Vanity, Vengeance And A Weekend In Vegas (A Sophie Katz Novel) (13 page)

“I’ll call you a cab to take you
back to the hotel.” He said as I started to open the door again.

“I got it, thanks.”

“One more thing?”

“Alex, I really have to go!”

He held up a hand, requesting one
last moment. I watched impatiently as he went across the room and unlocked the
drawer of a console by the stairs.

As he pulled a gun out I found
myself really wishing I hadn’t waited.

“Listen,” I whispered, trying
desperately to think of a way out of this.

Alex simply put his fingers to
his lips. He moved across the room. I hadn’t noticed how graceful he was
before. He should have been a dancer not a killer. It was probably a little
late to suggest a career change, though.

He took my hand so that my palm
was facing up. I held my breath not sure what his next move was going to be.
Slowly, carefully, he put the gun in my hand.

“This one’s a little smaller than
the one you tried to steal but it should be enough to keep the bad guys at bay.
Protect yourself.” I stared down at the gun and watched as my fingers
instinctively closed around the handle.

“Put it in your purse,” he
instructed. “Concealed weapons are legal in Vegas and if you have it in your hand
there’s a good chance the cab won’t stop.”

I smiled slightly at that and did
as he suggested. “Thank you…but I won’t be back.”

“I don’t believe that for a
second.”

I didn’t know how to respond so I
simply turned and walked out.

The front gate opened for me
automatically and I spotted a town car parked at the end of the block.
 
Mary Ann got out of the back and waved
me over.

“I was just about to call the
police,” she admitted once I got within hearing range.

“I’m glad you didn’t.” I climbed
into the backseat to find that Marcus was there too.
 
Mary Ann got in beside me and asked the driver to take us to
the Encore as I turned to him.

“I thought you were at Puppetry
Of The Penis with Leah and Dena.”

“I was but I left after five minutes…and
those five minutes will give me five years of nightmares. Your sister seemed to
be enjoying it.”

“You’re joking, right?”

“Oh you think that’s odd? Because
I think it’s odd that you would go to the private residence of a possible
murderer.”

“But I always go to the homes of
possible murderers,” I pointed out. “It’s kinda my thing.”

“Marcus tracked me down at the
Hotel Noir,” Mary Ann explained.

Marcus held up Dena’s iPad.
 
“I borrowed this and I’ve been using it
to do some research on your new friend,” he said. “Do you have any idea who you
were just talking to?”

“Of course I know. I was talking
to Alex Kinsky.”

“Yes, Alex Kinsky…general manager
of The Hotel Noir, well known philanthropist and half brother to a woman who
legally changed her name from Fedora to
Fawn.
”

I froze in my seat and Mary Ann
grabbed my arm, squeezing it so hard I actually winced.

“Ewwy Fawn?” Mary Ann asked.

“The Fawn who called me collect
from prison to tell me that Anatoly was married?
That
Fawn?” I added before Mary Ann chimed
in again.

“The Fawn who slept with my
creepy ex-boyfriend…back when he was still my boyfriend and not so creepy?”

Marcus nodded. “That’s the
one…but honey,” he locked eyes with Mary Ann, “that boy was
always
creepy.”

“Are you sure it’s the same person?”
My voice was shaking now.

 
“Sweetie, how many convicted felons do you know named Fawn?”

 
“But what does it mean?” I whispered.

“It means he’s fucking with you.”
His eyes dropped to my outfit. “Two tanks on top of each other?” he asked with
traces of horror coloring his tone. “Two tanks that aren’t even well
color-blocked? And that top tank has a hole in it! Dear God, Sophie, what did
those drugs do to your brain? You’ve forgotten how to layer!”

“I know how to layer,” I snapped.
I pulled up one of the tanks to show him how the other was too sheer for my
bra. “
This
is
why I’m wearing two mismatched tanks!”

“Right,” Marcus said slowly.
 
“Obviously you couldn’t wear a shirt
that showed the outline of your bra because nobody dresses promiscuously in
Vegas.”

“This isn’t that kind of
vacation,” I retorted.

“No, this is a working vacation.
Spend an afternoon or two at a sex toy trade show and then put in a few hours
toward defeating the mafia. Why didn’t you match your tank to your bra if it
was a problem for you…wait, are those new shorts too?”

