Sex, Murder
and a Double Latte
Kyra Davis

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For my grandmother Sophia “Sylvia” Davis,

a woman whose greatest dream

was to help those she loved realize theirs.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank my agent, Ashley Kraas,

my editor, Margaret O’Neill Marbury,

and everyone at Red Dress Ink.

I also want to thank my friend Brenda Gilcrest,

and my mother, Gail Davis, for catching all my grievous spelling mistakes, and Shawn Cavlin,

along with everyone in Dock Murdock’s Writer’s Group,

for all their input.

Finally, I want to thank Alina Adams and

Danielle Girard for being such wonderful mentors.

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CHAPTER 1

“If Alicia Bright had learned one lesson in life it was that the more settled things seemed to be, the more likely they were to get messed up.”

—Sex, Drugs, and Murder

The downside of writing sex scenes is that my mother reads my books.

Until I die I will be haunted by the memory of my mother confronting me after reading my first novel. She stood in the living room of my San Francisco apartment with one slightly arthritic hand resting on her robust hip and the other waving my book in front of my face. “I ask you,” she said, “how can a nice Jewish girl write such a thing? It’s not bad enough you should give me ulcers with all this talk of killing, but now you have to write about naked people too? I thought only shiksas wrote such things.”

I somehow resisted the impulse to run and made the stupid mistake of trying to reason with her. “No, Mama,” I said, “smut is nondenominational.” But my mother wasn’t satisfied with that, so she highlighted the scenes, took the book to her rabbi and asked him for his opinion of her daughter, the sex fiend. The rabbi, who in all likelihood was just slightly less mortified than I was, assured her that writing about sex between two consenting adults within a loving, albeit edgy relationship was in no way a violation of the Torah. After that my mother approached almost every member of the congregation, proudly showed them my book and said things like, “Can you believe this? My daughter the author. And you should read the sex scenes. Now if she would just do some of the things she writes about, I could be a grandmother already.”

I don’t go to that synagogue anymore.

Finding a new congregation was really the only way to avoid embarrassment, since blending into the background was not an option for me. With the exception of my father, I am the only black temple member that Sinai has ever had, which makes me pretty easy to spot. My nationality is an endless source of entertainment for the public. My skin is the color of a well-brewed latte (double shot), and while the mass of textured hair that hangs to my shoulders is frizzy, it’s not exactly ’fro material, so people are constantly mistaking me for Brazilian, Hispanic, Puerto Rican, Egyptian, Israeli—you name it. I am spokeswoman for all people. Or at least all people with a slutty imagination.

I finished typing the details of my hero’s and heroine’s erogenous zones and switched scenes to the apartment of the gourmet chef who was about to be bludgeoned to death with a large toaster oven. How long would it take him to die? Ten minutes, fifteen…

I started at the sound of my buzzer going off and checked the time on the bottom right of my computer screen. Shit. My hands balled up into two tight fists. There’s nothing worse than walking away from a keyboard while on a roll. I tapped ctrl S and walked to the entryway to buzz in my guests. I listened as the sound of heavy heels trailed by rubber soles pounded up three stories’ worth of stairs.

“How are you holding up?” Dena gave my arm a quick squeeze before peeling off her leather blazer and draping it over a dining chair.

Mary Ann followed her into the apartment and threw her arms around my neck before I had a chance to respond. “Oh my God, Sophie, I’m so sorry! I’ve never known anyone who’s done anything like that. I think I would just be a wreck if I were in your shoes.”

I pulled away from the stranglehold and searched Mary Ann’s blue eyes for some clue as to what she was talking about. “Okay, I give. Were you speaking in code or am I just so sleep deprived that the English language no longer makes sense to me?”

Dena raised a thick Sicilian eyebrow and seated herself on the armrest of my sofa. “You haven’t turned on the TV news today, have you?”

“Well, I read the morning paper, but no, I didn’t see the news shows. You know me, when I’m writing I sometimes tune out—”

“Tolsky killed himself, Sophie. They found him last night.”

Okay, I was definitely sleep deprived, because there was no way that Dena had just said what I thought she said. “I can’t imagine how this could possibly be funny, but I’m waiting for the punch line.”

Mary Ann was on her feet. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry! I just thought you knew!”

I could hear the distant sounds of a siren screeching its warning. This was wrong. It was a misunderstanding of some kind. “I just talked to Tolsky two weeks ago.” I enunciated the words carefully as if by doing so I could help Dena and Mary Ann realize their mistake. “He said he couldn’t wait to see my screenplay. He told me where he was going to film the movie. He told me where he was going to be next week. He told me which actors he was going to approach. Do you see where I’m heading with this? Tolsky was going to do a lot of stuff. He had plans. I may only have spoken to him a few times, but I know this was not a man who was planning on taking his own life.”

“Well, he may not have been planning it two weeks ago, but he sure as hell did it last night.” Dena nodded to Mary Ann, and continued, “I saw an Examiner downstairs in the lobby, it’s probably in there.”

Mary Ann tugged nervously on a chestnut-brown curl before hurrying out to retrieve the afternoon publication.

“You weren’t close to him, right?” Dena asked. “You just met him that one time?”

“Yeah, just the one time he came up to talk to me about the possibility of turning Sex, Drugs and Murder into a movie. We talked about it on the phone a few times afterward. He seemed like a nice enough guy, maybe a little larger than life, but nothing that you wouldn’t expect from a Hollywood producer…. Dena are you sure about this?”

“Oh, I’m sure, and if you thought he was larger than life, then wait until you hear how he chose to orchestrate his exit.”

Mary Ann breezed in with the paper in hand. I’m in pretty good shape but it seems to me that after climbing three flights of stairs two times over she should be sweating, not glowing. I took the Examiner from her and read the headline, “Michael Tolsky Commits Suicide, Death Imitates Art.” I placed the paper against the unfinished wood of the dining table and sat down to read.

“Right out of a movie…literally.” Dena ruffled her own short dark hair and relaxed back into the cushions. “I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but what a frigging drama queen.”

I reread the description of his death. Tolsky had slit his wrists in a bathtub. The scene was right out of his film Silent Killer. He had even taken care to put vanilla-scented candles around the room, just as his character had done before his premature end. I tried to picture Tolsky lying naked in a pool of his own blood, his round rosy face devoid of animation. At our lunch meeting his presence had been so large that I had worried there wouldn’t be enough room in the restaurant for the other patrons. How could things have changed that quickly?

“Of all his films, why recreate that scene?” I used my finger to trace a circle around the paragraph describing the incident. “I don’t get it. In Silent Killer, it wasn’t even a real suicide. It was a murder made to look like a suicide. Have the police considered that this might not be what it seems?”

“Read the whole article,” Dena said. “There was a note.”

Mary Ann nodded vigorously. “Mmm-hmm, a suicide note.”

“Oh, good thing you clarified that one—I’m sure Sophie thought I was talking about a piece of music.”

Mary Ann ignored Dena and continued to recite the information she had gathered. “He gave all the servants the day off—the maid, the chauffeur, everybody. I guess he was really upset over his wife leaving him. His blood alcohol level was like double the legal limit. I just feel so sad for him.”

I focused on the headshot of Tolsky on the front page. So maybe he had planned it. Just woke up one morning and decided to check out. I probably should have felt sad for him too. Maybe I’d have felt more sympathetic if I had liked him more, or if I hadn’t always considered suicide a cruel copout, or if I wasn’t such a coldhearted capitalist bitch. What about my screenplay!

“You know, if he was so depressed about his marriage, why the hell didn’t he try to win her back? She only left him a week ago. I mean, did he try flowers? Diamonds? Marriage counseling? Anything?”

“Would that have worked for Scott after you filed?” Mary Ann asked.

“No, but Scott was a freeloading, adulterous loser, that’s why our marriage lasted less than two years. The Tolskys were married for twenty-five years, so obviously he had something going for him. You don’t invest that kind of time and energy into a relationship, and then just roll over and play dead the minute things start to go sour.” I winced at my own choice of words. “What I meant was…or what I didn’t mean…you know what? This really sucks.” I dropped my head onto the table and tried to suppress the frustrated scream burning my throat.

“Face it.” Dena stretched her short muscular legs out in front of her. “He was a man of extremes, and when he got depressed, he did it in a big way. The whole way he recreated his movie scene was a pathetic but successful attempt to get everybody to sit up and take notice.” She used her foot to gently steer my feline, Mr. Katz, away from her black pants. “This screws you up big-time, huh?”

“Damn right it does!” The chair screeched against the hardwood floor as I pushed myself back from the table. “He was just Mr. Enthusiastic about that project. Why did he even approach me about adapting my manuscript for him if he didn’t plan on hanging around long enough to see a first draft?”

“And you know that people are lining up at the video stores to rent his films,” Dena added. “If he could have just held off for a little longer, your little movie could have benefited from this postmortem media blitz.”

“Gee, thanks for making me feel better about this.” I squeezed my eyes closed and took a steadying breath. Let it go…there’d be other chances. They may not materialize for another ten years but that only brought me to forty. I might still be able to wear a size-six gown while collecting my Academy Award at that age. Sarah Jessica Parker was forty and she looked pretty good. I opened my eyes again and stared up at the halogen lighting above me. “Maybe I should put a rumor out that I’m terminally ill. Do you think I’d get another offer to turn my books into screenplays if I were facing imminent death?”

“Terminally ill doesn’t count,” Dena said. “Either you stop breathing or you’ll just have to trudge along with the rest of us.”

“Maybe I could do a Van Gogh thing and cut off my ear or something. That might get people’s attention.”

“Didn’t do a lot for Van Gogh.” Dena brought her hands to the back of her head in order to administer a self-indulgent massage. “From what I understand, it didn’t even get him laid. Didn’t his girlfriend break up with him after he gave it to her as a gift? She probably sent him a note in reply reading, ‘I said earring, you idiot!’”

I couldn’t help but laugh at that.

Mary Ann went to the kitchen and pulled a bag of microwave popcorn out of the cupboard. “Well, if all he wanted was to keep his name in the papers a little longer, wouldn’t it have been easier to just make another movie?” she asked. Her eyes widened and she dropped the popcorn bag on the counter that divided the kitchen from the living room. “Oh my God, maybe it was an accident. Maybe he was shaving and he cut himself by mistake!”

If anyone else had said it I would have immediately assumed they were joking, but I knew Mary Ann well enough to be sure that the poor thing was totally serious. I bit down hard on my lip and tried to think about starving people in Africa, or the destruction of the rain forest, or anything to keep me from laughing.

Dena was not so kind. “I cannot believe we share the same gene pool. If anyone asks, please point out that you’re my second cousin, and if you can fit in the ‘once removed’ part, I’d appreciate it.”

“It could have happened.” Mary Ann crossed her arms and glared at Dena. “He was drunk, right?”

“So he got into the bathtub and tried to shave his arms?”

“Well, maybe he had hairy arms.”

“And he accidentally slit both his wrists? At which point, what…he thought to himself, ‘Well shit, this sucks. I guess I’ll wait for all my blood to slowly leave my body and if it still hurts after that point, I’ll call 911.’”

“I don’t know,” Mary Ann said. “Maybe he passed out. Maybe he was embarrassed….”

“Right, that must be where they got the expression ‘embarrassed to death.’”

“Okay, whatever. I still say it could have happened. If you’ll excuse me, I have to use the little girls’ room.”

“Be careful you don’t accidentally slit your wrists while wiping yourself.”

“You are so crude,” Mary Ann said as she made her way down the narrow hallway.

I finally allowed myself to give up the battle for self-control and broke into a fit of giggles. When I caught my breath, I unsuccessfully tried to give Dena my most stern look. “You were kind of harsh, weren’t you?”

“I’m sorry, but there are times when her immense ignorance tries my patience. And what does she mean ‘the little girls’ room’? She’s so fucking delicate she can’t even call it a bathroom for Christ’s sake.”

I shook my head. I knew Dena loved Mary Ann in a big-sister kind of way. My mind wandered back to the time when a boyfriend of Mary Ann’s had slapped her across the face. Dena had repaid him by breaking his nose.

