“How do you know?”
“He gave me the shipping ledger.”
“He gave it to you?”
“In so many words.”
“Please tell me you didn’t kill him,” Donovan said through gritted teeth.
“I had no choice. You know how I work, Donovan. You’ve never complained before.”
“Now his brother is going to get involved,” Donovan chastised. “I don’t need the Russian mob involved in this.”
Jade removed the long black wig and tousled her short, black hair.
“Then you shouldn’t have sent me into the belly of the beast,” Jade replied.
“He’s going to retaliate. And it’s going to come down on you before it does on me.”
“I can handle Viktor Petrov,” Jade assured him.
“Did you at least find out where it is now?” Donovan asked with a sigh.
“Texas,” Jade answered. “Red Dirt, Texas.”
5
The stack of plastic FOR SALE signs hit the cluttered counter with a crash that was louder than Randy Philpot had intended. He immediately apologized, but the ninety-year-old cashier barely even looked up from her paperback.
“Hey, Randy,” Eunice Carter said in a monotone Texas twang.
“Hey, Miss Carter,” Randy replied. “You doing alright?”
“I woke up today so I can’t rightly complain,” the old woman said as she sat her book down to ring up the sale.
Randy nodded with a slight smile. As long as Randy could remember, Miss Carter had been the old woman that worked the cash register at the hardware store. In his thirty-three years, he couldn’t recall ever seeing her come out from behind the counter. Or even get up from her chair. For all he knew, she didn’t have any legs.
Randy had grown up in Red Dirt and knew everyone in town. Of course, with a population of only 65 people, that wasn’t too hard to do. What was impressive was that not everyone in town knew Randy. He had a way of just blending in. A trick made easier by having to live in the shadow of his recently-deceased older brother and his domineering mother. A lanky man with kind eyes and a gentle smile, Randy was the reliable guy who would do what you asked without making a fuss. The kind of guy that you didn’t so much count on, but simply take for granted. But even though Randy blended in easily, he never felt like he fit in.
“How are you doing, given the state of things?” Miss Carter asked.
Randy absent-mindedly scratched his head, unwittingly creating a cowlick in his blonde hair.
“Just keeping busy,” he replied, not really wanting to talk about the things in question. “In fact, I was fixing to head to the shop so…”
“How’s your mama holding up?” Miss Carter asked again, ignoring his hint.
“Oh, you know Mama,” Randy answered with a shrug.
Miss Carter nodded as she slowly rang up the FOR SALE signs.
“She’s a tough one,” she said. “Still, I know Clyde was her favorite. No offense.”
Randy should have been stunned by Miss Carter’s bluntness, but he had grown used to it. And he knew it was true. He just nodded and turned his attention to a man even older than the cashier who was shuffling up to the counter. The name POOTER was embroidered on the upper left side of his red work vest.
“Hey, Mr. Carter,” Randy said.
Pooter looked at the stack of FOR SALE signs.
“You ain’t moving, are you?” he asked, talking loud enough so he could hear his own voice.
“Oh, no,” Randy answered. “These are for the shop.”
“The Lazy Goat?” Miss Carter asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” Randy answered.
“Damn shame,” Pooter yelled. “That store’s a town landmark.”
Randy shrugged.
“Not enough customers,” he explained. “I honestly don’t know how Clyde stayed in business as long as he did.”
He turned his attention back to Miss Carter, who was still ringing up the third sign.
“Give me a hand over here, Randy,” Pooter yelled.
“I really need to get going,” he answered.
Pooter shuffled over to a wheelbarrow near one of the aisles of the hardware store. He was either ignoring Randy or just hadn’t heard him.
“I need you to put these bags on that shelf,” Pooter yelled.
Randy looked down at the bags in the wheelbarrow. They were all labeled FRESH MANURE. Realizing it was going to be awhile before Miss Carter was finished ringing up his items, he sighed.
“Which shelf?”
With Pooter’s direction, Randy hoisted each 50-pound bag up on the empty metal shelf with a heavy groan. Randy was skinny, but not puny. Still, lifting the bags up to the waist-high shelf took an effort. As he sat the last bag down with a thud, he watched helplessly as some of the contents leaked out on his blue jeans. He winced at the smell but didn’t say a thing.
“Good job,” Pooter said. “Just one more wheelbarrow.”
6
By the time Randy finished his forced volunteer shift at the hardware store, it was late afternoon. His old Ford pick-up chugged down the two-lane road, through the deep piney woods of northeast Texas toward Red Dirt. Occasionally, he would drive past a pasture where a handful of cattle would be grazing, or a small, run-down home littered with colorful plastic children’s toys. The trees grew sparce as he passed a small, single-pump gas station and neared the center of Red Dirt, marked with a four-way intersection with two stop signs. The local Baptist Church was positioned on the left corner of the intersection. Across the street to his right was a small grocery store. In front of him, on the left, was the red and white PERTY’S sign, marking the town’s one and only restaurant. And finally, across the street on the right, was a modest hand-painted sign that read THE LAZY GOAT.
Randy pulled into the empty dirt parking lot of The Lazy Goat, kicking up a cloud of red dust as he pulled up to the spot closest to the entrance.
