A Date You Can't Refuse (12 page)

“Alik!” screamed Nadja. “My bicycle! Where it is?”

“In the back of my van,” Alik called to her. “It's safe. I'll be home later tonight.”

“No! I don't go nowhere without! Also my tings!”

“Nadja, I don't have time now to—” Alik said.

“Then I come with!” Nadja ran toward the Voyager, nearing hysterics. “I don't go without I have my bicycle!”

“Damn it.” Alik hopped out of his van, raced to the back, and began to pull items out of the trunk. Among Nadja's “tings” were a bicycle enclosed in bubble wrap, wheels, a helmet, and miscellaneous sporting gear. Nadja and her uncle took the items from Alik, and then I went to help, with Zeferina Whatever-the-rest-of-her-names-were and Felix right behind me. The stuff kept on coming, until all of us were loaded up with various bags and oversized items. I carried a bicycle pump and swimmer's fins.

“There. That's everything,” Alik said to Nadja as he closed the hatch. “You've got some trust issues we're going to address, but I don't have time now. This isn't the third world and no one's going to steal your bicycle. Okay?”

“Okay, it is only that—”

“It's fine, just go with Wollie and get some sleep.”

And with that, he was gone. Leaving us on the corner of Sepulveda with way too much stuff even for a Suburban. I knew this because when I opened the rear, the things Alik had just crammed in started spilling out. A garment bag slid onto my foot.

“The ceiling,” Zeferina Etcetera said, pointing to the top of the car. “In my country, we put things on ceiling.”

“The roof?” I said. Sure enough, on top of the Suburban there was a luggage rack, but how to reach it without a ladder?

“But not my bicycle. My bicycle, she sit with me.” Nadja clutched her bubble wrap.

“Also the wheels,” Uncle Vanya said, holding them up.

“You can put my suitcase up there,” Felix said, hoisting a duffel big enough to hold a body. “I have no trust issue.”

“Okay, good.” I climbed onto the back bumper and checked out the luggage rack. “I've never operated one of these. Anyone know how they work?”

No one did. Nadja's uncle hoisted me up on his shoulders for a better look. It was a simple metal apparatus, like a big dish rack, with no way to hold anything in place. In my own car I carried bungee cords, but the Suburban, under all the luggage, held only tools, the kind I figured
were for changing tires. Not that I'd ever done that. “Anyone have a belt?” I asked. “How about a rope? The sash of a bathrobe? Extra-long shoelaces, that's all I ask.”

“I have suspenders.” Felix set to work opening his bag. “I find them now for you.”

Stasik emerged from the Suburban. “What's the bloody holdup?”

“Just getting luggage squared away” I said, throwing bags back into the trunk. “Got a bungee cord on you?”

Stasik stared at me, appalled. “I realize this is your first day,” he said, “but if it's any indication of how thing are run here, I've made a big mistake.”

“Stasik, it's not an indication of anything except—me. I'm under-prepared. It's not MediasRex. MediasRex is a well-oiled machine.” Why I felt so protective of Yuri's organization was anyone's guess. “Look, suspenders!” I took them from Felix gratefully. “Have you all met? Go ahead and introduce yourselves.”

Felix and I hoisted his suitcase/body bag up onto the Suburban. I trussed it as well as I could, thinking about what Joey had said to me, that I had only to summon up my tough-cookie character and inhabit her in order to pull off this operation. The problem was, she'd need superpowers just to get me through the job part of the job, never mind the spying part.

The sudden
whoop! whoop!
of a police siren interrupted my operation, and I turned to see a squad car pull up behind me.

“Got a problem there, ma'am?” the cop called through his open window.

“No—yes—no,” I said. “Just securing a bag, Officer. I'm not parked. I know this isn't a parking space. I know it's a fire hydrant. Sorry. Very sorry. Be gone in a second.”

“Right now,” the cop said. “Or I'll have to cite you.”

Okay, that wouldn't be good, getting a parking ticket on the first day. Under any circumstances, encounters with cops gave me a fluttery stomach. Not happy butterfly flutters, either. More like a bucket of worms. I worked feverishly and managed to get the suspenders tied around Felix's oversized bag. “No problem,” I said, climbing down the rear bumper.

Which was when I saw that there was no sign of Stasik, Felix, Zeferina Whatsername, Nadja, or Uncle Vanya. Or the excess luggage. I opened the driver's door to the Suburban and stuck my head in. There was Zbiggo, snoring softly but no one else. I looked around the street.

