Vanity, Vengeance And A Weekend In Vegas (A Sophie Katz Novel) (15 page)

“Yeah, okay, you gotta go now.”

“What?” Alex blinked himself back
to the here and now. “I was just telling you why I want to help you and Anatoly
defeat the mob. I’m on your side.”

“You’re also crazy,” I noted.

“I’m your only chance. If the
Ignatov family finds Anatoly before we do they’ll kill him.”

That doesn’t make sense
! A little voice in my head screamed. I
knew
I was smart but I was having a hard
time following this whole thing. I tried to put everything in order in my head.
Fawn had been told to give me enough information to get me to confront Anatoly
about his mob days. That argument was recorded. Then, when I announced I was
going to Vegas, they set a trap for Anatoly. But Natasha, the mafia princess,
saved him (bitch). And now everyone was trying to get their hands on some
information Anatoly had on the mob.

And supposedly this all started
because of an FBI agent who Anatoly may or may not have helped infiltrate the
mob...

It didn’t come together the way
it was supposed to. It was messy. “Einstein taught that the most accurate
equations are usually the simplest ones,” I said quietly.

“He didn’t call them simple,”
Alex said. “He called them beautiful.”

“Yeah, well this equation is a
big ugly mess. Too many people have tinkered with it and now I just can’t trust
it at all.”

“I’m not sure I’m following you.”

There was a knock at the door.
“Sophie, are you in there? I forgot to ask for Mary Ann’s keycard.”

Dena was back. I glanced up at
Alex. “You really need to go now.”

Alex shrugged. “You know where to
find me if you need me…
when
you need me.”

He pushed himself away from the
dresser and got the door. “Careful,” he said as he ushered in my surprised
friend, “she’s packing heat.” Alex turned back and winked at me before leaving.
Dena turned to me and then lowered her eyes to the gun, which I quickly put
away in the top dresser drawer. “So, Leah and Mary Ann are down at the casino?”

“I left them at a blackjack
table…who the hell was that?”

“The viper being nursed in Rome’s
bosom.”

Dena gave me a look. “Caligula?”
she asked flatly.

“That is who that quote
references. Anyway, he’s the one who equated himself to Caligula, I’m just
taking him at his word.”

Dena put a little more weight on
her cane. “Caligula was psychotic.”

“Yes, but he built some very
useful aqueducts.”

“Well I guess that makes up for
throwing all those innocent people in with the lions…you know, I think I’ve
seen him before.”

“My Caligula? Where? At the Hotel
Noir?”

“No, I think I saw him in the
lobby just a little while ago, when we were going down to the casino. He was
talking to this really gorgeous Latina woman and this other guy. Normally I
wouldn’t have noticed them but again, this woman is a showstopper.”

“Really,” I said quietly. “I
wonder if that was his housekeeper.”

Dena laughed. “Trust me, she’s
not anyone’s housekeeper. She’s still downstairs. I saw her on the way up.”

“Wait, what?”

“She’s…”

But I didn’t wait for her to
finish the sentence. I grabbed my purse and was immediately out the door and
rushing toward the elevator.

“Sophie! Where are you going?”
Dena called after me.

“No time to explain, I’ll be back
later!” I called back. It was questionable whether or not she heard me but I
couldn’t worry about that. I jumped on the down elevator. I had to see if it
was Margarita…and if so, was she the woman Alex was speaking to on the phone?
What was the significance of that? Why would he bring her here?

When the elevator got to the
ground floor I rushed out and practically ran to the lobby. Once I got there I
swiveled my head this way and that trying to spot Margarita…but I didn’t see
her. I didn’t even see a single Latina woman who Dena would have considered a
showstopper. “Fuck,” I muttered. I turned around ready to walk back to the
elevators and smashed right into Marcus.

“Caught you,” he said. “Dena just
called me. She said you took off like a bat out of hell to find a Latin love
thang.”

“She’s not here,” I said
disappointedly.

“She? Are we playing on a coed
team these days?”

“Come on Marcus, that’s not
what’s going on here, and you know it.”

