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“I like your hair,” I lied.

“No you don’t. I’ve got an appointment the day after tomorrow, so save it, it’s going back to normal.” She got up and walked into the kitchen. I could see her set her mostly full wine glass in the sink. She walked back out into the living room, turned off the light on the end table, then picked up my nearly full beer bottle.

“Come on, let’s go to bed,” she said, put her free hand in mine, and led me through the kitchen. She set the bottle on the counter as we walked past but never stopped.

Chapter 45

I woke to her kissing me good-bye. She was dressed, smelled of perfume and hair conditioner, and was out the bedroom door after telling me to lock up when I left. I drifted back to sleep until Aaron’s phone call rudely interrupted my dream recounting the previous night.

“Sergie Alekseeva? Where’d you get that information?”

“Fine thanks, how are you?” I answered.

“Sergie.”

“Someone who would know. You can check it with his old man if you want. Might be a way to get on his good side, you know giving him his son’s body. On the other hand it…”

“I don’t really need to be on Braco Alekseeva’s good side, should he have one. You know anything else on this, like maybe who pulled the trigger?”

“Believe me if I did I would give them a medal and then tell you who it was. From what my source told me, old Sergie was a bit of a jerk.”

“To put it mildly,” Aaron said.

“So you know him?”

“I know of him. The old man’s the power. Sergie was just the idiot son in line to take the reins someday. This is the logical result, it’s just ahead of schedule. Something ever happened to the old man Sergie wasn’t going to last the day. We’d have to rent the main ballroom at the Crown Plaza just to hold all our suspects.”

“Gee, he sounds like a real charmer.”

“Aren’t they all?” Aaron said, added his good-bye and hung up.

Chapter 46

Given the state of Heidi’s pantry I felt fortunate to find coffee and some mint creme Oreos for breakfast. I wondered how someone could look so good on such a constant diet of crap. Following her parting instructions I locked up on my way out the door.

I’d barely left Heidi’s front steps when I spotted two guys sitting in the front seat of a nondescript car. It was a Ford or Chevrolet, maybe a Buick, I wasn’t sure, but American made, burgundy, no white walls on the tires. They were parked across the street from my car, maybe two houses farther down the block. They seemed to be talking, sipping coffee. I didn’t think they’d seen me yet.

All they needed was a rack of flashing lights across the top of their car. City cops would have been a little more discreet, maybe parked around the corner. Bad guys probably would be under a front porch or up in a tree with a high-powered rifle. I was half a block away and these two screamed Feds. I could only hope it was FBI agent Kimball “Dickhead” Peters because I wanted to make him run in his shiny wingtips.

As I walked toward my car I could see them looking back and forth at each another discussing something. Then the guy behind the steering wheel passed something to his partner. He glanced up and down, from me to whatever he was holding, and then back up to me. I guessed it was probably a copy of my driver’s license photo. Maybe they couldn’t recognize me because I was wearing my St. Paul Saints baseball cap or because my license photo looked like I should be arrested for war crimes.

I was maybe ten feet from my car when they opened both doors simultaneously. I took an immediate right, climbed three steps toward the front door of a house, then followed the sidewalk around the corner of the house toward the back.

That stopped them for a moment. I could see them look at each other out of the corner of my eye, not sure what to do. They wore dark suits, ties, and although neither one looked like Kimball Peters I could tell from here their shoes were shined.

“Haskell?” one of them called to me.

I kept walking around the side of the house, disappeared from their view.

“Haskell, wait, FBI. Stay right where you are,” they yelled, like that was supposed to work.

I hopped a picket fence, ran across the backyard, hopped the far side of the fence then up along the side of the house, and peeked around the front corner. They were just charging across the front yard of the house next door, heavy on their feet. I could hear one of them gasping and either pocket change or car keys jiggling. I waited a moment until they’d cleared the corner and headed toward the backyard. I figured they’d probably run at least to the alley and look up and down. I jogged to my car, shook my head at the bullet hole in the windshield, as I started it and drove up to their vehicle.

I was right, it was a Ford. Sections of newspaper were spread across the front seat and an enlarged copy of my driver’s license photo rested on top of the dashboard. There was a takeout cup from Starbucks on the street with a sizeable puddle of coffee slowly running across the asphalt. What a waste. I grabbed a screwdriver from the floor of my backseat, jammed it into their front tire, pulled it out to the sound of an audible hiss, jammed it in again. Then got behind the wheel and drove off. I still didn’t see them in the rearview mirror as I turned the corner.

It occurred to me that driving to my house may not be the best of ideas. So I went down to the Spot Bar.

Linda was there, working the lunch-hour trade. Not that the Spot served lunch, they didn’t, but it was reasonably busy with the liquid-diet crowd.

“Hi, Linda. Anyone been looking for me?”

“You mean like that blond with the big ones.”

“Big eyes?”

“Shut up. No, no one. Who needs the kind of headache or heartbreak that follows you around?”

“I’m just misunderstood. Look, do me a favor, if someone comes looking, let me know.” I pulled a ten out of my pocket and put it on the bar.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah, just sort of dodging some possible trouble, you know.”

She rolled her eyes.

“Which one this time, husband or boyfriend?”

“Would it make a difference?”

“Not really,” she said pocketing the ten. “Anyone asks, I’ll give you a call.”

“Thanks.”

“Get you something?” she asked, pulling a beer tap for the couple two stools down.

“Nah, I just finished breakfast.”

“What do you think this is?” she said and pushed the fresh beers across the bar, then picked up two empty glasses.

Chapter 47

I didn’t know what I was looking for or who I should talk to even if I did know. I needed a friend. No one sprang to mind, so I decided to go to the Moscow Deli and see Tibor. When I walked in he was leaning against a chopping block behind the meat counter, arms folded across his chest, looking pissed off and disgusted with the world in general. Some things never change. He didn’t seem overjoyed to see me. As I approached the counter he didn’t move, which I guess was good. As far as I could tell we were the only two in the place.

“Tibor, how’s it going?”

He grunted, at least I thought it was a grunt.

“Look, Tibor, I want to thank you for introducing me to your friend Braco, that’s worked out real well for me. Too bad about little Sergie, who knew?”

“Braco not forget.” Then he reached behind him and picked up a wicked-looking cleaver, grasped it in his right, three-fingered paw, recrossed his arms and proceeded to stare at me without blinking.

“I’ll be honest, Tibor. I found Kerri but I guess she’s over me. I’m still looking for Nikki Mathias though, any ideas?”

He actually sort of smiled, I think, sort of.

“Everyone look for Nikki. They not find her.”

“Why’s that, they won’t find her?”

“Hunh,” he scoffed. “She from the Urals, father a hunter. Only find her when she wants you to. Not before.”