CoverBoys & Curses (11 page)

Chapter Thirty-Two

Under
the Knife

DETECTIVE
WRAY HAD my full attention. The thing about his keloid scar. The plastic
surgeon. The stabbings. I got it. Maybe more so than I wanted.

The next
issue was at the presses. I loved it. And maybe I would come to hate it.

We took
the stories in-depth.

           
One of Beverly Hill’s finest
surgeons had seventeen patients who had all endured at least eleven surgeries. And
we did our research. They all walked through his door, first time, as the most
near perfection of beautiful womanhood. It’s not as if they were going through
a series of surgeries to correct a birth defect or a trauma to the physical
body.

Maybe
they weren’t made for the cover of
Vogue
,
or
Cosmo
, or the likes, but they
refused to believe they were nothing less than imperfection at God’s wicked wrath.
They didn’t understand that Photoshop and the body parts stores were used for
all the pretty movies, glossies, and advertisements.

I had
already shed more light on the plight of anorexia, bulimia and cocaine as part
of the runway model story. This was different. This was surgery. I included my
personal recount of a friend whose mother had taken her to New York as a getaway-shopping
excursion. The daughter took an early flight home, disgusted that she couldn’t
fit into the clothes she so desperately wanted, while her mother stood at her
side begging that a larger size would be fine. The daughter scheduled a tummy
tuck for the following week. She died on the operating table.

And then
there was that little ugly story about
revirgination
.

Chapter Thirty-Three

A
Simple Sanctuary

THE
BRASS KEY TURNED the inner chamber and the cylinder clicked open. Harlan Coal
took a quick look over his shoulder and, seeing no one, slipped through the
door that would automatically close and relock. He crossed the first narrow
chamber lined with files and shelves stuffed with DVD’s and books. With a
second key he unlocked another door.

“Ah,
Armand!” Coal said. “You’ve found your way into my soul.”

“Not a
place I really want to reside,” Armand answered.

The
steaks sizzled on the Viking grille. A state-of-the-art exhaust system purified
the air, removing any tale-tell aroma of a carnivore’s delight. It eliminated
tobacco smoke, too. Or any other odd scents that might occasionally permeate
the air.

“The
girl. Visconti. I think you’ve got the wrong mark this time,” Armand said. He
lit a cigarette and passed it over to Coal’s generous lips.

“She’s a
fucking gold mine. I’ve been planning this one for years.”

“She
doesn’t fit your profile. The profile you’ve crammed down my throat for ten
years. She’s smarter than you, and as independent as you. She isn’t going to
fall for your polarized mentality shit. And lonely? She knows way too many
people.”

“Her friends
are all our marks. And Visconti fits my profile just fine. She’s going through
a difficult time. Her entire life has been a nightmare, at least so she thinks.
She’s beautiful, sexy, and she’s fucking A-Bubba loaded. That makes her
perfect. I have great plans for her.”

“She’s
trouble.”

“Don’t
insult me, Armand. Just cook me my goddamned steak.”

Coal sucked
on his cigarette, putting it out just as the rare steak arrived at his table.
He devoured the beef between sips of the Krug cabernet.

Armand
cleared the plates, then followed Coal to the living area. He cut out four
perfect lines of white powder across the shiny stainless steel cocktail table.

“We’ve
got a problem with the Carly Posh home,” Armand said. “Her bug’s not working.
That’s one more bad omen in this whole Visconti deal.”

“I’ll be
the only omen around here. Send someone in when she’s not there. How hard can
that be?”

“That’s
the problem. She doesn’t leave the house.”

“Bullshit.
She goes to work. She attends our sessions. And you make goddamn sure she never
sees you! In fact you and all the boys. You need to stay the hell away from
here.”

“You’re
not paying attention. She’s not working, or if she does, she’s in and out with
no schedule and we can’t rely on the time we’ll need. And she hasn’t been at
the last several rallies.”

Coal
laughed from somewhere deep within his looming skeleton. “I get it. I think we
have a case of good old female jealousy. That’s all. She introduces me to
Visconti and now she regrets the attention I’m giving her. I planned on this. I’ll
take care of it in the morning.”

Coal
left the living room, crossing to another open section of the capacious floor
plan. Two locked doors afforded him all the privacy he needed. Here, within the
confines of his sanctuary, walls were limited. He entered the master bedroom
space. With a single remote control, the first button operated the tin ceiling
tiles which would slide to reveal a bank of mirrors above the bed. The second
button opened up the
Velux
skylights that flanked
each side of the mirroring. There were no windows on any of the outside walls
so the skylights provided a welcome relief of fresh air against a starry night,
but only after the exhaust system had expunged any trace of the grilled steak
and cigarette smoke.

A series
of buttons cranked up the sound system. Limp
Bizkit
screamed their songs of obscenity. With a couple more buttons the lights dimmed
and the bath began to fill with a flat gush of water that swished into the huge
black marble basin like a mountainous Alps waterfall. The final button
confirmed all doors were secure; the monitor would alert them if anyone was
within ten feet of the first door. After all, Dr. Coal had an open door policy.

