A Date You Can't Refuse Read online

  But in the next room I found Grusha.

  I stopped in the doorway, frozen. Her back was to me. She was hunched over, intent upon something, her arms moving very slightly.

  I got curious. I wasn't supposed to be here—but was she? What was she doing? I inched into the room and to my left, for a better view. She was dressed once more in a housedress, this one lavender and gray, covered with a dotted swiss apron. I heard a clicking sound and Grusha turned slightly.

  She was loading a gun.

  I gasped.

  “Aggh!” she screamed, jumping up and rotating midair to face me. It was an astonishing move for someone so old and not in the NBA.

  I backed up. My hands flew into the air in a gesture of surrender and then back down again. “Grusha. Hello. Sorry. Didn't mean to scare you. What are you doing?”

  “What are you doing?” she hissed.

  “Looking for a telephone.”

  “Big House,” she said.

  “Really? There are no phones in House of Blue?”

  “Big House.”

  I stared at her, and she dropped her gaze, putting the gun in her apron pocket. She then set about making the bed—Stasik's bed, I asssumed, as his banjo was against the wall. “Do you always carry a gun?” I asked.

  She said nothing, and I watched her for a moment, wondering how far to push it. If I weren't working for the FBI, if I were a plain, everyday social coach, wouldn't I be interested? Concerned? Alarmed, even?

  “Grusha,” I repeated. “How come you have a gun?”

  She didn't look at me. “You miss breakfast. Every morning, Big House. Seven o'clock. At eight-thirty finished. You sleep, you starve.”

  “That's fine,” I said. “I don't need breakfast.”

  She glared at me. “You can have fruit. And water.”

  “Fruit and water will do fine.”

  She gathered up an armful of sheets. “You can have coffee.”

  “Wonderful. Do you always clean house with a loaded gun?”

  She grabbed a mop and I jumped back, like she was going to swing at me. Unlikely, of course. Why assault someone with a Swiffer if you're packing heat in your apron?

  “One o'clock is lunch,” she said, moving toward me. “I don't wait. You come, you eat. If not, no.” She brushed past me and out of the room.

  I followed her long enough to see that she was really leaving. And she looked back too, maybe to see if I was. But once she hit the stairway, I doubled back to Stasik's room.

  Nothing grabbed my attention, aside from a dozen CDs marked “demo.” I borrowed one. Okay, I stole it. I couldn't say why, but since I've never been kleptomaniacal, it must have been my inner spy. She was developing nicely, this tough cookie. I, however, unnerved by my own actions, ran back to my room. And locked the door behind me.

  I didn't bother to unpack my own clothes, just pulled some designer hand-me-downs from the closet, a pair of brown wool pants and blazer and a champagne silk blouse, and tossed them on the bed. I glanced at the alarm clock. I'd have to hurry if I wanted to leave the compound to make calls on my cell before my workday began. Then I glanced at the clock again, realizing it was also a CD player.

  I popped in Stasik's CD. Track one was a festival of dissonance. The lyrics were mostly “baby, baby, baby, baby,” with Stasik stretching for notes he had no hope of reaching. This must be the kind of music played at full volume to force people out of buildings in hostage situations. Simon told me ATF agents had done this in Waco, Texas.

  Unless it was the latest in country and western and I was simply out of the loop. I needed a second opinion. I put the CD back in its case, but I couldn't find my purse—could I have left it in the car?—so I hid it under my mattress.

  But I was curious now, and went to the desk and hit my laptop's on button. If Stasik had fans, I'd find them in cyberspace. I'd google Chai too. Suddenly I wanted to see photos, to know this dead girl, this almost-certainly-murdered girl—

  Except that my laptop wasn't working.

  The screen stayed dark. I checked the cable, the AC adapter, jiggled the computer, listened to it, knocked on it, spoke to it, and concluded it was on strike.

  Now what? I knew next to nothing about computers, only that every little thing that went wrong was expensive to fix. And when would I find time to take it in for repairs? I had my greeting card documents backed up, so that wasn't a problem, but what about e-mail? I wasn't Hallmark, but I did have customers, for God's sake.

