Tea Leafing: A Novel (12 page)

“Well, I’m glad that
geezer is doin’ something ’bout Lena. Makes me think better of him.” She said
in a hushed tone. Birdie had never been a fan of Fedya’s.

Sam filled in the
others about Gio’s unpleasant flu and her chat with Pietra. Grace sprayed
coffee through pursed lips and tears of laughter streamed down Tanya’s cheeks.
Birdie — nonplussed — fished her teabag from its steaming cup.

“So that leaves Nikki,”
Sam said in a matter-of-fact tone.

“I don’t think
it’s
Nikki,” Grace said, mopping the coffee she’d spit on
the table in front of her. “In fact,” she swallowed, “it can’t be.”

“What? Why’s that?” Sam
turned toward her.

“I remember Nikki
parading that photo of her and Fedya at some society event right after Lena was
killed. Remember? She practically papered the dressing room with them!”

“Shit.” Birdie mumbled.
“Was that the same night?”

Sam was dumbstruck. “I
don’t remember that!”

“I think you were off.
It stuck in my mind because I thought it was so tacky that she was going on and
on about it and it was right after we found out about Lena. I’m almost positive
it was from that Saturday night.”

“I can go back through
the newspaper archives and find out.” Sam looked at the Formica tabletop and
turned things over in her mind. Thinking out loud she said, “If it’s not Nikki,
and it’s not Gio, and not combover, then who the hell could have done this?”

Tanya leaned in. “If
ya’ll are talking about the Pediatric AIDS Foundation Ball, which was the same
night Lena was killed, then I know Fedya and Nikki were there.” She cut her
eyes back to Sam.

“How do you . . .” Sam
studied Tanya.

“Cuz’ Shug was there
too.” She dropped her head a bit. “I remember him mentioning he saw those two
there. Nikki was fucked up as a football bat. Made a scene about getting her
picture taken.”

“Damn. I’m at a loss.”
Sam sighed, frustrated.

“I’d still double check
it if I was you, darlin’. Tanya’s eyes drifted around her section.

“I will.” Sam replied,
eyeing a dark, four-door sedan in the parking lot.

“ORDER UP.” Plates
appeared under the hot lights in the service window, separating the wait
station from the kitchen.

“Back in a flash
girls.” Tanya sprang to her feet and sashayed off.

“How is it that facking
nurse shoes with pantyhose look good on ‘er?” Birdie’s attention followed
Tanya. “And he’s not even a her yet. They get narrow hips, high metabolisms,
great
legs. She looks better in our frocks than we do.”

“Am I paranoid, or is
there
someone just sitting in that car out there. I could
swear they pulled up after Grace but nobody’s gotten out.” Sam was still
watching the car out of the corner of her eye.

The other three turned
in unison and stared out the window at the mystery vehicle. “Shit.” Sam
muttered, “That was subtle.”

The car’s headlights
came on just as Mary Jane, Birdie and Grace turned, making it impossible to
tell who was in the darkened car.

Plates clattered as
Tanya arranged food in front of the four. She placed extra pats of butter,
three kinds of syrup, jelly tubs and ketchup in the center of the table, then
stepped back to make sure nothing had been forgotten. Flashing her perfect
veneers she said “How ‘bout that my babies? Can mama get you anything else?”

Sam said “Okay, please
don’t look right now . . . but we’d love to get an ID on whoever’s sitting in
that sedan with its headlights on. He’s straight out the window on the far side
of the lot.”

Tanya smiled again, and
said “Lemme see what I can do for ya’ll.”

The girls dove into
their food. After a long night of doing the equivalent of slow-motion Tae-Bo,
in uncomfortable shoes, nothing was better than a big, hot, greasy breakfast
before slipping between the sheets for a little shut-eye. Tomorrow they’d get up
to do it all again. It took almost a solid year of working nights before Sam’s
body adjusted. She couldn’t help but wonder if she’d ever get herself back on a
regular daytime schedule.

