Dating is Murder (22 page)

The tension had been subtle, but it had been there. Simon had Vladimir Tcheiko on the brain. And he didn’t want me knowing. Tcheiko wasn’t just a drug lord. He was Big Fish.

I was wondering what to do with this when Simon asked how things had gone on the set. I told him I’d followed men to the bathroom all night, lurking in the hallway in case one used the pay phone between the men’s and ladies’ rooms. None did. “And no one,” I said, “stood up and announced, ‘I am Little Fish.’ One Celtic accent, no shopping bags. Nothing I did tonight couldn’t be done by any first-year FBI agent, by the way.”

A waiter refilled our water glasses. Simon thanked him without taking his eyes off me.

“So why me?” I said. “Why me?”

He just kept looking at me. “Stop looking for her,” he said, his voice soft.

I said nothing.

It really was
a great restaurant. Our waiter brought me a second martini I couldn’t recall ordering, a salad I knew I hadn’t ordered, and some pasta thing. Simon had a steak the size of my shoe. There were colorful sauces, kaleidoscopically arranged on the plates, and an impressive bread basket with skinny breadsticks and curly pretzelly things shooting out like earth-tone flora. The whole experience was enhanced by the fact that I was drunk.

“I’ve never gotten drunk with a G-man,” I said, leaning over the table a little farther than the rules of good posture allowed. “I bet you have a conservative voting record. I don’t often date Republicans, but Joey says they’re good in bed, more so than you’d imagine.”

“It’s not something I’ve spent time imagining.”

“Speaking of Joey, why didn’t you recruit her? She’s brave, she’s intrepid, and she’s a producer of sorts, so she’s got a built-in excuse for hanging around the show.”

“I have my reasons,” he said.

“Let’s hear them.”

He sat back, his body languid, one hand playing idly with the espresso cup in front of him. He studied me. He studied me for so long I forgot what my question was. For a moment I sobered up. Should federal agents even be allowed to date, when the rules of conversation kept getting suspended every four minutes?

“Joey,” he said, “has a lifestyle and certain . . . characteristics that make her less than desirable to work with.” His hand lifted in a “Stop” gesture. “Anything I say about this is going to get you defensive. You’re a little fierce about your friends.”

“You mean I’m fierce about Annika but, Simon, if you knew her better, you’d like her. You’d like her better than me. She knew all this math stuff, she tutored me for free, she had no money but she volunteered at pet shelters, she was kind to plants, and so small, with those red cheeks and worried about World War II and she’s not even twenty years old. If they had a reality show called
Who Should Not Disappear into Thin Air?
she’d win.”

This was not, perhaps, my most lucid moment, but Simon looked at me with gentleness, a gentleness peculiar to tall men. Tall men with blue eyes. There are male frogs that turn blue in order to attract female frogs, I told myself. This got me to thinking about the most famous frog, the legendary frog turned into a prince by a kiss. I seemed to be living the legend in reverse, seeing men as princes and kissing them willingly, only to find they were in fact amphibians, leading a double life, one on land, one at sea. Perhaps this was because the woman in the legend was a princess and I was a commoner.

At some point we walked the long, long walk out of the restaurant, and when we were halfway down the flower-covered alleyway, Simon stopped. I turned to him, stood on tiptoes as if I were going to tell him a secret, which seems like something an informant might do with an FBI agent, and then I kissed him. He kissed me back. After a while, other people came down the flower-covered alleyway, and we stopped kissing and continued on our way to Sunset Boulevard, where it was the morning after Thanksgiving night.

He put his jacket on me while we waited for the valet parking guy to fetch his car. The jacket was too big. It made me feel little. When you’re a girl who is six feet tall, that is nothing to sneeze at.

31

I
woke up
on my living room sofa, dressed. Morning. My head hurt. Memory came in slowly, like coffee through a drip machine.

Why wasn’t I in my bed? Had I been so drunk last night I’d lost my way? No, my mother was occupying the bedroom. Okay. What day was it? Friday. I had to work on the frogs. I sat up. All my brains shifted to the front of my head. I lay back down. I sat up again, then stood. Okay, I was really making progress now.

Simon.

I clutched the back of the sofa and closed my eyes. Had we—?

Kissed?

