by Chris Orcutt
When she caught her breath, she lifted my head up by the chin.
“Dakota?”
“Yes, Jen?”
“Stop kidding around and start kissing around. Understood?”
“Perfectly.” I reached for the bedside lamp to shut it off.
“No,” she said, stopping me. “Leave it on.”
14
Never Again
Before I even opened my eyes, as I hovered in that normally delicious state between sleep and consciousness, there was only pain—a throbbing pain in my head, and, bonus, a steady humming pain throughout my entire body. It was as if all of my cells were screaming. Which in a sense they were—for water.
Ugh, Dakota—alcohol. Drinking. You were up all night drinking, followed by vigorous sportive exploits…with…ah, yes…the ravishing Jen Suzuki. Is she still here? Reach over. Yup, there she is. The two of you, drunk and spent, must have fallen asleep only a couple of hours ago.
And there had been drinking earlier in the evening, too. Some woman at the Border Café. Had an old-fashioned name. Penelope? No…Helen. Helen of Troy. That’s right—a Classics scholar. Visions of carrying her up five flights of stairs. Is that why your legs ache? Tucked her in, fed her cat. Did you actually do all of that or did you dream it?
On the periphery of the pain, reaching my senses muffled as though through a dense fog, was a ringing sound. But not a ringing like a bell. No. This ringing sounded more like electronic bleeping. Steeling myself for an intense stabbing pain, I slit my eyes open. Light streamed in from a crack in the blackout curtains, providing just enough illumination to display the carnage in the room.
Beer bottles littered the bureau and desk. Where the beer came from, I had no idea. An open pizza box, one slice hanging precariously over the lip. Jen’s ruby red camisole. A light flashed on my nightstand—the telephone. Something hard—Jen’s elbow—poked me in the back.
“Ugh, Dakota,” she moaned, “make it stop! Answer it already!”
“All right!”
I groped for the handset, knocking a beer bottle onto the rug, and finally answered the phone.
“Director Reeves,” I said, “if that’s you, sir, I sent my report last night, so would you please, for the love of—”
“Dakota? This is Svetlana Krüsh. I am in the lobby.”
“What?” I sprang up in bed. “What time is it?”
I noticed the clock radio on the nightstand just as Svetlana said, “It is ten minutes past eight, Dakota. I thought we were meeting in the lobby at eight o’clock.”
It took a moment for this to compute.
“We were—I mean are—yes.” I swung my legs out of bed. “Sorry—overslept.”
“Perhaps I should leave. I seem to have caught you at a bad time.”
“No, don’t leave. Give me—tell you what, have breakfast in the hotel restaurant and charge it to my room—three-one-six. I’ll be down in twenty minutes or so.”
Someone was knocking on my door.
“Dakota.” Jen elbowed me. “The door.”
“Take your time,” Svetlana said over the phone. “Make it half an hour.”
“Thanks,” I said. “See you then.”
As I hung up the phone, the knocking on the door continued. Jen grumbled. I found my pants, put them on and staggered to the door, stubbing my toe on the suitcase stand. Swearing to myself, I looked out the peephole. It was Sally. She knocked again.
“Dakota?”
“One second, Sally,” I said. “I’m not dressed. Hold on.” I limp-jogged back to the bed and roused Jen. “Sally’s here. I need you to hide. She can’t find you in here with me.”
“Hide?” she said. “Where?”
“Behind the blackout curtain,” I said.
“Jesus,” she whispered, “I’m not dressed, Dakota.”
“Please, Jen. Just for two minutes. I’ll get rid of her fast, I promise.”
“What time is it?” she asked.
“Like quarter after eight,” I said.
“All right, but be quick about it.”
As she sprang out of the bed, I guided her behind the blackout curtain, admiring her nude body in the light.
“I’m really starting to regret coming over last night,” she said, tightly squinting her eyes shut.
“Shh. Quiet. Two minutes, I promise. Try not to squint, by the way. We don’t want you to get crow’s feet.”