There were benefits to
working a night shift that Sam loved, like rarely waiting in line at the
grocery store checkout. Rush hour was something talked about and avoided, but
almost never experienced. There was something satisfying about being up and
about while the world slept. All night-shift workers around the city knew each
other and there was a level of courtesy extended to their fellow night owls.
Everyone looked out for one another and took the time to know each other’s
names.
A strange society of daylight-outcasts.

A 1979 Lincoln Town car
half a block long and painted metallic green pulled into the parking lot. It
swung slowly into the space next to the sedan and went through a series of
maneuvers involving undercarriage lighting and hydraulics like a space ship
preparing for touchdown. Once the beast came to a stop, all four doors swung
open, a dull glow emanating from within the car. Smoke curled out adding to the
alien effect. Long legs clad in shiny silver pants, and shoes with silver monk-buckles
extended from both front doors. Two identically outfitted black guys in full
pimp-style regalia stepped from the car, straightening to almost seven feet
tall. Four women tumbled from the other open doors. Sam lost track of
conversation at the table while she watched the strange ballet unfold in the
parking lot.

Leaving their dates in
an undulating cluster of hair, breasts and legs by the back of the car, the two
men glided to opposite doors of the sedan in question. Leaning down, they
peered into the darkened car. Tapping on their respective windows with long,
narrow, fingers they held their positions for what seemed like minutes,
starring and waiting. The entire episode seemed like it was unfolding in slow
motion.

Realizing conversation
at the table had
stopped,
Sam glanced at Birdie and
Grace.

“What the . . .?” Mary
Jane muttered under her breath.

Tanya breezed by,
topping off beverages and picking up empty plates. She glanced out the window.

“Close your mouths
ladies. Ya’ll don’t know much about playin’ it cool do ya?” Her eyes never
strayed to the window. She smiled, looking around the table “My cousins Tyrone
and Tyrese. They’ll find out what’s goin’ on and let us know. You don’t know
them. You don’t know me. Just talk to each other like regular and I’ll keep you
posted. Anything else ya’ll need while I’m here?”

Amused, silent stares
from all four answered her question.

CHAPTER 20

“Thanks for coming, ladies.”

“And gents!” One of the bouncers yelled
from the back.

“And gents.” Gio sauntered around the main
stage, microphone in hand addressing the
groggy
employees seated in groups on the club’s main floor. “You know we try to keep
these Sunday afternoon meetings to a minimum but there are a few things we need
to go over with you before the holidays and convention season hit us.”

Sam stared at her shoes while Gio dragged
through the usual list of bullshit. Heavy fines for drugs. More girls needed to
promote at concerts and athletic events. No hiding in the bathroom during full
dress walkouts.
Blah
blah blah blah
.

Digging a pen from her purse, Sam traced
the treads on the bottom of her sneakers. The description of the sedan guy from
last night didn’t match anyone she could think of. Wondering who he was, her
mind lingered back to the list of suspects she’d already exhausted in Lena’s
murder. She wondered about her brief conversation with Peter. Why had he been
so eager for her to drop the subject? As her pen traced the endless maze on her
shoe, her mind followed suit, with no satisfaction. The meeting droned on for
too long.

“So before we close, we have a guest that
would like to say a few words to you.”
A muffled crackle.
The microphone hissed as Gio stuck it into his armpit and gestured toward the
edge of the stage.

A highly decorated police officer in dress
blues hiked up the narrow steps and onto the stage where Gio was standing.

“This is Lt. Hanover with the Atlanta
P.D.”

Pressing her hips to the back of her
chair, Sam straightened as if her posture would help her hearing. Fedya was
propped in a chair against the far wall. She hadn’t noticed him until now.

“Thank you Giovanni. Yes, as he said, I’m
Lt. Hanover, Special Investigator in the Homicide Division. I am responsible
for running the inquiry into the death of one of your former co-workers,
Alexandra Chandler. You probably knew her as Lena.”

Birdie’s elbow jabbed into Sam. The room
was still. The fidgeting and coughing that filled the background during Gio’s
diatribe, ceased.

