Sex, Murder and a Double Latte (9 page)

“Good decision.”

“But now there’s the car thing. In my book, Alicia Bright’s roommate’s car is vandalized in almost exactly the same way mine was. You see, the bad guy, Jeremy Spaulding, knows that Alicia’s roommate, Kittie, has a cassette tape that could prove that his father was involved in a political scandal. Kittie’s father produced X-rated films, so she had all these contacts to the pornography underworld.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Okay, that’s probably not all that relevant. Besides, you could always read the book, right?”

Officer Gorman just stared at me. Apparently that one wasn’t even worth an “uh-huh.”

“The point is…” The point. What was my point again? “Oh, yes. The point is that things are happening to me that happened in my book. I am living
Sex, Drugs and Murder!
”

This time it was Officer Gorman’s turn to sit back in his chair. He put his fingers together steeple-style, furrowed his brow and was silent for what seemed like an hour. Finally, he looked up and made eye contact. I knew he had formed his theory. He leaned forward and I did the same. I could feel my heartbeats increasing in speed.

“You sure you don’t do drugs?”

CHAPTER 6

“Before she met him she had assumed that being sexy and obnoxious were mutually exclusive traits.”

—Sex, Drugs and Murder

F
eeling frustrated and embarrassed, I waited for Anatoly on the steps of his building. It figured that it took me less time to walk back to Anatoly’s than it did for him to find a parking spot. After the exchange with the police, I had no intention of telling him about the similarities between the vandalism to my car and the one in
Sex, Drugs and Murder.
I was probably just being paranoid. But still, the slashing of the upholstery, even the spare tire… I rested my head in my hands. I needed Advil. Or a Bloody Mary. Maybe both. And to make everything worse I was wearing black and I had no makeup on. If I was going to be a damsel in distress I could at least be an attractive damsel—not some washed-out, big-haired bimbo.

“Are you okay?”

As usual I hadn’t heard Anatoly coming. “Where’d you park?”

“Up by Grace Cathedral.”

“That’s eight blocks from here.”

“You really need to get a garage.”

I put my head back in my hands. “My head hurts. I need a drink.”

“I wasn’t aware that alcohol cures headaches.”

“Don’t mess with me, Anatoly, I’m in a bad mood. My car was trashed, the police officer I reported it to thinks I’m on crack, and I’m not wearing any lipstick!”

Anatoly looked perplexed, but he waved it off and knelt down beside me. “I won’t pretend to understand the lipstick part but I do understand the rest. Leave a message with your insurance company and deal with everything else on Monday. For now, let’s go get a beer….”

“I want a Bloody Mary.”

“All right, a Bloody Mary…”

“And some Advil.”

“Right. We’ll go find a bar that serves Bloody Marys, nonprescription pain relievers and cosmetics, and we’ll start over. How does that work for you?”

I smiled for the first time in over two hours and pulled myself out of my hunchback position. “Well, it would probably make more sense for me to make a quick run to my apartment for the Advil and the lipstick, but you’re on the right track. There is still one problem, though.”

“What’s that?”

“Unless you bought a car since I last saw you, we have a conspicuous lack of transportation.”

“Ah, now there you are mistaken. I don’t have a car yet, but I do have a bike.”

“A bike? Like…a bicycle?”

Anatoly clenched his teeth. “No, a bike like a motorcycle. I own a Harley.”

I shot to my feet. “A Harley? You bought a Harley?”

“I didn’t steal it.”

“Wow.” I looked around before spotting it across the street. “Is that it?”

“That’s it. And I have two helmets. I’ll go get them.”

I crossed over to the bike to get a better look. I had never ridden one before, nor could I picture Anatoly on one. People who rode Harleys had long beards and wore all kinds of bizarre-looking leather stuff. Anatoly didn’t even have stubble.

He came up behind me and handed me a helmet. “Ready?”

“When you buy a Harley, don’t you have to join a biker club or something?”

“You mean like the Hell’s Angels?”

“I guess. I don’t know. I just assumed guys who drive Harleys are in some sort of club.”

“I’m sorry to disappoint you but I’m not in a club. Are you going to put your helmet on?”

