Crack-Up (4 page)

But it could be a mighty expensive habit.
 
A lot of people drew the line at a grande cup of Starbucks iced mocha coffee, easy ice, half and half instead of milk, no whip cream.
 
People like Peggy Van Horne, on the other hand, might go through football fields of plastic wrap every day, or order a custom Rolls Royce convertible in their favorite shade of gummi bear.

“I think I’m coming down with something,” Peggy said soon after she dismissed the stage manager.
 
“I think I’m catching a cold.
 
Does my voice sound scratchy?
 
Any of you?”

“Well, uh . . .” Tony said.

“Um . . .” Henry said.

“You’re fine,” Malcolm said, sampling cheese from the deli tray.
 
“There’s a little dust in the air.
 
Give the purifiers a chance to work.”

“You think?” she said.
 
“I’m really not feeling so hot.
 
My chest feels congested.
 
Definitely.
 
Definitely, I’m congested.”

I cleared my throat.
 
“Uh, Ms. Van Horne?”

“Oh, yes, you,” she said.
 
“How long have you been working for me, Mister Ward?
 
Ouch!
 
Henry!
 
Not the tweezers, not now.”

“Three months,” I said.
 
On the TV, someone was calling someone else a stool pigeon.

“Three months?
 
That’s all?
 
Well then I guess I ought to give you one more chance.”

“One more chance?”

“To catch the trespasser, of course!”

“Um, about that trespasser—”

“He came back last night, you know.
 
I heard him right below my bedroom window this time.
 
Trying to jimmy the outside door, I’m sure of it.
 
I slept in the panic room.
 
I was terrified.”

“But Ms. Van Horne,” I said, stepping in her direction, then quickly stepping back, settling my eyes on Malcolm for no other reason than it wasn’t forbidden.
 
“The alarm was never tripped, and the guard on duty told me he didn’t see, or hear, any intruder, and the surveillance cameras didn’t—”

“Are you calling me a liar?”
 
The
Brooklyn
girl she used to be was sneaking into her voice now.

“No,” I said, “no, that’s not—”

“Why can’t you protect me?”

“But, but I am—”

She waved me off.
 
“Not now, dammit.
 
I can’t . . . I can’t seem to catch my breath.
 
Malcolm.
 
Get the doctor.”
 
Malcolm dropped his cheese and raced out of the dressing room.
 
“Give me space,” she said, “give me space, for God’s sake.”
 
Tony and Henry stepped back.
 
“I can’t go on.
 
Not like this.
 
It’s impossible.
 
Cancel.
 
Do you hear me?
 
I can’t possibly perf—”

I gripped her swivel chair and whipped it around a hundred and eighty degrees, until she was facing me.
 
Her color was off, her respiration too rapid.
 
She couldn’t even hurl the angry words she’d picked out for me.

“She’s hyperventilating,” I said.
 
“We need a paper bag she can breathe into.”

“Paper?” Tony said, searching.
 
“Now plastic we can do.”

“No plastic,” I said.
 
“I don’t want to kill her.”

“Oh, really,” Tony said, sounding a bit disappointed.

Somehow, Peggy Van Horne found her voice.
 
“How dare you stare at me, sir!
 
And you, Tony, you—”

I gripped her head, cupping her mouth, jamming a thumb deep into her left nostril.
 
“Don’t fight me,” I said, but she beat at my forearms anyway.
 
“I’m forcing you to breathe out of one nostril.
 
In a minute or two, your carbon dioxide level will return to normal, and you’ll breathe easy again.”

She tried biting my hand, but I just pressed harder until she stopped.
 
“Take slow, deep breaths,” I said.
 
“I want you to feel your lungs filling up as you inhale, and at the same time, I want you to imagine trying to fill your belly with air too.
 
It’s called belly breathing.
 
It’ll expedite the whole process.”

She relaxed, finally.
 
Tony and Henry, on the other hand, still seemed to be bracing for a train wreck.

“Good,” I said to her.
 
“I know you don’t perform live very much anymore, Ms. Van Horne, so it’s perfectly natural to be nervous tonight.
 
But nothing’s going to hurt you here, I promise.
 
I’ve brought metal detectors, I’ve brought bomb-sniffing dogs, I’ve put a crack team of security staff at every access point.
 
Many of my men have served in the same elite Marine battalion that provides security at US embassies around the world . . .

“Now, I’m going to let go, and when I do, Ms. Van Horne, you keep your mouth pursed, and keep one nostril closed tight.
 
Press it shut with your index finger . . . That’s it.
 
Good.”

