Tipping the Valet Read online

  Now the police were stringing a bunch of yellow crime scene tape around the entrance drive. A uniformed officer came up to him and said that detectives wanted to talk to anyone who had witnessed the event.

  When the detectives arrived, one of them, a motherly-looking lady with curly light brown hair, asked him what he had seen and he realized he couldn’t describe the man in the car at all. It was just a blur. “But I remember the car. It was a black Camaro Z28 IROC. Kind of a bad paint job and dirty, but it sounded mean.”

  “Mean?” repeated the motherly-looking detective.

  “A powerful, well-tuned engine. And it didn’t have stock IROC rims. They come with alloy rims.” While he was talking, he noticed another woman pointing a camera down at the ground.

  “Very good description,” the detective said encouragingly. “But you have no idea what the guy in the car looked like?”

  “No,” said Tyler. “I’m used to memorizing cars. I only memorize the person that goes with the car when they get out and I hand them the ticket.”

  He followed the direction of the camera down to the ground to see what the photographer was taking a picture of. The detective followed his gaze.

  The woman with the camera looked up. “It’s a funny place for a slipper,” she said.

  Tyler said, “Oh shit!”

  The detective turned to Tyler. “Know why there’s a slipper there?”

  “Not really,” said Tyler. He paused. “Maybe it fell out of a car. We find a lot of weird stuff in people’s cars.” The photographer now stood back while a man wearing latex gloves picked up the sheepskin slipper Mom had given Dad for Christmas and put it into a Ziploc bag.

  ———

  THE next morning, thirteen-year-old Kaitlin Smethurst stood next to her parents’ gray Audi in the circular driveway in front of her house and said, “God, Mom, you’re making me late.” She was a thin child, and only stood about four foot eight, but she bristled with angry power. Her jaw was as tightly clenched as it could be considering her massive orthodontia.

  A large backpack was strapped to her slight frame, and she was struggling with an awkward cardboard object, a diorama of the life cycle of the Pacific salmon. The cardboard triptych took its subject from its early life as an egg in a freshwater creek; through its heroic swim out to the open sea, its struggle back to spawn, facing such challenges as predators, loss of habitat, and chemical pollutants; and finally, its successful mating before dying, having sacrificed all for its ungrateful offspring.

  “If you hadn’t changed outfits three times, we wouldn’t be late,” said her mother. In her hand was a leash and at the end of it was a Springer Spaniel.

  “Yeah, but you totally messed up the PowerPoint,” replied Kaitlin. “God, Mom. You’re supposed to be supportive. But you and Dad went out!”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, sighing. “It was our anniversary.”

  “God, Mom,” continued Kaitlin. “Parental involvement is key.”

  The dog jumped up on Kaitlin.

  “Mom!” she screamed. “Patches is messing up my diorama. Make him stop. And put my diorama in the trunk!”

  Caroline Smethurst wrenched the diorama from her daughter’s hands and went around to the back of the car, waving her key at its lock.

  Caroline was shocked to see a large suitcase in the trunk. It didn’t look like any suitcase they owned. Was this somehow connected to her husband’s weird excuses about working late? She’d been worried he was gambling again, but maybe there was another woman! Was there another woman? Was he all packed up and ready to move out? A black zipper ran around the perimeter of the suitcase. Caroline leaned over and tugged at it, then unzipped it fiercely and threw back the flap.

  Inside the suitcase was a very pale man gazing up at her with milky blue eyes. His chin rested on his drawn-up knees. He looked about sixty, with a short, iron gray haircut. His arms and legs seemed to be folded up in an unnatural position, and he didn’t move. Patches began barking furiously, and leapt up at the trunk, putting his paws on the bumper, but the man remained still.

  Chapter Six

  THAT EVENING, IN A SUBURB north of Seattle, Tyler’s fellow valet from Alba, Vic Gelashvili, sat on a black leather sofa drinking vodka with Volodya Zelenko’s cousin Dmytro, a short, stocky man in his forties who wore an Adidas track suit—navy with white stripes. The top was unzipped about six inches, revealing a heavy gold chain resting against gray chest hairs.

