Vanity, Vengeance And A Weekend In Vegas (A Sophie Katz Novel) (21 page)

 
I hadn’t seen that and I wondered if Anatoly was lying. I
can’t imagine that the drug dealers working for the Ignatovs kept receipts, but
what did I know? Maybe the mafia had their own electronic inventory system.

 
“You want to start a war?” Anatoly continued. “I can give you
that war. But I won’t until the people I care about are safe.”

“You’re the only reason the
people you care about are in danger,” Alex countered. “But I’m not going to
hurt Sophie. You however, are a liability.”

“I can help you,” Anatoly said.

Alex stared at him. For a moment
the only sound in the room was the crackling of the fire and that of cognac
being poured into a tall glass.

Who the hell pours cognac into a tall glass? How drunk was Dena
going to get?
I tried to make eye contact with her but she didn’t look up from
her task.

“You can’t help me anymore,” Alex
said. “And even Sophie doesn’t seem to care that much about protecting you. In
fact,” again Alex pointed the gun at Anatoly.

“Don’t be stupid Alex,” I hissed,
but I knew my facade of cool was thinning. There was something in Alex’s eyes.
As far as I knew, Alex had never even met Anatoly before but for reasons beyond
my understanding he hated him enough to kill him.

The iPad was getting hot from
being so close to the fire.
 
It was
getting harder to hold. I glanced nervously at Dena…was she pouring herself a
second glass of cognac?

“Think before you act, Alex,”
Anatoly said, his voice low and almost menacing.
 
Impressive when you considered his position.

The sound of the front door
opening and the urgent Spanish being called out in a male voice got all of our
attention.

“Quick,” Alex said in a hushed
voice as he moved toward me, “give me the iPad now.
 
I can protect you.”

“Don’t get closer or I drop it!”
In a second I was going to have to drop it anyway. The metal was burning my
fingers.

Alex hesitated and started to
turn toward the door.

It was while he was turning that
Dena leaped forward with a guttural cry of determination and pain and threw her
two drinks in Alex’s face.

He was drenched in alcohol, the
right sleeve of his shirt was now dripping with it, but It was the cognac that
got into his eyes that made him cry out, and it was the distraction that gave
Anatoly the opportunity he needed to dive into him, knocking Alex backward. I
saw the glint of a broken piece of glass from the vodka bottle as Anatoly cut
Alex’s arm with it.

As they both fell in my direction
Alex’s gun went off in the air and I jumped out of the way, accidentally
dropping the iPad in the fire.

But Alex still had the gun.
 
He pulled the trigger again and I saw
Anatoly’s blood. I fell helplessly to my knees.

Anatoly tried to continue to
fight but he was weakened. Alex twisted away from him and using his sleeve as a
kind of oven mitt tried to quickly retrieve the iPad from the fire.

But here’s the thing about
cognac, it’s highly flammable.

By the time Margarita’s latest
thug entered the room Alex was running around in a panic, screaming as he waved
his now flaming arm in the air. He ripped the shirt from his body and threw it
off of him…which set the curtains on fire.

In the chaos, Margarita’s man
didn’t even notice that Dena was standing behind him. The silver jaguar on her
cane proved to be much more effective on his head than on the window.

Alex was screaming in pain as Anatoly,
Dena and I were running out of the room.
 
Blood coated the right side of Anatoly’s shirt but he was up and moving
as if he was suffering from nothing more than painful cramps. Dena tried to
help him, running forward to get the door even though I could tell that her own
physical acts of self-defense had caused her to aggravate old injuries. What
would be their condition when the adrenaline ran out? But I couldn’t think
ahead right now because I too was running on that same adrenaline.

And maybe that’s why I barely
registered the pain when Margarita came out of nowhere and grabbed me by the
hair. I stomped on her foot and was able to turn around but she hit me with the
blunt end of the fake gun Alex had given me. In her other hand was the knife.
She lifted it and from the corner of my eye I could see Anatoly rushing toward
me.

