Hazardous Goods (Arcane Transport) (11 page)

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Jamar – I am going to go talk to her now. If there is something you know that will assist me in not digging myself deeper into this mound of steaming shit, I would appreciate it if you told me now.”

He looked at me as though weighing my intentions.

“The fact is, I think she likes you. But she’s got a boyfriend. Which just makes all of this even worse.”

Shit.

I was elated. Deflated. Frustrated. I had a chance, and I may have just blown it. Because I was a clumsy oaf.

“Shit.”

“Yeah. No kidding. So she’s mortified by what happened. Plus it was all a bit, you know, a bit
raunchy
. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

“Shit.”

It was all I had to say.

I went out front a few minutes later, intending to tell her everything was OK. But she couldn’t look me in the eye. And to be honest, my hormones started raging the second I got a whiff of her perfume. I swear my mouth started watering.

So I kept it simple. Told her I was sorry about screwing up. Didn’t intend to spill the stuff. Never imagined something might have that effect on a woman. I respected her as a person, and as a colleague. Try to put it behind us. She kept quiet the whole time, though I sensed she wanted to say something.

So I headed out back to get on with the morning deliveries, leaving both of us to spend the next few hours mulling over sixty seconds of rapture.

When I returned from lunch, Jim and Harold didn’t seem worried. I could hear them laughing in the lunchroom from the back of the loading area. Kara and Maggie had stepped out to go for a walk, leaving me to feel like a huge pile of steaming horse doody. Fortunately, Jamar was at the desk. He reassured me that Kara didn’t hold anything against me. If anything, she felt horrible and was worried I would hate her for the events of the morning.

The look on my face said it all.

“I know, man. No guy in the world will ever hate a woman for jumping his bones.”

Laughing, I returned to the back to grab my sandwich and a few minute’s peace. But Jamar paged me before I could get in a bite. I sighed and grabbed the wall phone.

“Hey.”

“It’s your lucky day. You’ve got the guys from BOA again.”

Great. Just what I needed.

“Can you tell them I’m out?”

“They spotted you pulling in. I have a sneaky feeling they were waiting for you to return from your route.”

I sighed, then went out to meet with the BOZOS, as I had come to think of them. I would have to make a serious effort to be polite.

“Folks.”

It was Spitzer and his female colleague again. Same uniforms, though this time both wore black gloves and camo ballcaps in deference to the cooler weather. Spitzer glared at me with a look just short of open hostility.

“We understand someone made use of a Class 1 Restricted agent this morning.”

So much for the niceties.

“Guys. Class 1? Class 2? I still don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

Spitzer stared at me as though trying to determine whether I was an idiot, or just stubborn. Fact is, I can be both.

“This morning,” his colleague was back to her notebook again, “around oh-seven hundred hours, a Class 1 mixing agent was used to initiate a spell on these premises. The medium utilized is unknown, however we believe it may have involved a potion, unction or incense.”

“Unction?” My eyebrow went up. These guys were weird. “I have no idea—.”

Wait a second.

“What time did you say?”

“Oh-seven hundred.”

Shit.

“OK. Around seven a.m. I accidentally knocked over one of our delivery packages, and spilled a few drops of the contents in our backroom.”

That caught their attention. Spitzer flipped to a new page, and pulled a pen from his back pocket.

“What, if anything, resulted?”

“Well... “

They stared at me.

“We had an
incident
. One of the staff became somewhat affectionate. To me.” Christ, this was humiliating.

The woman spoke, a nasty tone of sarcasm in her voice.

“And was this ‘staff person’
aware
she was under the influence of magic?”

“What?”

“Was she aware she was under the influence of magic?” Voice was getting a little shrill... “Or did you just bang her on this conference table and leave her to wonder what had happened?”

“Nice.” Bitch. “As it happens, one of my colleagues assisted me in defusing the situation until we were able to obtain aid in neutralizing the, uh, unction.”

“Is it safe to assume that the affected person was your receptionist, Miss—” she checked her book “Sinclair?”

The look on her face suggested she was interviewing a convicted rapist. As if I wasn’t feeling bad enough, I was starting to feel like one.

“Yes.”

“And you’re saying this was
accidental
.”

