by David Stukas
“Until last night,” Monette managed to slip in.
“Yes, until last night,” Marc conceded.
“I see,” Monette replied, which caused Marc to look at her with a don’t-tell-me-I-told-you-so look. “Don’t get me wrong, Marc; there’s nothing wrong with a little competition, but it’s something that I don’t have a lot of personal experience with. I’m a graphic artist who works for the Endangered Herbs Society of America—I don’t have to fend off hordes of people who are trying to take my job.”
Marc scanned the revelers for a while and pointed at a squat man with thinning black hair and a face that looked like an overripe red grape about to burst. He must have been from Los Angeles, because he seemed to be always on a cell phone.
“That’s Jimmy Garboni, a mafia guy who handles most of the food service jobs and garbage collection in L.A. and the Coachella Valley—or else.”
“Food service and garbage? I’ve been to a few parties where it tastes like they got the two mixed up,” Monette quipped.
“And over there is Martin Stevers; he’s the guy you’re supposed to go to when you need sound and electrical systems.”
“Now, let me guess here, Marc. Rex chose not to work with Darlene, Jimmy, or Martin, correct?”
“You are correct,” Marc replied. “Their bids came in a lot higher than the vendors we’re working with. Rex figured that if the Red Party were going to catch on, he’d have to spend his money on the razzle-dazzle and wow everyone. The White Party already has the big-name DJs, but music is music, and if you play it loud enough and keep amazing people, they will come.”
I stood there, silently compiling the list of possible threatening suspects—a list that was growing faster than Candy Spelling’s Christmas wish list. Let’s see: Darlene Waldron, a tiny, birdlike woman with henna-red hair, pointy business suits, and a fake smile that drew her lips so tight, they appeared to stretch around her entire face like pink bands of rubber. Next on the list was Jimmy Garboni, a Left Coast hood who probably couldn’t make the grade in New York organized crime and who wore unbuttoned polo shirts and gold pinkie rings. Then there was Martin Stevers, a salt-and-pepper-haired man with a perma-tan and perma-frown. Like Jimmy, Martin was conspicuously dressed in black. No matter how you looked at the situation, Rex had pissed off a lot of people—enough to make someone want to kill him.
The party grew and grew until it appeared that every registered voter in Palm Springs was cramming into Leo’s place. Rex and Vince made the rounds of the party, shaking hands and hugging just about everyone in sight. Rex seemed to be having a good time for a change and didn’t seem like a man with the sword of Damocles hanging over his head. He spotted the three of us and made his way toward us, laughing and patting people on the back as he neared us.
“Enjoying yourselves?” he asked when he was finally in our faces—literally.
“Great party, Rex! A really great party!” I screamed above the ruckus. “Oh, Rex, I want you to meet my friend Monette!”
He looked up into Monette’s face towering above him and shook her hand vigorously. “Glad to meet you, Monette. Even your hair is dressed for the occasion!” he said, laughing at Monette’s flaming ember-red hair.
I didn’t say a word, but the one thing you didn’t joke about was Monette’s red hair. The other was her height. Being the trooper that she was, she took Rex’s comment in stride and smiled gracefully.
“There you are, Rex!” came a voice from over my shoulder. A distinguished-looking man emerged from the crowd and walked up to Marc, hugging him like a long-lost brother. “I thought you were hiding from me!” the man added.
“Hiding from you!” Rex replied with astonishment. “I wouldn’t hide from the guy who’s helped me every step of the way!”
Marc whispered to me that the handsome stranger was none other than Kip Savage, the largest backer for the White Party, along with Brian Keeper, his PR guy who tagged some distance behind Kip, shaking hands with various partygoers.
Rex, realizing that he was being impolite, introduced the two to Monette and me. Rex took a healthy swallow of his drink, then put his arm around Kip and turned to the three of us.
“Could you excuse us for a few minutes? I have to discuss some matters with Kip and Brian privately—if you can find anywhere private to talk. Party stuff,” he explained.
“No problem, Rex,” Marc said for the three of us.
