by Mike Nappa
After hearing the accent, she thought maybe the man wasn’t Russian, but from somewhere else in Eastern Europe. Chechnya maybe? Or Ukraine?
Either way, Trudi didn’t bother responding to him. Instead, she stepped into the room and headed toward the kitchen. The heavy man was too surprised to stop her. She reached the entrance to the kitchen, then paused.
The first thing she saw was the shirtless young guy, legs strapped to a wooden dining room chair, hands cuffed behind his back, sporting the requisite bruises and bleeding from a systematic beating.
She guessed he was maybe mid-twenties, fit, but not a gym rat. Probably more familiar with running or riding a bicycle than he was with lifting weights or punching a guy in the face. His skin was pale, but not sickly white, more like basic Pilgrim Settler stock mixed in with other European brand names down through the generations until it had arrived at this slightly bland, Caucasian hue. His hair was dirty blond, short and spiky, and his eyes—well, at least the non-swollen one Trudi could see—were startling blue, like water in an ice-covered lake.
Bet he thinks he’s kind of cute when he’s not bleeding all over himself, she thought briefly.
Trudi didn’t let herself stay there too long, though. The surprisingly big athlete by the refrigerator attracted the lion’s share of her attention. He’d be tough to handle, she knew, if things got confrontational. And judging by the bulge on the left side of his black blazer, he was also carrying a little firepower in a holster next to his heart. That was something to worry about.
The athlete was eating a sandwich when she came in, and she was glad to see he hadn’t put it down when he saw her. That meant he wasn’t ready to do anything violent—at least not yet.
Behind her, the chubby guy was trying to get his lightweight Adidas jacket off the ugly green couch, in a hurry to put it on instead of trying to chase Trudi, like he’d left something in a pocket that made him feel safe. Something he might want to use in the near future.
His mistake, she told herself. That goon she could deal with when the time came.
Next, in the space of a thought, Trudi scrutinized the third man in the kitchen. He had a medium build and was clearly related to Piggy in the Adidas jacket. If not Russian, then Ukrainian, she decided. That in itself was something. Ninety-percent-plus of the Atlanta population was either African American or melting-pot Caucasian, so finding two menacing, ethnic Ukrainian guys in an obscure OFW apartment was fairly unexpected; as far as she knew, the Ukrainian Mafia types stayed mainly in New York and Los Angeles. Were they branching out, testing the waters here in the Deep South? A question to explore later.
She could see that this third man was solid inside his expensive suit, and he was standing very still. She also saw his eyes evaluating her in the same way she was assessing him.
That one’s dangerous, she decided. The boss.
She plastered a grin on her face and tried to look flirtatious.
“Well,” she said to the room, “looks like The Raven’s having a party and he forgot to invite me.”
5
Raven
Atlanta, GA
Old Fourth Ward
Friday, March 17, 11:36 a.m.
28 days to Nevermore
First things first: I think I’m in love.
It’s not often that a beautiful woman just walks into your dumpster-decorated apartment and acts like she belongs there. It’s even rarer for that beautiful woman not to run screaming the minute she sees a bunch of mobsters beating you into a bloody pulp in the kitchen.
“Well,” My Future Wife says, “looks like The Raven’s having a party and he forgot to invite me.”
Nice. She knows who I am. I try not to cough blood when I smile at her.
“I’m not going to lie to you, Raven,” she continues casually. “You don’t look good.”
I shrug, but I can’t stop smiling. I can’t keep my eyes off her, either.
It may just be the exhaustion talking, but I’m fairly certain I’ve never seen anyone or anything more captivating than this woman is right now. I’m guessing she’s about five foot, six inches tall and around one hundred and twenty-five pounds. She’s older than me, I think, maybe a year or two. Maybe five. Or maybe a hundred years older, it doesn’t matter. Age is just a number when you’re in love.