Mary Ann emerged from the bathroom, an experience she seemed to have managed to get through without incident, and began to search my refrigerator for a more fattening alternative to the popcorn. She settled on a jar of peanut butter and a spoon. I eyed her size-four form enviously before refocusing on Dena, who was now examining the Blockbuster rental we had originally planned to watch. “I have a big shipment of vibrators coming to the shop first thing tomorrow morning, so if we’re going to watch this we should do it soon.”

Mary Ann made a face. “And you’re embarrassed to be related to me.”

“Don’t knock it before you try it. If those Neiman women you wait on started using vibrators, they wouldn’t have to spend so much money on face cream to look rejuvenated.”

I rolled my eyes. “Maybe Lancôme should make it their next gift-with-purchase.”

Mary Ann started giggling and even Dena broke into a smile. She waved the movie in the air. “So should I put this in?”

I tried to muster up some enthusiasm for a movie night, but after reviewing the details of Tolsky’s bloody death I no longer felt in the mood for Hannibal Lecter. Maybe I could use the rather vivid images floating around my head to add some realism to my crime scenes. At least that way I could feel like I was accomplishing something instead of sitting around idly after some razor-loving depressive screwed up my career.

I repositioned my chair so that I could easily address both of my guests. “Would you hate me if I ended things early this evening?”

Dena did a quick double take. “You want us to leave now? Thirty-five minutes for parking, Sophie!”

“I know. It’s just that the whole Tolsky thing has kind of knocked the wind out of me. I promise to make it up to you next week. We’ll do a double feature or something.”

“Don’t even worry about it, Sophie.” Mary Ann put the popcorn and peanut butter back in their respective places. “It totally makes sense that you would need some alone time.”

Dena let out an exacerbated sigh and reached for her sixties-style handbag. “Fine. I didn’t even get to fill you in on the intimate details of my date last night.”

“Anyone I know?” I grabbed the mailbox key before accompanying them to the lobby.

“No, new to the city. But I tell you, if last night was any indication, I’ll be adding another notch to my bedpost by the end of the week.”

Mary Ann’s color rose, and I let out a short laugh.

“What, I’m not entitled to a little fun?”

“You’re entitled.” I paused by the glass door. “But if you keep this up you’re going to have to break in a new post.”

Dena grinned. “Hell, I’m already on the fourth one. Soon I’m going to need a whole new bed.” She smoothed the lapels of her jacket and gave me an exaggerated wink. “If you really want to make tonight up to me, promise me that after you’ve finished with this manuscript we’ll celebrate with a bottle of wine at the Bitches’ Circle.”

“Oh, oh, I want to come this time!” Mary Ann flung her hand up in the air like a schoolgirl trying to get her teacher’s attention.

Dena looked at her through lowered lids. “You can’t, you’re not a bitch.”

“I can be a…I can be mean.”

Dena’s shoulders sagged at the evidence of her cousin’s impenetrable sweetness. Dena and I had been visiting our affectionately named Bitches’ Circle periodically for the last fourteen years. It was a little spot in the Redwood section of Golden Gate Park Botanical Gardens that consisted of a cluster of benches surrounded by high brush. There was a small podium made out of a redwood trunk, from which we surmised that the area was either designed for poetry readings or séances, but Dena and I used it as a place to drink and get catty.

“You’ve taken Sophie’s hairstylist.” Mary Ann stuck out the lower portion of her heart-shaped mouth. “It’s only fair that if he went, I should get to go.”

“Marcus? Oh, please, that guy could put Joan Rivers to shame. You, on the other hand, could barely hold your own with Marie Osmond.”

I stepped between the two of them. “I promise we’ll invite you. Just practice your swearing.” I took Mary Ann by both hands. “The word is ‘bitch.’”

I heard the unpleasant sound of Dena’s teeth grinding together, and I knew when the time came she would find a way to take me to our spot without the presence of any unwanted guests. But for now Mary Ann was pacified. She waited as Dena fished out her keys.

“Do we have to listen to Eminem again in the car? I just got a great new CD and I brought it with me….”

“We’re not fucking listening to Britney Spears.”

I held the door open for them and watched their backs retreat into the darkness. Why was I bothering with screenplays when two of my best friends were a sitcom ready to happen?

Before heading up to my flat, I inserted my key into my box and pulled out the mail I had neglected to pick up the day before. Fairly standard stuff—two credit card applications, one postcard from Macy’s announcing yet another “biggest sale of the year” and…and what? I studied the last envelope as I absently closed the apartment door behind me. No return address, just my mailing info typed neatly on the front. Weird. I opened it and read the one-sentence letter. “You reap what you sow.”

That was it. No greeting, just one typed turn of phrase. Okay, so we had moved from weird to downright freaky. Of course, I was used to getting a certain amount of fan mail from people who were a little whacked. Most of them were sent to me care of my publisher, but an occasional letter found its way to my home address, so this wasn’t anything all that novel. Still, “You reap what you sow”? What the hell was that about? I looked over my shoulder and then laughed at myself. Who did I expect to find there, Freddy? It was just a stupid note—and it’s not like it had been hand delivered. I rubbed my thumbs against the black letters. No reason to let a juvenile prank make me more rattled than I already was.

I went to the fireplace and tossed the letter in, along with a Duraflame log. Mr. Katz rubbed himself against my ankles as I struck a match and carefully lit the fire. The paper curled and twisted until there was nothing left but a pile of ash. I sat on the floor, pulled my knees to my chest and focused on the warm glow of the blaze. It should have been comforting, but I just wasn’t able to push aside the feeling that a new element had entered my life. And for reasons unknown to me, that element was something to fear.

CHAPTER 2

“No one could say Alicia was all work and no play. She loved a good party almost as much as she loved a good fight.”

—Sex, Drugs and Murder

It’s funny how horrific events can spur a person to accomplish truly incredible feats, and that is exactly what Tolsky’s death did for me. I, Sophie Katz, the woman who is known for perfecting the art of procrastination, had finished a book one week before deadline.

I pressed my foot up against the computer desk and propelled my wheeled chair across the room, my arms held high in a V for victory. My pet raised his head in mild curiosity. “I am sooo cool,” I told him. “Hell, I’m better than cool, I’m responsible.” Mr. Katz didn’t seem that impressed, but then again…well, he was a cat.

Tolsky’s apparent suicide hadn’t sat well with me. Maybe I had written too many murder mysteries, but somehow the whole thing seemed too pat. I kept coming back to the fact that the screen death that had been recreated was actually a murder scene. It just seemed like that detail bore more significance than the police were crediting it with. But whether I was correct or simply imagining something out of nothing, it had inspired me to finish what could be my best book to date.

Although the letter I received the night I learned of Tolsky’s death had undoubtedly been nothing more than a misguided hoax, it had disturbed me enough to result in quite a few restless nights. But as it turns out, that worked to my advantage too, because I had used all those hours I normally would have wasted on sleep to finish my book. So thank you, anonymous freak.

This required a celebration. This required a reward that was decadent and fitting the mood of the occasion.

This required Starbucks.

And this wasn’t just a latte morning either. Oh no, this was a “Grande Caramel Brownie Frappuccino with extra whipped cream” kind of morning.

I threw on a pair of torn hipster jeans, a Gap T-shirt and a corduroy blazer, and was pulling on a boot when the phone rang. Oh goody, I got to tell someone else how awesome I was! Maybe I’d even get to share the joy with a telemarketer.

“Hola, Sophie the great, at your service.”

Silence.

“Hello?”

Just a click, followed by a dial tone.

I put the phone down and started working on the other boot. “I hate it when people do that. How hard is it to say ‘sorry, wrong number’?” Mr. Katz swished his tail in agitation. I guess for him that really would be a challenge.

The phone rang again.

“Oh, for God’s sake.” I snapped it up and cradled it against my shoulder. “It’s still me. You have the wrong number.”

Nothing. Not even a click.

“Hello? Is somebody there?” I sat up a little straighter and waited for a response.

They disconnected.

I pressed the hang-up button without putting the phone down.

It rang again. Three times, and then it stopped.

Who would want to prank-call me? The characters in my books got prank calls all the time, but my real world had always been blissfully prank-call free. I tapped my fingernail against the mouthpiece and waited to see if they would try again. After a few minutes, I gave up. Probably some bored teenager who had seen the movie Scream one too many times. I pulled my purse over my shoulder and stepped out of my apartment. As I was double-locking the door I could hear the ring. I didn’t bother to go back in to pick it up. The SOB could call all day long if he wanted. I had a Frappuccino to order.

I headed on foot to one of the fifteen or twenty Starbucks located in my vicinity and when I arrived I decided that the experience wouldn’t be complete without a New York Times. There was one last paper for sale on the rack by the counter and I could practically hear it calling to me, enticing me to spend the hours necessary to read it cover to cover, knowing the whole time that I had absolutely nothing else I needed to do. My fingers had literally grazed the first page when it was snatched out of my grasp.

I whirled around to see a six-foot-something brunette already scanning the paper with dark brown eyes. “Hey, I was going to buy that.”

“Guess you’ll have to buy another one.” He spoke with the slightest foreign accent.

“In case you haven’t noticed, there isn’t another one. I had my hand on that paper, and you took it.”

“So buy a Chronicle. I just came from New York this morning and I’m going to buy a New York Times.”

“Well, if the Times is so damn important to you, you should have bought one in New York.” He shrugged and started reading the paper again. “Hello. We’re having a confrontation here. Look, I don’t really care if you’re from New York. I don’t care if you’re Rudolph Giuliani himself. That’s my paper.”

“Next in line, please,” a voice called from behind the cash register.

“Are you going to order, or shall I go in front of you?” he asked, not even looking up from his reading.

“Oh. My. God!” This was not happening. No one was this big of an ass. I stormed up to the perky little blonde in the green apron.

“Hi. Can I take your order?”

“That guy just took my paper.”

“Oh, um…” The blonde glanced around, trying to find someone else she could pass me off to. “Okay, sorry. So he took your paper?”

“Yes. I was going to buy it, and he took it.”

“Oh, well, okay, the thing is…well, this is kind of my first day and this sort of thing wasn’t covered in the training. Do you want to talk to a supervisor?”

I just stared at her for a moment. It was a fairly reasonable answer, but somehow I had been hoping that the blond Starbucks trainee was really a ninja in disguise and would knock Mr. New York senseless. But that didn’t seem to be the case, and it was probably a pretty safe bet that her supervisor would also be lacking in the superhero department. I quickly reviewed my options. That didn’t take much time because I had none. “Fine. Fine, fine, fine, fine. Just get me a Grande Caramel Brownie Frappuccino—and there had better be a lot of whipped cream to make up for this.”

A customer with unnaturally red hair and a tie-dyed shirt who was being assisted at the adjacent register smiled and leaned over in my direction. “You know, my sister’s dating a Native American,” she said winking at me conspiratorially. “I think you all have a really interesting culture.”

Oh, I was so not in the mood for this. “Actually I’m Irish. I’m just wearing a lot of bronzer.” I turned back to my cashier. “Could you make my drink now?”

The cashier wrote some illegible words on a paper cup and quickly entered my order into the register.

I looked back at the newspaper thief. He was watching…and laughing. The fucker was laughing at me. That’s it, he was on the list. In my next book I would be sure that the first murder victim would be a dark-haired New York tourist and the police would find him bludgeoned to death in an alley behind a Starbucks with a New York Times shoved up his ass.

I picked up my drink and sat down at a table by the window that happened to have a discarded Chronicle resting on top. Although it was probably not the intention of its previous owner, it felt like the paper was left there for the sole purpose of further pissing me off. I pushed it aside and busied myself by mentally formulating the details of how I was going to whack the jerk who had just screwed up my morning. The task plus the extra dose of sugar and caffeine were just beginning to perk me up again when my desired victim strolled over to the table, winnings in hand.

“I read the articles I wanted to read. Would you like this now?”

Oh, this was too much. “No, thanks, I’m pretty happy with the Chronicle.”

