by Dave Daren
“Because he has runaway tigers, yes?” He laughed.
“Yeah, that would be a large part of it,” I said.
“My advice,” Joowon said. “Is to enjoy life while you can. I used to be a very important man, Henry. I had many, many, people answer to me. I would say to this or that one go do this, do that, and they would rush to do it. I would walk into a room and people would take notice, and they would say, ‘There is a man who is important, who is respected.’ But, now, I am old, and no one says those things anymore.”
“I don’t follow you,” I said.
“Success is nice while it lasts,” he said. “But don’t get so lost in it that you forget who you are. Because one day it will not be there for you. And if you are not careful, all you will have for your life’s work are memories.”
I smiled. I wasn’t sure if this was directed at me being on my phone, but I took it the best way possible. That this was a man who was at the end of his career, telling me what it is like on the other side. I liked that. It was a good reminder, but part of me wished that he would teach his wife the lesson because the advice he was giving me was far different from what Seoyong was giving to Vicki.
We got home from the hike, and the Parks didn’t stay much longer. When they left, Vicki grabbed every candle in the house and took a two hour bubble bath.
That really left me the opportunity to get back into that Power Point, so I sat on the bed in the low lamplight and worked for a while.
Vicki got out of the bath and didn’t seem much for talking. It bothered me that her parents drained her so much, but I understood it.
“How do you feel?” I asked her as she climbed into bed.
“What are you doing?” she avoided the question and curled up next to me and read my screen.
“I’m trying to organize everything Alister had, so that I can present it all to the trustees,” I said. I navigated the computer with one hand and gently rubbed her neck with the other.
“A timeline,” she read. “A schedule to sell everything.”
“Yeah,” I said. “This way we’ll have everything sold within two years’ time.”
She didn’t say much. She just curled up on the pillow next to me and read the screen while I worked. Eventually, I noticed she had fallen asleep. By the time I went to bed that night, I had gotten some progress, but it still needed some work.
In the morning, Vicki opted to stay back and show her parents around town.
“I can get some work done from here,” she said.
“Are you sure?” I asked. “I don’t want a repeat of yesterday.”
“This is how it goes,” she said, her voice much more chipper. “We get in a fight, we make up, and then everything is roses for a while until we get in our next fight. That’s how my relationship with my mother works.”
“I see,” I said. “So basically identical to my mom and me?”
“Yes,” she said.
“It doesn’t surprise me that we found each other, since we were both raised by mothers who didn’t approve of our choices,” I laughed.
“Don’t give it any special meaning, Henry,” she began with a grin. “I found you when I saw your hot butt walk through Sanchez’ office with those tight fitting slacks. Our moms had nothing to do with it.”
“I would argue that my mom is at least half responsible for my ‘hot butt’,” I remarked.
She threw her pillow at my head playfully. “How are things at the office?”
I told her about the alleged break in to the tiger enclosure, and all the alibis.
“My money’s on Cindy,” she said.
“Cindy?” I asked. “Cindy Greenwood, the executive assistant?”
“Yeah,” she said. “She’s so quiet, and she gives me such a weird vibe. Ugh. I don’t know. I don’t like her.”
“Hmm,” I said. “I’ve never gotten that from her.”
“You’re firing her, right?” Vicki asked.
“Well yeah, she has no executive to be assistant to now, and the estate is being liquidated,” I answered.
“So she has some motive, I’d say,” she added.
“It’s worth thinking about, but for now I’ll email you that PowerPoint,” I said. “We need to get that done before the board meeting in two days.”
“Got it,” she said.
I left for work and found myself alone in the office, since AJ was in class all morning today. She would be in later, and Ernie and I would meet the zookeepers from the wildlife sanctuary in Tucson this afternoon.
But for now, the office was quiet. The silence was maddening, so I turned on a playlist for a band I had represented in L.A. called Paranoia Diaries. It was pretty intense hardcore punk, and one of a handful of acts that I had met or repped that I actually enjoyed.
To the beat of thrashing guitars and ear splitting, larynx bleeding vocals, I sent Vicki the presentation and then tore through my emails. Jasmine’s tour rider was finally done. I had advised her not to do the Van Halen M&M thing.
Van Halen’s infamous tour rider stipulated that promoters must provide M&M’s backstage, but only with all the brown ones removed. The legendary clause was mocked for decades as being the ultimate barometer of celebrity entitlement.
In recent years, the band has revealed the M&M clause had been a test to see how closely a promoter would pay attention. If they could do something that detailed, then it was a sign that Van Halen could trust them with actual important matters, like security or electrical safety. It was certainly clever, I’ll grant them that.
But now, I don’t know how many tour riders I have read with a variation on that clause, Jasmine’s original draft being one of them. I told her the act was more than played.
“That was done when the music business was at its peak,” I wrote her. “Music isn’t what it used to be, and promoters cut back on personnel. Do you want to have a PA spend an afternoon sorting through a mega bag of Rold Gold’s pretzels, or do you want them to take care of your sound system?”
She wrote back that that made sense. I should take the clause out, and just make sure she had “good” food backstage. It took an email thread about ten messages long to define “good” food, and I shot the final version off to her manager.
