Tea Leafing: A Novel

by Weezie Macdonald

  Birdie and Tanya froze and stared at her as Mary Jane grabbed her wrists. Grace dropped slowly to the floor. “What? Slow down. What happened?”

  Struggling free from Mary Jane, Sam sucked in deep breaths, trying to steady herself. Hand shaking, Sam lifted Mary Jane’s cigarette from an ashtray on the counter, almost knocking the glass dish to the floor. She drew hard on it, hoping the nicotine would help steady her nerves.

  “Fack.” Birdie looked shocked.

  “Fack.” Birdie’s African Gray parrot, perched in its large metal cage, mimicked.

  Having quit the nasty habit two years prior, Sam never touched cigarettes. She felt the drug rush to her head as she dropped to the floor. Taking another drag, she hoped she wouldn’t throw up from the shock to her system.

  “Fedya had something to do with it. I know he did.” She mumbled through her tears.

  Tanya crouched next to Sam and searched her face. “Slow down and tell us what happened, baby. Just take ya time.”

  Edna, who had been napping in Birdie’s bedroom scuttled over in a smart little Jackie O. suit and placed a paw on Sam’s leg as if to lend her support.

  Sam recounted the events as she finished the cigarette. Mary Jane grabbed the ashtray and joined her as Edna climbed into Sam’s lap and pawed a nest for herself. Sam stubbed the spent fag and lay back onto the cold hardwood, finishing her story at the point where she left the parking lot.

  Silence.

  “I don’t know what to do.” Sam said, feeling calmer, but no less worried.

  “I knew he was a crooked fackin’ twister!” Birdie announced.

  Sam nodded. “You were right, Bird. I bought the bullshit. So what are we gonna do now?”

  Mary Jane was focusing on a knot in the wide plank pine floor. “Why don’t I see what I can dredge up about Fedya? On the computer, I mean. It’s been a while since I’ve hacked anything but now seems as good a time as any to dust off the old keyboard.”

  She had grown up in Jacksonville, an only child raised by her single mother. Mary Jane had moved to Atlanta to attend Georgia Tech on a full ride scholarship. Her mother had passed away suddenly from a brain aneurism during her junior year, leaving Mary Jane alone in the world. The rest of her family had died or drifted out of touch. She found that the discipline and focus required to keep her grades up vanished after her mother passed. So she’d taken a year off to find herself. What she found instead was Sam, Tanya, Grace, Lena and Birdie; they were her new family. Now, Lena’s death numbed her. She wasn’t sure she could take another loss like this in her life. Her mind wandered into dark places where destructive hatred scatters its seeds and waits for the rage to grow.

  “Do you think you can do it, MJ?” Sam said, gingerly touching the raw flesh on her knee.

  “Let me get a plaster for yer knee, love.” Birdie headed off in search of a Band-Aid.

  “Yeah, no better time than the present.” Mary Jane said. “I think it’s a good cause and if Fedya is involved in this I think we need to know what we’re dealing with. I can’t promise anything, but I’ll do my best to see what I can scrounge up.”

  “I’ve always thought there was somethin’ a little off with that boy Fedya. Why would a perfectly respectable citizen want to get involved in the skin biz?” Tanya wondered aloud. “I just think there’s somethin’ not quite right with that.”

  “Money.” Sam’s response was simple. “He makes a bundle off us.”

  Mary Jane nodded. “What I ring at the bar alone is a small ransom.”

  Edna shifted in Sam’s lap and stretched to nurse the skinned knee.

  “Oh, Edna baby.” Sam scratched the exposed fur on the back of her neck, noticing that Edna’s nails were painted in a neat French Manicure that matched Tanya’s.

  “Wish I’d bred her.” Tanya stared at Edna with an adoring look, “She’s a born mama. Feel like I cheated her outta babies.”

  Birdie returned with a bandage. Handing it to Sam, she said, “So how’d Lena get trussed up with Fedya? I can’t figure out how she could ’ave gotten herself sideways enough he’d want to cover up her murder.”

  “Unless he had something to do with it.” Sam stopped peeling back the paper from the Band-Aid and looked up at the others.