“Ma'am? This is your last warning.”

“Yes, I'm going.” I got in the car, started the engine, and rolled down the window. I pulled forward slowly, fighting back panic. How could I misplace five of the six people I was in charge of? I glanced in the rearview mirror. The squad car was there, tailing me, making sure I was leaving. I'd have to circle the block and come back. Please God, I thought, let someone commit a real crime in the meantime, so this cop has someone else to pick on.

It seemed like an eternity before I got to Exposition Boulevard, my first opportunity to turn left, at which point the cop peeled off, seeking bigger lawbreakers. I got back to National Boulevard without getting sucked onto the 405 freeway, but it was ten minutes before I made it to Hamburger Hamlet again. There, thank God, were my trainees, complete with the bubble-wrapped bicycle, waiting on the sidewalk.

“What was that all about?” I asked as they piled in.

“Did you lose him?” Stasik asked.

“The police? Yes,” I said. “But why'd you all disappear?”

“I don't like police,” Nadja said, apparently speaking for all of them.

“In America,” I said, “they don't throw you randomly in jail. Not even for parking in front of a fire hydrant.” I felt like some kind of tour bus operator. Or docent.

No one responded to that. They simply arranged themselves in the two rows of seats, moving bags and bike gear around them as best they could. Next to me, Zbiggo snored on.

“Can we go now?” Stasik asked.

“Absolutely” I said. “Everyone buckle up. Cops do take that seriously.”

Everyone complied without further ado.
Things are looking up
, I said to myself.

And they were, until I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw through the back window Felix's bag bouncing onto Sepulveda Boulevard.

I
f you've never caused a traffic jam by dropping a large object onto a six-lane boulevard, I can tell you that it's an experience that generates terror, noise, embarrassment, and a large amount of bad will and bad language. In our case there was also underwear.

Felix was gracious about it, considering that it was his underwear, and socks, shirts, and pants strewn across Sepulveda. I pulled over as soon as I could, around the corner on Exposition, and then I hopped out, along with Felix, Zeferina, Nadja, and Stasik. Uncle Vanya stayed in the Suburban, presumably to guard the bicycle and perhaps Zbiggo.

Stasik ran into the street, dodging traffic to rescue the soft-sided suitcase, an act of heroism that completely surprised me. The rest of us grabbed clothes and sundry items liberated from the suitcase due to a zipper that must've given up the ghost midair. There were also books littering the landscape, mostly foreign, but three in English. I'm always intrigued by what people read and even now noted the titles:
Don't Put the Lord on Hold
and
Big Dreams, Big Results
and
Alternative Energy Sources for the 21st Century
.

Felix, chasing a shirt, called to us to let everything go, assuring us that he had nothing worth risking our lives over, but this was a strangely determined
group and only when all visible items were gathered did they call off the search.

We piled back in the car, rearranging bodies and luggage and the former contents of Felix's suitcase. Every passenger held something on his or her lap. The ice was broken now, and conversation flourished. Felix overflowed with gratitude at the communal rescue effort.

“I think your suspenders are history, though,” I said. “Sorry. This was all my fault.”

“My suspenders, they now recycle. Someone will find who will have need of them.”

I tried to think if I'd ever seen a homeless person in L.A. in suspenders. A greeting card image popped into my head: CNN's Larry King pushing a shopping cart. I discarded it. “What is it you do, Felix?” I asked.

“I spread the good word.”

“Which good word is that?” I asked.

“Two hundred thirty-seven pounds have left my body.”

“What? How have you done this?” Zeferina asked.

“I have not done it. Jesus has done it. ‘By myself I can do nothing.’ John, chapter five, verse thirty. I have written a book on my adventure. It is called
Jesus Made Me Skinny.”

Nadja let out a scream. “You wrote
Jesus Made Me Skinny
?”

“Yes. Have you read it?”

“No. At World Triathlon Cup, the German girl, she reads it. She tells of it. I want to buy for my sister, my sister is fat, but she does not read in German.”

“I can send her my book in Dutch, Japanese, Serbian, Slovak, or, of course, Russian,” Felix said. “And in August my book is in English.”

“Yes. She will love,” Nadja said. “Tell me, Jesus can give bigger quadriceps?”

“Jesus can do that,” Felix said.

“Oh, Christ,” Stasik said.

“So that's why you're here, Felix?” I asked. “To promote your book?”

