Dating is Murder (27 page)

“If only Savannah had been Rico’s last date,” I said to Joey, on the way home, “that would interest the cops. And then I’d point out that Annika had introduced them, which would make it a love triangle, with two of the three sides disappearing within a week of each other—”

“How do you know she wasn’t his last date?” Joey asked.

“Rico told his mom he was seeing a blonde.”

Joey looked at me, her eyes wide. “Savannah’s blond.”

“What?”

“She’s blond.” Joey looked back to the road. “Bing wanted a blonde, a brunette, and a redhead so the audience could keep you guys straight. They decided your hair was too thin, it wouldn’t survive coloring, so they made Savannah go red.”

“My God,” I said.

Savannah was beautiful. She knew three languages: English, French, and whatever it was she’d spoken to Vaclav in.

And she was blond. She was the bad blonde, the mystery girlfriend of Rico Rodriguez, the last known person to see him alive.

36

I
wanted to
drive straight to the cops, but Joey dissuaded me.

“We stumble in at three
A.M.,
saying Rico Rodriguez slept with a redhead who dyes her hair, according to some sound guy on some TV show, and some desk cop writes this on a Post-it, and that’s the end of it. We need a hard-core theory that makes sense of things, and hard-core evidence to back it up. But I agree, it’s the cops we have to go to, if whatever happened to Annika happened to Rico. I don’t think the Feds are interested in Rico, or we’d have heard it on the news. They’re always doing press conferences. I’ll drop you at home, then head to the production office and check out Savannah’s
B.C.
application for clues. I’m too wired to sleep.”

There was no one lurking on my block. I was sure now that the previous lurkers were the plumber paparazzi, that my street, at least, was safe from whatever danger Annika had hinted at in her e-mail. That I could sleep tonight.

Except that my mother was waiting up for me.

“Green tea,” she said. “I had a bit too much, so I’m awake. You’re out of champagne.”

“It’s not a staple item in my life, Prana. No sign of plumbers, I take it?”

“No, but the mailman came to the door, as it was too much mail for the box. All those holiday catalogs. Such a waste of trees. How did it go in San Pedro, dear?”

I looked up in surprise, but she seemed interested, not like she was about to criticize my hair but like she really wanted to know. So I joined her in the living room. I told her about my night. Breaking and entering, near arrest, Joey’s assault on the photographer.

Prana nodded placidly. “I practiced civil disobedience with you in utero. Not with P.B., he gave me morning sickness, but you were a cooperative fetus. They put me on the front lines. The media loved it, the pregnant woman and the military industrial complex. Theo has clippings. Did I spot a Cabernet in the kitchen? I prefer white, but I’m having sleep issues . . .”

I left June Cleaver to her memories and went in search of wine and pajamas. My body ached, from being pilloried in a bathroom window, frozen at an outdoor restaurant, tortured at Krav Maga days before. If I were a tadpole, I could regenerate limbs. Four new ones would do.

I brought the Cabernet and wineglasses into the living room to find my mother surrounded by her Tarot cards in a pattern I’d seen all my life, a circle within a circle within a circle. “Whose fate are you reading now?” I asked, sitting opposite her.

“Your German friend.”

“Annika? Really? She doesn’t have to be here for it to work?”

“No, I’m good at remote readings. I often lay out cards for you and your brother.”

I felt strangely pleased. Sandalwood incense and the tuneless bell-like music on the CD player filled the room, calming me. My mother had been New Age before the phrase had been coined. It was a language I’d turned a deaf ear to, wanting to fit in with my friends whose mothers read
Reader’s Digest,
not Tarot cards. “What do they say?” I asked.

My mother stared at her layout, then with one arm movement swept it aside. “The answers are in her own backyard.” She picked up her wineglass, took a sniff, and made a face.

“Meaning?”

“Your friend must return home or what she left unfinished will haunt her forever. The lessons we choose not to learn recur, again and again, until we surrender to them.”

Like math, I thought.

“You, however, must stay out of it, Wollstonecraft. Her backyard is not yours. There is Evil present. My guides are clear on this matter.”

