Tipping the Valet

by K. K. Beck

  “They have called us here to see if we know this man,” he said calmly to his mother. “He died, and they want me to identify the body. Can you wait here while I do that?”

  His mother screamed.

  Dmytro turned back to the girl. “She’s too upset to identify the body. You shouldn’t have shown an old woman the picture of a corpse!” Dmytro snatched the grisly paperwork and flung it at her. His mother began to wail, making an eerie keening sound.

  “We’d like her to identify the body. It’s still here.”

  “But I met him, too,” improvised Dmytro. “Can I please do it? I don’t want the poor lady to be upset.”

  “I’ll call the detectives handling the case,” said the girl. “They’ll want to talk to you.”

  Dmytro grabbed his mother, hustled her out to the loading zone in front of the building, helped his mother into the backseat and got into the car himself. “Get out of here right now,” he hissed to Sergei.

  Sergei took off. “Did they say you could have the body?”

  “No! They were calling the police! I have a record. I can’t talk to them!”

  “But your cousin doesn’t have a record. Volodya can go with her and talk to the detectives.”

  “He’s still in rehab,” snapped Dmytro. The DUI lawyer had said Volodya’s defense would be greatly enhanced if he completed a stint in a residential treatment facility after an alcoholism counselor had determined he was a poor candidate for outpatient treatment. “And anyway, my mother won’t identify the body!” he said. “It’s ridiculous. She’ll never lie. And they’d probably get an official translator!” He sighed heavily. “Can’t you talk him out of this demand? The police will be suspicious immediately! They don’t even know who he is, right now.”

  “Yuri Andreivich thinks that’s so sad,” said Sergei. “To die unknown without a proper burial. He is a hard man but has a soft heart.”

  “Well then, why doesn’t he come up here and claim the body!” snapped Dmytro.

  Sergei gave Dmytro a look of scorn mixed with pity. “Because he wants you to do it. Because he’s mad about the way the poor old man died. And because he knows where the gun is that did the job. You have no choice. You need to atone, or he will be very angry.”

  Dmytro gave him a disgusted look. What a little traitor Sergei had turned out to be. He’d never dreamed Sergei worked for his customer Yuri down in California.

  “Oh, and one other thing,” added Sergei. “It’s important to Yuri Andreivich that Pavel receive a proper burial. Not in that crummy Baptist church of yours. A real funeral with a real Russian priest.”

  Dmytro looked thoughtful. “That gives me an idea,” he said. “There’s a Russian church up on Capitol Hill. A few blocks off Broadway. Let’s go there and see if the priest can come and get the guy. Let him just show up and get the body. I’ll give him a generous donation for the church.”

  Twenty minutes later, looking out of the rear window at the onion-domed building, Dmytro’s mother in the backseat grew agitated. “What are we doing here?” she cried. “This is not a real church! What is happening, Dmytro? I brought you up in a pure faith. Stay away from those evil priests! They baptize infants in there! And not full immersion! It is of Satan.”

  Sergei ignored her, and turned to Dmytro. “You better make this work. And after that, there’s something else Yuri would like you to do.”

  ———

  AFTER listening to Flavia’s rant at her brother, the chef, Tyler had gone home and thought long and hard about what he had heard. What had she been talking about the mafia for? It was hard to believe the Italian mafia had anything to do with Ristorante Alba. Seattle wasn’t New Jersey, and Alba—the real one in Piedmont—wasn’t Sicily. And anyway, in the movies, the mafia was into strip clubs, not five-star restaurants that got respectful mentions in the New York Times travel section.

  But if there was some underworld connection, maybe that explained why someone had been shooting up the place. And why a dead guy was found there in the gray Audi’s trunk. Tyler decided that it was important to let the police know about it, so they’d stop suspecting him and his dad.

  He wasn’t about to call those detectives himself, though. Grandpa’s lawyer, Veronica Kessler, had made it pretty clear he wasn’t supposed to talk to them about anything. And neither was his dad. Maybe Veronica could talk to the cops about it. Or tell him what to do. The next day, right before going to work, he left a message for her.

