The Granite Moth (10 page)

My neon pink Band-Aid didn't match the outfit I had cobbled together for chichi dining. Circo is the so-called casual off-shoot of Le Cirque, but I defy you to spot a pair of shorts. The circus-themed drapery and sculptures were visible from where I waited at the bar, but the blue hairs at table six were the real show, and everyone was sneaking glances at them. I couldn't place their faces, but I was betting theater legends. Their laughter was robust, and the room seemed to lean toward their warmth. I wasn't immune and found myself smiling in their direction.

“I didn't recognize you until you smiled.”

I turned to the man who had sat down on my left, worried at not being more aware of my surroundings. It seemed like the kind of place where nothing could go wrong, but that assumption would get a lady in trouble.

Sans wig, nails, and affectation, I was probably hard to spot, so I didn't hold it against Lars even if he had met me—the real me—years ago. He looked the same as the night before, down to the pinstriped suit, though the shade may have been a touch lighter. More navy than gray? I had a sudden urge to run my fingers down the lapel and forced myself to meet his pale blue eyes instead.

“You wouldn't be the first,” I said, then blushed slightly in the long pause that followed. As Kate Manning, Kennedy Starkweather Vanders, or Kiki (No Last Name), I could be confident, brazen even. As myself, I mostly felt out of place. And I hadn't bothered Dolly with helping me prepare for this business meeting that felt like a date, so my short hair wasn't exactly glamorous, and my dress would have looked better with black heels. Even I knew that much about fashion. I stuck my hand out before my thoughts meandered too far down that road. “It's nice to see you again, Lars.”

He shook my hand, holding on a moment longer than necessary, then settled my tab despite my feeble protest. It was one glass of wine, but it was more than I usually spent on an entire bottle.

The hostess could have been a carbon copy of the one at The Skyview, Bethany “Beth” Rosen. Not in appearance, but in efficiency. It was clear she knew Lars from previous dinners, but she welcomed me, too, with a gracious gesture toward a table in the back corner. It was near the kitchen, not the pick of the litter, but also noisy enough to discuss some private matters. Lars and his co-conspirator maître d' knew what they were doing. As we walked over, I imagined what other private conversations Lars might have had there.

He held my chair out for me, and I tried to gracefully manage the half-squat required for him to scoot me up to the table. It went off better than expected, and I smiled, surprising myself
again. Perhaps these high-end restaurants mixed a little Zoloft in their drinks.

“Should I order for us?” Lars asked, picking up the wine menu. I liked that he asked and nodded in agreement, thanking the waiter who brought over some complimentary pâté, though I wasn't inclined to try the cat food–looking stuff, delicacy or no.

“Surely you don't mind the carbs,” Lars said, laying the menu down in order to scoop some up onto a piece of bread.

“No, just my gag reflex.”

Lars laughed, and I was glad that he didn't mind my non-cosmopolitan attitude. I tried to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear in the silence that followed, but I wasn't wearing a wig and there was nothing to tuck.

The meal wasn't as comfortable as ones I'd had with his brother, but there was a tingle of excitement in learning about someone new. He wanted to know perhaps a bit too much about my past, and I gave him the client version: B.S. in Criminology from John Jay College, two years undercover, three years running my own business. References? I've got plenty.

He held up his hand at this last part. “Not necessary. Ellis vouched for you. Listen, Kathleen. Can I call you that?” I liked that Lars asked that, too, and I mentioned that clients usually called me Katya or Ms. Lincoln, but Kathleen was okay, given the circumstances.

“Great,” he said. “Kathleen. I'm not sure how much trouble I'm in by being in that poker room. Ellis says the people around the table are the most likely suspects. We opened the champagne.”

“I opened it,” I corrected him.

“Someone in the room could have slipped the poison in.”

“Who? A magician? I think we would have noticed someone mixing a little cyanide into our glasses.”

