Tea Leafing: A Novel

by Weezie Macdonald

  “Prooblemz?”

  The teller’s attention lazily, shifted back to Tanya. “No Herr Patrushev. For dees size transwer da bank managheir must sign eet.”

  Tanya nodded, wondering exactly what sums the transfers involved. The girls had specified the amounts to be left in the accounts. But since the information they’d pulled from Gio’s hard drive was now several weeks old, they had no idea how much money was sitting in the accounts at present.

  The clock ticked.

  After what seemed like five minutes, a woman approached Tanya from behind and smiled at the teller.

  “Mr. Patrushev?”

  Tanya turned and nodded at the woman.

  “Dees way, bitte.” She accepted the slips of paper and credentials from the teller before turning and waddling a path across the floor like a mother duck.

  Tanya fell into step and followed her behind a cheap partition into a cubicle. Tanya had noticed the orthopedic shoes at the end of her tree trunk ankles. She readied herself to turn on the charm.

  Extending her hand, she flashed a formal, tight-lipped smile. “Heidi Donders, please to meet you.”

  “Pleaze, call me Fedya.” Tanya took her hand and flashed a warm smile.

  Heidi seemed to soften a bit and Tanya thought she caught a slight blush. Gesturing to two uncomfortable looking chairs positioned on the customer’s side, Heidi moved behind the desk.

  Tanya gestured back to Heidi’s chair “Ladies furzt, please.”

  Another blushed smile and some shuffling got Heidi into her adjustable, swiveling office chair. Flipping through the paperwork with unmanicured hands, Heidi tried to focus on the task instead of the tall, handsome man in front of her.

  Tanya wanted this to go smoothly. The goal was to get the job done and fly under the radar so if questioned later, the employees wouldn’t be able to recall anything out of the ordinary about Mr. Fedya Patrushev.

  Heidi had begun her own examination of the credentials in front of her. Tanya was sure that this time the scrutiny was genuine.

  “One moment, bitte.” Without making eye contact, Heidi swiveled in her chair and lifted the receiver on her high tech office phone. She entered a series of numbers and again, spoke in low voice to someone.

  Tanya could feel the underarms of her shirt become damp and she thought of Shug. She concentrated on keeping her breaths even and at a normal pace. The walls closed in and she wondered if the teller would have gone to all the trouble of processing documents if the Swiss Polizei were about to swoop in.

  Tanya pushed the French cuffed sleeve of her dress shirt back just enough to peek at the Cartier watch Shug had given her as a gift upon departure, mindful not to reveal her hairless arm to Heidi.

  The gesture wasn’t lost on Ms. Donders.

  “My apology Fedya. We handle transwer everyday, but dees is especially large.” Heidi plucked a pen from a small beer stein next to her computer.

  Tanya smiled and nodded, hoping she seemed wise rather than panicked.

  Heidi laid out the franked documents in a row in front of her and began initialing the upper right hand corner of each in rapid succession.

  CHAPTER 74

  Mary Jane spotted Pietra the minute she shoved her way to the staircase leading to the main floor, more by sound than sight. The commotion around the bar had died down since the waitresses were ordered to stop serving during Ursula’s first song. Mary Jane knew there would be a rush in the next few minutes. She hoped Bunny, the other bartender, hadn’t realized the respite wouldn’t last the entire set.

  “Oh Lord.” Mary Jane nudged Bunny and gestured toward the one woman wrecking crew. “I think I need to have a cigarette. You got it?”

  Snorting a wicked laugh, she smiled. “Go ahead. I got it.”

  Mary Jane ducked under the hinged counter and made a beeline for Pietra, praying she would be able to intercept the nitwit before she started her ascent to the second floor. She wasn’t sure whether anyone else had the balls to stop Pietra, so she climbed through faceless bodies in the dark.

  CHAPTER 75

  “What the . . .” Joe’s voice trailed off as he stared through the binoculars.

  One of the two-man team responsible for the surveying the club had called in sick. Joe had agreed to fill in since there were no other available agents.

