Mumbo Gumbo (27 page)

Holly pushed her white-blond bangs off her forehead and six rhinestone encrusted bangle bracelets clacked as they fell down her wrist.

Wes shot her another glance. “You sure you’re up for coming to my place?”

“Absolutely. I’m wide-awake. And starving.”

“You’re always hungry.”

“True. And you always cook so divinely for me.”

“True.” Wes looked happy with the arrangement. He loved to cook and together with Madeline, devised the menus and supervised the chefs at their events.

The traffic was thin at this late hour as Wes continued carefully driving through Hollywood, heading southwest toward his house in Hancock Park. He pushed his thick brown hair back off his forehead. His black leather jacket, he noticed with the habit of one who takes in every visual detail, looked not at all bad against the new white leather seats of the Jag. The Black & White Ball. They’d just pulled off another stunning event. He hummed a riff of “In the Mood.”

“That’s jazz, right?” Holly asked, perking up. “I’m all about jazz, now. The band that played at the ball was flat-out awesome. Who knew that kind of music could sound so groovy?”

“Jazz? You mean you don’t listen to jazz, Holly?”

“Well, no. I’ve been major into Eminem. Hip-hop. And rock, of course. I always thought jazz was kind of hard work. But tonight was amazing. The horn section! That trumpet drove me wild!”

“The instrument?” Wes knew Holly well. “Or the incredibly beautiful young man playing the trumpet?”

Holly had been pulling her light blond wisps up on the top of her head, and she pinned it all there with a sparkly pink clip that she’d rummaged from the bottom of her enormous bag. “Yeah. He was adorable. True.”

“Yeah, I thought so.”

“Hey! He turned me onto jazz, you moron!”

“He turned you on, all right,” Wes observed.

“Look,” Holly said, her dignity in need of defense, “I’m putting on the jazz station. See?” She punched a few of the preset buttons on the radio in Wesley’s new car. The sound system boomed and sputtered as Holly rapidly punched in FM station after station, quickly discarding country music, an all-talk format, a cello symphony, and an opera, to run out of steam at one that featured all-news.

“Sweetie,” Wes said, trying to get Holly’s attention, “Try KJAZZ at 88.1 FM.”

“You always know everything,” she replied in a way that didn’t sound entirely complimentary. But before Holly could change the frequency, the baritone voice of the news announcer had begun a new story.

“Tonight, organizers at the Woodburn School of Music were unavailable for comment on the apparent theft of a rare and valuable instrument that was the featured item this evening in the auction at their annual fund-raising ball.”

“Hey, it’s about us,” Holly said, cranking the volume dial.

The newsreader continued, “One of the school’s instructors who was present at the gala event, famed jazzman Bo Bernadello, described the instrument as a one-of-a-kind silver tenor saxophone made in the 1950’s by the Selmer Company, a top Parisian maker. Bernadello went on to say he was ‘shocked and saddened’ that the saxophone was stolen from the downtown Tager Auditorium, where the black-tie event was held earlier this evening. Police are looking for anyone who might have information to call the LAPD hotline.” The station then began playing a commercial
that was mildly persuasive if one had a deep need for buying the cheapest mattress in Los Angeles County.

“Bad news travels fast, huh?” Holly whipped her head to stare at Wes. “I was hoping that old sax would just turn up somewhere, misplaced or something.” They had been aware there was a screwup with the auction. It wasn’t something they were supervising, so it didn’t fall under their domain.

Wesley frowned. “This is just perfect. We worked hard to make this party come off well and what will everyone be talking about tomorrow? That sax.”

“Something spooky
always
happens at parties. Something we can’t predict and we can’t control,” Holly said. “But it’s not usually something that makes the cops come running.”

“Or makes the news,” Wes agreed.

“How did they get this story so fast, Wes?” Holly looked at her wrist and shook several of the bangle bracelets until her tiny rhinestone watch was revealed. “It’s only two
A.M.
” They had begun breaking down the kitchen before midnight and then spent almost an hour standing around out in the parking structure with their crew overseeing the loading of their equipment and kidding around with the waiters and chefs as they left.