  A pair of Rottweilers snoozed in front of a huge marble fireplace.

  “So enjoy your drink, then get out. You got a lot of nerve just showing up here. Did I ask you to come here?” Dmytro said belligerently in an accent that was less thick than his cousin Volodya’s.

  “I’m sorry, Dmytro,” said Vic, gnawing on a cuticle. “I didn’t want to use the phone. You know. Because of what happened at Alba.” Maybe it had been stupid to come here. But after that stuff with Volodya and the suitcase, Vic was scared to go to him. And besides, he had a message to deliver. A message that would buy him the time he needed.

  “So what the fuck did happen? You were there last night, right? And I’m curious about that. That’s the only reason you’re sitting on my couch drinking my booze. Tell me what happened.”

  “I was there but I was parking a car when it all went down. A guy drove in there and started shooting and shot Chip,” said Vic. “Then he drove away.”

  “I saw all that on the news,” said Dmytro, waving a pudgy hand with a large diamond pinkie ring. “Someone tried to take out that computer guy—Duck something. What’s the big deal? People like that get shot at all the time. Who knows what kind of business that computer guy is involved in. You can’t get rich like that without making enemies. Maybe he made someone mad at him. And Chip just got in the way. Anyway, it says in the news he’s gonna pull through.”

  “Yeah, okay,” said Vic. “But what if that drive-by had something to do with us? Do we have any enemies?”

  “No way,” said Dmytro. He paused thoughtfully. “But meanwhile, we should take it easy. For a week or two. The cops will be all over the place. But not like they would have if they got the computer guy. So the valet gets shot. Big deal.” Dmytro took another sip. “Listen, the police will be asking you some questions maybe.” He leaned back and closed his eyes in concentration. “About Chip. You don’t know nothing about any cars or what you guys were doing.”

  “Naturally,” said Vic. “What do you think? That I’m a snitch? That’s not the way we do things.”

  “How we do things.” Dmytro’s eyes flew open. “We? Please. We have an arrangement. We are doing business. But you aren’t one of us. Don’t think talking to the cops about us is ever gonna help you. And if we find out you did talk to them, we’ll have to take care of it.”

  Vic now drew himself up, stared directly at Dmytro and switched to Russian. “But I am a part of this life.”

  “Speak English,” said Dmytro. “For chrissakes. I’m not a Russian anyway. I’m a Ukrainian. And you’re not a Russian either. You’re a fucking Georgian. I can tell by your name and the way you look. Georgians are always trouble. Crazy, wild people. Now please, get the hell out of here. You wanna talk to someone if you’re worried, if you’ve got a problem, talk to Volodya. If it’s important, he talks to me about it. Not you. Never come here again.”

  Vic gazed directly at Dmytro and said in English and very purposefully and with a little toss of his head, “This life. It’s in my blood.”

  “Huh?” said Dmytro. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “I’ve never mentioned to you my uncle Ivan in Tbilisi. Or his son Gleb.”

  Dmytro’s eyes narrowed. That had got his attention! Vic decided to drive his point home in a simple, dignified manner. “I was born here, but my parents are from the old country. And my father’s brother, my uncle in Tbilisi—he is a vor, a part of a brotherhood that goes back to the time of the czars. The vory v zakone have a long history of honor. This is what I meant when I
say this is not how we are.”

  “Really? I had no idea! Why haven’t you told me this before?” said Dmytro expansively, and in a way that made him seem unthreatened—simply impressed with such an interesting genealogical nugget.

  Vic shrugged. “We don’t talk about it here in America. But my uncle and I are very close.”

  “And that is a good thing,” said Dmytro respectfully. After a pause, Dmytro laughed and said in a teasing tone, “Now get the fuck out of here before I get mad and fuck you up.” His voice rose and one of the dogs opened its eyes, lifted his head, then went back to sleep. He smiled and chuckled. “Just joking. You know I’m just joking.”

  “Right. I’m going,” said Vic. He rose from the sofa.

  “I’m glad you came by,” Dmytro added. “And please, give my respects to your uncle. And your cousin, too.”

  “For sure,” said Vic.