“Yes.”

They both gave me the same look my mother used to give me when I came home from a party and denied having anything to drink. At least when that happened I was too drunk to care.

“How were
you
affected by the spell?”

Me? Well, I got jumped by a pretty girl.

“I wasn’t.”

“How do you mean?”

“I’m not sure what you’re asking.
I
wasn’t affected.
Kara
was.”

They traded a look, again making me feel like I was being excluded from their little club.

“I thought you said this incident was not deliberate?”

“It was an
accident
. If I wanted to get
involved
with her, I would just ask her out.”

Silence.

“And then she would reject me, and that would be that. Anyways, I’m not about to do that kind of thing.”

“You’re saying you have no interest in a relationship with Miss Sinclair?”

“No. Well, yes.” Now I was going in circles, I think. I rubbed my eyes, and sighed.

“Let’s move on, shall we?”

After they finished questioning me, the two of them insisted on waiting for Kara to return in order that they could meet with her. I wanted to wait for them to finish with her, to make sure she was alright. But we were already behind, and couldn’t afford more delays.

Maggie seemed convinced the whole thing would blow over, that there were no hard feelings, just embarrassment.

“What a nightmare.”

“Well, it could be worse.”

I squinted at Maggie, trying to see how that was possible. All I could see was a glint in her eye that suggested mischief.

“Imagine if Jamar hadn’t been here to help.”

Oh, I was desperately trying
not
to imagine that.

I asked her to call me when Kara got out of the BOA session, to let me know she was alright.

I trudged to the back, feeling lower than I had felt in a long, long time.

By six, I was exhausted. Big Jim and Harvey had finished for the day, and Maggie had left after checking one more time that Kara was alright. Jamar was helping me tidy up in the back, while Kara waited at reception for her ride home.

My brain should have been able to put one and one together when Maggie told me Kara had gotten a ride in that morning and would be picked up by a quarter past six. Should have, but I guess I wasn’t thinking all that clearly.

So when I heard voices out front, one soft and calm, and the other harsh and escalating in volume, I figured it was none of my business. At least, not until a tall fellow wearing a dark suit, blue shirt, striped tie and black shoes stormed along the corridor from reception, past the bullpen and into the garage where Jamar and I were finishing up.

Things became a little clearer when that same fellow strode up to me and planted a right jab hard on my chin.

I spun and fell to a knee, as much shocked as anything else.

“Chad! No! I told you – it wasn’t his fault!”

“Yeah, right!” Chad grabbed the collar of my shirt and pulled me back to my feet, turning me as he did so. “Sonofabitch.”

Another punch, this one glancing off my cheekbone.

Behind the angry boyfriend, I could see Jamar holding Kara, tears running down her cheeks.

“I’m sorry. Look, it was an accident—.”

He was still throwing punches, with me bobbing and moving my head to lessen the impact. No damage so far, but the last thing I needed was to open up the cut on my forehead or aggravate my concussion.

Finally, Jamar stepped forward and took hold of Chad by the shoulders, dragging him out of the fray. He took a couple of elbows to the face in the process, though I don’t think those were deliberate.

“Asshole!”

“It was my fault, and it never should have happened.”

I tried to explain, but by then Kara had taken hold of him and was angrily maneuvering him to the door. By the time they were in his car – a slick BMW M3 convertible, of course – I was seated in the bullpen with a bag of ice pressed to my cheek.

Time to call it a day.

On the way home I put a call into Clay and Harper at the hospital.

Harper sympathized with me, and said she would call Kara that night to make sure she was alright and reassure her there were no hard feelings about the boyfriend’s outburst. Throughout it all, I could almost see the smile on Clay’s face. If laughter was the best medicine, Clay would be up and dancing the tango within a day or two.

That night Amy called. It was great to hear her voice, particularly in light of the day I had just had. Though to be honest, the last thing I needed was to get any hornier. I was beginning to feel like a teenage boy in heat.

No wonder my pranks were getting so puerile. I was normally so mature.

Right.

“Whores and s’mores. Sticky outdoor fun. Adults only, please.”