The dreaded guides. There was, I knew from experience, no way to win an argument with my mother’s guides. Arguing with almost anyone in the spirit world is fruitless. My eyes started to glaze over, drifting across the Tarot cards. Then an image jumped out at me.

I popped up out of my chair and shrieked.

“Mom—Prana—what is this?”

“The Devil.”

“This little squiggle down here at the bottom? That’s the Devil?”

She put on her reading glasses and took the card. “No, that’s the symbol for Capricorn. The Devil, the card you’re holding, is associated with the Egyptian sun deity, Ra, and with Pan, half man and half goat, which in turn connects to Capricorn, the goat. A very sexual card.”

“I’m sorry, you’re losing me. Capricorn’s astrology, isn’t it?”

My mother took off her reading glasses and sighed. “Of course. Tarot embraces astrology, numerology, mythology—”

“So if someone uses that symbol, does it mean they’re into Tarot cards?”

“Not at all. Astrology is everywhere—dinnerware, stationery, toothbrushes. Well, look at what you’re wearing.”

My flannel pajamas. There it was, the stylized little squiggle against the black background, alongside a goat.
On my left sleeve, knee, chest, the cuff of my pants. I’d seen it hundreds of times. “When is Capricorn?” I asked. “What month?”

“My God, you’re ignorant. Next month. It follows Sagittarius. Winter solstice through mid-January. Christmas. Jesus was a Capricorn, didn’t you ever hear that?”

I sat, trying to process information. “What if you saw this used as a logo, on a pill, something like Ecstasy? The drug, not the state of bliss.”

“Thank you, I live in an ashram, not a rest home. It could signify the insight and revelry of Pan and Dionysus, or it could be the sun sign of the pill manufacturer.”

“Wouldn’t that be a little risky, for a drug dealer? A signature of sorts?”

“Drug dealers, in my experience, are not particularly risk-averse. And they tend toward large egos. Speaking of ego, Wollie, this television enterprise—”

“Forget that for a minute—”

“Is the City of Angels so bereft of men you need to seek one on television? It wasn’t that way for me, I assure you.”

“You don’t need to assure me. I was there, Mom. I grew up with you.”

“Then perhaps you should have taken notes.”

“For the record,” I snapped, “I was engaged. Recently. To a married man. Who has a child, so there was going to be a custody issue, and he was a convicted felon, so he was going to lose her, so instead, he left me. Happy?”

My mother’s face brightened. “Intriguing. This isn’t the man who came to brunch?”

“No. That was Simon.”

“
He’s
not one of these reality people, is he? By the way, he left messages on your machine. I’d watch myself with him, if I were you. Those intense, testosterone-driven men, even one in the Peace Corps—”

“Simon’s not in the Peace Corps. He’s an FBI agent.”

I’d done it. I’d rendered my mother speechless. But not motionless. She rose from the sofa, like a goddess out of the sea. Aphrodite, I think. She found her voice. “You’re dating
—Feds?
”

“One date. One Fed.”

She spat out the words. “My father—your grandfather—smoked a cigar with Fidel Castro. I followed Carlos Castaneda into the rain forest. This is your bloodline. For you to desecrate it by— Why not join the Marines and be done with it?” She turned and swept out of the room in the manner of Isadora Duncan, caftan swirling.

I sat on the sofa and closed my eyes. I opened them. I looked at my watch. Still too early to call Marie-Thérèse, even with the time difference. But not by much. I closed my eyes again.

The next thing I knew, the sun had found its way onto my face through the curtainless living room window, waking me. I was on my second cup of coffee before I realized my mother had packed up and gone.

37

A
t seven
A.M.
I left a message on the machine of the Johannessen family in Minnesota, asking that their au pair, Marie-Thérèse, call me anytime, collect, concerning our mutual friend, Annika, about whom I was worried.

I turned on my computer and looked for a new e-mail from Annika. Nothing. I looked again at the old one. “It will be over soon.” Three days old, those words. Was it over already? Time was running out. Biological clocks, ticking clocks, the sun moving from Sagittarius to Capricorn, the sun approaching its eclipse, twenty-eight shopping days till Christmas, missing persons not found in the first forty-eight hours not getting found at all.