“We are doing everything we can to track
down those responsible for her senseless death.” His eyes wandered around the
room. “I ask for your assistance in helping us with our investigation, though.
We need for you to remain calm and refrain from talking about this unfortunate
tragedy, even to each other.”

Low chatter.

Gio loudly cleared his throat to
reestablish order.

“Please, people. Please. We ask for your
cooperation because it may take us some time to get through interviewing all
the suspects we are currently working on. You may be on our list of people to
question, which doesn’t make you a suspect. It means you may have some
information that might help lead us to the killer. We find the more something
is discussed, the more diffused the information becomes. Pretty soon, it’s
tough to remember what you experienced first hand and what you heard. If we can
keep things quiet and only discuss them with myself or another detective, it
would be a tremendous help.”

As quickly as he entered the stage, he was
gone. Sam watched Fedya and the lieutenant head for the back staircase while
Gio adjourned the meeting. The army of sweatpanted employees slowly rose and
gathered their belongings. It was strange to see everyone fully dressed and
make-up free. No one would have guessed that of the thousands of exotic dancers
in the city of Atlanta, these were some of the most highly paid.

“What the fack was that?” Birdie mumbled
to Sam.

“I don’t know, but I’ll tell you one
thing, unless that was already planned by last night and Fedya didn’t mention
it, then that boy works
fast
. To get
the lieutenant who’s running the investigation here with less than a
fifteen-hour notice? Bet that took some string pulling.”

Grace wandered up midway through the
conversation. “I think what he’s saying makes sense. I mean the stuff about not
getting it confused by talking about it.”

Sam resisted the urge to call Grace a
Pollyanna.

“Let’s get outta heah and go to me flat.”
Birdie suggested as she pushed toward the door.

Grace and Sam both nodded. “Let’s give
Tanya and Mary Jane a ring.”

Sam was at the front door when she
stopped. “I’ve gotta’ run to the dressing room and grab my shoes. My favorites
need resoling and the rest need fumigating. I can’t believe I almost forgot
them!”

“Meet cha’ there!” Birdie waved as she
pushed the door open.

There were only a few employees left
lingering around the main floor. The rest made the break for freedom the minute
Gio left the stage. The room was dark, with only a few shafts of light
filtering through the dusty hallway that led to the front door. The further Sam
walked into the club, the deeper the darkness. Turning the corner into the
dressing room, she fought a chill as she stepped into the inky coal mine of a
room.

The stillness seemed unnatural. Sam was
used to the club buzzing with life. A cold chill was all she felt in the
abandoned space. Without conscious direction, her hands sprang into action,
feeling along the walls for a switch.

Nothing.

Sam weighed the options in her mind, press
on now or go to Bird’s and get the shoes later. An image flashed in her head.
She remembered seeing a set of switches at the far end of the island of
mirrors, next to Lucille’s perch. Sweeping and patting her way along the cool
metal lockers, Sam edged toward the back of the room. With no ambient light for
her eyes to adjust to, her progress was slow. Her right leg hit something that
gave way, tangling her legs in metal stalks, Sam felt herself tumbling forward
in a blind descent.

“
SHIT
!”

She crashed to the floor with a dull thud,
skidding forward on the low-pile industrial carpet, no doubt crawling with
nasty germs. Grains of dirt stuck to her palms as she felt through the
darkness, trying to find the offending object. A chair.
Of course
, she thought. Some nitwit forgot to push all the chairs
back under the counter. She could tell by the feel of the grit on the floor the
cleaning crew hadn’t bothered vacuuming the dressing room. Running her fingers
over her right knee, she brushed debris from the skinned spot.

Hooking her fingers under the wood lip on
the underside of the counter, she pulled herself back up. She found her way
along the island and swept her foot forward as she went to make sure the path
was clear. Her hands felt the end of the bar. Sliding them down the side, she
hit pay dirt. Flipping one of the switches, she was momentarily blinded by the
rays from the frosted vanity bulbs above the mirrors.