Sex, Murder and a Double Latte (7 page)

“It’s not a Beanie Baby, it’s a Weenie Baby. I’m going to put them out tomorrow. I know they’re going to blow. No pun intended. So tell me about your new love interest!”

“Well, he’s not perfect. He doesn’t appreciate Caramel Brownie Frappuccinos.”

“Sophie, I’m going to let you in on a secret…there are a lot of people who don’t appreciate Caramel Brownie Frappuccinos. Hell, I give him ten points just for not frequenting Starbucks. That place is a fascist corporate monster.”

Dena has an odd point system that she uses to rate men. I have never figured out what the scale is, but the men I’ve dated in the past were clearly on the low end. “Sorry, he frequents Starbucks, he just doesn’t buy Frappuccinos.”

“Okay, five points.” She tapped the number five on her desktop calculator.

“He does have an accent.”

“What kind?”

“Russian.”

Dena turned back to her calculator and pressed Plus Five.

“Yeah, it’s very slight—you have to listen for it—but the way he says certain words…like when he pronounces his name, Anatoly, it’s really very sexy.”

“Anatoly…I like that.” She added, three more points.

“Mmm. Anyhow, he’s somewhere in his mid-thirties, about six foot, dark hair, brown eyes, very physically…fit.” Dena raised her eyebrows before adding fifteen. “And he’s got the most incredible hands I have ever seen—you know, big, strong, and just a little rough.”

“Shit, you’re turning me on just talking about him. Twenty points for the big hands. I think we’re up to an overall score of forty-eight. That’s a new high for you.”

“Yeah, he’s definitely eye candy. I wasn’t sure what I thought about him at first—personality-wise he’s a little rough around the edges.”

“I thought you just said you liked it rough.”

“
Hands,
Dena. Rough hands.”

“Whatever.” Dena turned away from the calculator and swiveled back and forth in her wheeled chair. “Look, the guy obviously does it for you, so when are you going to jump him?”

“Do you ever bother even pretending you believe in traditional courtship?”

“It’s hard to spout puritanical ideals when you own a sex shop. You didn’t answer my question.”

“I’m going
out
with him this weekend. He’s new to the city so I’m going to play tour guide for a day. You know, ride the cable car, go to the top of Coit Tower, all the stuff I openly denounce as beneath me but secretly long to do…
then
maybe I’ll jump him.”

“Sounds like fun.” Dena’s smile changed to one of mischief. “Hey, the guy I’m dating just moved here too.”

“Right, I remember you mentioning him…the ‘notch in your bedpost’ guy.”

“Yes! Sophie, he’s sooo fucking hot. Easily scores over fifty points. He’s intelligent, has a goatee, works as a bartender in the Lower Haight, so you know he makes a mean martini, plus he just has a different approach to things, you know? He doesn’t automatically conform to all the dictates of society.”

“In other words, he’s a sociopath.”

“Funny,” Dena said. “He is not a sociopath. He is perfectly sane…or…he sort of is. Okay, I’m sure there are some people who think he’s a little crazy, but they just don’t get him. He’s just…different.”

“Oh my God, you’re dating Michael Jackson.”

“I am not dating Michael Jackson. Besides, it’s not like he has long conversations with his cat or anything like that,” she said, and graced me with her most antagonistic grin.

I responded by giving her the finger.

She laughed and checked her watch. “He’s supposed to meet me for lunch in a few minutes, so if you hang out you’ll get to meet him.”

“Oh, I can’t wait for this.” I repositioned the Weenie Baby so that he was balancing on his two heads. “Speaking of bizarre things…”

“We weren’t.”

“Okay, sorry, that came out wrong. I just want to tell you about something weird that happened to me last night.”

“Does it involve some kind of sexual foreplay with your Russian love god?”

“No.”

“Oh.”

“I came home last night and there was a broken glass on the floor.”

“Uh-huh, so your cat knocked over a glass.” She glared at the overhead fluorescent light that had begun to flicker. “He’s always knocking stuff over. Maybe if you didn’t feed him twenty-four–seven…”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. Dena, it was the way the pieces were scattered…it almost seemed like the glass was dropped in the middle of the room.”

“What are you saying? Do you think someone was in your apartment?”

“I don’t know.”

“Was anything taken or out of place?”

