by Al Roker
I trudged down the stairs, wondering where the thug cop had hidden while Cassandra and my kitchen chief made their final walkthrough before closing up. I supposed he could have been stretched out on my bed. They usually just checked the upstairs dining room and the office.
Yawning, I reset the alarm.
Then I decided I’d sleep much better if I had a little something in my stomach. But as soon as I stepped into the kitchen I smelled stale clove cigarette smoke. With anger rising, I turned on the overhead light and saw the empty tin plate on the tile floor, surrounded by crumbs and cigarette butts. While waiting for me, Clove Boy, that son of a bitch, had eaten my peach pie. Perfect.
Chapter
FOURTEEN
When I climbed into the Volvo dirtmobile the next morning, Joe narrowed his eyes at the coffee container and Danish I’d just picked up at the bakery down the street.
“Billy, you know rule one: no food or drink in Volvo.”
“Have mercy on me, Joe. I had a very rough night.”
“Yeah. You look all rumpled and used up.”
“When I got up there wasn’t a doughnut in the whole kitchen, and the cops hid my coffeepot somewhere.”
“My father taught me there is no excuse for lack of preparation,” Joe said. “Also no excuse for confusing vehicle for breakfast nook.”
“I don’t understand you, Joe,” I said as we headed toward the Glass Tower. “This car’s a rolling pigsty and you’re busting me about coffee and a pastry.”
“Dirt outside the Volvo, no problem,” he said. “Spilled coffee and crumbs inside, smells bad and I get ants, roaches. Even rats, maybe. But okay, this once I let it pass. Mrs. Joe say I should be nice to you today, because everybody say you kill people.”
“Jesus! Don’t tell me Mrs. Joe thinks I’m a murderer?”
“No. She knows better. But she say some people probably believe everything they hear or read, which must make you very unhappy, which is why I should be nice. So enjoy your sweet roll.”
My cohorts at Wake Up!, with whom I’d been working five days a week for years, should have known me a little better than Mrs. Joe, whom I saw maybe twice a year at seasonal Bistro family parties. But judging by their looks of surprise, and even fear, on my arrival that morning, they did not share her belief in my innocence.
Even my assistant Kiki’s eyes widened when she saw me. “Out on bail, Billy?” she asked.
“Please don’t tell me they’re saying I was arrested?”
“No. Just that you probably killed Rudy. I assumed you were in the nick, because you haven’t been answering your cellular.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I left it on my desk when I went out, and when I got back last night … I was attacked and beaten by a guy wearing a cop uniform.”
She raised her eyes and stared at me. “Really?” she said, drawing out the word to give it that touch of snarky sarcasm.
“Really. Want to feel the bump on my head?”
“Feeling head bumps is not my style, Billy.” She continued to stare at me. “You’re serious about this, right?”
“As serious as a brain hemorrhage,” I said.
“Why did he hit you?”
“He thought I had something he wanted.”
“What?”
“I don’t know, but, whatever, he decided I didn’t have it and he went away.”
“What did the police say?”
“I … didn’t call ’em.”
“Why the hell not?”
“I spent enough time with the police yesterday to realize they’re not going to do anything for me. And I don’t even know what I’d want them to do. The guy didn’t take anything. Of course, he did hit me in the head. And worse, bastard ate my pie. But … screw it.”
“Okay. Fine. We’ll just pretend it never happened,” she said, turning away. “I won’t even worry about you suffering some sort of horrible aftereffects. Concussion, that sort of thing.”
“I’m okay,” I said. “What’s my schedule look like today?”
“I would call it light,” she said. “You’re not on the show. It wasn’t just my phone messages you ignored last night. Some were from Arnie. He wants to see you.”
Our producer, Arnie Epps, was on the set. His tall, thin body, garbed in a faded sunset Hawaiian luau shirt and pale-green trousers, was hunched like a gaudy buzzard. On anybody less clueless, a funereal black armband pinned to the short sleeve of an orange-and-yellow-and-green shirt might have seemed a display of cynicism.