Marcus shook his head and pulled on
one of his locs. “All I know is that you can’t just run off on Dena like that.
She can’t keep up with you anymore.”

“I didn’t want her to keep up,” I
said irritably. “I wanted…Marcus!” I grabbed his arm and pulled him into the
arbor trees the hotel had placed along the outskirts of the room.
  

“What are you--”

“Shh!” I tried to hide behind a
ten-inch-wide trunk. Keeping my head low I gestured toward a woman dressed in
what looked like a very expensive outfit walking past us with a man who had an
arm full of tattoos. The woman was Margarita.

“Who’s that?” Marcus asked.

“Margarita, she’s a housekeeper.”

“Yeah right. Seriously, who is
she?”

“I told you, she’s…oh just come
on!” I grabbed his arm and walked him through the trees until we were forced to
be in the open again. By then Margarita and her friend were walking out of the
hotel.

“We can’t let them get away!” I
cried, still yanking Marcus along.

“Could they be dangerous?”

“Maybe, but so am I! I have a
gun…oh, wait I forgot to bring it.”

I wasn’t looking at Marcus but I
could actually feel him rolling his eyes.
 
I threw the doors open as we walked outside. I didn’t see them.

“They probably got in a cab,”
Marcus said but just then I spotted them walking and turning toward the strip.

“Perfect! Let’s go!”

“What’s perfect about this?”
Marcus asked. “If I’m understanding this, we’re following potentially dangerous
criminals and we’re unarmed.”

“Yeah, but they’re on foot and
it’s not like they’re going to shoot us in the middle of the Vegas strip.”

“Really? Tell that to Tupac.”

“Shh!” I said, more out of
frustration than necessity. “I don’t see them, do you?”

We had just turned onto the Vegas
strip.
 
There were people
everywhere but I couldn’t spot Margarita or the tattooed man to save my life.

“Maybe they finally got in a
car,” Marcus suggested again.

“Or maybe they turned down a side
street.” I pointed to the nearest one and gestured for Marcus to follow
me.
 
There were still people on the
street when we got off the strip but their numbers dropped off dramatically.
 

I didn’t see them.

“This is not happening,” I
moaned.

“You know, they looked
rather…Latin.”

“Yeah, so?”

“So I thought we were fighting
the Russians? Did we switch nationalities?”

“Well, maybe not everyone who
works for the Russian mafia is Russian.”

“Really? From what I’ve heard,
the Italian mob is only open to Italians. I know the Chinese gangs are only
open to the Chinese. But you’re telling me that the Russian mafia is an equal
opportunity employer?”

“Maybe?” I said doubtfully. I kept
walking, not because I expected to spot them now, but because walking helps me
think.
 
There was something very
familiar about that tattooed guy…had I seen him at the Hotel Noir? But so much
of that night was blur. I just couldn’t be sure.

“I’m texting Dena and telling her
we’re all right,” Marcus said as he pulled out his phone while walking beside
me.
 
“But I do have another
question for you.”

“Shoot.”

“Why is the mafia so intent on
hunting Anatoly down?”

“I told you, the FBI agent--”

“Yes, yes,” he said stepping over
a discarded plastic bag on the sidewalk. The pedestrian traffic was getting
lighter and lighter. “But it’s not like he could introduce
another
FBI agent to them now and he
hasn’t been involved in the crime family for a while so he has no new
information to pass on to the Feds. Why are they so intent on coming after him
now?”

I hadn’t thought of it in those
terms. “A show of strength? A warning to others who might try the same thing?”

“Maybe,” Marcus conceded.
 
“Or maybe someone’s just fucking with
us.”

For a brief moment I felt
giddy.
 
It’s not that what Marcus
was saying hadn’t occurred to me but having it come from his mouth gave it
validity. It was possible that we were dealing with individuals rather than an
entire crime organization. Individuals I could deal with.

I was about to grab Marcus’ hands and do a little happy dance when a
limo pulled up beside us and a door opened. Natasha stepped out, a tight smile
on her face. “Just the people I was looking for.”

