Lust, Loathing and a Little Lip Gloss Read online

  “Like?”

  “Like the Specter Society. Ghosts were always more Maria’s thing than Enrico’s. He came to the séances with her, but I don’t think he ever fully bought it. He said he did, but that was probably to appease Kane.”

  “Why would Kane care?”

  “Kane won’t let anyone in the Specter Society who isn’t a believer. Remember that, Soapy, keep your doubt to yourself. But believer or not, Enrico wasn’t gonna stop coming to the meetings. Not if attending meant pissing off Maria. Twice in the last few months Maria wasn’t even invited because she would have been an odd number and Venus made sure Enrico got preference. Venus loved Enrico.”

  “I didn’t think Venus was capable of human emotions.”

  “She displays a few on occasion. Apparently it depends on the cycles of the moon.”

  I started to laugh, but then, remembering what that had led to the last time, forced myself into silence.

  Scott grinned anyway, correctly reading my discomfort. “Look, I believe you about how it went down, and if I had to bet on who killed Enrico I’d put money on Maria, but I really don’t think your story is going to be enough to calm Kane down.”

  “Well, what will be enough?” I asked.

  Scott rapped his knuckles across the hardwood floor in lieu of response.

  “Look, Scott, if you can’t help me with this then…” I gestured toward the exit as a way of ending my sentence.

  “I can help, but I’m not sure you’re going to like my methods.”

  “Oh, this is going to be good. What exactly do you expect me to do?”

  “Change the story. Kane won’t care if you’re guilty or not if he thinks you…you know, communicated with Enrico after he died.”

  “What do you mean he won’t care if I’m guilty? We’re talking about murder here! How can some bogus medium shit compensate for slashing some guy’s neck with a scythe?”

  “You do remember who we’re talking about, right?” Scott asked. “Kane? He’s not normal. Look, he thinks that some people are more connected to the next world than the rest of us and right now he’s inclined to think you’re one of those people.”

  “Why the hell would he think that?”

  “He thinks there’s a possibility that the reason you’ve found so many dead bodies in your life is because, on at least a subconscious level, you knew that these people were going to die. You were allowed to find their bodies first because you needed to make that contact with the spirit world.”

  “So he thinks I’m like a clueless medium?”

  “Yeah, that’s about right.”

  I dropped my head back, inadvertently banging it against the wall. Scott put his hand on my hair as if to soothe the pain, but I slapped him away.

  “Tell Kane that on Enrico’s way to heaven or wherever, he stopped long enough to give me some cooking tips. I can now make tiramisu that is literally to die for. Okay?”

  “He’s not going to buy that, Soapy. He’s going to want some kind of proof, like information you could only have gotten from Enrico.”

  “What, he gives his tiramisu recipe to everybody?”

  Scott gave me a look and I felt my fingernails dig into my palms as I reflexively clenched my fists.

  “Obviously I don’t have that kind of information, Scott. I never even met the guy. So just hold Kane off until I figure out who killed Enrico—”

  “What?” Scott snapped his head in my direction. “You want to find a murderer now? Who died and made you Angela Lansbury?”

  “I don’t want to find a murderer, but what else am I going to do? I can’t lose this house!”

  “Then tell Kane you saw a fucking ghost! If not Enrico, then somebody else. His mother used to live here, say you met her. Let’s figure out a way to put one over on him!”

  “But you just said that telling Kane I saw a ghost won’t be good enough! So if I can’t fulfill his paranormal fantasies I’ll at least have to relieve his suspicions by catching the killer. Anatoly will help me. Really, it’ll be fine.”

  “No, this is not fine.” Scott got to his feet and glared down at me. “I’ve been doing some research on the Internet. There are, like, eight articles in the SF Chronicle’s archives detailing events in which you purposely put yourself smack-dab in the middle of insanely dangerous situations and acted like an idiot!”

  “I have never acted like an idiot!”

  “You have invited suspected killers into your home!”

  Now I got to my feet. “I only did that once, and as it turns out he wasn’t a killer and that’s why I’m dating him now!”

  “Anatoly? You used to think he was a killer? And now that you know he’s not, you’re dating him? That’s your standard?”

  “Hey, well, they can’t all be philandering con artists like you, Scott.”

  Scott stammered for a minute before throwing up his hands in defeat. He turned his back on me and paced the room, his boots leaving footprints in the dust. Eventually he stopped and pivoted in my direction.

  “I don’t know how to talk to you. Not about this.”

  “Then don’t talk,” I said, simply. “Leave.”

  At that moment Mr. Katz entered the room. He took one look at Scott and did a quick 180. Scott watched his retreat, his face the picture of frustration.

  “Okay,” he said finally. “I’m going. But this isn’t finished. I didn’t go through all this just to lose you again.”

  And before I had a chance to remind him that he didn’t actually have me to lose, he was gone and I was alone. I picked up my now-empty plastic Frappuccino cup and crushed it in my hand.

  8

  When it comes to our relationships it’s hard to see the forest for the trees. Better to invest in some emotional deforestation. That way you don’t have to acknowledge any of it.

