The Morning Show Murders (1) (2 page)

"I thought forty was supposed to be the new thirty," I said.

"That's the deal. Teens are older and fortysomethings are younger. Now we all meet in the middle. Like Ms. Moon and Rudy."

Melody Moon was handing Rudy Gallagher a tiny white card. He slipped it into his coat pocket and watched her walk away, a wolfish grin on his face. As soon as she joined the other contestants, he dropped the grin, turned, and stormed toward us.

"Why the hell is everybody just standing around, Blessing? Time is money."

"Yeah, and a penny saved is a penny earned. We can throw cliches back and forth all evening, Rudy, but it doesn't change the fact that it's not working."

"What's not working, besides you?"

"These would-be apprentices. They're doofuses."

"That's exactly what we need," Rudy insisted. "For Christ's sweet sake, don't you get it? I want
American Idol
in the kitchen. I want the contestants to look like idiots during the tryouts. The dumber and
more inexperienced they are, the better. If there's one thing viewers love to watch, it's extroverted idiots who don't care if they look like assholes."

I was too surprised to reply. I'd been imagining a sort of game show where people might actually learn something about preparing food--and Rudy's so-called mind was on
American Idol
.

Lily jumped into the void. "The problem, Rudy, is that these contestants are just boring fence post dumb, not funny dumb or charming dumb. We didn't have enough time to round up the right kind of extroverted idiot."

Rudy stared at her, thinking about it. "That could be," he mused. "I didn't hear any thick foreign accents. Accents kill. That goofy kid on
Idol
you could barely understand, the viewers loved him."

"Accents," Lily said, getting out a pen and jotting down the word in her notebook. Not for the first time, I marveled at her ability to involve herself in such nonsense without breaking.

"So what you people are telling me is that the concept is solid," Rudy said. "You just screwed the pooch by rushing it."

"You wanted us to get a pilot going by the time you were back from Afghanistan," Lily said. "But you came home early." Rudy had traveled to Kabul to oversee a week of live evening news broadcasts on the WBC network, bigfooting the evening news producer to accompany the show's square-jawed voice-in-the-well evening news anchor, Jim Bridewell, and a bare-bones production team. The others were still there, but for some reason Rudy had returned after just a few days.

"How was it over there, anyway?" Lily asked.

Rudy straightened. His handsome mug tightened into a parody of seriousness. "It was ghastly, Lily. Real, gut-level suffering and pain everywhere you looked. And bloodshed. A fellow at our dinner table had his throat cut by terrorists."

"My God, that's horrible," Lily said.

"Not one of our staff?" I asked.

Rudy waved a hand airily. "Oh, no. He was ... just somebody we met over there."

"And he was murdered right in front of you?" I couldn't believe he was being so blase about it.

"As close to me as you are now. My God, it was horrible."

"What was the deal?" Lily asked. "Why'd they kill him?"

He shrugged, opened his mouth as if to say something, then fell silent.

We waited, expecting him to tell us more, but, being Rudy, his thoughts had turned inward. "You know, back when I was a fledgling, in the eighties, I cut my production eyeteeth gofering
Cease Fire
. Don't know if you remember it, but it was the only series about 'Nam that went into a second season. That was gritty stuff. But the real thing makes
Cease Fire
look like
Hogan's Heroes
."

He punctuated the statement with a deep breath and, with a shake of his head, seemed to call a mental "Cut!" to his war-torn memories. Then it was on to the business at hand. "Okay, suppose we hold a couple of citywide auditions. How much time do you need?"

Without batting an eye, Lily answered, "A month for the auditions, maybe three weeks to edit the footage into two or three half-hours. Then another couple of weeks to shoot the first show."

Rudy turned to me. "No way to speed it up a little?"

"Lily's the boss when it comes to scheduling," I said.

"Okay," Rudy said. "But don't let me down again."

He turned, started to go, then said over his shoulder, "Billy, walk with me."

I looked at Lily, rolled my eyes, then followed him on his way out of the studio.