“Alex bought them for me.”

“They’re lovely,” Mary Ann said
distractedly.
 
Her mind was clearly
still on Fawn.

 
“It’s Marc by Marc Jacobs.”

Marcus looked at me blankly.
“Sophie, this isn’t the red carpet. I didn’t ask you
who
you were wearing. I just want to
know why you’re wearing it.”

“Well, um…” I ran my hands over
the tan silk of the shorts
 
“I
actually tore my clothes while trying to break into Alex’s backyard.”

Marcus’s mouth dropped open.

“But it’s okay, he didn’t mind!”

“He didn’t mind your trying to
break in,” he repeated flatly.

“Not so much.
 
He bought me this outfit to replace my
clothes…although he then insinuated that I should repay him with sexual
favors.”

Marcus balked. “For bridge-wear?”

“I know!” I threw my hands up in
disgust.

“Did you at least learn anything
useful?”

“As a matter of fact, I did. Alex
tells me that the Russian mafia thinks Anatoly helped an FBI agent infiltrate
their operations.”

Marcus took a while to digest this.
 
“If he has to go into Witness
Protection he should tell them not to relocate him to Wyoming. He’ll stand out
in Wyoming.”

“He also knows that Anatoly has
some incriminating evidence that could get the top people in this particular
mob family into a lot of trouble.”

“Minnesota might not be that
bad,” Mary Ann speculated. “They have the Mall Of America. I’ve always wanted
to see that.”
 

“It won’t come to that. Alex says
Anatoly has proof of some of the mob’s illegal activity. That evidence
is
Anatoly’s
protection…assuming Alex is telling me the truth.”

“Which is doubtful considering
his family’s track record,” Marcus reminded me.

“Yeah,” I admitted softly. I
shifted my position so that I could look out the window at the starless
sky.
 
If Alex was on the up and up
why hadn’t he mentioned Fawn?

But then again,
I
hadn’t
mentioned Fawn either. I had barely given her a second thought since she called
to tell me Anatoly was married. Was she even relevant at this point in the
game?

“He gave me more than information
and a new outfit,” I whispered.

“What else did he give you?”
Marcus asked. “A migraine?”

I glanced up at the driver. He
seemed to be completely uninterested in us as he tapped his fingers in time to
the Top 40 tune playing on the radio. I took a deep breath and opened my bag so
my friends could see the gun. They gasped simultaneously and I snapped my purse
shut.

No one said anything for the rest
of the ride to the Encore. When we arrived I paid the driver (picking up the
tab was the least I could do) and we all piled out of the car. Marcus dragged
me to the fountain with Mary Ann close on our heels. I noticed that his jaw was
set and his shoulders were tense.
 
For a full minute we all just stood there, Mary Ann and I looking at
Marcus expectantly. But he just stared silently at the fountain as it shot up
toward the heavens like an aquatic version of the northern lights.

“Why do you think he gave you
that, Sophie?” he finally asked, his voice icy and controlled.

“Because he wants me to be able
to protect myself,” I said. “What other reason could there be?”

“Do you know if that gun has been
recently used?” he asked. “Like maybe on someone named Tanya? Do you think that
maybe the reason Alex booked a room under your name and gave you that gun is
because he’s helping his sister get revenge?”

The question froze me in place. I
tried to come up with a reason his theory was ridiculous.
 
I couldn’t.

Now I was the one staring at the
fountain. It really did remind me of a smaller version of the northern lights and
the building behind it looked like it was made of solid gold.
But it wasn’t.
It
was an illusion. Nothing in this town was what it seemed to be. It was designed
to entrance. Its goal was to make you throw caution to the wind. It
wanted
you to
lose track of your own common sense.

“I’ll get rid of the gun,” I
whispered.

“Where?” Marcus snapped. “You
can’t just throw it in a trash can.”

“She could bury it in the
desert?” Mary Ann suggested. “In those mobster movies they’re always burying
things in the Vegas desert.”

“There you go then,” I said
hopefully. “I’ll…I’ll bury it in the desert first thing tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow might be too late,”
Marcus pointed out. “As far as you know the police might be coming for you
right now.”