He gave me a little half smile and sat down opposite me. “Now, you obviously want it. You’re not going to let your pride keep you from taking what you want, are you?” He pushed the paper toward me, and I unwillingly noted his hands…big, strong… God, I loved guys with hands like that, with the exception of this guy. This guy was a schmuck.

“Shouldn’t you be out taking pictures of cable cars or something like that?”

“Oh, I’m not a tourist. I was just in New York wrapping up some old business. I made San Francisco my home a few months ago.”

“Oh goody, another East Coast transplant moving to our wonderful city. How original.”

He laughed. “Actually, I was originally a Russian transplant moving to Israel and then an Israeli transplant moving to New York. So, you see, I’ve been condescended to by the natives of three continents. You’re going to have to work a little harder if you plan on offending me now.” He gently pushed the paper a little closer to me. “Take the paper.”

I gave him my best glare but I couldn’t quite keep my fingers from inching toward the publication.

“There are some really interesting articles,” he said. “Corruption in the political world, greed in the business world—violence in the art world, all the usual sensationalism.”

I begrudgingly took the paper. “Violence in the art world?”

“Mmm…it seems there’s been a conviction in the KK Money murder trial.”

I noted the headline on the front page. “It’s JJ Money.” JJ Money was a gangsta rapper who, seven months ago, had been killed in the exact same manner as one of his songs, shot in both kneecaps, once in the stomach and once in the head. Rival rap star DC Smooth, who already had a rather long criminal history that included a few assault-and-battery charges, had been tried for the murder and had now been found guilty, despite his continual protests of innocence, a detail I found a little odd. After his previous arrests he had been known to brag about his crimes. But then again, this was a different situation. This time his victim didn’t just end up in a hospital but in a morgue.

“Well, I knew it was some letter of the English alphabet. The basic premise is the same, reaping what you sow and all that.”

I nearly choked on my Frappuccino. “What did you say?”

“What, that the premise was the same?” he asked.

“No, the other part…you know what, never mind. Look, thanks for the paper. Now if you don’t mind, I’d like to read it and enjoy my coffee by myself.”

The man nodded and stood up. I couldn’t help but notice his physique. He certainly spent enough time at the gym. He turned to leave, then paused and leaned over me, causing me to shift uncomfortably in my seat.

“By the way,” he said, his Russian accent a bit more pronounced, “That’s not coffee, that’s a milk shake.” And with that he walked out.

I stared at the door. Had he just insulted my coffee drink? Unbelievable! Everyone who had evolved passed the Cro-Magnon level knew that one should never make snide remarks about a person’s weight, religion or choice in caffeinated beverages, which meant he was most likely a Neanderthal. A Neanderthal with really good hands.

I grabbed my drink and paper, and stormed home. At least my cat knew how to shut up and let me enjoy a few minor indulgences. When I reached my building, I struggled to retrieve my keys from my purse without putting down either of my two purchases. You never knew when a greedy tourist was going to sneak up and snag your periodical.

“Hello, Miss Katz.”

The voice from behind startled me enough that I dropped my Frappuccino, spilling the beverage all over my suede boots. “Fuck!” I looked up from the disaster to see the pitifully distressed eyes of Andy Manning looking down at me.

“I’m so sorry, Miss Katz. I didn’t mean to scare you. I just wanted to say hi. I guess I should go.” He rubbed his massive head in a way that caused his fine blond hair to stick out in a rather awkward spiked configuration.

Everything about Andy was massive and awkward. He worked as the stock clerk at the corner market, and at six-seven and with a body weight that had to be well over the two-hundred-and-fifty-pound mark, he was pretty hard to miss. Andy also suffered from brain damage. I wasn’t sure how that came to be. Alice, the market’s proprietor, had said something about his being seriously abused as an infant. Whatever had happened, it certainly hadn’t affected his disposition, which was one of the sweetest I’d ever come across.

I carefully extricated the sports section and used it to absorb some of the liquid penetrating my shoes. “No—I’m sorry, Andy. If I hadn’t have been so preoccupied, you wouldn’t have been able to surprise me. I didn’t mean to swear.” Well, I sorta had, but not at him.

He bent down and examined the mess. “I’m really sorry about your boots and your drink. Was it a Frappuccino?”

“Yeah, they’re one of my favorite vices.”

“I like them too. They’re kind of like a milk shake.”

The paper crinkled as my fist tightened around it. “Andy, I really have to go upstairs and see if I can salvage these. I’ll see you later okay?”

“Okay, Miss Katz. I really am sorry.”

“I know, Andy.” I stuffed the soiled pages inside the now-empty cup and went upstairs.

Mr. Katz was spread out on the love seat, leisurely grooming himself. “Well, at least one of us is having a relaxing day.”

The phone rang and I dumped my stuff onto the dining table in order to free my hands to answer. “Hello?”

No response. That was the last straw. “Listen, asshole, I don’t know if you think you’re funny or scary or what, but if you don’t cut this crap out right now, my husband, who just happens to be a cop, is going to get his hands on the phone records and drag your juvenile butt to jail for harassment, got it?”

They hung up.

Ten seconds later the phone rang again. I picked up the receiver. “Oh, you are sooo asking for it.”

There was no immediate response but I thought I could detect some background noise this time. It sounded like…Donna Summer.

A voice on the other end cleared his throat. “Honey, the only thing I’m asking for is world peace, the end of deforestation and a Miami beachfront property with a six-foot live-in housekeeper named Ricardo.”

“Marcus.” I leaned against the dividing kitchen counter. “Did you call before this?”

“No, but I’m guessing that the person who did, left you a tad out of sorts.”

“Understatement, but it’s not important. What’s up with you?”

“I got a last-minute invite to an art opening for an artist named Donato Balardi. It’s at the Sussman Gallery tonight. Want to come with?”

“That actually sounds fun. I’ve just finished a manuscript and I’ve been trying to celebrate, but so far I’ve been failing miserably.” Mr. Katz blinked his eyes in what I took for agreement.

“You finished your book? Honey, that’s great! Tell you what, I’ll throw in dinner at Puccini and Pinetti to mark the occasion. My last appointment is at four but it’s just a trim and style, so if we plan for me to pick you up at six-thirty I’ll still have some wiggle room.”

“Wiggle away. I’ll see you at six-thirty.”

I spent the rest of the day reading what was left of the paper and napping. It had been over a week since I had gotten a good night’s sleep, and I had no intention of going out with saddlebag eyes. Knowing Marcus, he’d be fifteen minutes late, which was fine with me because I needed the extra minutes to do something with my hair. Tonight I would make Marcus proud, even if it killed me.

Several hours later, it was killing me. It was six-forty and I had been torturing myself with a blow-dryer and a curling iron for the last hour and a half, and my reward was hair that was big enough to intimidate Diana Ross. Marcus was so lucky; he had those short little well-groomed dreadlocks, and all he had to do was shave, get dressed and voilà—he was the next Blair Underwood. I was desperately searching my bathroom drawers for some styling product to fix the problem when the phone rang.

I rushed out into the living room to get it. “Hello?”

It was a hang-up. I stared at the phone. Either I hadn’t been as convincing as I thought, or the person prank-calling somehow knew I didn’t have a police officer husband. How would they know that? The buzzer jarred me out of my thoughts. My hand flew to my hair. “Damn it!”

I crossed over to the intercom. “Marcus, I just need another minute to finish putting myself together.”

“In another minute, I’m going to have a meter maid in my face.”

“Maybe you could flirt your way out of it?”

“Are you suggesting he’s gay?” Marcus asked. “Honey, there isn’t a gay man alive that would be caught dead in that polyester thing they call a uniform, and I’m not even going to get into that white scooter-deally they drive…. Oh shit, Sophie, he sees me! Oh my God, he’s getting into the white scooter-deally… Run, Sophie! Get your little ass down here now!”

I kicked a nearby pillow with enough force to propel it across the room and send my cat running for cover. I looked over in the direction of the kitchen where the diamond studs I’d planned on wearing rested on the counter, and quickly decided against them. Considering the state of my hair, nobody would see them anyway. I did want to bring my cell phone, though. Funny, I thought I had left it by the earrings. The buzzer blasted again. Obviously I’d have to find it later. I grabbed my purse, and booked down the three flights of stairs to the entryway of my building. As I hurried out the door I saw the meter maid puttering toward us, less than fifteen yards away.

“Get in, get in, get in!” Marcus screamed from behind the wheel of his Miata, his eyes glued to the rearview mirror.

I jumped into the passenger side, and Marcus, without so much as giving me a sideways glance, put the car into gear and we were off, leaving the meter maid snarling in our wake.

“You know, you could have just driven around the block.” I yanked my seat belt across my chest.

Marcus snapped his head in my direction for the first time that evening, a move that I assumed was a precursor to a snappy comeback, but the retort froze on his lips. “Oh my God, what happened to your hair?”

“Oh, well, I thought I’d do something different. Close your mouth and watch the road.”

Marcus turned part of his focus back to the narrow street leading us toward downtown, but his eyes continued to dart in my direction. “You tried to use a curling iron again, didn’t you?”

“Um…”

“How many times do I have to tell you…stay away from the curling iron. In the wrong hands those things are like deadly weapons. It’s like that little Australian crocodile man always says—danger, danger, danger.”

“Okay, fine, I look like shit. Point taken.”

“You don’t look like shit. The makeup’s all good and the little camel suede halter dress, paired with the three-quarter leather is a look ripped right out of April’s In Style. It’s just the hair that’s giving me ‘Tina Turner in the eighties’ flashbacks.”

“Oh, come on, it’s not that bad!”

“Well, it won’t be in a few minutes. I’ll fix it in the parking garage.”

“You have hair supplies with you?”

“Never leave home without them.”

I relaxed back into the seat. He brought hair supplies. Earth-shattering crisis averted. Unfortunately, that allowed my mind to wander back to the phone calls. It was pretty ballsy to crank-call after my last threat, even if the perpetrator didn’t believe me. It showed that the caller was not just looking for an easy target to intimidate. In my book, Sex, Drugs and Murder, the bad guys had prank-called my protagonist and her roommate in hopes of determining when they were home. That way they didn’t run the risk of running into them while breaking in. Could someone be thinking of breaking into my apartment? Had I remembered to close the kitchen window? The thing was almost impossible to close and I usually left it open a crack… No, I was being paranoid. The first part of my day had been hideous, and there was no way I was going to let a few phone calls ruin my night. I forced myself to think of a more removed topic that would hold my interest.

“Have you been following the JJ Money murder case at all?”

“And we’re back in the stream-of-consciousness world of Sophie Katz.”

“You know me, I’m all about keeping you on your toes. It’s what gives me my edge.” I made an attempt at a playful smile. “DC Smooth’s appealing the verdict. I honestly think the guy is innocent. All the evidence against him is just way too convenient for my taste.”

“As a mystery writer this is probably a hard concept for you, but in the non-MTV real world, people who are convicted of crimes are usually guilty.”

“Come on, Marcus, what kind of black man are you? Shouldn’t you be chanting ‘Down with the system’ and campaigning for the release of our unfairly accused brother?”

Marcus turned the car into the O’Farrell Street Garage and paused to collect his ticket. “You’re not exactly little Miss Black Panther yourself. The only reason you’re interested is that you think that if you tweak it a smidge you’ll be able to use the case as a basis for a novel.”

“I have no intention of tweaking anything. All I want to do is take what has been a very high-profile case, write about it and feed it to a voyeuristic society.”

“God bless America.” He slid his car into a spot on the third floor and killed the motor without bothering to remove the keys from the ignition. He shifted in his seat so that he could fully appreciate the enormous mass of hair weighing down my head. “We’re going to have to pull it up in a braid thingy.”

“A braid thingy? I don’t get—”

“You don’t have to ‘get.’ Just sit back and let me prove my genius.” He pushed himself out of the car and came back seconds later armed with a wide-tooth comb, some ozone-depleting hairspray and a Tupperware container full of rubber hair bands and bobby pins.

