Mardi Gras Mambo Page 9

  But a young Russian muscleman in his twenties married to a woman old enough to be his grandmother does? I thought to myself. Fortunately, that was right around when Colin decided to step in and take over. Good thing—I wasn’t getting anywhere. “How did the two of you meet?”

  Sylvia gave him a dazzling smile. “Several years ago, when my husband died, I decided to do some traveling. We’d always planned on going to Europe, but somehow we never managed to make it. Your grandmother, Scotty, went with me for company. Do you remember that trip?” I nodded. “It was in Munich. I was doing some shopping on my own and stopped into a coffee shop and dropped some of my bags. This handsome young man”—she patted Misha’s arm—“came to my rescue and helped me. He was doing some traveling of his own, and we got to talking.” She shrugged. “We met a few times after that, and later, we stayed in touch via e-mail. After Sophie decided to come back home, I went to Moscow. I’d always wanted to see Russia, and what better way to see the city than with a handsome young man who speaks the language? Somehow, we managed to fall in love.” She leaned over and kissed his cheek and then turned back to me. “Misha came over here about six months later, and we were married.”

  “And Sasha?” Colin prompted. “You said he was supposed to be in Houston?”

  “Sasha came over about a year ago,” Misha replied. “We may have looked identical, but we were very different. Sasha wanted to marry a rich American lady, like me. He didn’t understand that Sylvia and I are in love, that I didn’t marry her for the money; I don’t care about the money.” He shook his head and sighed. “When his tourist visa ran out, he didn’t want to go back, so he stayed.”

  “So he was here in the States illegally?”

  He nodded. “I told him he had to go back, but we argued. He was staying here with us, and I told him he had to go. He went to Houston and started working there.”

  “How could he work without a green card?” Colin continued.

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. But after he went there, we stopped speaking. I didn’t want him to cause me to be deported. I love it here. I don’t ever want to go back.” He held up his big hands helplessly. “And now this.” His eyes filled with tears, which he wiped away.

  He’s lying, the Goddess whispered inside my brain.

  “So you had no idea he was here, living in the Quarter?” Colin glanced at me.

  “I have a house on Burgundy Street,” Sylvia said. “In the 800 block. But there’s one thing I don’t understand.”

  “What’s that, Mrs. Overton?” Colin replied.

  “Scotty hadn’t met Misha—my Misha—until today. So how did the two of you know to come here?” She finished her mimosa and handed the glass to Misha. Without a word he got up and refilled the glass for her.

  “We looked up the ownership of the house he was living in,” Colin lied smoothly. “It was listed as belonging to you, Mrs. Overton, so we came over here to see if you knew anything. Not that we thought you would,” he added quickly.

  I played along. “And you can imagine my shock when Misha opened the door.” Goddess, Colin was smooth. His tongue was almost as slick as Storm’s.

  Misha took my glass and refilled it and then sat back down next to Sylvia.

  Sylvia took Misha’s face in her hands and turned it to face her. “Misha, is there anything you want to tell me? Did you know Sasha was staying in the house on Burgundy?”

  “I didn’t know, Sylvia. You have to believe me.” He looked at her, and she smiled at him, then leaned over and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.

  “Well, that’s that.” Sylvia stood up. “Sasha knew about the house and probably just moved himself in. I’m sorry we couldn’t be of any more help to you.”

  We had no choice but to stand up as well. “I’m sorry about your brother, Misha.”

  He didn’t acknowledge that I’d said anything. He covered his face with his hands.

  The doorbell rang. “That would be our guests. I’m sorry to rush you boys out, but you understand, don’t you?” She smoothed her skirt down. “If you’ll excuse us?” She walked us over to the French doors, which she opened. “You don’t mind going out this way, do you?” She reached up and kissed us both on the cheek. “You must come by for dinner sometime soon.” And the doors shut behind us.

  But not before I saw Misha sitting on the couch, his head still in his hands. His shoulders shook.

  We didn’t speak until we were in the car. “He was lying,” I said as Colin pulled away from the curb. “He knew Sasha was here, and he knew Sasha was staying in the Burgundy house. I wonder why he didn’t want her to know?”

