Dating is Murder

by Harley Jane Kozak

  When I saw his face, grim and tense and pale, I had to work not to cry. He scanned the room and saw me.

  Came toward me with long strides. Stopped when someone grabbed his arm to whisper something in his ear. Nodded to him, spoke a few words, came over and looked down. Then he knelt on the floor next to me, very close.

  “You all right?” he said.

  I nodded, not able to speak.

  “Hurt?”

  I shook my head.

  “Don’t move.” He gestured to the woman with me, then stood and walked away.

  A minute later another medical type with a first-aid kit came over and checked out my vital signs and asked me some questions. My answers seemed to satisfy him. I started to tell him to check on the cat, but the words came out funny. He covered me with a blanket, let me stay on the floor, walked away to say a few words to Simon, and left.

  Simon seemed to be the Bing Wooster of this operation. I wondered why the area wasn’t being roped off as a crime scene, then thought that maybe no one but me knew a crime had been committed here, except the crime of me hitting Maizie with a meat mallet. I turned to the woman at my side. “There’s an earlobe here,” I said.

  “A what?”

  “An earlobe.” I stood. She touched my arm and started to ask me something, but I wrapped my blanket around myself and walked over to Simon, standing in the kitchen. He must’ve had eyes on the side of his head. He turned immediately.

  “Yes? What is it?”

  “There’s an earlobe around here somewhere. On the floor.”

  “A what?”

  “An earlobe. It belonged to Rico Rodriguez. The cat was playing with it. The rest of Rico is in Antelope Valley.”

  Simon took a long look at me, then nodded. The news didn’t seem to surprise him, but I figured they train them not to look surprised. He put a hand around my upper arm, gently, but his hand was so big it surrounded my bicep like a bandage. “Wollie,” he said. “You need to—”

  “Where’s Annika?”

  “Not now.” As if to reinforce this, his cell phone rang. He listened, frowning, then addressed the room at large. “All right, we’ve got company. They’re early. Exiting the 405 at Valley Vista, taking surface streets. Let’s move.” He addressed the woman who’d been hovering and asked where her car was. Base camp, she told him. “Put her in mine,” he said, and fished keys out of his jacket. “Windows up.”

  “We’ve got a problem.” It was a new agent, coming in from outside, leaving the door open. He came over to Simon, the urgency in his voice unrestrained. His manner was not deferential. “We picked up Dr. Kildare and Hazel at the Sportsman’s Lodge. He’s falling over himself to cooperate, but all he knows is she’s to stand outside the house, meet them at the gate. Car one is Lenin. He verifies it’s her, drives through, radios car two, that’s Stalin. He comes through, she closes the gate, walks them here to the lab. If she’s not at the gate, the deal’s off. She’s not alone, the deal’s off. Lenin doesn’t ID her, Stalin stays away, we shoot it out with him on the freeway all the way to Tijuana or Death Valley or wherever the hell he parked the getaway jet.”

  Simon nodded. “That’s more than one problem. Hazel?”

  “Nothing. Knows company’s coming. Betty Crocker’s been cooking all day.”

  Simon nodded. “Female agents?”

  “Dahl, San Diego, stuck on the 405 and she’s short. We’re working on a wig for Ellis.”

  “Won’t make it in time. Passwords?”

  “Husband doesn’t know. Surveillance says no, but we’re reviewing transcripts. It’s not something we were listening for. Right now I need you to look at the geography out front. If we can get him onto the block, Potemkin may have a shot from across the street.”

  Simon looked toward the door, shaking his head. “Not unless we get them to roll down a window. Even then, it’s going to be a bad night in the neighborhood.”

  “I don’t need a wig,” I said.

  Both men turned to me. The room went quiet.

  “No.” Simon didn’t even think about it.

  But the agent with him thought about it. He looked at me with interest, then turned to Simon and said something I didn’t catch.

  “I can do this,” I said to them. “I can. I’m like her.”

  Simon shook his head. “Not enough. They’ve met her.”

  “Tcheiko hasn’t.”

  “No.”

  “What are you going to do?” I said. “I knocked out Little Fish. There’s nobody else. I can get them to roll down the car window. I can be Betty Crocker for ten goddamn minutes.”

