A Date You Can't Refuse (29 page)

B
ronwen and Felix, seated closest to the tureen, brought their napkins to their faces, wiping away spots of soup that had landed on them.

“What is that?” Parashie asked.

The bug. My bug. It couldn't be anything else. My bug was swimming in that tureen.

The soup was more milky than creamy; if it had been thicker, the bug would've sunk more slowly, maybe taken a moment to float on the surface. This was buying me some time.
Think, Wollie!
I screamed to myself.

“Was it a bug?” Bronwen asked, standing to peer into the tureen.

She knows!
I thought.
They know!

“A
scorpion?” Zbiggo asked. “This is a scorpion, I think.”

Okay, they don't know
.

“We don't have scorpions in L.A.,” Kimberly said. “The eastern part of the state, yes. Here, no. Tarantulas, maybe.”

The thought of a tarantula throwing itself into Grusha's soup, even though I knew it wasn't the case, made me ill all over again.
Don't throw up, Wollie
, I thought.
Whatever else you do, don't throw up. Look at something besides the soup
.

Except that I had to look at the soup. A normal person would be looking
at the soup, or at least at Yuri, who was now standing, ladle in hand. He fished around in the gigantic tureen. I could hardly keep staring at my bread plate. Someone would notice. Okay, I would focus on the tureen itself. Ceramic and overly painted, maybe something Grusha brought over from the old country.

Grusha! Did I hear those shuffling footsteps? Grusha mustn't know about this. If she saw the bug, she'd know in a second where it had come from and who was responsible—

“Grusha's going to be very unhappy,” I blurted out, “if something's ruined her soup.”

Yuri's eyes met mine. “True enough.” He let go of the ladle as she walked in. “Grusha, have we any more of the red that Vlad brought over for us last year?”

“The pinot noir? The Russian?”

“No, the Pauillac.”

Grusha looked affronted. “The Pichon-Baron? In the cellar?”

“Yes. Shall I go?”

“I go,” she said, and stomped out.

Yuri went back to fishing. The ladle made a scraping sound and then up it came. I couldn't see the ladleful, but then Yuri reached in and plucked out the bug.

“What is it?” Bronwen asked.

Yuri said nothing. He replaced the soup ladle and set about cleaning the bug in his napkin in a methodical manner. Then he held out the napkin. “Not a scorpion at all.” He looked at Kimberly “Although I would not rule out the possibility of something poisonous in our midst.”

“Yes, but what is it?” Bronwen asked again.

“A metal disk, I'd say,” Stasik answered. “Bloody hell.”

“Did the light break?” Parashie asked, staring at the chandelier.

“Was an earthquake?” Zbiggo asked.

Yuri directed his attention to Stasik, his face stern with no hint of the good humor that characterized him. I took a sip of water, my hand shaking. I glanced at Stasik, who returned Yuri's look steadily. Then Yuri shifted his focus to Felix. He was going around the table. Next would come Zeffie. And then it would be my turn.

I had progressed from shaking to sweating. I would simply meet his eyes and make my face go limp. No, not limp. Limpid. Yes, that was the ticket. Neutral, noncommittal, even stupid. Yes, stupid.
Stop sweating
, I told myself.

He looked at me. His eyes were blue. No, green. Keep looking at his blue or green eyes, I told myself.

And then, unexpectedly, I felt my face break into a smile. Nerves. Hysteria, maybe.

But what was more strange, he smiled back.

Then he moved on to Nadja, continuing his visual inquisition.

Safe. I had passed the test, whatever it was. Was Yuri trying to determine which one of us had placed the bug there? By our facial expressions? And why was everyone so quiet?

Zbiggo said, “Can I eat more soup?”

Grusha looked at Yuri. “Line two. For Nell. The woman she goes with to meeting?”

Yuri frowned. “What woman?”

Kimberly put down her fork. “Her sponsor, are you talking about? The one she carpools with?”

Grusha nodded. “Nell is not come to drive her. She says, where she is? The meeting is already at seven.”

I looked around the table and realized with a start that Nell wasn't there. That's right—it was Thursday night, her Agoraphobics Anonymous meeting.

“But what does this mean?” Parashie asked, her face alarmed. “Did something happen to Nell?”

“I check garage, if car is there,” Grusha said and left the room.