Fifteen minutes later my hair was swept up into a sophisticated little braid and the few curls I had actually succeeded in creating were gently framing my face, keeping the look from going to severe. I examined myself in the side-view mirror. “I don’t care if you are gay, I still want to marry you. I’ll support you, do your laundry, turn my head when you bring home male companionship—all you have to do is my hair every day of the week and I’ll be satisfied.”

“Honey, the only thing I want to do every day of the week is Ricky Martin. Are you ready to eat?”

I took one last look at my reflection and allowed him to escort me to the restaurant across the street. We seated ourselves at the bar between a bearded man wearing a rather unfortunate Hawaiian shirt with pink palm trees on it and a woman who bore a disturbing resemblance to Prince, during his “formerly known as” period. Without bothering to look at the familiar menu, we ordered our prerequisite Cosmopolitans and a gourmet pizza to share. Marcus tugged gently on his locks as he watched the bartender mix our desired poison. “You’re still coming to Steve’s surprise party on Saturday, right?”

I nodded vigorously. “Like I’d miss an opportunity to eat chocolate cake. How’s he doing anyway? Any change?”

“His T-cell count has gotten ridiculously low, but he’s staying optimistic. He’s going to be so excited to meet you. He’s practically memorized every one of your books. I swear, girl, you are just the female John Grisham these days. Every client I have…”

Marcus’s voice faded into the background as I studied a man on the other side of the restaurant talking on his cell phone. Maybe the prank calls had come from a cell. That would mean that the person could have been watching the apartment while making the call. But I hadn’t heard any background noise, so they probably had come from someone’s home or—

“Sophie? Have you heard anything I’ve been saying?”

“Hmm? Oh yeah, of course. You were talking about Steve.”

“Yesss…about five minutes ago. What’s up with you?” He paused to order a second round.

“I’m sorry. There has just been some weird stuff happening.”

“Such as?”

“I’ve been getting prank calls. Five today. At least, five that I was home to answer.”

“Oh, I hate those. You know how you deal with them?”

“How?”

“Heavy breathing. As soon as you realize that the person is prank-calling, start breathing heavily into the receiver. Trips them up every time.”

“I’ll try that.” I swirled the remnants of my Cosmo. It must have been evaporating because there was no way I could have drunk it that fast. I thought I caught the pink-palm-tree guy casting me a disapproving stare. I swiveled my bar stool in Marcus’s direction. “So what made you want to go to tonight’s little shindig?”

A dimple materialized on his left cheek. “You know me. I am all about supporting up-and-coming young artists.”

I gave him a sideways glance. “Uh-huh. There was a picture of the artist on the invite?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“He’s cute?”

“Absolutely to die for.”

“He’s gay?”

“One can always hope.”

“But you don’t know. So it’s possible that I stand a chance.”

Marcus raised his glass in salute. “May the best man win.”

“Or woman.”

“Don’t bother me with semantics.”

We were presented with our pizza and I forced myself to wait until the bartender physically let go of the plate before tearing into it. Marcus must have been equally famished, because our conversation came to a halt as we devoured the pie at locust speed. I indicated to Marcus that he should eat the last piece. I was trying to lose five pounds and I had developed a kind of warped diet reasoning in which I don’t have to count the calories of the food I eat if somebody else finishes it. It doesn’t make sense but it does make me feel less guilty, so I choose to delude myself.

I sipped at my third drink while Marcus polished off our dinner. Alcohol was great for diets. If you drank enough of it, you didn’t feel guilty at all.

Marcus checked his watch and grimaced. “It’s almost eight. We want to be fashionably late but not late-late.” He signed the charge slip and waited impatiently for me to collect my purse and jacket before hurrying me out of the restaurant and into the parking garage.

“You know, there’s no way we’re going to find a parking spot within five miles of the gallery,” I said, “and the bus will practically take us to its door, plus it will be faster than looking for a—”

“Honey, you do not impress a man by showing up on a bus.” His tone relayed the sympathy he felt for any woman who was so misguided.

“You never know, I mean he is an artist, a.k.a. a liberal eccentric. Maybe he prefers public transportation for the sake of the environment, or maybe he likes to rub elbows with all us common people who don’t have cars or won’t drive them for fear of losing our parking spots.”

“Uh-huh.” He tapped the face of his faux Cartier. “You need to close those little Mac-painted lips of yours and get in the car.”

I grumbled some unflattering remarks and took my seat. I slipped my finger under the strap of my super-hip new platforms and caressed the forming blister. We would have to walk four city blocks at least—if we were lucky to even find parking.

When we finally did reach the gallery I was ready for a painkiller. Six blistering blocks. I peered through the crowd and eyed the little makeshift bar set up in the corner. Vodka always made a good pain reliever. Much more fun than ibuprofen.

Marcus shoved his wrist in front of my face. “See! I timed this perfectly. We are now officially fashionably late.”

“Just like the artist.” We turned to acknowledge a short little balding man who was standing close enough to eavesdrop. “Can you believe that this guy actually had the nerve to show up ten minutes late to his own opening? I know he’s all the rage right now, but he still needs to show us collectors a little respect. Don’t you agree?”

Marcus just stared at him blankly. Neither he nor I was a collector. We just wanted to pick up the artist. In the interest of furthering that goal, I asked the all-important question. “So which one is Balardi, anyway?”

I looked in the general direction of where the man was pointing. I put my hand on my chest and tried to keep from hyperventilating. “Marcus, do you see that?”

“Uh-huh, nobody could miss that, girlfriend.”

The disgruntled stranger took his cue and slunk away to complain to someone else, as Marcus and I watched, slack jawed, as Donato Balardi worked the room. His black wavy hair grazed his shoulders, Antonio Banderas–Zorro style. He was slender, but the well-defined pecs visible beneath his silk shirt prevented him from looking slight in any way. His dark Latin eyes surveyed the room until they finally focused on us.

“Oh my God, he’s coming this way!” Marcus dug his fingers into my arm. “I know he’s gay, I can just feel it.”

“No way,” I protested. “God wouldn’t be so cruel as to deprive the women of the world of something that beautiful.”

He was upon us. If I reached my hand out I could actually touch those pecs. I summoned up my last bit of willpower and moved my gaze upward to his face. Sensual smiling lips, tanned skin and brown searching eyes looking at…

Marcus.

“Welcome, I am Donato Balardi.”

Their handshake lasted way too long to be innocent.

Well, shit. Here it was, an enchanted evening: I had seen a stranger across a crowded room, he had walked to my side, and I was all set to make him my own—and instead he was coming on to my male hairstylist.

Sometimes I hated San Francisco.

Marcus and Donato (God, even their names sounded good together) were now fully engaged in some pseudo-conversation while they actively undressed each other with their eyes. I excused myself and headed for the bar—not that either of my two gentleman companions noticed. A friendly, relatively cute bartender (probably gay) greeted me.

“What can I get you this evening?”

“What cocktail has the highest alcohol content—?”

“Is this what you drink when you’re not consuming coffee milk shakes?”

I spun around. There, smiling down at me, was the sexy Frappuccino-bashing Neanderthal from Starbucks.

CHAPTER 3

“She looked down at the shards of glass on the kitchen floor. Someone had been in the house.”

—Sex, Drugs and Murder

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said. “Are you following me?”

The Neanderthal let out a deep, rich, surprisingly Homo sapiens–sounding laugh. “Well I’m glad to see your ego’s intact. No, I’m a friend of the gallery owner, Gary Sussman. We shared an apartment back in New York.”

“Well how special for you.” I turned my attention back to the bartender. “Vodka martini straight up.” I refocused on my nemesis. “Well, you probably want to go reminisce with your friend. Don’t let me stop you.”

He extended his hand. Say what you like about his taste in coffee, you couldn’t knock the man’s hands.

“I’m Anatoly Darinsky.”

“That’s funny. I don’t remember asking for your name.”

“And yet I gave it.” His hand remained suspended in the air.

What the hell. “Sophie Katz.” I placed my palm against his with a mixture of reluctance and curiosity. Yep, strong handshake. Maybe it was time to upgrade his status from Neanderthal to Cro-Magnon.

“Katz…your father’s Jewish?” Anatoly asked as he signaled the bartender to make him a duplicate of my drink.

“He converted for my mom.”

“But Katz…”

“His last name was Christianson and my mother said she would rather choke on a hairball than be Mrs. Christianson so my father got inspired and they both changed their names to Katz.”

Anatoly searched my face, undoubtedly looking for some hint of jest. “That’s…interesting,” he said.

I shrugged; personally, I still hadn’t decided if the reasons behind my parents’ name change were the result of creative thinking or indicative of a shared psychosis.

Anatoly tactfully let the subject drop. “So what do you think of Balardi?”

“He’s magnificent,” I said, stealing a glance at Donato, who was vigorously flirting with Marcus.

“Really? You’re a big fan of spilled paint?”

“Spilled paint? What are you talking about—? Oh, you’re talking about his art.”

Anatoly made a little noise of disgust, which, in turn, perked me right up. It was always good to be able to annoy the people who annoy you, even if you had to embarrass yourself to do it. I examined the paintings on the wall for the first time and felt a little spark of shock bring me out of my haze of sexual disappointment.

“Oh God,” I whispered. “It’s awful.”

I was surrounded by numerous canvases that Donato had apparently thrown a bucket of paint at. I squinted in an attempt to make the pictures more appealing. Who, exactly, decided that this was art? I could throw paint. In fact I was really good at throwing things.

I took a step closer to one of the pieces in an earnest effort to find some redeeming qualities. It was a big green splash mark. I checked the title. Verdi.

“Ah, this one is my favorite.”

I nearly spilled my drink down my dress. I hadn’t realized that Donato was behind me with Marcus, of course, right behind him.

“I love your use of color,” Marcus cooed.

I shot him a withering look, but he wasn’t making eye contact.

Donato, on the other hand, was watching me attentively. He obviously expected me to say something.

I took a long sip of my drink. Think, think, think. “Um, yes, well, it’s very…it’s very…green.”

“Yes, exactly!” Donato grabbed my free hand and placed it against his heart. “You understand. It’s green.”

Now even Marcus looked a little embarrassed. I peeked over at Anatoly who, still standing at the bar, was just within earshot. He was having a ball. Hell, he probably hadn’t been so amused since the time I made a fool of myself at Starbucks. Donato, who still hadn’t let go of my hand, was eagerly waiting for my next artistic insight. But I couldn’t continue this conversation, not without saying something that would get me thrown out. This called for desperate measures.

“Have you met my friend Anatoly?”

For a nanosecond Anatoly’s mouth hung open in a somewhat unbecoming fashion. Then he pulled it together enough to slam the rest of his drink. Oh, this could be fun after all. “Donato, Marcus, this is Anatoly. He recently moved here from New York. Anatoly, this is my friend Marcus, and of course this is Donato, the man we’ve all come to admire.”

“His work,” Anatoly corrected.

“What?” I had become distracted again by Donato’s pecs.

“We’ve come to admire his work, not him, his work. We went over this, remember?”

I did a quick visual survey of the table being used as a bar. It wasn’t quite big enough for me to crawl under. Fortunately Donato seemed oblivious to my humiliation.

“The two are interchangeable,” he said. “To admire my work is to admire me and to admire me, is to admire my work.”

“Yeah, you’re a piece of work all right,” Anatoly replied.

This time it was Marcus’s turn to redirect the conversation. “So, Anatoly, how did you and Sophie meet?”

“We met at Starbucks. I let her read my New York Times.”

I felt my right hand involuntarily clench but I managed to keep a smile plastered on. Anatoly’s eyes traveled down to my fist.

“She’ll have another martini,” he informed the bartender. “Mr. Balardi—am I pronouncing that right?”

“Donato.”

“Donato, I’m curious about the blank canvas over there.” Anatoly gestured to an empty canvas proudly displayed behind us.

“I’m so glad you asked this. That is my tribute to minimalism.”

“Your tribute to minimalism.” Anatoly spoke the words slowly.

“Yes, it is simplicity in all its purity.”

“Uh-huh.” Anatoly crossed his arms over his chest. “Tell me, Donato, do our tax dollars fund any of this?”

“Sooo, Anatoly, what part of San Francisco did you move to?” Marcus asked.