Marcus and I exchanged looks. I wasn’t ready to give up my newfound
hopefulness quite yet, but Natasha showing up out of the blue probably wasn’t a
good sign. “Is Anatoly with you?” I asked.

“No. But come take a ride with me anyway.”

In fact it was a very bad sign. “I have a gun, you know.”

“Really?” Natasha asked, as if somehow charmed by this. “Can I see it?”

“Well, I don’t actually have it
with
me but if you give me a second I’d be
happy to run back to my hotel room and--”

“Not necessary.” She knocked on the roof of the limo. From the passenger
side of both the front and back seat two very large men stepped out and stared
down at Marcus and me.

“They have guns
on
them,” Natasha explained. “So we won’t be needing yours.”

And now my giddiness was completely and absolutely squelched. I threw a
questioning glance at Marcus who looked absolutely terrified. “You can’t kidnap
us right here in the open!” I said hopefully. “Someone will see.”

We all looked around. The only one anywhere near us was a homeless guy
who seemed very intent on not noticing anything.

“We’re gonna risk it,” Natasha said sweetly. “Get in the car, please.”

I swallowed hard and allowed Natasha to usher Marcus and myself into her
limo.

“I don’t mind that my husband still enjoys bumper cars.
I just wish he would refrain from the sport while on the freeway.”

--Death of The Party

Marcus and I sat stiffly against the leather cushions as Natasha and one
of her gun-toting bodyguards got in after us. At Natasha’s instruction, he
searched my purse and kept it by his side. Then she rapped her knuckles against
the partition and within seconds we were moving down the street.

For the first few minutes of the drive Natasha just stared at me. I met
her gaze without flinching. My life expectancy might not be very good at the
moment, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to go out sniveling.

Finally she graced me with a smile. “Anatoly thinks you’re a victim in
all this, maybe even a pawn.”

I studied her expression carefully.
 
“You don’t agree.”

“I don’t. I think you’re a manipulative bitch who has been sleeping with
my husband.” She leaned forward. “I think that maybe you know a lot more than
you’re letting on. I
think
that you might very well have booked that room at the Hotel
Noir after all.”

“And why would I do that?”

Natasha shrugged. “I don‘t know…revenge maybe? I know a little about
that.” She pulled a switchblade out of her purse.

“Oh dear, God,” Marcus gasped, “she’s about to go all West Side Story on
us.”

“A couple of weeks ago a man was killed,” Natasha said. “I saw them hold
him down. I watched as he begged before my friend pushed a gun into his mouth
and blew his head off.” She paused for a moment. “I know what you’re thinking.”

“Really?” Marcus asked weakly. “Then you know you’re going to have to pass
me a barf bag in about five seconds.”

“You’re thinking that the scene I just described is brutal,” she
continued, completely ignoring Marcus’ warning. “But brutality has its place.
Sometimes you have to send a message. The guy Igor killed was stealing from the
family and he had to pay for that. He had to pay in a way that let everybody
else know that his mistake should never be repeated.”

Marcus pressed his lips together, probably battling his urge to vomit.

“Did you order the hit?” I was surprised at how steady my voice sounded,
particularly since what I really wanted to do was jump out of this moving
vehicle, drop, roll and run for my life…it always worked in the Mission
Impossible movies.

“That’s dad’s job, not mine…sometimes my uncle gets to make the call.”
She shifted her body and stared out the tinted windows. “I considered running
off with Anatoly and rejecting the violence altogether, but it turns out
rejecting violence isn’t like dieting. You can’t just cut down on it. It’s more
like giving up smoking. You can pretend that you’re not really a smoker because
you only have a cigarette or two while you’re drinking but it’s obvious to
everyone else that the only way you can be a nonsmoker is if you stop smoking
entirely. No cigarettes, no cigars and definitely no chewing tobacco.”

She seemed to expect me to comment on that but I couldn’t think of a
single thing to say.

 
“When it comes to
violence,” she continued, “Anatoly is a smoker, just like me. The only
difference between the two of us is that I
own
it. I was raised in it, I was nurtured by
it and I embrace it. I know who I am and what kind of world I have chosen to
live in. Anatoly’s life with you is nothing but a facade to help him hide the
truth about his nature from everyone…including himself. But when offered a
stick of violence he will
always
inhale.”

