Widow's Run

by TG Wolff

  Screw Denmark, something was rotten right here in DC. Alexei was a medical researcher. There was no reason for him to be emailing with Buford.

  “I tell you I will look, so I will look. That is all I can do. My brother has been dead for a year. I am sure his wife would have claimed what was his.”

  Hell, yes. Everything important to Gavriil miraculously escaped the murderous fire. No one would find it. Least of all Buford Winston.

  The click of a turn signal warned me, but the turn was sharper than I expected. My face bounced off the carpeting, saved from rug burn by my disguise. Latex, it’s not just for jowls anymore. Sitting back on my haunches, I shoved the coat aside for air. The shocking truth was revealed. Those weird little rental car seeds were really…quinoa!

  I hated quinoa!

  Gavriil conducted research on starving populations and was convinced quinoa—pronounced keen-wa for those without a Whole Foods nearby—was adaptable to challenging climatic conditions.

  We had eaten so much of it, I was sure my lower forty was still cultivating a crop partial to red wine, dark chocolate, and medium-rare steak. I rummaged through Alexei’s pockets and found his hotel key, an EpiPen, three individually packaged mints, ten jeweler’s baggies of quinoa seeds, and folded sheets of paper. Gavriil’s handwriting! It was in Russian, which meant he was agitated when he wrote the pages. When he was wound up, English eluded him, especially the written word.

  “I have appointment shortly at university with my brother’s assistant. I will see what she has. Perhaps she will know the meaning of the key.”

  “No!” Buford’s response was so emphatic, they heard him throughout Virginia. “Do not tell anyone. You just do your looking quiet like.”

  “Yes, yes.” Alexei capitulated, his voice without confidence. “I will call later.” His cell phone landed on the passenger seat with a small thud. He nearly elbowed me taking a go-cup out of the holder. He sipped and answered with a moan that could follow a woman but never coffee or tea.

  As the car slowed to a stop, I peeked out the windshield, seeing the traffic light turn red. He replaced the go-cup in the holder and sighed. This was my chance to come out without killing either of us. Before I could act, metal slapped against the driver’s window.

  “Get out of the car, muthafucka, you bein’ jacked.” The voice was so deep it likely originated in the man’s ankles. Despite being sourced from Urban Dictionary, it had a smooth polished tone of rhythm and blues and didn’t belong with grand theft auto. I waited for the deep bass to say “gotcha” and let me get on with my day. Instead, he said, “I’ll take your money and your car. Out before I get mad.”

  “What? The car is not mine. You want money? I have money.” Alexei’s hand groped around my head again.

  “One…two…”

  The crossover went into park and the driver’s door opened. “Okay. I am listening. No need for the gun.”

  A big weight dropped into the car and then we were flying. Right turn. Left turn. I braced my back again the rear seat, trying to keep my feet under me, so to speak. The ride was wild. A ménage à trois between X- Games, the rodeo, and The Fast and the Furious.

  The deep voice laughed. “It’s King, wanna go for a ride? Be there in ten.”

  The hell we were. Time to hijack this carjacking.

  I rose slowly, peering over his left shoulder at the road ahead. We were on a narrow side street with cars randomly parked in front of houses. The road in front of us was open.

  I sprung up now, barring an arm across his collarbone and holding on. The car bucked wildly left and right, like a prize bull. We clipped a parked car, rode up a curb, turfed the one patch of grass in the neighborhood but never stopped. I hung tight, using my legs and barre hold to keep my seat. Ghetto bull riding! What a freakin’ rush!

  I laughed with the thrill of the ride while the bass voice sounded like a tornado siren.

  “Quiet,” I ordered. I pressed the EpiPen into his thick neck “You want to live, you shut up now. You hear me?” My voice was calm and professional.

  “What did you do? What was that?” His voice cracked as it went up an octave it couldn’t reach. “Did you kill me?”

  “I injected you with a powerful neurocontroller. Mind control. Your mind is under my control. Listen to my voice. You will do what I say, or you will feel extreme pain. Do you understand?”

