Vanity, Vengeance And A Weekend In Vegas (A Sophie Katz Novel) (8 page)

“Great…then, um, I’ll try to get
an appointment around 9ish.”

“Sounds good.”

 
I paused for a moment. “I want my check back.”

“That’s too bad. You gave it to
me as payment for a favor, remember?”

“That was a mistake.”

“Yeah, but it was
your
mistake,
not mine.” He cocked his head to the side. “Of course if you think you really
are legally entitled to it we could bring it to the courts. Should we bring it
to the attention of a small claims court, Sophie?”

I bit down on my lip.

“I didn’t think so. Again, I hope
you enjoy your stay.” He got up and opened the door for me.

There was really nothing more to
say so I walked out, past Anne, who offered me a cursory goodbye, and out into
the casino.

The hour that I had told my friends
that I would be using for a nap was just about up. I found my way to the edge
of the casino and called Dena.

“So you’re finally awake?” Dena
asked upon picking up. But I could hear the accusation in her voice.

“I um, wasn’t actually sleeping.”

“No shit.”

I covered one of my ears to
better block out the sounds coming from the slots. “I didn’t want to lie but I
had to do this alone,” I continued.

“Do
what
alone?””

“I came back to The Hotel Noir.” A
woman a few feet away lit up a cigarette and the smell of self-destruction
overtook me. “I wanted to find the guy I paid the $250 to.”

“Please tell me you’re kidding.”

“I found him,” I said quickly.

 
“Is he a guest in the hotel?”

“Umm…no. He’s the GM of the
hotel.”

Another pause. “The GM,” she said
flatly.

“Yep.”

“Yeah, I’m not a hotelier or
anything but if the GM there is willing to sell out for $250 The Hotel Noir
might need to put together a more competitive compensation package for its
management.”

“I don’t think he did it for the
money. Actually I can’t really figure out why he did it. I asked him…” my voice
trailed off as I spotted a woman watching me from halfway across the room. But
she wasn’t just
a
woman, she was
the
woman. She was standing next to the craps table. This time her
dress was purple and black (I recognized it from the Versace ad campaign) and
her pink stiletto heels had been replaced by black stiletto boots.

“Dena, I gotta go.”

“What do you mean,
you gotta go
?
Are you still at the Hotel Noir?”

“I’ll call you back in a bit,” I
said. “Promise.”

“Sophie!” But I hung up.

The stiletto woman started
walking toward me at the same moment I started walking toward her. There was a
determination in her step that made everyone around her make way. I had been in
a daze last night. I hadn’t been able to see through the little sex-kitten act
she was putting on but now that act seemed paper-thin. It couldn’t conceal the
tough and almost frightening force that lay behind it. This was not a woman to be
messed with.

We both stopped when there was no
more than three feet between us. At the roulette table next to us someone
shrieked for joy as another groaned.

Simultaneously we asked the same
question: “Where is he?”

She hesitated a moment and then
glanced around the room nervously. “Let’s take a walk,” she suggested.

“Why can’t we talk here?”

“People might be listening,” she
explained as she led me toward the exit. “It’s not a normal hotel.”

“Not normal by Vegas standards?”

“Not normal by
any
standards.”

“So what are you saying? It’s the
Hotel California?”

“Yes,” she said dryly. “The Hotel
California in Nevada.” She pushed open the glass doors leading to the strip.
“But the big difference is that
you
can get out.”

 
I followed her into the sunshine and dug into my bag for some
sunglasses. “Well we’re both outside so I guess that means you can get out
too.”

“No, not really,” she said
quietly. “Not in any way that matters.”

I didn’t understand what that
meant so I let it pass for the moment. I watched her open up her handbag but
instead of taking out sunglasses she took out a package of cigarettes. “Want
one?”

“I don’t smoke. I’m not a big fan
of secondhand smoke either.”

“Oh?” She asked, blithely
lighting up a cigarette. “So you decided to ignore my advice? You’re not
leaving Vegas?”

“It sounded more like a warning
than advice, but yes, I’m ignoring it.”

Stiletto lady shrugged. I was
having a hard time keeping up with her without getting winded which was humbling
since I wasn’t wearing killer heels or sucking in carcinogens.

 
“Warning you to get out of Vegas was supposed to be my good
deed of the week but you’ve completely messed that up.” She took another long
drag from her cigarette. “You’re probably going to ignore this advice too but
if you
are
going
to stay in Vegas you should at least stay away from The Hotel Noir.”

“Oh for God’s sake, if there’s
something you want to tell me about the hotel then tell me! I don’t have time
to decipher codes.”

She blew out a long stream of
smoke as a family of four hurried past us on the sidewalk. “It’s owned by a
very powerful family.”