I sent him a hefty invoice as well. I’ll sort through the nutrition labels of fifteen sushi brands to find the one that accommodates a client’s seafood allergy, but it will rack up a hell of a lot of billable hours.
Next, I moved to the Perry McGrath’s Earth Market contract. The terms all looked good, and I wouldn’t necessarily recommend an exclusive agreement, which is what they wanted, so I quickly typed up my comments to Perry and shot the e-mail off.
My phone buzzed, and it was a number I didn’t recognize. I put Paranoia Diaries on pause.
“Henry Irving,” I answered.
“Hello, Mr. Irving, my name is Aiden Prescott, with Prescott and Prescott.”
I hadn’t heard of that firm before. “What can I do for Mr. Prescott?”
“I’m representing Cindy Greenwood,” he said. “She, along with Shannon O’Brien, Gareth O’Brien, Mila Trulos, and Emily Watson, are filing a suit against the estate to challenge the will of Alister O’Brien.”
“Is she now?” I replied. “On what grounds? You can’t just challenge a will because you don’t like it.”
“Ms. Greenwood asserts that Mr. O’Brien was not of sound mind when he wrote the will,” Aiden said.
“The will was done on a video recording,” I said. “He was as lucid as anyone.” I didn’t want to add that lucidity was probably never his strong suit at the best of times.
“Ms. Greenwood believes that there was evidence of dementia,” he said.
“That’s preposterous,” I spat. “I spent enough time with him to know that he wasn’t senile. Eccentric, yes. Senile, no.”
“I wanted to call you as a professional courtesy,” he said. “We’ll argue this out in court.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I a
ppreciate the heads up.”
“Absolutely,” he said. “I’ll see you in court.”
“Likewise,” I said, and ended the call and laughed. After a few seconds of thinking about it, I called Vicki.
“Guess what?” I asked.
“What?”
“Cindy’s challenging the will.”
“I knew I didn’t like that woman!” Vicki said. “What’s her case?”
“They are all saying that he was demented and senile,” I said. “I just got a call from her lawyer. Prescott and Prescott.”
“Hmmm,” she said. “I think I saw an ad for that place. They’re pretty sleazy. What are they going to do? Drag some rank and file pseudo medical professionals in to testify that he forgot his keys or rambled too much on his way out of the doctor’s office?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But the burden of proof is on them.”
“Yeah,” she said. “But we’re going to have to be prepared for whatever they throw at us.”
“How’s the PowerPoint?” I asked.
“Beautiful,” she said. “They’re going to love it. I’ll send it to you.”
“Great,” I said.
“By the way,” she said. “It’s Wednesday. We were supposed to do that thing at your sister’s gallery tonight.”
“Oh, right,” I said. “I totally forgot. Do you still want to do it with your parents in town?”
“Absolutely,” she said. “I got them reservations at Blanc.” Blanc was a trendy wine bar and gourmet restaurant in the red rocks.
“Perfect for them,” I said. “Although I suspect that this wasn’t entirely altruistic.”
“Altruism had nothing to do with it,” she said. “It was about sanity.”
I laughed, and AJ walked in.
“AJ’s here, and I have to go meet the Tucson zookeeper,” I told Vicki. “Keep your fingers crossed.”
“Will do,” she said. “See you tonight.”
“Bye,” I said and ended the call.
“All yours,” I told AJ. “Hold down the fort.”
She saluted me as I walked out the door. “Go get ‘em tiger.”
“Wrong choice of words,” I said.
She just laughed as I walked out to my car. It seemed I had been to the mansion almost every day this week.
This time when I arrived, there was a large semi-truck in the drive. The housekeeper let me inside, and I met Manuel, Earnie and the two zookeepers from Tucson. Everyone was already talking when I arrived.
“But, the giraffes have a different enclosure,” Manuel said.
“How many giraffes are there?” Earnie asked.
“Two,” Manuel answered.
Earnie saw me first. “Guys, this is Henry Irving, our legal counsel.”
“Hi, guys,” I said and shook hands with the two zookeepers from Tucson. This was a surprise, I only expected one.
Melanie and Zeke greeted me appropriately. They were both in their mid-thirties and wore the classic green polos and khaki pants of a zookeeper. Zeke had blond hair carefully combed into a close crew cut, and Melanie’s long brown ponytail swished when she walked.
They both had that astounding amount of energy that comes with people who eat all organic and workout fifty times a day.
“Let’s see the animals,” Zeke said in a tone that sounded straight off a Nickelodeon nature show.
“We would love to put them in a more natural habitat,” Melanie delivered her line so dramatically that I was half inclined to look around for the reality show cameras.
Manuel cleared his throat. “Well, our enclosures were all designed by award winning experts we flew in from Africa.”
“That’s superb,” Melanie said. “Our program slowly acclimates the animals to where they can be released into the wild, or in cases where that’s not possible, a semi-natural habitat.”
Manuel’s eyes darted back and forth. “The tigers are trained to be around humans. They can even do some tricks.”
Zeke said, “We find that the ways these animals are acclimated to human interaction are often inhumane, cruel, and rob them of their natural identity.”