  His partner for the evening slurped a saucy bean sprout from a Chinese take-out container. He tilted his head and squinted out the window of the sedan.

  With a mouthful of food, he mumbled, “Lotta’ activity in the back tonight, huh?”

  His attention returned to his food as Joe stared at the dimly lit back door of the club. Two dumpsters stood at the right corner of the building. On the left was a steel door, a landing and a few concrete steps.

  A homeless woman, who had slumped against one of the dumpsters twenty minutes ago, got to her feet and began digging through her overloaded cart.

  Producing a pink shopping bag, she scurried through the shadows and placed the bag at the top of the steps just outside the door.

  The bag didn’t sit for long. The back door to the club popped open and a tan, slender arm reached out just far enough to remove the bag from its resting place. The homeless woman, who’d wandered back to her post by the dumpsters, stood again.

  A feeling in Joe’s gut told him to watch and wait. His partner was proving to be about as useful as tits on a bull, so he kept his grip on the telephoto-lens-equipped camera and let the man eat in peace. He zoomed in on the woman who was now unloading the bags from her cart. Strangely, most were going into the dumpster. Usually this was a withdrawal only situation for the homeless.

  Wiping the corners of his mouth with a napkin, his partner said, “I think we’ve seen that woman rooting around there before. Probably nothing to write home about.”

  Joe smiled and answered, “Yeah, probably right.”

  His eye stayed glued to the viewfinder watching the woman push her cart to the dark side of the steps behind a southern pine. The back door popped open again and an arm reappeared. So slight was the door’s excursion, he couldn’t be certain whether or not it was the same arm. The club’s interior was dark making recognition next to impossible.

  Loosely tied garbage bags were being set outside the door. From the movement of the sacks, Joe could tell they had some weight to them. Crouched just behind the door of the club, the homeless woman was now pulling bags into her cart as quickly as they were coming out the door.

  Super Fed continued his slurping, oblivious to the unfolding events. Joe tried to make sense of what he was seeing. His training told him to keep still. It took several minutes for all twelve bags to hit the cement and be diverted into the cart. The steel door swung shut.

  The hunched woman unfastened two bags she had saved from her original load. Although the shadows made it difficult to tell exactly what was going on, it looked like cans were being dispersed between several of the top plastic bags just loaded. She swung the now partially empty bags back onto the top the cart. Straining, she guided the shopping cart across a grassy patch and onto a nearby sidewalk.

  From underneath the navy skullcap the woman wore, Joe could swear he saw wisps of red hair. The woman turned her head to look at the traffic traveling past her to the left and pulled her coats closer to her face. She leaned into the task, using her body weight to push the cart along the cracked surface and toward the driveway leading to the club’s entrance.

  CHAPTER 76

  Tanya watched the manager initial the slips.

  “I’ve taken da liberty to called and werify dees transwers are in prozess, Fedya.” Heidi’s smile was genuine and her knitted brow was now smoothed, taking ten years off her appearance. Tanya wanted to recommend a moisturizer, but thought better of it.

  “Zign und dees weel be guute.” Heidi pushed the slips across the desk toward Tanya.

  Busying herself with her computer, Heidi punched keys and tried to give Tanya the illusion of privacy.

  Picking
up the provided pen with her left hand, she began signing Fedya’s name as she had practiced a hundred times before. The undertaking was especially challenging for the right-handed Tanya. Finishing the task, Tanya set the pen on top of the stack to signal Heidi she was done.

  Comparing the signature to that on her screen, Heidi smiled.

  “Ms. Heidi, I can’t zank you enough. Your beauuuty iz only matched by your competenze.” Tanya gave her a broad smile.

  Blushing and looking down she withdrew a small digital device Tanya instantly recognized as a thumb print reader. Her heart skipped a beat.

  “Dees ees formality but I’m shure you understan for secuurety . . .”

  Tanya absentmindedly checked the latex sheath covering her right thumb before placing it over the scanner. She wasn’t sure if the Swiss banking system had adopted the fingerprint system for security but since it was universal back in the States they’d taken the precaution of casting a false print just in case.