Parashie spoke to her father urgently in Russian, but he answered quietly in English that she was not to worry. Grusha came back and announced that the car was still in the garage. Again, Parashie broke into Russian. Again, in English, Yuri calmed her down. “I will look into this,” he said, standing. “Kimberly, I'll be at Green House.”

Everyone else continued with dessert, lime sorbet and tiny crunchy
cookies that Bronwen was attempting to eat by the handful. I was too anxious to eat, feeling that Nell's disappearance was significant. Sinister. Kimberly looked pensive, I thought, and sad.

Grusha appeared at my side. “You,” she said. “Phone call.”

“Uh—really?”

She handed me the phone. “Line one.”

I took the phone from her and left the room.

“What are you doing?” Simon's voice was soft, deep, and resonant with sexual innuendo. It was so evocative of—

The feds are listening
.

“Eating sorbet,” I snapped. I was in the library with the door closed.

“Look, Wollie—”

“I'm working.”

“You're angry.”

Treason. Infidelity
. Angry? I was outraged. I was confused. I was indignant, offended, uncertain, and miserable. I couldn't say any of this. I said, “I'm busy.”

“I love you,” he said.

“On an unsecured line?”

“This one's secure.”

“This one isn't.”

Simon hung up. I'd realized my mistake the second the words were out of my mouth, even before the click.

My anger had made me careless.
Damn
. But why did he have to take me literally? I mean, almost every phone line was insecure, right? Or unsecured. It was just a figure of speech. I could've been being flippant, right? It didn't necessarily mean “the FBI has a wiretap on this phone,” right?

And the FBI was listening, hearing me say it wasn't a secure line. Great. Now they'd probably arrest me for treason. Or stupidity. I scratched my stomach underneath the manila envelope that was driving me batty but I dared not dislodge.

Something occurred to me: keeping this package didn't constitute
mail fraud. It hadn't gone through the mail. There was no address on it, let alone a postmark—just Alik's name. So I wasn't committing a federal offense if I didn't hand it over, I was just a garden-variety thief. But I was also lying to that poor kid at the guard gate. This bothered me. I'd given him my word, and now he would get fired and would the FBI care? My guess was no.

On impulse, I picked up the phone and again called the emergency number for Yogi Yogurt. “Listen, this is Wollie,” I said. “I need that quart of Very Vanilla, and I need it tonight. I know I said twenty-four hours, but I changed my mind. I'm carrying around a lot of money that I'm not comfortable with, if you know what I mean, so I need to offload it. Got it?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

Wonderful
, I thought, hanging up.
That is so reassuring
.

I looked at the package and thought that if someone other than Alik was going to open Alik's package, why not me?

I grabbed scissors from the desk and cut through the taped-up envelope and withdrew a square plastic case holding a DVD. It bore a label, but the label was blank except for the small Disney logo near the bottom.

Out in the library, I heard the door open. Panicked, I switched off the light in the office and squatted near the floor.

It was a knee-jerk reaction, but a stupid one. I had a perfect reason to be in the office, so why was I acting so utterly suspicious? Good luck now explaining myself if I was caught.

It was Kimberly walking through the library. When I heard her voice, I peeked out. She was alone, so clearly she was on the phone. “Jesus Christ, when were you planning to tell me?” she asked. “… And who's going to be assigned
that
little detail? Because I have a million things to do and that's going to slow me down if I've got to get us all—” She picked up a bunch of Parashie's school books from the table and walked back toward the doorway. “… Okay, I'll call a meeting.” And she was gone. I counted to ten, then left the library myself.

There was no one in sight. I fit the Disney DVD inside my camisole and scrunched up the envelope as tightly as I could, looking for somewhere
to stash it. No garbage can, but the umbrella rack in the corner of the foyer would do. It hadn't rained in months, so no one had any reason to be poking around in there. I'd collect it later, after I'd finished the mission at hand. Bug number three.

It was the last thing I wanted to do, but now was my best shot at doing it. Neither Kimberly nor Yuri was in the master bedroom right now. If I pulled this off, my assignment was over.

Except that if Yuri knew the chandelier bug to be a bug, as he obviously did, then tomorrow someone could be at the house sweeping for bugs. For all I knew, he had a bug sweeper on retainer.

I paused, my hand on the banister. Was this my problem?

No. I wanted the bug out of my pocket, I wanted it gone, I wanted to do my civic duty, fulfill my assignment, and then get out of Dodge. Whether the bugs stayed in place wasn't my business. Whether the bugs picked up conversations or got swept away or flew into cream of ham soup, that wasn't my department. I started up the stairs.