Coal
rolled the nightstand drawer open and tossed the remote control into it. Next
to where it tumbled lay the almost empty bottle of Rohypnol. His favorite drug
of choice. The
roofies
would remove any trace of
memory or flashbacks that might linger in the fog of his young boys doped-up
brains.

Coal
spoke with the low pitch of a finely tuned base guitar on steroid amplifiers,
“Lauren Visconti will succumb to my mystical pipeline. I am the one that speaks
a truth that will resonate with her and turn her into my favorite little ant.
Not on the farm, of course. I’ll be buying her soul but she’s the one paying.”

Armand
heard and answered. “I like that Carly cunt. I bet she’s a real bed thrasher.”

Chapter Thirty-Four

Inconvenient
Lives

MY
PHONE RANG AT daybreak. With my shutters open, the sun cast a faint glow through
the dismal bank of fog along the shoreline. I switched on my nightstand lamp in
order to help wake my conscious mind. I read,
Caller ID
.
Italy.

“Mr.
Helms, how kind of you to phone me back.”

“I’ve
been called far worse than that, but call me Jack. I’m getting back to you
about the kid. The missing kid,” he said.

“Payton’s
younger brother. Mike Doukas.” I rubbed my eyes, but rather than the relief
that comes with eight hours of sleep, they scratched as if I’d been on the
beach in a windstorm.

“The
last viable information on him, according to my guys, is a street address in
New York. A flop-house of the worst kind.”

 
“The thing is this address is old.” Helms
apologized. “About 800,000 children go missing each year, Lauren. You have runaways
and parents that don’t give a damn. It’s a bad mix. You’ve got kids that don’t
want to be found and in some cases don’t deserve to be. And you’ve got family
secrets.”

“What
kind of family secrets?”

“One in
five girls and one in ten boys are sexually molested, most often by a family
member. And of those, you’re lucky to get one in three to talk about it. It’s
sorry statistics.”

That
didn’t fit Payton’s family. No way. Not that I could imagine. But then again,
the words were
family
secrets.

“Anything
else I should know, Jack?”

“One
more problem. If you do come up with hard evidence that indicates a death,
that’s a whole different ballgame. The kids wind up in pauper’s graves,
squeezed together and stacked on top of each other. It’s a real mess trying to
unearth them.”

“Exhumation?”

“Fucking
tough to get a court order, probably because it costs so much. They’re jammed
in so tight and so deep there’s no telling who the lucky sonuva bitch is that’s
on the top. And I doubt they know who’s on the bottom since they didn’t know
who they were in the first place.”

Payton
always had faith that Mike was still alive. Maybe she learned some piece of truth
and the acceptance that he was gone was what did her in. New York? My god. None
of us thought to look east of the Mississippi. “You said New York was the last
official address on him. What else is unofficial?”

“Tucson.”

Did that
make sense? Maybe he didn’t contact Payton but he wanted to be near her?

“I’m not
done. One of my guys found a street kid hyped up on meth so don’t take it as
gospel, but he saw the picture of your kid and said he left Tucson to head to
the west coast. Something about working the land.”

I wrote
down the old New York address Helms provided and thanked him for the
information.

“You’re
still in Italy?”

“For a
few more weeks. Why don’t you come over and report on that story I’m scooping
out for my documentary. The way some men still treat their women like shit over
here.”

“Think
I’ll have to pass for now.”

“How
about the cheese. Showing more cheese?”

“Gouda
or smoked havarti?”

“You
know exactly what I mean. Skin.”

I hung
up, wondering who would prove to be the real villain, if we were ever to
investigate the Italy story. In describing discrimination in Italy, Jack Helm’s
had just used the words
‘their women’
.

Chapter Thirty-Five

A
Simple Meal

MY
STEPS SLOWED as I entered the lobby of The Centre. I felt bathed in an
inexplicable abundance of love. Protection. Hope.

While
true I hadn’t returned Dr. Coal’s phone calls for weeks, I had read a few of
his many published works. I’d gone to sleep with his books for as many nights.

Dr. Coal
sat on the floor of his office with two young boys in front of him. He motioned
me in as the boys scrambled up and disappeared behind me.

“I’m
sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt,” I said.

“No way.
Those kiddos were just getting ready to give up on me. They wanted movie money
and they realized they weren’t getting it from me.”

I
remembered the play equipment on the grounds. I’d never seen a single child
there. But I guess these boys were too old to play on swings and slides.

He
laughed and at once I felt at home, but just as I began to sit on the floor
next to him, a seating style I thought I might enjoy in my more comfortable
attire, Coal stood up.

“Have
you had lunch?”

“No. I
hadn’t really thought about it.”

“Come,
then.”

For a
swift moment I regretted the offer because as his protocol had suggested, I
wore sweats. Designer sweats, mind you, but sweats nonetheless. Nothing
suitable for a lunch date.

Oh god,
I thought.
A date?
That wasn’t it at
all. I had to get that idea out of my mind.