She’s wearing boot-cut Levis under a stylish, spring-weight leather jacket. The coat is black, short-waisted with long arms, and unzipped. Sexy as all get-out, if you ask me. Her short, black boots match the jacket, which just looks really cool on her. She’s trim, but not delicate like the pampered girls I see pretending to jog around Piedmont Park or Freedom Park. Her calf muscles bulge against the snug fabric of her jeans, and I can see there’s a tight, flat stomach barely hidden behind her untucked, pale yellow, button-up shirt. She’s a workout warrior, I can tell. I’ll have some catching up to do in that area if we’re going to make our future marriage work. She’ll be worth the effort.
Much as I like her athletic figure, though, it’s her face that captures my imagination. She’s a natural beauty, wearing only a little eyeliner and nothing else in the way of makeup. Her hair is thick, nut-brown, and tangled slightly, happily, just past her shoulders. Hazel eyes look at me, and her lips make me lick my mouth in anticipation of a kiss. Of course that hurts, since my lips are cut and bleeding, but hey, what’s a guy in love gonna do?
“Weren’t you that main girl in the Ant-Man movie?” I say to her.
I think it’s a pretty good line for the spur of the moment—I mean, who wouldn’t be flattered by a comparison to the beautiful actress Evangeline Lilly? She just rolls her eyes, though, and I think she might have said a bad word in her head. Even Scholarship, over by the refrigerator, snorts at how lame that came out. She doesn’t acknowledge the compliment and instead turns her attention to Viktor, standing behind me.
“You can’t be in here, lady.” It’s Pavlo again, whining from the living room. I’m almost gleeful at the fact that she ignores him completely. Instead, she speaks to Viktor.
“Seems like it’s about time for this party to break up, don’t you think?”
Is she threatening him? Is she actually daring him to threaten her?
Pavlo makes a move behind her and, faster than I would’ve imagined possible, she reaches into the back waistband of her jeans and produces some kind of small handgun. Everybody freezes, and I feel like applauding. It’s like I’m watching a really cool western unspool in 3D right in my kitchen. I suddenly crave a large bag of buttery, salty popcorn.
Now she’s turning to face Pavlo, slow, deliberate, like he barely deserves her attention.
“I think you’d be wise to step away from me,” she says to him. Her voice is even and deadly. Then she puts up a lazy smile. “My therapist tells me I’m a little neurotic about my personal space.”
“Uh . . .”
Pavlo doesn’t know what to do. He looks to Viktor for guidance. I peek back at the boss man and he’s mirroring My Future Wife’s tight grin, but he doesn’t say anything.
Now the girl is giving Pavlo an exaggerated appraisal, looking him up and down like he’s a used car and she’s trying to decide whether it’s worth the hassle to kick the tires. She relaxes visibly.
“You know,” she says to him, “I don’t think I’m even going to need this, after all.”
She turns her back completely to Pavlo and looks Viktor dead in the eye. She carefully lays the pistol on the table in front of me. “Want to tell your baby brother to back away,” she says, “before I break parts of him?”
Holy cow, did that just happen? I am so going to marry this girl and have lots of babies who grow up to be just like her.
“Uh, what—” I think Pavlo is about to wet his pants.
There’s a stale moment of silence before Viktor finally comes out of his coma. “You heard the lady, Cousin,” he says. “Party’s over.”
Viktor is still smiling, but his eyes have the look of a wolf, or like a fox about to ra
id a henhouse. Scholarship doesn’t hesitate. He shoves the last bite of his sandwich into his mouth and steps toward the door. He taps my shoulder affectionately on his way out, like we’re old buddies or I’m his nephew or something. He nods in the direction of My Future Wife as he squeezes past her to leave the kitchen. She never takes her eyes off Viktor.
“Uh . . .” Pavlo still doesn’t get what’s happening.
“Come on, Pav,” Scholarship says as he gently pushes the chubby guy toward the front door. “Time to go.”
A few seconds later, there’s only me, My Future Wife, and Viktor Kostiuk in the apartment.
Nobody says anything for a minute. It feels kind of awkward, but I know better than to add words to this silence. The girl and Viktor are still just looking at each other, sizing each other up. I’m really wishing I could scratch my left ear, but I wait it out like a pro.
