Vanity, Vengeance And A Weekend In Vegas (A Sophie Katz Novel) (18 page)

“Well,” I breathed, “I guess
that’s settled then.”

“Yeah, I guess it is.”

Again we fell into silence, but
this time it was a silence I understood.

“The thing about betrayal is that
it can only come from people you trust completely.”

--Death Of The Party

Alex didn’t seem surprised to see
me, although he was taken off guard by Dena.
 
He listened with sympathy as I told him about the break in
and about how Natasha had kidnapped me.
 
“She’s a whore,” he said smoothly. It was a sweet lie calculated to win
my favor. It almost worked but now I was on my guard. He was the viper in
Rome’s bosom. I couldn’t trust anything he said without proof. Margarita wasn’t
there which is what I had been counting on. The less people in the house the
easier it would be to snoop. Besides, Margarita creeped me out.
 
There was just something very off about
her.

He offered both Dena and me our
own room and Dena insisted on going to bed right away as Alex and I had
cocktails in his study. I knew Dena wasn’t really in bed. People often harbored
the misguided assumption that those who used a cane couldn’t be stealthy, but
Dena was the queen of stealth when she wanted to be. Late tonight, while Alex
slept, I would try to look in the rooms she missed.

“How did you get away from
Natasha?” Alex asked as he poured me yet another glass of his sipping
vodka.
 

 
“It wasn’t that hard. She drove me all the way out to some
national park in the middle of the desert but all she wanted was to scare me
into leaving Vegas. Now that she has Anatoly--”

“She has Anatoly?” Alex
interrupted. “Since when?”

“He called her while I was with
her. I could just tell that he’s back with her by the way they were talking.
I’m done with him.” I raised my glass above my head. “Here’s to new
beginnings.”

Alex kept his glass by his side.
“Are you leaving Vegas then?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Where are the rest of your
friends?”

“Back in San Francisco.
 
They all had their tickets to leave
tonight. Dena and I originally had tickets for tonight too but she had our
flight switched to tomorrow back when I thought there was something to stay
for.”
 
A poker player is only as good as his
ability to bluff,
I thought to myself. Alex didn’t need to know how much
backup I had here in this city. He certainly didn’t need to know that I had
seen Anatoly. For once I would be the one with the secrets and he would be the
one to show his hand.

But as I watched him stare into
the fire I wondered how much he had really kept from me. His lies had all been
lies of omission and when I asked more pointed questions he had answered them
and every answer had checked out so far. What was it that made this man less
worthy of my respect than Anatoly? Was it that he was currently with the mafia
while Anatoly had left? Because really, even if Anatoly did leave the mafia he
was certainly back in the thick of it now.

“You never told me why they
killed your brother,” I said quietly.

For a few seconds Alex just
continued to stare into the fire. Then he walked over to the piano in the
corner. “This was Kenya’s piano.” He let his fingers run over the smooth, polished
wood. I hadn’t noticed before but it shone like no other object in the room. It
had been polished and cared for like…well like the memorial it probably
was.
 

“I bought it for him,” he
continued. “He loved to play but he never had a decent piano.”

“He had that one,” I noted.

Alex shook his head. “I never got
the chance to give it to him.” After a moment’s thought he put his glass on top
of the instrument. “It’ll leave a ring,” he said softly. “I’ve been taking such
good care of it but you know, what’s the point? If I had given it to Kenya he
would have treated it as carelessly as he treated everything else in his life…
including
his
life.”

“He was younger than you, right?”

Alex nodded. “Fawn’s my mother’s
daughter and Kenya was my father’s son. Maybe if my father was still around he
could have convinced the family to keep him alive.”

“Why did they kill him, Alex?”

Alex picked up his drink and put
it back down on another part of the piano.
 
“They thought he helped Anatoly bring the FBI agent into the
fold.”

I hesitated, momentarily
impressed. Once again his story was matching up with what I knew…sort of.
Natasha had suggested that the mafia never suspected Anatoly at all, but still
it was close enough, right?