“Crow’s feet…you assh—”
I kissed her and snapped the curtain closed. I looked around for a shirt, couldn’t find one, and had to hurry to the door and open it shirtless.
“Jeez, took you long enough,” Sally said.
She started to come inside, but I pushed her back. Seeing my naked torso, she smiled—a smile that rapidly disintegrated into a scowl.
“Ohmigod, do you have a woman in there?” she said.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “I just drank too much last night. I haven’t showered or anything, and the room’s a mess. Let me meet you downstairs in half an hour.”
“I can’t,” she said. “I have to get to class. At least let me use your bathroom. Please?” She shrugged off her knapsack. “Hold this for me?”
“Fine.”
Unsure if there was something in the bathroom that might give Jen and me away, I tentatively flipped on the bathroom light. I was relieved to see only my personal articles. As soon as Sally went inside and shut the door, I remembered the keychain wallet in her planner. She had a key labeled “Geoff’s” in there. Since I was going over to Boston today, I could search Malone’s apartment.
Quickly I turned on the foyer light, unzipped the knapsack, removed and opened her planner, slid the “Geoff’s—2468” key out of the keychain wallet, pocketed the key, put everything away, and switched off the light again—in less than a minute. When the toilet flushed and Sally re-emerged, I opened the door to the hallway.
“Okay, have a nice day, Sally.”
“Uh-uh, not yet.” She slithered her arms around me. “I want a kiss first. I didn’t sleep at all last night. I kept thinking about our kiss yesterday. Kiss me, Dakota. And tell me again what you said yesterday…you know, how I’m beautiful and smart.”
“I haven’t brushed my teeth yet, Sally,” I said.
“I don’t care.”
With half of her face glowing from the hallway light, and the other half in shadow, I whispered into her ear those things she wanted to hear, and kissed her firmly and long on the lips.
“Okay, time to go.” I put the knapsack on her. “Get to class, young lady.”
“Can I see you later?”
“Sorry. I’m working today.”
She pouted. “And I have to work tomorrow. Hmm…but”—her face brightened—“maybe you could come over to the lab? Saturday’s a big day for the study. It’ll be packed. Will you come?”
“Maybe,” I said.
“Can I call you later?”
“Sure, I’d like that.”
Bouncing on her tiptoes, she pecked me on the lips.
“Hey, one last thing,” she said.
“What?”
“I saw that woman Svetlana downstairs when I came in. Is she here to see you?”
“Yes. She’s helping me with my research.”
“Just research?” she said. “You promise?”
“Just research, Sally.”
She hugged me again. I kissed her on the forehead and nudged her into the hall. Closing the door, I glanced out the peephole. Sally stepped onto the elevator, the doors closed, and she was gone. Back to Jen.
For one instant of clarity, during which I thankfully didn’t feel hungover at all, it occurred to me that I hadn’t had to juggle women like this since my sophomore year in college, when I had a different girlfriend on each floor of my dorm. Smili
ng to myself, then feeling the hangover return with a vengeance, I rescued Jen from behind the blackout curtain.
Groaning, she held her head by the temples and sat unsteadily on the edge of the bed. I rustled up some aspirins for her and a bottle of water from the mini-fridge, then got the “Hers” hotel robe out of the armoire and slipped it on her.
“Ugh, Dakota, I feel awful,” she said.
“Yeah, me too. Sorry.” I rubbed her back. “Guess we blew off some steam last night, huh?”
“I guess so.” She snorted a laugh, then grimaced and held her head. “How much did we drink?”
“A lot. In the bar we each had like five shots and a couple of beers. And up here”—I waved a hand at the hotel room—“more beer.”
“Beer? Where’d we get it?”
“I don’t know. Room service maybe?”
“Ugh,” she said. “And is that…a pizza?”
“Yes.”
“Did I imagine it,” she said, “or were you kissing Sally a minute ago?”
“A friendly kiss goodbye,” I said. “I’m trying to lure her away from Dr. Malone, Jen. I have to show the girl a little affection.”