He was deep in conversation with a stunning brunette. She stood a few inches lower than his bent form, which was in the six-foot range, looking trainer-toned in a tailored black suit. Her gorgeous face was deeply tanned, bringing out the ocean blueness of her eyes and a dramatic white streak in artfully tousled black hair. At the moment all I could think of was a beautiful female version of Pepé Le Pew.
They were discussing the logistics for an upcoming interview with the former Mossad-agent-turned-novelist Goyal Aharon. When Arnie finally sensed someone was sharing their space, he forced himself to break contact with those remarkable blue eyes. Discovering it was me standing there, he stopped mid-sentence, blinked, and said, “Billy, I … uh, this is Trina Lomax.”
Trina Lomax gave me her full sapphire-eyed whammy, and it was potent. “Chef Blessing, it’s a pleasure,” she said, extending a thin but surprisingly strong hand. She did not have a French accent like Pepé, but there was something unusual about her speech. It was too precisely correct for her to be American.
“Likewise, but please, make it Billy,” I said.
“Trina is—” Arnie began what I guessed would be the usual credit rundown, but I knew who Trina was. I’d seen her special reports on INN, the International News Network. Her beat was the world, and she hopped from continent to continent, country to country, interviewing the great and the near-great, the famous and the infamous.
“I’m a big fan,” I said, interrupting Arnie. “When you had that sit-down with Ahmadinejad, was it my imagination or was he flirting with your cameraman?”
“Sorry, Billy, I’m saving that for the book,” she said.
“What I was trying to tell you, Billy,” Arnie said, in a rare display of impatience, “Trina’s going to be filling Rudy’s shoes until the commander figures out something permanent.”
“Welcome aboard, Trina,” I said.
“I’m looking forward to working with you good people,” she said. “But I am a little confused about why you’re here today, Billy. Especially after I was told your segs had been reassigned.”
“They have been,” Arnie said. “I’ve been trying to reach Billy by phone since eight o’clock last night to tell him.”
“My fault,” I said. “Phone was off.” I didn’t even think twice about mentioning my night visitor to them. Nothing short of a slit throat would have had any effect.
“We fully understand the pressure you must be under, Billy,” Trina said. “That’s precisely why I assumed you’d want to take some time off. Out of respect for Rudy’s … friends and fans, I’ve canceled today’s meet-in-the-street segment. And the humor segs seem inappropriate. As for your book review and the mock-apple-pie demo, I thought we could let Chuck Slater spread his wings a bit.”
“Boy Wonder Chuck? He has trouble reading the credits at the end of a movie. How’d you get him to read a book?”
“The only thing he has to read is the review,” she said.
“So I’m off the show?”
“Only temporarily, Billy,” Trina said. “In our news segment, we are reporting the fact that the food that poisoned Rudy came from your Bistro. Your appearance on the show would seem a little … awkward.”
“The police don’t know the poison was in our dinner,” I said.
“The official word from the police lab, Billy,” Arnie said, “is that the poison was in the sauce prepared at your restaurant.”
“I hadn’t heard that good news,” I said.
“Arnie, B
illy might want to make a statement about the lab report. We should wire him up right now and—”
“No statement,” I said. “I wouldn’t want to interfere with whatever you’ve got scheduled.”
“Actually, it might clash with the remembrance piece we’ve put together,” Trina said, making me wonder if I’d lost my gift for sarcasm.
“Lance is doing a live narration over a docu-obit cobbled from footage from Rudy’s on-camera career,” Arnie told me. “The guy had been working in the business for decades, on camera as well as behind.”
“So I keep hearing,” I said. “Do I come in tomorrow?”
Arnie blinked as if my question caught him off guard. “Uh, tomorrow? Sure, Billy. I guess.” He looked to Trina for support.
“Better run it past Gretchen first,” she said.
“Gretchen? She’s the one who gave me the boot?”
“Nobody’s giving you the boot, Billy,” Trina said. “You’re much too valuable to the show.” Those blue eyes looked into mine, and she flashed me a comforting smile that I wished had been sincere.
