Aphrodisiac (20 page)

They both stepped back. “Whatever you want,” Anthony said. “I’ll do anything you ask. Just say the word.”

“Me, too,” Chip said. “I’ll even give you free personal training for the rest of your life.”

Capricia smacked him hard on the arm. “You will
not
. I pay you two hundred fucking dollars an hour, you somersaulting idiot.” She raked me up and down with her eyes, clearly pissed.

I shrugged, my mind racing for something to say. “Hot fun in the summertime?”

She lowered her voice and moved closer. “You like to play games, don’t you, Dr. Oz? Except some games can be risky.”

That sent a chill down my spine. For a moment I floundered, afraid. Despite my nerves going wild, I forced myself to look Capricia in the eye and get my claws out. “Is that a threat, Ms. Chibnib? No, I mean, Chugrug, or, um, Chim, uh, Choo, Ch…”

“Poor thing,” she said. “I didn’t know you had a speech impediment.”

Lana joined us and put a hand on each of our shoulders. “Do I detect the need for some crisis intervention?”

“We’re fine.” Capricia patted her beloved therapist’s hand and said as she walked away, “Your niece is such an odd little person, but we obviously share a common interest.”

Did she mean the guys? Or Gwen’s tablet? Meanwhile, Chip and Anthony were still watching me with hungry looks. Why, after a three-month dick drought, was I suddenly deluged with men? Did I now possess that certain something that only a life-and-death threat can bring out in a woman?

I picked up the bag and scampered to the other side of the pool, away from my lovesick groupies. No loss that the mic in my bag was probably out of range during my little exchange with Capricia since it offered nothing in the way of evidence.

Lana followed me. “Listen,
bubuleh
, are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

Good question. And the answer, I hate to say, was an emphatic no. However, I was not about to tell Lana that. “Rest assured, Benita and I have a plan. Everything is under control.” I had a funny feeling my aunt wasn’t buying it. Especially since I displayed the equanimity of a hairdresser during prom week. “I’ve got to go to the bathroom. If you see Binnie, you know where I am.”

Once inside, I was directed by a Mexican lady to a small powder room at the end of the hall. I was barely finished when some obnoxious person began hammering on the door. “Okay, okay.” More insistent knocking. “Boy, somebody had too many Margaritas.”

As soon as I opened up, Benita leaped in and locked the door behind us. She pulled a thin, square plastic box out of her shirt. “Check it out. Gotta be Professor Conrad Schumacher. Found it in her office while I was planting the Teddy Cam on the desk.”

It was a DVD. Scrawled across the disk in black ink, “meeting with Conrad S.” I stuck it inside my bag. “Great work,” I said, hoping she wouldn’t ask how my sorry interview with Capricia went. “Let’s get out of here before anybody finds us.”

“I’m heading back to the pool by way of the garage,” Benita said. “I want to check for the possibility of a black Hummer. And any sign of dubs. Catch ya later.”

I hesitated at the back door. Could this be the command headquarters for the Hummer pussy patrol? Was Curtis out here right now, lurking somewhere in the background, chowing down at a local clam bar?

A voice behind me said, “We have to stop meeting like this.”

I turned and saw Alan Grossman in a beautifully fitted blue and white seersucker shirt, his mischievous brown eyes on me. Was it only last night that I ran into him? Yes. I was with Kyle Drummond. Moments before Kyle was gunned down in his limo. Interesting timing.
Was
Alan in on this scheme with Capricia? Had he followed us to the Hamptons? Maybe Benita was right. Maybe his attraction to me was just part of the game.

Alan’s hand slid under my elbow. “Come have a drink with me.” I didn’t exactly need another, but I could sense he’d take it personally if I refused. And besides, the recorder in my bag was still running.

He led me to the bar in Capricia’s entertainment room. It reminded me of an airport lounge, only smaller. Cushioned window seats ran along floor-to-ceiling panes of glass. A black- and-white cat was curled up on one. I set down my bag and did the same.

“Some party last night,” Alan said, handing me a vodka and tonic. Heavy on the vodka. He clinked his glass to mine. “Now here we are again the very next day at another get-together. Celebrating what? The world’s a mess. ”

“No argument there.” I said. We shared our concerns on the man-made causes and effects of global warming and vented our complaints at crooked corporations.

Alan smiled and sat close to me. “That’s what I like about you. Your smart, sexy sophisticated and”—he paused—“you smell terrific.”

I thought about the easy rapport we had the other night at dinner. It was sad to think he might be using me to get to the tablet. To satisfy his pitiful addiction to pleasure drugs and help his no-talent cohort at the same time.

