Tea Leafing: A Novel (29 page)

Leaning back in his
chair, Gio looked at the ceiling and laughed.

Grace flicked her eyes
to the digital clock on his desk. 9:35. Ursula went on at 10:00 sharp. She
hoped she hadn’t missed her window of opportunity.

“So how awe you doin’?
I hear you just went through a rough break-up?”

Grace sighed and looked
at the floor.

“It was over long ago.
I can’t tell you how many months it’s been since I’ve had sex, for God’s sake.”
Her head stayed low and her eyes rolled up to meet his.

They studied each other
for a moment in the silence.

Gio nodded, leveling a
look that would have raised her pulse had she not been on a mission.

“I’d like to know more
about that,” Gio said, his gaze unfaltering.

Grace lost herself for
a moment in the intensity of his blue eyes. Eyes
that were
still crystal clear.

She’d always seen him
as Gio-the-manager, but she could feel herself being sucked in by the intoxication
of his undivided attention. She realized why many of the dancers swooned over
him. He was definitely attractive. No, he was sexy. He had an undeniable appeal
that had eluded her until this moment. He sat quietly, still as stone, staring
straight through her.

Rising from her chair,
she walked to the switch on the wall and dimmed the lights to a warm glow.

“You don’t mind, do
you?”

Gio remained silent,
unblinking. The corners of his mouth crept up.

Grace slowly strutted
around the office and studied artwork, monitors and the random plant with a
casual interest while she filled the time with suggestive comments. Pretending
to tell the story of a neglected, lonely stripper with an empty bed. Gio
watched her progress.

Finally, turning to Gio
after her diatribe about being undersexed and overpaid, she ventured another
look into his deep blues. They were no longer clear. His posture was still
upright but the eyes had clouded with a lazy look that was curiously innocent.

“Gio?”

“Yeah, Grace?”

“What are you thinking
about?”

“I dunno. Nothing,
really.”

“Will you open the safe
for me?”

CHAPTER 67

Tanya rested her head
against the windowpane in first class, watching the countries pass beneath her.
She was exhausted.

She’d made the twenty-five
hour flight between Atlanta and Bangkok, Thailand two days ago . . . or was it
three days. She’d checked into her hotel suite and left instructions not to be
disturbed.

A day later she had
boarded a flight to Singapore where she opened a bank account. After leaving
the bank, she changed into men’s attire, returned to the airport and boarded a
Lufthansa flight bound for Zurich, Switzerland. The name on her ticket was Fyodor
Il’yavitch Patrushev.

Since Singapore was the
new Switzerland of numbered accounts it had been picked as a final resting
place for the stolen funds. Opening an account and authorizing the transfer between
the Swiss and Singaporean accounts as
Fedya,
would
hopefully be easy.

A beautiful blonde
flight attendant leaned across the empty seat next to Tanya, “Can I get you
anything Mr. Patrushev?”

Tanya smiled. “Pleez,
call me Fedya.”

CHAPTER 68

Galina’s birthday was
an extravagant event with as many high-ranking officials as there were children
in attendance.

Fedya sat in a
slipcovered lawn chair, under the canopy of a side porch attached to the main
house. Drawing on his ever-present cigar, he glanced around the party, taking
mental snapshots that would tide him over when he was in the U.S., away from
his homeland and his family. He felt a flutter somewhere in his gut and
wondered if this was what most called love. He liked his wife and daughters
just fine, but Fedya
loved
no one but
himself.

Joining him at the
table were the current Russian president and several of his cabinet members,
Najib, his Afghani associate, Seiji Matsuda, a high-ranking Yakuza boss, and a
handful of bank executives who ran his interests in Yekaterinburg and Moscow.