I sat back down. Scenes replayed like a home movie. Kisses. Outside the apartment, under a tree, in the grass, the car, the elevator. I’d found the gun he wore on his waist. He’d checked out the apartment for plumbers, but then what? Please God, tell me he hadn’t stayed. Bad enough to not remember, but with Prana in the bedroom and paper-thin walls—

I got up, and this time made it all the way to the kitchen, to a quart of cold water and medication. I was able to manage the childproof cap on the Tylenol bottle, but the coffee grinder presented a problem. Would it wake my mother? Maybe. Was it worth it? No. This was why God had created instant coffee.

My eyes lit on my computer, sitting on the kitchen table.

While the kettle heated up, I logged on to the
Biological Clock
Web site. The fact that I hadn’t done so until now raised an interesting question. Did I simply not enjoy computers, or was I, in fact, in denial about this show? Was I, like Prana, appalled?

The Web site was itself a little appalling, all primary colors, capital letters, and exclamation points. I felt like putting on sunglasses. There was a page called “Who’s Got the Best
B.C.
Body?!” that I chose not to visit. I was drawn instead to “Biological Biographies!”

There was nothing about Carlito, Vaclav, and Henry I couldn’t have written myself, because I’d been dating them, and if there’s one thing I know how to be it’s an attentive date. The competition was another story. I clicked on Kimberly Karmer. Kim was from a large, loving family, was a former Junior Miss, an award-winning clarinet player, and fluent in American Sign Language, thanks to a hearing-impaired mother. In the summer she taught music to underprivileged youth and she was now working in retail while pursuing a master’s degree in psychology.
Dear God,
I thought, and clicked onto Savannah Brook. Worse. Laker Girl, French major. MBA from Columbia, then spent a year building houses for poor people in Guatemala, currently a systems analyst, whatever that was, for a banking consortium and an equestrienne. And, of course, a black belt in Krav Maga. The kind of date who’d fix your roof, balance your checkbook, and advise you on your groin kicks.

Then there was me. My biographical profile said I designed a line of greeting cards, painted murals, and lived in West Hollywood.

That was it? What about my failed business, my three semesters of junior college, my institutionalized brother? Or my most noteworthy accomplishment, a string of dates that, put end to end, would stretch from Beverly Hills to the Panama Canal? Oh. I recalled Sharon, the battle-weary production person in the
B.C.
office, begging me for more information.

I imagined adding “drug dealer” to either Kim or Savannah’s biography, and found it plausible. Especially Savannah. Maybe she’d started this sideline in Central America, when she realized the poor of Guatemala weren’t advancing her career fast enough.

I clicked on a feature called “Fan Mail” and discovered I had my own mailbox. My head throbbed wildly. This was what I’d come for, an idea sparked by Vic Mauser. A password was required for the mailbox. I tried my mother’s maiden name, recalling that Sharon had once asked me for it. It worked. A daunting pile of e-mails popped up. I scrolled through, opening one at random. Someone called BarnyardAnimal wanted to know if my breasts were real.

Then a subject line made my heart beat faster: “Latte + 5 Sugars.” I had a vision of Annika at Grounds, our coffee hangout, opening packet after packet of sugar. I’d told her that Doc liked sugar in his coffee too, that maybe there was a correlation between sugar, brown hair, and mathematical ability. The e-mail was two days old. Shaking, I hit “Read.”

Wollie, I hope you find this, I have no other way to reach you. It is so bad, all that has happened. But you must not look for me. The danger is so great and if you die too it will be so bad. I want so much to see you and everyone, but I think I will not so always remember me with kindness. I am crying now as I write but it’s OK. I did not think I believed in God, but now I find I do so everything will be all right, even if nothing turns out as I thought. I did not think my year would end like this, people so much better than I expected and also so so so much worse. It will be over soon please do not look for me PLEASE. Tell NO ONE I write to you. Do not try to write back. Worse of all would be if you die because of me. Love, Your Little Sister.

I stared at the screen, my thoughts tumbling over one another:
she’s alive she’s in danger she thinks she’s going to die she thinks I’m going to die.
I typed back, “Are you still there? Are you all right?” and sent it. Almost instantly, a message appeared.

“Message cannot be delivered because mailbox is full.”