  “I don’t wanna die!”

  I hate working with amateurs. “Extreme pain. Do you understand?”

  He whimpered once, then remembered he had balls. “Yeah. I understand.”

  “Slow down. Drive the speed limit.” He complied, letting the car coast down to the posted limit. “What’s your name?”

  “King.”

  “You’re real name. Not your gang banger.”

  “Just King. When you got a name like mine, don’t need another. You got one? A name?”

  “Diamond. Now that we’ve been introduced, we’re going back to pick up the man you borrowed this from.”

  King didn’t balk but drove like a YouTube video on safe driving. Hands at eight and four o’clock, speed one mile an hour under the speed limit; he used the turn signals as we circled back to Alexei. He stood on the corner, unsure if he should sit, stay, or roll over.

  King pulled over and lowered the passenger window. Alexei bent down, twice as bewildered as he had been.

  “Get in,” I yelled.

  Alexei inspected the length of the car. “But, what happened? The rental car company will charge to my credit card.”

  “I’ll fix it. Get in.”

  He opened the door this time and eyed the situation. King sat behind the wheel, twitching as though he didn’t quite have full command of his faculties. Me in the back seat, the lion tamer in control of her pride. “Cousin? You were there and then you weren’t.”

  “And now I’m here. For the last time, get in.” Finally, he did. He grabbed his go-cup with two hands and poured it down his throat. Liquid clear as water escaped the corner of his mouth. I gave King directions to Alexei’s hotel. “You have thirty minutes to answer my questions. You went to the bank box. What did you find?”

  “It—it was full of packets of seeds. The quinoa my brother loved so. Different varieties, I think, different colors. There were notes.” His gaze flashed to King, an antelope waiting for the lion to strike.

  “Don’ worry ’bout me. She shot me with mind control juice.” King hit the brakes hard to let a panel van merge in front of us. “Without the juice, I’da sliced the muthafucka for cutting me off.”

  Alexei wasn’t comforted. “The pages had dates and notes from conversations between my brother and that man Buford Winston. He had circled some. The last date was three days before he died.”

  “The letter with the key, was it dated?”

  He nodded gravely. “It had the same date as the last entry.”

  The day before Gavriil left for the conference in Italy. I pictured those last days, searching for a clue he thought something was wrong. It wasn’t the first time I’d tried to “watch” those last moments. Each time, I saw nothing but my own problems. How self-absorbed I was! “Did he say why he didn’t leave the key with my cousin? Why send it to you and ask you to give it to her? He could have handed it to her over morning coffee.”

  The fact he chose his brother over me hurt. If it was so freaking important, he should have left it with me. Gavriil was lucky he was dead because we would have had one hell of a fight over this.

  “I think…I think he hoped it was nothing.”

  King butted in. “So, this dude put a bunch of seeds in a bank and then mailed you the key before he died?” He shook his head. “Bad news. I don’t know what kind of shit y’all are messed up in but keep me out. I don’t do bad news.”

  “You don’t do bad news?” Alexei’s brows pressed together at the incredulous declaration. “You carjacked me! At gun point!”

  “Well, yeah but, th
at ain’t nothing.”

  “It is to me!” One minute, Alexei was searching frantically, the next he pointed the business end of the gun at King. “How does it feel, being on this end. Does it feel like nothing?”

  “No!” My shout was swallowed by the explosion of the gun. I screamed at Alexei, I know I did because I felt my mouth moving but the fucker deafened me by pulling the trigger.

  Alexei dropped the gun like a hot potato. His mouth was open in terror, his eyes equally wide. King faced Alexei, his hands pressed over his ears, his lips moving in a flurry.

  I was glad I was deaf. They were making a hell of a racket.

  King patted himself for wounds instead of keeping his hands on the wheel. The car played pinball between the parked cars.

  We got tossed like a salad.