How cool would that be? My mind wanders. A professional league of ear-scratchers. I would so be a star in that league.
Yeah, I think I might have an attention-deficit problem.
Finally Viktor breaks the eye-lock and reaches into his pocket. He pulls out a gold money clip that’s fat with green bills and peels one off the top. He leans over my shoulder and places a one-hundred-dollar bill next to the girl’s gun. With his fingers still pressing Ben Franklin onto the table, he looks up at My Future Wife.
“Thanks for the show, miss,” he says. “I was very entertained.”
She says nothing as he lifts his hand off the table and walks casually past her into the living room. She follows him, and I hear them both stop at the front door. “Might want to lock this,” he says lightly. “In this neighborhood, you never know who might come barging in.” Then the door shuts, and it’s just me and the girl. I hear her twist the deadbolt, hard and fast.
A breath later, she’s drifted back into the living room, where I can see her from my seat in the kitchen.
“Huh,” I say. “I mean, thank you. I—”
“Hush,” she says.
“I just—”
She glares at me, and I take the hint. To pass the time, I read the lettering on her gun: 3032 TOMCAT—32 AUTO Made in USA, it says. A Beretta Tomcat, now my favorite type of weapon, even though I know I don’t have the right personality to ever own, let alone use, a gun. Still, that doesn’t mean I can’t have a favorite.
I notice now that she’s peering through the curtains on the balcony window, being careful not to disturb them. Doesn’t want Viktor to know she’s watching him leave, I reason. So I just enjoy the view for a minute.
She really is stunning.
I wonder if she’ll want to honeymoon overseas or if I can talk her into someplace in the States, like maybe Disney World or a beach resort on Hilton Head Island. Finally she turns away from the balcony and comes back to where I’m still tied up in the kitchen.
She sighs. “Like I said, you don’t look good, Raven.”
I try smiling again. It hurts, but it feels good at the same time. It’s been a long night.
“What, this?” I say. “Just a few scratches. Now, let’s talk about you.”
She almost smiles, I can tell. At least I hope that’s what that is. She picks up her gun from the table and re-holsters it but leaves the hundred-dollar bill. Maybe I’ll get to keep that money? Score!
“I feel like I should ask what that was all about,” she says slowly, “but honestly, I don’t want to know.”
“Can I ask you a question?” I say. “I mean, two questions?”
She starts to say something, then stops herself. She nods instead.
“First question: Who are you?”
She laughs in spite of herself. “Yeah, I guess that’s fair at this point.” She pulls out identification. Man, she even looks good in an ID-card photo. “My name is Trudi Coffey. I’m the principal private detective at Coffey & Hill Investigations over in West Midtown.”
“So my father sent you,” I say. I feel my world start to crumble. I’m not smiling anymore. We would’ve been so happy together.
She tilts her head to the right, a question on her lips, but she doesn’t let it pass. “No,” she says, “I was hired by someone else.”
Ah, heavenly rapture. I’m in love again.
She reaches inside her jacket and pulls out a small, white envelope, then she hesitates. “Well, this can wait. I’d better get you to a hospital. Where do you keep scissors? I’ll cut off those zip ties on your feet.”
“No,” I say, and maybe I say it too quickly. “No, I’m fine. I mean, yes, please cut me loose. Scissors are in the top drawer by the refrigerator. But no, I don’t need to go to the hospital. I’m fine, really.”
It takes her only a minute to cut my feet loose, but she’s stymied by the handcuffs. “I don’t have the right tool with me for those,” she says. “You have a key somewhere? Otherwise, the way they’re threaded through the slats there, you’ll have to carry that chair with you for the rest of your life.”
“No, but it’s okay. I’ll figure something out. I’ve been in worse.”
She nods slowly.
“I think, really, I should take you to the hospital.”
“No, no. Honestly not necessary. All good here. Just need a little sleep and a hot bowl of oatmeal or something mushy like that.”
“I see,” she says. “Don’t want to answer the questions that come with medical treatment or face the police officers who’ll come when the hospital staff reports an assault victim in their emergency room.”
