by Al Roker
No contest.
Vida’s house was filled with the perfume of beef braised in red wine. She’d transformed her small dining room into a romantic candlelit cloister. If that weren’t intoxicating enough, she was wearing what looked like two sarongs, a black one with shiny golden suns that covered her from waist to ankle, and the other, a bright red, draped around her upper body, leaving her bare midriff to fend for itself. It seemed to be doing just fine.
She gave me a quick kiss and slid dreamily away, leaving me with the taste of grapes on my lips.
“A confession,” she said. “The Swedish Chef didn’t say what to do with the leftover wine, so I’ve been drinking it. And I feel wonderful.”
God bless the Muppets.
I was feeling pretty wonderful myself.
We drank. We ate. We talked and laughed, and eventually arrived at the moment when I was to discover the parameters of a second date with Vida.
She stood, swaying slightly, and began walking around the room, extinguishing the candles. “Safety first,” she said.
“Excellent motto,” I think I said, rising to help.
Somehow we snuffed all the little flames without setting ourselves on fire. At least not literally. Vida moved closer, pressed against me, and we were about to kiss when she pulled away.
“Something’s coming between us,” she said. She reached out, playfully plucked the New York flyer from my shirt pocket, and danced away with it into the living room.
Damn. Please don’t read it. Please don’t read it.
She stood by a lamp, reading it.
“What is this, Billy?” she asked, her sexy-happy mood doing a 180.
“Just a brochure,” I said. “I Love New York.”
“You understand this is somebody telling you to get out of town, right?” She sounded like she was now Ms. Hotline. “Who gave it to you?”
“I found it under my windshield. It’s nothing to worry—”
“You didn’t happen to see who put it there?”
“No.”
“Notice anything else? Somebody sitting in a car, maybe?”
“No. What are you getting at?”
“Maybe a black BMW parked nearby?”
I guess my expression must have given her the answer, because before I could open my mouth, she was running toward the front door. She fumbled it open and rushed out. Almost immediately she returned, grabbed what looked like a walking stick from a stand beside the door, and ran out again.
By the time I got going, she was racing down the sidewalk toward a black BMW parked just behind my Lexus near a streetlight. “Damn you, Brute,” she was screaming as she brandished the walking stick.
The driver’s door opened, and a black man stepped out. He had a stubbly mustache that matched the hair on his head. He was six-foot-two or -three, no wider across the shoulders and chest than a fully padded football player. But he wasn’t wearing padding, just muscles under a tight black T. And, oh, yes, a gun in a polished shoulder holster.
He was watching Vida’s advance with alarm. He kneed the door shut and went to meet her.
“Hold on, now, baby. Don’t go flyin’ off the handle like you do,” he advised.
She took a swing at him with the stick. He easily avoided it, then wrapped her in his arms so that she couldn’t make another try. “Somebody’s been slurpin’ the vino,” he said.
“You bastard,” she shrilled, struggling. She was not a small woman or a weak one. But her efforts were useless against his bulging arms.
“Tell me what’s wrong,” he said with surprising calm.
“You … betrayed me.”
The words surprised him. “I betrayed you?”
“I trusted you,” she said, crying now. “You betrayed that trust.”
“I never would,” he said.
“You’re hurting me,” she said.
He relaxed his hold, and she suddenly broke free and took another swing with the stick.
He dodged, then grabbed her again and forced the stick from her hand.
She pulled away from him and raced past me and into the house. I don’t even think she saw me.
The big man walked toward me. “I guess we oughta take this off the street, huh?” he said.
It wasn’t a threat, exactly.
As I fell in step beside him, heading for Vida’s, he said, “My name’s Brutus Mackey.” He offered his hand.
I shook it and replied, “Billy Blessing.”
“I know. I’m a big fan of your cooking show. I’m kind of an amateur chef myself.”
I indicated the weapon he was carrying. “LAPD?”
“Private,” he said.
“Vida asked you to watch out for me?”
“Do a guardian angel. Bodyguard you from a distance.”
We found Vida sitting on the sofa in her living room, crying.
“I should never have called you, Brute,” she said. “That was my miscalculation.”
“I don’t understand, baby,” he said, sitting beside her. I noticed she did not pull away.
She thrust the “I Love NY” flyer at him. “You’re gonna tell me you don’t know about this?”
He took the flyer and read it. “This was under your windshield wiper, right, Billy?” he asked.
“You oughta know,” Vida said. “You put it there.”
“You think I’d play that way?” he asked her. “Well as you know me?”
“I think you’re bullheaded enough to still believe we can work things out.”
“You got that right. But why would I bother trying to chase this man away when I know he’s not gonna be around long enough to give me any serious competition?”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Billy’s a New Yorker. He lives and works there. He’s got a restaurant there. Friends. And you’re L.A. all the way, baby. Just like me.”
She turned toward me. I couldn’t quite read her look. Maybe she was asking me to contradict Brutus.
More likely, she was saying goodbye.
I bent down and picked up the flyer, put it back in my pocket.
“A white dude left that,” Brutus said, “wimpy, khaki pants, T-shirt type. Five-nine or -ten. Brown, maybe dirty blond, hair. Didn’t get a good look at his face. Somebody was chauffeuring him in a gray C-three-fifty sport sedan. Too dark to make out the plate number.”