  —The Lighter Side of Death

  I TRIED TO WASH AWAY MY CONTACT WITH SCOTT IN A LONG, HOT shower, but the pounding of the water only reminded me of how much I wanted to hit something. Part of me realized that my primary problem was with Kane, not Scott, though in this case the idea of killing the messenger had a lot of appeal. I tried to come up with a plan to solve Enrico’s murder, but I couldn’t seem to come up with anything. I’m frequently more focused after writing, so I put the Enrico dilemma aside for a while and took my laptop to Starbucks, where I spent the better part of the day writing a synopsis and the first chapter for a new book. In this one, a woman would be given the opportunity to rescue her ex-husband from a burning building, but would pass it up when she realized that there wasn’t enough time to save both him and her cat.

  I wasn’t any calmer that evening when I pulled up in front of my mother’s house. I sat in my car for a full five minutes, earnestly trying to absorb the quiet serenity of the streets of the Sunset District, but I couldn’t quite manage it.

  I stared up at the heavy fog that seemed to be perpetually present in this area, a constant reminder that the beach was only a few blocks away and beyond that an ocean infinitely bigger than the problems of any single human being. And my problems really were relatively small. I could afford to put a down payment on a $980,000 home at a time when people all over this country were going into foreclosure. But this wasn’t just any house, and that was my difficulty. In some weird way this house was a part of my family and the total illogicality of that statement didn’t make it any less true. I didn’t want to lose it no matter what.

  I exhaled loudly and made faces in the rearview mirror until I came up with a smile convincing enough to hide my aggravation. And that’s what I wore as I rang my mother’s doorbell. But the minute I saw her face I knew my efforts were wasted.

  “Another body!” she howled. She glared up at me, her round, wrinkled face red with frustration. “What are you now, a traveling mortician?”

  “Mama, if you could just hear me out—”

  “All the ladies from the Jewish senior group think you’re cursed!”

  “If I’m under a curse,
then why is it that I’m never the one to get hurt? Maybe I’m blessed, ever think of that?”

  “This doesn’t happen to regular people, Sophie,” she pointed out. “So why must it always happen to you? You look for trouble, that’s why. Always sticking your nose in other people’s business. You want to give me another ulcer already?”

  “You don’t even have one ulcer!”

  “So now the mortician’s a doctor?”

  “I—” But I stopped myself, realizing the futility of this argument. “I’m sorry that I worried you,” I said carefully. “And I promise to keep my nose where it belongs. So, are we done? Can I show you my new house now?”

  “Listen to the way she talks to me,” Mama said, although there was no one other than me to hear her. She opened the door wider and I stepped inside her wallpapered foyer long enough to help her into her favorite purple wool coat. She was a little over five feet tall, if you counted her halo of white curly hair. She reminded me a bit of an aging hobbit. I like hobbits. In the whole Lord of the Rings trilogy it’s the hobbits who always outperform expectations despite their various neuroses, and they have a fierce love of home and community, but still—nobody wants to look like them. Once upon a time my mother had looked so different. She had been a little thinner when I was younger, but always curvy. Her hair had been brown, and she would style it into smooth waves that fell down her back. She never, ever went unnoticed. Once, when I was a teenager, my father had brought home a dozen of Noah’s jalapeño bagels and presented them to Mama like a gift. He said they reminded him of her: spicy, Jewish and irresistibly delicious.

  “What’s with the daydreaming?”

  I blinked in surprise and tried to bring my focus back to my mother, who was now waiting to leave. “What is it, mamaleh?” she asked, her tone gentler than before. “Is there something bothering you?”

  “No,” I said quickly. “I just realized that I forgot to stop at Noah’s earlier. I haven’t eaten much today and a bagel sounds perfect.”

  “So we’ll order pizza after we get to your new home,” she said decidedly. “I want to see the fancy house. Nine hundred and eighty thousand dollars! They should make these places out of gold for what they charge.”

  Mama carried the conversation for the entire car ride. Ac cording to her, I was too skinny, the low cut of my jeans made me look like one of those shiksas that lived with that “Heffner character,” and if I didn’t stop treating my cat like a child he’d be expecting a bar mitzvah in a few years. I responded with mmm-hmms and uh-huhs and tried to be chastened rather than complimented by her rebukes.

  I parked my Audi in my driveway rather than the garage and went around the passenger side to open her door. But she didn’t get out. Instead she simply stared at the house with her mouth open. “This,” she finally said, still firmly in her seat, “this is the house you bought?”

  “Well, sort of. I’m really still in the process of buying it, but I’ll have the deed soon.”

  Mama finally got out, but she didn’t walk toward the door.

  “You…you picked it out yourself?”

  “Well, yeah, Mama. It’s not like you can hire a personal shopper for this kind of thing.”

  The corners of her mouth began to tremble and I would have sworn I saw her blink away a tear.

  “Mama? Mama, what’s wrong?”

  She turned to me and placed a dry wrinkled hand on each one of my cheeks. “You’re just like your father, that’s what you are.”

  “Um, okay,” I muttered, not sure of what to make of my mother’s non sequitur. “Do you want to come in and see the place?”

  My mother removed her hands and slowly turned back to the house. After a moment’s thought she shook her head and sat back down in the car. “Not tonight, mamaleh. This I need to work up to.”