I shrug. She’s pretty much nailed it. Of course, My Future Wife is a private detective, so why should I be surprised? She’s got brains, I tell myself. Our children will be pretty and smart.
She presses hard under my nose, and it makes me wince. But I love it anyway because she’s so near to me now I can make out the faint smell of lavender soap on her skin. Heavenly.
“That was risky,” I say to change the subject, “putting your gun on the table.”
Now it’s her turn to shrug. “I was negotiating,” she says. “I was offering the boss guy a way out and asking him to let you go. He clearly had the advantage, especially with that football player in the corner there. But if he’d wanted to kill you, he would have done it hours ago. So I took a chance that he might be close to finished with you.”
“He might have called your bluff. I mean, turned down your negotiation offer.”
“Then I would’ve incapacitated the chubby guy with spear-fingers to the throat and tried to get the gun out of his right jacket pocket before that football player could get to me.”
She says it so matter-of-factly that I think she probably could’ve done it.
“How did you know he had a—no, never mind. Don’t want to waste my second question on something trivial like that. All right. Show me what’s in your envelope,” I say. “Whatever you need, you got it. I owe you at least that much.”
She pauses to look at me, and I feel lost in her eyes. At first they tip toward green, then brown, then both. Mesmerizing. So this is why Paul McCartney wrote so many cheesy love songs.
“All right,” she says. She produces the envelope again and pulls out two pictures of a Glashütte Original Lady Pavonina, a luxury watch with diamond studs in all twelve number spots on the face. She lays them on the table in front of me, and I feel a little embarrassed. Still, this girl just saved my life.
What’s a stolen six-thousand-dollar watch between us?
“My client gave this watch to his fiancée as a wedding present,” she says. “You know that old tradition, ‘Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue’? Well, this was going to be the ‘something new’ she wore at the ceremony. But she got cold feet, and they had a big, blowout fight the week before the wedding. Canceled the whole thing. A few months later, my client asked for the watch back. She told him she’d lost it. He thought she was lying, so he hired me to find it. I started checking area pawn shops, and that trail led me to you. Apparently you’re something
of a regular in a few of those places.”
Busted.
I nod toward the bathroom down the hall. “It’s taped under the bathroom rug.”
She looks surprised. “Aren’t you worried about damaging it in there? That’s an expensive piece of jewelry.”
“Nah,” I say. “The rug is kind of shoved in a corner, and I know never to step on it. Fortunately, I don’t get many visitors, either.” I try flashing what I think is a winsome smile, but I’m beginning to worry I may be losing her.
“Hmm.”
She turns away and heads to the bathroom. It feels good to move my feet and legs again. The pins and needles of blood flow down there are almost all gone. I’m thinking of standing up, carrying the chair, and following her into the bathroom when she appears suddenly in the kitchen doorway.
Busted again.
She drops four clear poly bags onto the table. One of them holds the watch she was looking for. The other three . . . well, the other three I was hoping she wouldn’t find since they were taped to the porcelain underneath the sink. Apparently Trudi Coffey is thorough in her work.
Gonna be tough to make rent this month.
“Looks like you’ve been busy over there in Freedom Park,” she says. She picks up the largest poly bag. “This sapphire bracelet is breathtaking. No wonder the pawn shops like you so much.”
“You’ve got the wrong idea,” I say. “I’m not a hardcore thief. I just need a little help to pay rent sometimes.”
“So you steal from your fans? That’s not really a magic trick, you know.”
“No, of course not. I don’t steal from fans, not the locals at least.” An image of Max Roman flashes in my mind. “Well, not usually. But sometimes when there’s a group of rich tourists passing through, when I can see they don’t really need all the glitz they’re holding on to and I know they’ll be gone in a few days anyway, I just sort of redistribute the wealth. No harm, no foul, right?”
She drops the bracelet next to a poly-bagged Apple Watch with a stainless steel case and a thick, braided gold chain. She picks up the Glashütte Original Lady Pavonina and stuffs it into her inside coat pocket along with the envelope that holds the pictures. Then she sits across from me at the table, thinking.