  “King. Hands on the wheel.” My voice bullied past the ringing in my ears. I used the tone honed on inner-city kids to keep the big man hopped up on a double dose of adrenaline under control. “Alexei, give me the gun. Now.” He picked it from his lap and shoved it at me. I engaged the safety and wiped it down. I couldn’t have a dead woman’s fingerprints on it.

  “Give me some of that brain juice!” King’s voice was strained but his hands were steady. “I need it. Please, Diamond lady. Just a little hit.”

  “You’re doing fine. Take the next right.” Police weren’t going to be far behind.

  “Damn, I’m glad you shot me up. If it wasn’t for the numbnumb juice, I would have shit myself.”

  “Don’t pull something patting yourself on the back. Just drive. Sanely.” We drove for a mile. Sirens came, then lights. They raced past us, and we let out a collective sigh of relief. King began to laugh. The deep bass was contagious, infectious, sounding like something exotic and melodic.

  “You have a beautiful voice,” Alexei said. “You sing?”

  Embarrassment crinkled his eyes, reddened his cheeks. “No,” he said…but he wanted to.

  “King, when I say ‘Barry White’ you sing. You won’t feel shy or embarrassed, just confident and joyful. You understand?”

  “No…I don’t think—”

  “Barry White.”

  “Keep yo’ hand on that plow. Hold on.” Notes as full and rich as the history of the old spiritual permeated the car, reaching through muscle and bone to the soul. Time suspended. All the bullshit of the carjacking and the gunfire lifted with his voice. I didn’t notice the buildings speeding by or the sounds of a city. There was only the pure beauty of King’s voice and the message he delivered. “If you wanna get to Heaven, let me tell you how, just keep yo’ hand on that plow and hold on.”

  Verse after verse wove a veil of peace, covering the world of violence and deceit in serenity. Silence brought me back to the car.

  Alexei was wiping his eyes. “So beautiful and right on this day, when my brother has his wife by his side. What is this song?”

  “A negro spiritual. It’s called ‘Hold On.’ My gran’s favorite.” King’s smile revealed the kind and gentle man within. “What now?”

  “I am to go to the university and meet with Professor Liu,” Alexei said.

  Right. Forgot that detail. “Why are you meeting with her and what does Buford Winston have to do with it?”

  “His name and number were in the bank box, so I call him yesterday after my visit. I was hopeful he would know more. He is eager to know Gavriil’s work. They collaborated on work.”

  Maybe. If collaborated is spelled s-t-o-l-e.

  “Did Winston tell you to talk to Professor Liu?” Quili Liu became chair of the department after Gavriil’s death. It was the opportunity the quiet woman needed to take the reins. As his assistant, she was the natural choice to continue the promising research. “What does he want with her?”

  “He asked me to meet, this is true. He does not trust her. He does not say this, but I hear it behind his voice.”

  “Did he say why?”

  “Intimated. The work, my brother’s work, is not moving and she is, um, stalling him. Yes, putting him off.”

  Typical Winston. It’s all about the dollars. Someone finally stood up to him and he cried foul. Typical bully move.

  “I go,” he continued, interrupting my mental rant, “because it is my brother’s work. It was everything to him and if I can help it to move forward, it is what I must do. You see?”

  “Yes, I see.” I didn’t trust Buford farther than I could throw him—about two feet—and was curious what the understudy was doing with the role of researcher-in-chief. “Call her and tell her you are going to be late. Blame it on the funeral.” I scrawled my voicemail number on a receipt shoved in a cup holder. “After you meet with her, call this number and leave a message with a summary.”

  He took the number, tucking it into his shirt pocket. I expected questions, they were there in the piercing set of his dark eyes, but he didn’t voice them. We neared the hotel. It was time for action. “Circle the block. We’ll drop you off, King, and then we’ll park the car. You come from the back of the lot, get in, and we’ll drive away. Alexei, you’ll go to your hotel room. Wait two hours, then come back down and report the car stolen.”

  King circled and pulled into a fast food restaurant behind the hotel. He parked and turned to Alexei before he got out. “Sorry about the jacking and all. You were right. You ain’t nothing. You something.” He offered Alexei his hand but in an urban style, putting their hands at an angle to each other.