He was telling me everything and Anatoly
was telling me nothing.

“If you’re serious about not
wanting to reconcile with Anatoly…well, I respect that,” he continued. “But if
you know where he is I’d like to talk to him.”

“Why?”

“I want to know if the mafia was
right,’ he said simply.
 
“If Kenya
really did help Anatoly bring that agent in then at least I’d know he wasn’t
killed for nothing.”

“That still wouldn’t make it okay
for them to have killed him!”

“No…but if a soldier starts
collaborating with the enemy you can’t exactly blame his battalion for dealing
with him.”

“You would forgive the mafia for
killing your brother.” That small flash of respect and trust I had felt for him
flew out the window.

“No, but I would understand it.”
He turned to me with pleading eyes. “You have a sister, right? Can you imagine
if she died and you weren’t able to figure out why it had happened? I can’t get
him back. All I can get is understanding. I won’t turn Anatoly in to the others
but I deserve the truth. So do you.”

And just like that I was
impressed again. “I don’t know where he is.”

Alex nodded and glanced at a
clock hanging near the fireplace. “It’s late. Perhaps we should both call it a
night and talk more in the morning?”

I got to my feet.
 
“When we talk in the morning can we
talk about Margarita?”

Alex smirked. “I’m not sleeping
with her, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“Yeah, it wasn’t. I was wondering
why she was in my hotel lobby this morning and how it is that a housekeeper can
afford expensive jewelry and designer apparel.”

“Ah,” Alex smiled again, this
time ruefully. “Well, I said you deserved the truth. We’ll talk about Margarita
tomorrow. She works for me in several different capacities.”

“Sounds kinky,” I teased.

He laughed. “It’s not, I promise
you.”

“OK, I’ll take your word for
it…for now. Thanks again for letting us stay here.”

“Not a problem,” he said, taking
my now empty glass. As he opened the door for me he chuckled. “I can’t believe
Natasha drove you all the way out to Red Rock Canyon just to make a point.”

I stopped. “Did I tell you that
she took me out to Red Rock?”

Alex blinked. “I’m sorry, I just
assumed. There aren’t too many national parks within driving distance of here.”

“Oh, right.” That made sense,
right? After all, if he had been following me he would have known that I had been
with Anatoly at Red Rock, not Natasha.

We walked up the stairs together.
The guest rooms Dena and I were staying in were to the right of the stairs and
his room to the left, all the way at the other end of
 
the hall. Again, I marveled at how large this house was.

He pulled me in for a hug and
kissed me on the cheek. “You don’t have to stay in the guestroom, you know,” he
said teasingly.

I pulled away and stared up into
those perfect green eyes. No, I didn’t trust him. I wasn’t sure if I even liked
him. But disliking him was getting harder. “I’m going to stick with the
guestroom.”

“Can’t blame a guy for trying.”

“Mmm,” I said noncommittally. I
thought of Tanya in that closet, a bullet hole in her forehead. He had once
planned to pin that murder on me…but he didn’t. Did that count for anything?

“Goodnight Alex.”

He stood at the top of the stairs
and watched as I went into my room.

As I closed the door I got a text
from Dena:

I’m back in my room and just got off the phone with Leah. Your mom
found the USB stick

“I can rarely find the things I’m
looking for but I frequently stumble across things I forgot I needed.”

--Death
Of The Party

It was everything I could do not
to rush back into the hall and pound on Dena’s door but I had to wait until I
was sure Alex was in his room.
 
I
sat down on the deep red area rug and dialed her. “Tell me!” I whispered as she
picked up.

“Did they really bug your house?”
Dena asked cryptically. “Do you think they do that often?”

I looked around the room as if I
was going to actually be able to spot a recording device. “Um, who knows? I was
just calling to say goodnight.”

“Night-night then,” Dena said
cheerfully before hanging up.

As soon as we were disconnected I
sent her a text:

TELL ME!!!

Dena sent me a response so long
it came in the form of three consecutive texts.
 
