Vanity, Vengeance And A Weekend In Vegas (A Sophie Katz Novel) (17 page)

“Sophie you shouldn’t--”

“Either stay with me or stop
telling me what I should and shouldn’t do.”

He winced “At least you’re
travelling light.”

I didn’t know what that meant and
as he stepped away from me I wasn’t sure I cared. What mattered was that he was
leaving again.

 
“If you really want to help me, you’ll get out of Vegas. If
nothing else I need to know you’re safe.”

I stood stalk still as he turned
around and walked away. In a whisper too soft for him to hear I said, “The only
way you can know that is if you stay by my side.”

Within minutes he was out of
sight.

“Hell has no fury like a writer
whose hard drive has crashed.”

--Death Of The Party

True to my word, I didn’t immediately
go back to the parking lot. Instead I found a rock to sit on and watched the
clouds move across the sky.
 

I tried not to think about the
personal aspects of things. I tried not to think about how it had felt to kiss
him or how betrayed I felt now. I had to separate myself from all that and
focus on the bigger picture.
 

The information Anatoly was
holding onto sounded nuclear. That was good and bad. On the one hand sane
people didn’t mess with individuals who had their finger on the button. So the
best-case scenario was that this could turn into a cold war. The mafia could
destroy Anatoly and Anatoly could destroy them. We could have a lifelong
stalemate. It was a stressful way to live but it was doable.

But if the mob wasn’t what the
international community would call a “reasonable player,” it could decide to
push the red button regardless of the consequences. It only took one crazy
fanatic and really, was it so unlikely that the leader of a crime family might
be a little crazy?

Eventually Marcus called to tell
me the car had arrived. When I got back to the parking lot Anatoly was gone.

“He could have at least driven us
back to the strip,” I grumbled as Marcus held open the door for me.

“He said he would have but it was
a bit risky since the Hummer was stolen.”

“You’re kidding?”

“I know, he took us for a ride
with his hot Hummer. How can you not love that?”

I wasn’t sure I loved that. I
would have thought it was too conspicuous a vehicle to sneak away with but if
anyone was capable of carrying off the feat it was Anatoly. As I sat down in
the backseat I decided to keep that last thought to myself. I didn’t feel like
giving Anatoly accolades, even if they were in regards to his ability to act
like an accomplished criminal, particularly since he
was
an accomplished criminal.

As the car pulled onto the street
Marcus leaned his head back against the seat. “Anatoly assures me he can keep
Natasha from coming after us again.”

“I wouldn’t count on that,” I
spat.

Marcus was quiet for a moment
before adding, “If he really is going to keep Natasha from killing us he’s
probably right about needing to be apart from you for a while.”

“You know what? I don’t care what
stupid excuses he gave you. We’re supposed to be a couple. We’re supposed to
see things through together. No matter what.”

“Maybe we should leave Ve--”

“No!”

Marcus raised his eyebrows but
stayed quiet.
 
After we had been on
the road for about ten minutes he called Dena to make sure everyone was okay
and to tell her we were heading back to the hotel. He was wise enough not to
try to engage me in conversation once he hung up so the only sound in the town
car was the instrumental jazz the driver had playing on the radio.

I hated instrumental jazz. I
hated everything about this trip.
 
This was not the Vegas from the brochures. We were weekending in a war
zone.

When Marcus and I finally got
back to the Encore we decided to go up to Leah’s room first. I had the key but
I still made a point of pounding on the door before using it.

“Are you knocking or trying to
knock it down?” Marcus asked.

“I just want to make sure she can
hear me in case…in case she’s listening to her iPod.”

“Okaay,” Marcus said, giving me a
confused look.

“Yeah, um, you know what? Let me
go in first.” I let myself in and held out a hand indicating that Marcus should
stay back. But the lights were out and the bathroom door open, so after
releasing the breath I had been holding I ushered him in.

“What’s up with the extreme
caution?” Marcus asked.

“I don’t know what you’re talking
about. This is always how I enter hotel rooms.”
 
I opened the top dresser drawer. The gun was still there. It
had been so unforgivably careless of me to leave it here. I should have buried
it at Red Rock.

