Lust, Loathing and a Little Lip Gloss Read online

  “Interesting decorating choice,” he said as he navigated through a field of brown boxes with cryptic labels such as “Knickknacks” and “Miscellaneous.”

  “I don’t know how I managed to collect so much stuff,” I said, wiping my hands on my clothes before leaning in for my kiss.

  “Why did you move everything all at once? You still have your apartment until the end of next month. Why didn’t you take a little at a time?”

  “I don’t know, anxious to get started, I guess.”

  “Yes, you were quick to pack,” Anatoly acknowledged, taking in the scene. “It’s the unpacking that seems to have slowed you down.” He threw his jacket over one of the boxes and then found his way to an empty chair. “Is that because this isn’t your place yet?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, of course it’s my place. I signed the papers.”

  “For an escrow that won’t go through for another week, if at all. If you ask me, $20,000 is worth showing your new residence a lot of disrespect.”

  “But I’m getting the house for hundreds of thousands of dollars below market, so it’s not like six of one, half dozen of the other,” I pointed out.

  “Has Kane even transferred the utilities over to you yet?”

  I swallowed and looked away. “He’s insisting on paying them until escrow goes through, but that doesn’t mean…”

  “Sophie, you’re practically squatting.”

  “Are you purposely trying to piss me off or do you really not get it?” I snapped. “I don’t want his $20,000. This is my house! I have always wanted to live here and now I finally do!”

  “‘Always?’” Anatoly repeated. “‘Finally?’ Sophie you first saw this place five weeks ago.”

  “Seven,” I said stubbornly, but I did see his point. Why did it feel like I had been fighting for this place for years? And why was I jumping all over Anatoly for pointing out the obvious? I did some quick calculations in my head, but that didn’t give me an explanation for my temper tantrum; I wasn’t due to get my period for another two weeks.

  Anatoly considered me for a moment then lowered his gaze to the wine bottle as he shifted it from hand to hand. Something was bothering him, but instead of opening up he said, “So tell me, Sophie, how was the freak show?”

  “What?” I asked, not following him at first. “Oh, the séance. Well, it was…weird—but I suppose weird’s normal for a freak show. You’re not going to believe this, but Jason Beck was there. He’s a bona fide member of the Specter Society.”

  Anatoly looked at me blankly. “Who’s Jason Beck?”

  “You remember Jason. One of Dena’s GBCs…you, know, Mr. Velvet Pants.”

  “Right.” Anatoly laughed appreciatively. “How could I forget him? And GBC stands for…?”

  “Glorified Booty Call.”

  “Right. It makes sense that he would be part of that group, he was crazy enough.” He looked back down at the wine. “Did Scott give you any trouble?”

  “No, he was fine. I still can’t believe he’s with Venus. I mean, yeah, she’s got money, but they’re such a mismatched couple. It’s like if Owen Wilson hooked up with Greta Van Susteren. It’s just strange.” Anatoly continued to study the wine bottle as if I hadn’t spoken. Something about his demeanor made me nervous. I took a few steps toward the window seat before changing my mind and converting one of the boxes closer to him into a temporary stool. “How was your stakeout?” I asked, grasping at the one question that I knew could get him talking again.

  “Boring,” he sighed. “My client hired me to see if her ex is using. There’s a custody thing going on and she’s looking for ammunition. But as far as I can tell all his vices are legal. Women, alcohol, that kind of stuff. Nothing that will cost him his visitation rights.”

  “It may be legal, but too much alcohol tends to hamper people’s ability to parent,” I pointed out. “That’s why I’ve chosen to remain childless.”

  He laughed and I immediately relaxed. “Speaking of which, why don’t you open that wine,” I suggested.

  “I can do that.” I waited as he went to fetch a corkscrew from the kitchen. My corkscrew and glasses were the first things I had unpacked. I had my priorities.

  “Wine for two,” he announced as he returned with a couple of filled glasses.