“Yes, Yuri will help me to say my message for the American audience. Also I will remove some skin.”

“Skin?” Zeferina asked.

“From when I lose my weight. I have so much skin now.”

“Jesus cannot remove this skin?” Nadja asked.

“Jesus will guide the hand of the plastic surgeon. You cannot imagine all this skin. Under my clothes I am very, very baggy.”

Conversation ebbed for a moment, as we pondered that. A minute or two later I said, “You're a triathlete, Nadja?”

“Yes, number sixteen best in the whole world. I go to Olympics.”

I glanced in the rearview mirror. No extra skin on Nadja. “So you're here to—?”

“I come to meet Oatees.”

“Who is Oatees?” Zeferina asked.

“Is like Wheaties, only not so famous,” Nadja said. “Is possible for number sixteen to be on Oatees box. Wheaties, no. What is the word, Vanya?”

“Endorsement,” Vanya said.

“Endorsement. I learn to look happy and promote my sport and country.”

“That's great,” I said. “Zeferina—uh, Maria—”

“Zeferina Maria Catalina.”

“Yes, sorry. What about you?” I asked. “What do you do?”

“My husband, in my country, has now the important government job. I come to speak better English and not so fat, so I am here.”

“Wow, interesting,” I said. “How about you, Stasik?”

“I sing country music.”

I craned my neck around to look at him, surprised.

“What country?” Nadja asked.

“The country I'm from,” Stasik said, “is Belarus. The music I sing is American country and western.”

“You're kidding,” I said.

“Why do you think I'm kidding?”

I hesitated. “You don't seem the type.”

“What's the type?” Stasik asked, a note of challenge in his voice.

“Never mind. Stereotypical thinking on my part,” I said. Why not a bitter, sarcastic Belarusian country and western singer?

“You have a CD, Stasik?” Nadja said. “I can hear you on radio?”

“I can give you a CD. I'm on the radio, but in Europe, not here. Yet.”

There was a subtle camaraderie among the trainees that intrigued me. I looked in the rearview mirror. “Do you all know each other? I mean, before today—have you all met?”

There was silence, and then three or four people said no all at once. This was followed by more silence.

“The snoring bloke,” Stasik asked after a minute. “Zbiggo. What's he do?”

“Zbiggo's a boxer.”

No one took issue with that. After a while, travel fatigue set in and my passengers drifted off to sleep or to commune with their own thoughts. I tried to sort out my own, making mental notes about what I planned to discuss with Bennett Graham (everything, with the possible exception of Felix's underwear) and Yuri (much less, if I wasn't to rat out Alik) and Simon (next to nothing). By the time I left Pacific Coast Highway, turning up Topanga Canyon Boulevard, I thought I was the only one awake. But when I looked in the rearview mirror, I saw Stasik leaning over the seat, talking to Felix. Their voices were low, so I couldn't hear a word, but it was interesting to see them halfway to friendship.

Then I saw Stasik hand something over the seat to Felix. It was a quick movement and the sun was setting over the ocean behind us, so the light was fading, but I saw a glint of metal. What passed between them looked very much like a knife.

T
hunk. Thunk
.

The sounds entered my dream, in which I was driving a forty-foot truck, and then pulled me into consciousness. I opened my eyes.

I held my breath in the darkness, not knowing where I was. It took time to remember being escorted to House of Blue the night before, shown to my room, and falling into bed, into a deep sleep. Now I was wide awake, half curious and three-quarters scared.
Thunk
.

Someone was throwing rocks at my balcony.

I fumbled for the bedside lamp. The room lit up. The rock throwing stopped. I turned off the light.

Thunk
.

I turned on the lamp again, got out of bed, and moved to the sliding glass doors that led to the second-story deck. It had to be Simon. It was such a
Romeo and Juliet
thing to do, finding my bedroom. I was too groggy to figure out how he did it. I just wanted to be with him. Wrap my arms around him. My legs too.

“Simon?” I whispered, leaning over the balcony. He was a dark blob beneath me.

“Catch,” he whispered back. “Climb down.”

Something hit my arm and I grabbed it. It was a heavy rope, knotted
on one end. I reeled it in; on the other end was a rope ladder. The ladder had big hooks I was able to attach to the railing, and I set about climbing down, the moon lighting up the night sky just enough to help. The things I do for this guy, I thought, and stumbled on the last step. He took my arm to steady me. I turned and stifled a gasp.