Tea Leafing: A Novel (13 page)

Sam dialed the combination and popped her
locker open. Still feeling a chilly fear, she glanced toward the corners of the
dark room. A tangled mess from her locker fell to the floor. She plucked shoes
from it and dumped them in her oversized shoulder bag, then crammed the costumes
back into the metal coffin and snapped the lock shut. She hurried from the
dressing room without bothering to dim the lights.

As she stepped back into the main room of
the club, she heard voices above her on the balcony.

“Thank you for coming, Ben. I did no
expect this would be necessary.”

“No problem. I guess it’s better safe than
sorry, huh? So, who is it that’s nosing around, anyway? Do you want us to keep
an eye on them?”

Sam froze. Pressing herself against the
wall outside the dressing room, she listened to the voices and footsteps
walking slowly along the balcony above her toward the front staircase.

“Let me think on that. I don know how much
problem she is. I will let you know if is something we need to contain.”

Contain
? Sam thought.
An acrid darkness bloomed in her thoughts. Could she have misjudged Fedya? Her
heart dropped. She traveled along the wall, keeping herself below their
position on the balcony. As she turned the corner of the back wall she realized
that if they glanced in the main stage mirror, she would be seen. She dropped
to her knees, grimacing as she moved her skinned knee along the floor in a low
crawl.

“Well, hopefully we can let this whole
thing blow over. The task force has their instructions and they’ll follow them.
Nobody is gonna crack this case on my watch.” Lieutenant Hanover chuckled as if
he’d said something funny. Fedya joined in.

“We don’t need any bad publicity, you
know? These people see what we do and don’t understand what we bring to community.
Bad press, and this cash cow, as you say, will die.”

“Well, Fedya, the Atlanta P.D. certainly
appreciates all that you do for them. We want to keep our good relationship
going.” He paused, “Speaking of, I thought I could pick up our December
donation now, if that’s alright with you.”

“But of course, Lieutenant.” Fedya’s voice
dripped with a cunning, evil tone Sam hadn’t heard before.

They were almost to the top of the
staircase when she realized she’d better run if she wanted to make it out
undetected. Her heart pounded as she broke for the front entrance, going from a
crouched run to a casual jog as she neared the double glass doors and the
bouncers just beyond. Pushing the metal release bar, the late November wind hit
her face. Not stopping to talk to the lingering co-workers, Sam jogged across
the parking lot to her car, hoping she’d make it there before Fedya and his
guest emerged.

Throwing her bag into the passenger seat
and sliding behind the wheel, Sam wondered if her actions seemed like a natural
reaction to the cold or a scared rabbit on the run. Smacking her knee against
the hard plastic of the console under the steering wheel, she slammed the door
and let it all go. She shrieked like a banshee, gripped her knee and rocked,
trying to soothe the pain.

Composing herself, a quick look over her
shoulder told her Fedya and Lt. Hanover had just come through the front doors.
She could see Fedya’s eyes on her car as the two huddled together and talked.
Sam steered her car away from the front entrance and out a side access.

Her head, heart and knee pounded in time.
Turning on to Piedmont Avenue, she sped toward Birdie’s house.

CHAPTER 21

“Are you okay? You look
terrible!” Mary Jane set her bagel on the counter and walked toward Sam.

Sam was out of breath
and feeling dizzy. It was the information crowding her brain rather than the
sprint from the parking lot that had her panting for air. She had so much to
say but the words stuck in her mouth. Where to begin? What to say? Feeling
desperate and more than a little crazy, she let the words fall as they may.

“Fedya’s
covering it up.
I heard it from him, well, not directly from him but I
overheard him saying it. He’s getting the cops to bungle the investigation.
What the hell are we
gonna
do? Why is he doing this? I
thought he was on
our
side!” Tears of
frustration burned a path down her cheeks. She growled, “WHY?”

Birdie and Tanya froze
and stared at her as Mary Jane grabbed her wrists. Grace dropped slowly to the
floor. “What? Slow down. What happened?”

