Mike Faricy - Russian Roulette

“Yes, I see that. Do you not listen, my thong was Emerald Green, from Victoria’s Secret. My God, that thing looks like it was on special at one of the Dollar Stores. You are either sleeping with high school girls or you should find perhaps a little higher class woman.”

I quickly stuffed the thong back in my coat pocket. If I’d had a tail I could have tucked it between my legs.

“Just black for me,” she said to the waitress who poured coffee while I sat there red-faced.

“Give me a minute to look at the menu.” I didn’t add and collect myself.

The waitress gave me a look that wondered what in the hell I’d been doing for the past fifty minutes, nodded, and turned to the two guys at the table next to us, both of them leaning in our direction with their ears cocked.

After a long moment of scanning the menu Kerri looked up at me, did a sexy little hair shake again just in case I’d forgotten who was in charge.

“So, Nikki?” she said raising the coffee mug to her lips.

“Yeah Nikki. Where to start? I guess the beginning. The first thing would be I talked to your friend Brad the Cad.”

“Actually, I think I said I had never even met him.”

“You did as a matter of fact and he more or less confirmed that. I feel fairly certain that he hasn’t seen Nikki for quite some time. He told me he hasn’t seen her or been in contact with her for well over a year and I’ve no reason to doubt him.”

“All right,” she said with a nod.

If I was getting to her in any way she gave no indication.

“I’ll get to her apartment in a moment, but first tell me what kind of a car did she drive?”

“Her car? I don’t know, I mean it was blue. I really don’t know cars, to tell you the truth. Didn’t you look at it when you were over there?”

“You mean the one in the driveway?”

“Yes.”

“There wasn’t a car in the driveway, well, except for this rusted green hulk without an engine, up on blocks in the back…”

“Dev, that was not her car. It is a pile of junk. No? That is the landlord’s car, it has been there for as long as, well, it has been there forever. So, where is her car? Someone must have taken it,” she sounded genuinely concerned.

“I don’t know. I don’t know what kind of car it was. I don’t know if she even had one.”

“I told you she had a blue car.”

I didn’t add, since it was blue, it could be that little Z4 you’re driving around in, compliments of the deader-than-a door-nail Lee-Dee boys.

The waitress returned and we placed our order. She topped off Kerri’s coffee, I waved her off on mine.

“Tell me about the apartment,” I said.

“The apartment?”

“Yes,” was I detecting a chink in the armor, a crack in the wall, a slight stall tactic?

“Well, if you saw it there’s not much to tell. In some way she lived her life like a nun or something. I mean, one chair, nothing on the walls. Did you see the place? You were inside? If you were inside you must admit one would never feel comfortable. Yes? I was there, inside, only once or twice. But I never got past the front door. You know that chair? The one sitting all alone in the front room, that’s about all I ever saw of the place. I never even used the bathroom.”

“Your sister’s place, and you never used the bathroom?” that sounded like no woman I ever knew.

“Yes, can you believe it? I’m not kidding, Dev I never was beyond the front door.”

So much for that crack in the wall.

“Wonder why? Was she a private person?”

“No more than anyone else. I mean she could be fun, she loved a party, liked to laugh. It is not as though she stayed locked up in that place for a day or a week.”

“Where’d she work?”

“Umm, like I told you before, some clubs. She was the nanny for a woman’s children for a bit. She said she painted a house for some guy. She sometimes cleaned for a couple of women. God, she hated the cleaning. I think she lasted about two weeks doing that.”

“What about the photo?”

“The photo?” she asked.

I didn’t want to pull out the eight and a half by eleven color copy that snooty Dr. Mallory Bendix had made for me when Aaron confiscated the photo. Evidence. He was probably leering at it right now.

“Yeah, did you know any of the other folks in that photo? The two guys on the beach or maybe that Asian woman?”

Kerri seemed to think for a brief moment then shook her head no. This struck me as a little amazing considering she was zipping around town in a sixty-thousand-plus little blue sports car owned by the two guys. Both dead.

“No idea? Not even a guess?”

“No!” she said adamantly.

I couldn’t tell if she thought I knew about the car, or even suspected. In the end it didn’t matter. I paid the bill and we walked outside and stood on the sidewalk. It was a warm day, sunny heading toward oppressive. We were on the south side, the shady side of the street. The sun was coming over the roof of the one story brick building. I was thinking about how I intended to tell her that I was quitting.

I don’t know the architectural term for the building design. I’d guess it was built back around 1920. A brick structure of eight, one-story retail fronts with large plate-glass windows. The brick was set in a geometric design above the windows then capped with some sort of blond stone. All the entrances were inset maybe four feet. At the corner there was a flower shop, then the restaurant, Bon Vie, a dance studio, bakery, a hairdresser, and a couple of nondescript offices at the far end.

The sky was cloudless. I really wasn’t aware of much. Kerri was saying something but I didn’t hear her. I did hear that voice again, in my head, telling me to shake hands like a gentleman and drop this case . When will I learn to listen?

I think I heard the shot, but I’m not really sure. One minute I’m debating about dropping the case, the next I think I’m pushing Kerri out of the way, and then there was blood. Mine unfortunately.

It certainly wasn’t the first time I woke up in a strange room with a woman next to me I didn’t know.

“I’m sorry, did I wake you? Just gotta get this blood pressure checked. There,” the nurse said after a moment. “Almost good as new.” She patted me on the shoulder, wrote something on a clipboard, then looked beyond me across the room to the figure lounging in a chair.

“I think he’ll live. Doctor will be by around noon or so. They’ll probably release him sometime this afternoon,” she said.

“Good thing they went for his head. With that thick skull the bullet just bounced off,” Aaron said.

“What the fuck?” I groaned.

“That’s a service not covered under your insurance,” the nurse giggled at Aaron.

“He wouldn’t be any good, anyway,” Aaron laughed as she left the room.

“What the fuck?” I repeated, groggy.

“Uh-oh, you’re repeating yourself, maybe there is some brain damage. Of course that would mean you had a brain to begin with, so that’s not it. You remember anything?”

“Huh?”

“The shooting, dipshit, the reason I’m wasting my time in this hospital with you. You remember what happened? Remember anything at all?”

“Ahh, I remember it was really sunny. I couldn’t hear anything but there was all this blood, and I think I got Kerri out of the way. Pushed her. She okay?”

“Kerri? Oh, you mean the woman you were going to tell me the next time you got together with, that Kerri? Who knows? Missing in action. Waitress in the restaurant said she ran away. Can’t say as I blame her. Lunch with you would do that to just about anyone.”

“I was shot? Who? Why?”