  She spoke the words they were all avoiding. A chill ran through her as she realized the possibility of the depth of Fedya’s involvement. The reaction from the posse was enough validation of her theory to raise the hairs on the back of her neck.

  “Oh Shit, what are we gonna’ do?” Sam dropped her head.

  “We’re going to take one step at a time.” Grace soothed. “And you are going to keep your head down, Sam. No more digging around until we know who we’re dealing with, okay?”

  Mary Jane stood, grabbing her purse. “I’m getting on the computer. Call me at home if you need me.”

  CHAPTER 22

  Scratching at the Santa Claus hat perched atop her head, Sam looked down the line of girls huffing and stomping like herded animals, waiting for the full dress walkout to begin. It irritated her that the club expected them to wear the ridiculous hats, considering the time they all spent on their hair. The small bottle of Lysol she kept in her locker hadn’t assuaged her phobias about lice or other creepy crawlies that might want to move from one of the hats onto her head.

  Since there was no real order for the walk-out, Sam found a strategic spot between two less attractive girls and leaned against the wall of the balcony. Birdie appeared through the crowd of bobbing red hats and joined Sam.

  “Makin good quid?” Birdie asked as she watched the crowd below.

  “Average. How’s your night going?”

  Birdie grunted and gave a nod.

  Sam looked back down at the masses congregated on the main floor. Still shaken from the recent events, she felt exposed. She felt so much more naked when things weren’t going right. Reminding herself that she was only as transparent as she chose to be was how she kept her work face on. Her barrier against the outside world when she just wanted comfort and quiet was the pretend protective shell she imagined — like an unbreakable Plexiglas case.

  Picking a likely target out of the crowd, she focused on him, trying to will him to look up at her. If she could catch his eye and smile flirtatiously it was almost a given that he would rescue her from stage for the two-for-one table dance. It was a trick she learned early on from another dancer and it gave her something to do while waiting in line.

  Birdie nudged her and tipped her head, gesturing toward the main bar.

  Sam followed Birdie’s line of sight and locked eyes with Mary Jane, who was absentmindedly drying a glass with a towel. She leaned toward the sink so the light would catch her face as she mouthed ‘come here.’ Nodding, Sam continued to stare as Mary Jane melted back into a flurry of activity.

  “I’ve got me two-fer lined up, but wait for me. I want to ’ear what she’s got.” Birdie whispered as she stared at her reflection in the mirrored wall behind them, arranging ringlets and fixing smudged make-up with her pinkie.

  The remixed Christmas music used for the holiday pussy parade blared through the speakers. The dancers at the front of the line on either end of the balcony started their descent down the steps to the main stage. Clutching the handrails, the girls performed a choreographed chorus line kick in time with the music. Sam thought about Mr. Rourke’s instruction to the employees of Fantasy Island just before the door to the airplane opened — Smiles everyone! Smiles!

  Mary Jane retrieved a folded piece of paper from her apron pocket and slid it across the bar to Sam.

  “Seems he’s a very bad boy.” Mary Jane mumbled in a hushed tone. “Don’t read it here.”

  Without pockets to slip the note in, Sam folded the yellow lined paper into the palm of her hand and made a fist around it. Raising her eyebrows, she looked at Mary Jane trying to elicit some information.

  “Not here. Never again here. Put it away and keep it safe. We need to talk after work.” Mary Jane tur
ned and walked back to a waitress who was waiting at the bar for her drink order to be filled.

  Feeling the softened edges of the paper with her thumb, Sam looked at Birdie. The hair on her arms floated to a stand. Grabbing Sam, Birdie pressed through the crowd toward the Pussycat Powder room. Sam followed distractedly in a skipping shuffle behind Birdie’s tether. She couldn’t focus. Her mind skittered around what possibilities the note would reveal about Fedya’s past. Or, for that matter, his present.

  Into the bathroom, past the snorters, Birdie pushed Sam into the last stall. Following her in, she pushed the slide bolt home. Turning to Sam, her eyes fidgeted with anticipation. “Let’s be ’avin it then.” Birdie quietly hissed.