Basically Anatoly had cut out a small section of a soccer
book and put an USB stick in it. Leah was now slowly walking my mother through
the process of sending all the files on it as an attachment to Leah’s email
(with both my computers gone it was likely that my email account was
compromised). Leah was working from the computers in Encore’s business center
and would send Dena the information for her to read from her iPad. Still, I
shouldn’t expect anything concrete until the morning.

The next series of texts told me
that Dena had checked the rooms on our side of the staircase and found nothing
of interest. Tomorrow she thought she might check everything on the other side
if I could distract Alex again.

I was still dying to rush into
her room but it seemed imprudent.
 
After all, Alex thought Dena had been asleep for over an hour now. How
would it look if he caught me rushing into her room for a late night chat?

Reluctantly I sent her a text
telling her to get some sleep. We set our alarms for five a.m. so we could talk
and maybe do some more investigating before Alex woke up.

I glanced around my temporary
bedroom. It was beautifully appointed with lots of dark leather and mahogany,
just like everywhere else in the house. When we had first arrived he made a
point of asking if I needed a toothbrush or a bathrobe. I had already packed
the former and didn’t need the latter. My room had a bathroom attached to it
while Dena was invited to use the bathroom a few doors down. There were a lot
of bathrooms in this house. If he ever served bad fish at a dinner party his
guests would have no problem finding a private space to be sick in.

I locked my door and then stood by
the window in my nightgown and looked out at the grounds. The sky was that
dusky black color that allowed it to hide all its secrets.

Where was Anatoly now?
 

I opened the window so I could
feel the cool air against my face. “Are you okay?” I whispered out into the
dark. “Are you coming back to me?”

The wind whispered its reply but
I couldn’t make sense of it. The air was cold against my cheek. Not at all like
a kiss or an assurance. Nothing I could hold onto.

I lay down in the bed. I wanted
to feel him next to me. Instead I squeezed one of the extra pillows to my chest
and waited for sleep that I pretty much knew wasn’t coming.

An hour passed, then two.
 
A book would have helped. I could have
asked Alex for a book. I was sure he was in bed by now, probably asleep. The
house had that unnatural quiet that only comes after everyone has retired.

And if everyone was asleep then I
should probably be awake looking through his things.

I picked up the gun and stepped
out into the hallway. It was pitch black and I didn’t know where the light
switch was.
 
I considered knocking
on Dena’s door but again decided not to. I owed her a few hours of
uninterrupted sleep. I also needed to assure myself that Alex was asleep. If there
was even a flicker of light under his door or any sound coming from his room
other than snoring I needed to get back to bed immediately.

I knew the way to Alex’s room. I
kept my hand against the wall to guide me. As I walked my eyes began to adjust.
It felt weird, wearing a light, romantic nightgown, holding a gun and feeling
my way around a strange house like a blind man.

I knew when I was close, not
because I could really see anything, but because I heard the voices. Alex’s
voice…and…and someone else’s. I stood as still as a statue and strained to
decipher the words. They were keeping their voices very low so it was hard. I
held my breath and tried again. Oh, now I knew why I wasn’t picking up a single
word. They were speaking in Spanish, Alex and Margarita.

Well that was hardly a surprise.
I knew Margarita was too gorgeous for Alex to resist no matter what he
said….except…the tones weren’t right. There was nothing romantic or melodic in
their murmurs, in fact, if I had to guess, I’d say she was pretty pissed and he
was appeasing and…and nervous.
  
This didn’t sound like a lover’s quarrel. I’ve had enough of those to
recognize them in any language. This lacked the note of hysteria and personal
pain that was universal to
those
kinds of arguments. In fact, if this conversation wasn’t
taking place in a bedroom in the middle of the night I might have thought it
was a boss telling off an employee.

And what was
really
interesting was that I would have
thought Margarita was the boss. I stepped a little closer to the door. I still
couldn’t understand the words but the
tones
…Alex wasn’t just nervous…he was scared
shitless.

If I was wrong and this
was
a lover’s
quarrel then I had a lot to learn from Margarita. She
owned
his ass.

