The Rich and the Dead Page 16

  Lila heard Effie gasp and turned to find her pointing at Alexei, who was on the other side of the room sandwiched between two scantily clad women gyrating to the music.

  “I fucking hate that about Miami,” Effie said. “The moment you want to avoid someone, they’re everywhere you look.”

  Though Lila pretended she was unhappy to see Alexei, she was secretly thrilled he was here. He was the first real break she’d had in the case since she stepped out of that North Miami warehouse, and she needed to get as close to him as she could.

  “Let me go talk to him,” Lila said. “I’ll see if I can get any information out of him about buying the Star Island house.”

  Effie grabbed her arm. “Camilla, don’t.” Lila was taken aback when she saw that Effie actually looked frightened.

  “You know me, right?” Effie asked. “There’s not a lot of things that scare me. Not a lot of people I would back down from, right? Well, that man,” Effie said, gesturing to Alexei, “that man scares the shit out of me. Yes, sure, I want to know about his plans for the house, but I don’t need you to find that out for me. That’s what my lawyers are for.”

  “Oh, quit it, Effie. Let me see what my feminine charms can do,” Lila said, assuming the pose of an empty-headed sex kitten—single finger on her pouting lips, hips jutted out to the side.

  “Please,” Effie said, throwing her hands up in exasperated disgust. “Comrade Back Hair is all yours. Just know that I warned you.”

  As Lila crossed the room toward Alexei, she could feel his eyes on her even as he was groping the woman pressed up against him. Lila made eye contact with him, holding for a few beats too long, letting him know she was interested. She noticed a pulse of excitement run through him as he returned her gaze. Lila stopped a few feet away, pretending to admire one of the human candles but continually looking in his direction. The wax statue was of a man sitting in an office chair. He had on a gray suit, and his head was melted all the way to the bottom of his nose.

  Lila was startled when she felt someone standing behind her wrap his arm around her waist, which caused her to flinch, which, in turn, caused the arm to wrap tighter. The stench of a body sour from too much alcohol flooded her nose.

  “I see you looking at me,” Alexei’s thick Russian accent whispered into her ear.

  “Don’t flatter yourself,” Lila said, using both hands to try to pry his arm off her body. “I was just looking at the art.”

  An enormous guffaw burst from Alexei’s heavy lips. He still held her tightly. She could feel his crotch pressing into her. “This you call art?” he said, pointing to the flickering statue. He took his index finger and thumb, pinched them together, and shoved them into Lila’s mouth, then withdrew them. Before she could say anything, he pinched the wick of the sculpture with his dampened fingers, extinguishing the flame.

  “Hey, guy,” a shaggy man in skinny jeans said as he put his hand on Alexei’s shoulder, “you can’t touch the art.” Alexei whirled around, letting go of Lila, and forcefully pushed the man, who stumbled to the floor.

  “And you can’t touch me, you pig’s cunt,” Alexei shouted. As the man scrambled to his feet and was about to lunge back at Alexei, the Russian’s two bodyguards stepped in to block his way.

  Alexei turned back to Lila. His eyes were foggy and his face was slack from too much booze. Effie was right, this guy was completely frightening, but Lila needed to find out as much as she could about him. He put his hand on her ass.

  “Whoa!” Lila said. “Do you always come on this strong? I don’t even know you.”

  “Yes, you do. You know who I am. I am the man that stares at you in your little bikinis at the club. And you know me. That little bitch Effie has been in your ear whispering about the mean Russian man, no?” Lila nodded. “You know who I am. Why must American girls play dumb? It makes everything go so slow.”

  “I guess we’re crazy that way,” Lila said, leaning into him. Never in her life had she found a man as physically revolting and unlikable as Alexei Dortzovich, but she knew that she had to come at people where they had a weakness, and Alexei clearly had a blind hunger when it came to women.

  Alexei looked back at the two women he had left, who were now pressed against each other, kissing deeply. “Until later,” he said and quickly turned from Lila back to the undulating women. Lila watched as Alexei called over one of his bodyguards and barked something in Russian to him.

  The bodyguard then approached to Lila.

