. I let go of her wrist.
“I’m so sorry, Dev,” she said as she rolled out the passenger door, sort of landing on all fours. She began crawling, then quickly picked up speed and was on her feet running back up the alley. I could have chased her but there was that SUV at the other end of the block, and in all honesty, I just sat there. My ears were still ringing, the inside of my car smelled like cordite, and I had a bullet hole in my windshield with a spider web pattern running around it the size of a dinner plate.
It would only be a matter of thirty seconds before she made it to the SUV and told whoever was in there where I was. I thought the prudent thing might be to just calmly get the hell out of there.
“I wish it was someone else, Dev.” Did she mean someone else she was going to shoot or someone else who was going to shoot me?
Chapter 43
I drove a zigzag route over to Jefferson Avenue, then headed west in the general direction of Heidi’s, driving on side streets to make sure I wasn’t being followed. My first call was to 911.
“Nine-one-one, Ramsey County Dispatch.”
“Yeah, I want to report an SUV with some guys in it parked on Randolph Avenue. They had a gun.”
“A gun, sir?”
“Yeah, I was just walking past, I was in the Spot Bar across the street. I came out, walked past their car, and they had a gun.”
“Were they pointing it at you?”
“No, they were yelling at this woman in a blue sports car, a BMW, I think. I just got out of there.”
The dispatcher asked my name, the number I was calling from, a call back number. I didn’t expect anything to happen, but it would be nice to have a police cruiser or two driving up and down the street just to keep those clowns out of the area.
My next call was to Aaron. I got dumped into the usual message center.
“Aaron, Dev. Hey look, it’s about 10:15. I might have a name for you on that Andrew Quinn body. The guy who lost his head, it may be Sergie Alekseeva. That would be the son of ‘Braco the Whacko.’ Give my regards to your close pal Kimball Peters. Later, man.”
Chapter 44
I drove over to Heidi’s. Although the street was nearly empty I parked up on the next block, just in case I was unlucky enough to have some hapless Russian stumble across my car. I phoned Heidi from her front door.
“Hey, you feeling any better?” I said once she answered her phone.
“Oh Dev, that’s so sweet of you to check on me. Yeah, long day but I think I’ll live.”
“Listen I was thinking if you’re not too busy and it isn’t too late I might swing by just to…”
“Why, what’s wrong?”
“Why does something have to be wrong? I’m on your end of town is all. Look, if it’s a problem, just say so.”
“Well, no I guess it’s okay. You can come over.”
I rang the doorbell, heard it echo back in my phone.
“Oh, God, hang on there’s someone at the door. What idiot is ringing my doorbell at this hour of…” She opened the door and stared at me then shook her head.
“You idiot,” she said and hung up.
“Thanks for inviting me over,” I said stepping in, closing the door behind me.
Heidi looked out at the empty street.
“Where’s your car? You didn’t walk here did you?”
“Car? Oh, I parked a couple of houses away, just in case you looked out the window, didn’t want to ruin my joke.”
She seemed to buy that.
“Get you a glass of wine or a beer?” she asked walking back into the kitchen. She was barefoot, wearing a T-shirt and gray sweatpants. Across the rear of her sweatpants the word PINK was spelled out in pink letters. As if her perfectly firm butt needed anything to draw attention to it.
“You having anything?”
“I’m having a glass of wine,” she said opening her refrigerator.
“Little hair of the dog?”
“No, it’s white wine.” She was serious.
“Beer for me, no glass is fine.”
We chatted in her living room about everything and anything. I really do enjoy her company. I also noticed she was in one of those guarded drinking modes. She would raise the glass and then begin to set it down just as the wine touched her lips. I was opening my third beer.