What I didn’t see was Alex coming
from the other side. He got there first and tackled her just as the knife was
being lowered. I heard her scream. I smelled Alex’s burnt flesh.

No one in my party had any
interest in hanging out long enough to find out how the fight turned out. The
room was already filling with smoke and both Dena and Anatoly were hurt. We
rushed out the door into the yard. Anatoly took my hand as we approached the
gate. I could hear the fire now as it consumed more of the house.

It was about then that we heard
the sirens. Not just of the fire trucks but several police cars, black &
whites as well as unmarked vehicles. In fact there were already police cars all
around that must have come in silently earlier on in the evening. It was from
one of those unmarked vehicles that Bo-Bo the gay, Russian thug jumped out with
a gun and screamed, “FBI, everybody get down!”

If I hadn’t been so scared,
frenzied and exhausted I think I would have laughed.

“I’m not a big fan of happy
endings. They’re too neat and too final. But I absolutely love happy new
beginnings.”

--Death Of The Party

The chaos that ensued was almost as
harrowing as the chaos that proceeded. The fire fighters ran in to try to save
the house and the neighborhood and then Anatoly was whisked away to the
hospital in an ambulance.
 
They
wouldn’t let me go with him. That right there was more than enough to make me
hysterical and Dena couldn’t calm me because she was taken away to be examined
by an EMT.
 
It was Bo-Bo (AKA Agent
Pearson) who took me aside to question me.

“You got yourself into a real
mess, didn’t you?” he said.

“Look, if you’re going to book me
with something then book me,” I growled. “Otherwise let me go to Anatoly.”

“I could book you with all sorts
of things.
 
What were you thinking,
not reporting that body you found in The Hotel Noir?”

I bit down on my trembling lower
lip. How did he know? Marcus? I would kill him.

“The thing is, the FBI has an
arrangement with a friend of yours,” he said.

“Who? Marcus?”

Bo-Bo gave me a look.

“Okay, then who?” I snapped right
before the obvious dawned on me. “Anatoly?”

“He should have let us put him in
protective custody from the get go.” He glared at the smoldering house. “Then
none of you would have been in this mess, but he was sure he could get the
mafia to allow him to walk away from it all. The way he introduced our agent
into the family...it
was
subtle. He arranged for what seemed like a chance meeting
between our guy and this guy Innokenty Kinsky.”

“Kenya.”

“That’s right. He gave our agent
all the information he needed to get close to Kenya and it worked. It made it
seem like our agent was actually being brought in by Kenya. Anatoly’s hands
were clean.”

“How did you trick Natasha into
hiring you?” I asked. I was cold…colder than I probably should have been based
on the weather.

“Can’t really get into that.”

The smoke had gone from black to
light grey as the flames died beneath the power of the firefighters’ hoses. Out
of the front door a slightly singed Margarita was being led off in handcuffs.

“Anatoly told us about what
happened between the mafia and Los Tres Seises too,” he said, following my gaze.
“But our goal was not to start a war between the Russians and a major drug
cartel. We want to bring both crime organizations down but in a way that
doesn’t involve so much indiscriminate bloodshed.”

“Well, it’s all going to come out
now,” I said ruefully.
So cold
. I hugged myself for warmth.

“Yeah, but now Margarita has had
several men attempt murder on her order, on American soil, while she was on the
premises. And we have that all on tape.”

“There’s no way you were able to
bug Alex’s house. That place has a crazy security system.”

Bo-Bo shifted his weight and
examined his nails.

My mind was beginning to work
again.
 
“You didn’t bug his
house…you bugged my purse when Natasha tried to kidnap Marcus and me. Wow, that
was smooth…wait, if you could hear what was going on in there, why the hell
didn’t you come in earlier!”

“Well we couldn’t hear much. You
left your purse in the room with Alex and Margarita. All we knew was that we
had a hostage situation. We don’t just burst in on hostage situations without
figuring out what’s going on.”

“Yeah, well I think you might
want to rethink those tactics! My friends and I were almost killed like, two
dozen times!”