  Dmytro saw Vic out into the foyer. Vic smirked as he took in the zebra print carpeting, the gilded plaster statue of a naked woman holding a torch, and the red lacquered table with a smoky mirror veined with gold hanging above it. He let himself out the massive double doors, and walked confidently out onto the circular driveway. As he walked toward his car, parked behind Dmytro’s gold El Dorado, Vic smiled.

  As soon as Vic had left, Dmytro fired up a cigarette and sighed. Then he picked up his phone and called his cousin, Volodya. From the bar noises in the background, he imagined Volodya was hanging out at Donna’s as usual.

  “Volodya!” he shouted, as if to overcome the din. “Stay where you are. That little Georgian was here. I’m coming to talk to you about it.”

  “Does he know we know that he’s stealing from us?” asked Volodya.

  “I hope not,” said Dmytro.

  ———

  THE day after the shooting at Alba, Tyler was working a shift there. Jessica had asked him to fill in for Chip until he could come back to work. Apparently he was doing well and had said he was game to return to work right away.

  Tyler was looking forward to 2:00 A.M. when he could close up and go home. Every time a black car came in, he tensed up. The other two guys he was working with hadn’t been working the night of the shooting, but they seemed skittish, too. Tyler kept telling himself that some crazy person had it in for Scott Duckworth, so if Scott wasn’t around, there was nothing to worry about.

  Surprisingly, business hadn’t been that bad. There’d even been a little rush at seven, when a bunch of food conventioneers who were still in town came by. But now there was just one vehicle in line, a big burgundy Yukon. Tyler rushed over to the door, and felt a sudden disconnect. The face didn’t match the car. Oh, this was the gray Audi guy. The guy he’d seen at Alba last night—the night of the shooting—who’d been bickering with his wife about their kid’s homework. He’d never come to Donna’s in this vehicle.

  “Good evening, sir,” said Tyler. “Welcome to Ristorante Alba.”

  “I don’t need to park the car tonight,” said the gray Audi guy nervously. “I just wanted…” He stopped and looked clearly terrified. “I’ve seen you before, right?”

  “Yes, I believe I got your car for you the other night. You had to leave early.”

  The man nodded. “But before that…”

  “I remember you from Donna’s,” said Tyler. “You’ve been a customer there, too.”

  “Listen,” said the Audi guy, “I’ll be honest. My wife doesn’t know I come by Donna’s to unwind after work, okay?” He smiled nervously. “My wife thinks I work late every night. She’d be pissed I wasn’t home helping with homework or whatever.”

  “Okay,” said Tyler. What did this guy want? All Tyler wanted to do was make enough money to pay off his student loan, and get his engineering degree before he turned forty. Couldn’t the customers get on with their lives and just let him park the damn cars?

  The Audi guy cleared his throat. “Well, if anyone asks, like a detective or something, I’d appreciate it if you don’t mention that I come by Donna’s sometimes. I don’t want any misunderstandings with my wife, you know what I mean?”

  Before Tyler knew what had happened, he felt a stack of bills being folded into his palm. Instinctively, he pocketed it. A true professional, he didn’t break eye contact to look at the denomination of the bills.

  In what he hoped was a reassuring manner, he said, “We would never discuss our customers with anyone.” Wow! The guy’s wife must have hired private detectives to check up on him! It was like something out of an old movie. Tyler was kind of glad to be distracted by this little drama.

  ———

  AFTER his visit to Dmytro, Vic felt good. He felt so good in fact, that he decided now might be a good time to collect one more car, even if Chip was out of commission for at least a week. Maybe he could make it into a one-man job.

  Vic pulled into a convenience store parking lot and gazed down at his smartphone. There, he moved his finger along a Google map of Seattle and took a quick look at the red teardrop shapes that showed the whereabouts of his current fleet, seeking just the right target. Wow! This was a great omen. That red SL55 AMG Mercedes sports sedan Chip had tagged the night he got shot was apparently sitting all by itself on a quiet street in an industrial area that didn’t even have sidewalks! A nice secluded spot! For a second, Vic thought maybe it was a little weird, this Mercedes sitting, presumably, all by itself in such a remote area at night. And then he thought, what the hell, it wouldn’t hurt to just take a look.

