Genie for Hire

11 - Cafecitos

Biff looked at the entrance behind him. The squirrel sat on the threshold, looking inside. "What are you doing here?" he said crossly. "Go on, shoo."

He stepped toward the squirrel, who turned and scampered away. Then he walked back outside, where Jimmy Stein was on the phone. "Loi is on his way," he said, when he ended the call. "So tell me again, exactly what happened."

Officer White reappeared from around the corner. "Mr. Andromeda was correct, sir. The front door is locked."

Jimmy nodded. "Good. You watch this door and wait for CSI. We'll be in the coffee shop inside."

Biff was still numb. Though he had been around for a long time, and seen his share of dead bodies, they still upset him. It was one thing to go through the home of a murder victim, as he'd done with the parking valet Usnavy. It was a hundred times, a thousand times, worse, to be in the presence of a corpse—or two. Especially when he had known the victim, spoken to her, even been kissed by her just a short while before. The psychic reverberations were almost too strong to bear.

Jimmy steered him down the service drive toward the corner of the shopping center, and the squirrel followed them. "You got a new friend?" Jimmy asked.

"I don't know what's wrong with him." He turned around and waved his hands at the squirrel. "Go on, get out of here. Go eat a nut or something."

They walked around the corner and down the sidewalk to the café. It had just opened for lunch, and the only customers were a pair of elderly white women in pants suits that had been fashionable in the seventies. "Dos cafecitos, por favor," Jimmy said to the short, dark-haired woman behind the counter.

Biff thought it was an excellent order. He could use a gulp of the strong Cuban coffee brewed with demerara sugar after seeing the two dead bodies. "Make mine a cortadito," he said, adding milk to the drink.

Jimmy led Biff to a table by the glass storefront, out of hearing of the other customers. When they sat down, Biff said, "I got the files for Sveta and returned them to her yesterday morning."

Jimmy was taking notes in a small spiral-bound notebook. "How'd you do that?"

"I found the place where Igor Laskin had them stored."

"And?"

"And nothing. I retrieved my client's property and returned it to her. End of story. She gave them to Ovetschkin, but he didn't believe he had all the originals and he threatened her again. I wanted to find something I could use against Ovetschkin, to protect her from him. That's why I was asking about The Professor—I thought maybe he might be Ovetschkin's boss, or that he might have some kind of hold over Ovetschkin I could use. That's why I went down to the marina this morning."

The waitress brought the two tiny espresso cups, and the aroma of the strong, sweet coffee swirled up and filled Biff's nostrils. He picked his up and sipped it, feeling the mix of caffeine and sugar pulse through his system. When he looked up again the squirrel was sitting on the sidewalk outside the storefront, looking at him. Biff noticed that his tail was long and straight, not curled around at the end like some squirrels, and he was staring at Biff like he wanted some of that coffee.

"What the hell?" Biff banged on the glass.

Jimmy looked up. "Must be your animal magnetism."

The squirrel rolled over onto its back, waved its little legs in the air, then went still. "Jesus, you killed it," Jimmy said.

"Me? I didn't do a thing." And that time at least it was true.

Then the squirrel hopped back up and danced around on the pavement. Jimmy laughed, and Biff couldn't help joining him. "Fine, stay out there if you want," Biff said.