Lust, Loathing and a Little Lip Gloss Page 20

  The man at the door immediately brightened. “So you’re Mr. Crammer!” he exclaimed. “I was beginning to think I was going to be doing this entire job without ever meeting you. Not that Gemma isn’t great. I told her as much before she headed out of here a few minutes ago. She’s very polite and very precise when giving your instructions. That’s important. But still, I always like to talk to the real owner of the place I’m working on when I can.”

  Marcus opened up his mouth to protest, but I beat him to the punch by thrusting my hand toward the man in front of us. “Hi,” I said quickly. “I’m Kane’s friend Venus. Good to meet you…um,” I looked to Marcus as if I expected him to know the man’s name. As I had hoped the man didn’t give Marcus a chance to fumble.

  “Manny,” he said, taking my hand in a firm shake. “I just finished redoing Mr. Crammer’s cabinetry in the kitchen. Would you like to do a final walk-through with me?” he asked, directing the last question to Marcus.

  Marcus gritted his teeth. “Fine,” he said irritably, although I knew he was really talking to me, not Manny. “We’ll do a walk-through.”

  Manny beamed and led us inside.

  I had expected Kane’s home to be in keeping with his barren trees and ostentatious door, but it was nothing of the sort. The soaring ceilings and mahogany furniture were kept from appearing overly grandiose by the moderate clutter in each room. A man’s coat was draped over the sofa in the spacious living room and a large glass mug with a spent tea bag had been abandoned on the coffee table. In the formal dining room, the table was covered with mail sorted in several different piles. The whole place was livable. Or at least it would have been if it wasn’t for the strong smell of varnish coming from the kitchen Manny quickly led us into.

  “Your assistant told me how sensitive you are about the smell,” Manny said to Marcus apologetically. “Of course I did the cabinets at my shop so what you’re smelling is the island that I just refinished to match.” He gestured to the island in the center of the room whose granite top paled in comparison to the gleaming wood that held it up. “It’ll be a little better by the night, or are you still planning to stay in a hotel this evening to avoid it?”

  “Haven’t decided,” Marcus said absently. He walked up to the cabinets and examined the workmanship. “Good God, these are fabulous!”

  And they were. No coat of arms this time. This woodwork was more subtle and infinitely more beautiful. He had carved some rather abstract flourishes to border each hinged door and while it was clear that the work had been done by hand, it also appeared to be perfectly symmetrical. However, the thing that held my attention was the empty dog bowl in the corner. It was one thing to fool a contractor who had never met Kane, but it was unlikely that we would be able to convince a dog. But I didn’t hear a dog, so perhaps Kane had taken him with him.

  “So you honestly like them?” Manny asked, clearly fishing for compliments.

  “Does Oprah like books?” Marcus turned to him and smiled. “You’re an artist.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Crammer!” Manny beamed. “Looks like my work here is done.” He shook my hand one more time before turning to Marcus. “If you ever want more woodwork or cabinetry done I hope you’ll consider my services again.”

  “How could anyone not consider hiring you?” Marcus said, cleverly sidestepping the pitfall of making a promise as Mr. Crammer.

  “Great! Then I better get going, I have another job scheduled.”

  “I’ll walk you out,” I offered.

  As we retraced our steps to the front door I kept my eye out for a dog, but didn’t see anything. Manny leaned over conspiratorially. “When I asked Mr. Crammer’s assistant what Mr.

  Crammer was like she said he was stylish and a bit dark. I thought she meant metaphorically dark, I didn’t think she was actually talking about skin color.”

  I smiled without answering.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” Manny said quickly, apparently unnerved by my lack of response, “I think it’s great that this neighborhood has a little color. Really great, hope to make it here one day myself.”

  “Don’t we all,” I said smoothly, opening the door for him. “You really did a great job. Thank you…on behalf of Mr. Crammer.”

  Manny nodded and I closed the door as he made his way down the steps to the street. I counted to ten and then ran back to the kitchen. “We’re in! We’re in Kane’s house! Unchaperoned! We so rock!”