“Let’s go back to my room,” I suggested.
Little memories kept creeping into the forefront of my consciousness: the first
time he kissed me up by Coit Tower; holding his hand the first time we went to
see a movie together… Hitchcock. He loved Hitchcock just as much as I did.

I hated that it was the fond
memories that were breaking through the wall I was trying to put up in my mind.
Why couldn’t I hate him?
Really
hate him? What was wrong with me?

We walked down the hall and
waited for the elevator. I was remembering the first time I rode on the back of
his Harley.
 
By the time we were
stepping onto the elevator I was reliving the first time he saved my life, the
first time he held me while I cried.

Let him go, Sophie. Just let him go!

But when the elevator doors
finally opened again I was already lost in the memory of the first time he told
me he loved me.

I was barely even aware of Marcus
as I slid my keycard into the door. The last time he said he loved me had been
less than an hour ago.
 
But that
couldn’t be the last-
last
time! There had to be--

My brain froze in mid-thought as
the here and now came crashing down around me. Marcus gasped.

The room was trashed. The
blankets pulled off the bed, the drawers were all open and my clothes were
scattered on the floor. I stood perfectly still and listened for the sound of
an intruder. He would know I was here so he’d be trying to stay quiet too.
Still, all I needed was one small tell, a jagged breath, the sound of something
rustling, a creak coming from the bathroom, behind the curtain, anywhere that
should be silent.

“I don’t hear anything,” Marcus
breathed as if reading my mind. He insisted on entering first and I clung to
the back of his shirt as he moved forward.

I spotted two suitcases on the
floor, the one I had brought and the one they had brought to fool Anatoly.
Marcus knelt down by the former...the lining had been ripped open. They
probably would have slashed open the lining in both bags if the latter hadn’t
already been torn.

My knees buckled underneath me
and I dropped down onto the stripped bed.

Marcus checked inside the
bathroom
 
“Uh-uh, no!” he cried.

I was immediately on my feet
again. The bathroom was a mess. They had dumped my leave-in-conditioner into
the sink. “I don’t care how ruthless you are, you do not mess
with a
sista’s hair products!” Marcus snapped

I spun around and went back into
my room, trampling my own clothes as I went to the closed door that adjoined
mine with Marcus and Dena’s. Marcus wasn’t far behind, muttering (more to
himself than to me), “They better not have gone through
my
stuff because if they lay a hand on
my Bumble & Bumble
no one
will be safe.”

I put my hand on the doorknob…

…and heard the jagged breath.

Right behind the door in the next
room. It hadn’t been loud but I had
heard
it. A quick glance at Marcus’ face told
me he had heard it too.

My heart, which had been breaking
all the speed limits, came to an emergency stop.

I instinctively reached inside my
purse. I felt the cool steel against my fingers.

As I pulled out the gun my hand
was shaking so badly you would have thought I was going through a heroin
withdrawal.

I heard the door on the other
side of mine creak. Was he closing it or was he going to come into this room? I
glanced down at my shaking gun and then at Marcus. I mouthed the word, “
run
.”

 
“You run,” he whispered as he gently took the gun out of my
hand. “I’m going to get my Bumble & Bumble.”

“Wait!” I hissed as he cocked the
gun, threw open the door and leaped into the room, his arms straight in front
of him pivoting this way and that in the way we had all seen people do in every
action movie ever made. Clothes were strewn all over the floor but the room was
empty.

I turned toward the door leading
to the hall. It was slowly closing the way weighted doors in hotels do when you
let them close behind you on their own. The intruder had already left. I rushed
to the door and Marcus rushed to the bathroom, gun outstretched. “Clear!” he
shouted. But I wasn’t paying attention. I pulled open the door and jumped into
the hall. No one to my right. I heard the sound of an elevator ding at the far
end of the hall to my left. I turned just as the doors opened.
 
A dark haired man with his back to me,
wearing a long sleeved black t-shirt, stepped onto the elevator.
 
He was carrying the case to my MacBook.

At least you’re traveling light.

That’s what he had meant! I had
left the MacBook in my room!

“Son of a bitch!”
 
I screamed.

But, the elevator closed before I
could even get close.