The alarm bells that went off in
my head were so loud it was surprising other people couldn’t hear them. “Are we
talking about the Russian mafia?”

Ms. Stiletto smiled “I don’t
really believe in labels.”

“Riiight, well I guess a turd by
any other name smells just a shitty.” I tried to take a deep breath but that
ended with a cough.
 
“The woman who
was with Anatoly last night—”

“Tanya Davi,” she supplied, “my
cousin.”

I was overtaken by an unwelcome
wave of sympathy. “I’m sorry.”

“Me too. No one should have to
put up with a family member like Tanya. She’s awful.”

“You’re…you’re using the present
tense.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” She glanced
back toward the direction of the hotel and then grabbed my arm and abruptly
pulled me onto a side street. The pedestrian traffic immediately became more
manageable.
 
A pudgy middle-aged
man at a bus stop flashed us a crooked toothed grin as we passed.
 

 
“What happened to Tanya?” I asked carefully.

“She handed in her resignation
this morning and now she’s gone. But to be fair, she’s been dead to me for
quite some time now.”

I gave her a sideways glance but
she kept her focus straight ahead.

“That’s not what happened,” I
said firmly.

She shrugged. “Winners write the
history books.” She shot me a quick meaningful look. “Tanya isn’t the winner
here. There is no other story to be told.”

I came to an abrupt stop.
Stiletto lady followed my example and pivoted to face me.

“Who the hell are you and why
can’t you talk like a normal human being! Not everything needs to be a fucking
riddle, metaphor or analogy! What. Is.
Wrong with you
?”

She glanced around the area as if
there might be spies around every corner. “I’m a friend of Anatoly’s,” she said
carefully. She then brought her eyes to me. I recognized her expression; after
all I’d seen it in the mirror enough times. It was determination mingled with a
healthy dose of fear.
 
“I can help
him. I saved his life last night—”

“Wait,
you
saved his life? What the hell
happened?”

“—and if you know where he
is you’ve got to tell me because I swear I can save him again. I might be the
only one who can.”

“You won’t even give me your
name! Why should I trust you enough to tell you anything?”

“I guess I’m just hoping you have
good instincts about people,” she said with a sad smile. “I’m not asking you to
just give me his location, not if you’re not comfortable with that. You can
take me there and be there right by my side and if Anatoly thinks I’m some kind
of threat to him he can shoot me on the spot….but he’s not going to think
that.”

“Because you saved his life
yesterday.”

“Exactly.” The wind picked up her
red hair and it flew almost gracefully behind her shoulders, like a Chinese
flag without the yellow stars.
 
I
didn’t trust this woman and I didn’t like her…but none of that really mattered
because I didn’t have any information to give her even if I wanted to.

“I don’t know where he is.”

She studied me for a moment and then
took a very long drag off her cigarette. “Well shit,” she whispered. “Where the
hell could he be?”

“When did you last see him?” I
asked, trying unsuccessfully to keep the rising panic out of my voice. “What
happened last night?”

She was quiet for a moment as she
stared at the cigarette between her fingers. “Are you the reason Anatoly quit
smoking?”

I hesitated. I hadn’t known that
Anatoly had ever smoked. I let my eyes wander to the cars lined up impatiently
at the red light. “He…he quit before we met,” I hedged.

“Ah.” Did she sound relieved?
“Well he never smoked much to begin with,” she went on. “Just while enjoying a
good cognac or after sex.”

My head snapped back in her
direction. She raised her eyebrows mockingly as she sucked leisurely on her
cigarette.

“Natasha?” I asked.

“Ah, you know my name.” She
craned her neck upward before blowing out a long steady stream of smoke.

 
“If you see him tell him I can still help him,” she said and
then added with a sly smile. “Tell him I’ll bend over backwards for him…just
like old times.”

I stood there frozen as she
turned on her impossibly skinny high heels and walked away.

“They say a good man is worth
fighting for. But a man who’s good for YOU shouldn’t make you fight just for
the right to be in his life.”

--Death of The Party

I thought of following her but
what would be the point? It’s not like she could lead me to him now.

His wife!
That was the woman he was claiming to marry for citizenship. Sure,
and Brad Pitt was shacking up with Angie because he needed someone to split the
house payments with.

I started walking back to my
hotel. I couldn’t stomach the idea of going to the sex toy trade show now. My
amused indifference to all those deviant devices had morphed into an intense hatred.
As if an inflatable doll could ever replace the feeling of Anatoly’s warm skin.
As if I needed a lotion to become sensitive to the path of kisses he made up my
thigh. As if something as harsh as a nipple clamp could somehow be more
exciting than Anatoly’s gentle fingers as he caressed my breasts, bringing my
nipples to attention. It was like a cruel joke; the universe’s way of reminding
me of what was lost.

And the worst part was that the
man who had made me feel all that…I didn’t even know if he was dead....