  But when he got there he wondered if he should even have done that. Would Flavia get into trouble? Now that he knew she wasn’t married, and that she was really more interested in marine biology than the restaurant business, he wondered if he really had any idea who she was at all. In fact, whatever her deal was, he realized he now felt sorry for her. Even though he still wondered if she was trying to get her gold-digging hooks into Scott Duckworth.

  His thoughts were interrupted by the first flurry of lunch cars. When he got back to the front of the restaurant after parking his third car, he was startled to see Chip and Flavia standing there.

  Flavia was shaking Chip’s hand in a kind of formal way and said, “I’m glad you’re better,” then glanced at Tyler and gave him a frosty look.

  “Just a scratch,” said Chip.

  “Mr. Duckworth asked me to give you this,” she said, handing over an envelope. “He’s sorry you were hurt.”

  Tyler couldn’t resist asking her, “Does he think that bullet was meant for him?”

  She shrugged elegantly, then turned and walked back to her post.

  “Hey, glad you’re okay, Chip,” said Tyler.

  Chip didn’t reply. He was tearing open the envelope Flavia had given him. He pulled out a fifty-dollar bill and stared down at it with an expression that was both shocked and sad. Tyler thought Chip looked like an eight-year-old who didn’t get the Christmas present he’d been counting on.

  “That sucks,” said Tyler. “Fifty bucks for taking a bullet for him.”

  “Not even a note!” said Chip indignantly. “Well, screw him. My ship’s coming in soon, and I can blow off this whole valet thing.”

  ———

  DMYTRO’S heart was pounding with rage. How had it come to this? After an unfortunate encounter at the church, that had ended just as badly as the trip to the morgue, Sergei had driven to Dmytro’s house to drop off his mother. He should have known that it wasn’t a good idea to try and use her to get that body for Yuri’s sentimental funeral! Dmytro had tried to calm her down while Sergei lounged insolently around in the living room of his own home helping himself to Dmytro’s liquor and playing with Dmytro’s dogs.

  Dmytro was furious with the dogs. They seemed to like Sergei! What kind of loyalty was that? He had half a mind to put them both down.

  Now, Dmytro was behind the wheel of his own car, driving to Alba with Sergei in the passenger seat flicking his cigarette out of the window and humming to himself as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

  Sergei had made it clear that he wanted Dmytro to drive, and Dmytro had caved! Now he was the chauffeur and Sergei was the boss! All because of what Yuri had on Volodya and that gun!

  Maybe he should just wash his hands of Volodya. Why not? Why should he give away a percentage of everything he had built just because of Volodya’s stupidity? But he’d have to think hard about that. Even if he could bring himself to do it, Volodya could try to make a lot of trouble for him. He knew a lot about the business.

  Maybe Dmytro could just retire. Hand over everything to Yalta Yuri, including Volodya, and just retire. Maybe open a little shop somewhere and just do a little legitimate body and fender work. He could afford to retire. All those laddered CDs at the credit union would still be there. Hell, he could even sell the house, get himself a nice condo. The market was looking better and he’d made a lot of improvements.

  If only things had gone better at the church, Dmytro would have looked like someone who could handle things. Like someone not to be messed w
ith. Dmytro told himself to try and think this through, and for now, just play along. And he’d suppress those defeatist thoughts about retiring. Why the hell should he just hand over everything he’d worked for to some guy from California!

  “Listen, Sergei,” he said, “I’ll do what I can about this funeral business. But I can’t believe you are being so reckless—jeopardizing my cousin and even me. And why did you tell me that it would be easy? Just a matter of asking to bury the body? Look, if Yuri wants me to take these kind of risks, maybe he can just buy me out of our new…” he paused “…partnership.”

