Wolf
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“Dead,” the attendant repeated. “In that case, I’m not sure we can release these until we hear from his lawyers.”
“We have the key and the password,” Lolita said. “Isn’t that all you require? I thought that MANA had a reputation for confidentiality, that you prided yourselves on being discrete.”
“That’s true Miss, Miss,” the attendant said. “What is your name? Are you also related to our client Mr. Schmutzig? Are you all his daughters?”
“Too many questions,” Lolita said. “Come on girls, we’re leaving.” She turned on her heels and strode towards the elevator. Jessica and Amber scurried to catch up, and the attendant dashed after them.
“You still have to sign for them and settle the account,” she said.
“No problem, how much?” Lolita paid the bill in cash, Amber signed, and then the trio rushed outside with their loot.
“Success,” Lolita said as she opened the door to the limo. “I can’t wait to show my dad.”
Amber must have called Jack because he was waiting with Nick in the limo. When Nick asked if he could see the paintings, Lolita handed them to him. She was still wearing the white gloves. He motioned to her to give them to him, and he stretched his large hands into them, and then carefully opened the wrapping.
“Natalia Goncharova’s Gathering Apples.” He sighed. “Gorgeous.” He studied the painting for a few minutes while Jessica watched, entranced by the rapt look on his face. Then he opened the second. “Kandinsky’s Fragment 2 for Composition VII. Stunning,” he said. He turned to Lolita. “Your father is a very lucky man. Do you think he might consider selling either of these?”
Lolita shook her head. Jack popped the cork on a bottle of champagne he’d found chilling in the limo and poured them each a glass to toast their triumph.
“To Jessica, Amber, and Lolita,” Nick said, “the Three Graces.” He raised his glass. “Charm, Joy, and Beauty.”
“Grace my ass,” Jessica said. “The Three Fates, maybe.”
“To the Three Fates then,” Nick said, “Destiny, Peace, and Order.”
“More like, Ready, Willing, and Able,” Jack said, clinking glasses with each one of his friends.
Chapter Forty-Four
When the limo reached the front of his apartment building, Nick kissed the back of Jessica’s hand. “I was hoping you might tuck me in, Dolce,” he whispered into her ear.
She hesitated, but then on a whim grabbed her book bag, scooted along the seat until she finally was close enough to the door, and he helped her out.
Nick turned back toward the limo, “If your dad ever wants to sell these paintings, you know where to find me,” he called back to Lolita as he took Jessica’s hand and headed for his apartment building.
“See you at the game on Monday night,” Lolita shouted after them. “Remember to bring the Pope.”
Still holding his hand, Jessica followed Nick into the black glass building, past the doorman, and up the elevator. He had a special key to use in the lift, and the doors opened directly into his penthouse apartment. She was giddy from their caper at the storage building, not to mention the three glasses of champagne on the ride over. When Nick headed straight for the bedroom, she dropped his hand, twitching her lips back and forth, and considered her options. She realized it was a bad idea, but couldn’t resist his bad boy smile and good hair.
“Won’t you join me for a power nap?” Nick asked, gesturing inside the bedroom. “I’m completely knackered,” he said. “I really need to sleep.”
“Just sleep?” She asked, following him into the bedroom. Gawking around at the artwork on the walls and the magnificent full-on view of the Chicago skyline, she tripped on the edge of a thick Persian rug and Nick caught her before she fell to the floor.
“At least sleep,” he said gazing into her eyes.
Blushing, she turned away and looked out the window. She turned back just in time to see Nick strip down to his boxers and climb into bed.
“Just a nap,” Jessica said as she pulled off her jeans, and then crawled under the plush duvet next to him, avoiding actually touching him. He rolled over and pulled her into a tight spooning embrace, and soon, exhausted from five sleepless nights on top of that hard desk in Brentano, she dozed off in spite her galloping heart.
She woke up to her cellphone ringing in the back pocket of her jeans. She freed her arm, climbed out of bed, dug the phone out, and glanced at the screen. Michael, what did he want so late on Sunday night? She turned her phone on vibrate, laid it on the night-table, and then climbed back into bed, snuggling close to Nick, suffering from the familiar stabbing pain in her chest from her ex-boyfriend’s betrayal.