I shook my head, hard, as if
trying to fling the idea out of my head. I gave Dena a call and let her know my
plans and so I wasn’t all that surprised when I finally got back to my room and
found both her and Mary Ann there, sitting on my bed.

Mary Ann got up and pulled me
into a hug. “You’re having a hard time, huh?”

I sighed and dropped down in one
of the chairs. “My life sucks.”

 
“I’ve been thinking,” Mary Ann said, as she sat back down
next to Dena, “maybe things aren’t as bad as they seem.”

“How is that even possible?” I
laughed.

“Well, we know someone broke into
your house and brought your stuff to that hotel room but maybe there wasn’t an
actual murder. Maybe, just maybe this woman committed suicide!”

Dena shifted her position to look
at Mary Ann. “The woman was found stuffed in a closet with a bullet hole in her
head, in a room that wasn’t hers and without a gun in her hand. What about that
sounds like a suicide?”

“Well, I was thinking,” Mary Ann
said again, “what if she didn’t want her blood and…you know, her…her brains
splattering all over the place.
 
So
she decided to, like, contain it to the closet? She was just being
considerate!”

“And the fact that she didn’t
have a gun?” Dena asked dryly.

“Are we sure she didn’t have a
gun?” Mary Ann pressed. “Maybe she was sitting on it.”

“Uh-huh.” Dena looked like she
was working extra hard not to hit her cousin over the head with the jaguar
handle of her cane.
 
“How did she
manage to sit on her gun
after
she had just used it to shoot herself in the head?”

“Oh, oh, I thought of this!” Mary
Ann was bouncing up and down on the bed, pleased that she had managed to
anticipate this line of questioning. “I was reading this article in Yahoo News
and it said that sometimes bodies have these, like, reflexive reactions right
after they die. Like sometimes someone will blink and move their mouth after
being decapitated or, um, sometimes their arms jerk around—”

“Those are convulsions!” Dena
snapped. “Bodies convulse after the brain has stopped working properly but they
don’t stick handguns under their ass! You need to reread that article!”

“I met Anatoly’s wife,” I
interjected. That got both of their attention.

“What’s she like?” Mary Ann
whispered.

“She’s a Bond Girl. A bad one.
Anatoly married Pussy Galore.”

Mary Ann cocked her head to the
side, making her curls cascade over her right shoulder. “I thought Pussy Galore
was one of the good Bond girls.”

“Good or bad,” Dena said, “nobody
marries
Pussy
Galore. It would be like marrying your battery operated Octopus.”

“Yeah? Well then that’s what
Anatoly did. But it doesn’t matter. She may have married him but she’s not
keeping him.”
 
My volume was rising
but I couldn’t seem to bring it back down. “I will NOT lose everything! I’m the
one who’s going to save Anatoly from Dr. Evil or whatever.
 
This stiletto wearing, carcinogen
inhaling, pussy-galore
bitch
is just going to have to play Russian roulette with somebody
else!”

My friends didn’t respond right
away. I knew I was on the verge of losing it. On the other hand, dealing with
any of this while sane might not even be possible. The time had come to embrace
the crazy.

“So,” Dena said in a voice that
was straining for calm, “I guess this means you’re not ready to kick Anatoly to
the curb after all.”

I blinked in surprise. Oddly
enough I hadn’t really thought about that. I had been so caught up in just
making sure he was alive I hadn’t worked out what I would do with him if he
was.

“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “This
is putting a lot of strain on our relationship.”

“He’s hardly been the pinnacle of
loyalty,” Dena said.

“Maybe not,” I agreed, “but…but
he’s still
mine
and if anyone’s going to kill him it should be me. Not the extended family
of some mafia slut!”

Mary Ann twisted one of her curls
around her finger. “In a weird way, that’s kinda romantic.” Dena shot her a
disgusted look but Mary Ann persisted.
 
“She has to do this. She loves him and…when it’s true love you have to
do what you can to protect that, right? It’s in every good Disney movie.”

Dena put her hand over her chest.
“Oh my God, what has Monty done to you?”

“And you know what else?” Mary
Ann continued unfazed, “In all the
really
good Disney fairytales the princess
rescues the prince before he has a chance to rescue her! Monty says that’s how
Disney honors feminism. The princess gets to rescue the prince before he takes
her in his arms, marries her, showers her with luxury and takes care of her for
the rest of her life! It’s, like, a Gloria Steinem thing.”

I blinked. “Not…quite.”

Dena got up and took my hand. “I
know you don’t want to hear this, but there’s a chance that you might not be
able to take down the Russian mafia. Can you at least consider that
possibility?”

“But…what if I have to in order
to get him back?” My eyes filled with tears. Dena briskly pulled a tissue from
the Kleenex box on the desk and handed it over to me.