  Sam pulled Birdie next to her as she pressed her back against the cold, tile wall. Holding the paper between them, high enough that a nosey dancer peering over the stall wouldn’t be able to see the contents, the two read silently.

  As their eyes progressed down the page, Sam’s hand shook. The spasm of the all too familiar twitch attacked her eyelid muscle unmercifully. The cold from the wall seeped through Sam’s skin and spread to her spine and extremities like burgeoning fear. Birdie shivered next to her and dropped her hand from the page.

  “What the fuck are we gonna do?” Sam whispered, unable to tear herself away from the typed words on the page.

  Birdie moved her mouth closer to Sam’s ear, “Bloody mob. How could we ’ave missed that he’s part of the Russian mafia? Seems so obvious when you fink about that greasy geezah.”

  Twitch. “He’s not part of the mob, Birdie, he is the mob. Russian, anyway.”

  CHAPTER 23

  Standing in front of the wall of plate glass windows in the living room of his penthouse apartment, Fedya stared out at the Atlanta skyline as it soared above the trees like quartz crystals projecting from stone. The tony neighborhood of Buckhead sprawled around the northern edge of his building. To the south, downtown Atlanta.

  Fedya thought about home. He had grown up the son of a factory worker in Yekaterinburg, nestled in the eastern foothills of the Ural Mountains. His father was a foreman at a turbine factory while his mother hand-stitched opulent dresses at their kitchen table for the wealthy wives of the vor, or Godfathers. They were doing okay by Russian standards, but there weren’t many meals with second helpings. Every night his father came through the door with a bottle of Vodka. It was cheap entertainment and kept them warm when the furnace in their Soviet-era apartment clanked and went cold.

  The city wasn’t your typical poor community. It was instead one of the centers for scientific, cultural, and economic growth. Fedya started working when he was twelve. Poverty disgusted him almost as much as the social hierarchy that was recognized by all and questioned by none. From the time he was a child, he’d vowed to himself that he would be the richest man in the Urals. That he would be the one to make the rules. The lack of moral code, made it easier for him to do what was necessary to get where he wanted.

  At seventeen, Fedya joined the Red Army. More specifically, he joined the Special Forces known as the Spetsnaz. These were the Soviet Union’s equivalent of the Navy Seals or the Israeli 13th Flotilla. There, Fedya learned every kind of combat imaginable – tracking, camouflage, assassination techniques, sabotage, foreign languages, interrogation and a host of other useful but nasty talents. He rose quickly through the ranks and was eager for assignments, particularly those that involved assassinations.

  Fedya’s first kill was a diplomat who had stepped out-of-line in the eyes of the Kremlin. Nervous at first, he found the task quite thrilling. He got a rush from stalking his victim. Toying with him before delivering the deathblow. Remembering the look in the diplomat’s eyes as the life drained from his body could still, to this day, make Fedya smile.

  Working as an embedded agent in Afghanistan during the 1980s, Fedya made some valuable contacts with the local drug czars. The USSR may have been fighting a war, but Fedya had loyalty to no one but himself. When the war ended in ’89, the motherland was flooded with young war veterans who no longer wanted to suckle at the teat of Communism. Many suffered from untreated post-traumatic stress disorder. A rebellious undercurrent began to change the fabric of Russian society. Patterns of discontent and violence began to emerge. Positions of power opened for those savvy enough to recognize and act on the need for structure in the chaos.

  He remembered the day the old guard stepped down from high atop the onion-domes of the Kremlin on December 23, 1991. This was the day a new breed of criminal moved to the forefront — filling the space previously occupied by the government. Seeing the way of the future, Fedya left the ranks of the Spetsnaz and began building his own empire. Using veterans of the war, he built a system of graft, racketeering and protection for hire. Groups of gangs called “Bandits” had begun to rape the area and terrorize the working class. The question wasn’t whether one would pay protection, but rather to whom. Fedya’s power spread quickly and he became the most powerful vor in the Urals, transiently, one of Russia’s most wanted criminals.