With the engine still running so he could keep taking advantage of the truck’s AC, Randy opened a water bottle and rummaged through the glove apartment for a napkin. Unfortunately, what he found was a tattered picture of Shelley Lansing, his ex-girlfriend. His heart immediately took a nose dive. Randy paused to stare at the photo of the blonde beauty with big blue eyes.
He had thought he had found his one and only. He’d known Shelley since high school, but it wasn’t until after he had returned from Austin that the relationship turned romantic. It wasn’t long until they were both madly in love and talking about building a life together. Shelley’s father had offered Randy a job at his pipe fitting factory. They were gonna get married, raise some little ones and live the Red Dirt dream. And then, out of the blue, it all came crashing down. Randy still wasn’t sure what happened.
Letting out a loud sigh, he placed the photo back in the glove compartment, vowing to himself that he would get rid of it. Soon. But before he could procrastinate even more, a loud knock on the truck window caught him off guard. He jerked in surprise, spilling water all over his shirt, and turned to see a woman standing outside of his truck.
The pain and heartache quickly scurried back to the corners of his mind where they would wait to ambush him another day. He didn’t recognize the woman, which was a rare thing in Red Dirt. She was definitely from out of town. Probably out of state. While her Farrah Fawcett blonde hair and tight jeans were all Texas, there was something about her deep blue eyes that gave her away as a visitor. He could always tell by their eyes. He couldn’t put his finger on what it was, but he’d never been wrong yet.
“You okay in there?” she asked with a thick Texas accent.
Randy nodded and rolled his window down, attempting to wipe his shirt dry with the other hand.
“Are y’all open?” she asked.
Randy looked around for another car, but the parking lot was empty.
Where did she even come from? he wondered.
“Sorry, ma’am. We’re closed.”
“You fi
xin’ to open?” she asked.
“No,” Randy explained. “We’re closed closed. As in out of business closed.”
The woman pouted.
“But I came so far!” she said. “My cousin Shelby from Beaumont told me all about this place and I got in the car and drove all day. I love goats! I’ve been collecting goats since I was a little girl. Please?”
Randy smiled. It never ceased to amaze him that there were people interested in his brother’s store. But then again, not many were, which was why he was shutting it down.
“The owner passed away,” Randy explained.
She gasped.
“Clyde Philpot is dead?” she asked.
“You knew him?”
“I spoke to him on the phone not that long ago,” She said. “When did he die?”
“Two days ago.”
“Dear Lord. It was probably three or four days ago I talked to him,” she said. “He was gonna set aside a little figurine for me.”
Randy told her that he didn’t remember seeing anything set aside, but the woman pleaded for him to look one last time. It didn’t take much for Randy to agree. The pangs of loneliness he had stirred up when he saw Shelley’s picture jumped at the chance to spend a few more minutes with someone. Especially a gorgeous woman. It was just the sort of distraction he needed.
Randy got out of his truck and noticed the woman glancing at his wet shirt and stained pants.
“I’ve had a rough day,” he explained.
She flashed a big “I’m so sorry” smile and Randy reciprocated with a shy nod. As he walked to the storefront door, fumbling with a mass of keys on a large key ring, the woman walked behind him, absentmindedly rubbing the scratch on her left palm.
7
She followed Randy into the large showroom and stopped in surprise at what laid before her. There were probably eight aisles of white shelves, each standing about five feet high and filled with an incredible assortment of porcelain goat figurines.
Some were large, about the size of a small chihuahua. Others were tiny - barely the size of a dime. There were natural-looking goats and goats dressed in clothes. Solid white goats. Colorful goats. If a goat was made out of porcelain or glass, it was probably on one of the shelves.
“Oh my Lord,” she muttered.
“Yeah,” Randy agreed.
“People really buy all of these?” she asked.
“Apparently not all of ‘em,” Randy said. “I’m sorry. Where are my manners? I’m Randy Philpot. Clyde’s brother”
“His brother?” she asked. “I’m so sorry. Can I ask what happened? He seemed just fine when I talked to him.”
Randy shook his head. “Idiot got shit-faced drunk and decided to take a whiz on an electrical transformer.”
They both winced at the thought of it.
“At least it was quick,” Randy said with a shrug.
He walked behind the counter. “Now you said he set something aside for you?”
As Randy looked under the counter and on the shelves behind the register, the woman wandered the aisles, mesmerized by all the goat figures.
“You know what it is?” Randy asked.
“It came from Russia,” she replied.
“Unfortunately, a lot of his stuff did,” Randy answered. “So much for ‘Made in the U.S. of A.’”
“It was a little white goat figurine,” she said, looking around at the rows and rows of little white goat figurines. “Had a red dot on the base.”
Randy told her he’d check the back and disappeared down a side door. The woman began to wander the shelves, turning over each figurine in search for a red dot.
A loud KNOCK on the front door startled her and she immediately ducked behind the shelves. She peered over the top to see a man in a cowboy hat and light brown uniform. The bright Texas sun glinted off a gold badge on his chest.