Maybe she should have accepted his marriage proposal, if that’s what it was. She still loved him, but she also hated him. She hated him more than she’d ever hated anybody. Well, maybe except for Wolf Schmutzig. What she needed was some good revenge sex. She rolled over to face Nick, admiring the smooth skin around his eyes. As she reached out to touch his sleeping face, her phone started buzzing and dancing across the nightstand. Friggin’ Michael. She rolled back, grabbed it, and was about to switch it off when she saw a text message from Lolita. “Call me ASAP.”
She sat up in bed and autodialed her friend.
“Jessica, meet me at Blind Faith in an hour. Bring Nick,” Lolita barked into the phone, followed by silence. She’d hung up before Jessica could respond.
Jessica knew better than to cross the poker Tsarina, so she kissed Nick’s cheek to wake him up. He smiled up at her with sleepy eyes, and then pouted when she tumbled out of bed and tugged on her jeans and then her cowboy boots. She lured Nick out of bed with promises of both “carrots and sticks” for good behavior if he drove her to The Blind Faith Café. He obliged and called his driver to meet them downstairs in half hour.
When they arrived at the café, Jessica was surprised to see Detective Cormier sitting across from Lolita at their regular booth. Nick pulled up a chair and Jessica slid into the booth next to Lolita.
“What’s going on?” she asked, looking from Lolita to Detective Cormier.
“The detective wants our help,” Lolita said. “Actually, he’s made me an offer I can’t refuse.” Her eyes narrowed and she didn’t look happy.
“I know you and Lolita run a poker game out of Brentano Hall on Monday nights,” Detective Cormier said to Jessica.
“Is that illegal?” she asked. Crap. Breaking and entering, murder and perjury, a concealed weapon, and now illegal gambling. Goodbye graduate school, hello prison.
“A lawyer told me it’s legal so long as we don’t take a cut,” Lolita said. “It’s just a friendly recreational game.”
“A judge may not see it that way,” Detective Cormier said. “Especially since you make a pretty good living off this friendly game.”
“The lawyer assured me it’s not illegal,” Lolita said. If you looked closely, you could see the very corner of her eye twitching. Her one and only tell.
“If you refuse to help me, then you’ll have the opportunity to explain that to a judge. But, if you help, I’ll take your word for it,” the detective sipped his coffee.
“What do you want us to do?” Jessica asked. Nick was sitting so close to her, she sensed sparks flying between them, two electric eels. It was exhilarating and distracting as hell.
“Help me arrest Vladimir Popov,” he said. “I’ve been trying for over a year. I’m sure he’s the source of rape drugs on campus, but I can’t prove it. A couple of years ago, I brought him in for an Internet scam with Russian brides, but it didn’t stick. Now, I think he’s somehow involved with Schumtzig’s murder, but I can’t prove it. I heard he was trying to sell a Kandinsky on the black market, and this is my chance…”
“Yes, he is,” Nick interrupted. “But it’s a fake. It’s not an authentic Kandinsky. Lolita’s father painted it.” At least he didn’t accuse Dmitry of forgery. He was being much more diplomatic since Jessica’s promise of carrots to come.
“I’m not sure,” said Nick. “Whether he knows it or not, he’s trying to peddle the painting as an original.”
“Perfect,” said the detective. “Bring him to Ms. Durchenko’s poker game tonight and I can charge him with racketeering and selling forgeries, stolen ones at that. I may not get him for supplying drugs, but I’ll get him.”
“As my dad says, when the claw gets stuck, the whole bird is lost,” said Lolita.
“Mr. Schilling, since he approached you about the painting, would you be willing to purchase it for us? We need to catch him in the act. If so, can you accompany me to the station so we can wire you?” The detective bid them farewell and left the café with Nick in tow.
“The important thing is to get my father’s painting back,” Lolita said after they left. “This will be our last game, and without the game, this will be my last semester at Northwestern. I don’t know how I’ll tell my folks I’m not really on a scholarship. No game, no college.”
“I’m sorry,” Jessica said. “What can I do?”