I wished he weren’t so damn appealing. Looked like he swam and played tennis every day. I had to remind myself I was here with a goal. I gave the wedge of lemon in my drink an extra squeeze and dropped it back in. Alan grabbed my hand and sucked on my fingertips. My female mojo must really be cooking today.

I decided to test him to see if he acted guilty about Drummond. “What did you think about that horrible murder right outside the launch last night?”

He blew out a sigh. “Awful.”

That’s it? “So, um, tell me. Do you hang with Capricia a lot? Is your house close by?”

“Great idea. Let’s go to my place.” He snuggled his nose into my neck. Oboy. Neck snuggling. I had a weakness for that erogenous zone. Now he was nibbling. Whew. I like nibbling even better than snuggling.

Before I knew it, he had me pinned against a pile of throw pillows, and we were into some very serious kissing. “I want you, Saylor,” he said, catching his breath. “Please don’t refuse me. You’re so beautiful. All aglow.”

After years of being a munchkin, I’ve now got three different men are calling me beautiful? Hearing some voices in the kitchen, I pushed his hands away and sat up. “Alan, maybe we’d better not get into this here.”

“I’ve never felt this way about a woman in my entire life.”

Riiight. Three wives and who knows how many live-ins?

He must have read my thoughts. “I mean it, Saylor. Never before, I swear it.”

Whatever happened to Alan Grossman the Hollywood film mogul and master of the universe? He was acting like a schoolboy with a crush. This was getting weird. In fact, Alan was beginning to sound like Chip and Anthony. Downright spooky. Were they all part of Capricia’s evil network, trying to sucker me into a trap? Everybody gives up secrets during sex.

He brushed his lips over mine. “You are a goddess.”

This was getting embarrassing. I tried to leave. Alan grabbed me by the wrist and reeled me back into his arms. “I’ll make you a star. I can do that. You can have the lead in my next film.”

“I’m a lousy actress.”

“Anything you want, Saylor.” His voice took on an eerie quality as if he were suspended in some mysterious fog. “Let me make love to you. Make me your sex slave.”

Hold it. Goddess? Sex slave? Same words Tim “the nose” used. The perfume.

That had to be why Gwen hid those bottles away in her Tinkerbell jewelry box. What’s in them isn’t old perfume from the thirties. I hadn’t put on Vol de Nuit. I was wearing Heaven’s Daughter!

Whoa. That meant I, Saylor Oz, possessed the love-slave elixir people were willing to kill for. I looked into Alan’s warm brown adoring eyes and felt a surge of power. It was unbelievably delicious. Sure, I’d had sex with guys who were really hot on me in the past, but this worship stuff was a whole new experience.

Strangest part was I’d always envied the great confidence some women had in seducing any man they wanted. Women like Tara. No wonder Capricia was willing to kill for it. Alan just offered me a starring role. Wow. Maybe I should think about this. Would it really hurt if I zipped over to his place for some much needed eros?

Get a grip, I told myself. Wednesday was nearly over. Curtis’s deadline was closing in fast. Too bad my newfound gift came at such a rotten time.

Sticking to mode, I decided to pull out the stops, rewording my question to take advantage of my newfound abilities. “Alan. Listen to me. I command you to tell me the truth. Is Capricia after me for the perfume? Are you helping her? And is her nickname…” okay, let’s get it right this time…“Chub Dubs?”

Alan’s hand began a little journey up my skirt. This kind of undercover work was hard on a woman in heat. Don’t ask me how much longer I could say no to this guy. It took all my strength, but I reached down with my hand and intercepted his. “First you will answer my questions.”

“All right,” he said, “I’ll start at the beginning.” He muttered on about Capricia’s roles, assuring me repeatedly that I was the one and only, when Benita entered the room. Her eyes went wide.

I pried off Alan’s hands and walked toward her. He came after me. “Don’t go. Not yet,” he pleaded. His long arms draped around me like a hungry octopus. “I love you. I’ll do anything for you.”

Benita was at a loss for words. An event about as rare as a snowball fight with Big Foot.

I tried wriggling out of Alan’s embrace. A small shove finally did the trick. I whispered in Benita’s ear, “From what I can figure, I’m wearing Gwen’s perfume.”

“You mean
the
perfume? But where did—”

“Those old bottles from her Tinkerbell box.”

She watched, dumbfounded, as Alan sank back onto his seat, head in hands, dejected. “Don’t do this to me,” he whimpered.