  “Be here at nine P.M. tomorrow,” the man said to her, handing her a business card with only Alexei’s name embossed on the front and the address of the Soho Beach House handwritten on the back. “Mr. Dortzovich will be expecting you.”

  Lila wrapped her fingers around the card, smiled slightly at the bodyguard, and nodded her head. “I’d be happy to,” she said, though she knew it wasn’t a request. It was a command.

  CHAPTER 26

  EFFIE WAS LYING horizontally across Lila’s bed, watching her friend get ready to meet Alexei. Effie had been in a strange and hyper mood for the entire day, which wasn’t helped by the steady stream of vodka and Red Bull she was continually drinking. It was a blustery night, and Lila could hear the wind whipping through the palm trees.

  “I hope you’re not going out with Alexei for my benefit,” Effie said as she watched Lila put on a dress with a plunging neckline. “You’re not going to wear that, are you?” she continued, her eyes widening. “That little Russian shit would hit on a woman in a burqa. He’ll interpret that amount of cleavage as proof that you’re a slut.”

  “Wow. You really don’t like him.”

  “And you do? I mean, how could you? It is like a cold, hard fact that the man is repulsive. If I were as ugly as him, I’d really try to be at least a bit more charming.” Effie paused. “And what about Dylan?”

  What about Dylan? Lila thought. It had been days since she’d last seen him, but he’d been constantly on her mind. Yet, every time he reached out to her, she ignored him. She’d never worked so hard to push someone out of her mind.

  “I won’t argue with you. Alexei is a brute, but there’s something kind of appealing in that,” Lila said. In fact, she was dreading tonight. Her last encounter with the man had left her feeling violated. He had handled her like he was inspecting a prize hog. “But maybe you’re right about the dress. Better to go with something less revealing.”

  Lila changed into a cream-colored Stella McCartney suit with a tangerine orange silk camisole underneath and a pair of red heels. She pulled her hair back into a sleek ponytail.

  “How’s this?” she said, as she twirled for Effie’s approval.

  “That’s better. Very Bianca Jagger,” Effie said, rolling onto her back and resting her drink on her stomach with her eyes closed. Lila regarded herself in the mirror with pleasure. Then she realized, with horror, that she was transforming into some kind of clotheshorse. Was her persona taking over her personality?

  “Now you just need some Mace for your purse,” Effie teased.

  “It’s not as bad as that, Effie.”

  “To be honest, Camilla, I thought you and I were so much the same,” Effie said, hauling herself into a cross-legged slump at the foot of the bed. “But if Alexei is your type of guy, then it just shows how different we are. And I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, but I’ve spent the last few months introducing you to proper society people, and now you want to run around with the Moscow Menace. It’s confusing.”

  “It’s one night, Effie.”

  Effie sighed and sucked back the rest of her drink. “If you’re interested in his money, let me tell you, you’ll never get near it. I’ve seen him go through countless brain-dead beauties all hoping to one day be Mrs. Asshole, but none of them lasted longer than a month.”

  “Jesus!” Lila exclaimed. This was becoming exhausting. “I got it. You don’t think it’s a good idea. Message received.” She looked at her watch: 8:30. She had to be there in thirty minutes. “I gotta go.�
��

  “Fine. I’ll leave,” Effie said as she swayed to her feet. “Just one more thing, then I’ll never say another word about it. You know he’s trying to set up a drilling operation off the coast of Florida, right?”

  Lila nodded, though she had heard no such thing.

  “Literally everyone is against it. No one wants to risk, you know, sad little oil-covered pelicans scaring away the tourists. But that Russian maniac won’t back down. And he’s tight with the Russian mob. So he’s sending these goons to strong-arm anyone who stands in his way.” Effie lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper and leaned in close to Lila. She smelled like lime juice and tanning lotion. “Get this. There’s this local congressman, cute guy, who’s against the drilling. Two weeks ago he was found drowned. The police said it was a sea kayaking accident.” Effie rolled her eyes. “Like, yeah, right. Everyone knows Alexei had him whacked. The guy is totally dangerous, Camilla. Just be careful.”