Marcus was now looking more than a little green. I clasped my hands in
my lap and sighed loudly. “I’m sorry, am I here for a satellite course in criminal
psychology, or do you actually have something important to say?”
 

Watching the anger distort Natasha’s features was fun…probably
dangerous, but definitely fun.

But Natasha pulled herself back from the brink quickly.
 
The bodyguard next to her was looking
at Marcus with what appeared to be concern. “Are you okay?” he asked him, which
was enough to make all of us do a double take.

“Bo, he’s fine,” Natasha snapped before Marcus could answer. She turned
to me with a glare. “It was
Innokenty
who brought in the FBI agent who went by the name of
Daniil…you’ve heard about this?” she asked.

Innokenty?
I thought Alex had told me that someone named Kenya
had brought the FBI guy into the fold.

“That name sounds familiar,” Marcus said quietly.

 
Again Natasha ignored him.
“Anatoly was as clueless as the rest of us. He never wanted to hurt my family.
Not even for a second.”

“Okay,” I tried to keep a poker face but my mind was spinning. Why would
Alex lie about the name…or was Natasha lying now?

“But Alex didn’t think so.
 
I believe you’ve met Alex, the GM at Hotel Noir?”

I didn’t even begin to know what to do with this.
 
Who was telling the truth?
 
Natasha had obvious reasons to mess
with me…but if Alex was Fawn’s brother then maybe he did too…

Natasha noted my confusion and smiled.
 
“Innokenty was Alex’s brother.”

I wished I had a mirror so I could check on my poker face because inside
I was freaking out.

“Of course no one called him Innokenty,” Natasha went on. “We called him
by his nickname.”

“Which was?”

“Kenya.”

Oh shit. “The two names don’t sound even remotely alike,” I whispered.

“And Dick sounds like Richard?” Natasha countered.

Marcus, still green, leaned his head against the window. “I prefer
dick,” he said to no one in particular. The bodyguard giggled.

He giggled.
Bodyguards aren’t supposed to giggle. Natasha shot
him a death stare and even Marcus gave him a funny look…a funny, appraising
look.

I was about to be killed by my boyfriend’s violence-loving wife and
Marcus was about to out a hot hired gun. This was so fucking typical.

Natasha inhaled deeply as she tried to take back control of the limo’s
dynamics. “Let’s not pretend that I’m telling you anything new. You already
know about Alex and his brother, don’t you? You’re working with Alex to get
revenge. You want revenge on Anatoly because you found out about me and you
knew that in the end he would come back to me. And Alex wants revenge too…but I
think his target is a little bigger than my husband.”

I had to hand it to her; Natasha had thrown out so much bait it was hard
to figure out what to nibble on first. My instinct was to start by telling her
that Anatoly had matured in the years since he’d left her and was no longer
sexually attracted to mob affiliated psychopaths. But that probably wasn’t the best
tack to take.

“Who would Alex want revenge on?” I asked carefully. “Besides, he hasn’t
done anything vengeful, has he?”
You killed his brother,
I thought to myself,
did you really
think he was going to just sit on his hands and interview a few more Food &
Beverage managers
?

“Not yet. My family provides him with his livelihood so he’d be smart to
keep his loyalty with them rather than with his pathetic little brother. My
family thinks Alex is smart,” Natasha explained.

“What do you think?”

“I think he’s intelligent, in a bookish kind of way…but I don’t think
he’s very
smart
.”

I shook my head, trying to clear out all the unnecessary information so
I could get to the heart of what was being said. “What do you think is going on
here, Natasha?”

 
“The issue of the FBI agent
was settled weeks ago. The only person who thought Anatoly knew something was
Alex and his brother. But now Anatoly has come to Vegas. He’s killed someone
who works for the family. He says it’s because he threatened his life. I can
vouch for that, but even if that’s true, why was Anatoly’s life being
threatened to begin with? There was no hit ordered on him. And now Anatoly is
defending himself against charges that no one has made. It’s kind of like a
criminal who insists that they weren’t at the scene of the crime before you
tell them there was a scene to be at. It makes him look guilty. Now the family
is beginning to wonder if Alex and
Innokenty
were telling the truth.”