“You can play. Tonight, we’re going out big.”
“What? I haven’t played since I was back in Whitefish.”
“I’m going to stake you with everything I’ve got,” Lolita said. “It’s my only chance to pay tuition next year and graduate.”
“No way. You can’t bet everything on me!”
“I can and I will. You’ll be the best poker player at that table.” Lolita downed the rest of her coffee. The cup tapping the saucer was a call to attention. “And, if we’re going to stop the Bratva syndicate’s campus drug operations, we’ve got to get their drug dealer.”
“Weasel more like,” said Jessica.
“Yes, we’ve got to take out that Existentialist drug dealing scum, Alexander Le Blanc,” Lolita said. “He’s the missing link between Bratva and the fraternities.”
“I’ll bet he’s the one who supplied the party favors at the Red X party.”
“We’re going to give the pharmacist a taste of his own medicine. But, we have to be careful.” Lolita stared down something the others couldn’t see.
“Why not just tell Detective Cormier that Alexander is dealing drugs?” Jessica asked.
“Because this will be more fun. Anyway, you heard him. Detective Cormier’s been dicking around for the last year while the Pope and his pharmacist have been supplying the fraternities with enough Georgia Home Boy to incapacitate every girl on campus.”
“Pharmakós,” Jessica said under her breath. “Ancient Greek ritual of human sacrifice to purify the city, poison and cure.”
“We’re going to return the pharmacist’s poisonous gift.” Lolita stood up, grabbed her helmet, and was out the door.
Chapter Forty-Five
It seemed too easy and that made Jessica nervous. Vladimir the Pope had agreed to meet them at Brentano Hall for the poker game. Lolita was right. He was eager to move in on her game and wanted to unload the painting as soon as possible. Jessica had heard the Pope was a dangerous man who could make people disappear without a trace. To compound the threat, she’d be playing for Lolita’s tuition with her friend’s entire savings.
When Jessica arrived at Brentano with Nick in tow, Lolita was setting up. Since her usual dealer was still sick, she’d had to hire Jack again. He was leaning against the wall smoking a joint and offered it to Jessica as she passed by, but she just waved him off. She needed a clear head if she was playing for Lolita’s future. Anyway, the last time she smoked with Jack in Brentano, she’d found a dead body. Now she wished she’d been sleeping instead of spooning and fantasizing about revenge sex with Nick the night before. As tired as she was, she should actually have had sex instead of just dreaming about it. She smiled remembering how tempted she’d been to take a selfie of Nick nearly naked sleeping next to her, his luxury penthouse in the background, to send to cheating Michael.
She heard a bustling outside the door and looked up to see Vance Hamm saunter in, his Shuffle Master under his arm, the first to arrive, as usual. A few minutes later, the Pope made a grand entrance with his entourage, Alexander Le Blanc, flanked by two bulls. He leaned a small wooden crate against the wall behind one of the folding chairs and then plopped into it with a thud. Waving his fat mitt, he introduced Alexander as Zander the Great, and insisted the little creep sit next to him at the table.
“Only players at the table,” Lolita explained. “Those are the rules.”
“As they say, rules are made to be broken,” the Pope said, snapping his fingers at the towering bodyguards. “And so are bones, if you know what I mean.” The bulls moved to either side of Lolita and glowered down at her.
“Suit yourself, Mr. Popov,” she said, gesturing for Alexander to sit down.
Just watching the thugs from a distance made Jessica’s palms sweat; and she wasn’t thrilled to see the weasal again either. She still hadn’t graded his paper, and the way he looked at her with his narrow beady eyes made her uneasy. Something was up with the scrawny geek, and she was beginning to suspect he was more dangerous than he appeared.
When the rest of the regular players showed up, including the head of the Stock Exchange and a point guard for Chicago’s professional basketball team, Lolita got them settled around the card table. Jessica glanced around at the rich men, broke into a cold sweat, and clamped her arms to her sides when she noticed the dark stains forming on the armpits of her good luck shirt.
“Tonight, my friends,” Lolita said, “how about we raise the stakes? $10,000 buy in, $1000 big blinds, $500 little blinds?”