Struggling free from
Mary Jane, Sam sucked in deep breaths, trying to steady herself. Hand shaking,
Sam lifted Mary Jane’s cigarette from an ashtray on the counter, almost
knocking the glass dish to the floor. She drew hard on it, hoping the nicotine
would help steady her nerves.

“Fack.” Birdie looked
shocked.

“Fack.” Birdie’s
African Gray parrot, perched in its large metal cage, mimicked.

Having quit the nasty
habit two years prior, Sam never touched cigarettes. She felt the drug rush to
her head as she dropped to the floor. Taking another drag, she hoped she
wouldn’t throw up from the shock to her system.

“Fedya had something to
do with it. I know he did.” She mumbled through her tears.

Tanya crouched next to
Sam and searched her face. “Slow down and tell us what happened, baby. Just
take ya time.”

Edna, who had been
napping in Birdie’s bedroom scuttled over in a smart little Jackie O. suit and
placed a paw on Sam’s leg as if to lend her support.

Sam recounted the
events as she finished the cigarette. Mary Jane grabbed the ashtray and joined
her as Edna climbed into Sam’s lap and pawed a nest for herself. Sam stubbed
the spent fag and lay back onto the cold hardwood, finishing her story at the
point where she left the parking lot.

Silence.

“I don’t know what to
do.” Sam said, feeling calmer, but no less worried.

“I knew he was a
crooked fackin’ twister!” Birdie announced.

Sam nodded. “You were
right, Bird. I bought the bullshit. So what are we gonna do now?”

Mary Jane was focusing
on a knot in the wide plank pine floor. “Why don’t I see what I can dredge up
about Fedya? On the computer, I mean. It’s been a while since I’ve hacked
anything but now seems as good a time as any to dust off the old keyboard.”

She had grown up in
Jacksonville, an only child raised by her single mother. Mary Jane had moved to
Atlanta to attend Georgia Tech on a full ride scholarship. Her mother had
passed away suddenly from a brain aneurism during her junior year, leaving Mary
Jane alone in the world. The rest of her family had died or drifted out of
touch. She found that the discipline and focus required
to
keep
her grades up vanished after her mother passed. So she’d taken a
year off to find herself. What she found instead was Sam, Tanya, Grace, Lena
and Birdie; they were her new family. Now, Lena’s death numbed her. She wasn’t
sure she could take another loss like this in her life. Her mind wandered into
dark places where destructive hatred scatters its seeds and waits for the rage
to grow.

 
“Do you think you can do it, MJ?” Sam
said, gingerly touching the raw flesh on her knee.

“Let me get a plaster
for yer knee, love.” Birdie headed off in search of a Band-Aid.

“Yeah, no better time
than the present.” Mary Jane said. “I think it’s a good cause and if Fedya is
involved in this I think we need to know what we’re dealing with. I can’t
promise anything, but I’ll do my best to see what I can scrounge up.”

“I’ve always thought
there was somethin’ a little off with that boy Fedya. Why would a perfectly
respectable citizen want to get involved in the skin biz?” Tanya wondered aloud.
“I just think there’s somethin’ not quite right with that.”

“Money.” Sam’s response
was simple. “He makes a bundle off us.”

Mary Jane nodded. “What
I ring at the bar alone is a small ransom.”

Edna shifted in Sam’s
lap and stretched to nurse the skinned knee.

“Oh, Edna baby.” Sam
scratched the exposed fur on the back of her neck, noticing that Edna’s nails
were painted in a neat French Manicure that matched Tanya’s.

“Wish I’d bred her.”
Tanya stared at Edna with an adoring look, “She’s a born mama. Feel like I
cheated her outta babies.”

Birdie returned with a
bandage. Handing it to Sam, she said, “So how’d Lena get trussed up with Fedya?
I can’t figure out how she could ’ave gotten herself sideways enough he’d want
to cover up her murder.”

“Unless he had
something to do with it.” Sam stopped peeling back the paper from the Band-Aid
and looked up at the others.

She spoke the words
they were all avoiding. A chill ran through her as she realized the possibility
of the depth of Fedya’s involvement. The reaction from the posse was enough
validation of her theory to raise the hairs on the back of her neck.

“Oh Shit, what are we
gonna’ do?” Sam dropped her head.