“My
assistant has prepared lunch and he always makes enough to feed the entire
Pacific Rim.”

“Assistant?”
I wondered if the offer of lunch signaled there would be no private session
with me. I
worried
that it might.

“You’ve
not met him? Sorry, I thought everyone around here knew Armand. Sent to me straight
from the heavens. He’s my right-hand man. He takes care of me and he takes care
of the business part of The Centre. The financial stuff that drags me down, to
be honest. He takes the load off me so I am not polluted with the physical
world and that helps me stay in the spiritual world I much prefer.”

We
hadn’t discussed this spiritual side of him although I sensed it was deeply
rooted. His philosophies revealed themselves slowly in the context of his
numerous published discourses. His teachings evoked the aura of the ‘good
journey’, whatever that meant.

I
realized we had crossed another path. A physical one that led directly to his
private home. Butterflies again emerged in my stomach, but these were born out
of ancient cocoons that hadn’t been disturbed in years. A man of mystery always
got the best of me.

A screen
door served as the only barrier to the large building.

“A
minimalist?” I teased.

Harlan
roared with laughter, “Well, I do have a real table and real chairs to take
meals upon.”

The
space was quite similar to his office.
Dhurrie
rugs,
pillows, and a single futon in the corner. The only luxuries appeared to be a
wall of leather bound books and dozens of lit white candles atop patina-aged
brass that formed an altar of sorts.

In an
obscure corner, a man stood behind a kitchenette, slicing avocados and tomatoes
still on the vine. I could see the garden of edibles more clearly than the man,
and I could smell a simmering soup. Rosemary and lemon. As for the man, all I
could see was a long and braided black ponytail.

Dr. Coal
set the table for two, along with a soup tureen and platter of avocado-topped
bread slices. He excused Armand for his immediate absence. “He had another
engagement. You’ll meet him another time.”

We dined
in silence for an excruciating time. For me. Dr. Coal seemed as if
 
he was oblivious to me and more focused on inhaling
the distinct aromas. I liked that. He appreciated excellence in simplicity.

“All
fresh ingredients,” he finally said.

I kept
glancing at the wall next to us. It was solid rock and an odd interior material
for California, I thought. A large teak door in the middle of the wall closed off
what had to be the bulk of the massive building.

“It’s
our Hall of Records,” Coal said, as if reading my curious mind.

“What do
you mean? A library?”

He
laughed. “Yes. A massive library. Our central nervous system, remember?”

“May I
see it?”

“No. No
one sees it.”

My eyes
swept to the floor in embarrassment. “I’m sorry. That was presumptuous of me. I
guess it’s my journalistic nature.”

“I find your
inquisitiveness to be adorable. Now, then, do you mind if I do some of my
doctoring, even over lunch?” he continued. “It’s hard for me to disengage from my
patient relationship with you.”

I felt
relief shimmy down my shoulders to my spine and maybe somewhere below that.
“Sure.”

“Our brief
discussions have already shown progress. They’re open. I like that. You know
you are on a path and I hope you agree it’s a healthy path. We’ve certainly
managed to analyze your life’s crisis points. You’ve made some new decisions
which include not wanting to continue doing the same things which result in the
same outcomes. Now it’s time to move on. It’s time to fill up the void we’ve
created.”

“Void?”
I felt great. Coal made me feel great. I didn’t suffer a void for the first
time in years.

“You’ve
rejected old values. Old dogmas. You’re giving up a past belief system that
everything you love is taken away in death. This is huge. But you’ve created a
void. You’re starting to take away all that bad and you need to fill it up with
goodness.”

“I don’t
understand,” I admitted while remembering something similar Brock had told me.

“Take
this home with you,” Coal said as he handed me a thick booklet from the side of
his dining chair. “It’s a paper I wrote last week and you are the inspiration.”

He must
have seen me cower.

“Don’t
worry. It has nothing to do with Lauren Visconti. But somehow after our first
meeting you made me realize it’s relevant now, more than ever, and it was time
for me to put my thoughts into writing.”

“It isn’t
exactly light reading, is it?” I laughed as I accepted the huge document.

He did
not return a smile. “It explains our therapy practice in detail. I only wish
you could live here at The Centre, but of course that won’t work. This will
give you a booster shot into a new world.”

“I’ll
read it this week. I promise.”

“Yes.
You will.

“And
come to our gathering dinner this month. We’re having a special celebration.
You’ll enjoy yourself. One of my patients works at a nature preserve where they
treat injured gulls. We have the honor of releasing the healed ones. And it’s
the fall harvest. You won’t walk away hungry. Not in your stomach and not in
your soul.”

Dr. Coal
made me smile.

“That’s
new. I haven’t seen that before,” he said.

“What?”

“A full
smile. Natural and unforced. You wear it well.”

I admit
I think I felt some sexual tension. Maybe I was just getting my act together.
Finally. Dr. Coal was helping me. I thanked him for the impromptu lunch.

Coal
called out after me as I left. “Hey, Lauren, I like the sweats!”