Tea Leafing: A Novel (25 page)

“Yes, now ya’ll be
careful too. Okay Grace?”

“Absolutely. Bye for
now.”

“Buh-bye.”

CHAPTER 51

“So is the Colonel
gonna be back in tonight?” Sam nudged Birdie and smiled.

“Better be. The bread
and honey is nice, but more than anything I’m just to lazy too work the floor.”

“Bread and honey?”
Grace looked up from her reading, highlighter pen poised.

“Bread and honey, means
money.” Sam said.

“Catchin’ on
are
yeh?” Birdie smirked.

“This is fucked.” Mary
Jane shuffled through pages being spit from her printer. “This can’t be right.”

The four sat on the
soft flokati rug in Mary Jane’s living room, pouring over the sheaves of paper
— files stolen from Gio’s laptop. Each of the girls had a highlighter pen
of a different color, looking for any discrepancies in the books.

“What can’t be right?”

“There are extra
accounts here. No big shock, but two of the account numbers don’t jibe with the
standard numerical system of US banks.” She paused, still studying the papers,
“Huh. Weird.”

“Well, we know he had a
Moscow account, so maybe he had two?”

“Yeah, but Lena had
only recorded one in her notes. Besides, the alphanumeric coding on the two
don’t
match. They’re not only from different banks. They’re
from different banking systems. Different countries.”

“Where’s the other one
from?”

“That’s the big
question, isn’t it?”

“Let’s keep going and see
if something is in this file. Where’s the biggest place for numbered accounts
in the world?”

“Do you really think it
could be Swiss?”

“I shoulda copied his
fuckin’ Rolodex while I was in there.”

“Wif that extra bloody
hour you ‘ad in the office, roight?”

“Yeah, I know. But it
might have been helpful.”

“It’s okay, we’ll
figure it out.” Sam turned her attention back to the stack of papers in front
of her. “Between Lena’s notes and these files we’ll crack it. It may just take
some time.”

Mary Jane stood,
stretched and headed toward the kitchen. “Who’s up for a nice hot bevvie?”

“Me.”

“Me.”

“That and a fag’ll do
nicely.” Birdie began ransacking her purse for tea bags.

“Has anyone talked to Ursula?”
Grace asked, setting the ashtray stacked with cigarette box and lighter next to
Bird.

“Yeah.” Sam said,
flipping back and forth between two pages, “She agreed to do her fire show,
although she doesn’t know why. The fewer people who know anything in advance,
the better our chances of pulling this thing off. I also don’t want her caught
in the middle of this.”

Grace chimed in, “If
anyone asks her about why a fire show on that night in particular, she’ll tell
them
that an old and dear customer of hers begged her to do
it.”

“And you swear she
doesn’t know why?” Birdie asked.

“Ursula isn’t stupid.
She knows that she doesn’t want to know.”

“By the way, ‘as
everyone brought their al-yoo-min-i-um cans?”

“It’s pronounced
al-oo-min-um, Birdie.” Grace teased, knowing full well that Birdie was using
standard British English for once.

“Only for the daft,
love.”

The girls nodded and
Mary Jane pointed to a large plastic garbage bag sitting next to the front
door.

“Ours are in Sam’s
trunk.” Grace said, referring to the cans she and Sam had gathered.

“Fingerprints?” Birdie
asked, placing a cigarette between parted lips and touching the flame to the
business end.

“Wiped clean.” Sam said
as if marking an item off a list, which made her beam with satisfaction.

The other two nodded in
unison.

“Don’t let me forget to
collect those before I go. Need to go by storage and finish me tasks for the
day.” Birdie drew deeply on the cigarette and closed her eyes.

CHAPTER 52

Nikki flitted around
her apartment, throwing lingerie, toiletries, and clothing into her Hartmann
carry-on. Busta Rhymes chanted lyrics through the speakers of her Bang &
Olafson stereo. Dancing, as she packed, she was completely unaware that this
would be the last vacation she would ever take with Fedya. In fact, it was
quite possibly the last vacation she would take with anyone.