“
Ay, bendito.
Things are definitely getting out of control here,” Benita said. “You better tell those pheromones of yours to ease up.”

“I can’t. You know how it works. If a woman is attracted to the man, it releases the power of the aphrodisiac.”

Lana breezed in. “Excuse me ladies. The party’s breaking up. Capricia is going out to dinner.” Dropping the volume to confidential. “She probably won’t be back until sometime around midnight.”

Benita nodded. Guess we’d be making a return trip for our Teddy Cam viewing.

Suddenly Lana caught a glimpse of Alan. “Oh dear.” Her hand flew to her mouth. “What happened to him?”

“Tell ya later.”

NINETEEN

Back at Lana’s I showered off the elixir in the downstairs bathroom. My aunt disrobed and began whipping up a late dinner for the three of us. One of her soba noodle recipes. After slipping into one of Lana’s many kimonos I went up to Benita, who was busy making a salad. “We need to talk. Alone,” I whispered.

Keeping our voices hushed in the far end of the living room we made an agreement. Putting our eagerness aside, we’d wait until Lana had gone to sleep before watching the DVD Benita took from Capricia’s office. Much as my aunt tried to conceal it, I could tell the recent events that involved her longtime client and friend had taken their toll on her. I couldn’t put her through any more on that subject.

We set the long, low table in Lana’s Japanese room and sat cross-legged on floor pillows. My aunt hesitated before beginning her meal. She looked directly at me and said, “You know where Capricia lives now. If you want to continue your investigation, I certainly wouldn’t stop you. But I just can’t take part in it anymore. I’m feeling the terrible guilt of betrayal. Capricia has put her trust in me as her therapist. And as her therapist, I just don’t feel she is capable of murder.”

I gave Benita a so-I-was-right glance. She answered me with an imperceptible nod. I reached across the table and touched my aunt’s hand. “It’s okay. We won’t ask any more of you on this. I’m so sorry for involving you at all. We just had no other choice.”

“I understand that. And, even though I feel that Capricia is not the one, believe me, if I find out that she or anybody else means to harm you or Benita, I will transform into a bitch grizzly protecting her cubs. I promise you that.”

Look out. I remembered as a child hearing about the time Lana put a subway mugger in a headlock until the cops arrived. Yep. When cornered, the Priestess of Light and Harmony could tangle. I leaned over and gave her a peck on the cheek. “Thanks. You know I feel the same about you.”

“Me, too,” Benita added.

After directing a loving gaze at the two of us, Lana switched into her excitement over the big news we’d discussed in the car ride home from Bridgehampton: Gwen’s perfume Heaven’s Daughter was not only a reality, but the few remaining bottles of it in existence were upstairs in the Tinkerbell jewelry box.

Benita looked up from her plate, eyebrows raised. “Alan promised you a career in films? Damn. Maybe I’ll splash on some of that stuff.”

“Well, Saylor,” Lana said, waving her chopsticks, “this ought to be great material for your research on seduction practices.”

I started laughing. “Hard to believe Gwen actually pulled this off. It’s outrageous.”

Benita scooped up some daikon and mushrooms. “Looks like everything Tim Donnelly told us was true. But I still have my suspicions about the guy.”

“That reminds me. He never called me back. Bet he’s freaked about Drummond. Even though the media didn’t release the CEO’s name, word probably went around Tim’s circles.” My cell was on the table next to my plate. I always kept it near in case of a client emergency. I scrolled to the address book and punched in Tim’s number. “His voice mail is filled. And it’s too late to reach him at FWI.”

Lana refilled our teacups. “Didn’t you say this tablet came from ancient Mesopotamia?”

I nodded. “Written in cuneiform about five thousand years ago. Supposedly a sacred recipe used by Inanna. She was the only goddess who never lost top billing when male gods started hogging the spotlight. And Inanna liked her men subservient and ready for love.”

Benita reached for the salt. “I’m not sure I go for the idea of using a chemical assistant to turn a guy on. A girl should be able to do that on her own.”

“But aphrodisiacs have been around for millenniums,” Lana said. “They’re named after Aphrodite, who bestowed sweet-smelling fragrances on mortals to help them lure the object of their desire. It was only a matter of time before someone as brilliant as Gwen re-created one.”

“This seems to be more than an aphrodisiac,” I said, chewing and talking. “I mean, these guys didn’t just want sex. They were ready to serve and obey.”

Lana tilted her head thoughtfully. “It’ll be interesting to see if Alan remembers any of this tomorrow. Do you know how long the perfume-induced intoxication lasts?”