  “This is not a good idea,” Marcus said, shaking his head. “What if Manny-dearest ever gets around to really meeting Kane? If Manny gives a description of you, you’re toast, darlin’. You’re not exactly the nondescript-girl-next-door. And in case you haven’t noticed, that bowl belongs to a dog.”

  “But that’s the beauty of this whole thing. Manny’s done his job so the chances are he won’t ever meet Kane, but if he does he’s not going to admit that he let two strangers into his house. It will be in his interest to keep quiet. As for the dog, if he was here he would have made himself known by now.”

  Marcus tapped his index finger against his chin. “You may be right about that. Still—”

  “We don’t have time to debate this. It sounds like Kane might not be back until tomorrow, but we need to do this search quickly just in case he decides to come home to pack up some stuff.”

  “I have news for you,” Marcus said, “I’m not staying more than forty minutes. I want to be long gone before ghost-boy even thinks about coming home. Now, what am I searching for again?”

  “Anything that will give us insight into Kane’s parents’ life. Why don’t you look around and see if you can find an office or a study or something and I’ll check out the bedroom.”

  I left Marcus to find his way around the house while I made my way to the second floor, where I imagined Kane’s bedroom would be. At the top of the staircase was a somewhat stark hallway. In fact, the only thing in the hallway was a long, narrow rug that served to mask the sound of my footsteps.

  To either side of me there were rooms with doors left wide open. I spotted one bedroom so bare and pristine it could only be a guest room, and not a frequently used one at that. There was also a room that had been turned into a makeshift gym, complete with a treadmill, strength training machine and free weights. To my right there was a spacious bathroom, and in front of me, at the very end of the hall, was what had to be Kane’s bedroom. The door was partially open, allowing a sliver of sunshine to shed its light on the floor in front of it.

  My heartbeat picked up speed. Marcus was right, if we got caught sneaking around in this house we would be seriously screwed. But this was my best chance of getting answers. Without allowing myself to think too much about the possible consequences, I walked in.

  I took a moment to absorb it all. The dark wood bed frame was both masculine and appealing. He had a wardrobe that could have easily been purchased at Sotheby’s, considering the craftsmanship that had obviously gone into it. And then there was the original abstract painting he had hung on his wall which was every bit as compelling as it was disturbing. Violent sweeps of paint left textured evidence of the artist’s passion and anger. Just left of center was a large, dramatic splash of red paint that had been allowed to drip down to the bottom like blood. It was probably worth a fortune, but it begged the obvious question: who in their right mind would want something like that in their bedroom? Was Kane’s goal here to covet nightmares or to simply avoid sleep altogether?

  Unable to answer these questions, I let my eyes drop to an attractive but more mundane dresser. On top of it were several photos in matte silver frames. I stepped closer to get a better look.

  There were no pictures of Oscar in the photos. One was of a much younger Kane, standing alone in front of one of the buildings at San Francisco State University. That surprised me a little. SF State was a perfectly respectable school, but I would have thought that someone with Kane’s resources would attend a private university along the lines of Stanford or something. Of course, there
was always the chance that his grades were low enough to make that impossible, but even so, SF State was rarely the backup school for the millionaire set.

  The other photo was of Sutro Heights. I smiled at this. It had been ages since I had been to Sutro Heights, but as a child I had picnicked there with my family on a fairly regular basis. It was the ruins of what had once been the estate of the once powerful Sutro family, long since been made into a small national park. Not many tourists knew about it and it wasn’t exactly considered a hot spot by the majority of San Franciscans, but that was what made it so wonderful. A lovely park, the ruins of a fabulous mansion, a spectacular view of the ocean and it is never overcrowded. How could you not fall in love with the place?

  And yet, when I thought about it, the fact that Sutro Heights had made an impression on Kane bothered me. As far as I was concerned, the less Kane and I had in common the better.