Pausing by the
glass-topped bedside table, she lifted a gold-plated straw and aimed the tip at
one end of a thick line of coke she’d arranged in a dollar sign. Making
pictures out of drugs was something she considered her trademark. She felt like
it was a clever touch that she and she alone was cute enough to do. Snorting
the powder, she tilted her head back and felt the numbing trickle seep down the
back of her throat. She swabbed the glass with her index finger and rubbed the
excess onto her gums so she could taste the tart and tangy flavor of the coke.
Rubbing her tongue across her teeth, her blood surged and her mind race to
places only the truly important would ever venture.

She bounced in time
with the music, catching a glimpse of herself in the full-length framed mirror,
which leaned against the wall next to her walk-in closet. She posed and twisted
in nothing more than a bra and panties. She started dancing again and stripped
for herself, feeling, no,
knowing
she
was the most beautiful woman in the world.

The coke had flushed
her face red and dilated her pupils, giving her a sexed up glow. A small
freckle of red on her chin caught her attention and pulled her into a crouched position
at the base of the mirror. She spent the next twenty minutes or so picking and
examining every pore on her face.

Her cell phone rang the
lyrics to the 80s hit Der Kommissar. She snatched the phone, realizing she’d lost
track of time and was running late.

“Hey, sexy!”

Her grin faded to a
bored look as Fedya lectured her about her lack of time management. She was
supposed to be at his penthouse fifteen minutes ago. Oops. He instructed her to
get her shit packed and be waiting in front of her condo in twenty minutes. The
limo would swing by to pick her up on the way to the airport. The phone clicked
loudly as he disconnected in her ear.

Prick, she thought.

Nikki finished her
sloppy, random packing, figuring they’d buy her a wardrobe at their destination
as usual. She was looking forward to relaxing in Nevis, but irritated Fedya was
being such a crabby bastard.

Images of the black
sand beaches and clear blue water floated through her mind. Her thoughts
drifted until the doorbell jerked her back to reality. She threw on a short
sundress and sandals and headed out, dragging her bag behind her.

CHAPTER 53

Perched on an
overturned five-gallon plastic pail, Birdie closely examined all four wheels of
the upended shopping cart. She spun each one around in its sleeve to ensure it
wouldn’t catch during turns or, worse yet, lock in place. She greased each
moving part and repeated its motion to work the lubricant into its proper
place, packing the ball bearings with grease. Next she spun the wheels and
greased those too. Satisfied that the shopping cart was in the best possible
working order, she returned it to its upright position. Pushing it around the
interior of the garage-sized storage space she checked to make sure the cart
was level.

Once Birdie was old
enough, it became her task to make sure the mechanical things at her mum’s
house were in working order. It wasn’t something she loved. But she did seem to
possess proficiency with machinery that most of her brothers lacked. They would
taunt her, calling her Grease Monkey. But she’d always have the last word.
She’d wrangle the distributor cap from the car when they had dates, disconnect
the tellie when favorite programs were on, and generally
make
their lives inconvenient and frustrating. Birdie couldn’t recite Shakespeare,
but she could back-flush a cooling system with the best of them.

Picking up the weight
plates to the barbells she’d bought at a garage sale, she carefully stacked
them in what she called “the buggy.” Working the pole had given her upper body
strength far greater than the average woman her size. So all but the
one-hundred-pound plate were easy to lift. The large one was manageable. But it
took some maneuvering to keep from dropping it. Loaded with almost three
hundred pounds, she tossed the lightweight bags of cans on top of the cart.
Pushing off with the balls of her feet, she made a lap around the concrete
floor of the doublewide storage unit, u-turned, and made a few laps in the
other direction. The weight of the cart was a challenge, but not unmanageable.
Only time would tell if the dips and cracks of Piedmont
Road’s
uneven pavement would prove too much.

CHAPTER 54

“Hump Day.”

“I hate that term. It’s
never as fun as it sounds.”

Sam applied dark red
lipstick with a small brush. A dab of glistening pink at the bottom center and
brown eyeliner blended at the corners helped create a fat, pouty pucker.

“Kyle left.”

Sam stopped and looked
at Grace in the mirror.