  Aggravated, I stood, threw off my sweats, and headed for my little scarlet bathroom. I plucked from a rack a fluffy magenta towel and prepared to jump in the shower, when I caught sight of the mirror.

  I gasped.

  I backed up.

  There, along with the reflection of my face, was a message.

  It was handwritten, in large letters, in what appeared to be dried blood.

  And it was in Russian.

  FIFTEEN

  My gaze shifted to my own reflection, one hand on my heart, naked, panting.

  I wrapped the towel around me and willed myself to calm down. I scanned the bathroom, checked the shower, then backed up into the bedroom and assured myself that I was indeed alone. I looked under the bed, just in case. Then I checked to see if I'd locked the bedroom door. I had. Then I locked myself into the bathroom.

  Okay, I told myself. This was not something to freak out over. This was silly, a horror movie staple, people writing on mirrors with—lip pencils. I stepped closer. My own lip pencil. There it was on the counter, its point worn down, my favorite MAC pencil, a color called “Nightmoth.” The nerve. The graffiti artist couldn't have brought his or her own supplies? And it's not like MAC is cheap. That pencil had set me back fourteen bucks. There was a Maybelline lip pencil too, in my makeup bag. “Melon Ball,” for $5.99. They couldn't use that? No, because a message written in cantaloupe juice isn't as scary as one written in blood.

  I grabbed tweezers and plucked the MAC pencil from the counter, then dropped it into a clean glass. I wasn't sure why, but I wanted to follow crime scene protocol, at least as much as I'd gleaned from TV If there were any fingerprints or DNA on that lip pencil, I would preserve it. For whom, I didn't know. I'd think about that later. I stuffed it into a drawer.

  I looked at the message again: Cyrillic letters and the number 31. Maybe it wasn't sinister. Maybe a trainee had mistaken my room for that of a fellow trainee and, in a moment of summer camp-like hijinks, had written, “Come over for cocoa! Room 31!” I grabbed a pen and sketchbook from my suitcase and copied the letters. I would do as Joey had suggested and don my spy persona. She was heroic, even superheroic. Would she be all quivery over a couple of lipstick marks? No. Tough Cookie would laugh—ha, ha!—in the face of this sophomoric communiqué.

  But why was it in Russian? I was probably the only person in the whole compound who didn't understand Russian. Well, except for tvoyu mat and two other phrases I'd already forgotten. Was the message meant for someone else? And when had it happened? I'd last gone into my bathroom the previous night. Had someone snuck into my room while I slept? Or while I was searching the other rooms? Grusha was a likely suspect.

  Except that Grusha had given me the key to my room. Was this why? Were these lipstick messages a recurring problem at House of Blue?

  “Wollie?” A disembodied voice sounded from across the room, nearly sending me through the roof. I found an intercom on the wall and pressed a button.

  “Hello? Yes?”

  “It's Nell. There's a man at the gate that says he's your uncle. Theodore?”

  “Uncle Theo, yes, yes. Let him in. I'll be right down.”

  I threw on my clothes without showering. I still couldn't find my purse. The thought that someone might have taken it from my room further unnerved me. My pants had no pockets, and the blazer pockets were sewn shut, so I ripped one open, enough to hold the folded paper on which I'd written my Russian message. I left the room, locking my door from the outside with the key.

&
nbsp; My footsteps were loud, clattering down the blue marble staircase, echoing through the empty house.

  “Uncle Theo! Apollo!” I waved to my uncle and our teenage friend, who sat in deck chairs on the porch of Big House. “Is everything okay? Is P.B. okay?”

  “Yes, P.B. sent us here!” My uncle wore his usual serape, drawstring hemp pants, and Birkenstocks, his white hair sticking out as though electrified. “Well, not here; Malibu. Pepperdine University, for a guest lecture by Joseph Polchinski. We're on our way there.”

  “P.B. has sold me on Polchinski,” Apollo said. Fifteen years old and scrawny, he wore blue jeans and a Caltech sweatshirt and was eating from a large bag of Sun Chips. “My cousin is coming too. He is driving us.” He pointed to a Kia parked in the street, with a burly man in the driver's seat. “Archimedes! Here is Wollie!”

  Archimedes waved and honked.

