the interview, and girlfriend’s definitely on the paranoid side. She was complaining about being mistreated by the media, which you know is just another way of saying that she wants to control the media. Also, Stalin paid lip service to the teachings of Lenin, and in this interview Brooke actually quoted the lyrics of a song by Lennon from his Imagine album or something. And to top it all off, I heard that Brooke’s insurance carrier is State Farm.”
I wrinkled my brow. “Why is that important?”
“Are you kidding? Honey, where do you think Stalin sent all those poor peasants? To the State Farm!”
“Not the insurance company, you dork!”
“Still, it’s a sign.”
I watched as little snippets of my hair fell on the cream marble tile floor. “I’m going to do this, Marcus.”
He released a heavy sigh. “I don’t know why I continue to fool myself into believing that you’ll ever take any of the advice I give you. You wouldn’t be you if you suddenly became rational.”
“Rational? This from the man who just likened the Beatles’ lead singer to the founder of the Communist Party?”
“Johnny wrote a whole song telling people to imagine a world where there wasn’t any religion and everybody shared everything—basically just a rockin’ version of The Communist Manifesto. But seriously, I worry about you, Sophie. I hate the thought of anyone hurting even one chemically treated hair on your head.”
“I won’t get hurt. I can do this…with a little help from my friends. Can I count on you to help me with this marginally important mission?”
Marcus stopped cutting my hair and pretended to consider the question. “Will I help you put your life in danger for no good reason whatsoever? Hmm, I’m going to go with no.”
“Will you at least help me think of a reason to give Melanie for my continued involvement?”
“Tell her…oh, I know! Tell her that while Anatoly is a great P.I., he’s also a recovering alcoholic and that you need to work with him in order to make sure he stays on the sobriety wagon.”
“Hey,” I said slowly, “that’s good! But what if she talks to Anatoly about it?”
“Tell her that he just recently joined AA and that he doesn’t want anyone to know. As I see it, she’ll either fire him, in which case your revenge will be taken care of and you can relax, or she’ll ask you to keep tabs on him, which means that you’ll have to stay on the case, which is what you claim is your unconscious desire.”
“Marcus, that’s genius!”
“Of course it is. My smile isn’t the only reason they call me brilliant.”
The minute I left Ooh La La I was on the phone to Melanie. It was surprisingly easy to convince her of Anatoly’s alcoholism and it wasn’t much harder to get her to agree to my continued participation in the investigation. I suspected that she had hired Anatoly out of guilt. She wasn’t comfortable with the idea of putting me at risk by asking me to investigate a murder. But guilt aside, I think deep down she wanted me to be involved. Melanie was a private person, and furthermore she wanted people to think fondly of her deceased husband. She knew that if Anatoly or I discovered information that would cast Eugene in a negative light, I would do everything in my power to make sure that information stayed out of the papers, even if that meant withholding information regarding a criminal act from the police. Perhaps Anatoly would do the same without my urging, but she didn’t know that.
So, as far as I was concerned, it was a win-win. I could help a woman in need while simultaneously sticking it to my chauvinistic ex. I was certain that Ms. magazine would be proud.
7
A little competition never hurt anyone…with the notable exception of the losers.
—C’est La Mort
“These napkins smell funny.”
I gave Leah a weird look before taking a sniff of my own cloth napkin. Four days had passed since I had told Marcus I was going to continue to investigate Eugene’s violent death, and now I had just made the same declaration to my sister as we prepared to have brunch in a new restaurant located in downtown Pleasanton.
We had chosen this place for two reasons. One, she was contemplating whether the restaurant was suitable for a bridal shower she was coordinating, and two, in a few hours I would be meeting with Anne Brooke in her nearby Livermore campaign headquarters. I had finagled the appointment by posing as a freelance journalist for Tikkun magazine, a famously liberal Jewish publication. I didn’t actually read Tikkun (I was turned off by the magazine’s lack of fashion tips and celebrity gossip), but I knew enough about the causes they championed to convince Brooke and her people that I was writing for them. The best thing about the appointment was that Anatoly knew nothing about it. I had asked him to meet at Boudin in Fisherman’s Wharf this afternoon so we could come up with a new game plan. By the time he figured out that I wasn’t going to be showing up it would be too late for him to do anything about it.
“Stop thinking about Anatoly and tell me what you think of that smell,” Leah said.
“They smell like fabric softener, and how did you know I was thinking about Anatoly?”
“You had that wicked look in your eye,” she said with a disapproving sigh.
“I wasn’t having wicked thoughts, at least they weren’t wicked in the way you’re implying.”
“Whatever. I’m not going to recommend this place to my client unless the management is willing to switch to a lavender wash. And I have very mixed feelings about this china. Why are they serving continental cuisine on plates with fleur-de-lis accents?”
“To remind the customers that they serve French toast?” I suggested. I actually liked the restaurant. It was light and airy and the hostess had mistaken me for the instructor on her workout video. “Melanie doesn’t think that Eugene’s time in the FBI has anything to do with Eugene’s murder,” I continued, hoping to circumvent a conversation about the restaurant’s flatware. “She said that Eugene did most of his work behind a desk and the little fieldwork he did was undercover. So with maybe one or two exceptions, the bad guys Eugene helped put away don’t even know that he was the reason for their misfortune. Plus, as she pointed out, if a man wants to return to a life of crime after being released from prison he’s not going to hunt down the officer who arrested him. Instead he’ll steer clear of the cops and the feds and hang out with those who are more supportive of his nefarious activities.”
“Mmm-hmm, fascinating. You do realize that French toast is about as French as McDonald’s fries, don’t you?” Leah took another look at the fleur-de-lis china and clucked her tongue in disapproval.
I should have known better than to have tried to change the subject on Leah. It had always been an unspoken rule in my family that Leah and Mama were the ones who got to control the conversations, and my father (when he had been alive) and I were the ones responsible for placating them. “Leah, no one is going to notice that the pattern on their plate doesn’t reflect the cultural origins of the omelet on top of it,” I responded reasonably.
“They won’t consciously notice it, but they may very well walk away thinking the event wasn’t quite perfect,” Leah said. “People don’t have to be consciously aware of something in order to react to it. Isn’t that what subliminal advertising is all about?”
Couldn’t argue with that logic. I studied my bread plate with new interest. Were these fleur-de-lis sending me subliminal messages? Would I leave here with the urge to hand out cake to the proletariat while wearing Yves Saint Laurent’s newest fragrance?
“Speaking of being motivated by your unconscious,” Leah said, “you’ve told me that you’re going to continue to help Melanie figure out why Eugene was killed, but have you come to terms with why it’s so important