by Kyra Davis
“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.
Chapter 8
“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 kiss
es 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 bec
ause 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?