While Lars mulled this over, I shared another theory, that the poison could have been on the glass. I remembered the waiter—
was it Gustav?
—sneaking in and out.

“And you can find out who, right? I'll pay your going rate.”

Mr. Manners had refused his glass, but Sybil had been the one to pass it along to Ernesto. Either could have been in cahoots with Magrelli, jealous of Eva's relationship with the young, good-looking card dealer. I took a bite of my crème brûlée and weighed how unethical it would be for me to take money for a case I was going to pursue anyway.

“Listen, I'm looking into this already,” I said. “And your brother will probably have the perp in custody before we finish our nightcaps.”

I doubted even Ellis Dekker worked that fast, but it vexed me that Lars didn't appreciate his brother's reputation. Lars ignored my comments, and I had a feeling that he was used to getting his way.

“I've got my lawyer on retainer, too. You can give her everything you learn.”

Well, you couldn't accuse me of swindling the man. I leaned back in my chair and watched a server carry a two-tiered cake toward a large group. They didn't sing, but someone—the birthday girl's father maybe—was giving a speech to a young woman. She looked decidedly happy, no second-guessing for her. The life in front of her was all icing and presents, holidays in the Alps. I shook myself. No one escaped tragedy, no matter the balance of their checking account.

“Do you know anything about Salvatore Magrelli?” I asked, finally getting around to the real reason I had agreed to dinner. At least, that's what I was telling myself. That I enjoyed the company was a bonus.

“I know he's Eva's husband. I've met him once or twice.” His voice held a certain amount of hesitation, and I didn't blame
him for speaking carefully. I never wanted to be on the man's wrong side again either. And it looked like I was heading in that direction.

“I knew him. In a former life. I don't think he'd take kindly to his wife screwing around.” Meeza would have known a more polite euphemism for cheating, but Lars didn't balk at my change in tone or the venom that dripped into my voice when I talked about Salvatore.

Lars folded his napkin onto the table and signaled for the check. When the waiter disappeared into the kitchen, Lars leaned toward me, his eyes searching mine for something I couldn't name.

“Not her lover,” he said, his eyes darting to my lips then back up. “Her cousin.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

D
olly didn't
say much after we boarded the Q train at 42nd Street, heading south toward Brighton Beach. That was fine; I didn't much feel like gabbing anyway. Dolly rested his head on my shoulder, and I thought back to my unsatisfactory conversation with Ellis early that morning. He had known about his brother's intentions, of course, but didn't seem pleased about my involvement. “I know it's your case,” I had said, adding “officially” in my head. “I won't interfere.” But we both knew I probably would, best intentions aside.

Ellis didn't say much about his interviews with the other players or with Eva. It would have been too risky for me to question Eva directly, so any information I gleaned from Ellis's one-word answers was important. The gist was that she felt guilty about something, but it wasn't murdering her cousin. Seeing how affectionate she'd been toward him, I didn't buy her as the one pulling the trigger—or lacing the champagne either. Ellis confirmed what I had discovered via a quick Google search. Poker dealing wasn't Ernesto Belasco's livelihood, or at least not his primary one. He worked at a hair salon
in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, which is where Dolly and I were headed—right after a visit to my own favorite hairdresser, wig aficionado Vondya Vasiliev.

Dolly had insisted on going with me, and I was grateful. Vondya was a force to be reckoned with, and her attitude toward me was—let's call it “volatile.” I was the prodigal daughter one moment, the beyond-hope daughter the next. Dolly, on the other hand, was her best customer and, yes, more like a son. He spent most weekend afternoons in her shop, treating it like his own personal living room. That's how we had met, me promising to come see him perform, him knowing I was lying (even when I didn't know that I was lying).