And if I needed an alibi, there was always Donatella's ring on my finger. I was going to return the massively pricey ring right to Kimberly's dresser, since Donatella was out of town. I was now wearing so many alibis, I was covered for every eventuality.

“Wollie? Where are you going?”

I froze.

“Hello, Vlad,” I said, my mouth going dry. I stuck the bug in my pants pocket.

“Where are you going?” the big man said again, frowning. Puzzled. “Yuri's room?”

“Oh, heavens no. I mean, not on purpose. I thought that was—never mind. I have a very poor sense of direction, did you know that?”

“No.”

“Well, we've just met. I'm sure it showed up on my Myers-Briggs test. Anyhow, I was on my way back to my own room to lie down, and—lay down? Lie down. I always—”

“Perhaps,” he said, coming toward me, “you and Yuri have made yourselves a little rendezous, eh? To lay down or lie down?” He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

“God, no. He's married. To Kimberly As you know. Absolutely not. Not my type.”

Vlad slid an arm around me, exhaling wine fumes into my hair. “What is your type?”

Okay, this was bad. He would feel the DVD on my abdomen if his hand went lower, and there was a good chance it would. “Well, younger.” I tried to wiggle out of his one-armed hug. “Not to sound ageist, because some of my best friends are—”

“I am younger than Yuri.” He tightened his hold. “And strong. You feel? The arms?”

“Wow. Absolutely.” The DVD was slipping. I grabbed it and held it in place.

“I need your opinion on something,” Vlad said. “Will you help me?”

“Of course. What is it?”

“Come,” he said, herding me down the hallway. “This way.”

“Where to?”

“The meeting.”

“What meeting?”

“You missed the pronouncement. At dinner. Already we are late. Kimberly waits.”

“Oh.” My stomach turned over. Maybe I had an ulcer. Stress could do that, right? If so, I wondered if MediasRex or the FBI would put me on their health plan, because dollars to doughnuts my insurance rates would jump if I had an ulcer. “What kind of meeting?”

“With Kimberly, always a surprise.”

And on we went, out of Big House, around to the back of the property. Vlad kept his arm firmly around me. I couldn't think of how to gracefully extricate myself. He was like Zbiggo's older, beefier, creepier brother. I didn't want to Just Say No, in case it had the opposite effect and caused Vlad to become more physical. My DVD could pop out. That would be bad. But were we really headed to the meeting? Maybe. But what if we weren't? Then I was out in the dark with a large lech, with no one knowing my whereabouts. Outside. I remembered how Crispin had come to a bad end outside. In the dark.

And Chai.

“Vlad,” I said. “I'm freezing cold, so let me just run back and get a sweater—”

I pulled away, but he grabbed my arm and pulled me back. “Ah, but we are almost there. And it will be warm, I promise you. Patience, my cabbage.”

Which was when I saw that we were taking the same path I'd taken with Olive Oyl.

Vlad was taking me to the gun room.

V
lad hit the lights and the room came to life. We were alone.

My body was quivering. I couldn't help it. He was going to shoot me here. Or worse. With Vlad, it would be much worse.

He'd let go of my hand in order to open up the room, but now he had his arm around me again. “Little fox,” he said. “You're shaking.”

“I—I—am I?” I squeaked, and hugged myself, protecting my hidden DVD. “Where's everyone? What about the meeting?”

“We must be early.”

“What is it you wanted my opinion on?”

“This,” he said, and kissed me.

I turned my head away and pushed my elbow into his considerable stomach. “You're kidding,” I said.

“I'm not. I want you.”

“Okay, here's my opinion: No.”

He laughed. “My opinion counts more than yours. I say yes.”

Clearly there would be no Kimberly no meeting. Vlad stood between me and the door and showed no signs of letting me out of there unmolested. This wasn't Zbiggo. Zbiggo was a puppy. Vlad was a full-grown rottweiler from a bad gene pool.
Wollie
, I thought.
Use your head
. Could
I fight him if I had to? I could try. But I wasn't a fistfight kind of person and Vlad almost certainly was. With a personality like his, he must've been in a lot of fistfights. And he was big. On the plus side, he'd drunk wine at dinner. He didn't seem drunk, but he wasn't totally sober. There must be a way to use this.