“Hey, these are real helmets!”

Anatoly muttered something in Russian.

“What, no little beanie caps for you?” I watched as he put on his helmet. “What if I get helmet hair?”

Anatoly put down the face visor, straddled his bike and revved it up, so I decided to be obliging and climbed on as well. The second I wrapped my arms around his chest, the incident with my car was pushed from my mind. It’s hard to be aloof when your nipples are smashed up against the broad back of some guy giving you a lift on his Harley.

“Okay, we’re going to stop by your apartment so you can get the things you need, and then where?” he called back to me through his helmet.

“Then we head toward North Beach.” My breath caught as he revved the engine again. He maneuvered the bike away from the curb, and I felt the pressure of the wind as we accelerated. Anatoly’s body leaned to the left as he turned the bike toward my apartment. It was as if he was an extension of this incredibly powerful machine. No, that was wrong. It was like the powerful machine was an extension of him.

Anatoly knew his way around enough to get to North Beach. He easily parked the Harley (a major advantage of owning a bike), and I brought him to the bar of a trendy little restaurant.

I surveyed the patrons. Was there anyone suspicious around? Anyone who showed more of an interest in us than was appropriate? Anyone who looked like they just finished ripping up an Acura? We pulled a couple of bar stools up to a table. I hesitated, feeling uncomfortable about sitting with my back to the window. This was so ridiculous. Who did I think I was? Malcolm X? I was here to have a good time and distract myself. I let my eyes quickly run over Anatoly’s physique while he was busy checking out the restaurant. Distraction accomplished.

“Nice place.” He gave me one of those little half smiles that made my tummy get all tingly. “You look nice too. In fact, you look like you’re feeling a little better.”

“That’s because I’m wearing lipstick.”

“That’s why you look nice or that’s why you’re feeling better?”

“Both.”

“I have nothing against lipstick, but you don’t need it. A woman whose lips are as naturally full and pink as yours should know that she doesn’t have to do anything artificial to make them enticing.”

“What can I get you two?”

“Huh?” I could barely hear the cocktail waitress and I certainly couldn’t see her. All I could see were Anatoly’s dark brown eyes looking at my lips.

“What would you like to drink?”

I stared at her for a moment and tried to focus on her question. “To drink, right—what do I want to drink?” The waitress tapped her pencil against the pad. Maybe I should order a beer instead of a Bloody Mary. I wouldn’t want Anatoly to think I was a hard-core drinker. Better to make
restraint
the strategy of the day. I could do it. I was strong. “I’ll have a Corona.”

Anatoly’s forehead creased. “I thought you wanted a Bloody Mary.”

“Okay, a Bloody Mary.”

He laughed softly. “I’ll have a Pacifico.”

Oh great, now he thinks I’m a lush. Well, I couldn’t take the order back now. Of course, after drinking the Bloody Mary, ordering one would seem like less of a big deal. That was the new strategy. If I couldn’t make the impression I wanted, then I would just drink enough so that I didn’t give a damn.

“Sooo…” I searched for something to say; I was feeling very self-conscious about my mouth. “Why did you leave New York?”

Anatoly shrugged. “It was time for a change. I’d visited San Francisco a few times before and liked it. Interesting mix of people.”

“Have you been anywhere else on the West Coast?”

“Just L.A. I had a friend down there.”

“
Had
a friend?”

“Yeah, he moved up north.”

“Anywhere around here?”

“No, nowhere near here.”

The drinks arrived. The waitress put mine down without even looking at me and then presented Anatoly with his like she was making a sacred offering. “Here’s your Pacifico.”

“Thanks, that will be all for now.” I used a volume a notch above what was appropriate.

She went off to harass some other unsuspecting couple.

“Now, what were we talking about?” Anatoly took a swig of beer. “Ah, yes, why I moved to San Francisco.”

“What?” I was watching our waitress, who was now at the bar. I was pretty sure that I could see brown roots.

“We were talking about my move.”

“Right. I mean wrong. We were talking about your friend. Where’d he move to?”

“My mistake.” He looked past me to the pedestrians pushing past one another on the other side of the window. “I lost contact with him a while ago. I’m not exactly sure where he is right now.”