“But what good would any of this do Alex?” I asked.

“Well, if Alex really thinks Kenya took the blame for Anatoly
that would be enough to make Alex want to hurt him. But the beauty of what’s
happening now is that if Anatoly thinks the mob is after him
he
might
launch a preemptive strike. If Anatoly hurts my family, Alex gets his revenge
on them. If my family kills Anatoly in retaliation, Alex gets his revenge on
Anatoly. So Alex gets everything he wants while the rest of us have to deal
with a war.”

“There’s a simple answer to this,” I said.

“Really,” Natasha said dryly.

“Yeah,
kill Alex
! You said you have guns, use one of them!
 
It’s not like you don’t know where to
find him!”

“Eventually,” Natasha said. “But the problem is that my family
doesn’t like my theories right now. Until they do I can’t touch Alex. But I can
touch those who he’s enlisted to work with him, like you. You have nothing to
do with my family. No one will care what I do to you.”

“You’re going to kill me?”

“I’m going to take you to a lovely little hideaway. It’s secure
and very private so there’ll be no risk of interruptions. You’re going to give
me some answers, Sophie. You’re going to tell me what I need to know about
Alex’s plan.”

“I don’t know anything about Alex’s plan.”

“That’s too bad, because if you don’t tell me what I want to
know I
will
kill
you. You
and
your carsick friend and trust me when I say it won’t be a painless death.”

The thug threw Marcus a sympathetic look. So he wasn’t going to
stop his employer from torturing us to death but at least he felt bad about it.

“I really think I’m going to be sick,” Marcus said again.

I reached for his hand but just as I did the limo was slammed
from the side and we swerved off the road. Natasha and I were thrown to the
floor and Marcus ended up in the thug’s lap…not that the thug seemed to mind.
In fact, and I
saw
this, the thug grabbed Marcus’ hand while Natasha was struggling to right
herself and placed it on the door handle. Marcus didn’t have to ask what to do.
He jerked open the door and grabbed me. My purse had fallen right in front of
me (or had Bo thrown it there?) so I grabbed it too. The limo was already
starting again but had virtually no speed. Marcus and I leaped out of the
vehicle before Natasha could do anything about it. The thug might have been
able to do something about it, but he was moving rather slowly.

I had been so focused on Natasha I hadn’t even noticed that we
had driven out into the middle of nowhere…there was nothing to be seen but
desert…and the tinted glass Hummer that had sideswiped us. We started running.
The limo backed up as if it meant to run us over, but the Hummer backed up too
and sideswiped the limo again.

I could hear Natasha screaming but whether it was in anger or
pain I didn’t know. I couldn’t take the time to figure things like that out.
Right now Marcus and I just needed to run.

I heard another vehicle coming for us. I risked a glance behind
me and saw the Hummer again.

“Oh God,” Marcus muttered but the Hummer passed us and then
swerved and screeched to a stop directly in our path. The windows were so dark
I couldn’t see who was driving. And then the driver’s side window was cracked
open. “Get in,” a voice instructed.

Anatoly’s voice.

Without a second thought I dived into the back seat and Marcus
got in right after me. From there it took some maneuvering for me to climb into
the front seat next to Anatoly, particularly since he was already back on the
road, going at a breakneck speed. But I needed to be next to him. Hearing his
voice hadn’t been enough. Seeing the back of his head certainly wasn’t enough.

“Get your seatbelt on,” Anatoly said in lieu of hello.

“Oh, so now you’re worried about my safety? Were you thinking
about that when you drugged me?”

“Did you think about the danger you were putting us both in when
you refused to leave Vegas?”

I shot him a glare before glancing in the side mirror.
 
“Why aren’t they following us?”

“I think that last hit disabled the vehicle.”

“You realize,” Marcus said, as he struggled to catch his breath,
“that we wouldn’t have been able to get away if it wasn’t for Bo-Bo the gay
mafia thug, right? You did see that?”