  “Okay, yes,” I said, waving back, suppressing an urge to hide. Donatella would not approve of our visual presentation. “Is there something you need?”

  “Well, dear, we just wanted to see where you work and see if you're well.”

  “Oh!” I said, touched. “Well, I'm fine. Sort of.” I looked at my uncle's kind face and Apollo's eager one and found my professionalism slipping. “Okay, not really. Okay, not at all. Frankly, you guys, I'm freaked out.”

  I told them about Crispin. And Chai. I explained my illogical but absolute conviction that Crispin was right about Chai. I found myself looking over my shoulder as I talked, just as Crispin had done the night before, which was a little theatrical, given the sunny morning, blue sky, and the sound of leaf blowers in the 'hood. They listened attentively, with one “holy cow” from Apollo. I was about to explain the mirror message when Uncle Theo held up a hand. “So,” he said, “because of your own strong aversion to manual transmission cars, you've convinced yourself this unfortunate girl was murdered. Is that correct?”

  “Put like that,” I said, “it sounds silly.”

  “It's just so unscientific,” Apollo said. “I could teach you to drive a Corvette.”

  “The question,” Uncle Theo said, “is whether the victim could've been taught to drive one. When Wollie puts herself in this girl's shoes, then her theory is—”

  “—still ridiculous, I know,” I said. “Although I don't have to put myself in her shoes, I'm already in her shoes. Ferragamos.”

  Uncle Theo looked at my feet. “You're wearing her shoes?”

  “I'm wearing all her clothes, except for underwear.” I explained about the couture that fit me with minimal alterations.

  Uncle Theo frowned. “But this is serious. And now it becomes quite scientific.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You're caught in this poor girl's vibrational field. If she was undergoing stress prior to her death, that would affect her biochemistry, which would extend beyond her physical body and conceivably seep into the fabric of a shirt or a pair of trousers.”

  I stared. “You can't be serious. Are you saying little pieces of ourselves, little particles of emotion, get stuck on our clothes? Even after dry-cleaning?”

  “Not particles,” Uncle Theo said. “That's old-school.”

  “Strings,” Apollo said. “Theo, I don't mean to be disrespectful, but your central thesis assumes several—”

  “Yes, I'm not presenting it to Dr. Polchinski,” Uncle Theo said. “I'm more philosopher than scientist. I merely suggest that Wollie's sense of dread is a vibration in this web of quantum entanglement, stretching across time rather than space, conducted through fabric. Whatever the ultimate source, this dread is a reliable indicator of something gone powerfully wrong. She can't ignore it. It's instinct, a force as fierce as gravity or electromagnetism. My dear, is this job so important to you?”

  “Yes. Don't suggest I quit,” I said, backpedaling. “I've got several good reasons to stay, and really, what if this thread theory of yours is mere imagination?”

  “Mere imagination?” Uncle Theo said. “That's an oxymoron. Imagination, dread, instinct, faith. Don't disparage these. In the immortal words of Kierkegaard, ‘There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.’”

  And on that encouraging note, Uncle Theo and Apollo took off, leaving me with barely enough optimism to wave goodbye. I turned to go into the house, but not before I saw the window shade fall into place in the library.

  From inside the house, someone had been watching me.

  In the kitchen of Big House, I found Alik, suppressing a yawn. His black hair was damp, his face freshly shaved, but still, he looked scholarly, like he'd read Proust before breakfast. It was an erotic combination. “Wollie, thanks again for last night,” he said. “Coffee?”

  “Yes, please.”

  He handed me the cup he'd just poured, then reached over to give me a kiss on the cheek. I was startled, but pleasantly so, and smiled at him. The smile faded as I realized I couldn't talk to Alik about Crispin. Or the message on my mirror. Or the fact that his grandmother did housework with a loaded gun.

  “How was your first day?” he asked. “I heard about Felix's suitcase. And Zbiggo is a piece of work.”

  “Oh, Zbiggo slept for six straight hours. He woke just as we got home. I handed him off to Grusha, who fed him a side of beef, so it all ended up happily.” I noticed Alik's eyes, tired-looking behind his aviator frames. “Your emergency get handled?” I asked.