“Our tigers are very fond of the family we have,” Manuel frowned.
He walked us out to the golf cart, where we loaded up and headed toward the zoo area.
“I’m sure you’ve done a wonderful job with the animals,” Melanie said. “We would just like to put them in a place they are more suited to.”
I frowned. This was about to turn into an argument unless I changed the subject. “So, Melanie, tell us what your program does.”
We wound around the pathways, past the gardens toward the back of the property.
“Absolutely,” she said. “We take exotic animals that were raised in captivity, and we have a multi-stage preparation program to release them into the wild. We often send them back to their country of origin, like Africa or Asia. But, frequently, we find that they are maladapted for life in the wild.”
Her eyes welled up with passion as she spoke, “We often find that owners have made modifications to the animals, like removing canine teeth or other defenses so that they are more suitable for their domestication. In those cases, we have special refuge where they can be protected, but still maintain a somewhat natural life.”
We turned the corner toward the zoo area, which was another part of the property I had not seen yet.
“The tigers are down that way,” Manuel pointed to the tiger enclosure a few yards down the hill. “But I’ll show you the rest of the zoo first.” Manuel took us through a gravel pathway toward a more traditional looking zoo area.
“We used to take school tours down here,” his voice was soft and wistful. “Some smaller schools would come to see the giraffes and zebras and peacocks, and we had a petting area. But one of the kids got bit by a goat, and the parents threatened to sue, so we shut it down for the public. Now we just have a private zoo for our guests.”
A hushed reverence fell over the golf cart and I noticed Earnie rub his face.
“I got to stop coming out here,” he mumbled to me.
I made a mental note not to ask him to come to the mansion anymore unless it was absolutely necessary. It was interesting to me to contrast the different reactions that Earnie and Manuel had toward Alister’s death, to his own children and lovers.
Manuel continued. “Sometimes Mr. O’Brien would have parties, and invite guests to come see the zoo animals. He would let some of the animals out, and the guests always had a good time. Mr. O’Brien was a strange man, no doubt. But he was a good man.”
There was an empty area that was marked for peacocks. Next we passed a stagnant pond that, from the signage, held an exotic frog species. Melanie and Zeke fired off barrages of questions. How many frogs? What did the peacocks die from? Is it possible some of the other animals contracted the disease? Manuel answered the questions as best he could off the top of his head, frequently admitting that the answers were in his paperwork. We drove down a hill.
“Down here, at the end of the hill, is the corral where Neptune lives,” he said. “The zebra is the only part of the estate that is staying, but I will show you.”
With an upbeat smile, he drove down the hill. We arrived at a white pen filled with grass, and we all got out of the cart to look at the zebra. We looked around and waited for a beat. But, it was clear, the pen was empty.
“The zebra is gone,” Manuel’s face paled.
The pen was left wide open and tire marks led out of the trail and disappeared.
Neptune the zebra had been abducted.
Chapter 11
Most of my life these days was spent dealing with cops, and today was no exception. In the crisis, Manuel proved to be totally useless and stood around repeating obvious information like, “He was just here.”
Earnie walked around, examined fence posts and created theories. Melanie and Zeke looked concerned, and their animal rights radar went code red with every new theory Earnie came up with.
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“You cannot transport an exotic animal in a pickup truck!” Melanie huffed when Earnie made the simple observation the tire tracks in the mud looked like the ones on his Ford F-450.
“What, did they have it shackled?” she asked incredulously.
“Oh,” Zeke’s face turned stone, and he clenched his fists and looked like he was going to kill someone. “That just burns me up inside. Burns me up.”
“Manuel,” I said. “Since they came all the way from Tucson, why don’t you show them what they came to see? Earnie and I will wrap up everything here.”
Manuel was more than happy for the task and drove off in the golf cart with Melanie and Zeke. I got on the phone with the cops.
“A zebra?” the woman on the dispatch replied.
I couldn’t tell who it was, but there were only about thirty cops in the whole town. As much as I had dealt with them recently, I figured they were bound to start recognizing my voice soon.
“Yes,” I said. “We’ve had a theft.”
“Who the hell would want to steal a zebra?” she said.
“That’s a good question,” I said. “One you might ask the thief when you arrest them.”
“How we gonna find a zebra thief?” she groaned.
“I don’t know, but I am sure the answer is black and white,” I quipped.
“Oh, you think you’re a funny guy, don’t you?”
“I have my moments,” I said. “When can I expect a detective to arrive?”
“Yeah, yeah,” she said. “We’ll send someone out there, eventually.”
“Thank you,” I said, though I wasn’t blown away by her level of enthusiasm. I gave her the address and ended the call.
It took a long time for the cops to show up, and in the meantime, Vicki texted me to meet her at the gallery after work. I texted her back to tell her that I was still waiting on the cops, I would be there as soon as I could.
Cops? She texted.
Long story. I sent. I will fill you in when I get there.
I noticed Earnie growing increasingly edgy. He paced around the trail, running his hands through his hair and mumbling obscenities. It was when he kicked a fence post that I knew he was probably in over his head.