I called Joey to ask if Savannah’s work application showed her birthday, to see if she was a Capricorn. Joey didn’t answer. Sleeping, probably. I should’ve been sleeping too, but thoughts leaped in my head like frogs. Frogs. Rex Stetson and Tricia, his bride, would return—I looked at a calendar. My God. Impossible.

Tomorrow.

The phone rang. “Had breakfast?” Simon asked.

“I barely—”

“Don’t. I’ll pick you up in ten minutes.”

“Yeah, but—”

Simon was not big on chatter. In fact, he hung up on me. Maybe it was his seven calls I’d neglected to return, or maybe he wasn’t a morning person. Or maybe, as we had a contract, as I was a cooperating witness, this was a business breakfast. One I didn’t have time for. I’d suggest debriefing each other or whatever in the car, over doughnuts, so I could get to work.

Eleven minutes later I was outside my building in my best paint clothes, wearing makeup. Not a lot of makeup, because I didn’t want to look like I cared. I did care. My nerve endings buzzed. The Bentley pulled up, and Simon reached across and opened the passenger door for me from the inside. Aha. We were progressing. The last time he’d gotten out of the car to open my door. The next time I’d open my own door.

If there was a next time.

The car was heated, a good contrast to the nippy November morning air. I got in, said hello, went for my seat belt, and Simon went for me.

The thing about morning kissing is that people tend to taste more like toothpaste than, for instance, red wine, which lends it a certain reality. You can’t say, “I was carried away by the spearmint.” But I was. That, the smell of shaving cream, whatever he used to starch his shirts had aphrodisiacal properties. The smells were cool, his body was warm, his mouth was cool, the car was warm. Even with the discomfort of the console between us, it was heaven. If one were considering making out in a Bentley, I’d recommend it.

As suddenly as it began, it ended. He pulled back to study me, his face unreadable. He said, “What are you hungry for?”

I didn’t say anything.

That made him laugh. “I’m talking breakfast,” he said.

“I’m not a breakfast eater.”

“That’s gotta change,” he said, starting up the car. “Breakfast is key.”

“To what? Anyhow, I don’t have time to eat. I have to get to work, my day job.”

“Tell me about this mural,” he said.

“There’s nothing to tell. It’s visual. Frogs. I’m serious, I don’t have time to eat; can’t we discuss things in the car?”

“Start talking,” he said, but he pulled away from the curb.

“Okay. Savannah Brook is Rico’s blond girlfriend, the one he had a date with on Saturday night. Either she’s working for Little Fish, or she is Little Fish—you know which. I think she’s Little Fish. Here’s my theory: Savannah met Annika and Rico on the set and offered them jobs. Annika was going back to Germany soon, she’d be a natural courier, and both she and Rico were students and Euphoria, this big-deal drug, this miracle, it’s big on campuses. Rico said yes, but Annika said no. Savannah threatened Annika with deportation, and threatened her mother. That’s where you guys came in. And when Annika disappeared. Maybe Savannah turned her in to Immigration, got her deported, and maybe you don’t know this because maybe their guys didn’t tell your guys. Or maybe Annika ran away and Savannah freaked out and sent people to Germany to kidnap Annika’s mother, to ensure that Annika would keep her mouth shut. Or maybe Savannah kidnapped Annika
and
her mother, but three days ago Annika got ahold of a computer, for five minutes, and she wrote to me, because . . . all right, as theories go, it’s got some holes, it’s a little sloppy, but some of it must be right.”

He drove in silence, his face impassive behind his sunglasses.

“Well, damn it. Tell me I’m right about something.”

“You’re right about a lot.” He came to a light and shifted gears. Traffic was heavy on Santa Monica. “Tonight,
Biological Clock
shoots in the back room of a restaurant called Fini, in Culver City. This is where the big meeting gets set up. You’ll be wearing a wire. Shooting starts at seven. I want you there at five.”

“Five o’clock? Impossible. I’ll be knee-deep in frogs at five.”

“Extricate yourself,” he said. “I want you on the set at five.”

“No.”

