I’ve had a few guns pointed at me. You even pointed a gun at me once.”
“You were wielding a broken bottle at the time.”
“It wasn’t a rock-paper-scissors game. There was no need for you to trump me.”
Anatoly shook his head in annoyance. “What I’m saying is that you have been very lucky. You have behaved stupidly in extremely dangerous situations and yet you have managed to stay alive.”
“Which is more than they’re going to be able to say about you unless you change your tone.”
“This time you may need more than luck,” Anatoly said, completely ignoring my threat. “If the motivations for this killing can somehow be traced back to Eugene’s actions in the FBI, or worse yet, his position on Flynn Fitzgerald’s campaign, then Eugene’s death isn’t so much a murder as it is an assassination. As dangerous as it is to antagonize serial killers, it’s even more dangerous to antagonize professional assassins. I may not be able to protect you this time.”
I laughed bitterly. “What the hell are you talking about? The closest you’ve ever come to protecting me is when you put on a Trojan!”
“This is too dangerous, Sophie. Let me handle it.”
“And what makes you more qualified to handle this than me? Oh, let me guess, it has something to do with the Y chromosome.”
“No, it has to do with my service in the Russian and Israeli armies.”
“Being a mercenary doesn’t make you more qualified to deal with professional killers.”
“First of all, I’m not and have never been a mercenary. I was a citizen of both countries at the time of my service. Second, of course it makes me more qualified! What the hell do you think a mercenary is?”
I leaned forward and looked him in the eyes. “I told Melanie that I’d help her and that’s what I’m going to do.”
“Getting me to take her case is helping her. You’re done now.”
“Um, I don’t think so.”
Anatoly glared at me. “You’re making a big mistake with this, Sophie.”
“If that’s true it’s my mistake to make. I’ve already interviewed Flynn Fitzgerald and his top adviser, and I have an appointment to interview Anne Brooke.” Okay, that last part was a lie but he didn’t need to know that. “I’m in this now. If Melanie wants to hire you, fine, she can do that. But if you actually plan on solving this case and not just bilking her for thousands of dollars for no reason, then you might want to start working with me instead of treating me like a spoiled five-year-old.”
“It would be easier to treat you like an adult if you’d start acting like one.”
“This from the man who three months ago bought a bunch of lawn chairs to use for his living room furniture.”
“They’re comfortable!”
“They are so not comfortable. I’m going upstairs now.”
Anatoly smirked. “Is that an invitation?”
“Yes. I’m inviting you to walk out of my building before I call the police.”
“The police?” Anatoly laughed. “Are they still taking your calls?”
“Out!”
Anatoly shook his head resignedly. “There’s nothing I can do to convince you to stop investigating this case, is there?”
“Nope.”
“Fine.” Anatoly yanked the door open. “I’ll call you about the information you’ve gotten so far and accompany you to your interview with Anne Brooke.”
“You’re not going on that interview.”
“If you don’t invite me I’ll tell her people about the time you signed a petition supporting the death penalty, and then you know she’ll refuse to see you.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
Anatoly raised one eyebrow and then strolled out onto the street, leaving me seething in frustration.
It wasn’t until I was back up in my apartment that I realized that I had just insisted on doing something that I didn’t want to do.
I cursed under my breath and plopped myself down on the love seat where Mr. Katz was sleeping. What if the cat message on the phone had been a death threat after all? What if the caller was actually Eugene’s killer and now he had decided that I was going to be his next victim? I should call Anatoly right now and tell him I’d changed my mind.
Then I thought about the smug expression he would be wearing if I did that.
No. I couldn’t back out now. There were very few things in this world that were worth risking your life for. Pissing Anatoly off was definitely one of them.
6
Politicians are like cartoon characters. With a few charming one-liners and a lot of corporate support, they persuade people to excuse their violent and stupid behavior and learn to love them.
—C’est La Mort
“Did I hear you correctly?” Marcus asked as he ran his fingers through my hair, his handsome brown face scrunched up in confusion. “You are going to investigate Eugene O’Reilly’s murder, even though you don’t want to, and now Darth Vader is threatening your cat?”
I sighed and studied Ooh La La through the mirror in front of me. One of the things I liked about the salon was that the stations were far enough apart and the music just loud enough so that you were able to converse with your hairstylist without worrying about being overheard. That and the fact that they served free cappuccinos and mimosas.
“I didn’t say he was Darth Vader, although now that you mention it, the synthesized voice did kind of have a Darth Vader-like quality, so who knows? It’s as likely as anything else at this point. But he didn’t threaten my cat. Whoever called really likes cats. He was emphatic about that,” I said. “And I do want to investigate this. I just don’t think I want to.”
Marcus shook his head hard enough to make his short, well-groomed dreadlocks jiggle. “You lost me.”
“What I’m saying is that I want to do it more than I don’t want to do it. I just have to figure out why that is.”
“I thought you were helping out your mentor.”
“That was the original excuse, but I’m not sure that holds up anymore. She asked me to get her in touch with Anatoly so she could hire him to investigate. I was the one who suggested that I do my amateur-sleuth thing. So technically Anatoly was right when he said that my obligation to her ended as soon as he took the case.”
“Technically he was right? Honey, he was completely right. He was absolutely right. Pick any positive adverb, place it in front of the word ‘right’ and that’s pretty much
