“So, are you guys dressing for the party?” she asked cautiously.
“Say it again?” I said, recognizing the voice but not the look.
“It’s me, Amanda.” The corpse flower had bloomed, and so, apparently, had she. The blond, blue-eyed homecoming queen who’d been recording the growth of the corpse flower was wearing white foundation, thick black eye makeup, leather wrist cuffs, and a cadaverous expression. The bicycle chain formerly used to lock the greenhouse was now doubled around her waist and tied off prettily with the lock.
“I called you,” she said to Lucy, “but the line was busy. The whole school is downstairs. We’re going to be partying all night in the lobby. Is this your cameraman?” Amanda asked, looking at Sam.
“One of them,” I lied.
“These are pretty good outfits, but it’s not really Goth unless you make your faces a little whiter. I have white shoe polish if you like.”
So much for the rosy glow artfully applied to the apples of my cheeks; I asked her in.
Forty-seven
Sam showered and changed into Taylor’s borrowed clothing while Oksana, Lucy, and I transformed ourselves into a trio of zombie extras from Night of the Living Dead. When the shoe polish ran out we relied on Lucy’s gray eye shadow to sculpt the requisite lines on our faces.
“Do you have any idea how much this stuff costs?” Lucy asked.
“Do you have any idea how much funerals cost?”
“Good point,” she said, slathering the precious Chanel cream in the hollows of her cheeks instead of on her eyelids. She bravely put on my skanky torn hoodie and gave it a few more rents for good measure; I borrowed Amanda’s bicycle chain and wrapped it around my own waist, tucking the lock and key in my pocket as if they were a grant watch fob.
Sam had borrowed a disposable razor and elastic hair band from me and when he emerged from the bathroom he looked like a reasonably attractive, if emaciated, ponytailed fifty-year-old in jeans and T-shirt. I didn’t want to think about how long it had been since he’d had a shower, and I was glad housekeeping would be cleaning the tub and not me.
“You women look damn scary. Have I really been out of circulation that long?”
“It’s a party,” Amanda said. “Not real life.” She looked him up and down. “The other outfit was edgier. You look too healthy, now.” Probably not something that Sam Dillon had heard in a while. He put on Taylor’s UConn sweatshirt and we each contributed a little white stuff from our arms to smear on Sam’s face. Not that anyone would have recognized him.
On the way to the party, we checked one another out. If we’d had more time Amanda said she would have painted our nails black, but as it was, we convinced ourselves we could pass for college students if the lobby was crowded, the lights were down, and no one looked too closely.
We needn’t have worried. I couldn’t imagine that even at the height of its popularity, Titans was any more crowded than it was when the elevator doors opened. It seemed as if the entire student body of the local UConn campus was in the hotel lobby dressed in black and drinking beer around the now-blossoming corpse flower.
Only Titans’s employees were not in whiteface and Goth accoutrements and they stuck out like basketball players at a Pygmy convention. That’s why it was easy to spot the Michelin Man. He’d positioned himself in the lounge and was so clearly not celebrating that the partygoers, not sensing a kindred spirit, gave him a wide berth.
“Let’s not rush to the door,” I said. “I don’t want to be too obvious.”
The corpse flower was spectacular and Amanda, or someone, had opened both doors and all of the panels to the greenhouse so that the cadaverous scent filled the lobby. She disappeared into the crowd to play hostess.
Before I realized it, I’d been separated from Lucy and Sam by a swarm of Marilyn Manson and Kelly Osbourne look-alikes in chain-mail tank tops. I didn’t risk calling out their names and alerting the Michelin Man.
Someone took my arm. “Come with me.” Marat, the Michelin Man’s skinny sidekick, squeezed my elbow and pressed something hard and cold into my rib cage. The squiggly lines in his eyes had brothers on his cheeks and nose and he smelled like an ashtray. Only a drunk or an idiot would think that blowing me away at a hotel party was a smart thing to do but I wasn’t going to bet my life on either this guy’s sobriety or his brains. I went with him.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Shut up and walk. My boss wants to see you.”