  Simon looked at his watch. “You didn’t sign on for this.”

  The other agent said, “Actually, she did sign on for this. This is Kermit, right? Use her.”

  Simon’s cell phone rang. He spoke into it, held up a finger to us, then walked outside.

  The other agent kept looking at me. “Think you can do this?” he said.

  I felt the room around me holding its breath. “Yes,” I said.

  He nodded. “Let’s go.”

  The room came to life. Two women agents led me to a corner, helping me into clothes they must’ve found in the house, jeans that had to be Maizie’s and a white sweater. They talked calmly and encouragingly. Nothing fit exactly right; the jeans were too short, and the sweater sleeves, but it was all close enough. I smelled like her now, subtle and spicy. It was Annika’s scent too, the aromatherapy products. Sassafras oil, maybe.

  One of the agents apologized, asked me to hold still, and then I heard scissors and saw my hair fall to the floor. Another put foundation on my face and handed me a lipstick and a mirror. Maizie’s makeup. Maizie’s haircut. On my way outside, I grabbed an apron from a peg.

  Agents flanked me and we hurried down the path toward the house, the butter-yellow traditional American with white trim. The porch was lit up with the tiny icicle lights. We passed other people, one wearing a headset, others on cell phones, the agents on either side of me protective, as if I were the most important person in the world, which in their world, at this moment, I was. We walked faster and faster, toward the security gate, and it began to sink in, what I was doing. I pushed the thought aside. A man ahead of us opened the electronic gate.

  The film was still shooting on Moon Canyon, a generator powering big lights that illuminated the street. Equipment trucks, trailers, and cars were everywhere, street, pavement, and grass, blocking one another. The crew milled around, a small army of cell phones and headsets. I had an impression of sailors on a ship, battening down hatches in preparation for a storm at sea. “Crossing Valley Vista,” an agent said into a radio. “Kermit in place.”

  Simon stood by a tree, near the koi pond. He wore a headset too, head bowed in concentration, listening. He looked up and stared at me, his face hard. As when we’d first met.

  “No,” he said to his headset. “If there’s a password and you can’t come up with it, we pull her out.” He signaled to an agent near me. “Kill half the lights.”

  I heard glass break. The yard went darker.

  Footlights lined the driveway. I glanced at my sneakers, nearly the only things left on me that were mine. Maizie would spot the shoes immediately. Fredreeq too. But slouching in sneakers, I was close to Maizie’s height, a detail more important than fashion consistency.

  A black car turned the corner from Moon Rock Road.

  I could see it, being near the gate. Across the street, the film crew could see it. Because of the fence around the Quinn property, none of the agents near the house could see it.

  “Damn,” I heard Simon’s voice say. “Not enough.”

  Activity across the street had quieted but not stopped. A burly guy in a tool belt ambled past the generator, carrying a cable. Another balanced coffee cups in a cardboard take-out tray.

  The black car pulled up closer and a window began to descend. The windows on the cars were tinted.

  I was alone. The agents seemed to have melted into the
darkness around me.

  The car came closer. So quiet.

  “Wollie, don’t turn around.” A woman was squeezed into a crevice made by the gate joining the fence. Very close to me. “I’m Agent Shepphird. I’ll talk you through this. Approach the car. Say hello and shake hands. Say something friendly; Maizie Quinn’s met this guy. His name is Fritz Benito. Tell him to pull ahead and park anywhere he likes. Then come back.”

  I stepped forward. I slouched. The car made the turn into the drive, the driver’s window all the way down. A man in a suit, very dark, round-faced, rough-skinned, looked at me. He didn’t look happy.

  I told my face to smile and held out my hand. There was a man in the passenger seat and maybe more in the back. “Hello,” I said. “Pull ahead and park anywhere you like.”

  It wasn’t relaxed. I sounded like a computer. The man was staring. I swallowed. “Nice to see you again, Frito.” The minute I said the name, I froze. I’d got it wrong. Bad call.

  But he smiled, a brief showing of teeth. The window went up. The car went forward.

  I stepped back, into the shadows, breathing hard.