  I moved on from the photo and examined the next one. It was a picture of a woman with a thick mane of red hair that tumbled down her back. Her skin was wrinkled, but her numerous and prominent freckles made me wonder if that wasn’t from sun exposure rather than age. With that in mind, I guessed her to be in her midforties. She might have looked even younger if she had been smiling. But instead, her lips were pressed together in a tight line as she blankly stared at the camera. Sitting at her side was a boy of about eleven or twelve. It was easy to identify the adolescent as Kane. His arm was around the woman and his head was on her shoulder. It had to be his mother. But if so, she didn’t look like she had been the maternal sort. In the photo she barely seemed aware of her son’s presence.

  Then again…as I scrutinized the details I saw that her hand was actually on Kane’s knee and, if the wrinkles in his pant-leg were any indication, she was squeezing it hard.

  So these were the three pictures Kane chose to put on the dresser. One of him and his mom, a scenic photo of a park, and a picture of him standing in front of SF State. That seemed significant to me, especially considering that I hadn’t noted any other photos displayed around the house. There were no pictures of friends or the grandparents who had apparently loved him enough to bequeath this house to him, and not a single photo of his father, whom I was supposed to summon from the grave. What was up with that?

  I fingered the knob for the top drawer of the dresser and tried to decide if I was up for the trauma of going through Kane’s underwear on the off chance that there was something of interest hidden among his briefs, but before I could work up my nerve something else caught my attention. What at first glance I had taken for a bench underneath Kane’s bedroom window wasn’t a normal bench at all, but an antique hope chest. So much more promising than an underwear drawer.

  I crossed to it immediately, and was gratified to find it was unlocked. But what really made my day was what lay inside. Stacks and stacks of photo albums and scrapbooks. A huge grin spread across my face. There would be something in here that could convince Kane that I had been talking to the dead. Lots of things. How could there not be?

  With greedy hands I snatched up the album on top only to replace it quickly when I found that it was filled with nothing but shots of various landscapes. Apparently Kane had a hobby.

  The next album was more promising. There were pictures of Kane as a child, usually in the arms of his mother. A few of them were at the beach, and, in the photos from Kane’s later elementary-school years, there were pictures of him and his mom at Sutro Heights.

  I made a mental note of this. Your mom spoke to me, I imagined myself saying. She liked the beach and parks. This was about as convincing as the horoscopes included in the Sunday paper, but it was a start. I continued to flip through the pages, memorizing some of his mother’s outfits and her various hairstyles through the years. Oscar must have been the designated family photographer because he wasn’t in any of the shots. At least that was my assumption, until I got to the second last page. This one was taken at the San Francisco Zoo. Oscar, Kane and his mother were standing in front of the polar bear exhibits. Oscar was standing behind both mother and son, one hand on each of their shoulders. It would have been a typical family photo except for one small problem. Oscar only had half of a face. Someone had scratched out the other half from the picture.

  I ran my index finger over the destruction. Had Kane done this? Maybe his mom? Even if it had been his mom, certainly Kane hadn’t fully disapproved of her actions, otherwise he wouldn’t have kept the ruined picture, would he?

  Carefully, I closed the album and with a little trepidation picked up the next one. When I opened it up my heart plummeted down into my stomach.

  These weren’t pictures of Kane’s family.

  They were pictures of mine.

  16

  When I wanted to lose weight I forced myself to go skydiving, handle dangerous animals and walk the inner city at night. Terror is a wonderful appetite suppressant.

  —The Lighter Side of Death

  THERE I WAS AT TEN, THROWING A FRISBEE WITH MY DAD AT SUTRO Heights. There was another of Leah at eight holding both my mom’s and dad’s hands as they led her across the street toward the studio that held her dance classes. There was another of my dad, taken from a far distance…so far that even I had to hold the photo close to ensure it was really him. In this one, he was standing by a car that had been parked on the street. It looked like there might have been glass by his feet, but that could have been a trick of the light playing off a puddle or something. What was clear was that he was staring in the direction of the photographer, and, while it was hard to make out, that his hands were in fists by his side. He had always done that when he was struggling to control his temper. I did it, too.