  “Partnership is not really the right word,” said Sergei. “But even if you don’t feel you have confidence in Yuri’s leadership, don’t assume he would be willing to let you walk away from everything. He needs a good manager like you to run things. Think of it as a friendly takeover that’s a win-win for everyone. No hard feelings at all.” Sergei smiled ingratiatingly. “You know, if you take care of just a few things, Yuri Andreivich will feel more kindly about everything. It’s your chance to show good will. There will be a nice cut for you. You will just operate under his roof. That’s a good thing for you.”

  Dmytro sighed. “Okay, the funeral. And this new business arrangement. But you said he has other demands.”

  “That’s right. First of all, if you think Vic and Chip are stealing from you, we need to do something about it right away.”

  “Okay, we get the restaurant to fire them. I can do that. I tell that little Italian girl to tell the valet company to get rid of them.” Of course, that would put a huge crimp in his business, but if it was going to end up as Yuri’s business, maybe that didn’t matter.

  “Yuri wants more than that,” said Sergei. “He’s sending up some of his guys to mess them up.”

  Dmytro bit his lip nervously. “But what about Vic’s uncle, the vor from Tbilisi?”

  “We’ll be discreet,” said Sergei. “Maybe Yuri can work things out with the vor,” he added vaguely. “Or maybe you just mess up Chip. Vic will get the message. Anyway, Yuri will want you to work with the guys he’s sending up and help him teach them a lesson. A test of your manhood. But if it is too much for you to discipline people who disrespect you, maybe you shouldn’t be in this business.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  TYLER GLANCED AT HIS PHONE and saw Veronica Kessler’s name. This wasn’t a call he wanted to take with other people around. “Hang on, Veronica,” he said. As far as he knew, the banquet room would be empty now. The valets were always told ahead of time if a private function was scheduled there. He popped into the entryway. Flavia was hunched over the screen that showed which tables were reserved, and Tyler ducked into the little hallway that led past the rest rooms to the banquet room. It was all set up with lots of round tables and poufy napkins on the plates. Tyler positioned himself behind a big portable screen in three hinged panels, painted with baroque-looking flowers and birds, next to a long table with polished silver chafing dishes and serving pieces.

  Veronica wanted to know if the police had been in touch.

  “No. I haven’t heard a thing,” he said.

  “Good,” she said. “Let’s keep it that way. Nothing good will come out of talking to them anymore.”

  “That’s why I called,” said Tyler. “I overheard something last night I thought they should know about.”

  “What’s that?” said Veronica.

  “Well, one of the owners here seemed to be saying that the mafia was somehow involved with the restaurant.”

  “With Alba?”

  “That’s right. Don’t you think that might be relevant? Should I call the detectives?”

  “No! They’ll think you’re some kind of nut job trying to find someone else to blame for that shooting. That’s just the kind of stupid thing that scared suspects say. Hinting at some weird conspiracy. I don’t want you talking to them. It’s a miracle you’re not a guest of the county right now.” She paused, as if she were thinking, and then said, “I don’t buy it anyway. It doesn’t ring true. And that’s what they’ll think.”

  “Okay,” said Tyler. Veronica was probably right.

  Just then he heard Flavia’s voice from the other side of the screen. “We can talk here,” she said. He quickly ended his call and tried the door to the hallway so he could slip out, but it had apparently locked behind him. He stood as still as he could, and positioned himself so he could see a sliver of the room through one of the hinged gaps in the screen.

  “Please sit down,” said Flavia. Her voice sounded strained. There seemed to be two guys with her and they all sat down at one of the tables. He could see Flavia in profile, and bits of the elbows and backs of her two companions,

  “We just wanted you to know that from now on, we won’t be handling this business,” said an older man in a Slavic accent. “From now on you’ll be working with Sergei here.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Flavia. “We had an agreement, didn’t we?”

  A younger voice said, “And now I have an agreement with Mr. Zelenko. And I’m taking over this loan. Managing it for him.”

  “You can go ahead and make the payments the same way,” said the older guy in a friendly way. “We’ll make sure it gets to the right place.”

  Flavia nodded warily.

  Now the younger man spoke up. “But we’re going to have to make an adjustment. The interest rate is going to have to be raised.”