  Agent Shepphird’s voice was in my ear. “Wollie. Good job. We’re in. The next one’s our guy. He’s got his first lieutenant with him. Yosip Kasnoff. You’ve met Yosip, but only once. But you’ve talked to Karl Marx—sorry, Tcheiko—three or four times on the phone. He likes you. Hold on, Wollie, I’m getting instructions on my headset. Okay. You’re cooking tonight. They found the transcripts of your last conversation. You promised him fusion cooking: applying California spa techniques to French recipes using African ingredients. And that’s the password. What you’re cooking for him.”

  “Okay. What is it?”

  There was a pause. Agent Shepphird said, “We don’t know.”

  My heart stopped.

  “Make up something,” she said. “He’s not going to be eating it.”

  “I don’t cook.”

  “Hold on. Dinner suggestions, anyone? Kermit doesn’t cook.” She paused, perhaps listening to her headset. “Meanwhile, Wollie, here’s the goal: get Tcheiko inside the compound and out of his car. We have SWAT guys on the roof, MP5s pointing at both front windows in the limo. They just need to see what they’re shooting at. But if it goes wrong, you panic, you see a gun, hear one, hit the ground. Agents will be on top of you like a football. We’ll take care of you. Hit the ground, Kermit—Wollie. You’ll be fine. Here he comes. Wing it.”

  Wing it?

  My mother has always talked about out-of-body experiences. I’d never known what she meant. What an interesting time to understand something about my mother. Tcheiko’s car pulled up just as the first had done. I stepped out of the shadows and approached. The driver’s window went down, the tinted window, and I was looking into the face of a man, extraordinarily handsome, much more than Simon, more even than Doc, with a black-and-silver beard and a nearly shaved head and salacious brown eyes. “Hello,” he said.

  “Hello,” I said. “I’m glad you’re here. I hope you’re hungry.”

  He regarded me calmly, not smiling but not with the fierce look of the man in the first car. I thought of the guns aimed at us. In the dark. I could feel the sweat form under my skin. Now what? Whose turn to speak? What were my instructions? Why didn’t he speak?

  “On a fait une réservation pour huit personnes à neuf heures, je crois,” he said.

  My heart was pounding. I was in the wrong movie; I needed the one with subtitles. My face quivered so badly I nearly—

  “Et le menu?” he said. “What have you for us?”

  I’ve never been to Africa. I know nothing about Africa. Except—

  “Frog,” I said.

  “Les cuisses de grenouille?” he said, frowning. “This is not typically local.”

  “Au contraire,” I said. “The West African goliath, Conraua goliath, is native to Cameroon. And happens to be the largest frog on earth. Which I am honored to have in my kitchen. As I am honored to have you in my kitchen.”

  “How will you prepare it?”

  “I had considered an amuse-bouche in puff pastry, but as the goliath is thirty centimeters, snout to vent, his legs are the size of . . . forearms. He’s now a main course. À la maison Maizie. A little garlic, a bit of flavored oil. Voilà”

  He nodded. He smiled. His window went up. He drove forward.

  A movement from across the street caught my eye. The film crew had moved out of sight of the black cars, but I was close enough to the gate to see them run silently across the street, to our side, a hundred feet north of the gate. Dozens of them. Every one with guns drawn.

  Car One’s doors opened and men got out, five of them, and walked back to Car Two. They opened the doors of Car Two, driver’s side and passenger’s side. Frito called to me, his accent heavy. “Mrs. Quinn,” he said, with a gesture. “The gate, please. Close.”

  There was a movement, and a sound like a crack, like a tree limb breaking.

  I hit the ground.

  People piled on top of me like I was a football.

  41

  It was three days later.

  I pulled into a parking lot in Woodland Hills, the north end of a dog park. I rolled down the windows and checked my watch. Almost noon. Twenty-four and a half shopping days till Christmas.

  “We’re early,” Joey said. “By six minutes. Even with you driving.”

  I’d picked up Joey at a car dealer’s in Oxnard, on my way home from Santa Barbara. Joey had sold the BMW. The paparazzo-plumber’s dent had shown Elliot the wisdom of unloading his car before his wife could add more miles or damage. We’d been listening to a news update of planes grounded in Honolulu, damaged by volcanic ash. I turned off the radio.