Who was his boss? The Michelin Man? Sergei? He led me through the lobby, past the freight elevator, and into the bowels of the hotel, where I’d been before, once with Hector and more recently when I’d visited the kitchen. I dragged my feet trying to remember which of the doors marked Employees Only led to the loading dock and which led to the kitchen.
“Can’t you walk any faster?”
“It’s the shoes,” I lied.
“American woman are like sheep. They wear stupid clothing and stupid shoes. If you were in my country you’d be wearing good sturdy boots.”
I was willing to bet that he hadn’t seen Mother Russia for quite some time, if ever, and styles had changed, but I wasn’t going to play What Not to Wear with him. Then I recognized the laundry room with its locked door. I smelled food and knew the kitchen was close by around the corner on the left.
When we made the turn I pushed my way into the kitchen with the skinny guy hanging on.
“Hey, this is my kitchen! Oh, it’s you. Did you find Sam? Is he all right?” The chef looked from me to my attacker and quickly realized this wasn’t a social call. The slightest tilt of his chin led my eyes to the kitchen knives on an island six feet to his right. Mine and the Ukrainian hood’s.
“Can you throw a knife as fast as I can shoot?” Marat asked. “I don’t think so.” He was cackling at his own joke when one of the busboys came up from behind and hit him in the head with something shaped like a paddle. He fell to his knees and I was able to kick the gun out of his hand. It slid across the floor and wound up underneath one of the massive commercial ovens.
“Should I hit him again?” the busboy asked. He was standing over the now horizontal man ready to whack him again with a frozen Alaskan Salmon.
“No!” I didn’t want him dead, just neutralized. “Do either of you have the key to that laundry room outside?” The chef nodded and produced a large key ring.
We draped a tablecloth over the man, just in case anyone was in the corridor, dragged him out of the kitchen, and locked him in the laundry room.
“Mrs. Page has the only other key,” the chef said. “He’ll stay in there until you tell me to let him out.”
I ran back through the empty corridors to the hotel lobby. The party was in full swing now. I scanned the crowd for Lucy and Sam and saw them being ushered out by the Michelin Man, one upper arm in each of his hammy hands.
Someone in the crowd squealed and the Michelin Man spun around to look. I grabbed the nearest guy and planted a wet one on him to hide my face until I was sure the coast was clear.
“Whoa, thanks, lady. Do I know you?” Lady? Great. Here I was convincing myself that I could pass for a college student, and even wearing Goth makeup I was lady.
“Dude, I’m being cougared!”
I fished around in my bag and got out Babe’s Taser. I loaded the cartridge just the way she’d shown me.
“Don’t get me wrong. Cougar’s not an insult, it’s just, like, you know, an older fox.” That was an ego boost. “You can kiss me again.”
“Maybe later, sonny.” I checked the safety twice then put the Taser in my pocket and ran out to the parking lot. The three of them were getting into the Toyota.
“Stop,” I yelled, running toward them. I tried to keep the bicycle chain from flapping against my wounded thigh but was only intermittently successful. I considered tearing it off, but it was my backup weapon in case the Taser failed.
“Excellent,” the Michelin Man said, “now we’re all here.” He tig
htened his grip on Lucy. “Just come quietly, we’re all gonna have a nice little talk.”
I crept closer to him and tried to stay calm. I knew I had to be fifteen feet away or less for the Taser to work. Once I was within range I spoke. “I’m not going anywhere with you, a-hole. And neither are my friends.”
With one hand still pinning Sam to his side he shoved Lucy in the car and reached for something in his right pocket. Lucy kicked at his crotch and missed but it distracted him just long enough so that I could draw quicker.
“Move your leg!” I yelled. Then I fired.
Lucy screamed as the large man fell backward and rolled over. She scrambled out of the car, still kicking, and tripped over his inert body.
“Quick,” I said, running toward her. “I don’t know how long this thing lasts.” I unwrapped the bicycle chain from my waist and used it to tie the Michelin Man’s hands together. The three of us dragged him to the front of the car and locked the chain around the bumper.
