Dating is Murder (14 page)

“I don’t rotate my tires.”

We were flirting. How could we be flirting?

He disengaged the gas nozzle from the Integra with a little flip, sending drops of gasoline flying. It struck me how masculine a gas nozzle is, how feminine a gas tank—how had this escaped my attention my whole life, the sexual nature of pumping gas? He pressed a button on the credit card pad, screwed on my gas cap, then took the receipt that popped out of the machine and handed it to me. “Going home?”

“What?” I was completely distracted by the sex act I’d just witnessed.

“Go home. Take Sepulveda; Coldwater’s bad right now, Beverly Glen too. Freeway’s worse.” He went to the driver’s door and opened it.

I just stood, staring.

“Unless,” he said, “you need to stop at the store for a quick crime spree?”

I shook my head, less in response than to disperse the fog of bewilderment. I felt a horizontal gravitational pull toward him. I resisted it.

“Come,” he said.

I stopped resisting. I can’t say why. I got into the car, and he shut the door after me, gently, then leaned down and in.

“Who are you?” I said.

He smiled. That was it. It changed his whole face. “I’ll call you when you’re home,” he said. “Shouldn’t take more than an hour.”

I did not
go home. I might’ve had a mental disorder, I might’ve been under the effect of toxic gas fumes, but I’m not a lemming; I don’t just go home because tall, well-dressed strangers with strong opinions about routes tell me to. I went west on Ventura, because that’s the direction my car was facing, coming out of the gas station. When he passed me and speeded up, that metallic sports car weaving in and out of traffic like a movie stunt car, I did a clumsy U-turn and went on with my life.

20

I
t had been
a week since Mrs. Glück’s initial phone call, the one that changed my life. If not for that call, my frog mural would be finished, I’d have studied for my math-assessment test, I’d certainly have had more rest. But Monday night found me fidgety, distracted, and sleep deprived, facing work on
Biological Clock,
a show that had once seemed merely seedy and now looked sinister.

The setting didn’t help. RockiSushi was on south La Brea, a block where you took everything of value out of your car after parking it, then considered removing your tires. Fredreeq and I arrived an hour before the
B.C.
shoot to do hair and makeup, and Joey, as producer, came to ensure that the restaurant was open for us. On a real TV show, Joey said, there would be a makeup trailer at the location, a generator to power it, transportation people to help you park, and a catering truck with coffee and food for everyone. Low-budget reality TV was a lonelier affair. “Paul said they were expecting us,” she said, peering through a window, “but is this place even in business?”

The door was unlocked. We walked into a room empty of people and smelling of fish. Through a curtain a man moved toward us as if through a fog, intoning, “Table for three?” Joey introduced us as
B.C.
people. He sighed and showed us to the restroom.

Fredreeq stuffed Kleenex around the neckline of my raw-silk blouse while we filled Joey in on the day’s events. I did not, however, mention the tall man. “This
Führungszeugnis—”
I said. “I think someone discovered that Annika had a police record and threatened her with deportation, which is maybe why she needed a lawyer. And Marie-Thérèse’s e-mail implies that someone on the show was making her life hell, enough to make her quit, and even disappear. I don’t want to offend you, Joey—obviously I don’t suspect Elliot, but since he and his partner hired everyone—”

“Listen, if it’s good for business, Elliot and Larry would make their own mothers disappear. If they weren’t already dead.”

Fredreeq sponged foundation on my face. “Could they make mine disappear?”

“Speaking of mothers,” I said. “First Mrs. Glück calls me every day, twice a day, and now—nothing. Your child’s missing, what’s the first thing you do when you walk in the house? Check your messages. You’d never leave your phone machine off. So why can’t I reach her? Speaking of phones, would you go in my backpack and make sure mine’s on? P.B.’s been trying to reach me.”

Joey emptied out my backpack. “What’s
Algebra, Geometry, and Beyond
?”

“Seventh-grade honors math.” Ruby, my almost-stepdaughter, had sent it to me from Japan a month earlier, with instructions to skip the boring parts and go right to the “and Beyond.” Her confidence in my ability was touching, albeit misplaced. “I thought I’d take another stab at that math placement test next week.”

“Next week’s the eclipse,” Fredreeq said, powdering me. “You can’t pass a test in the shadow of the eclipse.”

“I have to. There’s a registration deadline. What’s a shadow of an eclipse?”

“Astrology. Take the test tomorrow, before the eclipse effect kicks in. I happen to know, because I’m comparing your chart and Savannah’s, that you have Mercury trine Saturn tomorrow. A one-day-only transit. A trine like this, you can ace any test.”

“I can’t take it tomorrow,” I said. “I’m not nearly ready.”

Joey flipped through the book. “You can be. I’ll coach you: what’s an integer?”

“I can’t focus on math tonight. Someone on this show was tormenting Annika. Bing, Paul, Isaac, any of us contestants—”

“I think you can leave yourself out of the lineup,” Joey said.