"I'm an old hand at what works on the box, Billy," he told me. "They call it reality TV, but that's just another name for game show. And I know how the game show is played, from the days of
Let's Make a Deal
to
The Biggest Loser
. Viewers love to watch the crazies, but they also want a display of skill. We'll need a couple of kids good enough in the kitchen to make a contest of it."

"Uh-huh," I said, sensing where this was going.

"I was just talking with this gal, Melody, I think she said her name was. One of your people."

My people
. Ignoring the racist remark, I said, "Melody, the pretty eighteen-year-old."

"Eighteen? Really. I'd have thought nineteen at least. Anyway, she's exactly the kind of final contestant we need. Beautiful. Poised. Ethnic. I'd go so far as to suggest she should be a finalist. One of the serious contenders for the grand prize."

"She didn't seem to be serious about anything but her fingernails," I pointed out.

"Maybe. But if she were to get some practical experience ... at a restaurant, say ... for the next month ...?"

"You asking me to put this kid in my kitchen?"

"Just a thought. Like an apprentice's apprentice. Work it out so she can do some simple stuff. Broil a steak. Scramble eggs."

"Gee, Rudy. Putting aside the obvious fact that I'm running a four-star restaurant and can't afford to serve burnt steaks or insult my professional kitchen staff, there's also the legal and ethical problems of training somebody for a cash-prize TV show that I'm coproducing and hosting."

"Damn if you're not right, Billy. Now that I think about it, it would be a lousy idea." A frown barely disturbed his almost ridiculously handsome face. "God, what was I thinking? Putting them together ... No. No. Definitely forget the restaurant. But keep her in mind as a contestant."

I found Lily in the cafeteria, playing with her laptop. She looked up as I approached the table, a diet soda in hand. "What'd the great idea man have to say?" she asked.

"Not much. What a jerk."

"Either that or he's a genius," she said.
"American Idol
in the kitchen."

"Our own Simon Cowell," I said.

Lily left at eight to attend an experimental video show in SoHo. Having had enough experimental video in my own studio, I called it quits a half-hour later. I was standing by the glass doors at the building's entrance, waiting for my driver, when I heard my name being called.

Gretchen Di Voss had just exited the elevator. She was in her brisk, all-business mode, wearing a black suit with gray stripes and a taupe silk blouse. She was carrying a gray cashmere coat and a black leather briefcase.

"Gretch, you're looking even more beautiful than usual," I said.

"I do my best," she said. "I'm glad I bumped into you, Billy. Saves me a phone call."

"A last-minute invitation to an intimate dinner tonight?"

"Our intimate dinners are over, Billy. But, as a matter of fact, I am headed to your restaurant."

"I'm not surprised. Your fiance is a big fan of the Bistro."

"Really? Well, unfortunately, Rudy won't be enjoying it tonight. He had a last-minute conflict."

I thought I knew what, or rather who, the conflict might be.

"What's the problem with
Food School 101
?" she said. "Rudy tells me you canceled the pilot."

"Not canceled. Just postponed. It wasn't working. Lily and I spent the last couple of hours putting it back on track."

"I hope you didn't treat Rudy to your usual sarcasm and rudeness?"

"Gretch, this evening, I actually bumped it up a notch."

"You should give him the respect he deserves."

I was tempted to tell her that her weasel fiance was, at the moment, probably clinking wineglasses with a bimbette young enough to be her daughter, but there was no percentage in that. Instead I said, "I do give him the respect he deserves."

She studied me closely for signs of sarcasm or rudeness. "Billy, I hope our ... former relationship isn't causing any animosity ..."

"Gretch, I swear, if you and I had never met, I'd still feel the way I do about Rudy."

She gave me another suspicious look, but I was too good a poker player to let her see how I really felt about her fiance.

"It wouldn't have worked with us," she said.

"I know. But we had a pretty good time finding that out."

"I guess we did," she said, relaxing. She held out her coat. "Help me with this?"

It was a familiar feeling, standing close to her as she slid into the coat. We paused for a few seconds, my arm around her. Then she pulled away. "Want to share a cab to the Bistro?" she asked.

"Thanks, but Joe should be here any minute with the car," I said. "We can give
you
a lift."

"I'm already late," she said. "Billy, you'd be doing yourself a favor if you keep on Rudy's good side."