His daughter, Galina,
and two of her friends ran by, bundled in warm furs, carrying bottles of colored
water with spray nozzles, for making pictures in the deep snow. Fedya smiled,
mostly because it seemed like the right thing to do. Large heaters had been
arranged on the outdoor porches to keep the air at a comfortable seventy
degrees. Sheer drapery held the cool breeze at bay while the adults relaxed in
their simulated summer. The children were happy to play in the mounds of winter
white until they collapsed in front of the large fireplace in the living room.

The crowd chatted in
hushed grown-up tones. A sweating, twitchy man in thick, wire-rimmed glasses
was seated next to Fedya. He pushed an envelope in front of him with trembling
fingertips.

Leaning in to whisper,
he said in Russian, “All the transfers are complete. The funds have been moved
into the Swiss account for you to distribute.”

Fedya chewed his cigar
and slowly nodded, placing his hand on the documents.

“Thank you, Mischa.”

“Is there anything else
I can do for you?”

“No, this is fine. I’ll
make arrangements with Helvetia in the morning.”

He glanced at Najib and
Seiji, who were involved in conversations with other guests but kept their eyes
on him. Fedya gave them each a short nod and turned his attention back to the
festivities.

Fedya had been
laundering money through the banks he owned in Russia for some time. He would
transfer funds into Swiss accounts and then forward them on to the crime
syndicates who were his clients. Some transactions started as gold bullion
disguised as ball bearings, some were bogus stock trades, and some were payments
to shell companies. The means by which the large payments were justified always
changed, but the constant was Fedya’s ability to make transactions virtually
untraceable.

A large sum of money
had just been processed in Moscow and was now resting safely in several Swiss
accounts. Tomorrow, they would be funneled back to their rightful owners, with
a portion left untouched – a payment to Fedya for services rendered.

CHAPTER 69

“Okay, kids, settle
down and lemme tell you about the special treat we have right here at Atlanta’s
best show bar tonight, and only tonight.” The DJ paused for dramatic effect,
“The beautiful and amazing Ms. Ursula Amoureuse has agreed to perform her
world-renowned fire show.”

The crowd erupted into
a thunderous round of applause that shook the building.

“As some of you may
know, Ursula hasn’t brought the torches out in over three and a half years.” More
applause halted Max’s dialogue. “And she’s been kind enough to agree to a one
time show for her favorite club in the country!”

The crowd went wild
again, and even the dancers, who were usually bored by feature shows and
irritated that it stopped their money, were eager to see.

The last fire show Ursula
performed had left her with third degree burns on large portions of her torso.
It was a show she’d done a hundred times before but the beast that had been her
friend turned on her in a instant and leapt to her body, burning her alive. Her
shrieks for help and clawing at the flames were misinterpreted as part of the
show. By the time her manager got to her, she was nearly unconscious from the
pain.

“Please stay in your
seats for the show. We don’t want anyone getting hurt and we’re
gonna
dim it down to darkness, so if you gotta pee, cross
those legs. Your cash is much appreciated, but save those bills for the last
song. Don’t
wanna
distract the little lady while she’s
in her groove. Plus, you’ll fuck up the show for the rest of us. So again, SIT
THE FUCK DOWN!” Laughter erupted and broke the wisps of tension that had begun
to gather in the room.

“UR-SU-LA! UR-SU-LA! UR-SU-LA!”
Chants from the audience gained in strength as the lights dimmed to nearly
total darkness. The ever-blowing fan on the main stage went still.

Moments passed as
movement on the darkened stage let the crowd know Ursula was taking her place.
The show was about to commence. A hush fell over the crowded room.
 
The tinny sound of drums melted into
the mellow rap of “The City Sleeps.”

Stealin’ down an alley on a cold, dark night,

I see a halo and the
rain ‘round
a street
light

For most, the ambient
dirge probably sounded like nothing but hypnotic background music for the slow,
sexy start of Ursula’s fire show. Sam smiled to herself thinking of how wicked
Ursula’s choice of music was.

Clutching the tools of the trade in my hand,

An old box of matches and a gasoline can.

