Free Genie for Hire by Neil Plakcy Page B

invoke The Professor’s power to protect Sveta?
And who was this guy, anyway?
    He turned to his computer, but a nickname wasn’t much to go
on. He tried every database he had access to, but he had no luck finding any
information about the man online. Frustrated, he stared down at his desk,
looking for inspiration.
    Instead he saw the application from the chiropractor’s
office. He sighed and picked it up, and began running the records checks. By
the end of the day, he had a report together for the doctor. The applicant, a
young woman born in St. Kitts but raised in Fort Lauderdale, had a juvenile
record which had been sealed, and two arrests for disorderly conduct, both of
them involving a woman she suspected of dating her boyfriend. She also had two
traffic tickets for speeding and was in danger of losing her license.
    Not the best candidate for a job which gave her access to
sensitive patient data. Sophia was right. Maybe she should be a private eye.
Biff printed up a report and an invoice, but it was too late to deliver it to
Dr. Oppsal.
    The rain had stopped and the skies were clear. He drove back
down to Sunny Isles Beach in search of information about The Professor as the
sun dipped over the horizon in a flare of orange and dark blue. He went back to
the Starbucks where he had seen Natasha and her mother, then prowled every
Russian-oriented business he knew. He dropped hints to clerks and even asked
outright questions, but he came up empty-handed everywhere.
    He ate dinner at a Russian restaurant in the same shopping
center as the Bolshoi Gym, eavesdropping on every conversation around him, in
Russian and English. The effort was exhausting, and he learned nothing but the useless
aggravations of everyday life, issues that passed through his brain like summer
breezes.
    By the time he returned to his townhouse and climbed the
stairs to his bed, he was no closer to any information on The Professor, or any
other way to protect Sveta Pshkov from whatever Kiril Ovetschkin decided to do
to her.

8 –
Only the Best
    After his fruitless attempts to find a way to protect Sveta,
Biff slept restlessly, and after a run the next morning he returned to his
office. He carried the invoice down to Dr. Oppsal’s office. The waiting room
was full of elderly men and women in Easter-egg colored jogging suits, though
he was sure none of them ever actually jogged. A woman with a high bun of pink
spun-sugar hair was at the window arguing with Sophia. “How can you make two
nine o’clock appointments when the doctor only has one pair of hands?” she
demanded.
    Biff slipped the paperwork past her and onto Sophia’s desk,
gave her a two-fingered salute.
    “I gotta get my adjustment,” the woman said, as Biff was
backing away. “I’m leaving on a cruise tomorrow morning.”
    As he walked back to his office he wondered what was it
about the woman’s statement that had sparked a synapse in his brain to fire.  Cruise?
Cruising? Cruise control? Was someone going on a cruise? Something about a
boat?
    He shook his head. It was hell getting old. And he should
know; he’d been around for centuries. When he got back to his desk he forced
himself to focus. He sat down on the oriental carpet beside his desk, crossed
his legs into the lotus position, and rested his palms on his knees. He closed
his eyes and began to chant the mantra a yogi had taught him in Madras long
before.
    When he had entered his meditative state, he allowed the
images and thoughts floating in his brain to appear before him. It took a while
to sort through them—rain, Farishta, the Ovetschkins, the pelmeni he’d
had for dinner the night before, a beach in St. Kitts where he had once made
love to a beautiful woman, Sveta, the smell of Joy perfume, the boat in the
Keys where he had last seen Farishta…
    He awoke from his meditation with a start. Douschka was
missing, and he recalled that Kiril Ovetschkin’s company owned a boat. Was she
on it?
    He stood up, stretched, then