"We're okay, Rudy and I." I sang,
"Eb-ony and i-vory
--"

She gave me a wan smile. "I hope that's true," she said.

I watched her exit the building and glide down the front steps, her long, dark hair swaying against the gray cashmere coat. She hailed a passing cab, and I continued watching until it carried her out of view down Ninth Avenue.

My driver is a diminutive Asian named Joe Yeung. I like to think of him as "Mighty" Joe Yeung, a reference amusing only to those of a certain age, but, hey, we take the grins where we can get them. "Front door or rear, Billy?" Joe asked as we neared the Bistro.

It had been a long, difficult day, and tomorrow would start very early. I wanted with all my heart to say "rear," which would have meant ignoring the restaurant and using the hidden entrance and the stairwell that led directly to my office and living quarters on the second floor. But it's good business to put in at least a brief appearance each night. And Cassandra Shaw, the Bistro's manager, hostess, and, on occasion, bouncer, had text-messaged me earlier,
"ned to tlk.
" Since Cassandra is as self-sufficient as a wilderness survivor, this was like a
cri de coeur
.

Joe braked the dust-crusted dark-blue Volvo about ten feet from the Bistro's front door. "That all for tonight, Billy?" he asked. "Miz Joe on my ass to see the new Richard Gere movie. He tight with the Dalai Lama, and she like his tiny eyes."

"Take off. But don't forget to be here early tomorrow."

"I know, I know," Joe said. "Take you to Glass Tower. Or as they
say in my country, Grass Towah." The reference was to the skyscraper that housed the Worldwide Broadcasting Company.

"Give Mrs. Joe and Mr. Gere my best," I said, and headed into the Bistro.

The restaurant's second seating had just started and the main room appeared to be at full capacity, which, considering the economic climate, filled my heart with joy.

Cassandra was in her Gwen Stefani mode, heavy on the eye makeup and bright red lipstick, her blonde hair pulled back in a bun so tight her cheekbones looked like they could cut glass. She was wearing a short black knit dress that showed off her splendid legs and hugged her equally splendid figure like a second skin. If that weren't intimidating enough, her spike heels lifted her an inch or two above my five-eleven.

"Time you showed up," she said, exhibiting her constant ill humor. For some strange reason, our customers seemed to love her snarky personality. Maybe they thought she was kidding. Maybe they were too awed by her physical presence to notice her attitude.

"What's the problem?" I asked.

"Problems
. Better if we discussed them in your office, Billy," she replied. "After you've put in your face time."

I began my slow trek through the main room, nodding to some diners, shaking the hands of others, and leaving still others with a quick quip. A British actress, an Academy Award winner, reminded me of a dinner I'd prepared for her ten years ago when I was a working chef at a private club in Aspen. At another table, a former Yankees second baseman, so sloshed I could almost see the scotch-and-waterline in his bleary eyes, told me a pointless story about a pizza he'd had at St. Barth's that included fish tongues.

A large, bullet-headed black man in his sixties wearing a midnight-blue suit and dark horn-rimmed glasses waved to me from a table in a corner of the room. He was dining with his wife, a thin, fashionably dressed woman with a steel-gray close-cropped Afro, and three preteen children, two girls and a boy, who squirmed on their chairs and looked like they were more than ready to get back to their Nintendos, or whatever the hell kids got back to these days.

His name was Henry Julian, and a generation ago he had controlled most of the major crime that took place in Brooklyn. His
two sons, Jayson and Adam, ran the family business now, which, prior to the recent downturn in the economy, had been focusing on several slightly more legitimate enterprises, like real estate and banking.

Henry had grown up in the same apartment building on 127th Street as my foster father and mentor, Paul Lamont, and theirs was a friendship that had lasted long past boyhood. I'd discovered that fact over a decade ago, at Paul's funeral, when Henry introduced himself and, in a quiet room at the rear of the church, talked me out of going vigilante on those responsible for Paul's death. A few years later, I found out that Henry had taken care of them himself.

A week after I'd opened the Bistro, he came in and reintroduced himself, and we spent the evening drinking and reminiscing about Paul. After that, he dropped by every few months, sometimes alone, sometimes not.