Ursula agreed to do the
fire show as a personal favor for Sam and Grace. After the accident, she had
received the best care money could buy. Several rounds of surgery and obsessive
attention to her aftercare program restored Ursula to her former beauty. The
scars that were left were on her psyche, not her body.

Pausing at the railing
of the balcony, Sam took a moment to marvel at Ursula’s graceful baton twirling,
as flames lept from both ends. Her oiled body twisted and moved with no less
agility than the fire itself.

Reflections of the
flame splashed light across the faces of those closest to the stage. Ambient
light from the computer screens on the cash registers behind the bars glowed
against the back wall. Red and white exit signs dotted the blackness without
providing any real illumination.

Tearing herself from
her trance, Sam shifted her gaze toward the office where Grace’s shape was
barely visible, cloaked in the shadow of the back wall. A quick scan of the
balconies and main floor reassured her that Ursula had cast her bewitching
spell. She and Grace remained unobserved.

Moving through the town like a ghost in the rain,

A dim reflection in a dark windowpane

“Shit,” Sam mumbled as
her eyes darted to the DJ booth. How could they have forgotten the most obvious
lookout? In all their careful planning, they’d completely forgotten the one
person with a bird’s-eye view of the club.

It was hard to see
through the smoky darkness, but Sam could vaguely make out the facial features
of Max, the DJ. The dull yellow glow of the soundboards shone up from below,
giving him a devilish look, like a flashlight held under a scared summer
camper’s chin. Max was the digital music god, with the power of a microphone in
hand. That made him a serious liability. Because of the angle, Sam couldn’t
tell where those beady eyes were fixed. He looked like he was alone, which was some
help. Many of the nineteen-year-old vixens that might have joined him in the
booth practiced stream of consciousness communication.
A very
dangerous thing.
Innocently babbling on about Grace’s progress along the
back wall might not have been any more important to them than comparing nail
colors. It might merely be something to comment on. But Max, on the other hand,
would have smelled a rat and become a problem.

“Shit-shit-shit.”

As Sam edged along the
balcony toward the booth, she could see Max’s eyes flick between Ursula and the
soundboard, or more likely, notes about Ursula’s performance and her music list.
Sam’s pulse was pumping as she turned and hustled back along the balcony toward
the door where Grace had been piling garbage bags. The same door that led to
the back stairway and, God willing, freedom.

Grace wrangled another
two bags from the darkened office and was now padding more quickly through the
shadows.

“Left my shoes in the
office. It seems to be speeding things up.” Grace breathed in a low, urgent
voice. “There are four more bags in there.” She stopped and cocked her head to
listen:

A simple turn of the wrist will suffice,

To open a passage, to paradise.

“
Three minutes, thirty seconds. Hurry!” Grace hissed.

Ursula had given the
girls her stage set a few days earlier. They’d memorized the words to each song
and worked the timing out to the second. They learned her routines, knowing
exactly where she’d be onstage and where people would, with luck,
be
looking. They had done their best to plan for every
eventuality. Yet, in the end, there is no way to fully control a room of eight
hundred people. And they knew it.

The distinctive smell
of accelerant tickled their noses. Peeking over the balcony, Sam saw Ursula hit
her mark onstage, twirling the torch like a majorette in a marching band
— with the added twist of a body grind no majorette could match.

 
Sam stepped from her Lucite mules;
looping two fingers through the toe straps, she broke into a crouched run to
the office door. Stepping inside Gio’s lair, the reality of what they were
doing hit Sam. Gio swiveled lazily in his chair, pants around his ankles,
shoelaces tied behind the central stem. Chinese finger cuffs trapped digits in
what was at the time an impossible puzzle for him. This would have seemed like
child’s play for a fully aware person. But after a shot of Versed-spiked
Sambuca, all bets were off for Gio.

Everyone has a little secret he keeps,

I light the fires while the city sleeps.

The music in the club
pounded.