  “I’m nervous, Joey,” I said. “Why would I be this nervous?”

  We waited.

  Four minutes later a Range Rover pulled into the lot, drove past us, and parked six or seven empty spaces away. Nobody got out.

  One minute after that, another car showed up and parked near the entrance. Joey whistled. “Nice wheels.”

  “It’s the cheap Bentley,” I said.

  “Ready?” Joey said.

  “No,” I said.

  The passenger door of the Bentley opened. Annika Glück stepped out. She was slight, not twenty years old, brown-haired, apple-cheeked. She was pretty, but what you noticed first was the radiance of her expression.

  I opened my door and started to call to her, but she was already running to meet me, and as small as she was, the force of her nearly knocked me over when she arrived. “Ich kann nicht glauben dass ich hier—”

  I hugged her back, smiling so hard my face felt stretched. How tiny she was, hardly bigger than Ruby, my almost-stepdaughter. I could feel her ribs shaking through her leather jacket and I was about to tell her I didn’t understand German, but then I realized she was crying and that whatever she was saying wouldn’t be any more coherent in English.

  A door of the Range Rover opened, then slammed shut.

  Annika looked up, and went silent. Her clutching relaxed; then she let go of me.

  Grammy Quinn climbed out of the Range Rover on the driver’s side. Lupe was already out of the car, reaching into the back seat, speaking Spanish. Emma Quinn jumped to the ground, holding Lupe’s hand. Then she turned and saw us.

  Annika gave my arm a squeeze and walked toward the little girl. Emma looked back at Lupe, who said something in Spanish. Then Emma turned to Annika again, and stared.

  Annika reached her and dropped to one knee. “Hello, Mausi. Shall we go to the swings?” Her accent was slight. Emma nodded and turned away, arms folded, legs marching toward the playground. Annika followed.

  How had I ever believed this girl to be a depressed, drug-abusing teen? It had been so easy for Maizie to plant the evidence and to plant the story in my head. She’d have done the same for anyone who came looking for Annika, but she got lucky. She got me. Ms. Gullible.

  I looked back at the Bentley. Simon Ale
xander was leaning against it, watching me. The last time I’d seen him was three nights ago, outside the Quinn house. When the shooting had stopped, he’d picked me up off the ground, found me a blanket, plied me with brandy, and told Agent Shepphird to drive me home. Then he’d left town.

  “He’s really tall, isn’t he?” Joey said, from inside the car. “Good luck.”

  I glanced back at Lupe and Grammy Quinn waiting by the Range Rover, then walked across the parking lot to the Bentley, gravel crunching under my sneakers. I stopped before I reached him, leaving four or five feet between us. “Hello, Simon.”

  “Hello, Wollie.”

  I nodded toward the playground. “So she’s okay? Annika?”

  “She’s fine. Excited to be here. Thawing out from two weeks in Minnesota.”

  “And her mother?”

  “Touring Beverly Hills at the moment, with Esterbud. So far, the mother likes Minnesota better. I don’t share her enthusiasm.”

  I watched the progression to the playground halt, while Emma and Annika made the acquaintance of someone’s dog. I glanced at Simon. He was watching me. I looked away.

  “Annika hitchhiked to Santa Fe,” he said, “where an au pair named Dagmar lent her bus fare to Minneapolis. Where Marie-Thérèse and the Johannessens, her host parents, not only took her in and believed her story but brought her mother over from Germany and kept it to themselves until they saw on the news that Maizie Quinn had been indicted. Trusting people, Minnesotans.”

  “Congratulations on Big Fish,” I said. It had made the front page of the Los Angeles Times, Vladimir Tcheiko, drug lord, recaptured. A shining example of cooperation among several branches of federal and local law enforcement agencies.

  “Condolences on Biological Clock,” he said.

  The show, to no one’s surprise, had gone under.

  I nodded. “I think I was really only in it for the health-care coverage. Now I have to go find a real job.” I looked at my feet. “Would you have voted for me? In the contest?”

  “No.”

  I looked up. “That’s awfully . . . unequivocal.”