“No.”

“So you think someone broke into your flat, dropped a glass and left?” Dena was wearing an expression that she usually reserved for Mary Ann.

“Right, it doesn’t make sense, I know that. But here’s the thing…do you remember my book
Sex, Drugs and Murder?
”

The condescension disappeared. “The broken-glass-in-the-kitchen scene.”

“You do remember.”

“It was the first indication Alicia Bright had that someone had been in the house.”

“Exactly. Of course, that’s stupid.”

“It’s at least highly unlikely.”

“There’s more.”

Dena swallowed visibly and waited for me to continue.

“I got a note in the mail a little over a month ago, no return address. It was typed, and it contained just one sentence, ‘You reap what you sow.’ And then last night, before the whole glass thing, I got a whole bunch of prank calls. The person calling didn’t say anything threatening. He—or she—just called and hung up.”

“Okay, that’s it. You need to call the police.”

“And tell them what? That someone sent me a note in the mail that is, for all intents and purposes, perfectly benign? That I got a few hang-ups? Or that I found a broken glass in my apartment that may have been knocked over by my cat?”

Dena pressed her palms into her thighs and studied the discarded price tags on the floor. “All of the above?”

“Dena, I told you this because I wanted you to calm me down and bring me back to reality, not so you could further bolster my paranoia.”

“Sophie, if there’s a chance that someone is stalking you, the authorities should be alerted.”

“Great, now we are both being paranoid.” I ran my fingers through my hair, inadvertently tearing it as I went. “Look, I even cut my finger when cleaning up the glass, the way Alicia Bright did.” I held up a bandaged finger for Dena’s inspection. “Do you think
that
was planned too?”

“Okay, I get your point.” Dena chewed her lower lip. “Still…”

“Dena?” Barbie peeked her head through the door. “Your maaaann is here.”

“Oh good, I do get to meet him.” I stood up and waited for Dena to do the same.

“Sophie…”

“Dena, it’s fine, really. It was the cat. Now come on, you have an introduction to make.”

Dena put her hands on her hips and paused for a moment as she tried to figure out what her next move should be. Finally she shook her head in defeat. “Fine, I’ll let it go for now. Let’s have you meet Jason Beck.” She took my arm and guided me onto the selling floor, and there he was.

Mr. Velvet Pants.

CHAPTER 5

“One look at Kittie’s car told Alicia that there was more to the story than she was letting on.”

—
Sex, Drugs and Murder

“N
o, no, no, no, no, no, no.” Dena did a quick double take. She had every reason to be offended—I was being rude—but what the hell was she thinking?

The freak smiled. “Sophie and I met last night,” he said. “I ran into her at a gallery south of Market.”

“A gallery?” asked Dena. “I thought you were…”

“Going to participate in the vampire games? I did, but I was a little early, so I crashed an opening. It wasn’t worth the effort. The stuff being exhibited was the kind of shit people buy to match their thousand-dollar couch. No message at all.”

Okay, we needed to back up a bit. “The vampire games?”

“Right, let me explain that one.” Dena slipped between Jason and me in an attempt to ease some of the mounting tension. “Once a month a group of people—”

“Vampires,” Jason corrected.

“Right, okay, let’s call them vampire
people.
” Dena folded her hands under her chin. “Anyhow, a whole bunch of vampire people get together and act out some kind of vampire story. It’s often based on a novel or a movie.”

“Have you read much about vampires?” Jason asked. He stepped to the side so we could have a full view of one another again.

“I’ve read
Dracula
and
The Vampire Chronicles.
”

“Then you know a lot about the creatures of the night. I often get to play the part of Dracula.”

“Really.”

“Yes, I am Dracula.”

You are insane is what you are. I examined Jason’s current ensemble. The velvet was gone and in its place were a pair of black suede jeans, a white dress shirt with the breast pocket not so carefully cut off, and the motorcycle jacket from the night before. Dena was right, Jason had a different approach to things.

“Last night, how did you know my name?”

“Well, when I was at Dena’s place I was looking through her bookcase and noticed that she had several titles from you, which sort of threw me off ’cause Dena’s not the type to buy into that whole bestseller thing. She’s more an Anaïs Nin type than a Jane Austen chick. So I got curious and flipped one open and saw your autograph. You wrote a pretty detailed message, so it stuck in my head. I recognized you from the picture in back.”