“On vacation? Don’t
tell me you gave him the money to do that!”

“Nope.” Grace looked
nonplussed, “Left me. Packed his things and went off to find himself.”

Grace continued
nonchalantly stroking her lashes with mascara. She methodically alternated her
task with careful application of a powdery thickener, then back to the mascara.

Mary Jane, Birdie, and
Sam stopped their primping and stared at Grace.

“Do you want to talk
about it?”

“Bloody hell, Grace!
You just paid for ‘is fackin’ vasectomy! Wha’ about that?”

“Birdie!” Mary Jane
chided.

“No, there’s not much
to talk about, at least right now. I don’t want to loose focus and I’m swinging
back and forth between delight at being free and depression at being deserted.”
Grace turned her eyes straight up at the ceiling. “Don’t make me cry. I just
did my mascara and you know if that goes I have to start all over.”

“Better off without
that pillock, Grace. He wasn’t even a good wife to you.” Birdie managed a
smile. “Not like you’ll ‘ave any trouble findin’ a replacement that works and
can’t keep ‘is hands off you. Fackin shame about that vasectomy though. I’d say
cut ‘is bollocks off for repayment, but ‘ow do you get repaid for something
you’ve already taken?”

Grace laughed, “Yeah,
that’s my only consolation. I know I paid someone else to inflict pain on that
bastard.” She met their gazes straight on rather than in the mirror. “Good, now
I’m getting pissed. Keep it coming, I just don’t want to be sad.”

“Stay with one of us as
long as you want to. You don’t have to go home to an empty house.”

Grace nodded and
returned to the mirror, “It just burns me that after all the times I tried to
kick him out and he refused to go, that he leaves now just to make sure it was
on his terms. My ego is bruised. I know better than to waste time on an idiot
like that and yet I did.”

“Hey, we’ve all dated
our share of losers.” Sam pulled Grace into a hug while Mary Jane and Birdie
patted her back, waiting for their turns. “Think about that guy Birdie dated,
the one with nine toes? He told her he was a stock broker and it turned out he
worked at Chucky Cheese as a part-time magician?”

“He was a great shag
though.” Birdie insisted.

“Shag or no shag, he
was a liar.”

“True.”

“I know. Thanks,
ladies. I’m sure I’ll have my fair share of melt-downs about this, but right
now I just want to go make some money.”

“The Colonel awaits!”
Birdie jumped to her feet, turned her back and smacked her ass in Grace’s face.
“Let’s go!!”

When in a VIP room,
dancers are still responsible for doing their stage sets. Usually, a twenty
slipped to the DJ will excuse them from the task. But Birdie loved the stage.
The Colonel, whose name happened to be Warren, loved to watch Birdie work the
pole, so he didn’t mind her leaving for the fifteen minutes required for the
three songs. “Chicken on a stick” was what he affectionately called her pole
stunts.

Figuring she could make
an extra hundred or so from her performance, she lightly sprayed golf grip on
the front of her legs and took to the main stage with a fury. Loosely gripping
the brass pole with her right hand she gained speed with a striding skip.
Launching herself into the air, she wrapped her outside leg in front of the
pole and sandwiched it with her right leg, spinning at incredible speed.
Feeling the wind in her hair, she knew this was the closest she would ever come
to flying. The next ten minutes, she circled back and forth between the pole
and the edges of the stage where she’d collect her tips. Once she was fully
nude for her final song, her dancing was restricted to a closed-knee twisting
shuffle.

She often thought she’d
have a pole installed in her loft, but it hadn’t been something she ever quite
managed to get around to. Her pole tricks were for herself, not her clientele,
although she realized the financial benefits of her proficiency.

Near the end of her
third song, she made her way around the edge of the semi-circular main stage. She
paused, flustered. Birdie pulled her garter out to accept a twenty-dollar tip
from Joe.

He was careful to make
direct eye contact.

“Thank you.” She
smiled, trying to seem as casual as she’d been with everyone else.

“I’m at the bar.” Joe
mouthed.

Birdie nodded and looked
toward the back bar where Mary Jane stood, staring straight back at her.