“That C-three-fifty thing. It’s a Mercedes, right?”
“Yeah,” Brutus said with a smile, as if any fool should know. “A Mercedes.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me it wasn’t you left that note for Billy?” Vida asked him.
“Like you gave me a chance to, baby,” he said.
They made a cute couple. I headed for the door.
“Billy, I …” Vida began.
I held up a hand. “One thing about us New Yorkers,” I said. “We learn to roll with the punches.”
Brutus asked if I wanted him to continue guardian angeling me. I told him it wouldn’t be necessary. I’d be taking the threatening note to the police in the morning.
“Let them handle it,” I said.
He said he’d be available to provide them with a description of the wimp.
I left the house, shutting the door behind me.
I hoped Brutus wouldn’t be too upset when he discovered I’d broken in his new silk pajamas.
Chapter
FORTY-TWO
Considering how the night was going, I was not surprised to find the security kiosk unattended at Malibu Sands and five cars lined up at the blocked entry, honking their horns.
A gray-haired man in a starched white shirt and plaid Bermuda shorts got out of his Audi, ducked under the bar, and went in search of the missing guard.
More honking.
I leaned back against the Lexus’s headrest, stared up at the winking stars, and thought about heading for Manhattan. The threat had nothing to do with it. Well, maybe a little. But even if there wasn’t some homicidal lunatic on the loose
, I’d still want to leave. I was, to quote the immortal words of Billy Joel, in a New York state of mind.
The aging preppy returned with an apologizing guard who looked like he was still in his late teens, gawky and with acne in full bloom on his cheeks and the portion of his forehead not covered by his cap.
I gathered that the line consisted mainly of the guests of a resident named Halliday who was hosting an over-the-hill shindig party at his place. The guard clutched his clipboard as he searched for names and waved the other cars through. When I finally arrived at his window, he said, “Sorry about the wait. Name, please?”
I told him. He checked his list and seemed perplexed. He raised his eyes and looked at me for the first time. Then he did a perfect double-take. “You’re not going to the Halliday party,” he said. “You’re the guy on TV. Lars, the day guard, said you were staying here. I’m Rambo.”
Of course he was. This was, after all, the land of citizens whose parents had named them Moon Unit, Kal-el, Free, Banjo, and even an Audio.
“You manning the booth alone tonight, Rambo?” I asked.
“My buddy really let me down. Usually it’s not a problem if he wants to screw around on a Friday night, but with this party … and people complaining about the noise. I can’t be in two places … Well, the party can’t last much longer.”
“Good luck,” I said.
“And you have a good night, sir.”
A good night was not what I was having.
The Halliday party must’ve been pretty big. The strains of old-school rock and roll rattled through the conclave. And both sides of the private road were lined with the guests’ vehicles.
I maneuvered around a powder-blue T-Bird that was blocking a portion of the villa’s drive and parked. I closed the gate and strolled toward the guesthouse.
The villa was shadowy and, in my current mood, gloomy and a bit sinister-looking. The ocean was black and uninviting. If anyone complained about the sounds of music and laughter, it would not be me. The first thing I did when I entered the guesthouse was to throw open the windows for an unfiltered sound sample of upbeat human activity.
The party was being held near the other end of the gated community, where the beach began its curve. I had a good enough view of it to see that Halliday was an unstinting host. He’d put in a lighted dance floor on the sand where couples boogalooed and twisted to a band that was much better than their matching Hawaiian shirts indicated.
You might think that a bunch of elderly boomers writhing to the music of the sixties beside the ocean, like a Beach Blanket Bingo movie gone gerontic, might add to my feelings of depression and alienation. But it had just the opposite effect. These people, whoever they might be, were doing what you were supposed to do on a Friday night. They were having fun.
I took off my jacket, dutifully removing my wallet, the wireless Lexus key, and my cellular phone.
I carried the phone to a table and sat. The band was playing The Foundations oldie “Build Me Up Buttercup.” I watched the distant dancers for a minute or two, then clicked on the phone to check my voice mail.
As usual, Cassandra had called with a brief report on the week’s overall business. It was, in a word, satisfactory. No further news about Margaret the cashier, which meant that she was no longer seated at the register or that she’d dropped her identity-thief boyfriend. In either case: problem solved.
The second message was a surprise: Roger Charbonnet thanking me for helping to spring him from the lockup, which I hadn’t. He invited me to a celebratory party the following night at his restaurant Frush, which was in Malibu near the Sands. I doubted I’d go, but one never knew. Had the invitation been for that night, I’d be on my way.
The third message was a guilt-tripper that added to my general malaise: Gibby, whining that he’d been waiting for me in his dressing room for nearly twenty minutes. I had, of course, forgotten my promise to meet him.
Message four, also from Gibby, was pretty hostile. The general theme was that he didn’t need my help. He’d make his own decision. He suggested I could perform a certain sex act solo, a request no more possible than my performing that same act with Vida.