  “I promise,” Lila said as they both left the guesthouse. Effie’s attempt to dissuade Lila from seeing Alexei had the opposite effect. All her warnings and gossip did was make Lila more convinced that Alexei was the Star Island killer. This was a date she wouldn’t miss for the world.

  ALEXEI WAS SITTING alone at a table by the Soho Beach House’s pool, flanked by his two bodyguards. He was smoking a cigar and wearing dark sunglasses even though it was night. When he saw Lila he frowned.

  “Why are you dressed like man?” he growled in his thick Russian accent. He blew a thick cloud of cigar smoke up and toward Lila in her suit.

  “Nice to see you, too.”

  “Sit,” he commanded. Lila obeyed. Alexei sat silently, neither looking at nor addressing Lila. A young woman wearing a strapless black leather dress and five-inch platform heels walked by. Alexei watched her with great interest, turning his head as she passed. He then barked in Russian to one of his bodyguards, handing him a large roll of hundreds. The bodyguard left, and Alexei went back to smoking his cigar.

  Since Art Basel had come to Miami, the Soho Beach House was the hub for the festival’s who’s who of attendees—millionaire artists, socialites, hoteliers, and midlist celebrities. Everyone was tan, everyone was drunk, and everyone was working very hard at appearing to have a great time. A model wearing a white tank top, gold lamé short shorts, and headphones was standing on a stage, DJing from behind a laptop, limply swaying to the music. Nineties hip-hop blasted from the hidden sound system. Chinese lanterns hung from the palm trees. The whole spectacle was dramatically lit, transforming the pool water into a shocking purple and the palm trees into an electric blue.

  Everyone pulsed with the energy that came from knowing they were in the place to be. Lila, on the other hand, was feeling wary. Alexei had barely acknowledged her as he sat, drinking, smoking his cigar, and scanning the crowd. After five minutes of total silence between them, the bodyguard returned to the table holding something in his hand, which he gave to Alexei.

  “Here,” Alexei said, throwing the garment onto Lila’s lap. “Go put this on.”

  It was a dress. A leather strapless dress. The dress she’d just seen on that young girl who walked by. “Wait, how did you get this?” Lila asked.

  “I paid for it. Same as how you get anything you want.” Alexei was still looking out into the crowd. He hadn’t once even so much as glanced at Lila. “I want to spend the night with a real woman. Not a woman dressed up like a boy. Go put it on.”

  Lila wanted to laugh. Could this guy be for real? she wondered. She’d met a lot of epic assholes in her time, but Alexei’s rudeness was downright sociopathic. She loudly exhaled. “Fine,” she said.

  “Sergei here will follow you. Don’t take too long,” said Alexei.

  Lila wove through the undulating crowd of revelers with an enormous black-suited bodyguard trailing close behind her. She wished she had the reassuring weight of a gun on her, but she’d known better than to meet Alexei and his security crew with a concealed weapon.

  The bathroom was stuffed full of women reapplying their dark lipsticks carefully in the mirror. Some were two to three in a stall, taking forever to get their fix. Lila stood anxiously, clutching the dress. The air practically pulsed with privilege and aggression.

  Tiring of the wait for a stall, she undressed while still standing in line, quickly stepping into the tiny leather dress. As she zipped it up, she was surprised to find it fit her perfectly. She exited the bathroom with her white suit draped over her forearm. The bodyguard was waiting for her.

  “Here,” she said as she shoved the suit, top, and bra into the man’s hands. “Try not to lose this.”

  Walking back to the table, Lila saw a stranger sitting with Alexei. He was a small man in his forties with dramatically receding dark blond hair. Even though he was sitting down, Lila could tell he was little taller than five four, with incredibly muscular shoulders and a linebacker-size neck. Lila sat down across from him.

  “Much better,” Alexei said, looking Lila up and down as if she were a sumptuous snack he was getting ready to sink his fangs into. Then he brusquely tore the elastic band out of her hair, ripping some hair with it.

  “Oww!” Lila exclaimed, rubbing her scalp. “Guess you’re no fan of the ponytail.”

  “Now you look like a woman. This,” he said, pointing to the man next to him, “is Illya Smurov. Old comrade from Russia. This is Kim,” he said, gesturing to Lila.