Marcus came up beside me, the gun
now at his side.

“I thought losing Anatoly was the
worst things that could happen to me,” I said.

Marcus put his arm around my
shoulders. “It’s going to be okay. They didn’t mess with my products so we can
share tomorrow.”

“I’m not worried about my hair,
Marcus! They took my MacBook which means they now have every electronic copy of
my unfinished manuscript and I don’t
have
a hardcopy!”

“Oh…that is a little worse than
losing your leave-in-conditioner.”

“Fuck these assholes.” I turned
to Marcus and he literally stepped back from the force of my anger. “They want
to go nuclear?” I asked. “Fine, I’m ready blow this shit up, Right. Now.”

“I hate it when my loved ones
give me a hard time about my reckless behavior. So now I pick up all my dates
outside of Al-Anon meetings. The trick is to get ‘em before they walk in the
door.”

--Death Of The Party

Marcus called Dena and caught her
up. She was now hightailing it back to the hotel from the trade show.
 
We went down to the casino to look for
the rest of our party.
 
We spotted
Leah and Mary Ann at the craps table and Leah was jumping up and down like a
little girl who had just been told she was going to get a box full of Barbies.
I found myself hanging back. Clearly Dena hadn’t filled them in on all the drama
with Natasha and Anatoly and I didn’t want to ruin my sister’s good time. I had
checked her room and it was still in tact. The intruder got what he wanted so
it was best not to interrupt my sister’s rare moment of giddiness. Marcus and I
found a spot against the wall and ordered drinks from a passing cocktail
waitress.

“I have to go back to Alex’s,” I
said as I watched Leah take the dice again.

“Why?” Marcus asked. He was
leaning against the wall as if it was the only thing holding him up. In his
hand was a plastic bag filled with his hair products. He had decided it
wouldn’t leave his sight for the rest of the trip.

“If Natasha’s right and he’s
behind this then I have to get close enough to prove it. If she’s wrong then
he’s the only one who has offered to help me! And I have to find out where in
the hell Anatoly stored that information.”

“Well they’ve stolen both your
computers and your storage devices and undoubtedly they’ve stolen his laptop
too so…”

“So Anatoly’s not stupid! These
people have totally underestimated him! If he was going to store top secret
information he wouldn’t put it on his girlfriend’s computer and he wouldn’t
store it with all our other USB sticks!”

The waitress arrived with our two
cosmopolitans and we clinked our plastic glasses together before we knocked
them back.

“You’ve been living with him for
more than a year,” Marcus noted. “You never noticed any special, secret hiding
place…your sister is moving to the blackjack table.”

“I see that. And I don’t think
you find secret hiding places when you’re not looking for them because that’s
what makes them secret,” I countered. “He would hide it somewhere I would never
check…never even consider going near.”

Marcus raised his eyebrows. “The
laundry?”

“Oh shut up!” I downed the rest
of my drink and started looking around for another cocktail waitress. “We eat
the same food, share the same bathroom, listen to the same music, sleep in the
same bed. What else…”

“What?”

I squeezed the empty cup in my
hand until it made that plastic scrunching sound.
 
With my free hand I pulled out my phone.
 
“Mama?” I said when my mother answered
my call. “It’s me.”

“Mommehlah, where are you? Your
sister called and said you both were staying through Monday? You’re not getting
married again are you? There’s only so much an old woman can take before she
starts getting ulcers!”

I glanced over at Leah. She was
studying her cards with an intensity that implied that the stakes were maybe a
little higher than they should be. I wondered how much this little rebellion
was going to cost her.

“Mama everything’s fine…but I
need one more favor. In my garage there is a box of books. The box is marked
Library
and
on the top of the pile are a few books on soccer. I need you to look to see if
there’s anything inside those books.”

“Of course there’s going to be
something inside those books! Pages and pages of something!”

“No, no, something else. Look, if
you see any cars parked anywhere near my place or anyone even slightly
suspicious hanging around you just drive on past. But if not, get those soccer
books. Please?”

“The things I do for you,
mommelah! If we were Catholic I’d be a saint already!”

 
I almost pointed out that one would have to die for that
honor but decided against it. “Thank you, Mama, I owe you.”