“We don’t know. Tim said the data on that was inconclusive.”

Benita smiled. “What if you were to make another appointment with Detective Roach? You could put him under your control. Make him reopen the case.”

“Won’t work,” I said. “A: There’s no time. B: Without my being there each day to reinforce his obedience, chances are he might go back to his old ways. Oh, yeah, C: I’d have to be attracted to Detective Roach in order to trigger my pheromones. Not gonna happen.”

Lana chuckled. “Can you imagine the possibilities? Women calling the shots? Running the country? Controlling the industries?”

“Walking around with trophy husbands?” I added. “We might actually do silly female things, like end poverty, clean up the environment and promote world peace.”

Benita shook her head. “I doubt it. There are some mean bitches out there.”

“Regardless of what women might do with the power,” Lana said, “one thing is certain—most men wouldn’t like it. And some would truly hate us for it.”

Sipping my green tea, I pictured Gwen working away, sometimes using the university’s computer banks, sometimes in her home lab, deciphering the tablet this way and that, testing out all the plants and herbs that might turn out to be one of the strange names used by the ancients. And I was sure now that it wasn’t her intellectual curiosity that drove her. Or her socio-political beliefs. Or money. I knew what made Gwen so keen on reviving this perfume.

Those schoolgirl memories she and I avoided talking about. The hurt we’d shared as the munchkin and the scarecrow, the girls who weren’t seen as the beautiful ones. The outcast girls who couldn’t get a date or make a guy turn his head. “This creation is Gwen’s revenge.”

“And now it’s in your hands,” Benita said, and quoted the line from Gwen’s poem: “My dream is now your dream, and you are its watchman.”

“Gee, thanks for the reminder.”

My aunt pointed to the clock on the wall. “It’s eleven. Weren’t you supposed to watch tonight’s weather?”

Benita rolled her eyes. “Oh, yeah, right. Fippy sends me roses and a note. Don’t ask what this is about.”

I began clearing the dishes, but Lana shooed us away.

We went to the second floor den where the TV sat inside a large white wall unit amidst bookshelves and blue ceramics. A subdued Benita squeezed into the corner of the white oversized couch, elbow crooked, her head resting against her knuckles.

In a few minutes an animated Fippy Weintraub, brimming with down-home charm, stood before a computerized backdrop of the eastern seaboard.

“He’s wearing the tie I gave him for our fourth anniversary,” she said.

Was that it? The tie? Or were we in for something else? I could feel my best friend’s tense anticipation as Fippy went through his report pretty much as usual. Then he got to the part where his hands moved in a swirling motion over a spiral formation in the Caribbean.

“
As you can see, Hurricane Belinda is picking up steam over the tropics. We’re keeping an eye on Benita as she makes her way toward the coast of Puerto Rico. Pardon me, I meant to say Hurricane, Belinda. But every time I see that island it reminds me of my ex-wife, Benita Morales. The love of my life. Benita, I want you back. Please, Benita, marry me again
.”

After an embarrassingly long pause, Fippy continued with the wrap up and five-day forecast. I hit the power button. Tears trickled from Benita’s eyes.

I slid over and wrapped my arms around her. “It’s not every girl who gets a marriage proposal on the TV weather report.”

She sniffed. “He’s trying to manipulate me. You know how I hate being pushed.”

“Do you still love him?” I reached for a box of tissues and set it on her lap.

“Of course I do.” She sobbed. “But I just don’t trust him. Fippy hurt me so badly that I don’t know if I ever can again. And don’t give me one of your lectures about forgiveness. Or the sex habits of some wombat in Tanganyika. I know what kind of marriage I want.”

“Sorry, Binnie. I know I get carried away with my theories. But who am I? The only guys I attract are pathetic rescue cases.”

“Alan Grossman is hardly that.”

“The jury’s still out on the reasons for his supposed attraction to me.”

“Mace is no rescue case. In fact he’s hell bent on playing hero for you.”

“Get outta here. You heard what Jaleel said this afternoon. Eldridge’s heroics are a lifestyle. A bizarre habit he’s cultivated over the years. More about him than about me.”

“Yeah, but you’re his favorite audience.”

My cell phone rang. It was Raffy calling to tell me Tim Donnelly had been in intensive care at St. Vincent’s Hospital. He’d been beaten severely. Broken ribs, nose, jaw and arm. Internal bleeding. Yet he refused to tell the cops anything about how it happened or who did it. I tried to talk Raffy into taking off for a European tour immediately, but she just laughed and said she came from an Italian family that had been around Brooklyn a long time and that her Uncle Paulie had ways of fixing things.