Rex, Kip and Brian went off laughing and talking, clapping each other on the back and enjoying private jokes. Of all the people associated with the White Party, Kip seemed the most unlikely. From his red face that screamed heavy drinking to his unbuttoned polo shirt and receding snow-white hair, the fifty-five-year-old man looked like he’d be more at home on the eighteenth fairway or in a boardroom than surrounded by gaggles of gyrating, half-naked gay men.
When they were out of earshot, I leaned forward and told Monette who the illustrious men were.
Monette raised her eyebrows in astonishment. “Then why is it that two guys who should be Rex’s biggest enemies seem to be his best friends?”
“Both Kip and Brian are shrewd businessmen, Monette. Probably the best I’ve seen. They don’t shit where they eat.”
“That’s so poetic, Marc. Remind me to have that embroidered on a pillow sometime,” Monette commented.
“You know what I mean, Monette. Brian is following the first rule of PR.”
“Make it look like someone else’s fault?” I suggested.
“No, Robert, that’s rule number four. Rule number one is, don’t make a bad situation worse. Just smile big and take the Fifth Amendment.”
“That’s why I didn’t make it in public relations, Marc,” I said. “I thought you were supposed to tell the truth. As Monette could attest, I have trouble lying, so I went into advertising because it tells half-truths. Take my client’s product, a carbonated douche that makes your vagina smell bubbly fresh.”
“You’re speaking from personal experience, I take it?” Marc asked.
I didn’t reply to Marc’s question, but a huge smile broke out across my face, giving him the only reply he needed. I had to say, Marc’s humor was a big change from Michael Stark’s. With Michael, most of what you said went into one ear and out the other because he wasn’t interested in what others had to say, but the part that was the most annoying was that when you came up with a real zinger, it would sail clear over Michael’s head like a clay pigeon during a skeet-shooting contest.
“Do any of us know what we were talking about?” Monette asked.
“I think we were smelling vaginas, if my memory serves me correctly,” I said, setting the record straight.
Monette grinned at me and spoke. “The subject was Rex and the fact that party production made strange bedfellows.”
“I just want to set the record straight. You heard it from Rex himself—Kip and Brian have been nothing but helpful to us. Sure, Kip would rather be in a position where he didn’t have to compete with anyone, but Rex is in the game and he’s not going to bow out just because someone doesn’t like him. Kip has been a perfect gentleman the whole time—which is a lot more than I can say about some people,” Marc said, pointing at Darlene Waldron, who was nibbling a stalk of celery while showing that fake smile of hers.
The party continued to swell, leading me to believe that neighbors were pushing their way inside, forcing the house to bulge at its very seams. Fortunately, from our vantage point looking down into the sunken living room area, we were able to look over the seething masses without being caught in the thick of it.
As the three of us drank martinis and scanned the crowds, Rex popped up right in front of us, smiling from ear to ear, with Vince, as always, nearby. His cell phone must have rung, because I saw him whip out the tiny instrument and talk into it. I nudged Monette to keep her eyes on Rex. I continued watching him. I don’t know how he could hear anything above the roar of the crowd and the dance-trance-from-France music. I managed to catch most of his conve
rsation.
“Rex Gifford. What? What? Yes, I understand. Tonight. Yeah, remember that if I pay, you go away. Right.”
Rex hung up his cell phone, and his face fell faster than a soufflé on an artillery range; then, a few seconds later, it was as if his mood did a complete about-face. He stood up noticeably straighter and set his jaw against an unknown foe. He had finished his call, because he clipped the phone back onto his belt and proceeded to talk with Vince animatedly. Just as Rex looked as if he were about to stride off, his cell phone must have rung again, because he answered it. But this time his strength dissipated, leaving him looking tired, helpless, and scared. He turned away from us, not wanting us to hear anything he said, which seemed strange because he said very little. He seemed to be listening mostly. Rex hung up, then turned and swam his way through the waves of partiers and disappeared out the front door. I was going to say something to Marc, but he was talking to someone else to his left. I let the matter ride. Besides, Rex was a big, strong guy—he could take care of himself.