Then we called the cops.
Forty-eight
Sam and Lucy huddled together; she was still shaking. I stood off to the side leaning on a parked car, staring at the Michelin Man, willing him back to life after the shock from the Taser. C’mon, get up. I reminded myself that I’d had to do it. Slowly, he came around. He reflexively jerked his hands up and yanked at the bumper, but he was at a bad angle and all he succeeded in doing was whacking himself in the chin. Just then two cruisers arrived, followed by Stacy Winters, who climbed out of an unmarked car.
“Relax, Vitaly.” Winters gave the bottom of his foot a sharp kick. “You’re only embarrassing yourself.” He gave up and seemed to deflate visibly like a balloon with a slow leak.
She walked past him, shook a few Tic Tacs into her hand, then offered some to me.
“No thanks. Bad for the teeth.”
“Are you sure the only things you dig up on a regular basis are plants? Because I do believe you caught yourself one of the perpetrators,” she said, popping the mints into her mouth.
There was a tinge of grudging admiration in the remark and I couldn’t resist bragging. “There’s another one locked in the laundry room in the hotel.”
“And the head cheese?” she asked.
“Still at large.”
“Not for long. My men just went around the back of the hotel to seal off that exit. Bernie won’t get away.” She chewed on the Tic Tacs and shook out some more.
“Bernie Mishkin?”
Winters ticked off her reasons. “He had the means, the opportunity, and fifteen million motives.”
Bernie’s Chinese investor knew all about the hotel’s precarious financial situation, but his people hadn’t been able to navigate the byzantine workings of Congress and the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Bernie had convinced them the Quepochas’ federal recognition was imminent. And with that would come casino gambling and busloads of tourists from New York and Boston eager to leave their money in the Nutmeg State.
“How could he promise them that? He’s not a Native American,” I said. “Is he?” I remembered what Betty had said about membership in the tribe.
“He’s not, but Daniel Smallwood is.” Winters thought the two of them had cooked up a scheme to defraud the investors. Fifteen million dollars would go a long way toward paying off the Mishkins’ bills and keeping the tribe’s case in court for years to come. It wouldn’t matter if the Quepochas were never recognized.
“Why wouldn’t Daniel Smallwood just do this on his own? Why did he need Bernie?” I asked.
“They gave each other credibility. And they convinced this Wai Hi that they could earn the cost of a new hotel’s construction with one year’s worth of gaming revenues from Bernie’s old hotel.”
“You think Nick was going to blow the whistle and one of them killed him?”
“I think they hired someone to do it.” She pointed to the Michelin Man, who was still shaking off the effects of the Taser and scratching the spot where the barbs had hit him.
“I didn’t kill nobody,” he said. “That’s not what I signed on for. I want my lawyer.”
“Maybe him, maybe Billy Crawford, we’re not there yet. But we will be soon.”
I asked her about the evidence they’d found that implicated the Crawfords. She hesitated for just a second. I could almost see her thinking, Why the hell not?
“Hair,” she said.
Sam looked up. That was all she said before walking away toward the hotel.
The cops asked me for the key to the bicycle lock. They unchained the Michelin Man, cuffed him, and read him his rights, squashing him into the cruiser, where he took up most of the backseat.
“This is police brutality. I should be in a van. I want my lawyer.”
“Shut up, Vitaly,” one of the cops said, bored. He returned the chain and lock to me and I draped it around my neck, putting the key in the lock for safekeeping.
For thirty minutes the cops interrogated us.
“We struggled. I kicked him,” Lucy said, skirting around the issue of the Taser; a good thing since none of us knew what Connecticut laws were regarding Tasers.
Remarkably, they believed the three of us managed to subdue a three-hundred-pound thug. They’d know the truth soon enough but I didn’t feel the need to volunteer that information, not just yet. If the Michelin Man was smart enough to ask for his lawyer, maybe I’d wait for mine.