  “But we’ve almost paid it all off. In fact, I think I might be able to pay the whole amount very soon.” Flavia tilted her chin up bravely.

  “We’d like to continue to own a part of the restaurant,” said the younger guy. “We’ve heard good things about it.”

  “But when the loan is paid off then my brother will own it again,” she said. She turned away from the screen where Tyler was watching to one of the older men. “This was just to help us catch up—you know. We got behind on our payroll tax. And Labor and Industries. It was just growing pains. There is so much bookkeeping in this business.”

  The younger guy, apparently named Sergei, said, “You needed help. And this gentleman helped you. We think you should be grateful.”

  “But I don’t understand,” said Flavia.

  Sergei continued. “And we think you have a terrific restaurant. We’d like to be a part of that and have an ownership position.” He cleared his throat. “Unfortunately, Mr. Zelenko can’t own a restaurant up front. Not if you want the restaurant to have a liquor license. He is a felon. So we have to do this quietly. Keep the government out of it.”

  “I need to talk to my brother,” said Flavia. “This isn’t a good time. It’s the lunch rush.”

  Suddenly, Tyler saw Flavia tilting backward out of his frame of vision and the profile of one of the men came into view in the narrow space between the screen’s panels. His face was leaning right into hers. There was a long scar down that face, a scar Tyler knew he’d seen before. He’d seen this guy at Donna’s.

  “We’d like to have lunch here right now,” he said. “I trust you can get us a good table, seeing as we partly own this place.” He reached out and grabbed her thin little wrist.

  Tyler felt a huge surge of adrenaline and stepped around the screen. “Oh, sorry,” he said in a loud voice. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

  The guy with the scar released Flavia’s wrist.

  Tyler gestured toward the door. “I just came in because some lady says she might have left her phone in this room last night.” He sensed that his voice sounded too loud and phony and he didn’t know if they believed he could have entered so quietly. He turned toward the door and yanked at the knob. “Oh, I guess this locked after me. I’m really sorry.” He turned back to face them and spread out his arms in a too-wide apologetic gesture that succeeded in knocking the screen toward him. He grabbed it and managed to set it upright again.

  “That’s okay,” said Flavia calmly. “We’re finished in here.” She turned to the two men and said, “I’ll get you a very n
ice window table. It will take a minute to set it up. Perhaps you’d like to wait in the bar.”

  The two men stared at Tyler and he stared back, then he made his way past them to the customer entrance to the room. It was definitely the guy with the scar he’d seen before at Donna’s. The older guy looked a lot like that drunk named Vlad or whatever it was who had kissed him at Donna’s his last night there. He paused for a moment just outside the doorway and outside of their line of vision. Flavia, who sounded remarkably calm for someone who had just been manhandled and threatened, was saying, “I meant to ask you about the valet situation here.”

  Sergei said, “We want you to continue to use this company.”

  “Oh, I understand,” she said. “But what about individual valets?”

  “You can get rid of anyone except Chip and Vic,” said the man who was called Zelenko.

  So this was the mafia Flavia had been talking about. The Russian mafia. The same thugs who hung out at Donna’s seemed to be shaking down Alba. That’s who Flavia was afraid of!

  Back outside, a car was waiting. When Tyler got the car down to the lower lot, it seemed the place was empty of people. But as he locked the car and prepared to jog back up, he noticed Chip rising from behind another car. He’d seen Chip do that before—the night that Duckworth got shot at. Tyler remembered wondering if he was checking to see if he’d scraped the finish. Just what the hell was Chip doing? Tyler hardly believed he could be checking the undercarriage for rust. He pretended not to think there was anything weird going on and waved at Chip.

  Chip waved back and said, “I dropped some of my tips!”

  Tyler made a mental note of just which car Chip had been lurking behind. It was a Lincoln. Tyler remembered it had been a red Mercedes that first time he’d seen him do this in the lot. Both nice cars that by rights should have been parked in the more secure lot near the entrance.

  Why did Scarface want Vic and Chip on the payroll here? Why did those thugs even want Elite Valet here?