With effort I swallowed down my rising
panic. “I don’t think Alex wants to draw the police’s attention to this whole
thing any more than I do. If he’s setting me up he’s setting me up so that he
can point the finger at me if and when things go sour, and we have no reason to
believe that’s going to happen tonight. Tomorrow we’ll figure out what to do
with the gun. One step at a time.”

Marcus tapped the tip of his shoe
against the pavement. “Anatoly…your hot little Russkie? He drugged you.”

“Yes, he did.”

I could see little stray drops of
water from the fountain settle onto Marcus’ hair. “He lied to you too, Sophie.”

“I know,” I said softly.

“You’re risking that adorable
little neck of yours for an asshole.”

“I am,” I admitted. The fountain
was now a blur as the wind played with the carefully structured pattern of the
water. “But here’s the thing…he’s
my
asshole.”

“Is this about ownership?” Marcus
asked incredulously, “Or is it about love?”

 
“It’s about love,” I whispered. “Marcus I…I love my asshole,
okay? I love him so much.”

“That’s almost as romantic as it
is disturbing,” Marcus sighed. “So I guess we’ll just focus on the basics. Try
to find Anatoly, try not to get implicated in any crime and try not to die.”

I bit my lower lip. One of those
things should have sounded easy.

“I rarely play by the rules.
Unfortunately the rules I break most frequently are the ones I set up for
myself.”

--Death Of The Party

We got back to the hotel room
right around the same time Dena and Leah were returning from Puppetry Of The Penis.
Leah had apparently been traumatized and had gone directly to her room. The
rest of us were in Dena and Marcus’ room. Dena had bags full of goodies from
the trade show and she and I were sorting through them while Marcus continued
to Google information on Dena’s iPad.
 
I hadn’t owned up to going to Alex’s house but we did tell her about
what Marcus had found out. Once Marcus got to the part about Alex being Fawn’s
brother Dena got up and left the rest of the sorting to me.

 
“Okay,” Marcus said, a vodka tonic in one hand and the iPad
in another, “here’s the results of the forty dollar background check.
 
Fawny-Dearest changed her name four
years ago and she has one half-brother, Alexander Kinsky. Then there’s a list
of a whole bunch of people she may or may not have a connection to…people with
crazy names like Inno...Innokenty? Whatever, that part’s not all that reliable
but she’s
definitely
Alex’s sister.”

“Maybe she’s estranged from him?”
I offered. “Maybe that’s why he never showed up at her trial.”

“I think it’s possible,” Mary Ann
said.

“If I had a sister like Fawn I
wouldn’t want anything to do with her,” Dena whispered. She was leaning her
weight against the desk and staring out at a night that had been made grey by
the neon lights of the strip.

Marcus turned to me.
 
“Do you really think it’s a coincidence
that you met Alex a week after his sister called to tell you about Anatoly?
Seriously?”

 
“Maybe Fawn wanted out of the mafia world and she cut off
contact with Alex because he wouldn’t get out too,” I offered. I examined a
package of dog-bone shaped paperclips that Dena had in one of her bags. “I
don’t get it. What’s dirty about these?”

Dena walked back over to me and
put one of the paperclips on the strap of my MacBook carrying case.
 
When in use the “bone” looked a hell of
a lot like an erect penis with two balls. Dena shrugged unenthusiastically and
went back to the window.
 
“What
part of the mafia do you think Fawn objected to?” she asked. “She’s in jail for
attempted murder so obviously it wasn’t the violence.”

“Maybe she didn’t like working
with other people?” Mary Ann offered. “She does seem to have some social
issues.”

“Yeah,” Dena replied, “maybe she
just didn’t like the corporate culture. She’s an individualist. Like Ayn Rand
with a Quentin Tarantino edge.”

“Oh come on, guys. So they share
a parent, that doesn’t automatically make them coconspirators.”

Marcus was studying me intently
but I couldn’t figure out what he was thinking so I plowed ahead.

“He wasn’t at the trial. When she
was arrested, no one posted her bail. She had to go with a public defender
because she couldn’t afford a lawyer. Does that sound like a woman who has a
close relationship with her wealthy brother?”