“Okay, okay, stop shouting.” She stared at the rug and shook her head. “Oh, God…that report we wrote for you last night. Did we send it to the Director?”
“Yeah, we did.”
She groaned again. “All of that stuff about you calling me sexy…I can’t remember if I left it in the report. Well, at least we sent it from—oh, crap! We used my computer, didn’t we? And my email address?”
“Yeah? So what?”
She turned to me with an angry, nauseated look on her face.
“So what?” she said. “I’ll tell you so what—I sent that email from here at like one thirty in the morning. If the Director looks at the email header, he’ll—”
“Relax,” I said. “Director Reeves is not going to look at the header on your email.”
She put her face in her hands. “Damn it…what was I thinking? I knew you were nothing but trouble. But the Director made me come over, and—”
“Hey, Jen,” I said, “I didn’t force you to stay.”
“You think I don’t know that? I’m just as much to blame for this as you are.” She guzzled some water. “Dakota, do you really want to know what those women in D.C. said about you? They called you ‘The Hot Mess’—that you’re smart and funny and crazy good-looking, but you have this cloud of chaos and poor choices around you, and every woman who gets involved with you makes bad decisions and loses her self-respect.”
I rubbed her back quietly for a few seconds.
“But,” I finally said with a shrug, “we had fun, didn’t we?”
She raised her head and smiled. For a millisecond her hangover seemed to go away like mine had earlier.
“A lot of fun, Dakota.”
“Me too.”
We kissed, until Jen suddenly pulled away and swayed. “Whoa, head rush,” she said. “I feel like I’m still…drunk. Is that even possible?”
“Unfortunately, yes. Listen, I have to meet someone downstairs in a few minutes. Why don’t you call into the office and go in later? Stay here for a bit and sleep it off.”
“I’m working a major Charlestown bank case right now, so I really shouldn’t. But I’d better.” She sighed and crawled back into bed. “I’m in no shape to drive, much less work.”
I put the covers over her and stroked her hair until she fell asleep. Then I took four aspirin, chugged a bottle of water and a can of Orangina, showered, and dressed. Jotting a funny note to Jen, I propped it by her pillow, got my keys and wallet, put the “DO NOT DISTURB” sign on the door, slipped on my sunglasses, and left.
Downstairs, the lobby was empty, but I heard commotion in the restaurant. I went inside. A group of salesmen were having a breakfast meeting. I deduced they were salesmen because they all wore suits and, like a group of stand-up comics, they were all trying to talk over each other. Several of the men were staring at someone across the dining room. One of the men called out, “Hey miss! You look lonely over there all by yourself. Wanna join us?”
“No, thank you,” the woman said.
The woman was Svetlana Krüsh, in jeans, boots and a slinky crimson sweater under a brown suede jacket. The sweater had a big white “H” across the chest. On the floor beside her chair was one of those designer handbags—Coach, Gucci, I couldn’t tell which—and she wore a pair of oversized sunglasses, so I couldn’t see her eyes.
“C’mon, sweetheart,” the man persisted, “there’s plenty of room over here. We’ll make a space for you.”
“Yeah,” said another man. “On my lap!”
The entire table laughed. My instinct was to walk up to the guy who made the “lap” comment and pound his face into his Belgian waffle, but I stopped myself. My hangover had caused my usually cool, composed demeanor to call in sick today, leaving me short-tempered. I looked at Svetlana. If the man’s comment had bothered her, she didn’t show it; she was calmly eating her steak and eggs. I walked up to the table of salesmen, stood at the end and stared silently at them until they shut up. Then I joined Svetlana, asking a passing waitress to bring me a tall Bloody Mary and a bottle of Tabasco sauce.
“But, sir,” she protested, “we’re not allowed to make drinks this early.”
I glanced at her name tag and handed her a twenty-dollar bill. “Please, Gabrielle? It’s an emergency.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” she whispered.