  I smiled gratefully. “Leah put some logs in the fireplace in case my guests wanted more ambiance. Shall we light it?” I asked, turning toward the fireplace as he came to my side. But then my smile froze on my face as I noted the photo above the mantel.

  Anatoly turned to see what I was looking at. “What’s wrong?”

  “That picture of me and my father…” I whispered.

  “It’s new, right? I don’t remember seeing it before.”

  “It’s new, but it’s also…straight.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It was crooked by, like, half an inch. And now it’s not.”

  “Someone at your party must have fixed it for you.” Anatoly handed me the glasses before crouching by the fireplace and picking up the long matches that Leah had conveniently left there.

  “I don’t think they did,” I said.

  “Then perhaps it wasn’t crooked at all.” The fire sprang to life and Anatoly quickly closed the curtain as the sparks reached out for him. “Maybe you were just looking at it from the wrong angle.”

  “No, I know it was crooked. Leah was the one who hung it and she was trying to even it out before she left.”

  “And she succeeded.”

  “No, she didn’t,” I said firmly.

  “Sophie, what are you trying to say?” Anatoly straightened up and took his wineglass from me. “Do you think the picture was crooked and then it just magically corrected itself?”

  I finally tore my eyes from the wall and looked at Anatoly. “No…no, of course that’s not what I’m saying.”

  “So what are you saying?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “All I do know is that I’m going to need more than one glass of this.”

  “You haven’t even started your first one.”

  In three large gulps I downed my entire glass of wine.

  Anatoly laughed appreciatively. “All right then, why don’t you take my wine and I’ll pour myself another. And then maybe I can talk you into a few more indulgences.” He tucked a lock of my hair behind my ear before gently nibbling on the lobe. “A full body massage? I’ll start here—” he carefully cupped my left breast and let his fingers graze my hardening nipple “—and work my way down.”

  “You just assumed that I invited you over for sex?” I asked with mock indignation. “Maybe I wanted to talk.”

  “So talk,” he murmured. He slipped his hand under my shirt and resumed the massage.

  I smiled and took another sip of wine, this time from his glass. “All right, I will. How was your day, Anatoly?”

  “I already told you it was boring,” he reminded me. “The night looks a lot more promising.”

  I laughed softly and drank more of his wine. I thought of the séance, of what I had heard, but hadn’t heard at all. I could talk to him about that. But as his other hand began to work its way up my inner thigh, the warmth of his skin burning through my jeans, I quickly dismissed the idea. I didn’t really want to talk or think. Right now I was content to just feel whatever it was that Anatoly planned to do to me.

  And just as I began to relax, the wine and his touch finally lightening my mood, the doorbell rang. It was a melodic chime, but it might as well have been the obnoxious scream of a smoke alarm for all the irritation it provoked.

  “Were you expecting someone?” Anatoly asked.

  “Just you.”

  He furrowed his brow and then reluctantly removed his hands and went to see who had interrupted us. He peeped out the little leaded, textured glass window built into the top of the door and frowned. “It’s a woman. Italian, I think.”

  “Sophie?” I heard a muffled voice come from the other side of t
he door. “It’s Maria Risso. May I please come in? I must speak to you.”

  Confused and slightly inebriated, I walked to the door as Anatoly opened it. “Did you forget something?” I asked as I acknowledged Maria.

  “No, I…may I come in for a moment? I promise not to be long.”

  I glanced at Anatoly who looked more than a little peeved at this point. Reluctantly, he stepped aside as I waved her in. She was frowning, intensifying the few wrinkles in her face.

  “Maria, this is my boyfriend, Anatoly.”

  Maria either didn’t hear me or didn’t care. “Did Enrico call and tell you why he wasn’t coming?” she asked, glancing at the round, rented table, now the only piece of furniture not holding a box.

  “No,” I said carefully, not really wanting to relive that particular phone conversation. “He just said he was having a bad day.”

  “Did he say he was going somewhere?”

  “No.”

  “Did he say he was feeling ill?”