  Alexei imitated a dog who just heard an interesting sound. “So! Like television.” He placed his palm in King’s and pulled his carjacker in for a hug.

  King patted the older, smaller man on the back, then opened the door. “Gettin’ me a milkshake then I’ll be seein’ you.” He walked to the fast food restaurant, singing to announce his presence. “Keep yo hand on that plow. Hold on!”

  Alexei left the passenger seat for the driver’s, going out and around. When he slid onto the leather, he was humming the music of another people, from another time. “Is a good song, yes?”

  I closed my eyes, trusting Alexei to drive around the block without getting lost or carjacked again. I still needed to get to Black and do his deed to get my file. Buford Winston just got himself added to my list as Suspect #1. The engine turned off. I opened my eyes and moved into the gap between the front seats. “Call Liu and stall. Take a shower, work, do whatever you need to buy us a few hours, then report the car stolen. Got it?”

  He nodded, calm and determined. “I am glad to have met you today, cousin. I wish you luck.” He stunned me by cupping my face in his hands and kissing one cheek, then the other. Then, with hurried movements, he opened the door, dropped his phone on the ground, followed it out, and closed the door.

  The keys were still in the ignition. Oops.

  I watched Alexei until the automatic doors swallowed him. He moved much like his brother. Seeing him made the ache better and worse. The driver’s door opened, and I swung the gun toward the invader.

  “I got you chocolate ’cause ladies are always lovin’ on the chocolate.” King passed a tall cup to me. “Where to, Diamond lady?”

  If he thought anything of my reaction, he didn’t let on. For me, I was pissed at myself. I needed to get these feelings back in check. I blamed Black. My head wouldn’t be so effed up if he hadn’t picked my funeral as the drop. “My castle,” I snapped, then gave him directions to my neighborhood. He figured out I was done talking and turned the radio on. Bass thumped out, cheering on a rapper who smeared the women stupid enough to sleep with him.

  “That the way you treat your women?” I collected the detritus from the floor and shoved it back into the coat Alexei left behind.

  “Naw. King’s a lover of the ladies.” He changed the station. “And the ladies love me back.”

  I slurped down the last of my milkshake as King pulled into the parking lot next to the building he didn’t know I owned.

  “Okay. Do it.” King had his arms
braced against the steering wheel, his face in a tight grimace.

  He had me. “Do what?”

  “The mind control antidote.”

  “Ri-ight. The antidote. Well, King, I’m afraid the antidote expired last year, and the drug company can’t make more because the DEA bought the last of the supply and shut the factory down.”

  “Fuckin’ DEA.” He punched the steering wheel. “Am I gonna to be under mind control for the rest of my life?”

  “’Fraid so. Here’s what you’re going to do. First, get rid of this car. Wipe it clean and do whatever you were going to do with it. Give me your hand.” I picked the pen off the floor, then copied a contact from my phone to his hand. “Second, you’re going to call this man and sing for him. He tries to brush you off, you tell him Diamond’s cashing in a marker. Then you listen to him. Period. Finally—”

  “How much you think I can remember?”

  “Finally, have a good and happy life, King. I order you to.” I left the car.

  He leaned across the center console. “What about you, Diamond lady? What manner of trouble you gonna make?”

  “The multifaceted kind.”

  Wanted: Sophisticated Slut, Must Have Three-Inch Heels

  The stiletto heels of my knee-high boots clicked as I stepped onto small islands of concrete adrift in a sea of rubble. The city long ago forgot this patch of nowhere existed, leaving it to reclamation by feral beasts of all species. My target was the squat building wearing a mish-mash of sixties, nineties, and Y2K renovations. Looked like everybody ran out of money before the job was done. Still, the building stood when others had fallen, surviving the urban apocalypse like a cockroach without the good sense to die. Around the joint, an ad-hoc parking lot took over the space demoed buildings left behind. Crushed glass sprinkled across the parking lot like sugar on a donut, glistening under the happy-ass afternoon sun. The Hideaway.