“But you know he’s north.”

“That’s an educated guess based on what I know about him. Any more questions, or are you satisfied?”

“Touchy, touchy. Okay, let me think.” I toyed with the celery stick in my drink. “All right, here’s a question. Where’d ya learn to speak such good English?”

Anatoly chuckled. “I’ve been in this country for over twelve years now.”

“Yeah, but there are a lot of people who spend their entire adult lives in a foreign country and never become fluent in their second language or grasp the use of slang as you seem to have. Hell, you even conjugate your verbs.”

“I’ve spent a good portion of time with a lot of people who speak almost entirely in slang. Plus, in my line of work I often find it advantageous to sound less foreign.” For a split second I thought I saw a glimmer of regret pass over his face, but if I had, it was gone as quickly as it came. I wondered if I had found yet another subject to which he was sensitive.

“And what exactly is your line of work?”

Anatoly took a few more gulps of his beer before answering. “I’m a contractor.”

“A contractor? Like a contract killer?”

“Yeah, that’s right, I’m a contract killer. Would you like a business card?”

“Naw, but I might want a list of references.” I tried to scoot my stool forward without having to get up. “So I guess you’re a contractor in the more legal sense, as in you fix houses and stuff.”

“And stuff.”

“Well, this is a good city for that line of work. There are lots of old Victorians that are falling apart as we speak. But why is it so advantageous to sound less foreign?”

Anatoly shrugged. “Construction workers seem to be more willing to take direction from men who sound like locals. I think my clients prefer it too.”

Anatoly didn’t exactly sound local. “Do you have any clients right now?”

“I’ve been doing a few odd jobs here and there and I have a few bids out, but for the most part it would be fair to qualify me as being between projects.”

“You might want to consider sounding a little more Russian again.”

“I’ll take it under advisement. So how about you? How did you get into writing?”

“Oh, it’s a pretty mundane story. My ex-husband screwed me over, I wanted to castrate him but I didn’t want to go to jail, so I wrote a book about castrating him.”

“Your first book is about castrating your ex?”

“Well, it’s supposed to be about another woman castrating and killing a whole bunch of men, but if you read between the lines, yes. It’s a book about me castrating and killing my ex-husband.”

Anatoly grinned and swallowed some more beer. “So you write fantasies.”

I laughed. “Well, my fantasies at least. No, actually I just write ordinary mainstream fiction. The difference being that the crimes I write about may not have happened, but they could have. I take great pains to make sure that the books I write come across as being very realistic.”

“But they can’t be that realistic. You’re not a cop or an investigator, and as far as I know, you’re not a criminal, which means you have no firsthand experience in the things you write about. It’s not possible for you to know what real-life crime is all about.”

“Have you read any of my books?”

“No, I don’t think I have.”

“Well then, you’re being a bit presumptuous, aren’t you? Not to mention an asshole.”

Anatoly nearly spit his beer all over the table. “You’re getting a lot better with your insults.”

“It’s nice of you to give me so many opportunities to perfect my technique.”

“You can practice on me anytime. I’m available nights and weekends.”

I was tempted to ask what other services he offered, but forced myself to keep my mouth shut.

He rested his forearm on the table. “Have you had any serious relationships since your marriage?”

“Not a one. What’s really sad is that I’m not lucky at cards either.”

Anatoly’s eyes locked with mine. “Luck has a tendency to change.”

For a moment I couldn’t find my voice. I took a long drink of the Bloody Mary. I was nervous. The sad thing was that I couldn’t figure out if I was nervous because I was beginning to really like Anatoly or because I was afraid someone was trying to kill me. That really couldn’t be healthy. I searched my mind for a nice safe topic.

“So you moved from Russia to Israel to the U.S. Sounds like a lot of life-altering changes.”

“I was in Israel for just under four years. Then, as soon as the American Immigration office saw fit to allow my admittance, I was on my way to the States.”

“You were in the Israeli army?”

“Of course, it’s mandatory service.” He paused to drink. “I was in the Russian army too.”

“Oh my God, you’re a mercenary.”

“I was a citizen of both countries.”

“Okay, but two armies? I don’t know. There’s something odd about that.”