  Because of his highly visible position, Fedya could no longer take the risk of indulging his personal love of “wet work”. It was the single greatest loss in his life. From then on, assassinations were always assigned to mob soldiers desperate to earn their place within the organization. He missed the metallic smell and the feeling warm blood on his hands. The sound of a congested whistle as the final breath escaped from a dying man’s lips. Killing was the only real passion Fedya ever had. He thought about the old days when he was free to feed his addiction with the same fondness a parent might feel for a child. Devoid of compassion, he was the most dangerous kind of person — an honest-to-goodness solid-gold sociopath.

  Picking up the tumbler of vodka he’d set on a large glass coffee table, he was lost in thought. His eyes studied a falcon circling just above the treetops along Peachtree Road. A rare sight this late in the year, the tough old bird must have stayed in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains instead of joining the migration south. A smooth, calculated dip into the skeletal branches of a tree earned the predator a meal. Fedya felt proud. It was a sign. The sacrifice of the weak is necessary for the survival of the strong.

  CHAPTER 24

  Mary Jane fiddled with the tines on her fork. “Did ya’ll ever think about the amount of money that old man is making off of us?”

  “Gobs and gobs of the stuff.” Grace produced a make-up remover wipe and began massaging her face.

  “Seriously, let’s think about this. Twenty-five dollars a head at the door and on an average night we get what, fifteen hundred through the door? That’s $37,500.”

  Sam started scratching numbers on her napkin, “And a hundred dollar house fee from each dancer. We average one hundred girls a night, not including day shift, that’s another ten thousand.”

  “We each give the DJ ten percent of our earnings, who in turn pays the house twenty percent of his. That’s a tricky one, how do we average what girls make?” Grace paused “I guess if we figure each girl makes five hundred a night that should balance the girls that have an insanely profitable evening with the ones who go home crying. So, what did we say? A hundred girls at five hundred each is fifty thousand dollars. Ten percent of that is five thousand.”

  “What the bloody hell am I doing peeling every night if those fucking DJ Pillocks are making that kind of quid?”

  “Blood pressure Birdie. You’re turning red.” Sam paused, pen poised over napkin.

  Grace continued “So they give the Cat a grand a night and walk with four large.”

  “There’s a two drink minimum, but it’s not a church pot-luck after all. These boys are doin’ some drinkin’ and we all know most of those ladies could drink a guy under the table.” Mary Jane paused to think. “I know my drawer averages between twenty and thirty thousand, but I’ve rung as much as fifty-seven thousand on a shift. My register is one of six, so let’s estimate the bars at $180,000.”

  “What’er we at?�
�

  Sam did a quick tally and exhaled. “$228,500 a night not including VIP rooms and twenty percent on the Pink Pay.”

  “Thirty-five VIP rooms at five hundred an hour for eight hours is . . . mmmmm...$140,000 plus tack on the twenty percent fees for credit cards, adds to $168,000. For a grand total of $396,500.00”

  Sam studied the numbers on the napkin, and then looked up at Mary Jane. “I knew they were doing great business, but I could have lived out my days never knowing exactly how much. I feel greedy.”

  Mary Jane could feel blood pulsing in her temples and her palms began to sweat. Just the thought of all that money made her mouth dry out in what seemed like a random redistribution of water in her body. When she carried her till into the office for check-out every night she’d seen the stacks of money in the safe. And the thwiffing sound the money counter made seemed constant as it churned out neatly collated stacks of bills ready for banding. It just hadn’t ever registered, so to speak, the quantity of money changing hands.

  “Cops, Feds, or some type of enforcement.” Tanya’s ever present smile, shining above them, topping off cooled cups with warm refills.

  While the girls were basking in the mental tractor-beam pull of the money, Tyrone, Tyrese and the cluster of nearly naked women nestled into a semi-circular corner booth, very nearly dry humping each other.

  “They say they’re dressed like they’re going golfing in Alpharetta, which means they’re staking out. Nobody dresses like that to come to Buckhead at four o’clock in the morning. Also, that sedan of theirs has government plates. Someone didn’t think that through.” Tanya smoothed a stray hair that had wandered down from her coiffed ‘do.’

  “How do Tyrone and Tyrese feel about you having a dick?” Birdie piped in.