“Anyway,” she continued, “I’d better go check in with the news anchor. What’s her name again, Arnie?”
“Tori Dillard,” Arnie said.
“Tori, right. My God, what’s that on her neck? A hickey? Do your makeup people even bother to look?”
We watched her stride away to an unsuspecting Tori. Arnie sighed. Then he said, “Why is it this job never gets easier?”
“At least you’re still working,” I said. “I’m going up to see Gretchen.”
“Do what you’ve got to, Billy.”
Turning to leave, I saw that others—a couple of stagehands, a page, Lance’s assistant—had been standing around observing our conversation. As I passed, they looked away and quickly dispersed.
Yesterday I’d been a relatively successful performer and restaurateur. Well liked, if not beloved. Today people ran away from me. Was the thread holding it all together so thin that all it took was a sliver of circumstantial evidence to break everything loose?
As I reached the stage door, Gin was heading in.
She stopped, reached out to touch my arm. “God, Billy, I’ve been trying to phone you. How are you holding up?”
“Well, let’s see. My restaurant’s been padlocked by the cops, I’ve been attacked by a thug, and I’ve just been sent home by the new executive producer.”
“You’re not on the show today?” she said. “Wait! You were attacked?”
“Just joking,” I said, sorry now that I’d mentioned it.
“Oh. Then you are on the show?”
“No. I’m not on the show. I was just joking about being attacked.”
“I bet it’s that Trina that bumped you,” Gin said. “Isn’t she somethin’?”
“She is that.”
“This is all jus’ temporary bad luck, Billy. It’ll get straightened out. They’ll find out who really killed Rudy and everything’ll be back to normal.”
I flashed on Detectives Solomon and Butker. They weren’t going to be finding any real killer. Not while they had me. But why get into that? “You’re right, Gin,” I said.
“Oh, guess what? Ted’s flyin’ in this evening. It’s been four months since he’s been home.”
As I mentioned, Gin’s paramour, Ted Parkhurst, had been working the Middle East beat.
“Couldn’t stay away from you a minute longer?” I said.
“Well, I hope,” she said. “But he’s also coming in for Rudy’s funeral.”
“I didn’t know they were that close,” I said.
“They weren’t until recently. They hung out a little when Rudy was in Kabul.”
“Well, give Ted my best. Maybe we can get together while he’s here.”
“You’ll see him at the funeral tomorrow, right?”
The funeral. Tomorrow. I hadn’t thought about the funeral. Should I go? I may not have loved the guy, but we’d been associates. If the goddamn takeout had come from the Gotham or Town, there’d have been no question about my attending the funeral. What was the protocol for going to the funeral of the guy you’re accused of offing?
“Sure,” I said to Gin. “I’ll see you both there.”
Chapter
FIFTEEN
The executive offices of Di Voss Industries were on the sixth floor of the Glass Tower. In the carefree days prior to 9/11, they had been on the sixty-fourth floor, just beneath Sky, the penthouse restaurant that charges nearly twice as much for the exact strip steak we serve at the Bistro. (I know this for a fact; our meat comes from the same slaughterhouse.)
Anyway, concerned about the time it would take for the commander and his VIPs to clear the building in an emergency, it was decided that expediency trumped cityscapes, and down they all came to six, exchanging floors with the drones who worked in public relations, publicity, and research, and the ever-increasing IT gremlins responsible for the multivarious corporate websites.
Gretchen was rounding the desk of a terrified assistant and heading toward her office with the grim determination and speed of a ballplayer with shin splints trying to beat the throw to home plate. When I called her name, she halted and turned. She looked weary and frustrated and definitely out of sorts, so I didn’t take it personally when she snapped, “Billy, I have no time today for whatever the problem is.”
“It’s important.”
She stared at me for a beat, then said, “Five minutes.”
I followed her past her assistant’s desk and into her office, closed the door, and waited until I was sure I had her full attention. “Are you kicking me off Wake Up!, Gretch?”