I couldn’t move. Her e-mail had come from “feynmanfan.” We’d never e-mailed each other, but this had to be her account. Why hadn’t she emptied her mailbox? Whose computer had she used?

What kind of danger was she talking about? Bombs? Guns? How could I guess? How did she know I was looking for her? I dialed Simon, got voice mail, and hung up. What could I say? I’m in danger. Big, general, nonspecific danger. Rescue me.

Could the e-mail be traced? I picked up the phone, and set it down again. We’d been through this, with Marie-Thérèse’s mail. Yes, but it would take time. Annika’s message had been waiting for two days. It could wait ten more minutes, while I calmed down. I printed it out.

In the hall closet I found some bicycle shorts and a rugby shirt. Hubie’s. They didn’t fit, let alone match, but they’d save me from having to sneak into my bedroom and wake Prana.

What
about
Prana?

Nothing in Annika’s e-mail suggested the danger was in my apartment, and my mother wasn’t one to respond to threats, in any case. She didn’t believe in medical checkups, earthquake preparedness, or national security advisories, and she wouldn’t believe in this. She certainly wouldn’t alter her life for it.

I went outside and checked the street for female plumbers and curious men with receding hairlines. Then I said a prayer, got in my car, and headed for the Valley.

Halfway up Coldwater
Canyon I started to think more clearly. Annika was alive. Or had been two days ago. If she was being held against her will, maybe she’d seen a computer, remembered the show’s Web site, and typed out a fast message. But kidnappers did not typically leave computers lying around. Perhaps she was in hiding and had seen Rico’s disappearance on the national news, which had so distressed her she’d written to me, frightened that what had happened to him would happen to me. But if the danger was so great, why not just tell me what it was?

And how exactly was I to stop looking for her? Should I stop thinking about her? Avoid saying her name? Not drive my car? Quit the show? Leave town? Which part of my life was the dangerous part? Being a CW, a cooperating witness for the FBI, the job she’d turned down?

Tell no one,
Annika had said.

I had to tell someone. Cziemanski? Annika was still his case. No, not a case, a missing person’s report. He might see this e-mail as confirmation that she’d left voluntarily.

Joey.
Tell no one
wouldn’t mean Joey, because Annika, unlike the FBI, understood about best friends. When I reached Sherman Oaks, I went into Rex and Tricia’s Mansion, armed myself with a gallon can of deck paint as a weapon, checked the house from top to bottom, locked the door, and left a message for Joey.

One good thing about the e-mail, beyond the fact that Annika was alive, was that it distracted me from my hangover. I don’t get drunk often, being, if not a blackout drinker, a brownout one. I don’t forget whom I was with, just the details of what I did with them. Which makes for some uncomfortable mornings after. This one was no exception.

“Wollie, I can’t
talk,” Joey said on the phone, interrupting my painting. “But be home at three-thirty. I have a plan.” She hung up. Immediately, my cell phone rang again.

“Joey?” I said, but it wasn’t my friend’s gravelly voice that responded.

“Miss Shelley?” It was a woman, soft-spoken. I thought of the female plumber and felt chills up and down my spine. “My name is Lauren Rodriguez. I’m—”

“Oh, gosh.” Rico’s mother. I froze. “I know who you are. How are you doing?”

“Not well.” An audible breath. “Pardon the intrusion. I was given your number by Kevin Irving. Richie’s roommate. I understand you met Kevin. And Lyle. At Pepperdine.”

“Yes, I did.”

“Kevin tells me—he’s very kind, he calls the house every day—he says you’re friends with a young woman Richie dated. A girl from Germany.”

“Annika. Yes.”

“I’ve spoken to the detective in charge of my son’s case. I asked about this young woman. He says the connection is tenuous. Miss Shelley—”

“Call me Wollie.”

“The detective feels it best if we leave him to do his job. I am not much interested in the detective’s feelings. I don’t know if this will make sense to you, but I want to meet everyone my son met, go where he went; I would like to walk through his life of the past weeks. I’d like to hear about this young woman. If we could meet for a cup of coffee, lunch, anything. Anytime you like. I have nothing but time.”

I felt sad down to my toes. What could I say to this woman, what could possibly help her right now?

Information. Knowledge.

“Of course I’ll meet you,” I said. “But there’s someone else you may want to talk to. I’ll make a call and get right back to you.”