I hung up the phone.

“You would never open a soccer
book,” Marcus said thoughtfully as he finished off his drink.

“No, I wouldn’t. Not unless
Anatoly’s life…and my manuscript, depended on it.”

 
“Found you.”

We both looked up to see Dena
approaching. She pushed herself between us and leaned lightly on her cane.
“Well you two have had quite the day, haven’t you?” She said irritably. “I
can’t believe you didn’t come right back here after Natasha tried to
kill
you.”

“I didn’t have a choice! Anatoly
took us out to Red Rock. Anyway, he promised Natasha wouldn’t try to kill us
again.”

“Oh, gee, really? Was it a pinky
promise?” Dena asked. “Too bad he couldn’t promise that no one would break into
our room. Did you happen to see if this intruder made off with my leather
underwear?”

“I don’t think so,” Marcus said.
“I’m not sure the black market value for leather panties is all that high. Of
course there are fetishists who have a thing for used panties...”

“Yeah, but those guys are usually
into granny panties,” Dena said. Our waitress came back and Dena took one of
the drinks for herself. “How ‘bout my sex toys? Did he get those?”

The waitress gave her a funny
look and took off quickly.

“I did see those.” Marcus said,
taking a swig of the remaining drink. “I think they’re all there but a few of
them, like your vibrator, had been thrown on the floor.”

Dena made a face.
 
“Looks like I’m going to have to soak
that in alcohol before I bring it anywhere near me again.”

“You could,” Marcus said, “or you
could just toss it and try to make do with the remaining twelve you have at
home.”

Dena eyed the plastic bag in
Marcus’ hand. “What’s that?”

“Hair products.”

“Well, all right then,” Dena flashed
us a relieved smile. “We’ve got leather underwear, sex toys, hair products and
a gun. That pretty much covers the necessities, right? Oh,” she reached into
her large hobo bag and pulled out her iPad, “we also have this. I can’t say I
have your manuscript stored on it but at least we do have access to the
Internet.”

I exhaled in relief. It was a
small thing since I still had my smartphone but at this point every little
advantage helped.
 

“Sophie wants to go see Alex
again.”

Dena hesitated. “That’s probably
not such a bad idea.”

Marcus’ mouth dropped open in
shock. “But you’re always against Sophie taking risks!”

“And she never listens to me,”
Dena pointed out. “Look, Sophie hasn’t been arrested yet so clearly this Alex
guy has followed through on at least one promise. Find out from him if there’s
anything else we need to worry about and if there isn’t lets get the hell outta
Dodge.”

“But—” Marcus began and
then stopped short. “Look!” he said in an urgent whisper.

I followed Marcus’ gaze to the
middle of the crowded casino. And there he was, standing next to the roulette
table.

“Oh my God,” I hissed. “It’s
Bo-Bo the gay mafia thug!”

Dena lifted her eyebrows and took
a sip of her cocktail. “Well that’s a new one.”

“Should we get out of here?” I
asked.

“No,” Marcus said thoughtfully.
“Go deal with Alex, I’ll deal with this guy.”

“You can’t be serious! Natasha
could be around!”

“Maybe…but I doubt it.”

“You do?”

“Yeah, I do. He may be a fighter
by profession but he’s a lover at heart. He just needs the right guy to bring
it out in him.”

“Marcus,” I stepped in front of
him and grabbed both of his arms. “This isn’t like the time you decided to try
out that gay biker bar. This guy really is a violent criminal, no matter what
he did for us back in the limo!”

Dena looked at Marcus curiously.
“What did Bo-Bo do for you in the back of a limo?”

“Not as much as I would have
liked,” Marcus admitted with an evil grin before turning back to me.
 
“I’m going to take care of Mary Ann and
Leah. I’ll protect them like…like they were my own little Bumble & Bumbles.
But this time
you
have to trust
me
.”

I glanced at Dena who shrugged.
“I don’t know what the fuck either one of you are talking about so I don’t have
an opinion. But I do agree that if we’re going to confront this Alex guy we
should do it now and do it together.”

“We’re not going to confront
him.” I glanced back at Leah and Mary Ann. There seemed to be several stacks of
chips in front of Leah. Had she emptied out her savings account or something?