  He glanced at the doorway, then back at me. “Yes, thanks. I had to bail out a friend. Literally, which is why it's better if Yuri doesn't hear about it. He's got a problem with some of my friends. My father's a little on the straight side.”

  “Yes, but you're”—I hesitated, not wanting to offend him—“not a teenager.”

  Alik laughed. “No, I'm twenty-eight. Too old to fear parental disapproval. And I don't fear it. But life is simpler when I don't throw it in his face.”

  “Throw what in his face?”

  “Whatever I'm doing that my father would find unacceptable. Things I try to save until I'm off the clock.”

  I nodded. “It must be tricky, having your father as your boss. And working for your mother too. Stepmother, I mean. Stepmothers. There are just two of them, right?”

  He turned to pour himself coffee. “Stepmothers? Yes. Kimberly's my second, Donatella's my first. My own mother was Ludmilla, Yuri's original wife.”

  “And Parashie's mother? Who was she?”

  “One of Yuri's lovers, when he was between wives. They met doing cleanup work after Chernobyl. Yuri didn't know about her death or Parashie's existence until a few years ago. He found Parashie and brought her here. We're quite the blended family. But we share a common purpose. The family business. Nothing unusual about that.”

  “But the business is unusual,” I said. “And you live in a veritable commune.”

  He smiled. “Multigenerational living is common where my parents come from. You're an L.A. girl, so you'd never live with your family.”

  “My uncle, maybe. Not my brother. We've tried. I love him a lot, but it's complicated. And I can't imagine anyone living with my mother.”

  Alik sipped his coffee. “And here there's a stigma about grown children living at home. America places independence above all other values.”

  “But you're an American, aren't you?” I asked. “Do you feel stigmatized?”

  “I was born in America, yes. And I've spent half my life in Europe. And no, I don't feel stigmatized, I feel part of something. But I also have a life outside my work, one I fight to maintain. Which is why I appreciate you pinch-hitting for me yesterday, and I'll return the favor. When you need it, just ask.” Behind his glasses, his eyes were sea green, and entrancing. “I like you, Wollie. You know that? I want you to be happy here.”

  “Thank you.” I was about to add I like you too, because I realized it was true, realized how lonely I'd been lately with Simon gone so much. But it scared me to like Alik.

 
Because I wasn't sure I trusted Alik.

  He picked up a Los Angeles Times and began to read, drinking his coffee. I watched him. I had a strange impulse to reach out and touch a lock of his hair that was drying in the sun coming through the skylight. What would he do? I imagined he'd respond in kind. I wondered how real spies did this, ingratiate themselves, form friendships and all the warm fuzzy feelings that went along with that while maintaining a baseline level of suspicion.

  A loud voice coming from the next room got our attention. Alik followed the sound, and I followed Alik.

  In the great room, a large—not just large by L.A. standards—woman was facing off with Kimberly She wore a long, capelike wrap in a tangerine color that complemented her auburn hair, which was fluffed and sprayed. She had on a lot of makeup, including false eyelashes.

  “I prefer to be driven in a limousine,” she said. “It is what I am used to.”

  “Naturally, when you're performing, but this is a training. You have no need of your driver here. We'll take care of your transportation needs.”

  “In a limousine?”

  “No, in a modified, fuel-efficient—”

  “Ms. Bjöeling.” Alik stepped in deftly, and Kimberly moved back a step, toward me. “We heard your beautiful voice from the kitchen. Hello, I'm Alik Milos. We are honored to have you with us.”

  Ms. Bjöeling, whoever she was, was not immune to the charm and Baltic good looks of Alik Milos. “Yuri's son?” she asked, thawing slightly.

  Alik nodded.

  “I was expecting Yuri himself to be here on my arrival. It was my understanding that your exorbitant fee guarantees the man himself and not his apprentices. Also, I do not take English classes. My English is excellent.”

  Alik didn't blink. “Yes, it is. Yuri flew last night to New York on short notice, and returns this afternoon. I apologize on his behalf. And I promise you, Yuri is involved in all aspects of MediasRex. That said, Ms. Bjöeling—”

  “You may call me Bronwen.”