“Hold the phone.” Fredreeq stepped back, hands on hips. “You know my theory on this: I wouldn’t put anything past the saboteurs, but you can’t go acting like you’re on
America’s Most Wanted.
Savannah and Kim come on like sex kittens, with their capped teeth and collagen lips, and here’s you making citizen’s arrests—”

“Okay, but—”

“No. Joe Friday is not attractive. Hold still while I tweeze your eyebrows.”

“So let’s get back to integers,” Joey said.

“I have no idea what an integer is,” I said.

“A number without a decimal or fractional part,” Fredreeq said.

“If a vertical line can be drawn through a graph that intersects that graph more than once, can the graph in question be a function?” Joey asked.

“No,” said Fredreeq.

“Correct.”

I let my friends talk math in the small bathroom, wondering how so many people in the world understood something so foreign to me. I needed Annika. She had a gift bigger than Isaac Newton’s: she could explain Isaac Newton. She coaxed comprehension out of me the way you’d coax a cat out of a tree, and I doubted I could pass an assessment test without her. It bothered me that my feelings for Annika were not without self-interest. One more crummy thing I’d discovered in the past week.

Vaclav Gadosh, the
third male contestant on
Biological Clock,
greeted me with a wrestling-hold embrace. He was my height and a few pounds lighter, with a model’s chiseled face. He had a scrappy attitude with men and a flirtatious one with women. I found him engaging in a dissipated sort of way.

“Vollie, how are you?” he said, pouring me sake. His accent was subtle, except for the transposition of
v
’s and
w
’s. I’d asked him, on our first date, where he was from and he’d told me Culver City. He was reticent about his past. And his present.

Vaclav worked at Rand Corporation, a think tank. For me, the term “think tank” brought to mind people sitting around in swimsuits, dangling their feet in water as they pondered grave issues of international importance. I’d been excited to meet a real tank thinker, for clarification on this, but Vaclav had declined to enlighten me. “I would tell you what we do,” he’d said, “but then I’d have to kill you.” He delivered this shopworn line with pride, as if he’d made it up. Fredreeq believed he worked there in a janitorial capacity.

I studied Vaclav now, chewing absently on a cuticle and sipping sake. He had callused hands, I noticed. How well had he known Annika? He was openly sexual, far more so than Carlito or Henry; did his taste run to nineteen-year-olds?

“Vaclav,” I said, “are you—attracted to—teenagers?”

He looked up, a smile forming. This was his kind of conversation. “Are you?”

“Not sexually. But I know age differences can be—for some people—”

“Do not knock it. You must try it.”

I had a sudden vision of Rico Rodriguez, how he’d made me blush. But then I thought of Mr. Tall, the blue-eyed man, twice Rico’s age, and my whole body went weak. What was happening to me? I was interrupted from contemplation of this interesting question by the arrival of Bing.

It was clear our director-producer-cinematographer was having a bad day. The whites of his eyes were pink, indicating sleep issues I could relate to. He told us that the Biographical Question was religion, moved us to the sushi bar, and began filming.

Vaclav and I sat side by side. Bing got us in profile, then turned his camera toward the sushi chef, edging closer to me until his waist was next to my cheekbone. Something in his pants hit my breast. I hoped it was a gun, a knife, a banana—anything but an anatomical part. The fish smell was getting to me. I fought off a wave of nausea.

Isaac, the sound guy, moved in, headphones covering his ears like earmuffs. What did the customers think, a camera the size of a microwave creeping around them, another man with his long-handled boom microphone looking like he was fishing? The five actual diners seemed not to notice. This was, after all, L.A.

At Bing’s signal, I posed the night’s question to Vaclav, expecting him to reply that religion is the opiate of the people. Vaclav surprised me.

“It was my misfortune to be raised without religion, a sad disadvantage.”

“Why?” I asked.

“A belief in God and prayer has been shown to reduce stress by a margin of some significance.”

“So—you believe in God?” I asked.

“No. Only stress reduction.”

“Okay, cut!” Bing said. “Paul, have the cute waitress take their order and then, Vaclav, ask Wollie the question.”

Fredreeq jumped up to powder me. “Gorbachev here just lost the Bible Belt vote,” she whispered. “Nobody likes an atheist. Talk Jesus.”

“Okay, Round Two,” Bing called. “Food, then God. Action!”

Vaclav ordered monkfish liver,
uni
with raw quail egg, and beef
sabu-sabu,
the kind of thing Doc would’ve ordered. I went with vegetable tempura, in honor of Ruby. Vaclav asked me my religious preferences, which reminded me that the camera was on.