As I sat down across from Svetlana, she gestured at the table. “I took the liberty of ordering breakfast for you. Since you are clearly an athletic type, I assumed you would prefer the ‘heart healthy’ option.”
On the placemat in front of me was an egg white omelette with toast and potatoes.
“This is perfect,” I said. “Thanks.”
The omelette, which contained tomato, spinach, onion and mushroom, was excellent. As I was eating, the hangover nausea surged through me again. I groaned. Svetlana sat up in her chair with her hands folded on her lap.
“Late night?” she said.
“Something like that.”
Gabrielle the waitress arrived with the Bloody Mary and the Tabasco sauce. She whispered into my shoulder as she placed them in front of me.
“One Bloody Mary, sir,” she said. “With extra vodka.”
“Gabrielle...you’re an angel.” I shook Tabasco into the glass.
“Hope you feel better,” she said.
“So do I. Thanks.”
She glided her fingers down my arm as she walked away. I shook more Tabasco into the glass.
“That is quite a lot of hot sauce,” Svetlana said, glancing up from her plate.
“It helps me sweat out the impurities.”
I stirred the drink and took long sips of it.
“Impurities?” Smiling faintly, she speared a piece of rare steak and twirled it on her fork. “Please forgive my curiosity, Dakota, but is this your status quo?”
“What? No, not at all,” I said. Then I thought about what Jen had said—how other women referred to me as “The Hot Mess”—and revised my answer. “Well...not very often.”
She ate the piece of steak, then reached out with her leg and tapped my calf with her boot.
“May I make another observation?” she said.
“Sure, go ahead—I can take it.” I sipped the Bloody Mary with one hand and ate the omelette with the other.
“Do you think it wise to be drinking during a case involving the daughter of a close friend of the FBI Director?”
“No,” I said. “It’s very unwise. Stupid, actually.”
“And the woman I heard in the background when I called you?” she said. “That was not young Sally, I hope.”
“God, of course not,” I said. “That was an F
BI agent from the Boston office. She’s helping me with the case.”
“Helping you…at eight-ten in the morning?” Svetlana said.
“We were up all night writing a report together.”
I drank the rest of the Bloody Mary and put the glass down. The ice cubes rattled. I sighed, nodded crisply.
“Well, Svetlana, you’re hearing it first. Never again.”
“What never again?” she said.
“Drinking while on a case—never again,” I said. “That’s my new policy. After a case, to celebrate or drown my sorrows? Sure. But during a case? No way.”
Svetlana sliced off another piece of steak. “A very sound decision.”
We finished our breakfast in silence. When I signed the check, the loudmouth from the big table—the one who had made the “sit on my lap” comment—piped up again, this time cupping his hands around his mouth.
“Hey, miss…what’s the ‘H’ stand for? ‘Hottie, Hussy, or Hooker’?”
The entire table of men laughed. I threw my napkin down.
“That’s it.”
I started to get up when Svetlana grabbed my wrist. Still wearing the oversized sunglasses, she turned to the man who had made the comment and beckoned him over with a finger. The man, grinning to his buddies, shoved out his chair and swaggered over. A tall, heavyset guy, he wore a disheveled off-the-rack suit. He was over 250 pounds, but I could tell from the heavy jowls under his chin that it was mostly flab. I was aching to punch him in the face and see those jowls jiggle like Jell-O.
“Yeah, little lady?” he said. “What can I do you for?”
“What is your name?” Svetlana asked softly.
“Greg,” he said. “Why?”
“And your last name?”
“Dwyer,” he said.
“Greg Dwyer…very good. And where do you live?”
“Framingham, Mass,” he said. “Why…you wanna go out or something sometime?”
“Actually, no,” she said. “You see, Greg Dwyer, my father is Oleksander Krush. Perhaps you have heard of him? The head of the Ukrainian Mob in New York City? When I tell him that Greg Dwyer from Framingham, Massachusetts publicly disrespected me, he will almost certainly send some very big men to have a chat with you. Goodbye.”