When she felt fine enough to also feel embarrassed, I walked over to the wigs and pretended to study them.
 
“I’ve even got a closed circuit TV system sweeping the crowd tonight, and something we call ‘face recognition software,’ which allows a computer to identify any members of the audience we’ve deemed as potential threats to you, on the slim chance any show up, and just in case we somehow miss them at the door.

“We’re prepared for absolutely every contingency.
 
So there’s nothing to worry about, nothing at all.
 
You’ve paid me good money for peace of mind, Ms. Van Horne, so don’t cheat yourself.
 
All you have to do tonight is sing.
 
Just sing.”

From the wigged head of a mannequin, I stole a twinkling silver tiara and crowned myself.
 
Tony and Henry gasped in unison.
 
Malcolm and the doctor burst into the dressing room.
 
I showed Peggy Van Horne my new look.
 
“What do you think?”

She laughed.
 
From the belly, she laughed.
 
“You’re aces with me, kid.”

On the TV behind me, a single pistol shot rang out.
 
She watched a lot of old movies, I’d heard.
 
A lot of film noir.
 
Worlds where men weren’t lackeys, to say the least.
 
I thought,
That’s the attraction, isn’t it, Peggy Van Horne
?

My cell phone rang.
 
I turned from Peggy’s adoring gaze, leaving her to Malcolm and the doctor’s needless ministrations.

Before sitting down to take my call, I threw off the sofa plastic like a real he-man.
 
“Yes?”

It was Mike McKenna, calling from headquarters in
Washington
.
 
“Argus, we’ve got a problem.”

“Only one?
 
We’re doing well tonight.”

“No, no, this is a big problem!
 
Back here in DC!
 
It’s about John Helms!
 
We had a scare!”

“One moment, Mike.”
 
Henry the hairdresser had wandered over.
 
I asked him what he wanted.
 
Henry pointed to my head.

“We need that tiara for the My Fair Lady number.”
 
I handed it over, and Henry let me be.

“Okay, Mike, what happened?”

“Near lethal attack on John—lone actor—no injuries, but—”

“Where?”

“At his compound near
Georgetown
.
 
During a dinner party.
 
The assailant was on the catering staff.
 
Female.
 
Used a knife.”

I turned my back to Peggy Van Horne and the others and whispered into the phone.
 
“Close call?”

“Very.
 
John’s shaken up, to say the least.”

“Put me on the red-eye.”

Chapter 4

My red-eye landed at
Reagan
National
Airport
early the next morning.
 
I stumbled off the plane amid a small, exotic herd of clothes-wrinkled halitosis-bearers.
 
One of my favorite employees met me at the terminal.
 
Keisha Fallon was ex-Secret Service too.
 
We’d guarded President Cooper together.
 
Now she supervised the John Helms protection detail.
 
She was dressed in a navy blue skirted suit with a white blouse and a red silk
Ascot
.
 
US flag colors.
 
The neckwear was too loud to be part of a protection detail uniform, but John Helms had insisted on it, as well as on blue suits and white shirts and red ties for his male bodyguards.
 
I guess when you rake in billions annually in federal contracts it’s hard not to be patriotic.

Keisha handed me a cardboard-girdled paper cup, funneling a long rope of steam.
 
“Morning, boss.
 
Black coffee, black limo, and Black chauffeur at your service.”

“Shit, Keisha, we can’t have that.
 
We’ll get zapped through a time-warp back to the nineteen thirties.”

She laughed, shaking alive her slender braids.
 
“There were no female chauffeurs back in those days, Argus.”

“I’m driving.
 
Just in case.”

She laughed again.
 
“Lord!
 
You must worry about everything it’s possible to worry about.”

“If only I could be sure . . .”

I took the
George Washington Parkway
, heading toward the Helms compound north of
Georgetown
.
 
Traffic was thick.
 
National Public Radio seeped through the stereo speakers, the announcer’s velvety tones like an antidote to road rage.

Keisha dug for notes hiding in her briefcase.
 
“Rebecca Helms and the kid were out of town.”

“I'm glad.
 
They're away a lot, aren’t they?”

“You know Rebecca.
 
Friends on every continent but
Antarctica
.
 
Anyway, last night, John had some of his top brass, and about a dozen Congress members, over for dinner.
 
There’s a big vote coming up in the House next week.
 
Major telecom bill.”

“I follow you.
 
Lobby effort.”

“It was a cool evening, for a change,” Keisha said, “real pleasant, so they took their chow outside, on the back patio, everybody seated at one long table.
 
The dinner was catered by
Treviso
’s.
 
That’s a five-star Italian restaurant in
Georgetown
.”