“Sophie, what about the GM you
gave the check to? What’s going on with that?”

I gave Mary Ann and Dena the full
run down of the morning’s events. They listened quietly and it was only when I
was done that Dena made a comment. “If he’s telling the truth, you’re out of
the woods.”

“That’s a big if and it doesn’t
sound like Anatoly’s out of the woods at all.”

 
Dena sighed. “Look, come back to the Trade Show with us. We
can talk about all this while sampling flavored exotic oils.”

“I can’t. Really, I’m so, so
tired.”

Dena gave me a severe look. “You
used that line earlier this morning, remember?”

“I’m serious this time. Call the
room in a half hour and see if I’m here if you like but seriously, I can’t go
to the trade show right now.”

Dena studied my dark circles and
bloodshot eyes. “You better not be bullshitting me, Sophie.”

“Dena, you’re one of the very few
people in this world I’ve never lied to. You know that.”

Dena nodded and gestured for Mary
Ann to get up. “I’ll be calling the room later, just to be sure.” Mary Ann gave
me one more hug.
 
As Dena opened
the door for her she gave me a sympathetic smile. “Just do me a favor and think
about this. Anatoly’s married to someone else. He doesn’t have to be your
problem any more…unless you need him to be.”

I didn’t say anything as the door
closed behind them. Part of me wanted to shout after her that I didn’t need
anyone to be my problem. But I couldn’t force out the lie. Problems were a
necessary part of life.
 
To say you
didn’t need problems was to say you didn’t need love.

I lay down and attempted to sleep
but my thoughts kept waking me up and when I did sleep my dreams were replaced
with memories.

I remembered the day Anatoly had
made whipped cream from scratch.
 
I
had teased him for not taking the Cool Whip route and he had responded by
picking up the bowl of his homemade concoction and leading me up the stairs to
our bedroom. He sat me down on the bed and explained that homemade whipped
cream was richer than anything you could buy in a store. He then slid a cream
coated finger into my mouth. Next he pulled my shirt over my head and removed
my bra before instructing me on where to put the cream. He watched as I did so explaining
that, unlike the store bought brands, homemade whipped cream was rich but not
too sweet. As I lifted my finger for another taste he lowered his mouth to my
breast. A trail of cream was painted on my stomach as he described the texture
of a good whipped cream.
 
It had
been hard to listen at that point because his hand had already slipped inside
my jeans. As I felt his fingers enter me I…

…I woke up.
 
A memory, not really a dream.

I sighed and swung my legs over
the side of the bed. Six years. Six years of going in circles with this guy.
Our first date had ended with an argument. I had stormed off and less than ten
minutes later he was saving my life. That’s how it always was with him. Either
he was saving my life or driving me insane. It seems like there should be a
middle ground. One that doesn’t involve fatalities or mental illness.

Dena never yelled at her lovers
the way I yelled at Anatoly, not even Jason whom she loved and had sustained a
committed but open relationship with for a few years now. Of course while in
the bedroom she would occasionally whip him, sometimes tie him up…throw in a
ballgag and a blindfold and it was easy to see how she was able to channel her
aggressions into a mutually agreed upon activity. But if she became angry with Jason’s
behavior outside of the bedroom she’d just tell him straight up what her beef
was and then she’d walk away until he decided to come around. “Men are not
worth frown lines.” That was her motto. Her cousin Mary Ann had a whole
different approach to love. Love turned her into a doe-eyed fairy princess. She
had even wanted to get married in front of Sleeping Beauty’s Castle at
Disneyland until my sister mercifully talked her out of it.

But for me it was different. I
couldn’t deal with love in the pragmatic manner that Dena did and I wasn’t
enough of a romantic to harbor any Cinderella fantasies. Love, for reasons I
can
not
explain,
turned me into a fighter. It was like love was the arena and I was the Matador
choosing to wave a red flag in front of a bull. It was a brutal, beautiful,
compelling and totally addictive sport.

And in
my
version of the game no animals were
ever harmed. The only thing that ever got trampled on were hearts…usually mine.
The bull almost always got away leaving me with nothing more than a pile of his
BS.

I surveyed the room. I could pack
up and be out of here by the end of the day. Maybe that’s what I should do.
Maybe Anatoly wasn’t even in Vegas anymore. Wasn’t it at least possible that he
had gone back to San Francisco? Did he even know I was here?

I opened the drawer of the
nightstand and pulled out Anatoly’s iPhone. What kind of moron runs out of a
room without his phone? No matter what the emergency you
always
grab you phone!

I glared at the screen.
“Stupido,” I said in what I imagined was a fairly good Spanish accent. I liked
the feel of the word. “Stupido,” I said again and this time I reached my arm
back and hurled the phone at the door….

….and it was caught…by Anatoly.