His head turned so fast I thought he’d hurt himself. If his dictatorial manner surprised me, my response surprised him more. He must be high up in the food chain, I decided, to be so shocked at the word no.

“I quit,” I said. “I’m terrible at this. Everyone on the set last night recognized me, I haven’t helped you, I haven’t told you anything you didn’t already know. And you haven’t told me anything, period. I don’t believe you’re any closer to finding Annika than I am on my own, and I have to take it on faith that you’re looking at all. You know all about me, but I know nothing about you, what’s going on with you, because you get to lie and shut down and clam up, and I’ve been dating men like you for years, I don’t need to work for one of you.”

Simon did a fast right. Horns blared as the Bentley cut off a car in the next lane and came to a screeching halt in front of a fire hydrant. He turned off the ignition, got his seat belt off in one snap, and threw his sunglasses on the dashboard. His blue eyes turned on me.

“There’s nothing I wouldn’t tell you if I didn’t have ethical considerations. I do have them. I’m not apologizing. I like what I do. I believe in it. But I have a big conflict of interest here, and what’s going on with me is I’m doing every goddamn thing I can think of to make this work, I’m bending rules on both sides, and I still don’t know if I can pull off what I need to pull off, and I have no idea if you’ll want to know me when it’s over.”

“Why will you want to know me?” I asked.

By way of answering, he reached over and pulled me to him. We didn’t kiss. I could barely breathe. My face was mashed into his tie, my rib cage was getting crushed right where I’d been stuck in a bathroom window, and there was that console thing between us and a gun attached to his waist where one of my hands held on to him, but love is a strange thing.

Love. That word he was whispering in my ear. It covers a multitude of sins and a lot of other things. Pain. Awkwardness. Doubt.

Half an hour later he pulled into a parking lot near Hugo’s and smiled at the attendant, who stared at us like a monk greeting the pope, nearly weeping over the Bentley. It’s only the cheap Bentley, I could’ve told him, but why spoil his day?

The “L” word,
once said, changes things. There are people who throw it around like salt on popcorn. Others are more comfortable with profanity than endearments. I’d have bet Simon was in the latter camp, that I’d heard it wrong, that he must’ve said, “dove” or “glove.” But I couldn’t come up with a good reason for someone to whisper “glove” with such heat.

I felt myself undergoing metamorphosis.

Simon told our waiter to bring us two spinach-and-mushroom egg-white omelets with sides of fruit, and that brought me back to earth. It’s one thing to hear someone say “love” and another to let them order your breakfast.

“And pancakes for me,” I said, snapping my menu shut. Simon smiled, but he didn’t say anything until the waiter had gone. We were back in business. I was a CW, a cooperating witness for the FBI. He was my handler. For one last day.

“At three
P.M.
” he said, “a man named Esterbud will drive you to the set, get you wired, and go over your instructions. You’ll sign a waiver, acknowledging your consent to wear recording equipment and have your voice recorded. If you have problems, he’ll be able to reach me. You won’t. Anything you need in the next twenty-four hours, go through Esterbud.”

My stomach clenched up at the news that he was going to disappear. Even for a day. I don’t like people disappearing.

“Tonight’s shoot will use all six contestants, to deflect attention you might attract for being on the set. Don’t ask how I arranged it. The show will use a boom microphone, so the only body mike you’ll wear is ours. You’ll activate it at ten
P.M.
At that point an Indian woman and a companion will enter the restaurant and sit in a booth near you.”

“American Indian or Indian Indian?”

“Calcutta. Heavy accent. One of ours.” He paused while a waiter refilled our coffee cups, waiting for him to leave. “The woman will have a conversation with her companion. This is what you’re picking up. When you hear her say, ‘The best part of Thanksgiving is the leftovers,’ stop talking, clanking silverware, all extraneous noise. When she says, ‘It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity,’ it’s over. She’ll go to the restroom. Notice who in the cast or crew her companion makes contact with. Esterbud will go over all this again.”

I nodded, wondering who in the FBI made up the code sentences and whether they took courses in that sort of thing at Quantico. Wondering if anything would be more hazardous than Fredreeq, Venus, Savannah, Kim, and me in the same room at the same time. “Why can’t Miss Calcutta wear the wire?” I asked. “Or just memorize the information?”