  “Why was Sasha pretending to be Misha? That doesn’t make any sense.” Colin shook his head. “And I didn’t buy her story about how they met either.”

  “You think she was lying?” I went over the interview in my head but couldn’t quite put my finger on anything that seemed unbelievable. “Why?”

  “I don’t know.” Colin sighed. “I guess we’re going to have to find out. You know her pretty well, I gather.”

  I shrugged. “You pretty much heard it already.” I thought for a minute. Sylvia had gone to McGehee with my grandmother Sophie Diderot; they’d pretty much been lifelong friends. When we were kids, she and Uncle George were always bringing us presents and spoiling us. We didn’t really see them that often; sometimes at Papa and Maman’s, even more rarely we’d be invited to the Upperline house. What I’d always liked about them was they didn’t talk down to us—they talked to us like we were adults. After I was grown, I didn’t see them nearly as much as I had when I was young. But I’d always liked them. George had been a judge, very active in local politics and socially, and Sylvia was really involved in charity work. They were just another typical socially prominent and wealthy Uptown New Orleans couple, nothing out of the ordinary about them.

  “Any kids?”

  “A daughter, Therese. She died young, before I was born. I think it was cancer. Nobody really liked to talk about it much. I guess it was really hard on them both.” Whenever my grandmother talked about Therese, she always lowered her voice to a whisper, as though afraid to say things in her regular speaking voice.

  “Interesting.” Colin whistled. “Isn’t Louisiana under the Napoleonic code still?”

  “Yeah, I think so. Why?”

  “Forced heirship.” Colin reached over and touched my leg when we stopped at a light. “Misha will inherit at least half of Sylvia’s estate when she dies—regardless of what her will might say.” He shrugged. “It wouldn’t be the first time a younger man married an older woman for her money and then killed her.”

  “Wait just a minute. What are you saying?” My head was spinning. Colin was thinking in circles and I couldn’t keep up with him. “You’re not making sense. Aunt Sylvia is still alive; it’s Misha—Sasha—who’s been killed.”

  “I’d be curious to know who stood to inherit her money before she remarried.”

  “Oh.” It dawned on me. “You think someone killed Sasha thinking he was Misha?”

  “It’s a possibility we need to check into, isn’t it?” Colin stopped at the Canal light. “The police probably are operating on the assumption that since he was a dealer, it was a drug-related slaying. But what if it wasn’t? What if someone was looking to inherit and had to get rid of Misha first?”

  “Then both of their lives are in danger. Shouldn’t we say something?” My head was starting to hurt.

  “Not yet. We don’t know enough yet, and we could be way off base here.” Colin made the turn into the Quarter. “So we need to find out who inherits when Sylvia dies. And we need to find out if there’s any truth to the story of how they met. Something about it just doesn’t sit right with me.”

  “I don’t know why. I thought it was a nice story, if a little weird.” I shrugged. “Aunt Sylvia’s pretty cool. And she looks pretty good. It’s possible he really does love her.” I mean, who can explain the inexplicable nature of love? Look at me, Frank, and Co
lin—that’s a hard one for most people with their brainwashed notions of one-on-one relationships to wrap their minds around.

  “It’s a possibility.” Colin opened the gate to our parking lot with the remote clipped to his sun visor. “And Sasha’s death could have just been a drug deal gone wrong.” He maneuvered the car into a space and turned off the engine. “Of course, we have to be sure that the cops correctly identified the body. I mean, we don’t know for a fact that Misha is Misha and not Sasha.” He shook his head. “Sheesh, I’m even confusing myself. Do you think Misha was lying—was that the guy you knew?”

  I shook my head. “They looked a lot alike, but it was two different guys. There were just little differences, you know? Were they enough for me to be sure? Yeah, I’m pretty sure, all right. The guy I bought the X from wasn’t the same guy we met this morning. I’m sure of it. But the resemblance is amazing. Like I said, little differences. I mean, I guess Misha spoke better English than Sasha—that would be easy enough to fake, I suppose—but not the way he stood, the way he walked. It would be too hard to keep that kind of an act up, I think.” I whistled. “Twins. Who knew?”