“I found an apartment in Russian Hill,” Anatoly said.

“What?” My drink sloshed over onto my platforms. “But I live in Russian Hill.”

“Well, this works out perfectly!” Marcus clapped his hands gleefully. “With you two living so close, I’m sure Anatoly wouldn’t mind giving you a lift home.”

“I thought you were giving me a lift home, Marcus.”

“Oh, I am, or at least I was. It’s just that…” Marcus transferred his jacket from arm to arm. “Well, you know I only have the two seats, and Donato is going to need a ride too….” Marcus’ voice then dropped to a low mumble.

“I’m sorry, what did you say?” I asked.

Marcus sighed and stuck his hands in his pockets. “Donato took the bus here.”

“I enjoy taking public transportation on occasion,” Donato said. “It gives me a feel for the people who make up a city, the people I do not usually have opportunity to meet.”

I was glaring at Marcus. He was engrossed in Donato’s tribute to minimalism.

Anatoly shrugged. “I didn’t drive here either, but I’d be happy to share a cab, Sophie—my treat.”

“Really, that’s not necessary.”

“No, I insist. It wouldn’t be right to force the artist to take the bus twice in one night. After all, there is a limit to how much time one can spend amongst the proletariat. And those people are known for their inability to appreciate spilt paint.”

Well, so much for Marcus’s attempts to avoid an explosion. But instead of taking offense, Donato just cocked his head to the side and smiled. “It is the rare individual who expresses his opinion when it is not popular to do so. I wonder if you would be willing to defend your views as vigorously as you attack others’.”

“I wasn’t attacking your views,” Anatoly said. “I just don’t like your art. Fortunately for you, there seem to be a lot of people here who disagree with me.”

Donato laughed, and Marcus exhaled. “Yes, there certainly is a wide range of opinion in this country in terms of what is acceptable in the art world and what is not. Pity we do not see eye to eye, but I do appreciate your candor.”

Anatoly nodded, but didn’t smile. I was beginning to think that the appropriate place for my drink was not down my throat but on his face.

Another patron approached Donato to question him about the source of his inspiration. He excused himself to give the woman a tour of his more complex pieces—those would be the ones with two colors.

Marcus took in Anatoly’s brown shoes and black pants, and then surveyed the room for men more likely to swing his way. There was one man that stuck out more than the rest. Not because he was especially gorgeous but because he so obviously didn’t belong there. He was no more than an inch taller than me and he wore his naturally highlighted brown hair pulled back into a high ponytail, which served to accentuate his goatee, groomed into a point like Lucifer’s. He was wearing a studded biker’s jacket and a pair of black velvet pants. I had to check the latest GQ, but I was pretty sure that wasn’t the new men’s look.

He strode over to Verdi and leaned in close enough that I felt the urge to remind him that this was a look-but-don’t-touch kind of event. He leaned back again and shook his head with a deliberate slowness. “This is shit.”

Anatoly took a large step forward. “I’m glad there are other people here who agree with me.”

“Where’s the social commentary?” the guy asked. “Where’s the controversy? This isn’t art, this is navel lint. A crucifix dipped in cow’s dung, a black-and-white photograph of a man sticking his fist up another guy’s A-hole. That’s art. That’s the kind of stuff that will make people stop and really think about their contrived Middle American sensibilities.”

Anatoly stepped back again. So much for bonding with Velvet Pants. Disappointed, the stranger’s head swiveled to Marcus in hopes of finding someone else sympathetic to his grievance.

Marcus made a little talk-to-the-hand gesture. “Don’t look at me, honey—I draw the line at gerbils.” He angled himself next to me in a manner that excluded Velvet Pants from our social circle. “How’s your drink?”

I looked down at my glass. It was only half full now, but I seemed to be having a hard time keeping it from spilling. “I think I’m finished.”

“Do you want to stay a while longer and get a better look at the train wreck, or shall we hail a cab now?” Anatoly asked.

“This isn’t New York,” I said. “You don’t hail cabs here, you call them.”

“Then it’s a good thing I have a cell phone. Marcus, it was very nice to meet you.”

I leaned forward to give Marcus a kiss on the cheek. “You owe me big-time.”

“Free cut and style for the next three visits.”

“I’m not hanging out, either,” the goatee guy announced in case one of us cared. “See you later, Sophie.”

My fingers tightened around the stemware. How many drinks had I had? But Marcus’s expression assured me that he’d caught it too. The night was getting way too bizarre for my taste.

Donato came up to us again. “Ah, now I must show you the rest of my collection.”

“Sorry, but your paintings reminded me that I need to pick up some stain remover to clean up the red wine that I spilled on my carpet,” Anatoly said. “Although maybe it would be more profitable to pull up the soiled fibers and mount them on a canvas—for those art collectors who prefer texture.”

That one left even Donato speechless. I definitely should have thrown my drink at Anatoly when I still had the ability to aim. As it was, it seemed the best course of action was to make a speedy exit.

“Thank you, Donato, your art is beautiful.” I gave Marcus’s hand a little squeeze before walking out into the cold.

Anatoly was close at my heels, so much so that when I whirled around to berate him for his latest impudence, he barely managed to stop in time to avoid a collision. The result was the two of us standing all of an inch away from each other. Old Spice. God, I love that scent. Without breaking eye contact, I became increasingly aware of his other body parts. If I took a deep breath, my breasts would press against his chest, and all he had to do was bring his hands slightly up and forward and they could secure my hips. His eyes finally left mine and lowered themselves to my lips.

He couldn’t possibly be thinking of kissing me. He didn’t even know me. And I hated him. He wasn’t even fully evolved. I needed to turn away. Yep, that’s what I’d do, turn away…in a minute.

Anatoly’s mouth formed into a little half smile, and he leaned forward a bit more. Half an inch. “You were going to say something?”

I could feel his breath. Say something, right. I had turned around in order to say something. What was it? Take me now, my Russian warrior? No, that wasn’t it. Make me your love slave? No, that was off the mark too.

“Well?” he said.

Anatoly still wasn’t touching me, but damn if every inch of me wasn’t responding to him.

Strength. Strength and resolve. I scrunched my eyes shut. “I’m having a hard time thinking. You’re in my space.”

Anatoly’s smile broadened as he took a step back. “Is that better?”

No. “Yes.” I dug my nails into my palm. “You really are a jerk, you know that?”

“As I explained on the day we met, if you’re going to insult me you’re going to have to be a little more creative than that.”

“All right, how about this? You’re an egotistical, arrogant piece of Soviet trash. You know, I didn’t like the paintings in there either, but I didn’t feel the need to criticize and belittle Donato in front of Marcus. The fact that you did just shows what a pathetic and scummy little prick you are.”

Anatoly leaned back onto his heels. “That’s definitely better.”

For a minute or so we just stood there while he turned over what I had said and I tried to find a stable focal point.

“I’m not sure anyone can qualify as a piece of Soviet trash anymore, but you were right on all your other points.”

Okay, I hadn’t been expecting that.

“Donato rubbed me the wrong way as did that stuff he’s trying to pass off as art, but that didn’t give me the right to be cruel. I can be overly judgmental, it’s a character flaw. I’m sorry. You’re right, I’m wrong.”

So now he’d gone and screwed up my first impression. I hated it when people did that. Plus, it was a lot easier to resist him when I thought he was a Cro-Magnon/Neanderthal. Now he was moving into the Homo sapiens category, which meant we just might be sexually compatible, and, considering how long it had been since I’d had sex, if I had to share a cab home with an extremely attractive, heterosexual specimen of Homo sapiens, with a slight Russian accent, no less… Well, I might do something unforgivable like knock him over the head with a club and drag him up to my apartment by his hair.

“If you’ll still share a cab with me, I promise to be nice.” The streetlight caused the shadows of a tree to play against his shirt.

Well, what kind of life would it be if you didn’t take a few risks? “You’d better call a taxi now if we’re going to get one within the next half hour.”

Anatoly raised two fingers to his mouth and let out a shrill whistle that left me temporarily hearing impaired. “I told you, you can’t hail a cab here.”

But I was once again destined to look like an idiot because a cab pulled up right in front of us.

“This never happens.”

“I’m sure it doesn’t.” Anatoly held the door and climbed in next to me as I gave the driver my address.

He seemed distracted now. I felt pretty focused. Granted, the things I was focused on were Anatoly’s hands, but I was focused nonetheless.

“That man in the gallery, the one wearing the biker jacket, you knew him?”

“Thank God for small favors, no.”

“How do you think he knew your name?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he read one of my books. My picture’s on the back cover.”

“You’re a writer?”

“Yep…murder mysteries.”

“Really?” He repositioned himself so that he had a better view of me. “And the art lover back there, he’s your target market?”

“Very funny.” I pulled on a stray thread hanging from my hemline. “I don’t know. I guess my target would be pretty much anyone who likes a good novel with a lot of action, suspense and sex.”

There was a brief silence as Anatoly thought about that. “I like action, suspense and sex.”

The driver must have turned the heat on because suddenly it had gotten very warm.

We were getting close to my apartment when the cab had to pull to the right of the narrow lane to make way for a police car. I visually followed the flashing red lights until it pulled to a stop next to two other police cars and an ambulance just a block and a half away from where I lived. “Something pretty major must be going on.”

“I’ll say.” But Anatoly wasn’t looking at the police cars.

When the taxi finally slowed to a stop, I literally threw some money at the driver and leaped out of the car with such velocity that I needed to grab hold of a lamppost to steady myself. Unfortunately Anatoly followed me out. The driver screeched away. He probably wanted as much distance from me as possible before I could think twice about giving him a twenty for an eleven-dollar fare. In truth the extra nine dollars would have been money well spent if Anatoly had just stayed in the car. I have never been very good with willpower. Recently I had resolved to limit my chocolate intake to one piece per week. It took me exactly a half-hour to break that resolution. And Anatoly was looking a lot tastier than your average chocolate bar.

“Shouldn’t you have stayed in the cab until he got to your place?”

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to ask to come up.”

Damn.

“I just live two and a half blocks up, so I figured I’d walk. However, I was going to ask you what you’re doing this Saturday night.”

Uh-oh, he wanted to go on a date. It was one thing to fantasize about sleeping with him, it was a whole other thing to plan to spend several hours talking to him. “I have a prior engagement.”

“Saturday afternoon, then. I’ve been here for a little over three months but I’m still not all that familiar with the city. You could give me a tour. Show me where all the good coffee shops are.”

“That’s a pretty long tour.”

“Well then, just show me the Starbucks.”

“That doesn’t shorten it much.”

He moved in a little. “I don’t bite.”

A little biting might not be such a bad thing. I took one more look at his hands. “Saturday at noon. You can pick me up here.” I dug into my purse and wrote my number on an old business card. “Good night, Anatoly.”

“Good night, Sophie.” He slipped the card into his back pocket and proceeded up the street.

I watched until he had turned the corner. “Wow, he’s even got a cute butt,” I murmured aloud. I looked to my right where there were still rescue vehicles congregated. The excitement seemed to be around a little garage located on the first floor of an Edwardian apartment building. The dark and the distance made it impossible to see much. The paramedics were loading someone into the back of the ambulance. Was it a body bag? I instantly felt the alcohol I’d drunk begin to lose its grip. I was aching to get a closer look, but it was doubtful that the police would view my credentials as a novelist as enough to let me dig around a crime scene. I wrinkled my nose and went up to my apartment.

“Hey, Mr. Katz, you haven’t been killing the neighbors again, have you?” Mr. Katz didn’t make an immediate appearance. That was odd. He usually liked to greet me in hopes of obtaining a late-night snack. I spotted him hiding under a chair. “What’s wrong, sweetie?” I asked, and tried to coax him out. The only time Mr. Katz acted like this was when strangers were around or when he had done something he knew I would be unhappy about. A horrible thought entered my mind. “You did use your litter box tonight, didn’t you?” Mr. Katz wasn’t owning up to anything, but he also wasn’t coming out from under the chair. Maybe Friskies would be more persuasive.