I went to the kitchen and found a bottle of Merlot purchased earlier in the week at the supermarket. I uncorked the bottle, sniffed it, then poured an inch into a glass. It was not quite up to the wine I’d bought for dinner, the last of which Vida and Brutus had probably polished off before they … But why go there.
I turned out the lights and carried the wine back to the table, poured three inches into the glass. The musicians were jamming on “Johnny B. Goode.” It was a little too bouncy, but the dancers seemed to like it.
I toasted them.
Then I toasted the band, even though they’d lapsed into what sounded like a medley of department-store melodies. I recognized one of the tunes as “Love Letters in the Sand,” so maybe they all had a beach theme. Or a Pat Boone theme. I toasted Pat.
I was into my fifth or sixth toast when the musicians moved on to a melody that was still popular in my youth, Johnny Mathis’s great love ballad “Chances Are.” If there is one song you don’t want to hear, drunk and alone in the dark at two a.m., watching somebody else’s party, it’s “Chances Are.”
That was followed by “The Party’s Over,” the inevitable time-to-go-home song. I could barely hear the leader of the band thanking Mr. Halliday for asking them to play “for these nice folks.” Then he and his group packed up within a minute and a half and were out of there.
There were some malingerers, but eventually even they accepted the fact that, as Fats Waller once sang, all the jive was gone. Soon the portable beach pavilion was deserted.
I toasted the end of the party.
And then Halliday, that cheapskate, decided to stop keeping the beach aglow.
The resulting dark and empty coastline was doing nothing for my mood. I squeezed the last dregs of wine from the bottle. It was time for me to retire.
I knew I should get up, get undressed and into my PJs. But thought I’d rest my head down on the table for just a minute. Maybe …
I was on that wooden moon again, high in the air, watching the little people run around below. The band was playing “Who Wrote the Book of Love?” and I was thinking, They didn’t put vampires in that book. Why mine?
The people down there were dressed in ninja outfits without faces.
“You see, Blessing, you son of a bitch,” Gibby was shouting at me.
He was standing on the end of the crowd of ninjas, wearing a dog suit without the head. He was pointing a paw at a ninja who held a camera in his hands. Only it wasn’t a camera, exactly. He pointed it at Gibby, and it emitted a glowing bolt that knocked the comedian off his feet.
“Stop it, you fucker,” he yelled. But the ninja moved closer, bending over Gibby as he writhed on the floor. Suddenly, Gibby reached up and yanked the ninja’s hood from his head.
The man had white hair. He turned to look up at me, and I saw that one of his eyes was clouded over with a film of mucus.
“Help me, for Christ’s sake,” Gibby screamed. “Help me.”
And I was suddenly awake, bathed in sweat and dizzy as a bat.
“Drunk and disoriented,” I croaked. “The end of a perfect week.”
But it wasn’t quite the end.
“Help—”
Was that real? Or more of the dream?
I blinked and stared through the window.
There seemed to be … something on the beach. Two men struggling?
I pushed myself from the chair and stood, woozily, trying to stop the world from spinning. I staggered to the door, opened it, got through it.
“Hey!” I called.
Was that a figure running away, or the shadow of a giant bird flying past the moon?
I paused, grabbed the doorjamb to steady myself.
Was someone lying in the shallow surf?
Too far to tell.
I staggered from the guesthouse and mo
ved slowly across the sand, trying not to fall. I was either in a very real dream or a very dreamy reality.
I moved past several homes, including Stew’s, all silent as tombs. Bad simile, all things considered.
It was a man! Lying facedown in the surf, his head at a strange angle. What was the deal? You weren’t supposed to move someone with a broken neck. But if their face was in water?
I fell to my knees and slowly and carefully began to turn the body. My plan was to do no more than get his face out of the water, but he flipped over on his back.
Gibby.
I blinked again. How could it be Gibby?
Before I had any time to puzzle it out, a powerful arm circled my neck and squeezed. I panicked. Wriggled. Dug my fingers into the guy’s wrist. Kicked back with my feet. Nothing.
The pressure increased. I couldn’t breathe. I knew about the hold he was using. It was called a blood choke. An NYPD cop had demonstrated it on me one morning on Wake Up. It was compressing the jugular vein or maybe the carotid arteries and depriving my brain of oxygen or blood, or both. Done right, it puts you to sleep. Done wrong, it’s the big sleep.
I felt a pounding in my ears. Then that stopped and I couldn’t hear anything. I experienced a sinking feeling, as if my body was melting into a puddle.
Then … I felt nothing at all.
Chapter
FORTY-THREE
There was that song again. It seemed to be playing over and over. I got it! The guy didn’t want french-fried potatoes or red, ripe tomatoes … just frim-fram sauce with the ausen fay and chafafah on the side.
Holy hell! Would it never cease?
Without opening my eyes, I reached out a hand and grabbed the cellphone from the bedside table.
“Yeh?” was all I could manage.
“Billy?” Cassandra asked.
I opened my eyes to the guesthouse bedroom. It was bright with morning sun. I was in bed, all tucked in. I saw the clothes I’d been wearing hanging neatly on the back of the open closet door.
“Billy?” she asked again.
“Ah. I’m gonna have to call you back.” I clicked the phone shut on whatever she was saying.
