Three circles of six...so 666? How very Dante-esque.
"Mr. Kinsky is waiting."
We found him in a room that could have been ripped from the pages of Architectural Digest; dark brown leather furniture and an expensive oriental rug over a Brazilian cherry hardwood floor. In one corner was a piano and in the other a bar. Quick inspection revealed it was fully loaded with expensive bourbon, scotch, gin, cognac and a mini fridge. Alex was sitting in a leather armchair, one ankle slung over his knee.
When our eyes met his lips curled into a bemused smile. "So did you enjoy going through my stuff in the bathroom and bedroom?"
My breath caught in my throat. Had there been a security camera after all? If so the gun was going to come in handy. I would definitely have to kill him. "What makes you think I was snooping?" I asked carefully.
"I"m pretty sure it"s what anyone with an ounce of curiosity would have done." He shifted his eyes to the housekeeper who nodded curtly at her employer before turning around and leaving the room, closing the door behind her. "Besides, the way you tried to get in," Alex continued once we were alone, "it doesn"t imply that you have a lot of respect for my privacy."
I felt my shoulders relax. He had a point.
"Margarita tells me you took an Epsom Salt bath?"
"Her name is Margarita?"
"She didn"t tell you? She probably kept it to herself because she knew you would make fun of it."
"I would never have done that!" I snapped.
"I see," Alex said sagely. "So breaking into my home, that"s okay, but making fun of someone"s name is beneath you."
"I wasn"t breaking into your home! I was just going to sneak into your backyard and peek inside your windows."
Alex"s smile broadened and he got up and walked over to the fireplace. The flames behind him gave him a devilish aura. "Why did you want to peek in my windows?"
"I wanted to see if anyone else lived here."
"They don"t."
"Well that"s not exactly true, is it? Margarita lives here."
"No, she just works here. She"ll be going home soon."
I hesitated for a moment as that sank in. "We"re going to be alone in the house?"
"Does that frighten you?"
"No," I lied. "If you"re the GM of the Hotel Noir why did you agree to follow Anatoly up to his room?"
"You gave me a check."
"It doesn"t look like you need the money."
"Ah, but I didn"t want your money, I wanted your check."
I crossed my arms over my chest. "Should I be worried about that? Is there some kind of ident.i.ty theft scheme going on?"
"No. You know you have a nasty bruise on your forearm. Would you like another ice pack for that?"
"Oddly enough, this bruise isn"t ranking all that high on my list of worries. Someone broke into my house, went through my underwear drawer, stole all my computer equipment, brought a bunch of my stuff to some hotel room in Vegas that was registered under my name and then killed someone in there...with my underwear in the dresser."
"You seem particularly concerned about your underwear."
"No one goes through my underwear drawer, not even my boyfriend."
"Would that be the boyfriend who cheated on you?"
"Why was the room registered under my name?
Alex held my gaze for a moment and then took several steps toward me. As he got closer I had to fight the urge to take several steps back but I was determined not to allow him to intimidate me. When there was less than a foot between us I had to crane my neck up to meet his eyes. He was studying me. Examining my expression, my features, my hair...what exactly was he up to?
That question was answered a second later when he unexpectedly grabbed the Marc Jacobs bag from my hand. I tried to take it back but he immediately moved away from me, while reaching his hand inside the shopping bag. I stood there panicked as he pulled out his gun.
"Listen--"
Alex put up his hand to stop me. "I would have been surprised if you hadn"t taken it," he said. "You don"t have a lot of reasons to trust me and you"re in my house, in an unfamiliar city and we"re alone." He held up the gun with the barrel pointing toward the ceiling. "You wanted to protect yourself. The good news is that I didn"t ask you here to harm you." He unloaded the gun and put it on his desk, tossing the bullets in a drawer. "Do you know why I told Margarita to draw you a bath?"
I shook my head although I barely heard the question. He had unloaded the bullets to calm my fears but what if he had another gun on him?
"I asked her to pour you a bath because you can"t take a bath if you"re wearing a wire. I picked out those shorts because you can"t hide a wire under silk without it bunching and I chose that tank because you can"t hide anything under it...not even a black lace bra."
I was actually too surprised to be offended. "You thought I was going to come here wearing a wire?"
"And you thought I was planning on hurting you. You tried to protect yourself by taking my gun and I protected myself by buying you new clothes. My way is nicer."
I glanced down at my outfit. "How did you know my size?"
"I saw the clothes that were brought to the Hotel Noir. You"re a size four. And before you ask, I didn"t look through your underwear." He smiled mischievously.
There was a knock at the door and Margarita entered without waiting to be asked in. I glanced at Alex to see if that irritated him, but it didn"t seem to.
"I"ll be leaving now," she announced.
"All right, before you go could you please take Miss Katz" handbag, shopping bag and computer and put them away in the coat closet off the foyer?"
"Wait a minute, what? She can"t take my things!"
"They could be bugged too," Alex explained.
"Um, I"m not going to just leave my things lying around your house where I can"t keep an eye on them. What if you"re the one lying to me and there is someone else in this house."
"Fine, keep the purse on you, but you"ll have to let me search it."
I weighed my options for a moment before thrusting the purse into his hands. "The most dangerous thing I have in there is a Tweezerman."
I watched as he looked through my things, my lipstick, tampax and all the rest of it. It really wasn"t any more of an invasion of privacy than what you would expect at any airport security station but still, having him do this made me uncomfortable. Margarita continued to stand in the doorway, looking bored.
Alex pulled out my cell phone and then Anatoly"s. "Two phones?"
"One of them isn"t mine."
"They"re both going to have to wait in another room."
"Why don"t you want me to have a phone?" I asked nervously.