“Aagh. That’s disgusting.” At least she was laughing at my jokes. I’ve got to say, she was a hell of a lot more patient than most women I’ve known. “Hey – we’ve got a file on him. Nikolay Kuzmenko. Immigrated to Canada in 1998, from Russia. Same neighborhood in Moscow as Maxim Legenko. Served 38 months in Joyceville for possession for the purpose of trafficking and assault. He’s been off the radar for five years now.”

“Wonderful. Why would a guy like Legenko hook up with this idiot?”

“Good question. My contact in the Taskforce tells me there have been rumors all along that Legenko is tied into the Russian mob. Kuzmenko fits the profile, and they’re from the same hometown. I know the Organized Crime guys investigated Legenko’s possible mob connection a few years back, but they couldn’t prove anything. Ironically, it was some of that work that opened up the door to the current trial.”

“Hm. Maybe Legenko’s still mobbed up.”

“Could be, but my sense is they see the fraud case as the only real chance they have to put him away. Either way, Donnie, you have to stay away from this Kuzmenko dude. He’s serious trouble.”

“I hear ya.”

“Do you? It sounds to me like the gears are turning in that head of yours.”

“Don’t worry. I’m not going to do anything stupid.”

“Well don’t. Listen, I’ll be on nights for the next week or so, but call me if anything else comes up.”

“Sounds good.”

That should have been it. A simple ‘talk to you later’ and I would have been home free. But oh no, I couldn’t possibly be that intelligent. I had to stir up the wasp nest, then drop it down my own shorts.

It occurred to me, out of the blue, that I no longer had any chance with Kara in the foreseeable future. Not only were things incredibly awkward, but how could either of us tell whether it was just some strange after-effect of the love potion? Let alone the fact that she worked for me. So just yesterday, I had two intelligent, sexy women that acknowledged my existence. Now I only had one! For some reason, that led me to think that I should make my move on Amy.

I had forgotten my own cardinal rule of dating. The
possibility
that a girl might go out with you is far preferable to the
certainty
that she never wants to see you again.

Stupid, stupid me.

“Say, are you up for a drink at some point?”

“Why, Mr. Elder. Are you asking me out on a date?”

Well yes, I was. But I hated it when girls focused that much attention on it. Freaked me out. Not that I’m commitment-averse or anything.

“Depends. How do you define a date?”

“Hm. Let’s see. OK. One person asks the other out, with the hope that it might turn into something.”

“Turn into what?”

“A long-lasting relationship. True love. Marriage. Kids.”

“Aagh!” I admit it. I panicked. Or maybe it was an after-shock from my experience with Kara. Either way, I blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “What if one person asks the other out, with the hope that it might lead to meaningless sex?”

The line was quiet, and time seemed to barely move, like the flow of ketchup from a bottle when you’re desperate to cram down a plate of French fries. I stopped breathing, and imagined tearing out my own tongue by the root, then flogging myself with it as penance for my outright stupidity.

“Was that what you had in mind?”

Kill me. Kill me now. I was caught in a dilemma of my own making. Tell her no, and have her think I was not attracted to her. Tell her yes, and have her think I was only interested in her body. It was like I had littered a field with landmines, blindfolded myself, and gone for a walk. There was no good answer. I was gay or an asshole. Not that there’s anything wrong with either.

“Donnie?”

“Hi. Uh—.” Crack a joke, that’ll break the ice. “Uh—.” Say something! “Uh, I’d love to have sex with you! But that’s not why I’m asking you out for a drink. I mean, that’d be great, but I like you too, and we wouldn’t have to, you know, not for like a while. And if you just wanted to be friends that’s OK too. But I am attracted to you. I mean, you’re hot. Totally. But I’m a bit of an idiot, so I know I don’t have much of a chance. I, uh, shit.”

It would have been easier to get on a plane, fly to Tehran, and walk through town wearing an “I Love George Bush” t-shirt while drawing humorous caricatures of Mohammed. At least then I would know for sure I was a dead man. In fact, I was holding the phone away from my ear in order to press the Off button, when I heard her laughter build from a whisper to a roar. Putting the receiver back to my ear, I heard her laugh and laugh and laugh. And laugh. Only problem was, I didn’t know if she was laughing
with
me, or
about
me.