Wes eased the car into his Hancock Park driveway but just sat there, staring at the car radio, turning the sound level down as the commercials rolled on, while Holly pulled a tiny cell phone out of her giant bag and began to dial.

“You calling Maddie?” Wes asked. “Wait a sec, there, Hol.”

“Shouldn’t we let her know something is going on?”

“Not yet,” Wes said, thinking it over. “What can
any of us do about the missing sax? Look, Maddie left early. Chances are she doesn’t even know about it. Let her sleep.”

The newscaster’s voice returned to news after the commercial break and began another story. “With a disturbing report, we hear now from Ken Hernandez, who is out in the Hollywood Hills at the site of a shocking crime. What is going on out there, Ken?”

“It looks like L.A. has been hit by another shocking crime, all right, Jim. I’m standing in the quiet neighborhood of Whitley Heights, where police have just informed us there has been an apparent home invasion robbery that turned violent.”

Sitting in the dark car, Wesley and Holly were once more riveted to the news. Whitley Heights was the tiny section of the Hollywood Hills where Mad Bean Events had its offices and professional kitchen. The company worked out of the lower floor of Madeline’s home. Wesley’s hand jabbed for the radio knob and cranked up the sound.

“We have yet to get the whole story here, Jim, but the police tell us the body of a young woman, age approximately mid-twenties, has been found in the house which is the residence of one of the city’s most successful party planners…”

“Oh my God. Oh my God.” Holly’s pale skin turned paler.

The original news anchor spoke up. “We understand it’s the home of Madeline Bean. Are the police aware that Bean’s catering company was responsible for producing The Jazz Ball at the Woodburn School earlier this evening—the scene, we have just learned, of yet another serious crime? Is there a connection, here?”

“I don’t know about that, Jim. I’ll try to have more information for you in my next report.”

Holly stared at Wes. “Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh—”

“Holly.” Wes put his hand on her shoulder and she looked up at him, her face going blank with fear, the words dying on her lips.

Wesley Westcott had spent the past several years being the calmest man you’d ever want by your side in a kitchen crisis. His voice never rose. His cool never faltered. Whether due to shock, or habit, or sheer emotional fortitude, his calm voice betrayed almost no strain as he asked his assistant, quietly, “Did the idiot on the radio just imply that Maddie’s…
body
has just been discovered?”

Twelve hours earlier…

T
here are very few things as invigorating as trying to coordinate the efforts of a dozen whacked out, overly sensitive, testosterone-driven gourmet chefs on the afternoon of a large dinner party. At the moment, six of
my prep chefs were ready to kill the other six. And I suspect those other six were ready to kill me. What would life be like without its little challenges?

“Philip,” I chided, “the soup is supposed to be black and white, not brown and white.” We were preparing two soups, a white cheddar cream soup and a black bean soup, which would be simultaneously ladled into the same shallow bowl until the two met in the middle, and garnished with heirloom tomato salsa and sour cream just before it was served. It was to be the perfect start of our evening’s meal as it fit the black & white and “re(a)d” all over headline theme of the Jazz Ball.

“I know that,” Philip Voron said, looking vexed.

“See what you can do to darken the black bean soup, will you?”

“I told you it was supposed to be blacker! Idiot!” Philip Voron spat out at his neighbor.

I moved on.

Across the room, Wes smiled at me and pointed to his watch. We had to keep moving. We were due at the Tager Auditorium, the site of the evening’s party, in a few hours, but I took half a second to appreciate just where I was. On this party day, the day of our final prep for the Woodburn fund-raiser, our industrial-style kitchen could explode the senses of even the most seasoned caterer. The large, white-tiled room with its stainless appliances and high ceiling was currently filled with the sounds of pounding on chopping blocks, punished by a dozen chefs’ aggressive knives, the intoxicating perfume of freshly crushed garlic and just picked basil, the heat of gas flames firing high under enormous bubbling stockpots. I love these sounds and scents and sights.

