KNUCKLES RAPPED tinted glass and the window slid down.
“Angelika?” asked the voice inside.
Vassily tossed a small white bundle into the car. “They did not see her, but the yellow-haired one gave me her socks.”
“She had the cutest little feet. Did you video?”
Vassily patted his breast pocket. “Yes, camera is running.”
“Excellent.”
The sound of pencil scratching across paper came from inside the car. Vassily waited a moment for the inevitable snap of a notebook cover, then opened the door.
A man in a wrinkled black tuxedo emerged. Tall and young, his cheeks were as hollow as a scarecrow who’d just returned from a night out at the most expensive champagne clubs. Pale skin stretched tight across his face like Saran wrap on a bowl of grandma’s banana pudding. The severe military flattop of his blonde hair contrasted sharply with his tailored tuxedo and the gold jewelry on his fingers. If a Palo Alto trophy wife in the midst of her daily morning muddle had walked past him at that very moment, she would have given little notice to this skinny, awkward-standing individual. Unless, of course, she happened to see his eyes.
Those lucid gems were blue and bright enough to cause more than a few strong-willed men and women to humorously crash into a table of Girl Scout cookies or trip over a fire hydrant. Illegally transplanted from a panther or perhaps an unlucky South American ocelot, one glance from those glistening orbs could turn a field mouse into a nasty burrito of shivering rodent goo. (Given the relative infrequency of mouse and man encounters in modern life, this was a rare occurrence.) If a helpful voice knelt down to the crumpled body covered with Thin Mints and whispered that the man with the eyes was a cannibalistic war criminal or a serial killer who collected socks, you would believe it. However, if the voice said this man was the great-grandson of Adolph Hitler, you would laugh and perhaps choke to death on your watermelon Jolly Rancher––everyone knows Der Fuhrer lives on the moon with the rest of the Space Nazis.
The man with the ocelot eyes spread his arms and gestured dramatically at the suburban smorgasbord of California post-war, detached housing and nitrogenated lawns.
“Now, Vassily. Which is the house?”
The chauffeur pointed across the street. “The white one, Duke Nichego. The one with the strange pink van.”
An unholy cacophony of clattering exhaust pipes and rubber tires in the shape of a Ford truck barreled around the corner and screamed to a stop. Nichego and Vassily watched a short woman with spiky blonde hair jump out of the truck and stride across the lawn.
“Is that him?” whispered Vassily.
Nichego shook his head. “The loud-mouthed girlfriend who owned a number of silk stockings said he does not operate a motor vehicle. That is obviously cleaning lady or strange prostitute.”
“Lady? But she’s wearing pants! And look at the hair!”
“She is definitely a woman. The hips are too wide and her build is too small to be a man. Remember Vassily––this is America where a woman is free to make her own fashion choices, even very poor ones.”
“Still,” said Vassily, “In Kamchatka––”
“Who are you speaking to––the squirrels pounding their nuts in the trees? I am Duke of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky! Of course I know it is different.”
“Sorry, boss. Should we capture the man-like cleaning lady and rip off her thumbnails?”
“No. Drive me to the 7-Eleven on the corner. I have a need to ‘blow up the toilet,’ as the Americans say.”
When they returned, the pink ambulance had disappeared from the driveway.
“Something is different,” said Vassily.
“You wasted too much time bargaining for a Fresca,” said Duke Nichego. “They are strangely not flexible on price.”
“Look,” said Vassily. “The cleaning lady is coming out.”
Billie and Chip tossed a suitcase and a large box into the back of Billie’s truck and drove away with an ear-shattering roar that frightened a dozen squirrels and caused an overstressed starling to re-evaluate the location for his afternoon nap.
“I don’t think she is cleaning lady,” said Vassily.
“You are dangerously close to learning sometimes,” said Duke Nichego.
He opened the door of the Town Car and walked up to Lin’s house, inhaling the air and examining everything with the blue gems of his eyes.
Vassily trotted up. “Do we have time to search for socks?”
Nichego held up a hand. He sniffed the air around the porch, then dropped to his knees in the driveway and breathed the fumes over the oil-stained concrete. He suddenly jumped up and sprinted to the Town Car.
“Angelika was here,” he shouted. “Catch the manly woman!”