  “Why are you bothering me?” I asked bluntly. I was required to attend these people’s séances, but there was nothing in my escrow that stipulated that I had to play twenty questions.

  She sucked in a sharp breath and toyed with the belt of her trench coat. “I went to see him.”

  “So?” Anatoly asked impatiently.

  “I still have the key to the building, so I let myself in, and when I was standing outside the door to his condo I smelled food and I could make out the sounds of Gabrieli playing on the stereo, but he didn’t respond to my knock or to the doorbell. When I called out to him, the only response I got was from that damn parrot.”

  “Maybe he doesn’t want company tonight,” Anatoly suggested. “Maybe he has a guest over and he’s in the middle of enjoying some wine and other pleasures and your presence would have been an intrusion.”

  I suppressed a smile. Subtlety was not something that Anatoly was comfortable with.

  “I didn’t see any evidence of a guest.”

  “How could you see evidence of anything when you’re standing outside a door?” Anatoly continued reasonably.

  “Because I have the key to his apartment,” Maria admitted after a moment’s hesitation. “I tried to let myself in, but the chain lock was on. Enrico may want to avoid me, but my trying to come into the condo on my own accord should have thrown him into a rage. I expected a confrontation of some kind. But he didn’t scream at me or even acknowledge my attempt. I’d say that he might not have been home, but then he wouldn’t have left the CD player on.”

  “And he wouldn’t have been able to chain lock the door,” I pointed out.

  “Well, that would be explainable, but the music…”

  Her voice trailed off and Anatoly and I exchanged looks. Last I checked it was a lot easier to leave a stereo on than chain lock a door from the outside. But I didn’t really want to argue the point.

  “Maria, I don’t know where Enrico is or why he has his music on,” I said slowly. “All he essentially told me was that he was having a bad day. His exact words were that he was being haunted, whatever that means. He said he was going to be late and then we kind of got into it.”

  “You got in an argument? What could you two possibly argue about? You don’t even know one another.” Then her eyes widened in horror. “You didn’t insult his food, did you? Or did you praise another chef? Perhaps you said something nice about Wolfgang Puck. Enrico is very jealous of Wolfgang Puck.”

  “Wolfgang never entered into our conversation. I was just a little flippant when he said he was being haunted.”

  “Enrico doesn’t believe in ghosts,” Maria said firmly. “He comes to the Specter Society meetings because he finds them amusing…although now I suspect his reasons for coming have more to do with me than anything else.”

  “I don’t know anything about any of that,” I said. I was beginning to lose patience with this line of questioning. She was uninvited and she was preventing Anatoly from ravaging me. “All I know is that he told me he was haunted, I made a joke about that and then he called me a fucking bitch and hung up on me.”

  “What!” Maria gasped. “But he only uses such profanity for food critics and diet gurus!”

  “Yeah, well, I’m neither,” I said drily.

  Maria now looked even more agitated than she had when she walked through my door. She started wandering around the room, weaving in and out of boxes like a confused rat aimlessly exploring a maze. “Something is amiss.”

  “It might be,” Anatoly agreed. “But it’s not our problem. Now if you’ll excuse us.”

  Maria glanced down at the empty wineglasses on the box near where I had been standing and comprehension spread across her countenance. Unfortunately, the comprehension didn’t seem to be mixed with even the slightest bit of acquiescence. “If you’re right,” she said, directing her comments to Anatoly, “if Enrico isn’t answering the door because he specifically doesn’t want to talk to me, then I’m going to need another person to act as my decoy.”

  “Forget it,” Anatoly and I said in unison.

  “I’ll pay you,” she said quickly. “A hundred dollars. All you have to do is pick up the phone and call him.”

  “And if he doesn’t answer?” Anatoly asked.

  “I’ll pay you two hundred more to go over to the house and find out what’s going on.”

  “Excuse me, but I’m about to invest in a million-dollar property. Three hundred dollars isn’t even enough to pay for the sales tax on my upcoming furniture-shopping spree. If you want a decoy you’re going to have to find someone who is a little more desperate.”