  I swallowed hard and forced myself to turn the page. There he was again, this time looking perfectly content. He was standing in his office, his beard and mustache neatly trimmed, his arm loosely thrown around the shoulders of Kane’s mom—Kane’s mom, who in this photo, unlike all the rest of them, looked totally and completely happy.

  I dropped the photo album and backed away from the chest. There was a pounding in my head and I pressed my fingers to my temples in an effort to make it stop. But there was another pounding, too. Footsteps coming toward the room. I turned around just in time to see Marcus throw open the door.

  “Kane and Scott are here!” he announced between labored breaths. “I saw them outside from the window, and they have a horrible beast with them! It may be a dog, but it’s entirely possible that it’s el Chupacabras!”

  “Do we have time to get out of here before they come in?”

  But the sound of the front door opening and then slamming closed answered that question.

  ‘“Gemma? Gemma are you here?” Kane called. Then I heard Scott’s voice, too low for me to make out the words, but it didn’t really matter what they were saying. I had fifty million questions swirling around in my head, but one thing I was clear on was that this situation was very, very bad.

  “Any ideas?” I asked.

  “Plenty,” Marcus whispered. “Many involve strangling you, but for now I think we should just hide.”

  “Follow me,” I heard Kane say, his voice much closer this time. “I have the papers in my room and there’s a painting I would like to show you.”

  Marcus’s brows shot up. “Come up to my room, I have a painting to show you?” he whispered. “Is Kane making the moves on Scott?” But before I could respond he shook his head hard enough to make his locks act as little whips against his scalp. “Doesn’t matter, we still need to hide. We need to hide NOW.”

  There was a big part of me that didn’t want to run. Who did this asshole think he was anyway? What gave him the right to store pictures of my dad! Particularly pictures of my dad with his skanky mom! I had half a mind to confront him on the spot, but for once in my life the logical part of my brain won over. I had no real proof that Kane had committed any crimes, but he would have no such problem if he discovered me snooping around his house uninvited.

&
nbsp; Marcus was looking around the room, frantically trying to find a place that would conceal us. He opened a door that I had assumed led to a closet. The room was actually a bathroom and without a word Marcus grabbed my hand and yanked me inside. After silently shutting the door behind us, he pulled back the shower curtain and lay down flat in the bathtub, pulling me on top of him. I struggled to close the curtain from my position and only achieved success as I heard Kane and Scott enter his bedroom.

  “Interesting painting,” I heard Scott say. “Where’d you pick it up?”

  “It’s the work of my mother,” Kane replied. “She made it for a man she loved. He never did see it.”

  “Huh. Your mom was a talented lady. What’s it called?”

  “Love in Death.”

  “Yeah?” This time Scott’s voice sounded a bit more uncertain. “Well, that’s um…creative. What kinda paints did she use? Are those all oil colors?”

  “Mostly. Except for the red. It’s magnificent, isn’t it? It’s the red of life, or death, if you prefer.”

  “I don’t think I follow you.”

  “It’s my mother’s blood. She slit her throat right over this painting. This was her last work.”

  Marcus slapped his hand over my mouth just in time to stifle the sound of my dry heaving.

  From the bedroom there was a long silence followed by the sound of Scott clearing his throat. “Can I use your bathroom?”

  That was followed by a shorter pause before Kane reluctantly replied, “It’s right through that door.”

  A second later the bathroom door was opened and closed and I heard Scott whisper, “What the fuck!” At first I was afraid that he had somehow discovered Marcus and me, but then I remembered Scott’s tendency to talk to himself and there was certainly another WTF situation going on at the moment that had nothing to do with me or the guy I was lying on top of. The sound of the faucet filled the bathroom and I knew that Scott was in the process of splashing water on his face. I felt a slight tickle on my wrist. Crawling up my arm and toward my sleeve was a large brown spider. Reflectively I flicked my wrist to get it off and accidentally touched the shower curtain. The curtain didn’t move much, only a slight jiggle, but when the faucet was abruptly turned off I knew we were in trouble. Marcus stopped breathing and so did I. The curtain was jerked back and there was Scott, staring down at us, his mouth slightly open and slack.