“What are we going to do
then?”
 
Dena asked.

I hesitated. “We’re going to play
him,” I finally said. “We’re going to make him believe that he has our trust,
get his guard down and get the information we need, even if it means we do a
tag-team search of his house.”

“And how long is this going to
take?” Marcus asked, his eyes still on Bo-Bo.

“I don’t know, don’t wait up.”

That was enough to get Marcus’
attention. “Now you’re the one who can’t be serious.”

“I’m not going to do anything
bad…but if he offers me a room to stay in, with Dena, then I’m going to take
it. He’s not going to murder me in the middle of the night.
 
What would be the point? But I need him
to trust me enough to let me wander around his place without being watched. It
might be easier to do that if we stay the night.”

“Now
that’s
crazy.”

“It is,” Dena agreed. “But like I
said, I want to get this whole drama in the rearview mirror. I’ll be with her,”
she said to Marcus, although she was looking at me.
 
“I won’t let her completely throw caution to the wind.”

“I have to do this Marcus.”

“For Anatoly?”

“For my manuscript.”
And for Anatoly,
I
added silently.

Dena patted Marcus on the arm.
“Try not to sleep with the enemy.” She started to pull me away, showing
surprising strength for a woman who used a cane.

“Why are you being so
accommodating of this?” I asked as she pulled me out of the casino and toward
the hotel lobby. “You never go along with my crazy plans.”

“Never say never,” Dena said
dryly. “Come upstairs with me. We’ll throw a few things in an overnight bag
just in case we do end up sleeping over.”

I stared at her. This was
so
unlike
her. She sighed, clearly impatient with my lack of response, and pulled me
toward the elevator.

We didn’t say much as we picked a
few things from the mess in our rooms and put them in Anatoly’s duffle bag, and
I didn’t say a word when she led me out of the hotel and worked with the valet
to get us a town car for a decent price. I was paying more for town cars than I
had paid for my hotel and plane tickets combined.

I held onto my silence for the
first half of the drive to Alex’s house. Confusion had knocked some of the
anger out of me. It wasn’t just the mystery of who was after Anatoly that was
nagging at me. It was my friends’ behavior. Marcus I sort of understood. He had
been an At-Risk-Youth before he came to terms with his sexual orientation and
he had a serious soft spot for dysfunctional, self-destructive closet cases. I
thought extending that soft spot to members of the mafia was taking things a
bit far, but that was Marcus.

But this wasn’t Dena. Dena
restricted her wild behavior to her sexual encounters. When it came to the rest
of her life she was amazingly level headed. And yet here she was, encouraging
me to spend the night in the home of a mafia affiliate who might also be
planning something akin to murder.

I studied her profile. She was
staring straight ahead, twisting her cane around and around in her hand.

“This never-say-never thing,” I
said slowly as I watched the movement of her cane, “does it have anything to do
with Fawn or…what happened to you?”

Even in the dark I could see
Dena’s nostrils flare. “I was shot in the back,” she said quietly. “I had to
relearn how to walk and while you were out there trying to bring my shooter to
justice I was in a hospital bed staring at the ceiling. I wasn’t given the
opportunity to so much as lift a finger to set things right. I had to let
others do that for me while I lay there…I was…helpless.”

She said the word
helpless
the
way others might say the word vomit or excrement. I bit down on my lip and
tried to take her hand but she jerked away.

“Now we have Fawn’s brother,”
Dena said, the sarcasm dripping from her voice, “and he wants to help. He’s
really, really sorry about almost setting you up for murder, for lying to you
about who he is and who he’s related to but now,
now
we’re supposed to trust him. He
wants you to put your fate in his hands. You’re right, I could have tried to
talk you out of this and I could have pretended to believe you after making you
swear to stay away from him. I could totally turn my back on all of this and
let you deal with this mess by yourself, because clearly you’re
not
walking
away.
 
I could put myself in a
position where I can’t help you…where I’m…helpless. Or,” she turned to me and
the fire that was coming from within her was almost bright enough to illuminate
the whole backseat, “I could help you. I have a choice this time. I’m choosing
the latter.”