I got up and noticed my cell phone on the coffee table. Well, at least that mystery was solved. I stepped into the narrow kitchen and immediately saw the source of Mr. Katz’s agitation. One of the glasses I had left by the sink lay shattered on the floor.

“Is that all?” I bent down to collect the pieces. “How the hell did you knock it so far off the counter anyway…ouch! Damn it!” I sucked the blood that was dribbling down my finger. For someone who had virtually built a reputation on writing graphic violence, I really was a major wimp. I put my finger under the faucet and watched as the pink water flowed down the drain. Something was off. Why was I having a déjà vu feeling? I shivered a little as a cold wind blew in from the window in front of me. It was half open. Had I left it like that?

I heard the floor make a little creak. Someone was watching me. I slowly lowered my hand into the sink and clasped the dirty knife I had left there. I drew a quick breath and whipped around, knife outstretched, silently praying that whoever was behind me wasn’t holding a more ominous weapon.

But it was only Mr. Katz.

From where I was standing I could see all of the kitchen and most of the living room. Everything was in its place. My gaze rested on the diamond studs I had carelessly left on the counter that divided the two rooms. The overhead light was hitting them in a manner that caused them to cast a faint rainbow on the cream tiles beneath them. They hadn’t been touched. No sign of forced entry, nothing but a window that I had obviously forgotten to close, a broken glass and a cat with a suspiciously guilty look on his face. So why couldn’t I bring myself to lower the knife? And why did this feel so damn familiar? It was like I had seen this scene played out in a movie or read about it in a…

I sucked in more air as the vision of my fingers typing the words flashed before me. I had written this scene. It was from Sex, Drugs and Murder. But that was insane. Besides, it wasn’t as if Mr. Katz had never broken anything before. I had been forced to replace the vase on the coffee table three times in the last two years. If it hadn’t been for the phone calls…and the note. Oh God, I had almost forgotten about the note. Could that be connected to this? I spread my feet a little farther apart for better balance. This must be what it’s like to have a bad acid trip. You know that you’ve been given something that messes with your head, so you become unsure if your instincts can be trusted or if they are just the result of drug-induced paranoia.

The sting from the slice in my finger distracted me for a moment and I looked at the blood that had trickled onto the knife’s handle. It was then that Mr. Katz made his move. In one fluid motion he leaped onto the counter, missing a coffee cup by half a millimeter. He proceeded to rub against my arm in a pathetic attempt to redeem himself as I tried to recover from the near heart attack his sudden activity had brought on.

I jerked away from the menacing fur ball and steadied the cup that was on the verge of suffering the same fate as the broken glassware. Culprit identified and caught.

“Stupid cat,” I said, and threw the knife back into the sink. “No Friskies for you.”

CHAPTER 4

“There was no such thing as a slow news day. You could always count on the weirdos of the world to keep things interesting.”

—Sex, Drugs and Murder

Just trying to follow the little black words printed in the next morning’s Chronicle seemed to upset my equilibrium. I searched for some mention of what had happened in my neighborhood the night before, but as I expected, whatever took place had happened long after that edition would have gone to press. I might have found something out on the local news, but then I would have had to get up before nine. There was an interesting little article about Alex Tolsky. His daughter, Shannon, was convinced that her father was not capable of suicide and she was trying to lobby the LAPD to reopen the case, but to little avail. Even her mother believed it was a suicide, citing their impending divorce as the motive. That, coupled with the fact that Tolsky had a drinking problem and suffered from clinical depression, was enough to satisfy the police. Still, Shannon Tolsky was adamant.

A little voice inside me told me she was right. I reached past Mr. Katz for the scissors. Molded correctly, it could be a good premise for a future novel.

My eyes traveled to the kitchen window. It was open just a crack—exactly the way I had left it before going to sleep. Of course it was—why would it be otherwise? I had obviously forgotten to close it before going out with Marcus. Still, I would have sworn… I gently massaged my temples. My head hurt enough as it was, I didn’t need to add to my pain by stressing out over nonexistent problems.

I pushed myself into a standing position and went to the bathroom to perform my morning ritual, starting with a marathon shower. Today had “mellow” written all over it. After all, I had just completed a book, which meant that I had earned at least a month of laziness. After getting myself cleaned up, I threw some kibble in a bowl for Mr. Katz, put on some dark glasses and went out to search the corner market for more artificial energy which I found in the form of a can of Red Bull. I smiled at the petite Chinese woman behind the register.

“Hi, Alice, just the drink.”

“Did you hear what happened here last night?”

I slipped my sunglasses down my nose a bit to get a better look at the store’s proprietor. She had the flush of someone who had heard something horrible and shocking and now couldn’t wait to shock somebody else with it. “Does this have anything to do with all those cop cars and the ambulance I saw when I got home last night?”

“Yes. It’s really bad.”

I took my glasses off.

“You know Susan Lee?” Alice asked.

“No, I don’t think I do.”

“Oh, you know her. She’s in here all the time. She’s in her twenties, Chinese—she wears DKNY a lot.”

“Oh, right, Susan.” I had no idea who Alice was talking about. She had just described half the women in San Francisco.

“They found her body in the Dumpster in her garage last night. She’d been strangled.”

I glared at my hand that had somehow positioned itself dangerously close to the Mon Chère chocolates on the counter. “Any suspects?”

“They didn’t say on the news. They think the body had been lying there for a long time. Hours maybe. Can you believe it? She was such a pretty girl, and someone just threw her in the trash.”

Of course I could believe it. The Dumpster bit was right out of a B movie. Definitely not something I could use in a book.

“They interviewed her brother on TV. He just kept saying the same thing over and over—‘But I just talked to her, I just talked to her.’ It was like he was in a trance. He couldn’t think right.”

I winced. How could I be so heartless? A woman had been killed and the lack of creativity of those who murdered her meant nothing to the people who loved her. All that mattered to them was that someone who was an intricate part of their existence had been taken suddenly from them, without even the chance to say goodbye.

Alice punched the price of the Red Bull into her register at a speed that indicated that she was not done talking. “Andy’s taking it really hard. He’s so sensitive, and I think maybe he had a little crush on her. Usually he won’t take his full lunch break, but today I made him. I told him to walk around the block and get some fresh air. I even offered to give him the day off, but he said no. He never takes a day off. Doesn’t matter if he’s sick. He always comes to work.”

I smiled and gave a slight nod of acknowledgment. I was only half listening. My mind had gone back to my window and the broken glass. But I was being stupid. If there had been a murderer in my apartment last night, why was I still in perfect health? Well, not perfect, but I’d have a hard time pinning my current condition on anyone other than my buddy Smirnoff. I pushed my sunglasses back in place. Nothing like starting off the day with a few paranoid delusions. Maybe I needed a little chocolate to help bring me back to reality. Really…how many calories could be in one Mon Chère?

I silently gestured to Alice that she should add the candy to my purchase before handing her a few crumpled dollar bills and scooping up my items. “Be careful when you’re locking up tonight.”

“Oh, I will,” Alice called after me. “And you be careful too. You never know what this crazy man might do next.”

I gave a little wave over my shoulder in response. I stepped onto the sidewalk, looked down to check that I had zipped my purse, and boom, I had a head-on collision with the Jolly Green Giant. Or at least that’s what I assumed upon impact. In reality it was just Andy. The corners of my mouth curled up.

“We’ve got to stop doing this,” I said.

“Gosh, I’m sorry, Miss Katz!” Andy retrieved my dented beverage from underneath a newspaper stand.

“It was my fault—again. I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going.” I craned my neck back to meet his gaze. His eyes were even more bloodshot than mine. “Andy, I heard about your friend Susan. I’m really sorry.”

Andy’s face scrunched up to about half its normal size and his breath shortened into little gasps. I impulsively reached my arms out to him. His huge body collapsed against me, and I gently stroked his back. “Shh…it’s okay, Andy. Shh.”

“No, no it’s not okay, I liked her. She wasn’t supposed to die—I liked her.”

“I know, I know. It’s messed up, but she’s in a better place now.”

“Really?” Andy pulled back to use the sleeve of his plaid flannel shirt as a makeshift Kleenex. “You believe that?”

“Really.” Maybe. I gave what I hoped was a reassuring squeeze to the portion of his arm that hadn’t been soiled yet. “The best way we can honor her memory is to do everything we can to improve matters in this world so that things like this won’t happen anymore.”

“I don’t want anything like this to ever happen again. Never.”

It must be wonderful to be that naive. “Well, all we can do is our part, be nice to people, do unto others and all that jazz.”

The two thin blond lines that made up Andy’s eyebrows joined forces as he tried to figure out what the hell I was talking about. I tapped the top of my bloated Red Bull can with my fingernail. “Just be yourself and you’ll be fine.”

Some of the confusion and distress slipped from his countenance. “I can do that!”

“Yeah, you can. Andy, I’ve got to go. I’ll see you later, okay?”

“Okay, Sophie.”

I patted his arm again and started my journey to my Acura, which was parked somewhere near Siberia. As sick as it was, the morning’s drama had actually put me in a better mood. I felt sorry for Andy, but I couldn’t help but feel good about having been able to help him. Hell, the guy had even called me by my first name.

Of course, I would have felt even better if the murder hadn’t happened so close to home.

Free Vibrator With Every Purchase Over $100

I didn’t bother to suppress my laughter when I read the sign perched on Guilty Pleasures’ front display table.

Dena emerged from the back of the store wearing a pair of black boot-cut pants and a Castro long-sleeved shirt. Considering her small size, the bold abstract on her top should have overwhelmed her. It didn’t. She gave me a quick hug before gesturing to the sign.

“What can I say? When you’re right, you’re right.” She shrugged. “So are you here to shop or visit?”

“Visit,” I said absently as I toyed with a penis-shaped water bottle. “Do you have time for a short break?”

“Barbie, I need you to watch the floor while we go in back.”

A Puerto Rican woman with heavy black eyeliner and dressed in a kind of dominatrix-style vinyl outfit looked up from straightening a stack of crotchless panties and gave Dena a cheerful smile.

I followed Dena into a small office connected to her stockroom. “That woman is not named Barbie.”

“I don’t care if she wants to be referred to as the Cabbage Patch Kid, that woman knows more about sex toys than any other employee I’ve ever had. It’s like she has a Ph.D. in erotica.” Dena removed a stack of invoices from a padded folding chair before offering it to me and seating herself at her desk. “So what’s up?”

“I met a guy.”

“A guy you want to date?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Glory hallelujah, it’s a miracle! My God, Sophie, if you had gone any longer on this celibacy kick of yours, I would have staged an intervention.”

“I can only imagine what that would have looked like.” I fingered an odd-looking Beanie Baby with five legs that had been left on top of a small filing cabinet. Wait a minute. “Dena…your Beanie Baby seems to be rather…um…excited.”

“It’s not a Beanie Baby, it’s a Weenie Baby. I’m going to put them out tomorrow. I know they’re going to blow. No pun intended. So tell me about your new love interest!”

“Well, he’s not perfect. He doesn’t appreciate Caramel Brownie Frappuccinos.”

“Sophie, I’m going to let you in on a secret…there are a lot of people who don’t appreciate Caramel Brownie Frappuccinos. Hell, I give him ten points just for not frequenting Starbucks. That place is a fascist corporate monster.”

Dena has an odd point system that she uses to rate men. I have never figured out what the scale is, but the men I’ve dated in the past were clearly on the low end. “Sorry, he frequents Starbucks, he just doesn’t buy Frappuccinos.”

“Okay, five points.” She tapped the number five on her desktop calculator.

“He does have an accent.”

“What kind?”

“Russian.”

Dena turned back to her calculator and pressed Plus Five.

“Yeah, it’s very slight—you have to listen for it—but the way he says certain words…like when he pronounces his name, Anatoly, it’s really very sexy.”

“Anatoly…I like that.” She added, three more points.

“Mmm. Anyhow, he’s somewhere in his mid-thirties, about six foot, dark hair, brown eyes, very physically…fit.” Dena raised her eyebrows before adding fifteen. “And he’s got the most incredible hands I have ever seen—you know, big, strong, and just a little rough.”

