Sex, Murder And A Double Latte

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?”