8
Vladimar Reznikov sat nervously on the edge of the couch, his foot tapping involuntarily. He had been summoned to the non-descript office with instructions to not be late and to sit down and wait…something he had now been doing for forty-five minutes. The wait was clearly meant as a power move to put him on edge and it was definitely working.
Up until this morning, Vlad had been Anton Petrov’s bodyguard. He was the one who found the body, still restrained on the bed in boxers and socks but with a large knife wound in his chest and a pool of blood underneath him. To avoid a criminal investigation, the body had been discreetly disposed of and the murder scene had been cleaned thoroughly. Before he could breathe a sigh of relief, Vlad received the phone call that Viktor Petrov himself wanted to meet with him.
He jumped at the sound of the door opening and stood at the sight of the crime boss. He bowed his head respectfully as Viktor walked in with a calm confidence that only comes from complete control. And the reassurance of knowing you have two huge bodyguards flanking you on either side.
Without expression, Viktor Petrov nodded at Vlad, motioning for him to sit back down. Tall, fit and dignified, Viktor was in many ways the exact opposite of his brother Anton. He adjusted the dark purple tie and unbuttoned the breast of his tailored suit jacket before sitting in a leather chair opposite Vlad.
The room was deadly quiet and Viktor languished in it, studying the nervous man sitting across from him. Not sure what he should do, Vlad looked at the ground, then at Viktor than at the two giant men standing behind Viktor.
Known infamously as the Koslov Twins, they served as Viktor’s bodyguards and personal enforcers. Peter Koslov was tall and muscular and, based on his tailored suit and tie, clearly shared the same sense of fashionable pride as his boss. Flanking Viktor’s other side was Leo Koslov, who looked identical to his brother in all but two very noticeable ways. While he did wear a tailored suit, he did not wear a tie, his open collar revealing the other difference: a snake tattoo that seemed to climb up his neck and flick its tongue at his earlobe.
The silence was so thick that Vlad jumped when Viktor finally spoke.
“So you were the one who found my brother?” Viktor asked in Russian.
Vlad nodded, chains of sweat pouring from his forehead. He told Viktor about the crime scene. The knife wound. How they had followed protocol precisely and disposed of the body. As he spoke, he choked up.
“Anton was a good man,” Vlad said, “He was like a brother to me.”
The words fell out of his mouth before he could stop them and Vlad looked up at the dead man’s actual brother sitting across from him. But Viktor’s expression had not changed. It was still as cold and expressionless as it had been when he first walked in the room.
“Where were you when it happened?” Viktor asked. “When you were supposed to be guarding him?”
Viktor watched as Vlad began to hyperventilate, assessing the man’s every move, looking for clues of any kind. Finally, Vlad composed himself enough to speak.
“I was right outside of the door,” Vlad said. “He didn’t want me to come in while he was…”
“While he was what?”
“The woman,” Vlad said. “He had a woman in his room earlier.”
Viktor’s jaw clenched at the mention of the woman. He had Vlad walk through the events of the evening. When Anton and the woman had met. When they had entered the apartment. When she had left. What she had looked like.
“Had anything else in the apartment been touched? What about his desk?”
Vlad shrugged.
“It was covered in files and notebooks, but it was always like that.”
Without taking his eyes off of Vlad, Viktor spoke to the two men behind him.
“I need all the security footage from the building. Anything with this woman he had been with. What was the name you said?”
“Khristina,” Vlad answered.
Viktor smirked and stood, buttoning his suit jacket again.
“That’s not her real name,” he said to Vlad.
As he walked out the door, he spoke back to his two henchme
n.
“Kill him.”
9
In a small beige office tucked along the wall of FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., Special Agent Dean Bennett slid a thick manila folder across a desk.
His boss, Deputy Assistant Director Rudy Strickland, opened the folder with a sigh and looked at the blurred picture of a woman. He leafed through the huge stack of contents, which included several reports, crime files and photos.
“This is all you’ve got?” he asked sarcastically.
“I’ve been tracking her for years,” Dean replied.
Strickland half-heartedly rifled through the papers.
“These are all the crimes you THINK she committed,” he said. “What do you actually have on her? Stats? Background? A decent profile?”
“She doesn’t leave much of a paper trail,” Dean replied enthusiastically. “But I know there’s something.”
Dean was in his mid-fifties but most everybody assumed he was older. With a perpetually receding hairline and hangdog face, he had always looked older than his actual age. Wearing a short-sleeved white dress shirt and conservative black tie, he looked more like an accountant than an FBI agent, which was probably appropriate, considering he worked in the bureau’s Information Management Division.
“The only name we know is Jade,” Dean continued. “I’m assuming that’s an alias.”
Dean reached across the desk and pulled out a series of photos. They were surveillance photos taken of the windows of Anton’s apartment from another building. Telephoto images had zoomed in through the windows into Anton’s bedroom and, while they were grainy and hard to see, there was clearly a body on a bed.
“We believe this was her latest victim,” Dean continued. “Anton Petrov, the younger brother of Viktor Petrov.”
He pulled another photo forward. This one was of a man dressed in a fashionable suit and designer sunglasses. He had a pronounced square jaw and a visible scar across his cheek.
Red Dirt Blues Page 2