Part of me wished Curtis would threaten Raffy and come face-to-face with some of his own medicine, but something told me he was too smart for that. Another part of me wanted to go to her uncle for help, but then I’d owe the Godfather. And I didn’t feel like giving blowjobs to the entire male population of Bensonhurst.

As soon as I told Benita, I called the phone number I got from Raffy and asked for Tim Donnelly. His first words to me were, “Don’t come here.” It didn’t take a therapist to know he would be upset and might even blame me, but I wasn’t prepared for such a weak and frightened voice from the cheeky confident perfumer I met at FWI.

“I’m so sorry, Tim.”

He whispered into the phone. “They wanted to know who it was you were meeting at the launch. They thought I was helping you sell that stupid tablet. I balked for like, two seconds, and this is what they did to me.”

“Bastards.”

“It’s my fault Kyle’s dead.” He broke into tears. “What could I do? That big ugly sicko was gonna kill me.”

“I promise you, we are going to nail their butts for this.”

A sarcastic titter. “What a joke. If they could do in a man like Kyle, we’re all dead meat. You, me, your pugilistic friend, maybe even Raffy. Whether you find that stupid tablet or not, your life is done, sweetie. And so is mine.”

Tim slammed down the phone.

***

“Ready to roll.” Benita checked her watch. “I have zero hundred hours and thirty-six minutes. Or is it twenty-four hundred hours and thirty-six minutes? I know I got the minutes right.”

“Will you skip the military crap and give me the time?”

“Half past twelve, Miss Impatience.”

We said goodnight to Lana, hopped in the Camry and headed to Capricia’s, where we parked across the street from her house. We were going real time via the Teddy Cam and the micro wireless receiver that Benita held in her hand. Would the fruit-basket that she’d planted earlier in Capricia’s office bear fruit? What ripe and revealing scenes would pass before Teddy’s eyes, giving us the incriminating evidence we needed to step into Capricia?

Doing our best not to receive a suspicious-car-parked-outside-my-house rating from the neighbors, we decided it best not to run the engine. Meaning no AC. So, the Camry’s interior became a steam room. In dire need of oxygen, we opened the windows and were joined by several squadrons of the hungriest mosquitoes east of the Hudson. The ravenous little buggers zinged in and out of our ears and covered our arms and legs with bites. It made focusing our attention on the tiny two and a half inch screen all the more agonizing.

I say more agonizing because staring at the image of a vacant room with its lights out for over an hour gave new meaning to the word torture. However, the Teddy Cam did pick up the lonely sound of a distant toilet flushing somewhere down the hall. By two a.m. things on Mars were still pretty dead. We decided it would be more productive to go back to my aunt’s house and view the DVD Benita had found in Capricia’s office.

Trying not to awaken Lana, we crept quietly into her house and used the DVD player on the first floor. I curled up in one of the deep pink overstuffed chairs, grateful that Benita was manning the controls. She sat on the rug, slipped the disc labeled “meeting with Conrad S” into the player and clicked the play button.

Now for the moment we’d been waiting for. Capricia and Professor Schumacher talking strategies behind closed doors. With all due respect to my aunt’s opinion, I was not convinced of Capricia’s innocence. Especially after Raffy told us the professor had the mysterious tablet among the artifacts he’d stolen from the university dig before Gwen made off with it.

I wanted to close my eyes, shut it all out. Was I ready for this? Could I bear to hear them talk about murdering my cherished friend? I forced myself to watch.

“Whoa,” Benita said. “New release.” The on-screen display told us the shoot took place only three days ago.

An odd beginning. We could barely see anything due to a large pale formation that seemed to blot out almost the entire screen. Was this a meeting or a total eclipse? There was a lot fumbling around.

A man’s voice said, “
There, the camera is set. How about we get started
.”

Suddenly the object began moving away. Oh no. Could it be? Did I recognize the hairy, sagging buttocks of a man’s bare ass? There he stood, the leading authority on ancient elixirs, naked, with his beard, bald pate, potbelly and enough body hair to make a furrier yearn. Guess this was just one of the fringe benefits of sleuth work.

Benita’s face lit up. “It’s him, all right. It’s Schumacher.”

Next Capricia appeared on the screen, whip in hand. She wore black undies and garter belt. “
You’ve been a very, very naughty little boy, Professor. I think you need a spanking. Get over here
.”

Benita snorted. “Some ‘meeting.’ Do we really have to watch this?”