“Shit, you’re turning me on just talking about him. Twenty points for the big hands. I think we’re up to an overall score of forty-eight. That’s a new high for you.”

“Yeah, he’s definitely eye candy. I wasn’t sure what I thought about him at first—personality-wise he’s a little rough around the edges.”

“I thought you just said you liked it rough.”

“Hands, Dena. Rough hands.”

“Whatever.” Dena turned away from the calculator and swiveled back and forth in her wheeled chair. “Look, the guy obviously does it for you, so when are you going to jump him?”

“Do you ever bother even pretending you believe in traditional courtship?”

“It’s hard to spout puritanical ideals when you own a sex shop. You didn’t answer my question.”

“I’m going out with him this weekend. He’s new to the city so I’m going to play tour guide for a day. You know, ride the cable car, go to the top of Coit Tower, all the stuff I openly denounce as beneath me but secretly long to do…then maybe I’ll jump him.”

“Sounds like fun.” Dena’s smile changed to one of mischief. “Hey, the guy I’m dating just moved here too.”

“Right, I remember you mentioning him…the ‘notch in your bedpost’ guy.”

“Yes! Sophie, he’s sooo fucking hot. Easily scores over fifty points. He’s intelligent, has a goatee, works as a bartender in the Lower Haight, so you know he makes a mean martini, plus he just has a different approach to things, you know? He doesn’t automatically conform to all the dictates of society.”

“In other words, he’s a sociopath.”

“Funny,” Dena said. “He is not a sociopath. He is perfectly sane…or…he sort of is. Okay, I’m sure there are some people who think he’s a little crazy, but they just don’t get him. He’s just…different.”

“Oh my God, you’re dating Michael Jackson.”

“I am not dating Michael Jackson. Besides, it’s not like he has long conversations with his cat or anything like that,” she said, and graced me with her most antagonistic grin.

I responded by giving her the finger.

She laughed and checked her watch. “He’s supposed to meet me for lunch in a few minutes, so if you hang out you’ll get to meet him.”

“Oh, I can’t wait for this.” I repositioned the Weenie Baby so that he was balancing on his two heads. “Speaking of bizarre things…”

“We weren’t.”

“Okay, sorry, that came out wrong. I just want to tell you about something weird that happened to me last night.”

“Does it involve some kind of sexual foreplay with your Russian love god?”

“No.”

“Oh.”

“I came home last night and there was a broken glass on the floor.”

“Uh-huh, so your cat knocked over a glass.” She glared at the overhead fluorescent light that had begun to flicker. “He’s always knocking stuff over. Maybe if you didn’t feed him twenty-four–seven…”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. Dena, it was the way the pieces were scattered…it almost seemed like the glass was dropped in the middle of the room.”

“What are you saying? Do you think someone was in your apartment?”

“I don’t know.”

“Was anything taken or out of place?”

“No.”

“So you think someone broke into your flat, dropped a glass and left?” Dena was wearing an expression that she usually reserved for Mary Ann.

“Right, it doesn’t make sense, I know that. But here’s the thing…do you remember my book Sex, Drugs and Murder?”

The condescension disappeared. “The broken-glass-in-the-kitchen scene.”

“You do remember.”

“It was the first indication Alicia Bright had that someone had been in the house.”

“Exactly. Of course, that’s stupid.”

“It’s at least highly unlikely.”

“There’s more.”

Dena swallowed visibly and waited for me to continue.

“I got a note in the mail a little over a month ago, no return address. It was typed, and it contained just one sentence, ‘You reap what you sow.’ And then last night, before the whole glass thing, I got a whole bunch of prank calls. The person calling didn’t say anything threatening. He—or she—just called and hung up.”

“Okay, that’s it. You need to call the police.”

“And tell them what? That someone sent me a note in the mail that is, for all intents and purposes, perfectly benign? That I got a few hang-ups? Or that I found a broken glass in my apartment that may have been knocked over by my cat?”

Dena pressed her palms into her thighs and studied the discarded price tags on the floor. “All of the above?”

“Dena, I told you this because I wanted you to calm me down and bring me back to reality, not so you could further bolster my paranoia.”

“Sophie, if there’s a chance that someone is stalking you, the authorities should be alerted.”

“Great, now we are both being paranoid.” I ran my fingers through my hair, inadvertently tearing it as I went. “Look, I even cut my finger when cleaning up the glass, the way Alicia Bright did.” I held up a bandaged finger for Dena’s inspection. “Do you think that was planned too?”

“Okay, I get your point.” Dena chewed her lower lip. “Still…”

“Dena?” Barbie peeked her head through the door. “Your maaaann is here.”

“Oh good, I do get to meet him.” I stood up and waited for Dena to do the same.

“Sophie…”

“Dena, it’s fine, really. It was the cat. Now come on, you have an introduction to make.”

Dena put her hands on her hips and paused for a moment as she tried to figure out what her next move should be. Finally she shook her head in defeat. “Fine, I’ll let it go for now. Let’s have you meet Jason Beck.” She took my arm and guided me onto the selling floor, and there he was.

Mr. Velvet Pants.

CHAPTER 5

“One look at Kittie’s car told Alicia that there was more to the story than she was letting on.”

—Sex, Drugs and Murder

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no.” Dena did a quick double take. She had every reason to be offended—I was being rude—but what the hell was she thinking?

The freak smiled. “Sophie and I met last night,” he said. “I ran into her at a gallery south of Market.”

“A gallery?” asked Dena. “I thought you were…”

“Going to participate in the vampire games? I did, but I was a little early, so I crashed an opening. It wasn’t worth the effort. The stuff being exhibited was the kind of shit people buy to match their thousand-dollar couch. No message at all.”

Okay, we needed to back up a bit. “The vampire games?”

“Right, let me explain that one.” Dena slipped between Jason and me in an attempt to ease some of the mounting tension. “Once a month a group of people—”

“Vampires,” Jason corrected.

“Right, okay, let’s call them vampire people.” Dena folded her hands under her chin. “Anyhow, a whole bunch of vampire people get together and act out some kind of vampire story. It’s often based on a novel or a movie.”

“Have you read much about vampires?” Jason asked. He stepped to the side so we could have a full view of one another again.

“I’ve read Dracula and The Vampire Chronicles.”

“Then you know a lot about the creatures of the night. I often get to play the part of Dracula.”

“Really.”

“Yes, I am Dracula.”

You are insane is what you are. I examined Jason’s current ensemble. The velvet was gone and in its place were a pair of black suede jeans, a white dress shirt with the breast pocket not so carefully cut off, and the motorcycle jacket from the night before. Dena was right, Jason had a different approach to things.

“Last night, how did you know my name?”

“Well, when I was at Dena’s place I was looking through her bookcase and noticed that she had several titles from you, which sort of threw me off ’cause Dena’s not the type to buy into that whole bestseller thing. She’s more an Anaïs Nin type than a Jane Austen chick. So I got curious and flipped one open and saw your autograph. You wrote a pretty detailed message, so it stuck in my head. I recognized you from the picture in back.”

Dena shook her head. “I don’t remember that.”

“You were in the shower,” he explained without bothering to move his eyes in her direction. “I know I came on a bit strong. When I’m in vampire mode I can be a little dramatic.”

“Understandable.” Not.

“I got one of your books this morning. I just started it.”

“Oh? Which one?”

“Your first one. Criminally Insane.”

“Always good to start at the beginning. I hope it’s not too ‘Jane Austen’ for you.”

“No, I’m sure I’ll like it.” He brought his hand up to stroke Dena’s back. “She and I have similar tastes. Although, as a general rule, I’m not all that into fiction.”

“But you do like books about vampires.”

“Yeah, but I’m not so sure they’re all fiction.”

“Well.” I tried to choose my words carefully. “Parts of many novels aren’t. The writers tend to use a lot of accurate historical references.”

“Yeah, but that’s not what I’m talking about. Come on, you read the books. You had to have stopped sometimes and said to yourself, ‘Man, these characters are so real—too real.’ It must have crossed your mind that some of those guys are really out there—that the immortals exist.”

“I’ll concede that some of the writers who wrote on the topic are talented enough to bring their characters to life on the page, but I’m pretty sure it stops there.”

“And why are you so sure of that? Because our current western Judeo-Christian ethic says so? You need to broaden your thinking, Sophie. Open your mind to the bizarre.”

I looked over at Dena. She had become very busy rearranging her glow-in-the-dark condom display. “Okay, Jason, for the sake of argument, let’s say there really are vampires. Does the fact that you are so involved with this—this vampire subculture mean that you want to become one of them?”

“I would be open to it. Vampires aren’t inherently bad. They drink blood because they have to in order to survive. We, on the other hand, slaughter chickens and cows because they taste good. So ask yourself, which one of us should be wearing the black cowboy hat?”

I had to admit I was moving from irritated to amused fairly quickly. I decided to dispense with the standard etiquette I would normally observe upon meeting a new acquaintance. I leaned against a display table and stuck a thumb through my belt loop. “You really are weird, you know that?”

“Yeah, but I got your attention, didn’t I? Crazy beats the shit out of boring.”

I laughed. I was beginning to like him. So he was schizophrenic, he still had a certain je ne sais quoi. “So what are your feelings on Santa Claus?”

“Sophie, I know you just stopped in briefly to say hello, and I wouldn’t want to keep you….” Dena took her attention away from the condoms long enough to stop an impending conversation about the existence of Rudolph.

Jason didn’t seem the least bit perturbed. It probably wasn’t a stretch that he had met up with other people who had difficulty accepting his creature-of-the-night theory. “Okay, I’ll get going. Dena, I’ll see you later, and Jason…it’s been interesting. Have a good lunch—or are you on a strictly liquid diet?”

“For now I’ll settle for sucking the juice out of a red grapefruit.”

He could laugh at himself. That was good. Dena rewarded him with a light kiss and then turned her triumphant smile on me. “I’ll see you later, Sophie. Oh, I almost forgot, I have to do inventory Sunday. Can we move movie night to Monday? I’ve already cleared it with Mary Ann.”

“No problemo, I’ll see you Monday.” I turned to leave.

“Hey, Sophie,” Jason called after me.

“Yeah?”

“You’d make an awesome vampire. Exotic features with supernaturally white skin…that would be cool.”

“Thanks, but I’m kind of digging the whole mortal thing right now. I’ll see you two later.”

I left the store and looked both ways down the sidewalk as I tried to remember where, exactly, I had parked. There was a man sporting a scarred face and a rather obtrusive gold chain peeking into the store window, clearly hesitant to enter.

“You should go in, it’s a good store,” I assured him.

Glazed eyes stared silently back at me. He used his finger to pick some food out of his teeth. Lovely. That was the problem with owning a sex shop. Most of Dena’s customers were fairly respectable, but at least once a day she had to deal with some heroin-loving scumbag looking for a public place to whack off. I considered going back in and warning Dena, but the man turned around and wandered off before I had a chance. Gross, but harmless. I left to find my car. If he did go back, Dena could handle it. After all, she was now being backed up by the power of the living dead.

By the next morning I was physically in much better shape than I had been twenty-four hours previous, but I was also intensely anxious and confused. I approached the mirror and turned from side to side, then turned my back to it and tried to do some kind of contortionist move with my neck so I could review every angle. In a half hour Anatoly would come to pick me up and I had just changed clothes for the eighth time. I was now wearing black boots, jeans, a black V-neck shirt and a leather jacket. “I don’t know, maybe this neckline is a little too low,” I mumbled to myself. I struck a couple of poses to ensure that my boobs would be contained in any position I might need to assume. “What do you think, Mr. Katz? Does it look like I’m trying too hard?”

Mr. Katz was busy making a nest out of a discarded wool sweater. I picked up the fitted gray turtleneck that I had tried on three tops earlier. “But what if he wants to kiss my neck?” Mr. Katz licked his fur suggestively. “I didn’t say I’d let him kiss my neck, but it would be closed minded of me to completely eliminate the possibility.” I looked in the mirror again. This was just going to have to do. My hair couldn’t take another shirt change.

There was a knock at the door. Mr. Katz lifted his head in alarm.