“What are you talking about, Billy?” She seemed genuinely confused.
I explained that I’d been bumped from that morning’s show, presumably at her request.
“This is the first I’m hearing of it. Maybe Trina Lomax … Has anyone told you that Trina—?”
“The new executive producer? Yeah. Met her right before coming here.”
“Well, I’m not sure it’s such a bad idea, you taking a few days off,” Gretchen said. “It’s definitely not a permanent situation. Daddy wouldn’t let me fire you, even if I wanted to. And I don’t want to … unless you keep me here wasting my time.”
“I guess I was worried that you were believing all the crap in the news about me being the prime suspect. …”
“Oh, Christ, Billy, there are a hundred things going on in my head right now. And as hard as it must be for you to believe, you’re not even in the first ninety-nine.” She wavered and leaned against her desk for support.
I crossed the room to her and put my arm around her. “Take it easy, Gretch. Mustn’t let ’em see you sweat.”
I moved her to the couch and semi-forced her onto it. “It’s all getting to me, Billy. Ever since Dad turned the news division and the cable networks over to me after Bud died, I’ve been barely able to keep my head above water.” Bud was her late brother, Lieutenant Commander Vernon Di Voss Jr. He’d been killed five years before in Baghdad when his vehicle rolled over a land mine.
“Now Rudy’s lawyers tell me he made me the executrix of his estate. So along with having to shout at Nightline and 60 Minutes for trying to break our exclusive first shot at the ex–Mossad guy, and dealing with our programming idiots and, in general, running two fucking television networks, I’m making the arrangements for Rudy’s funeral service at Saint Pat’s, of all places, and the burial, and his estate sale.”
“You don’t have to do all this yourself, Gretch. You’ve got a full staff out there. And you can put Rudy’s lawyers to work. They’re taking their cut of the estate anyway. Make ’em earn it.”
“I know you’re right, Billy. But things never seem to get done unless I do them myself. God, I woke up this morning worrying about who I should hire to auction off Rudy’s furnishings.”
“He had a lot of his old shows on DVD,” I said. “If they’re going to be on sale, I’d like to pick up a few.”
“Why would you want them?” she asked.
“Mementos.”
“You men are so strange. Actually, those DVDs are here. We needed to sample some of Rudy’s early TV work on our send-off this morning, so I got permission from the NYPD to remove them from his condo. They should still be in editing. I’ll probably donate them to the Museum of Television and Radio. Take what you want.”
Her eyes were suddenly damp.
Then she broke down, and, for the second time in two days, my lapels were collecting tears of grief for Rudy Gallagher.
Or so I thought.
After a few seconds, Gretch pulled away from me and stood. “He was a son of a bitch,” she said, snapping a Kleenex angrily from a box on her desk. “Did you know he was screwing around on me?”
“What makes you think that?” I said, not wanting to lie to her.
She circled her desk, opened a drawer, and plucked from it a small black phone book. “This retro piece of macho bullshit.”
She threw it at me. “I’m sure you’ve seen them before,” she said.
“Since BlackBerrys, not so much.” I flipped through the pages. There were no names, just initials, followed by several sets of numbers—phone numbers and ratings for “beauty,” “breasts,” “butts,” and “bedroom.”
“This book could be from years ago,” I told Gretchen. “Long before you two met.”
“Rudy listed his ‘conquests’ on a first-come basis, if you’ll excuse the expression. You’ll note that GDV is not the final entry. There are dozens more.”
“There’s this in his favor,” I said. “He gave you straight tens.”
“Not funny, Billy.” She grabbed the black book from my fingers.
“I’m surprised the police let you have that,” I said.
She made no response, merely put the book back in her desk drawer.
“The police did see it, right?” I asked.
“I can’t speak for their efficiency. It arrived here with Rudy’s DVD collection. I assume they’ve seen it and considered it unimportant to their investigation.”
“A bachelor’s little black book? C’mon, Gretchen. How could this not be important? You need to show it to them.”