“I started out Catholic,” I said. “Around age ten, I turned to Judaism, but never converted because I couldn’t give up Christmas; I’m not sure whether that makes me a closet Christian or just . . . sentimental. Then I read
Be Here Now
and fell in love with Buddhism, but every time I meditate I fall asleep. Same problem with Sufism, another lovely religion, headed by a very charismatic guy, and if you’re into poetry, they’ve got Rumi, a great person to have on your team. I’m a little sketchy on Hinduism, but I have a necklace with Hanuman on it, he’s a monkey demigod, and—” In my peripheral vision, Fredreeq was jumping up and down, gesticulating. “Oh! Sorry. Jesus,” I said. “Jesus is great. I’ve always loved him. The parables and the miracles are fine, but my favorite moment is when he tells the thief on the other cross that they’re headed for paradise. What a happy ending to a really bad day. Not that I’m well versed in the Bible. Protestants are much better read than the Catholics. Better singers too,
The Sound of Music
notwithstanding. A good gospel choir is a peak experience, don’t you think, like sex? And if you’re down South and visit a church where they do snake-handling and speak in tongues—well, wow.”

Fredreeq was frantically waving her hands over her head, signaling something. It didn’t appear to be unqualified approval.

Vaclav said, “So what will your children be? Catholic?”

“No, I’m a bad Catholic. Even as a child I was only in it for the stained glass. And the incense. Frankincense. Or myrrh? Very heady stuff, and would come in handy right now to obscure these fishy odors—” I remembered again I was on camera. “Oops. Oh, does it matter, Vaclav? Most people I know turn their backs on their parents’ religion. I’ll probably just read my kids poetry and pray they don’t become Raelians.”

“Cut,” Bing said.

I turned to look at Fredreeq, who had dropped her head into her hands. Joey was talking on a cell phone. Paul studied a menu. Vaclav occupied himself with the Takei Sake bottle, the drink for once appropriate to the cuisine. Joey’s phone reminded me to turn on mine, now that filming had temporarily stopped.

Instantly, a buzzing dentist’s drill noise indicated that I’d missed a call. I pressed buttons and listened to a message from Detective Cziemanski. I called him back. “What’s up?” I asked. “Is it about Annika?”

“No, it’s about Wollie. What are you doing for dinner?”

I laughed. “Tonight? Eating tempura on national TV.” I explained
Biological Clock,
a show that he, like most Americans, had never heard of.

“You didn’t tell me you’re a star,” he said. He didn’t sound thrilled.

I looked around. Vaclav knocked back sake. Paul leaned against a wall, dozing. A fly skimmed the surface of the sushi bar. Plastic fish adorned the walls. “It’s nonstop glamour,” I said. “But only Mondays and Thursdays. The rest of the week I slum.”

“Okay, I don’t know how to ask this, but—that name,
Biological Clock—
is there something we should talk about here? Not that I need to know your age before I buy you a burger, but I take it you’re a little older than . . . twenty-eight, twenty-nine?”

“A little. Is that a problem?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Is it? In terms of kids?”

“My understanding, Detective, is that if you and I had sex every half hour from now till next year, I’m more likely to get pregnant than I am to fall into an active volcano. But not by much.” Silence. “I’m exaggerating.”

The silence continued. Then, “The thing is, Wollie, I was hoping for—”

“Kids?”

“A bunch of them.” A call-waiting click occurred, on his end. He apologized, saying he had to take the call. “Listen, I’ll be in touch. I still want to be friends, but—”

I sat very still, listening to a dead phone, feeling a little sick.

“Boyfriend problems, Vollie?” Vaclav’s words slurred a little.

Before I could reply, the restaurant door burst open. “Bing Wooster!” a man yelled. “Where are you, you worthless asshole?”

Bing turned toward the voice. We all did.

Then Bing pulled out a gun.

A long moment
of silence followed, interrupted by Joey’s gravelly voice. “Jesus.”

More silence. Finally, Bing spoke. “Get off my set.” His voice shook. His hand shook too, his gun hand, but still, he was showing more courage than I’d expect from Bing, a director defending his production. The Betacam was still on his shoulder, but Paul moved in behind him, ready to take the camera.

The man laughed. He was muscular, with a goatee, wearing a black T-shirt. I’d seen him before. Outside the restaurant last week, on the sidewalk. “Or what?” he said. “You blow me away?” He walked forward with a swagger, arms open, fingers spread, body language saying, “Shoot me.”

Bing shook some more.

“You’re holding the gun wrong, Wooster,” the man said. One hand snaked out and the gun went flying across the room. The Betacam wobbled and slipped from Bing’s shoulder.

The gun skidded into a wall.

The Betacam fell into Paul’s waiting arms.

The gun didn’t fire. The restaurant exhaled.

The goateed man had both hands on Bing’s gun arm, doing something that forced Bing to his knees. When he let go, Bing bent over, holding his hand, whimpering.

“Now that I’ve got your attention,” the man said, leaning down, “you pull a no-show again, I’ll kill you. I don’t need a gun to do it. Two, you don’t pay, you don’t play. I make her disappear, get what I’m saying? You never see her again.” He spoke quietly, but because no one in the room was even breathing, we all heard.