“Having a good time?” came Leo’s voice behind me. He put his meaty arms around our group, corralling us all at the same time with his formidable forearms. You could feel how hard the muscles on his arms were. I was certain they could break a man’s neck with about the same effort as punching a button on a TV remote control.
Marc responded for the three of us. “Great time! Great time! Say, I haven’t seen you all evening. Where have you been hiding yourself?”
“I’ve been out in the kitchen part of the evening, then I figured that it might be a good idea to hang around the front door to greet people as they came in.”
As Leo talked, my eyes drifted over to his arms, my pupils following the bulging veins up to his almost unbelievable biceps. They just didn’t seem real, because it didn’t seem like a part of the body could get that big. Well, almost. When I was a kid, there was a woman who attended church who had a leg that had blown up to a monstrous size while its counterpart remained normal. My mother would fire a withering look at me if she caught me staring at what every other person in the church was trying not to see. But leg or no leg, every Sunday she clumped up to the altar to receive communion, oblivious of the leg that always seemed to be one step behind her, having to be forcibly dragged down the aisle. It was as if she were dragging it out of hiding to embarrass the leg for misbehaving so badly. I did learn a lesson from the big-legged lady, however. It doesn’t matter what you were born with—you just have to make the best of it.
Once I jogged my mind onto another track, it erupted into another strange thought. For years, I had worked out in a gym almost every day of my life, yet I never seemed to get very muscular. Michael used steroids, and I suspected that Leo did too, but I wanted to know if Leo had a secret that I didn’t possess.
“Leo, I was wondering if you would tell me what you do to get so muscular? I work out five days a week, and I’m nowhere near where you are. What’s your routine?”
“Why is everyone asking me this tonight?” Leo remarked.
“I guess that when you look like you do, you have to expect questions like this,” I said.
“Diet is seventy percent of where you need to concentrate your efforts. So you work out five times a week?”
“Five times.”
“How long have you been doing this?”
“About six years,” I responded.
“Heavy weights?”
“As heavy as I can safely handle.”
“I can tell what your problem is,” Leo said confidently.
“You can?”
“Yeah, you’re not eating enough protein. You gotta eat protein until you puke,” Leo said.
“That sounds like an easy rule to remember,” Monette chimed in. “It’s not the most picturesque, but it’s easy.”
Leo smiled at Monette’s comment and continued like an Olympic coach training his star weightlifter for the summer games. “Make sure you have a heavy protein meal at least two hours before you go to the gym. I have a protein shake in the midafternoon and go to the gym around five. Then have a protein shake the moment you finish your workout. Remember, around forty grams of protein every two hours, six times a day.”
Marc clapped me on the shoulder. “You’re going to look like Arnold before you know it!”
“Not if it means turning into a Republican,” I responded.
“You can be a Log Cabin Republican—and change the system from the inside,” Marc commented in a voice that meant he didn’t believe a word that he said.
“That is one thing I will never get,” I said. “The term ‘gay Republican.’ It’s an oxymoron. It makes about as much sense as a Jewish Nazi.”
“If you’re through campaigning for mayor of San Francisco,” Monette interrupted, “I think we have more pressing matters.”
“Like what?” I asked.
“Like the matter of Rex going out the door five minutes ago and not having come back in yet.”
“Oh, he left,” Leo added.
“How can you be so sure?” Monette asked.
“Because he told me when he went out the door a while ago.”
“Where did he say he was going?” Monette asked, the panic rising in her voice.
“He didn’t say where. He just said that he had something very important to take care of.”
“If it doesn’t take care of him first,” I added.
The four of us, Leo, Monette, Marc, and I, stood there staring at each other for a while, suspecting that Rex was headed for trouble—if he hadn’t run into it already. We found Vince and tried to get him to explain what Rex had said to him before he left. And, more important, why Vince had let Rex leave by himself. Marc suggested that we search the grounds in case Rex had run into trouble before he got to his car. Leo went to call the police. And I? I did what I did best during a crisis—I turned to Monette.