“You look like you did okay for
yourself.”

Frustrated, I turned away from
him. And there was Margarita again, being forced into a police car. “So she’s
going to prison?” I asked, putting my frustration momentarily aside. “You won’t
strike up some kind of plea deal in exchange for information on her cartel?”

“She doesn’t have that much to
bargain with. It is, as you said,
her
cartel. She’s the biggest fish we’re gonna
get out of this.” He shrugged. “Maybe we’ll spare her the death sentence for a
list of names or somethin’. That’s the best offer she’ll get.”

I nodded and glanced over at the
ambulance where Dena was being evaluated. “Is she going to be okay?”

“She looks okay from here.”

“I have to get to Anatoly.”

“Sophie, you really could be in a
lot of trouble here. You’ve done a lot of things wrong--”

“Under rather extreme
circumstances,” I pointed out.

“Look, if you cooperate, give a
complete testimony and if…” Bo-Bo’s voice faded and he leaned down and
whispered in my ear, “if you say that you agreed to let me bug your purse,
we’ll give you a free pass.”

I narrowed my eyes. “You didn’t
get a warrant to place it.”

“I got it…but the problem is it
didn’t actually come through until after I did the placing.” He smiled
apologetically, but I could see the desperate plea in his eyes. “We really need
the conversation we got between you, Alex and Margarita to be admissible.”

“Ah.” Tonight I had seen a
handful of men die, one set himself on fire and a house come very close to
burning down…and now I was smiling.

“I’ll testify, although I don’t
really have anything on the mafia, just Alex and Margarita.”

“That’s enough.”

Yes, it certainly was. I didn’t
really need to be the lead witness against an entire mafia. However I could
probably deal with testifying against an individual who had betrayed the mafia
and the head of a drug cartel that might now become defunct.

Bo-Bo looked down at my arms.
“Goosebumps. You’re in shock.”

“I want to see Anatoly. Now.”

He nodded. “I’ll drive you.”

“Dena’s coming too.”

“She probably should go to the
hospital anyway. I’ll drive both of you unless the EMTs think she needs to go
in the ambulance.”

He unlocked the passenger side
door and I got inside. Before he closed it for me he leaned in again. “I need
to ask you one more question, just between us.”

“OK.”

He looked around to ensure no one
was within hearing distance before leaning in a little further. “Is Marcus
single?”

* * * * *
* * * * * * *

Dena was well enough to ride in
Bo-Bo’s car with me and by the time we got to the hospital Anatoly was already
stitched up and doped up. The bullet had gone straight through without hitting
anything vital. Given time he was going to be okay. When Dena heard this she
allowed a nurse to take her from my side so she could get a more thorough exam.
I waited until she was out of sight and then just burst into tears. I sat in
the waiting room sobbing like I had just been given the news that someone I
loved had died. It had been too much. I was still hazy on what exactly had
happened and I couldn’t believe how many times I had come
this close
to death within the last
forty-eight hours. And then…when Anatoly was shot I had thought…

Even in my mind I couldn’t
complete the sentence. I just cried harder still. The other people in the
waiting room looked at me sympathetically at first and eventually they just
averted their eyes. I thought about how I had sobbed after kicking Anatoly out.
How could I have thought that was a catastrophe? I had been forced to deal with
a million bigger catastrophes since then!

I was sobbing for at least ten
minutes before I ran out of breath and energy. I gulped in some air and went to
the bathroom to throw some water on my face before going to see Anatoly.

Lying in a white hospital bed in
a white paper hospital gown he looked more vulnerable than I had ever seen him.
I sat by his side and stared into his glassy eyes.

“You and Dena…you saved me,” I
said softly, taking his hand.

“Are you going to forgive me
now?” he asked in slightly slurred speech.

“I’m sorry, I’m having a hard
time understanding you. It’s hard to talk when someone’s drugged you, huh?”

“I take that as a no.”

“Take it as a warning,” I said
with a little smile. “The way you handled this was seriously fucked up. One
more strike and you’re out for real.”