"Because they can be easily tampered with in order to turn them into recording devices. For me to ensure you haven"t done that I"d literally have to take them apart. So your choice, you can give the phones...and that laptop to Margarita for her to store in the other room and I"ll tell you what I know or you can take your new outfit and leave. Seems to me you win either way but you may not see it that way."
I hesitated, my hand gripping the strap of my MacBook case. "Yes to the phones, but I want to keep the MacBook with me."
"Very well. It was nice of you to stop by, Sophie. Hope you enjoy the rest of your stay in Vegas."
I exhaled loudly. "You really have information that will help me?"
He shrugged. "I have information that you want. Whether it"s helpful or not depends on what you choose to do with it."
I thought about it for a moment and then carefully took the MacBook out of its carrying case. I put it on a side table near the chair Alex had been sitting in and opened it. "Examine it if you like. a.s.sure yourself that it isn"t on while we talk. It can be by your side for as long as I"m here. But I just had my home computer stolen along with all the storage devices that I had my latest ma.n.u.script on. I"m not letting this thing out of my sight now. You and I know I can"t make a MacBook into a recording device if it isn"t on."
Alex hesitated, clearly not pleased with the compromise. I stepped forward and took my phones from him and placed them firmly in Margarita"s hands and then handed her my bag of clothes. "Go ahead and put those in the foyer." I turned to face Alex. "See? We"re both making compromises here."
It was a compromise I wouldn"t have made if I hadn"t already noted where the landline phone was in the room. Besides, Mary Ann knew that if I didn"t answer my phone she should call the cops, so if Alex"s plan was to keep me from calling for help he was in for a surprise.
Reluctantly, Alex nodded at Margarita.
"I will put the phones on the table in the foyer," she said woodenly. "Goodnight Mr. Kinsky."
She left the room without bothering to say goodnight to me.
Alex examined my MacBook and then moved it over to a spot on the floor near a speaker and then turned on the stereo. The slightly eerie, intriguing and intense (in an Evanescence kinda way) music filled the room.
"Zola Jesus," Alex said. "A Russian, American singer. She"s known for combining goth, industrial, cla.s.sical, electronic and experimental rock influences."
"That"s a lot of influences."
"It is. She"ll also add a layer of protection in case you are trying to record this." Alex smiled wryly. "Seems like we both could use a drink, yes?"
I struggled with myself for a second too long before answering, "No."
"Are you always this bad of a liar?"
I couldn"t help but smile at that. "Do you have vodka?"
He opened up the mini fridge and pulled out what looked like a large bottle of cologne. It was beautiful. Clear with perfectly elegant curves and a sparkling silver lid that came to a graceful point.
"That"s vodka?" I asked. "It looks like art."
"It"s Kauffman Luxury Vintage Vodka," he said, holding the bottle out for my viewing pleasure.
I sucked in a sharp breath. I had heard of Kauffman but had never actually seen it. It was almost impossible to get in the States. It also cost $250 per liter. "Is it as good as they say?"
"There"s only one way to find out." He served me a gla.s.s, neat. "Vodka this smooth shouldn"t be mixed with anything. It"s a sipping vodka."
I had never heard of "sipping vodka" before. I had been raised with the belief that vodka was for drinking (relatively quickly) or consuming in shot-form. I watched as Alex poured himself a gla.s.s, which he then raised for a toast. "To new friendships."
I rejected that with a shake of my head. "To answers."
His eyes darted over to the piano and for a split second he looked somber. "To answers."
I brought my gla.s.s to my lips; I had never tasted vodka this smooth before. It was perfection and it made me trust him a little more. I had a bad habit of trusting people who had good taste in liquor. "So can we talk now? Have I appeased your paranoia?"
"I don"t see it as paranoia. I see it as being cautious." He sat down on an oversized leather armchair. "I think Anatoly and I have that in common," he mused. "We"re both very cautious men."
I laughed until I realized he was serious. "He rides a motorcycle, married into the mob and then ditched his gun wielding wife for a life with me...and I"m not exactly known for my ability to stay out of trouble. So in what dictionary does that fit the definition of cautious?"
"He takes risks," Alex conceded, "but only after he"s weighed the odds and all that. Because of that he was a huge a.s.set to the family."
"What family?"
"The Russian mafia...at least for this syndicate." He waved this revelation away as if it had no bearing on my predicament. "The only way to make a cautious man careless is to play on his emotions. Last week, when they found out that you had broken up with him-"
"Okay, stop right there." I scooted to the front of the couch. "How did you know I had broken up with him before I came to Vegas?"
Alex ran his finger along the rim of his gla.s.s. "You got a lot of calls from Anatoly in the days leading up to your Vegas trip but...have you gotten any voicemails? I"m guessing no."
"You"re beginning to creep me out, Alex."
"They tapped your phone and they"ve been erasing his voicemails after they listened to them."
It took me almost a full minute before I found my voice. "So when you said my phones might be recording devices you meant they are recording devices."
"No, they tapped the line, they didn"t bug the phone and to be honest they"re not even listening into the calls anymore. Anatoly knows better than to call you now so there"s no reason to monitor your phone conversations. But not too long ago, there was."
"Wow, that is just so James Murdoch of you."
"Not me," Alex said quickly. "I had nothing to do with it. All I do is run the hotel. I deal with the legal side of the mafia"s investments."
"The legal side," I repeated. "Does that include covering up murders that take place in your hotel...legally?"
"I like to call that crisis management. That"s why I wanted your check. If...they weren"t able to clean up their mess as quickly or discreetly as they hoped I could have used your check to prove that you had the victim followed and then there would have been a quick arrest and little damage to the hotel"s reputation."
I gripped my gla.s.s with both hands. "What are you saying?"
"If plan A didn"t pan out, which it did, I was going to set you up for murder."