Marcus was still staring at me.
“You like him.”

The comment was just shocking
enough to shut me up.
 
Both Dena
and Mary Ann froze in place.

“I what?”

“You like him. You don’t want him
to be in league with Fawn…”

“Of course I don’t want him to be
in league with Fawn! He’s offering to help me—”

“Yeah, but you’re pissed at
Anatoly. And what better way to get back at him then—”

“There is no way Sophie would
ever even think of touching Fawn’s brother,” Dena said, her voice as cold as
ice.

“Of course not!” Mary Ann crossed
her arms over her chest. “Sophie is madly in love with Anatoly!”

“All right,” Marcus said, holding
up his hands in a request for calm. “I’m not implying that you’re going to
sleep with him, but you’re not looking at this objectively—”

“I’m
looking
at the evidence!” I yelled. I
threw Dena’s jar of nipple warming cream at his head. “Your problem is that you
have trust issues.”

“I agree!” Mary Ann said. “Alex
is the only one who has given Sophie any information at all. You think that
just because someone works with the mafia they’re a criminal!”

Marcus stayed mute and let the
awkward moment do his talking for him.

I leaned my head back against the
wall. “I’m angry with Anatoly. I have the right to be.
 
And I know Alex is totally ruthless and
I would be stupid to trust him but…”

“But?”

I walked over to Marcus and sat
down next to him. “I don’t think he’s petty. Evil? Maybe. But not petty. And
what you’re suggesting…that he would set up an elaborate plot just to give his
sister an eye for an eye…I know that’s beneath him.”

Dena raised her thick Sicilian eyebrows.
“You got all that from your one meeting with him at his office?”

“Um…I might have been in contact
with him tonight too.”

“You might have?”

“You know,” I said, crossing back
to her bag of goodies and holding up some of the lingerie, “this leather bra
and panties set is actually kinda cute.”

“What’s going on, Sophie?”

“Nothing! It’s been a while since
we’ve heard from Leah. I think I’ll go check on her.”

Mary Ann silently handed me the
room key and I hurried out before Dena could ask any more questions although
undoubtedly Mary Ann and Marcus would break under her interrogation.

When I got up to Leah’s room I
knocked but there was no answer so I let myself in.

“Leah?” I called out as I stepped
inside. All the lights were on but Leah didn’t seem to be there.

Leah always turned the lights off
before going out. Always. “Leah?” I said again. I looked over to the bathroom.
The door was closed but if she was in there she would have heard me come in,
right? And I didn’t hear the shower.

“Leah?” I called out again, this
time louder. Again, nothing.

And then I saw Leah’s purse
sitting on the desk. Just sitting there unattended.
 
Kinda like how Anatoly’s money clip had just been sitting
there right before I discovered a dead body in a closet.

A wave of nausea washed over me.
I reached into my handbag and pulled out the gun. I put my hand on the closet
door and said a quick and fierce prayer before throwing it open.

Nothing in there but clothes.

I exhaled…but still…

Terrified I let my eyes slide
back to the closed bathroom door. I called out her name and again got nothing
for my efforts. I slowly approached the bathroom, gun raised.

She has to be okay, she has to be okay, she has to be okay.

And then I heard a thump of
something falling to the ground and my sister cried, “Oh dear Lord!”

I cocked the gun, threw open the
door and jumped inside ready to shoot.

Leah let out a bloodcurdling
scream…from the bathtub. The bottle of conditioner she had apparently knocked
over rolled on the floor and her earbuds were firmly in place and attached to
her iPod. As she quickly grabbed for a towel I noticed that there was a
battery-operated octopus in her hand.

“Sorry!” I squealed and rushed
back into the bedroom, slamming the door behind me.
 

Two minutes later Leah stormed out,
wrapped in the white hotel robe. “What the hell were you doing?!”

“I’m so, so sorry.” I was sitting
on her bed with my head buried in my hands. “I just heard you and…well, I’ve
never heard anyone say Oh dear Lord while having an orgasm before and--”

“Sophie!”

“I’m sorry! I mean, I’ve heard
oh my God
and--”

“I get it!” she snapped. “Are you
really critiquing how I--”

“No, no! In fact I think the best
thing is for us to both pretend I didn’t see or hear anything.”