Margarita’s voice was getting
easier to hear…but she wasn’t raising her volume. Oh shit, she was getting
closer to the door. I jumped into another room and pressed myself up against
the wall.

I could hear Margarita’s heels
click down the hallway. I waited for the sound of Alex following but it didn’t
come. After a few minutes I thought I heard the sound of the front door opening
and closing, but it was so faint I could have been wrong. A moment later I
heard the sound of Alex’s door closing. Two possibilities there, he had walked
out of his room and closed the door behind him (I couldn’t think of a good
reason to do that unless you were expecting company and the room was a mess) or
he had closed himself in, which made more sense. Still, I couldn’t afford to
take a chance.

I stood there in the black room,
my back pressed flat against the wall and listened as my eyes once again
adjusted to the darkness.

Unfortunately the only light was
coming from the charcoal sky outside. I could see the outline of a desk and a
chair against the window. That was about it.
 
I took a couple of tentative steps forward, my bare feet
felt the hardwood floor give way to a softer area rug and I scrunched up my
toes against the fibers.

The house was silent again but I
knew Alex was still awake. People didn’t just go to sleep after arguments like
that.

I could see a little more now.
Shapes were coming into focus although the details still belonged to the
darkness. When I got to the desk my fingers brushed against the metal of a
picture frame resting on top of it. I lifted it up and held it close to my face
but I still couldn’t see the people in it…assuming there
were
people in it.
 
But I didn’t know a lot of guys who had
framed pictures of landscapes on their desks.
 
Did Alex have a significant other? An estranged child? Was
it a picture of his brother?

Could it be a picture of Fawn?

Unfortunately I had a gun, not a
flashlight.

I felt my way around the desk and
tried to open one of the drawers. It was locked. That was interesting.
Obviously a lock wasn’t going to keep the mafia out so perhaps the person who
he was hiding something from was me. I moved my hand to the next drawer. It was
shallow and I felt the thin oblong shapes of pens and the cool, metal curves of
paperclips. And then I felt something else…a lighter.

I smiled and carefully pulled it
out. It took several flicks of my thumb before I got it to light and in the
silence every little click sounded like the pounding of a drum.
 
But it did light and I held the small
flame up to the frame.
 
I could now
make out Alex’s face. The fire gave his green eyes an unnatural twinkle.
 
And standing next to him was a man who
looked like a younger version of Alex. He looked youthful and happy. He was
leaning into Alex for the picture. Two brothers.
 

I couldn’t help but notice that
Alex’s smile looked a little evil in the firelight.
 

And then I heard something.

I froze in place, my breath
caught in my throat and I let the flame of the lighter die.

It was coming from Alex’s room.
It was soft and muffled and…and…mournful.

It was a sob. Alex was crying.

I put the frame back on the desk
and fumbled for a moment as I struggled to find the exact spot where I found
the lighter in order to replace it. Again my fingers moved over the paperclips.
What could make a man who could speak so casually about murder cry? But it
wasn’t a question I could ask him. I wasn’t supposed to be here and I had to
get out of here and back to my room before he wandered out of his bedroom for a
just-need-to-dull-the-pain-cocktail. Unlike some psychiatrists, Dr. Vodka is on
call 24/7, ready to medicate.

I found the spot where the
lighter belonged and was about to pull my hand away when I felt one more
paperclip…this one oddly deformed. That gave me an idea.
 
If I straightened it out could I unlock
the drawer? I picked up the weird shaped paperclip but then thought better of
it. Maybe I’d have a chance to try in the morning, but not now.

I don’t know why but I held onto
that paperclip as I tiptoed out of the room and walked down the dark hallway,
the hardwood floor felt almost warm against my feet in comparison to the cool
steel in my hand.

And as I crept away Alex’s sobs
followed me, providing a soundtrack to the night.

It wasn’t until I was safely in
my room that I was able to look at the oddly shaped paperclip by the light of
my bedside lamp.

It was a paperclip shaped like a
bone…exactly like the paperclip Dena had put on the strap of my computer case
before it had been stolen.