She set about questioning Vince in order to get some clues surrounding Rex’s unorthodox disappearance. Like it or not, Monette and I were being sucked into this case. Michael—who could tell where he was? Maybe he was just getting sucked.
“So you said Rex got a call on his cell phone and his whole mood changed?”
“There were two calls, one right after the other. The first one ... it was weird. Rex was scared at first, but then it was like he made his mind up about something. You know, like he pulled himself together to tackle some challenge. I know it sounds stupid, but he looked like a man going into battle.”
“Go on,” Monette coaxed Vince. “What about the second call?”
“He looked surprised. He spoke very little—he listened mostly. Then it looks like he lost all his nerve. I could see all the strength drain out of him. He was really shaken up. Then he said he had to go and that I could ride back to the house with Robert and Michael in my car.”
“You didn’t try and stop him?”
“When Rex makes up his mind, no one stands in his way—not even me.”
“Did he say where he was going?”
“No, he just said he had to take care of something very important and for me not to worry—that he would be all right. He said he’d be home a little later.”
Before Monette could probe any further, the thump-thump-ka-chunk of the party music was shattered by the sound of several police car sirens, producing an amazing effect on the partiers. Like lemmings, dozens of them pushed their way furiously through the house and into the backyard. Even in the dim landscape lighting, I could see wave after wave of the partiers going over Leo’s wall and presumably emptying their pockets of marijuana, ecstasy, crystal, and other party contraband.
A phalanx of policemen entered the house, with Sergeant Big Arms at their head. We explained the situation to Sergeant Big Arms, trying to give a minute-by-minute account of the two suspicious phone calls. When we were done, Big Arms conferred with his buddies and instructed several of them to fan out over the grounds while he assigned two of them to hightail it over to Rex’s house with Vince’s
gate code and house keys—which they did in a matter of seconds, sirens screaming into the night until they faded away.
“If you don’t mind, Sergeant,” Monette ventured, “I would like to give you my number while I’m staying here in the desert.” She offered a piece of paper, which he took, with a dumfounded look. “I have a very good detective mind and I’ve solved two murders involving my two friends, one involving my friend Robert, who I take it you’ve met before.”
Sergeant Gorski stared at Monette as if she were a little old lady who frequently saw imaginary murders. “Thank you . . . I’ll take that under consideration, but I can’t divulge any information that is confidential.”
Me, I just stood there. It’s not that I didn’t have some sensible courses of action to recommend, but I had a deep-seated problem with authority figures. A cop would only need to pass within my general vicinity and I’d feel that I’d done something illegal. I mean, I cheated on my taxes sometimes and once in a while would keep my mouth shut when a cashier undercharged me for a bottle of wine, but other than that I was a law-abiding citizen. Perhaps that’s why I wasn’t getting ahead in this world—the people at the top lied, cheated, stole, and sometimes killed.
Monette broke my little daydream with a matter-of-fact suggestion to Sergeant Gorksi. “I know you’re wondering who the hell I am, talking to you like this, but I think that you’ve wasting your time looking for Rex back at his house. He won’t be at the Red Party setup area, either. I think he’s out trying to pay off the person who’s been threatening him. Where that is, I don’t know. But I’d look for a dark, deserted road somewhere in the desert. And tomorrow morning, I’d call the bank who handles Rex’s company money and check to see if there has been a large withdrawal in the last few days. I think Robert, Vince, and I will head back to the house and wait for Rex to return. Remember, call me if you need any help.”
Monette suggested that we head back to the compound, and she said that she would go back to her room in Rancho Myass. She told me to call her if anything happened. I could tell that she was definitely concerned, but at the same time, she had had a taste of mystery, which was as addictive to her as sex was to Michael. She was hot on the trail of a mystery, and everything else could fall by the wayside. After all, as she often said, “When you work for the Endangered Herbs Society of America, you take any excitement you can get.”