  ———

  DMYTRO pulled up to Donna’s and waited impatiently while the pale valet there, who seemed to be writing something feverishly in a notebook, finally noticed him, then put down his pad and pen and ambled slowly over to the car.

  “Good evening, sir, and welcome to Donna’s,” he said.

  Dmytro didn’t bother to reply and tossed the keys at the kid’s chest, where they bounced once before landing on the ground with a jangling sound. Then, as the kid bent down to retrieve them, Dmytro shoved him aside and strode into the casino.

  Volodya was sitting in his regular corner with a bunch of his cronies, all laughing loudly, drinking heavily, and speaking a mixture of bad Russian and bad English.

  Dmytro paused at the entrance to the bar, then gave his cousin an unsmiling combination greeting and summons by lifting up his chin about an inch, then strolled over to the bar. He didn’t greet the others. But he gave Sergei Lagunov a nod. He was the only real professional in the bunch. And he might be helpful.

  Volodya came over a little unsteadily, sloshing his drink, and joined his cousin there, leering at a large middle-aged barmaid with bleached hair. “Your hair is as golden as the wheat fields of my country,” he said. She avoided eye contact, turned her back on him, and began cutting up limes. “I am from Ukraine,” he continued, addressing her ample back. “People think I am Russian but it is not same thing.”

  “We need to talk about what happened at that snotty Italian restaurant,” said Dmytro in Ukrainian.

  Volodya continued addressing the waitress’s back. “You see on the news Russians and Ukrainians are fighting back there, but we leave these problems in the old country.”

  Volodya shrugged and turned to his cousin. “Someone took a shot at that millionaire,” he said. “So what?”

  “It doesn’t have anything to do with us?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “The Georgian was parking cars when it happened. I don’t want them to find out what he’s been up to.”

  “Stealing from us!” said Volodya in a low menacing voice. “With his little buddy Cheep. That’s what the little fuck has been up to.” Volodya slammed his fist on the bar. “Dmytro, why do you take this from those two guys! Even if we let them do business outta there, we deserve a percentage.”

  Dmytro switched to English to order a beer, then turned back to his cousin and switched back to Ukrainian. “You are right, of course. We can’t allow this insolence.”

  Volodya gave a kind of snort t
hat seemed to indicate simultaneous indignation and agreement.

  Dmytro sighed. Sometimes, he wondered if it wouldn’t be better just to scale back on his lifestyle. Relax a little, and go back to regular body and fender work.

  Volodya knocked back the rest of his drink and lurched slightly to one side. “You need to think bigger, Dmytro. You can’t go soft.”

  Dmytro didn’t answer. He decided he had to tell his cousin about Vic’s uncle in Tbilisi. “For God’s sake, Volodya, don’t talk about any of this with your pals over there.” He indicated the Slavic posse in the corner of the bar with a lateral movement of his eyes. “That Vic came over to my house. And he told me his uncle and his cousin are big players back in the old country. Vory.”

  Volodya looked flabbergasted. “Really?”

  “So we can’t mess with him until we know for sure. First, we’re gonna find out if it’s true. Put Sergei on it. The Georgian used to hang with him right in this very bar. Hell, that’s how we got mixed up with him in the first place. Sergei recruited him. Tell Sergei I want to talk to him. Bring him by the house. In a couple of hours.”

  Dmytro rose to go, but Volodya grabbed his cousin’s plump hand as it rested on the bar. “I swear to Almighty God, Dmytro, whoever this kid’s relatives are, we gotta do something. If you don’t take care of this, I will.”

  In the corner of the room, Sergei Lagunov watched the Zelenko cousins huddled at the bar, their large heads down close together in a conspiratorial way. Something big was up. And he could tell from their body language that there was clearly tension between them.

  Dmytro looked at his cousin’s scowling face. “Just relax,” he said. “I’ve got it covered. And don’t do anything without consulting me.” He held up his hand like a cop stopping traffic. Volodya turned away from him with a disgusted look.