  “Camilla,” Lila corrected, stretching her hand across the table toward Illya, who practically crushed her hand in his. “My name’s Camilla,” she said to Alexei, who waved her away dismissively as if he didn’t have time for or interest in such small details as correct names. Lila sat there, thinking what to do next. Her hand was throbbing.

  “So, how do you two know each other?” she asked, making her voice rise up with the polite girlishness she knew these brutes would appreciate.

  “Olympics,” Illya said. His rather high-pitched voice took Lila by surprise.

  Alexei nodded as a gloss of nostalgia washed over his face. “True,” he said. “We were in Barcelona Olympics together. Russian shooting team.”

  Lila tried to keep her face passive, but inside she felt like shouting. The evidence was adding up. She had known Alexei was an expert marksman, but an Olympic-level shooter was another thing entirely. Forensic evidence had shown that the Star Island killer was most definitely an accomplished sharpshooter. Who else but someone with Alexei’s training could manage to execute so many people with such merciless swiftness and precision?

  Lila felt her phone vibrate through her purse. Dylan was calling. She silenced her phone and turned her attention back to Alexei.

  “So, Alexei,” she said, snuggling up to him. As she pressed against him, a wave of revulsion swept through her. “Bought anything yet at Art Basel?”

  “Da,” he said, still chomping away at his cigar. “Today, I buy piece-of-shit painting for seven hundred fifty grand. There was a bidding war!” An enormous belch of laughter burst from his lips. “People fighting for this hideous crap made by a homosexual freak makes me laugh. Now it is mine.”

  “Why would you spend so much money on something you hate?” Lila asked.

  Alexei leaned back from Lila, staring at her straight in the face with a look of disgust. “You look ugly when you’re being a nosy bitch,” he spit at her.

  He grabbed the bottle of Grey Goose sitting on the table and poured shots for himself and Illya. They clinked the glasses together, poured the liquor down their throats, and then smashed the glasses loudly down upon the table in almost perfect unison. A synchronized drinking team.

  “I tease you,” Alexei said, putting his meat paw of a hand high up on Lila’s inner thigh. “I tell you why I bought shit painting.” He poured himself and Illya another shot. “One of my spies told me Chase Haverford, that bastard, wanted painting. He wants it. I want him not to have things he wants. I buy it to say fuck you to him.”

  Illya refilled their shot glasse
s and said something to Alexei in Russian that caused both men to nearly double over in fits of laughter. One of the glasses tipped, spilling vodka onto Lila. Alexei dipped two fingers into the pool of vodka that had formed on the lap of the leather dress Lila was wrapped in, then put those fingers in between her lips.

  “Now look what I’ve done. I’ve made you wet,” he said, removing the fingers from her mouth and then wiping them off on her bare shoulder. “My friend here just said funny joke. He said I should take painting and hang it in one of the plants where I slaughter pigs.” He burst out laughing again, and he slapped a pleased and drunk-looking Illya on the back. “I’ll do that. And I’ll send Chase a picture of dead pigs on hooks going by the painting he so badly wanted.”

  “What do you have against Chase?” Lila asked. “He seems like an okay guy to me.”

  “An okay guy?” Alexei snarled. “Only a dumb bitch like you would think that. Which is why you need to keep your mouth shut. Let the men talk.”

  Lila, again, complied with the wishes of this sociopath. She sat there quietly, watching the two men get drunker and drunker, but her head was spinning. It was all finally coming together. Alexei had the skill to kill the members of the Janus Society. And he detested Chase. But why? What had caused this red-hot hatred between Chase and Alexei? And why would he kill the rest of the Janus Society?

  She got up from the table and headed down to the beach. Alexei and Illya, consumed by a drunken oblivion, didn’t even notice. Finding a quiet corner away from boisterous crowd, Lila checked the one message on her voice mail. It was from Dylan.

  “Camilla?” he said in a bruised-sounding tone. Lila pressed the phone close to her ear, her heart racing from hearing his voice. “It’s Dylan. I don’t know why you’ve been avoiding me, but whatever it is, I know we can figure it out. But you’ve got to call me. It’s too hard to go through so many days without hearing from you. Call me.” Then the message was over. She listened to it again. Then again.