  “Think, Scotty.” Colin got out of the car. “Was it the same guy every time you saw him before?”

  I slammed the car door. “No, I can’t be sure of that.” I shrugged. “I didn’t pay attention; there wasn’t a reason to. Looked like Misha, sounded like Misha, sold drugs like Misha—why wouldn’t it be Misha? I mean, if I’d known to watch for things, yeah, but I didn’t, so it’s possible that sometimes it was one and other times the other.” My head was aching. “Can we just refer to the guy I bought drugs from as Sasha and Sylvia’s husband as Misha? It’s all giving me a headache.”

  Colin pinched my butt. “Anything you want, my queen.”

  I started to tell him not to call me that—I can’t stop Storm, but I’d be damned if the boys started—but I was too tired and figured I’d catch it the next time.

  There’d better not be a next time.

  We held hands as we walked the two blocks to Decatur Street, occasionally brushing against each other as we made way for tourists and other pedestrians. It was turning out to be an even more beautiful day than the day before. We rounded the corner at Decatur and headed for the gate to the building. The first floor of our building had always been a mom-and-pop grocery store until the fire. Mrs. Duchesnay, who owned the shop, had taken her insurance money and retired to the Florida panhandle. The Duchesnays’ shop had been there as long as I could remember, and it always struck me as weird that it wasn’t there anymore. I’d always liked Mrs. Duchesnay. The new tenant had opened a coffee shop, and it was already crowded with locals as I unlocked the gate. I debated going in and getting a cup, because I was feeling very tired. I don’t know if the X had worn off completely or if there were still some traces of it in my system, but it had worn off enough so that every minute of last night’s dancing could be felt in every muscle in my legs. My lower back ached. I just wanted to climb the stairs—each step an agony—and go to bed for a while. I stumbled on the first step.

  “Are you okay?” Colin grabbed me and helped me regain my balance.

  “I’m just tired. I want to go to bed.”

  I grabbed on to the railing and started climbing, with Colin right behind me. What a sweetheart, I thought. He’s waiting to catch me if I lose my balance again.

  Damn, am I lucky or what?

  Finally, I unlocked my door and Colin followed me in.

  “There you are,” Frank called from the living room. He came bounding down the hall and swept me up into a bear hug, lifting me off the floor. He was still wearing his black tights and had that musky smell of dried sweat I love. “I’m sorry I stormed off. Do you forgive me?”

  “It’s okay.” I kissed his neck. “You had a right to be mad.”

  He set me down, kissed Colin, and gave him a big hug too. “No, I didn’t. I was being an asshole. I was just—” he hesitated. “I was just worried about you, and I channeled it into anger, and that was wrong. I mean, I’m still not comfortable with this whole drug thing, but I did have a really good time last night.” He gave me a shy grin. “It was pretty awesome.”

  What a doll! I put my arms around him and gave him a big hug. “I love you, Frank.” I almost sagged with relief. I hated the thought of Frank being mad at me.

  It looked like our first fight was over.

  “I love you, too.” He grinned at me. “Where’ve you two been? I was getting worried—and thought maybe you’d gone off to the parades without me.”

  “We went to meet Misha.” I managed to make it into the living room. Every step was torturous; the dull ache in my lower back felt like a bowling bowl was pressing on the bottom of my spine. I focused on making it to the couch—one step at a time.

  Frank’s jaw dropped. “What?” He looked at me, then back at Colin. “I thought—”

  “You explain,” I said to Colin, dropping onto the couch. “I’m too tired. I just want to lie down for a while.”

  “I found out something, too,” Frank said before Colin could say anything. “But you go first.”

  I closed my eyes and listened to Colin explain everything that we’d found out, as well as the necessity for finding out who Aunt Sylvia’s heirs were. Frank’s a really good listener—the FBI training, I guess—and only interrupted once to say, “Twins?” I was just drifting off into sleep when Frank shook me awake. “Come on, Scotty, you’ve got to see this.”