“We’re going to take
one step at a time.” Grace soothed. “And
you
are going to keep your head down, Sam. No more digging around until we know
who
we’re dealing with, okay?”

Mary Jane stood,
grabbing her purse. “I’m getting on the computer. Call me at home if you need
me.”

CHAPTER 22

Scratching at the Santa
Claus hat perched atop her head, Sam looked down the line of girls huffing and
stomping like herded animals, waiting for the full dress walkout to begin. It
irritated her that the club expected them to wear the ridiculous hats,
considering the time they all spent on their hair. The small bottle of Lysol
she kept in her locker hadn’t assuaged her phobias about lice or other creepy
crawlies that might want to move from one of the hats onto her head.

Since there was no real
order for the
walk-out
, Sam found a strategic spot between
two less attractive girls and leaned against the wall of the balcony. Birdie
appeared through the crowd of bobbing red hats and joined Sam.

“Makin good quid?”
Birdie asked as she watched the crowd below.

“Average. How’s your
night going?”

Birdie grunted and gave
a nod.

Sam looked back down at
the masses congregated on the main floor. Still shaken from the recent events,
she felt exposed. She felt so much more naked when things weren’t going right.
Reminding
herself
that she was only as transparent as she
chose to be was how she kept her work face on. Her barrier against the outside
world when she just wanted comfort and quiet was the pretend protective shell
she imagined — like an unbreakable Plexiglas case.

Picking a likely target
out of the crowd, she focused on him, trying to will him to look up at her. If
she could catch his eye and smile flirtatiously it was almost a given that he
would rescue her from stage for the two-for-one table dance. It was a trick she
learned early on from another dancer and it gave her something to do while
waiting in line.

Birdie nudged her and
tipped her head, gesturing toward the main bar.
 

Sam followed Birdie’s
line of sight and locked eyes with Mary Jane, who was absentmindedly drying a
glass with a towel. She leaned toward the sink so the light would catch her
face as she mouthed ‘come here.’ Nodding, Sam continued to stare as Mary Jane
melted back into a flurry of activity.

“I’ve got me two-fer
lined up, but wait for me. I want to ’ear what she’s got.” Birdie whispered as she
stared at her reflection in the mirrored wall behind them, arranging ringlets
and fixing smudged make-up with her pinkie.

The remixed Christmas
music used for the holiday pussy parade blared through the speakers. The
dancers at the front of the line on either end of the balcony started their
descent down the steps to the main stage. Clutching the handrails, the girls
performed a choreographed chorus line kick in time with the music. Sam thought
about Mr. Rourke’s instruction to the employees of Fantasy Island just before
the door to the airplane opened —
Smiles
everyone! Smiles!

Mary Jane retrieved a
folded piece of paper from her apron pocket and slid it across the bar to Sam.

“Seems he’s a very bad
boy.” Mary Jane mumbled in a hushed tone. “Don’t read it here.”

Without pockets to slip
the note in, Sam folded the yellow lined paper into the palm of her hand and
made a fist around it. Raising her eyebrows, she looked at Mary Jane trying to
elicit some information.

“Not here.
Never again here.
Put it away and keep it safe. We need to
talk after work.” Mary Jane turned and walked back to a waitress who was
waiting at the bar for her drink order to be filled.

Feeling the softened
edges of the paper with her thumb, Sam looked at Birdie. The hair on her arms
floated to a stand. Grabbing Sam, Birdie pressed through the crowd toward the
Pussycat Powder room. Sam followed distractedly in a skipping shuffle behind
Birdie’s tether. She couldn’t focus. Her mind skittered around what possibilities
the note would reveal about Fedya’s past.
Or, for that
matter, his present.

Into the bathroom, past
the snorters, Birdie pushed Sam into the last stall. Following her in, she
pushed the slide bolt home. Turning to Sam, her eyes fidgeted with
anticipation. “Let’s be ’avin it then.” Birdie quietly hissed.

Sam pulled Birdie next
to her as she pressed her back against the cold, tile wall. Holding the paper
between them, high enough that a nosey dancer peering over the stall wouldn’t
be able to see the contents, the two read silently.