“Big Fish’s people will frisk her. And we need the conversation on tape, later, to elicit . . . cooperation.”

Cooperation. A nice word in other contexts. In this context, code for blackmail.

“Not to sound petty,” I said, “but again, what about the quid pro quo? Annika.”

“In twenty-four hours I’ll contact you. I’ll explain things I’m not able to talk about now. Anything you need before then, Esterbud will be nearby.”

“Simon, what about Annika?”

“Twenty-four hours, Wollie.”

I saw in his face the stress I’d been feeling myself, the lack of sleep, the proximity to danger. I thought about what it was he wasn’t telling me, the thing so big I might not want to see him after tomorrow. Something in me went cold. “Simon,” I said softly, “I just have to know she’s not already dead, that you haven’t found Annika in the last day or two, and you’re not telling me, because—”

“Because?”

“You need me to keep working for you.”

He stared. “You think I’d do that?”

“I think that you—” I couldn’t say
love me.
Yet. Even though he’d as much as said that. Even though I believed him. I said, “I think for you, the end justifies the means.”

“That depends on the end.”

I focused on my napkin. “That’s the wrong answer. It should depend on the means. There are lines you don’t cross, even to serve a greater good.”

“But whose lines? Drawn where? Good people cross lines all the time. On your behalf.”

I shook my head. “I don’t want them to.”

“Yes, you do. You just don’t want to know about it.”

Was he right? I raised my eyes to his. A waiter came and plunked down two small bowls of sliced fruit on the table between us. Neither of us looked at him. “But if I don’t want to know about it,” I said, “what am I doing with you?”

He picked up his fork. “That’s the question, isn’t it?”

Leaving Hugo’s, Simon
drove east, toward Laurel Canyon.

“Where are we going?” I asked, alarmed.

“I’m driving you to work. We’re carpooling.”

“Carpooling? Nobody carpools. I need my car. How am I going to get home?”

“Esterbud.”

“No.” I could feel my temperature rise. “I’m not kidding.
No.
My God, this is L.A., you don’t leave people stranded without a car. What happened to civil liberties?”

“I’m not taking chances. I want you on the set tonight, not in jail in San Pedro.” He glanced at me. “I guess you don’t watch the morning news. I hope Joey’s got a lawyer. She’s getting slapped with a lawsuit.”

I closed my eyes. This was turning into a very long day, and it wasn’t even noon.

“Want to tell me what you were doing there?” Simon asked.

“No.”

“All right. We should have a talk one of these days about which laws you obey and which ones you ignore when it suits you.”

“We should,” I said. “You can explain the nuances of crime, like how driving people to the Valley against their will doesn’t constitute kidnapping. Seriously. What if I need to go to the store while I’m working, what if I need paints? How do you know I have keys with me?”

“I imagine your whole apartment’s in that backpack. Whatever you need, send Esterbud.”

“So nice seeing our tax dollars at work.”

“Wollie, you’d make my job easier if you kept your cell phone on. And returned your calls occasionally.”

When we got to Sherman Oaks, to the Mansion, which he found without asking directions, I did not say good-bye. I did not kiss him good-bye. I got out of the car with as much grace as possible and slammed the door behind me. I did not look back.

The way he gunned the engine and took off down the street, they could hear his cheap Bentley in San Pedro.

I looked out
the window of the Mansion. There he was, not even bothering to hide. Esterbud. Parked in some kind of big Chevy with tinted windows. Drinking out of a liter bottle of Coke. That must be lunch. He’d be knocking on the door in an hour to introduce himself and use the bathroom.

I turned my back on Esterbud and his liter bottle and looked into the yellow eyes of my West African goliath,
Conraua (Gigantorana) goliath.

He was monumental.

I’d avoided him for days, so the effect was stupefying. Either he’d grown recently, or the wall had shrunk. It was a poster for some low-rent sci-fi horror movie, it was an amphibian the size of a bear, a bald green grizzly holding the kitchen hostage. It was impossible that something that big existed, I don’t care what the book said, maybe it was a printing error, that ninety centimeters, no frog could be that long—