  “I just wanna go to sleep,” I protested but knew I wasn’t going to get anywhere. The boys wouldn’t let me sleep until they were darn good and ready, so I dragged myself off the couch and walked over to the computer, certain with every step I was going to collapse. Every muscle in my body felt like jelly, and my eyelids felt like they weighed a hundred pounds each. It took every bit of willpower in my body not to just curl up and go to sleep on the floor.

  Frank typed, and then the screen changed. “David showed me this.”

  A Web page was loading. In red letters on a black screen it said russianstud.com. Farther down, in more red letters, the site insisted on age verification before allowing access and stated all the standard porn site disclaimers—by entering the site you were verifying you were of age, blah blah blah. Frank typed in a code and clicked “enter.”

  The screen went white first, then went black again as a picture loaded.

  The picture was of Misha, wearing only a pair of skimpy white bikini briefs, which only emphasized the huge bulge they contained. I stared at it. I had no idea he was that endowed! He was smiling at the camera, with one hand held up, as though beckoning the viewer to join him. His other hand rested on his lower abdomen, the tips of the fingers inside the waistband of the underwear. His hairless legs were ripped slabs of muscle. His stomach wasn’t ripped, but it was completely flat, and with the rest of the definition on his body it seemed somehow sexier that he didn’t have a sixpack. As I sat watching, the picture moved and turned, so that I was looking at his back, which looked like it was carved from marble. The briefs barely covered his cheeks, and they were solid, no fat anywhere. His arms went up and flexed, and muscles rippled and flowed across his back, and then his hard butt began to flex and release.

  I stared at it. “Oh, my God.” How had I never found this before? I was going to kill David for not telling me about this Web site!

  “Wait—it gets better,” Frank said, clicking on a link. A number of thumbnail photographs popped up. He clicked on one, and the screen changed again. A photo of Misha lying naked on a bed came up, and after a few moments it began to move. He was stroking himself, and then someone—another man—joined him on the bed. His back was to the camera, so I couldn’t get a good look at his face. He straddled Misha, sliding down on his erection. After a few moments of this, Misha rolled him over onto his back and his face came into view of the camera. I grinned. I knew the guy from my gym, and from seeing him around in the bars. In fact, I well knew the look of satiated ple
asure on his face. I’d gone home with him once, and when we had finished, he’d gone into the bathroom, showered, changed into pajamas, and come back to bed, saying to me as he slipped under the covers, “You can let yourself out, can’t you?” He had a nice body, and rather than being offended, I was kind of amused. I’d served my purpose; now it was time to go. That was much better than the tired old game of let’s exchange phone numbers, even though we both know neither of us will ever call. No frills, no chills, no damage—everyone gets what he wants and no harm done.

  “Every one of these thumbnails is a video clip of Misha having sex with someone,” Frank said. “I recognize some of the guys from the gym, some from the bars—almost all of them look familiar. And I seriously doubt every single one of them was willing to be videotaped for a pay Web site, do you?”

  Colin whistled. “So, it’s not beyond the realm of possibility one of these guys could have gotten pissed off—”

  “And killed him. Scotty, do you know any of them by name?”

  I pointed at the screen. “Well, this guy’s name is Jordan; I don’t know his last name. Let me check some of the others.”

  I took the mouse away from Frank and clicked on another one of the thumbnails.

  The picture blew up. It was the same room as the previous one—white walls with unlit candles in sconces, a hardwood floor, and a brass bed. The camera was positioned so that all I could see of the two on the bed was Misha’s broad back, which was flexing and moving as he pumped on the body below him, his big white muscular ass shoving and moving back as he worked away. All I could see of the guy he was fucking were his legs, which were up around Misha’s shoulders. Misha rolled him up farther onto his back and started pumping pretty fast and hard. I turned up the volume on the computer, and the room filled with the sounds of two people having pretty intense sex. Grunts, groans, bodies slapping together, and the occasional breathy, “Yeah, fuck me man.” I couldn’t help myself; I grinned, even though it was kind of creepy to be watching a dead man having sex. I’d always thought Misha had the body of a porn star. Apparently, he had thought so too.