“Mad,” called out Holly from near the sinks. She
was overseeing the women who were rolling out our fresh angel hair pasta. We planned to cook it later when we got to the Tager’s kitchen, quickly so it would remain al dente, right before serving it to our 600 guests. The thing that made it interesting was adding the black ink we’d removed from the sacs of ten dozen cuttlefish, which we’d had flown in from the Mediterranean that morning. Cuttlefish are a sort of squid, and sautéed they taste a lot like soft shell crab. I often lament at the less than adventurous palates of many banquet planners, but this time at least, we’d be out on the inky culinary edge. Our hostesses, the women of the Woodburn Guild, were taking the black and white theme seriously.

“I’ll be right back,” I called to Holly. I had to run out to my car where I’d left a phone number for the ice sculptor who was carving jazz instruments out of black ice.

I ducked through the butler’s pantry, both sides of which were made up of floor-to-ceiling glass-fronted cabinets. There, in the backlit cases, we displayed the hot turquoise and lemon yellow vintage pottery collection we often use, the serving platters and bowls we bring to our more informal events. The pantry led from the kitchen to the office that Wes and I share and then out to the front door by way of Holly’s reception area desk.

I pulled open the front door and started skipping down the flight of stairs that takes you from my hillside entry to the street below. Halfway down I noticed something was wrong. The street below, a quiet cul-de-sac where Whitley Avenue dead ends right up against the retaining wall of the Hollywood Freeway,
was covered in trash and papers and the like. What was up with that?

As I began to better process the scene, I became angrier with the mess. Dozens of papers had been dumped in my driveway and beyond, like someone had maliciously emptied a wastepaper basket out their car window as they drove by. I had been out front only ten minutes before with Wesley and Holly, and the street had been quiet and neat and clean. Few people come all the way up this street, anyway, since there is no outlet. So whatever was this paper attack about?

I opened up the back of my old Jeep Grand Wagoneer and pulled out an empty carton marked
“Louis Roederer 1995 Brut,”
removed the inner cardboard partitions that had cushioned and separated the champagne bottles back when I first bought them for a wedding shower in May, and then with distaste, began picking up trash. As I tossed handfuls of paperwork into the carton, I was thankful the stuff wasn’t filthy. In fact, it was an odd assortment of office-like documents.

Hey, now. Wait a minute. Was that an actual U.S. passport tucked between the sheets of paper I just dumped? I pawed through the sheaves and fished out the navy blue booklet. Amazing. It looked real. I flipped it open and stared at the two-inch photo of a vital, lean man in his early sixties, judging by his iron gray buzz cut and allowing for the standard ten years one must always add to the estimated age of anyone one meets in Hollywood. The name on the passport read Albert Grasso. His date of birth proved I could estimate ages in this town with the best of them. He would be sixty-three next month. His address was on Iris Circle, the next street up the hill.

I leaned against my Jeep, resting the carton on the hood, and filtered through some of the other items I’d just gathered into the box. There was a handful of framable-sized photos that had clearly fallen out of a manila folder marked, “Photos.” I quickly sorted them so they made a neat stack and all faced the same direction, but I could barely finish the task once I caught a glimpse of the glossy side of one of the pictures. It was an 8 × 10 color print, a glamorous studio shot of a seventies icon, autographed “To Albert—singing your praises! With love, Cher.” Cher. I mean,
really
! Whose trash
was
this?

Another photo was signed “Jacko,” and showed a very young Michael Jackson. A third featured the cast of the Oscar-winning movie musical “Chicago.” Everyone in the cast had signed it to Albert, offering an assortment of warm thanks and good wishes. Look at that. Richard Gere had mentioned their mutual interest in the Dalai Lama.

I became more enchanted with my trash find by the minute, shuffling through photos of David Bowie, Avril Levigne, and Charro. The last of the photos proved more intriguing still. It was a shot of two people, one famous, one not. The young, dark-haired girl, maybe twenty or so, was smiling into the camera so hard you could see her back teeth. The older man with his arm around her had a face no one could help but recognize. It was President Clinton. They were standing close together in the oval office. The picture had a private inscription, “To Teresa, with thanks.” And then the initials “B. C.”

Wesley’s voice came from far away. I looked up and shaded my eyes against the glare of the sun. He was standing up at the top of the landing by the open front
door. “Hey, Mad,” he called down. “What’s up? You get lost out here?”

“You’ve got to see what I found. This stuff was littered all over the place. It seems to belong to a guy on Iris Circle.”