Dena shook her head. “I don’t remember that.”

“You were in the shower,” he explained without bothering to move his eyes in her direction. “I know I came on a bit strong. When I’m in vampire mode I can be a little dramatic.”

“Understandable.” Not.

“I got one of your books this morning. I just started it.”

“Oh? Which one?”

“Your first one.
Criminally Insane.
”

“Always good to start at the beginning. I hope it’s not too ‘Jane Austen’ for you.”

“No, I’m sure I’ll like it.” He brought his hand up to stroke Dena’s back. “She and I have similar tastes. Although, as a general rule, I’m not all that into fiction.”

“But you do like books about vampires.”

“Yeah, but I’m not so sure they’re all fiction.”

“Well.” I tried to choose my words carefully. “Parts of many novels aren’t. The writers tend to use a lot of accurate historical references.”

“Yeah, but that’s not what I’m talking about. Come on, you read the books. You had to have stopped sometimes and said to yourself, ‘Man, these characters are so real—too real.’ It must have crossed your mind that some of those guys are really out there—that the immortals exist.”

“I’ll concede that some of the writers who wrote on the topic are talented enough to bring their characters to life on the page, but I’m pretty sure it stops there.”

“And why are you so sure of that? Because our current western Judeo-Christian ethic says so? You need to broaden your thinking, Sophie. Open your mind to the bizarre.”

I looked over at Dena. She had become very busy rearranging her glow-in-the-dark condom display. “Okay, Jason, for the sake of argument, let’s say there really are vampires. Does the fact that you are so involved with this—this vampire subculture mean that you want to become one of them?”

“I would be open to it. Vampires aren’t inherently bad. They drink blood because they have to in order to survive. We, on the other hand, slaughter chickens and cows because they taste good. So ask yourself, which one of us should be wearing the black cowboy hat?”

I had to admit I was moving from irritated to amused fairly quickly. I decided to dispense with the standard etiquette I would normally observe upon meeting a new acquaintance. I leaned against a display table and stuck a thumb through my belt loop. “You really are weird, you know that?”

“Yeah, but I got your attention, didn’t I? Crazy beats the shit out of boring.”

I laughed. I was beginning to like him. So he was schizophrenic, he still had a certain
je ne sais quoi.
“So what are your feelings on Santa Claus?”

“Sophie, I know you just stopped in briefly to say hello, and I wouldn’t want to keep you….” Dena took her attention away from the condoms long enough to stop an impending conversation about the existence of Rudolph.

Jason didn’t seem the least bit perturbed. It probably wasn’t a stretch that he had met up with other people who had difficulty accepting his creature-of-the-night theory. “Okay, I’ll get going. Dena, I’ll see you later, and Jason…it’s been interesting. Have a good lunch—or are you on a strictly liquid diet?”

“For now I’ll settle for sucking the juice out of a red grapefruit.”

He could laugh at himself. That was good. Dena rewarded him with a light kiss and then turned her triumphant smile on me. “I’ll see you later, Sophie. Oh, I almost forgot, I have to do inventory Sunday. Can we move movie night to Monday? I’ve already cleared it with Mary Ann.”

“No problemo, I’ll see you Monday.” I turned to leave.

“Hey, Sophie,” Jason called after me.

“Yeah?”

“You’d make an awesome vampire. Exotic features with supernaturally white skin…that would be cool.”

“Thanks, but I’m kind of digging the whole mortal thing right now. I’ll see you two later.”

I left the store and looked both ways down the sidewalk as I tried to remember where, exactly, I had parked. There was a man sporting a scarred face and a rather obtrusive gold chain peeking into the store window, clearly hesitant to enter.

“You should go in, it’s a good store,” I assured him.

Glazed eyes stared silently back at me. He used his finger to pick some food out of his teeth. Lovely. That was the problem with owning a sex shop. Most of Dena’s customers were fairly respectable, but at least once a day she had to deal with some heroin-loving scumbag looking for a public place to whack off. I considered going back in and warning Dena, but the man turned around and wandered off before I had a chance. Gross, but harmless. I left to find my car. If he did go back, Dena could handle it. After all, she was now being backed up by the power of the living dead.