  At the end of the night, Mary Jane spent bartending in the Skybox, she’d slipped Fedya’s glass into her apron with a beverage napkin. At the time they weren’t sure it would be needed. But Mary Jane was smart enough to know there might never be another a chance to lift his prints. The idea was to approach Helvetia with a stacked deck.

  Sealing Fedya’s glass in an aquarium with some baking soda and superglue saturated cotton balls, was all that was needed to lift and set the prints. A transfer was made, then a mold, and finally the flesh colored latex cast that was applied with spirit gum. Tanya would be happy when her surgery was over so she’d never have to look at another bottle of the gooey adhesive.

  Tanya moved her right thumb to the glass of the scanner. Heidi’s computer burped an unattractive sound.

  Heidi hit a key and gestured for Tanya to try again, “Deed not read eet. One more please.”

  Watching her own thumb move in slow motion, she positioned her thumb on the glass oval again. She noticed the glue had begun to release ever so slightly around the edges. Beads of sweat now dotted her forehead.

  The computer paused while the red light on the pad scanned the false thumbprint.

  Horrified, Tanya wondered if the scanner was able to read not just one, but two sets of prints through the latex. A standard stamp would have been no problem but realizing this was an untested theory made her shiver.

  The device buzzed followed by a happy chirp from the speakers on the Bank’s computer.

  Heidi swiveled her chair to face Fedya and began tearing the duplicates from the documents in front of her, neatly disposing of the strip of spine.

  Heidi gathered the single slips for Tanya one final time. The tapping and straightening ritual was soon over and the manager rose and handed the slips to Tanya.

  “Ze transwer,” she paused, “is complete in tventy-four hours.’ She slipped a business card from its holder and offered it to the dumfounded Tanya. “Eef vee can halp again, plees call on me.” She extended her hand in front of her for the traditional close of business handshake. Her earnest face melted into a smile.

  Tanya grasped her hand, only half believing she’d pulled it off. She bowed her head in a show of respect and turned to leave.

  CHAPTER 77

  “Get outta my way!” Pietra shouted at the bouncers stationed at the bottom of the staircase. “Gio will have yuh heads when he finds out! Let me go see my SON!”

  “Please, ma’am,” the larger of the two tried to reason with her. “The orders came from Gio. No one is allowed to move around the club while Ursula’s first song is going on.” He gestured to the darkness, “Fedya is worried about the liability of someone getting hurt. Just a couple more minutes and we can escort you up there.”

  Mary Jane came to a skidding stop just short of the threesome. Panting, she said, “Pietra, Gio wants me to entertain you in front while Ursula’s first song is ending.”

  “Who the hell awe you?” Pietra’s anger turned toward Mary Jane.

  “I’m one of the bartenders. I was just going out for a quick cigarette break. I called to clear it with Gio and he asked that I keep you company for a bit. He said he’s afraid you’ll get hurt if you try and go up there now.” Mary Jane blew out a long breath, thinking she should quit smoking.

  Pietra looked back at the bouncers to confirm this was the truth. Recovering quickly from their confused expressions, they both nodded vehemently. No order had come down from Gio but both were ready to have Pietra distracted and away from them.

  Pietra weighed her options for a few moments, muttering to herself.

  “Foine!” Turning on her heels she stomped off toward the front door, with Mary Jane skipping along behind.

  Two of the door girls and several bouncers winced as they saw Pietra heading back toward them and they quickly busied themselves.

  CHAPTER 78

  “Fack. Sonovabatch.” Birdie grumbled. The random pedestrian must have thought she was just a crazy old lady but the heartfelt curses were real as Birdie struggled to maneuver the loaded shopping cart. She smiled as she rolled the club’s cash across the street and past the entrance of the club. The valets were busy loading and unloading cars of rowdy men. Bouncers chattered into the walkie-talkies attached to shoulder harnesses while funneling the crowds through the front door of the club like cattle going to slaughter.