Maizie answered on
the first ring. “Wollie! Guess what: Grammy Quinn called last night from Palm Springs, she just figured out why you looked so familiar—she’s a huge fan of this show you’re on. Hey, do you have an autographed photo? She’ll be back for Christmas—”

“I can do better than that,” I said. “She can visit the set if she wants. Listen, though—”

“Oh, my God. It would be like the Second Coming— Emma Amanda Quinn!” Maizie’s voice changed drastically. “Don’t you go near that ironing board.
Lupe! Dónde está?
”

I spoke quickly. “Maizie, I’m close by and I wonder if I could bring a friend to meet—”

“Yes, fine— Emma! Wollie, I’m sorry, I have to deal with this. Come on over. Bye.”

I drove from Sherman Oaks and Lauren Rodriguez drove from Lost Hills, both of us heading to Encino. As I’d expected, when she heard Annika was an au pair, Lauren wanted to meet the host family. I drove as fast as Ventura Boulevard allowed, anxious to brief Maizie on the sensitive nature of this visit. I was putting her on the spot, but I couldn’t see her refusing, and I was glad not to have to meet Lauren alone. There is something scary about grief.

Lupe and Mr.
Snuggles escorted me into the kitchen, where Emma sat at the table with a plastic plate in front of her and a bib around her neck. “Emma eat lunch,” the child informed me, holding up tiny silverware.

“Looks good.” Turkey, stuffing, and peas sat on the plate, each food forming an island, nothing touching. A tiny, perfect wedge of apple pie occupied its own plate, just out of reach.

Maizie came through the doorway, aproned, carrying a large Tupperware bowl. “Hey, there,” she said, heading for the counter. “What can I get you, Wollie? Actually, you might want to help yourself—we’re doing sausage, and it’s not pretty. Gene took one look and went to play golf. City boy. There’s fresh-squeezed juice in the fridge.”

“That’s the fridge,” Emma said, pointing to the paneled-front appliance. “It’s a refrigerator fridge.”

“I see,” I said. “Maizie, you make your own sausage?”

“Yes, I’m taking a charcuterie class.” She poured the contents of her Tupperware into an enormous bowl, added a measuring cupful of what appeared to be spices, and plunged her hands in. “Oh, Lupe, I have the three-eighths-inch blade chilling in the fridge, could you get it? Anyhow, Wollie, come to our Christmas Eve open house. Grammy Quinn comes in the day before—oh—” She looked up. “Did you say you were bringing a friend?”

“She’s on her way,” I said. “And she’s not precisely a friend.” Maizie looked curious but continued kneading. I said, “Her name is Lauren Rodriguez. Her son was Annika’s boyfriend, Rico. He’s missing. Have you heard about this? It’s been on the news.”

Maizie stopped working, hands suspended above the bowl. She stared at me. “His mother is coming here?”

“Yes. I think she’s in bad shape, understandably, and she’s trying to . . . um, retrace the steps of her son’s—I’m sorry, this is very awkward. Is it a problem?”

Maizie glanced at Emma, a stricken look on her face. I felt my own face go red, as though I’d just burped loudly. I said, “I guess it is a problem. I—wasn’t thinking.”

A buzzer rang.

“Lupe,” Maizie said, “please show our guest in.” She stepped over to the sink and washed her hands. She dried them on a dish towel, removed her apron, inspected her nails, then moved to Emma’s high chair. She smoothed the flyaway hair until Emma batted her away the way you’d shoo a fly. Maizie smoothed her own hair. The seconds dragged by. She gave me an uncertain smile. “It’s fine, really, I just can’t . . . fathom what that woman is going through. I have seen the news. It’s every mother’s nightmare, you know.”

I didn’t know. I wasn’t a mother. I could only guess.

Footsteps sounded in the hallway. We all watched the doorway.

Lauren Rodriguez was medium height, shorter than Maizie and me, and ballerina slender. She preceded Lupe into the kitchen like a gazelle, long-necked and fragile. She looked nothing like Rico, her sandy hair pulled back into a ponytail and held with a tortoiseshell barrette. She wore khaki pants, a white blouse, loafers without socks, and carried a purse. Her only jewelry was a gold watch and a wedding ring. Her pierced ears were bare. She shook hands with us, with a strong grip. I remembered she was a politician’s wife.