“I don’t even like sex toys!” She
pushed a wet strand of hair away from her face. “But…but…”

“But each tentacle has a
different function,” I finished for her. “I was rather impressed by that too.”

Leah’s skin was a little darker than
mine but I could still see that she was blushing. “Look,” I said, trying very
hard to be the mature one, “this is not a big deal. Every woman has at least
one sex toy.”

“I don’t. Or I didn’t until
today. I’ve never even owned a vibrator.”

“Really?” I asked, honestly
shocked. “Well in that case, Congratulations! You finally have what you need
to…um…unwind.”

“It’s disgusting.”

“Please Leah, in the beginning of
the twentieth century they were selling vibrators in the Sears Roebuck catalog.
It’s normal.”

“It’s not a
me
thing to do,” she insisted. “It’s a
you thing to do. You’re the one who faces down dangerous criminals, who goes to
Vegas on a moment’s notice, who marries someone you’ve been dating a
month.
 
You’re the one who gets it
on with octopuses and rabbit vibrators!”

“Oh come on! I don’t even own a
battery operated octopus or a…well, I don’t own an octopus!”

“When I lost my husband…when he
died less than a day after I discovered he was cheating on me…well, I went a
little crazy.”

“I remember,” I said quietly.

“I…I got a belly button piercing,
I got burgundy highlights in my hair, I slept with a man I barely knew…a man
who was practically a member of the Black Panthers!”

“Um, no, just because someone
occasionally makes a fist and doesn’t wear Ralph Lauren Polo…that doesn’t
actually make him a Black Panther.”

“Well, all right, I’ll give you
that…but still…I barely knew him.”

“I remember,” I said again.

“I was out of control.”

“A little bit.”

“It was fun.”

I didn’t answer that time.
 
I sort of thought Leah had already had
this particular epiphany, although as far as I could tell she forgot it within
months of having it.

“I knew you weren’t going to
marry a stranger…no matter how drunk you got.”

I shifted my position and sat
cross-legged on the bed. “Then could you tell me why you’re here?”

“Because I wanted to come to
Vegas!” she burst out.
 
“Why were
you so adamant that I stay home? Why didn’t you want to include me?”

I blinked in surprise. I hadn’t
even considered that possibility…then again, I had been distracted.

“I want to have fun too, you
know! I’ve never been to a sex toy trade show! Didn’t it ever occur to you that
was something I might want to do before I died?”

“A sex toy trade show,” I
repeated slowly, “that was on your bucket list?”

“It wasn’t on yours?”

I stared at her, too baffled to
come up with an answer.

“And then that show…”

“Puppetry of The Penis?”

“I haven’t seen anything like
that in years.”

I laughed. “Leah, I’ve
never
seen
anything like that. Not many have.”

“I mean a man’s penis.”

“Oh.”

“I have a horrible life!” She
cried.

I shook my head quickly to clear
it of the confusion that was gathering there.
 
“Leah, you realize that I’m in the middle of a life or death
situation here, right? The Russian mafia might be after me.”

“Oh, there you go again, making
everything about you,” Leah snapped, then hearing herself, she blushed a little
harder. “I know you have a lot on your plate, but when you told me not to come
to Vegas all you were dealing with was a breakup.”

“You told me you wanted to come
just so you could chaperone me!”

“You’re saying that if I had
phrased it differently you would have wanted me to come?”

“Look, our friends are
downstairs--”

“
Your
friends,” Leah corrected. “That’s
how they would define themselves.”

She was right. Marcus, Dena, Mary
Ann…they would all say that Leah was their friend’s sister. It was also true
that Leah was always considered an attachment to somebody or something. She was
Jack’s mother, Bob’s widow, that crazy woman’s daughter (although, to be fair,
we were both stuck with that one). God knows she sat on enough boards,
promoting the opera, the symphony, the cultural WASPification of San Francisco
(which was quite a feat for a black, Jewish woman), but her social connections
never seemed to extend past the planning meetings. Leah had come here because
she had wanted to be part of my Vegas getaway and when she had arrived and
realized that things had taken a dark turn she could have left. But she had
stuck by me. Leah often drove me nuts but she loved me and she was loyal…