Jessica held her breath, dreading the possibility of losing all her friend’s money.
“Love it,” Vance said, rubbing his hands together.
After Lolita collected the buy-ins and doled out the chips, the players arranged their color-coded piles on the table. The room was electric with anticipation, and the fine hairs on Jessica’s arms stood on end under her lucky shirt, a beat-up faded plaid western number. She’d inherited some of her mother’s superstition about gambling. Her mom wore the same underwear for weeks on end if she was on a roll and Jessica had worn the same dirty outfit to sleep in for the last week. Maybe her worn out shirt was bringing luck alright, bad luck.
Vance started up the Shuffle Master. “May the best man win,” he said and then glared over at Jessica and added, “or woman.” Clearly, he preferred Jessica serving drinks instead of playing poker. But, she was used to playing with the boys.
High stakes poker, like philosophy, was a man’s game; and in both she was determined to give as good as she got, even if it killed her. Being the only woman at the poker table wasn’t so different from being the only woman at a seminar table.
The boys puffed themselves up, bluffing and upping the ante, trying to out do each other, especially if it meant humiliating someone else, particularly if that someone was a girl. She’d learned from both poker and philosophy, the boys could dish it out, but they couldn’t always take it, not from a girl anyway.
Whenever she’d stood up to them and given them a taste of their own medicine, things tended to get dicey and dirty. She’d had fellow students and professors make lewd comments and then laugh at her when she blushed. Even the Wolf, her advisor, had tried to sabotage her.
She’d learned the hard way that in both academia and poker, with the deck stacked against her, sometimes cheating was the only way to beat the system.
She thought of her mom saying, “if you can’t be good, be careful.” Tonight, she was determined to be good and careful in order to beat these tough guys at their own cut-throat game.
“Did you bring my painting?” Nick asked, taking his checkbook out of the pocket of his navy wool designer jacket and pointing his designer pen across the table at the Pope.
“Business can wait. It’s time to play poker,” the Pope replied. The painting was packed in a wooden box sitti
ng behind his chair.
“Good man,” said Vance. “Deal, Jacko.”
“The good man wants just two things,” said Jack, “danger and play.”
“And woman’s the most dangerous plaything.” Jessica finished the quote. “I’m about to show you just how dangerous.”
Lolita waltzed between the players, delivering drinks and snacks, while smooth jazz played in the background and dozens of candelabras lit the cavernous room. The light flickering on the players’ faces gave the scene an eerie feel and Jessica could almost hear the sounds of the professor’s telltale heart beating under the floorboards. She hoped the Wolf was haunting Brentano Hall, waiting to reveal his killer and solve the mystery of the post-dated letter.
Expecting the Pope to be an aggressive player, Jessica sat to his left so she could be the last to call his bets. Everyone had a drink: Nick his Lagavulin, Vance his carrot juice with lime, the Pope his frozen vodka, and Jessica her whiskey and Coke.
They were armed and ready to play Texas Hold ‘Em. Lolita brought Alexander a poisonous gift, a new drink she’d invented V and K, frozen vodka and ketamine powder. Jessica reached for her Jack and Coke, but thought better of it and put it back down. She had to stay sober to win. And the last time she drank at the Monday night game, she’d ended up blacked out on the floor.
Jack dealt the cards and the game was afoot. Nick won the first hand with an ace high hearts flush with the ace and a queen in the pocket. The Pope called every bet but didn’t win a single pot. After the first few hands, Nick was still the chip leader and the Pope was losing big.
“Zander,” the Pope said, “go get me something to nibble on from the car. I’m famished.”
“We have dinner catered at midnight,” Lolita said. “The food should arrive soon.”
“You do, do you? Well, I want something now. Something savory. Off with you, Zander.” The Pope brushed his hand in the air, and Alexander rushed out, and then returned a few minutes later with a picnic basket. He made a show of serving little paper plates of Russian appetizers, tiny potatoes, raw pork fat, and little pickles. He moved Jessica’s drink and sat a plate in front of her. The Pope maneuvered his plump bejeweled fingers, and plucking out one revolting tidbit after another, popped them into his mouth.