“I wasn’t supposed to tell you,”
he muttered. “They said not to tell anybody.”

I repressed a giggle. I had never
seen Anatoly stoned before. “I’m not going to ask if
they
represent the mafia or our
government, because as far as I can tell they’re both do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do
kind of organizations. I, on the other hand, promise you that I will put you
and the friends, family and cat I love most before everyone else. I need you to
promise me you’ll do the same. If someone asks you not to tell me something you
have to tell me anyway. That’s what love and loyalty are all about. No
secrets.”

“Ok.”

I wasn’t sure if I believed him
but decided it would be more effective to push the issue when he wasn’t
high.
 
However there was one thing
that couldn’t wait.

“Anatoly, I also need you to
divorce your wife.”

Through the glaze of pain medicine
I could see a spark of cognizance. He understood the importance of what I was
saying and when he squeezed my hand I knew he was aware of how much he had hurt
me.

“As soon as I’m out of here we
can go to the courthouse to file the papers.”

I tilted my head and studied his
complexion under the fluorescent light. Even here in this sterilized room in
that stupid gown he had a certain…radiance. Maybe he had started to use the
Aveeno after all. We had such a unique relationship. Here he was asking me to go
to city hall with him, not to get married but to witness him file for
divorce.
 

“Will Natasha try to drag this
out?”

Anatoly sighed.
 
“I think Natasha’s going to disappear.”

“What makes you say that?”

“She made a major mistake and the
mafia’s going to find out about it. They’re not going to cut her any breaks on
this no matter whose daughter she is. She’ll have to go on the lam.”

“What kind of mistake?”

“I told you I needed to be with
her in order to make this whole thing go away. What I didn’t tell you is that
one of the men working with her is an FBI agent. He’s the one I was trying to
stay close to. I knew he was our only chance of getting out of this. Either I
would help him make the arrests necessary to get the pressure taken off of both
of us or I would tell Natasha that she had hired an FBI agent into her
protection service and would expose her mistake to the higher ups in the family
if
she
didn’t
find a way to ensure your safety.

“That would have put Bo-Bo’s life
in danger.”

“It would have but he’s a
professional capable of taking care of himself and my first and last concern
was to keep you safe.” He paused for a moment before adding, “Bo-Bo…that’s what
you and Marcus are calling him?”

“Yeah, turns out his real name is
Agent Pearson. But to me he’ll always be Bo-Bo the gay Russian thug.”

Anatoly’s mouth twitched at the
corners and I giggled.
 
Then he
started to chuckle and soon we were both in hysterics. Perhaps the drugs were
making him silly and I knew that I was at that point where almost anything
could be silly, but hearing Anatoly laugh like that, here, safe, holding my
hand…it just made me want to laugh more. Because it was funny and wonderful and
everything I wanted…

Everything I wanted was right
here, holding my hand.

* * * * *
* * * * * * *

When I left Anatoly’s room Dena
was sitting in the waiting room. For the first time I really saw the pain she
was trying to hide. “How badly did you hurt yourself?” I asked, taking a seat
beside her.

“It set me back a bit,” she said
casually, but you could hear the effort she was making to keep her voice from
revealing the full extent of the truth. “They gave me some Vicodin but I’m not
gonna take it. I’ll be relying on my cane a little more for the next few
months.”

“Dena, I’m so sorry I got you
into this.”

Dena toyed with her cane, letting
it roll back and forth over the diamond pattern on the carpet. “You know, when
it comes to their take on things like ethics and morality I don’t think there’s
a lot of daylight between Fawn and her brother.”

“No, there isn’t.”

“In fact,” Dena continued, “it’s
almost like he’s the male version of Fawn. Alex
is
Fawn.”

“Um, okay.”

Dena’s eyes had taken on a bit of
a glaze as well, but I could tell this wasn’t drug induced. She was reliving
something, whether it was what had happened with Fawn or what had happened with
Alex was unclear, but whatever it was, it wasn’t exactly pleasant.