  Midway down the gentle slope of Piedmont Avenue, in the direction of the self-storage place, Birdie lost control of the cart, sending it into the flow of traffic. Knowing it would be impossible to get the cart back onto the sidewalk, she cursed and maneuvered so that it was parallel to the curb. Picking up her pace, she hoped she wouldn’t get nailed by a fast moving car.

  A few minutes passed. Just as Birdie was feeling more confident about her progress, flashing red and blue lights over her shoulder sent her into a cold sweat.

  “Ma'am, please move the cart out of the roadway. You’re obstructing traffic.” Came a bored male voice through a speaker mounted to the exterior of the police car.

  Birdie continued her progress like she hadn’t realized the cop was addressing her.

  “Ma'am, please leave the roadway.” The voice came again, with a sharp edge this time.

  Birdie waved a gloved hand without turning to look. Hoping the years her mother spent faithfully attending mass had somehow earned her enough extra-credit-by-association that God would cut her some slack on this one.

  Wahn. Wahn.

  The officer tapped his siren two short bursts, designed to get her attention as he pulled to the curb opposite her. A spotlight mounted just in front of the driver’s window blazed to life and pointed toward Birdie and her derailed cart.

  She turned, knowing the only way to deal with this was head on. The last thing she needed was to have them follow her to the storage space. Putting both hands on the handle of the cart she began fruitlessly tugging, trying to get the buggy back on the sidewalk.

  The two cops sauntered slowly across the street, turning their heads to watch traffic. The heels of their hands rested atop the butts of their service revolvers, as they slowly approached.

  “Did you not hear me? I said you need to move this out of the street.”

  “Mmmmuh. Mmuh.” Birdie suddenly decided to have a severe speech impediment.

  She saw the second officer wince as they got closer and he noticed the two large facial moles. She’d glued small clippings of eyelashes to them for fun, knowing it would cause people to avert their eyes, hoping not to be caught staring at the disgusting, hairy lumps. She’d considered adding a ‘stache but decided that might be overkill.

  Pulling on the handle again as if to show the officers that the weight of the cart was too much for her she grunted, “Oah. OAH!” Hoping they’d understand her nonsensical blathering.

  They moved closer, studying the cart. One of the officers pointed to it and asked, “Do you need help?” He enunciated his speech more clearly and louder than before as if her mute act was also a sign that she was deaf. She rolled with
it.

  Nodding furiously, her face spreading into a large grin revealing more of the costume makeup she’d gone wild with. Her front teeth were blacked out and the remaining were yellowed to the color of chicken broth.

  The two officers positioned themselves at either end of the cart. They were able to get it a few inches off the ground before the one at the far end yelled “FUCK!” and dropped it.

  “What the hell do you have in here? Dead bodies?” The red-faced cop spoke to the pavement, still not able to bring himself to look at her face.

  Just a couple hundred grand in stolen money, she thought.

  “Mah. EE Mah.” she said, stretching her arms across her bags as if they were going to try and steal her possessions.

  The radio inside the cruiser screeched to life, “10-67, ARMED ROBBERY IN PROGRESS, CORNER OF PIEDMONT AND PEACHTREE. REPEAT 10-67, ARMED ROBBERY IN PROGRESS, CORNER OF PIEDMONT AND PEACHTREE.” The two men looked at each other then back at Birdie. The second officer ran back across the street toward the waiting squad car.

  “Next crossing, get this thing back on the sidewalk,” the first cop said, raising a finger as a warning. He walked backwards toward the car, still watching for traffic. “We’re comin’ back by here and if I see you again, I’m not gonna be so nice.” He turned and sprinted for the car as Birdie clung to her metal raft.

  The lights and sirens blared and the car made a u-turn across the four lanes of intermittent traffic. Speeding off down Piedmont, the squad car blazed past the Pussycat where a much larger, unarmed robbery was in progress.

  “Fackin’ wankers.” Birdie smiled and continued her trek.

  CHAPTER 79

  Mary Jane was astonished that she was able to coax Pietra back through the darkness and into the glaring bright lights of the club’s overhang entrance. She wasn’t supposed to be outside during business hours, but no one was going to stop her. She was effectively distracting Gio’s mother from launching assaults on other employees.