While we were outside answering questions, we could hear Amanda’s goth party still going strong. The corpse flower was a huge success; somewhere Fran Mishkin must have been smiling. I doubted whether any of the students even noticed a scrawny, twitchy guy being freed from the hotel’s laundry room and brought out in cuffs to join his fleshy friend on the way to jail in the back of a second police cruiser. Minutes later, Bernie and Rachel were led out of their hotel, Bernie, in cuffs covered by a jacket, blubbering on about the newspapers, and Rachel, two steps behind, as usual.
Hector Ruiz stood in the doorway and assured them he had the situation under control and all publicity was good publicity. I wasn’t sure that adage extended as far as an accusation of murder, but what did I know—Hector was a pretty sharp cookie.
Sam, Lucy, and I watched them all drive off until we were alone in the parking lot.
“I don’t know about anyone else, but I could use a drink,” Lucy said. She marched ahead of us into the crowded lobby.
Sam passed. He’d been sober for four hours and said he was shooting for five. Then six. One hour at a time, then one day at a time. He wouldn’t take any money. “I bought a few Powerball tickets with that twenty you left for me. I never got a chance to thank you.”
“It’s been a pleasure meeting you, Sam. Take care of yourself.” I didn’t know what else to say. “If you ever want any part-time landscaping work, give me a call, okay?” I wished him luck and leaned in for the double back pat—friendlier than a handshake but not as intimate as a kiss.
“You look good, baby,” Sam whispered.
I said a quick prayer that the night wouldn’t get any weirder than it had already been. Granted, Sam had cleaned up pretty good and I didn’t like to think of myself as a snob, but was this an appropriate time for a pass? I froze and said nothing. I hoped I wasn’t wincing at what I thought was an untimely suggestion.
“Billy brought me a jacket that night. We met on the loading dock.” That might be why Billy’s hair was found at the scene. “We heard someone coming. Billy wasn’t supposed to be there, so we hid behind the Dumpster. I couldn’t really see; Billy was closer. But I heard them. You look good, baby. That’s what Nick said to the woman right before she shot him.” Then Sam disappeared again behind the hedges.
I walked through the party, into the bar, stunned. If Sam was right and the killer was a woman, there was a short list of suspects. And the one at the top of the list used to work for Sergei and was last seen wearing my black quilted jacket.
“What’s the matter?” Lucy said. “You look pale. Oh, wait, we all look
pale.” There were already two rings on the bar in front of her and she called the bartender over to order a drink for me.
I didn’t recognize the girl behind the bar but she stared as if she knew us. “Is one of you Paula?” she asked, with a faint accent. I toyed with the idea of saying no; after all, one of us wasn’t.
“That would be me,” I said, exhausted, holding up my hand.
“I have something for you.” My whole body tensed. I hoped it wasn’t a shot to the face. Being half-Italian, my family was big on open caskets.
She pulled a plastic drugstore shopping bag out from under the bar. “Oksana left this for you.” It was my quilted jacket.
I let out a nervous laugh. “Hey, old friend, I never thought I’d see you again.” I put the jacket on, turned up the collar, and dug my hands in the pockets, modeling it, QVC style. In one of the pockets I found a note. I unfolded the slip of paper and read it out loud.
Dear Paula,
If you are reading this I hope it means that you and your friend are okay. Billy and I are going away to someplace where Sergei cannot find us. Where we can start fresh. It wasn’t Sergei’s fault. It was that woman. He never would have needed so much money if she hadn’t talked him into buying that damn Zamboni. Wish us luck.
Oksana
Lucy nearly coughed up an olive. “Holy shit. Well, she finally found someone to look after her. But what the hell is a Zamboni? It sounds like an Italian pastry—leave the gun, take the Zamboni.”
“It’s a very expensive machine used to clean and smooth the ice at a skating rink,” I said, putting two and two together.
“Are there many skaters around here?” she asked.
I knew of two, Viktor Petrenko, the former Olympic gold medalist, and Jackie Connelly, who blew a double axel at a high school competition twenty-four years ago and was comforted by an athlete from a school two thousand miles away. Something told me Petrenko wasn’t involved.
The Big Dirt Nap Page 19
