Mike Faricy: Russian Roulette

I was sitting in the Spot Bar, minding my own damn business, content in a mild and steadily growing alcoholic haze. A client had paid me. The check was enough to cover my overdrafts and fund a night or two of partying.

I saw her come in the side door and look around for fifteen seconds. She was blond, hot looking, thirty something, maybe wearing a little too much makeup, dressed in a delightfully slutty sort of way. Conversation didn’t stop but heads turned as she walked past. She headed toward an empty stool. There were four on either side of me. Her chest was like the prow of a battleship and plowed a firm, bouncy course down the length of the bar. She passed the first three empty stools and pulled out the one next to me. It was red vinyl and edged in worn duct tape.

“Is anyone sitting here?”

I caught the slightest hint of an accent.

“Not that I can see.”

“You are Mr. Devlin Haskell, right? The private dick?”

She batted her eyes a few times, which at the moment struck me as extremely sexy. Her perfume wafted over me like a plastic dry cleaning bag and forced me to gasp for breath. It was strangely spicy.

“Yeah, that’s me. Although it’s not all that private,” I joked.

Incredibly she smiled but didn’t comment. After a moment she said, “Mr. Haskell, I’ve been looking for you. Of course the other places were a little nicer than this,” she said, gazing around at the dingy brown, smoke-stained ceiling. Maybe she caught the two bullet holes in the front door now filled with putty and supposed to have been painted sometime just before Obama took office. Maybe it was the 60s-style cheap wood paneling on the walls, or the ode de beer reek of the place. Maybe it was the worn wood-grain Formica tables in the booths or the twenty-watt bulbs in the light fixtures. Maybe it just didn’t matter, I thought, as she sat up straight, spun toward me on her stool, and thrust her death-defying cleavage in my face.

“You were looking for me?” I asked, wondering if my luck had finally begun to change.

“Yes, a friend gave me your name.”

“Really, what can I do for you?” thinking maybe a getaway weekend to a quiet lake, or a bed and breakfast with a Jacuzzi in the room, or just your basic tawdry night at my place.

“Well, I hope you won’t think I’m strange.”

At this point Grace, the bartender, stepped in front of us. An experienced little voice inside my head said just smile, finish the drink and get the hell out of here before you get in real trouble .

“Buy you a drink?” I asked.

“Will you have another?”

That experienced little voice whispered no .

I nodded yes toward Grace who rolled her eyes.

“Yeah, okay, I guess I’ll have a double vodka martini, two olives,” she ordered quickly, then smiled at me.

A double, my kind of girl.

“So, I was about to think you’re strange?” I said.

“What? Oh yes. Look, I wanted to hire you, to sort of find someone. I will pay you,” and with that she dug in a small beaded handbag suspended on a chain over her shoulder.

I hadn’t noticed it before but then I’d been otherwise engaged making careful notes as to her physical characteristics.

“Oh, sorry,” she said as she snapped the handbag closed with an audible click and then reached into her front pocket. She pulled out a small wad of hundred-dollar bills. I was actually more amazed there was room for anything thicker than a dime in her pocket. The jeans looked to have been sprayed on over her perfect thighs.

“Here is five hundred dollars I can get you more if you need it.”

“You still haven’t told me who you want me to ‘sort of’ find. A name would help, for starters. Not to mention, you know my name but I don’t know yours.”

Grace brought our drinks, grabbed a ten off the bar from the small pile in front of me.

“Oh yes, sorry, I’m Kerri.” She held out her hand to shake.

“Nice to meet you, Kerri, call me Dev. Your accent?” I asked.

“Ahhh French.”

She nodded, batted her eyes innocently, then proceeded to drain nearly half her martini glass.

“Mmm-mmm, that is a very good vodka,” she gasped. “Yes, French, but from a long time ago. I was just a little girl. Dev, I hope you’ll help me find my little sister.”

“Your sister?”

“Yes, she is called Nikki.”

“Hmm, Kerri and Nikki, sisters. Anyone else in the family? Mom, Dad, brothers, more sisters?”

“No, we are the only ones. My, I mean, our parents passed away eight years ago, maybe six months apart,” she made a quick sign of the cross, in the Orthodox way, reverse order to the Irish Catholic I grew up with. Then she washed it down with a hearty sip of martini.

“Oh, sorry.”

“Don’t be. My father killed himself, one drink at a time. And my mother was a religious crazy woman. She wore herself out trying to put a stop to anyone thinking of enjoying himself. You know the old question? Which came first, the alcoholic husband or the long-suffering wife?”

“Can’t say that I do, but I know a couple or two it might fit.”

“Yes, well.”

“So, Nikki?”

“Oh right, I have not seen her in maybe two months. Not that we were really close or anything, but she hasn’t been home for quite a while as far as I can tell and her phone is disconnected. Her car remains in the same place, in her driveway. I have a key to her house. I went through it but nothing seemed unusual, do you know? It was not trashed or ransacked or some-such.”

“Husband, boyfriend, kids?”

“Not that I know about. She had a boyfriend about a year and a half ago, but he did away with her. Actually he was keeping her on the side and had a regular girlfriend. He married that woman last spring. Nikki read about it in the newspaper.”

“That’s a tough way to find out.”

“Yes. I think he was maybe four years older than Nikki, Bradley Cadwell. Brad the Cad we called him. He is a lawyer now. But I must be honest, she only spoke of him, I never really met him.”

“But a lawyer?”

“Yes.”

“Say no more.”

She didn’t, instead she drained her glass and left the olives. With a nod I had Grace mixing a new double just after her empty glass hit the bar. Things become a little bit bleary after that.

I remember checking the rearview mirror constantly on the drive home to make sure she didn’t lose me, although I couldn’t swear to the exact route we took. I remember she could drink vodka like a fish, had a gorgeous figure. She was trimmed as opposed to shaved and had a little Victorian-looking angel with wings, sitting on a cloud tattooed on her right butt cheek. I was too drunk to read the writing that encircled the angel.

I’ve got a bite mark on my left nipple, scratches on my back, my bed’s a mess, and the place reeks of stale spicy perfume. My head is pounding and I just finished reading a note that says she only took a hundred dollar bill from the five she gave me out of “professional consideration”.

She penned her phone number at the bottom of the note, just after she wrote to hold onto her emerald green thong from Victoria’s Secret should I run across it.

I needed aspirin, coffee, and a sauna. Any phone call to Kerri could wait until after those things were accomplished. And ever the professional I made a mental note to find out her last name.

While recovering I sat in a back booth at Moe’s a little after one in the afternoon. Moe’s was my morning office at least three days a week. The earlier sauna and aspirin were working their magic, and the third cup of coffee kept me going until breakfast was delivered. I was just finishing up the last of my hash-browns, dragging the remnants through a slick of heart-stopping hollandaise sauce as I phoned Kerri. Her phone message kicked in, but the voice didn’t sound like her at all.