"It wasn't you. It was me," she said. "I was expecting Paula."
"No offense taken," Sam said, sitting down on the love seat and putting his shopping bag on the floor.
"That's a Michael's bag."
"It is. Good company. I used to own stock."
Lucy did her best to hide her surprise at both Sam's articulate answer and his obvious ease with the situation.
"What happened to you?" she said to me. "You look like shit."
"Thank you, I've been hiding in a Hefty bag. Why did you leave? We had to hitchhike back. You should have heard the psycho that picked us up."
What she did hear was the crash of the metal shelving unit inside the factory. She immediately called the cops and they told her to get the hell out of there and wait for them at Titans.
"That's what I did, about an hour ago, but they haven't come yet. They're probably at the factory looking for you two," she said.
"They didn't show up when we were there," I said. "Who did you call?"
"I called 911. Who do you get when you call 911?"
"A dispatcher," Sam said. "Up here they get a lot of prank calls so they make you jump through hoops to make sure it's really an emergency."
"Oh, I think from the way I was shrieking a perceptive person would have been able to tell that this was the real thing."
Sam smiled. "Any chance there's a Diet Coke in that minibar?"
"Mother's milk," Lucy said, and got up to get them each a can.
"You two get acquainted. I desperately need a shower and a change of clothes. Sam's new clothing should be up in a few minutes. But don't scream when it is delivered. We don't want to attract any more attention."
I stripped a pillowcase from the bed and retrieved the leather pants and sleeveless top from my overnight bag and took them into the bathroom. The hoodie and top pulled off easily but the pants were glued to my leg with my own dried blood. Yanking them off hurt like hell, but I did it quickly the way you'd pull off a Band-Aid. The blood started flowing again and I stepped into the tub to catch it.
The shower felt great until I made a tactical error and let my thigh get hit by a direct stream of water. I let out a scream that rivaled Lucy's. I shifted positions and resigned myself to the fact that my right side would be cleaner than my left.
The gash was ragged but not that deep—my jeans had saved me a few layers of skin. Using the cuticle nippers in my travel kit, I started a hole in the pillowcase, then tore it into strips to make a bandage. I did a pretty good job; I looked like a professional tennis player with her thigh wrapped before a big match. I held my hairbrush like a tennis racket, spinning it around in my hands the way the pros do. I even took a few practice swings before realizing how idiotic it was for me to have left my best friend in the next room with a homeless man while I stood, naked, in the bathroom, practicing my serve.
I slipped into my pants carefully, grateful that the tight leather would hold the bandage in place. Sam and Lucy seemed to be having a lively conversation outside so I took an extra few minutes to put on makeup, rubbing tint on the apples of my cheeks. No need to look totally hideous.
When I emerged, towel-drying my hair, they'd been joined by a third person.
"You specifically told me not to scream," Lucy said through gritted teeth.
"Sit down."
And I did, since I make it a point never to argue with a woman who's got a gun.
Forty-six
"Good to see you," I said. "Thanks for returning my jacket." Lucy and Sam were less sure that it was good to see Oksana since she was clearly upset and holding a gun.
"Everything's gone wrong," she said, eyes weepy, waving the gun around the room. She repositioned the heavy leather messenger bag strapped across her chest and, in doing so, managed to point the gun at everyone in the room. "I'm not even supposed to be here."
"Feel free to leave," Lucy said. I shot her a look that suggested it wasn't smart to be a wiseass to a fairly hysterical person with a weapon.
Oksana had been fired. When the friend learned Oksana couldn't pay her share of the rent she'd been locked her out of the mobile home. With no other place to go she returned to Sergei, who'd asked for payment of a different kind.
Sam was sympathetic. "I know how it is," he said, "when it seems like everything's gone wrong. But you're so young. You'll wake up tomorrow and see the world hasn't come to an end. And you'll go on. Believe me. Sit down and try to relax."
"Forgive me, but who are you?" she asked, doing as Sam had suggested.
"Sam Dillon." I wondered when he'd last used his entire name. Of course, the name meant nothing to her. "People at the hotel sometimes call me Big Y," he said. At that her eyes widened even further.
"You're Big Y? Is Billy here, too?" She stood up and looked around nervously. "You've got to get out of here. All of you. Sergei and his men are looking for you. He was hired to make sure nothing interfered with the casino deal. Nick tried to butt in and look at what happened to him."
After years of being a gofer for the Mishkins, Nick wanted to cash in. When he couldn't he threatened to go to the press with a story that would have had the hotel's investor on the first boat back to China and maybe even queer the Quepochas' chances for recognition.
"Sergei saw Nick talking to me and thought I was a reporter, right?" I said. Oksana nodded. "Did he have someone follow me to Springfield and search my house?"
"Could be Vitaly. And Marat. I heard Sergei tell them to check your computer. But not at the hotel because then the cops might suspect something." She rubbed her runny nose on the back of her hand, the one that held the gun.
"Wouldn't you like to put that gun down?" I said.
She acted as if she hadn't heard me. Sam nonchalantly reached for his can of soda and moved a little closer to Oksana, ready to make a move if necessary.
"They were supposed to reason with Nick, not kill him. I don't know what happened. And then, then . . ."—she closed her eyes briefly—"Sergei asked me to find out how much you knew. I didn't want to be involved. I liked Nick, but I owe Sergei my life."
"What did you tell him?"
"That you knew nothing about the Mishkins' loan, the casino, or any of this business, that you were nice." She wanted me to believe her and I wanted to, but she was a practiced liar, and whether she'd admit it or not, Sergei clearly had a Rasputin-like hold on her. "I told him it was another woman . . . named Lucy." She looked at Lucy and raised her shoulders as if to apologize.
"Now he thinks I lied to him and they are after me, too. These people would just as soon kill you for fifteen hundred dollars as they would for fifteen million." Fifteen million dollars was indeed a powerful motivator. If Sergei thought he could get his hands on that kind of money, who knew what he'd be capable of? Oksana had sensibly taken the gun from Sergei's building for protection.
"Well, if it makes any difference, you didn't lie to him," Lucy said. "That's exactly why I was meeting Nick. After I saw the Crawfords." The realization dawned on Lucy's face; her fling with Claude may have saved her life. Talk about friends with benefits.
I tried to think of a way out of the hotel that would help us avoid Sergei and his men, if they were, in fact, looking for us. "Oksana, how did you know we were back at the hotel?"
"When that bitch Rachel Page fired me I asked Helayne to put my personal things in a bag. I was picking it up and she said she saw you." Yeah, it was hard to stay under people's radar when you were covered with blood and slime.
I was racking my brain to come up with a plan when our exit strategy knocked on the door. Lucy leaped out of her seat. Sam covered Oksana's gun with his hand. "Let's keep this out of sight, okay?" She agreed and put the gun in her hobo bag, which looked as if it was stuffed with all of her belongings.
A young girl in heavy Goth makeup was at the door. She held a bundle of clothing, my hundred-dollar rental from Taylor, the desk clerk. She looked around the room and saw a homeless guy dressed in rags; a model-thin Ukrainian girl with te
ar-streaked makeup; Lucy, nervously hopping from one foot to another; and me, barefoot in tight leather pants.
"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 tightened 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.
The Big Dirt Nap db-2 Page 18
