Her back straightened as she shot me a look of distaste. “No way.”
“Sweetie, you knew him one night. For all you know he could have been the president of the Russian Mafia.”
“I would have known,” Robin insisted stubbornly. “Besides, he’s Ukrainian, not Russian. And not Mafia.”
“Oo-kay.” I backed off. When Robin got that look in her eye, I knew she wouldn’t be changing her mind anytime soon.
I glanced at Derek, who was tracking my movements as I pulled a bottle of Malbec from the shelf and found the wine opener in the drawer. Holding up the bottle, I said, “It’s not too early, is it?”
“Certainly not.”
“Good. We need something to counteract all that caffeine we just ingested.”
“I hope it helps,” Robin muttered. “I’m stressed out.”
“You and me both.” I pulled glasses from the shelf while Derek took over the job of opening the wine bottle.
“What were we talking about?” I asked.
“Russian mobs,” Robin groused, “and the fact that Alex was not involved with any of that.”
Derek swirled the wine in his glass, sniffed the bouquet, and took a sip. “Despite rumors to the contrary, there is actually very little Russian mob activity in San Francisco.”
“For real?” I asked.
“Yes.”
Robin nodded in satisfaction. “So there. But even if there was, you know, mob activity here, Alex wouldn’t have been involved. He wasn’t that type. He was laidback, social, fun. Not, you know, all . . . mobby and stuff.”
I tried to bite my tongue, but it went against my nature. “Mobby?”
She rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”
I gave her a pass. After all, she wasn’t firing on all cylinders. And maybe it was time to change the subject. “How do you like the wine?”
She stared at the full glass in her hand and realized it hadn’t touched her lips yet. “Guess I should drink some.”
“Yes, you should. Never waste, never worry.”
She took a healthy sip. “God, I love wine.”
“Me, too,” I said, smiling at her.
Derek swirled his wine again and sipped it. After a moment of what I figured was wine contemplation, he put his glass down on the counter. “This suspected turf war the inspector referred to may have more to do with the tensions occurring in the motherland than with anything happening here.”
“Do you think that’s why Alex was killed?” I said, then glanced at Robin. “I don’t mean anything mobrelated, but he might’ve gotten caught up in neighborhood politics. It wouldn’t be the first time politics turned to violence.”
Derek shook his head. “I have no idea, but I can look into it.”
“I still don’t believe it,” Robin insisted.
“Okay. Well, how about pasta and a salad for dinner?”
“That’s something I can believe in.”
I smiled and Derek nodded agreeably. We left it at that impasse and began preparations for dinner.
The next morning, Derek left for work and Robin asked to borrow my computer to check out some tour itineraries. Vinnie stopped by to feed Pookie—thank goodness—and after she left, I decided to spend some quality time studying the Kama Sutra for the first time since Robin brought it over Friday night.
Let me be the first to say that, given all the implications of my growing up in a commune, you’d think I would know more about the erotic aspects of the Kama Sutra. But you’d be wrong. What can I say? It wasn’t that kind of commune. Intellectually, I knew the book was an ancient primer on moral behavior and etiquette in marriage, as well as being something like a pictorial guide to sexual ecstasy, but beyond that, I didn’t have a clue.
As I opened the book, I wondered if it might be a good idea to stop at a bookstore later that afternoon and pick up a copy of The Kama Sutra for Idiots, just for reference.
I decided to concentrate on the book itself first. I believed the restoration itself would be easy, but the evaluation process would be more difficult. The book had no copyright date, which was not unheard of in a rare, vintage book from another country. But because there was no date to work from, I would have to examine the bindings, the paper, the ink and paint used, the style of the gilding, even the age and origin of the language itself. All of this was essential when appraising a book like this. Which meant I would also need to pick up a good French dictionary with a detailed etymology.
Okay, enough dithering about appraisals and evaluations. I wanted to check out those pictures. I turned the pages carefully to the middle of the book and stared, captivated, at the incredibly detailed and realistic paintings. I couldn’t help but ogle page after page of intricate illustrations of couples engaged in the most erotic sexual poses I’d ever seen. Some positions were so convoluted, I couldn’t figure out how they managed to get into them. Pulleys, maybe?
“What are you doing?”
I jumped about three feet off my chair. “Nothing.”