What kind of jerk shows up a half hour early for a first date? I didn’t even have my makeup on yet. I should have trusted my first impression of him. I had a date with the last living caveman.

The knock came again.

“All right, I’m coming.” I gave Mr. Katz a “why me?” look and headed for the entryway. “Which one of my idiot neighbors let you into the building anyway?” I asked before throwing open the door.

“Oops.” It was one of my idiot neighbors.

“Sophie, I didn’t know you had such a high opinion of us.” Theresa Conley wasn’t going to let that one slide. But then again, letting things slide wasn’t really her forte.

“I honestly didn’t mean it, Theresa. You just caught me at a bad time. You see, I was just talking to my cat and… You know what? Never mind. Fresh beginning. Hello, Theresa, what can I do for you?”

Theresa sucked in her cheeks in a manner that made me think of the fish I had had for dinner the night before. “I came because I’m trying to be a good neighbor. Not that you make that an easy task. Nonetheless, I feel it’s my duty to inform you that while looking for parking I saw your car, and it seems someone has broken into it.”

“Oh, God damn it!” This was the second time someone had broken into my car. “Did they break the window?”

Theresa smiled. “Driver’s side.”

“Damn it!”

“Well, I just thought I should tell you. And say hi to your cat for me.” Theresa left in a considerably better mood than she had arrived in.

I slammed the door and turned to see Mr. Katz looking at me questioningly. “I don’t have time for this. I have a date in—” I checked my watch “—twenty minutes.”

Mr. Katz swished his tail and headed back to the bedroom to see if he could do more damage to my sweater collection.

“Argh!” I grabbed my keys from the small table in the entryway. Something was missing. When I came home I always put the face to my CD player on the table next to the keys. Except when I forgot it in the car. If I tried a little harder, could I be a bigger idiot? Defeated, I went out to inspect the damage.

I had parked a little more than three blocks uphill from my apartment, somewhere around five o’clock the day before. I really needed to get an alarm system—although what were the chances I would hear it when I was parked ten miles away? Thanks to an inordinate number of SUVs blocking my line of sight, I wasn’t able to spot my car until I was less than ten yards from it.

I stopped breathing for a second. It was unlike Theresa to understate things, but even from a slight distance it was clear that my Acura hadn’t just been broken into, it had been vandalized. The hood and the trunk had been popped and remained open. When I got closer, I could see that the driver’s side window had indeed been broken, but the biggest damage was to the interior. Not only had they dumped everything out of the glove compartment, but they had also slashed up the interior of both the front and back seats and pulled the stuffing out in several places. There were slashes all over the floor, as well. Hesitant, I looked in the trunk and found that they had also slashed the carpeting in there, along with the spare tire. My hands started trembling and I gripped the top of the trunk to steady them. Who would do this? I pressed my lips together and went to the front of the car to see what else had been destroyed or taken. I forced myself to peek under the hood. The engine was intact.

Why was that? If the object was to cause as much damage as possible, shouldn’t they at least have cut a few wires or something? I peered through the broken glass to get a second look at the mess inside. My CD player was still there. Last I had checked, the main reason people broke into cars was to steal their stereos. My stereo wasn’t state-of-the-art but I was pretty sure it was theft-worthy.

“I thought I was supposed to meet you at your place.”

I jumped at the sound of Anatoly’s voice. He was standing in the doorway of an apartment complex parallel to my car. His eyes traveled behind me to the Acura. “Looks like somebody made an enemy. You know the owner?”

“What are you doing here, Anatoly?”

“What do you mean, ‘what am I doing here?’ I live here.”

“In that building right there?”

“The one I just walked out of. Your powers of deduction are staggering.”

“And you didn’t hear anything when some lunatic was ripping apart my car?”

“Your car?” Anatoly’s eyebrows shot up. He walked closer for a better look. “I don’t understand, are you a drug dealer or something?”

“Excuse me? Someone messes with my car and you want to know if I’m a drug dealer?”

“Look at the car, Sophie. Whoever did this was looking for something, and when they didn’t find it in the glove compartment or the trunk they assumed it was valuable enough for you to hide it inside the seats.”

“Well, if they were looking for drugs they got the wrong car.”

Anatoly was examining the trunk now. “Well, they were looking for something.”

“Oh, for God’s sake! I wouldn’t even know how to hide something in the upholstery of my car without ruining it. Let alone in my spare tire. What the hell could I possibly possess that I would even want to hide that well?”

“Could be a number of things. Do you have some compromising photos of the mayor and the latest Playboy bunny that you were planning on blackmailing him with? Although I think Willie Brown proved that San Franciscans aren’t concerned with such things.”

“Give me a break. I’m not blackmailing anyone. This is real life, not one of my books….” I looked at the car again. In what seemed like slow motion, I opened the passenger side door and touched one of the fresh cuts in the seat.

“What’s wrong?” He stepped behind me and put a supportive hand on my arm.

“Nothing. Look, I don’t mean to blow you off, but I think I should go report this.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“It’s really not necessary. I’ve had my car broken into before. You just go to the police station, file a report, and when the SFPD has a slow day they’ll look into it. That will be right around the time the sun collides with the earth.”

Anatoly just stared at me.

“I’m trying to be funny.”

“I can see that.”

“Well then, laugh and go away.”

Anatoly didn’t move. “Are you going to drive the car to the police station?”

“Now you’re the one trying to be funny. I can’t possibly drive this thing.”

“Why not? The engine seems to be intact,” he pointed out while checking under the hood. “And the only tire they slashed was the spare.”

“The police station is only a few blocks away, I’ll walk. It’s not like they have to look at the car. All I have to do—”

“This isn’t a normal break-in Sophie. The police should see the damage in order to know what they’re dealing with.”

I wrinkled my nose in disgust. The last thing I wanted to do was sit in the seat that only hours ago some creep had been merrily slashing away at.

“Here’s what we’ll do,” Anatoly said. I rolled my eyes but chose not to interrupt. “I’ll go upstairs, get my camera and take some pictures of the damage before we move it.”

“Like I said before, we don’t need to do anything.”

“Here’s my cell phone.” He pulled his Nokia out of his jacket pocket. “Call the police and tell them we’re coming over.”

I pulled my hair back with enough force to damage some of the weaker strands. The guy was asking to be smacked. “I’m going to say this one last time—”

“Why don’t you call them as you walk down there? I’ll meet you with the car after I’m done with the pictures.”

Okay, there was something appealing about that. At least I wouldn’t have to get in the car. Of course the plan did have a few flaws. “That means I’d have to trust you with the keys to my car.”

Anatoly grinned. “And I’ll have to trust you with my cell. Considering the condition of your car, I think I’m taking the greater risk.”

No arguing with that one. “Okay, here’s the key. I’ll meet you at the station. Do you know where it is?”

“I’ve passed it a few times. This will be good. Our first stop on my tour of San Francisco.”

I shook my head and started downhill toward my destination. Having my car vandalized was a lot more than a minor annoyance, but my insurance would take care of it. What was really bothering me had little to do with my actual vehicle.

What was really bothering me was that for the second time in three days I was reliving a scene from one of my books.

The cop let out a low whistle as he considered the car. Anatoly, who had magically found a parking spot on the same block as the police station, was now standing aside as the officer, a big burly guy with a furry mustache going by the name of Gorman, studied the slash in the spare tire. He looked up from the damage and his eyes bore into me. “Do you have any history of drug use or dealing?”

“No!” I tried to ignore Anatoly’s laughter.

“Well, they were looking for something,” Officer Gorman stated as he slammed the trunk closed.

“Yeah, we’ve established that. I don’t own anything that would be worth hiding in my upholstery.”

“Uh-huh,” Gorman said. He looked me over, then turned back to the car. “Anyone who might be after you?”

Anatoly took a step closer to me. How much should I say? After all, most of my fears were based on nothing more than an overactive imagination, right? My fingers automatically began to fiddle with my necklace. “I can’t think of anyone offhand.”

“Uh-huh.” Gorman eyed Anatoly. “Who are you again?”

“I’m just a friend of Sophie’s.”

“Uh-huh.”

I bit my lip. If only the cop could say something useful. Hell, I’d settle for a completed sentence.

“Come inside, we’ll finish the report.”

That was probably as close as I was going to get. “Anatoly, will you wait out here for me?” I asked. “Make sure nobody else messes with it?”

“There’s not much left to mess with.”

“Just stay with the car, okay?”

I followed Gorman inside to his desk. This was embarrassing enough without Anatoly standing over my shoulder. Gorman gestured for me to take a chair. I remained standing. “I thought we were done with the report.”

“Just a couple more questions.”

I hesitated for a moment before sitting across from him. I wasn’t relishing the idea of being interrogated in a police station, even if I didn’t have anything to hide.

“Sure you’re not hiding anything?”

Oh my God. I was being interrogated by the police department’s resident psychic. Maybe I could just visualize the events of the last week and I wouldn’t have to say anything at all.

“Miss Katz, did you hear me?”

Okay, so he wasn’t a very good psychic. “A little over five weeks ago I got a typed note in the mail. No return address. It just said, ‘You reap what you sow.’”

“‘You reap what you sow’? Anything else?”

“Nope, that was it.”

“Know who might have sent it?”

“No, like I said, no return address.”

“Uh-huh.” Gorman made a note at the bottom of his report. “Do you still have the note?”

“Well, here’s the thing. I wanted to have a fire that night and I didn’t really like the note, sooo…I burned it.”

“You…you burned it?” Gorman shook his head. “Smart.”

“Well, I didn’t know I would be needing it.” I scooted my chair forward. Gorman may not be Mr. Personality but maybe he could help me make sense of some things. All I had to lose was my dignity, and that was going pretty cheap these days. “I’m a writer. I write murder mysteries.”

“Uh-huh.”

“This last Thursday, the same day that woman Susan Lee was killed, I received five prank phone calls. The caller didn’t say anything—there was just silence and a click.”

“Any calls since Thursday?”

“No.”

“Uh-huh.” I noticed that this time Gorman didn’t write anything down. He probably found my account so riveting that he knew he’d never forget it.

“So, that same night I came home from an art opening at Sussman Gallery and I found a broken glass.”

“A broken glass?”

“Yes, a broken glass on my kitchen floor.”

“Any idea how it broke?”

“Well…I do have a cat.”

“Uh-huh.”

“But the thing is, the glass was in the middle of the floor. I don’t have a big kitchen, but it would be hard for Mr. Katz to knock a glass that far off the kitchen counter.”

“Mr. Katz?”

“My cat.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Okay, so here comes the really weird part. In my second novel, Sex, Drugs and Murder, my protagonist, Alicia Bright, well, she sometimes gets prank phone calls and in one scene she comes home and finds…a broken glass!” I sat back in my chair and waited for Officer Gorman to react.

“Uh-huh.”

Not the reaction I was looking for. “Okay, I know, glasses break all the time, right? That’s why I decided not to call the police.”

“Good decision.”

“But now there’s the car thing. In my book, Alicia Bright’s roommate’s car is vandalized in almost exactly the same way mine was. You see, the bad guy, Jeremy Spaulding, knows that Alicia’s roommate, Kittie, has a cassette tape that could prove that his father was involved in a political scandal. Kittie’s father produced X-rated films, so she had all these contacts to the pornography underworld.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Okay, that’s probably not all that relevant. Besides, you could always read the book, right?”

Officer Gorman just stared at me. Apparently that one wasn’t even worth an “uh-huh.”

“The point is…” The point. What was my point again? “Oh, yes. The point is that things are happening to me that happened in my book. I am living Sex, Drugs and Murder!”

This time it was Officer Gorman’s turn to sit back in his chair. He put his fingers together steeple-style, furrowed his brow and was silent for what seemed like an hour. Finally, he looked up and made eye contact. I knew he had formed his theory. He leaned forward and I did the same. I could feel my heartbeats increasing in speed.

“You sure you don’t do drugs?”

CHAPTER 6

“Before she met him she had assumed that being sexy and obnoxious were mutually exclusive traits.”

—Sex, Drugs and Murder

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