Page 50 of The B!tch is Bad

Chapter 16

Patience

“He was always sitting here in his sweatpants telling me about wine tasting with his Beijing buddies,” said Grace.

A very down-to-earth and sociable woman, Grace did the day-to-day of Wine on Main. She’d been overhauling the computers, the logistics, the tracking. Not only vintners stored valuables there, Grace had sugar makers, olive oil, even wine from Francis Ford Coppola. I’d come to check on our wine, but hadn’t made it up to Bay 15 before Grace waylaid me, yanking me into her ground floor office.

I gave her more reasons to beware of Oliver Klozov, without telling her how we knew he’d murdered Sean Wildstar, and most likely Thomas Massengill in his scrapbooking room. “He told people he invented voicemail.”

Grace rolled her eyes. “He told me he managed the Foo Fighters.”

“The best was when he crossed the Sahara with a tribe of Tuareg nomads.”

“That he met in Timbuktu.”

“On a camel.”

We had to laugh, finally, because it sounded beyond absurd. Grace leaned back in her swivel chair, holding her stomach that jiggled with mirth. “Did you hear about the time he was an Israeli spy?”

“I didn’t hear that one!” After my belly laugh died away, I added more soberly, “His stories are hardly ever linear.”

“Or make any sense.”

“You know, in our tasting room he had his followers. I think Creed kept him on because he amused people. I’m not sure how seriously anyone took him.”

Looking over my shoulder, Grace buzzed someone into the building. He seemed to be carrying bags of sugar, large canvas bags. “He enrolled at like nine colleges. I believe him that he has two law degrees, but never passed the bar. Like he can’t concentrate on things long enough.”

“Yes, he said he had more degrees than a thermometer. Nowadays we’d call it ADD or whatever is the trendiest diagnosis.”

Grace sighed. “I got to tell you, Patience. You really scored with Mr. Trucks. Every gal in Seeker Valley has been trying to get her hands on that tight ass. If you don’t mind my saying.”

I giggled behind my hand, secretly proud. Well, okay, not so secretly. Hell, I was proud. “Tarnation. I think it’s his Roman nose that gets to me.”

Grace swooned, the back of her hand on her forehead. “That nose!”

“You like noses like that too? Oh, I fall for it. He’s a zaddy, the total package.”

“He’s got BDE.”

“BDE?”

Grace crooked her mouth. “Big Dick Energy.”

Ooo.I really liked that. “Never heard of it.”

Grace shrugged, as though she dealt with Big Dick Energy every day. “It’s a quiet confidence, a sureness of self. He knows he has a big dick and what to do with it.”

“Hey,” I protested, but Grace was half-standing, frowning at something on her surveillance monitor. So I looked over my shoulder too, and gasped.

I murmured, “That’s no sugar guy.”

As we both raced to her office door that led to the lobby, Oliver Klozov also decided to tear-ass through. I’d never seen him like that before. He was always calm, cool, collected. Now his eyes were like bowling balls, wide as a barn door. Sweat dripping from the tips of his hair, each of his steps seemed half a mile long. Before Grace could even call out, the guy leaped into his “sugar” truck and peeled out.

Emboldened by my recent success at holding my own sicario Santiago Slayer at gunpoint, to my credit I did sprint to the front glass doors and whip out my piece from my shoulder holster. But how could I shoot at a guy who was merely trespassing? Once again, I was thwarted. Thwarted to the core. I was just not born to get revenge on even the most brutal homicidal maniac.

Behind my shoulder, Grace said, “What the fuck do you think he was doing?”

I twisted around to face her. “Let’s look at the surveillance tape. He went in with a bag, and came out with nothing.”