  “Me for instance,” Anatoly said.

  “You?” I squeaked. “But you already have more business than you can handle!”

  “This is a one-night job, correct?” Anatoly asked.

  “Yes,” Maria said uncertainly. “Do you do this kind of thing often?”

  “I’m a P.I.”

  “Like Magnum,” she exclaimed.

  I rolled my eyes. “You just gave away your age.”

  Maria flushed, but kept her focus on Anatoly. “This is perfect,” she continued. “You can call him and if he’s not available then sneak over, break in and—”

  “No,” Anatoly said quickly. “I’m not going to break the law for you. But I will find out if he has a guest.”

  “You can do that without breaking in?”

  “Of course.” Anatoly smiled. “Magnum did it all the time.”

  “You shouldn’t have come,” Anatoly mused as we followed Maria through the winding traffic.

  Enrico hadn’t answered his phone, not even while Anatoly was leaving a message on his answering machine telling him that he believed someone was in the process of breaking into his restaurant. After that the three of us piled into two cars, Maria into her Mustang and Anatoly and I into my Audi, and we all went over to Enrico’s condo on Telegraph Hill. Since I had been the one doing all the drinking, I had given Anatoly the keys.

  “I thought you wanted me to,” I lied. The truth was that I couldn’t stomach the idea of sitting home alone, thinking about the sex I wasn’t having. At least this was distracting. “Besides, it’s not like we’re trying to hunt down the Zodiac Killer,” I noted. “Maria basically hired you to knock on a door and ask if anybody’s home. I don’t see how I could screw that up for you.”

  I saw the flash of white teeth as he laughed in the darkness. “You’re underestimating yourself. I’m sure you could screw up anything if you put your mind to it.”

  I groaned as he pulled into a spot located only one block away from our destination. “I really hate you, you know that?” I asked lightly.

  “I hate you, too,” he whispered. He kissed me and I felt his rough hands gently but firmly pulling my hair back from my face. Anatoly had incredible hands. Watching him knead bread dough was the equivalent of watching a porn flick.

  We walked to the condo and found Maria in her car blocking the complex’s garage. She rolled
down her window just low enough so she could reach her arm out and shove a set of keys at us. “The silver one’s to the building, the gold one’s to the condo itself. Come down and let me know what he’s up to as soon as you can.”

  “No,” Anatoly said simply.

  “No?” Maria repeated. “No, what?”

  “If you want us to go in there you’re going to have to open the door for us.”

  “But that’s preposterous! You yourself suggested that the whole reason Enrico didn’t answer the door earlier is because he didn’t want to see me. If he knows I’m there what’s to keep him from hiding out again?”

  “I didn’t say you had to call out to him. But you have to be there. I’m assuming that the reason you have these keys is that this was, until recently, your home. You can argue that you have a legal right to burst into this condo unannounced. Sophie and I can’t make that same claim, not unless we’re there with you, as your guests.”

  Maria lowered the window farther and glared up at Anatoly. “No one is that paranoid! What’s the real reason you’re insisting I accompany you?”

  “That is a real reason,” he said. A streetlight flickered above us as if struggling to stay awake. “Another real reason,” he went on, “is that I find your motives for hiring me questionable. You’re divorcing Enrico, so why are you so concerned with his well-being? Do you still have feelings for him or did you do something to him and now you want someone else to find him and clean up the mess…or even take the blame?”

  “I came to you for help and now you’re accusing me of some kind of crime?” Maria shrieked. “I have never been so insulted! How dare you! You’re completely full of…” Maria shook her head violently, too angry to continue.

  “I believe the word you’re looking for is chutzpah,” Anatoly said with a smirk. “Are you coming or should Sophie and I go home and leave you to stew in your Mustang?”

  Maria let out something that was between a scoff and a growl before raising her window and thrusting open her door. She didn’t even bother to look at Anatoly or me as she marched to the entrance of the building and unlocked it. She walked in without holding the door open for us.