  I stared at her blankly. “What are you talking about? You were in a major rush to get the grand tour a few minutes ago and now you have to work up to it? It’s a house, not a rollercoaster ride!”

  As I finished my sentence I heard the sound of Anatoly’s Harley pull to a stop several yards away. I glanced nervously at my mother. She never failed to make a comment about Anatoly’s bike whenever she saw it. It was, to her mind, too dangerous, too loud and too much of a spectacle. But this time her mouth remained closed as she continued to stare up at my home. Anatoly strode up to me, a small, blue shopping bag in his hand. Seeing my mother in my car, he bent down and offered his free hand in greeting. “Mrs. Katz, it’s always good to see you.”

  My mother accepted his hand with a distracted smile. Her silence was as deafening as the roar of the ocean, but Anatoly didn’t seem to notice. He straightened back up and placed his lips against my ear. “I forgot she was coming,” he whispered. “Any chance I could talk to you alone for just a minute?”

  “What?” I asked, still focused on my mother. Finally I pulled my eyes to Anatoly’s and saw the urgency there. “All right,” I finally said. “I think I’m about to take my mother home. Can it wait until after that?”

  “I don’t need to be anywhere for over an hour,” he replied. “If you let me in I’ll wait for you here.”

  I pulled out my key chain and held up two identical gold keys. I removed one and placed it in his hand. “It’s yours.”

  A smile flickered across his face and I watched as he opened my front door and then closed himself inside my house.

  I cast another glance at Mama, only to see that she was still in a partial trance. Without another word I got in the driver’s seat and drove her home. I wanted to ask her again why she hadn’t gone inside, but I kept my mouth shut. For one thing I sensed that she didn’t want to talk; for another I wasn’t at all sure that I wanted to listen. I had the irrational fear that she knew some secret that would explain my attachment to that house. I wanted to believe that my feelings of attachment were natural. Just the normal passions of a first-time home owner and that consequently those passions were rooted in the present, despite my growing, nagging suspicion that this particular passion was directly connected to me in a way I didn’t understand yet.

  So I pretended she was tired and I brought her to her door with tenderness and left her with a kiss. She didn’t argue, which in and of itself should have been cause for alarm…if I had allowed it to be.

  When I got back home Anatoly was waiting for me on the couch, the blue shopping bag now folded up by his side. He didn’t get up to greet me, but instead gestured to a box that he had used to hold what looked to be a small cocktail and a box of chocolate. I took a few steps forward to get a better look.

  The chocolate was from CocoaBella, my absolute favorite chocolatier. Either he was about to deliver me a blow or he wanted something from me.

  “Maria contacted me today,” he said. “She wants to hire me to find out who killed Enrico.”

  “I thought she believed a ghost did that.”

  “She still believes that, but her sister convinced her to hire a P.I. anyway on the off chance that she’s wrong,” he said with a soft laugh. “She’s not the only suspect the police have, but she is the main one and she wants to take all possible steps to prove her innocence.”

  “Well, you should definitely take the case,” I said, lifting the glass to my lips. It was a Cape Cod…double shot. “I was about to hire you to investigate the same thing anyway.”

  “Why do you care who killed Enrico?”

  “Maria isn’t the only suspect, you know. We were there, too.”

  “As I said, I don’t think we’ll be suspects for long. We just need to give them time to check our alibis and all that. After all, you were with Leah for most of the day. While you were with her I met with two different clients and later I bribed a bartender to tell me about the guy I was following. We’ll be in the clear soon.”

  “But they’ll have to check the credibility of our witnesses. After all, my sister has plenty of reasons to lie for me and God knows I’ve lied to the police in the past. They’ll need to assure themse
lves that I’m being honest this time and it could take them over six days to do that.”

  “Is that a big deal? I would think you’d be used to this kind of thing by now.”

  With a sigh I joined him on the couch. “Kane doesn’t want to sell this place to a murder suspect. I need to be sure I’m not one by the time escrow closes.”

  Anatoly absorbed this and then gestured to my drink. “Have another sip.”

  “Anatoly, what’s going on?”

  “I’m going to take the case,” he said, “not because I’m worried about either of us being suspects or because you need to close escrow, but because Maria is offering me a lot of money.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “But before I begin,” he continued, “I need you to promise me something.”

  “What sort of promise are you looking for?”

  “I want you to promise that you will not try to help me.”

  “Anatoly—”

  “I mean it, Sophie. I want to get through this without having to worry about you getting yourself maimed, shot or killed.”

  I was tempted to argue that I was actually very good at detective work and that I didn’t attract disaster, but Anatoly didn’t look like a man who had been suddenly struck with amnesia. “What if I just did a little research on the Internet into Enrico’s life—”

  “No,” Anatoly said definitively. “No helping.”

  “Fine,” I said. “But you better find out who did this quickly. You can’t expect me to sit on my hands for long, not when this house is at stake.”

  “That’s the other thing I need to talk to you about,” Anatoly said, slower this time. His eyes moved from box to box until they finally fell on the bookcase now half-filled with some of my recently unpacked books. “I don’t want you in this house.”