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Jaglom had confided that Inspector Lee had a low opinion of any kind of ethnic turf wars after living through a decade of Chinatown gang warfare in the eighties.

“Oh, come on.” I looked at Derek skeptically. “They don’t really think this was as simple as Robin being caught in a battle between rival gang members, do they?”

“It’s absurd,” Robin said. “He wasn’t a gang member.”

“Russian Mafia?” I suggested.

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.”

Robin laughed and circled my chair to see exactly what I was doing. “Oh, right. You were looking at dirty pictures.”

“They’re not dirty.”

“So why did you jump like I caught you doing something bad?”

“You just startled me.” I closed the book and wrapped it carefully in the cloth.

Robin continued chuckling. “Your face is red.”

“Oh, shut up,” I said, and laughed as I picked up the book and took it back to its safe nest in my steel-lined hall closet, under the false floor where I locked my most important documents and the rare books I worked on.

“I’m going stir-crazy,” Robin said, following me down the hall.

“Did you get what you wanted off the Internet?”

“Yeah. Now I feel like walking or something.”

“We could walk to South Park for coffee.”

“Sounds great.”

We threw on jackets and strolled two blocks over to the small city park that was my favorite discovery when I moved to the area. It was a green belt of trees, grass, and a playground one short block long, tucked away from the hustle and bustle of city traffic and surrounded by town houses, local businesses, shops, and restaurants. The coffeehouse stood at the far end of the block. There was one empty table outside, so we grabbed it and sat to enjoy lattes and scones.

“I’m sorry about last night and the whole mob thing,” I said, once I’d taken a few sips of my double-shot latte.

“No, you were just trying to figure things out. I thought about it later, after I went to bed. Sorry. I should’ve been more open to the possibilities.” She shook her head in regret. “I didn’t even know this guy. I don’t know why I was being so defensive.”

I tore off a bit of scone and munched as I thought about it for a moment. “I’d say you were defending yourself as much as him. In your mind you’re thinking that if Alex was a bad guy, then you made a bad decision. But you didn’t. None of this is your fault.”

“Oh, please.” She laughed without humor. “For all I know, he could’ve been a serial killer. Those guys are supposed to be charming, right? Hello, Ted Bundy?”

“True enough.”

“Alex was definitely charming,” she admitted.

“Fine, but he wasn’t a serial killer.”

She sat back in her chair. “He was something.”