It wasn't my conversation with Ellis that had me on edge. I hadn't returned to Vondya's shop since I had been attacked nearby at Coney Island on my last investigation. James Clifton was a surprising drug trafficker—a former grocer who had gotten in over his head, then liked that feeling of drowning a little too much, the sweet choke of release. He could keep it, and he probably was, serving thirty to life for felony murder and conspiracy to commit. Even knowing that he was behind bars, I didn't feel safe. A small part of me still worried that he had been working for a much bigger fish. Another small part of me still worried that he had whispered my name to that shark. Or perhaps to a young card dealer named Ernesto Belasco? Could that poison have been intended for me? I shook off that notion as paranoia, that old so-and-so, and woke Dolly when we got to our stop.

The doors dinged open, letting bracing air into the subway car. I hugged my bag to my stomach. Dolly stretched, letting his gray T-shirt rise up to reveal a tan, almost concave stomach. It made my eyes well for a split-second as I thought about what he must do to keep so thin.

Dolly and I carried the silence between us as we walked from the station and up a single flight of steps to the wig shop. There
was a tiny shingle with her name on it, practically invisible from the street, and a bell jingled when we stepped inside. The owner's hum cut off abruptly, and she didn't sound happy to be interrupted when she called, “Give uz a minute.” She muttered something in Russian under her breath, then appeared smelling faintly of incense.

“Sorry to bother you,” I began, but was cut off by a bear hug, Vondya patting my ass in a grandmotherly if not entirely appropriate manner. She pulled me away from her, then wetly kissed both my cheeks. I wanted to wipe off her spit, but forced my arms to remain at my sides, smiling weakly at this woman. She didn't respond in kind.

“
Moy dorogoy
, what do you meaning, scaring me like this? Huh? What? Your gun have no cell reception.” She laughed heartily at this last notion, even dabbing at the corners of her eyes before batting her eyelashes at Dolly. He winked back at her like a perfect accomplice, and I didn't tell either of them that I was sans weapon these days, a teetotaler of firearms. Who was I to spoil their fun?

Vondya was making cooing noises at Dolly, expressing her sympathies over his lost friends. “All my friends died, too,” she added. “A different generation. Good, working ladies. Not like these Xes and Zes and what not. These, what you call them? Mill-in-in-ills.”

She shot me a look on Millennials, and I shrugged, not sure what my birth year had to do with anything. I had turned twenty-seven in May, but was about as far-removed from the youth movement as a person could get, especially in the red pageboy I saw sitting on the counter. It added at least five years. Vondya saw me staring at it and finally smiled. She had every right to be proud of her work, from the genuine human hair to the meticulous dyes and cuts. I hadn't seen her listed on any who's who lists, but she was an artist.

“I knew you'd be back. That's
why I no call at first. Then a month?” Vondya had left me a message that would strip the paint off a house. I was to come right away, or she was throwing my property away. She may have been bluffing, but I didn't want to find out. She gestured for me to sit in one of the salon chairs arranged along the wall, and Dolly plopped down on the couch, idling flipping through magazines. I could tell he wasn't really reading “How to Seduce Your Husband with Microwaveable Meals,” but he was sufficiently distracted.

“There's no need, Vondya. I know it fits.” Vondya huffed as she secured the hair to my head with dexterity that belied the hints of arthritis she sometimes exhibited. I knew once the wig was in place, it wouldn't go anywhere. This was the hair of a previous incarnation of Kennedy Vanders and one real estate agent named Kathy Seasons. After my favorite red hairdo was taken for evidence, I had compromised with this less flattering look. It did the usual tricks of transformation. I pulled an orange-red lipstick from my bag and smeared it on. Vondya handed me a brown eyebrow pencil, and I obediently filled in dark lines. Kathleen Stone vanished. Call me an addict, but I felt better already.

When not hobnobbing with Manhattan socialites and making sure the right cards landed in the right order, Ernesto worked as a janitor and errand boy at a salon in Park Slope. It was about the same size as Vondya's, put there was no secret back room filled with bags of human hair. In this place, the hair was on the floor, a lot of it actually, and a man started apologizing before even introducing himself.