by Hart Hanson
Linda found no record there either. Nor at Fox Sports when I informed her that Mr. Avila was a respected athlete. Nor at any of the cable networks or any other satellites, including film companies.
Avila, catching on, took Linda’s veiled accusations and turned them into apologies—No problem!—and struck a perfect note of good-guy conciliatory and superstar noblesse oblige. He made everyone feel that the less said on the subject, the better.
Except for competent Linda. Doing the job she was paid to do.
Avila suggested helpfully that perhaps he’d gotten the date or time wrong, at which time Linda said there was no meeting on the books for any date or time ever, anywhere on the lot. Avila winced and suggested his assistant might have gotten the whole thing wrong and the meeting might have been down the street at Sony. How awkward!
Poor competent, smart, observant, embarrassing Linda was packed away, by order of the head of Security, when she suggested that the police should be notified because nobody could account for Avila’s presence on the lot. A presence that had endangered hundreds of Fox employees. Nor could anyone account for the burgundy Taurus, which had followed us onto the lot, sideswiped a Bentley, and then disappeared during the ensuing hubbub.
Typical that the person most committed to and competent at her work was hustled out of sight because she was indiscreet.
Sorry, Linda.
Kudos to you.
Respect.
DELTA SIERRA CHARLIE
After waving good-bye to approximately thousands of well-wishers and fans, Avila and I exit the Fox Lot through the main gate and head back to Calabasas, keeping our eyes peeled for the Taurus, which is nowhere to be seen.
“I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me about what’s really going on?” I asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Skaters trying to kill you in nightclubs. Getting chased on city streets in broad daylight?”
“That today? Paparazzi, brah. TMZ.”
“I’m more useful if I know what’s going on.”
“Don’t worry about it. You’re useful the exact amount I want you to be useful.”
“How did you know Willeniec was coming with the warrant?”
I was watching Avila in the rearview mirror when I asked that question, and Avila’s eyes shot straight to mine. His pupils dilated like he’d taken a bong hit.
“Remember who’s the boss here, Mickey.”
“Remember who’s up shit creek here, Biz.”
Insubordination made Avila cranky. What made me cranky was not being able to see who’d been following us. For all I knew, I’d been the target and not Avila.
“You’re the driver.”
“I know I’m the driver.”
“So be the driver. Drive.”
But after a moment, Avila’s curiosity got the best of him.
“What makes you think I knew he was coming?”
“You moved barrels out of that storage unit just ahead of the warrant.”
Avila leaned his head back and shut his eyes. It wasn’t chilly nonchalance; he was hiding.
“There were crescent-shaped scuff marks on the floor,” I continued. “You scraped your knuckles on the door.”
Avila glanced at the gauze on his knuckles.
“That there’s a skating injury.”
“What’s the use of being a high-life business titan if you gotta hide evidence from the police all by yourself in the middle of the night? Don’t you have low-life people to handle that kind of thing for you?”
Avila tilted his head back and pretended to sleep until we approached his gate in Calabasas.
Which was blocked by flashing lights.
“What now?” he asked.
“Ambulance.”
Nestor, my pal the invisible security guard, was being tended by an EMT. Nestor was conscious and scowling while the EMT poked at his head. A man I took to be Nestor’s boss (same khaki pants and tac boots but his polo shirt was authoritatively black) watched from a couple of yards away. Big man. Arms crossed. Calm as a glacier if glaciers were Samoan.
A minion in a green polo shirt talked into his walkie-talkie and the gate yawned open to beckon us forward.
“Hold up,” Avila said, exiting the car.
While Avila approached the Samoan glacier, I ambled over to speak with Nestor, peon to peon.
“You okay there, Nestor?”
“You asking me questions all the time makes it tough to stay invisible and do my job.”
“Can I ask you if he’s okay?” I said to the EMT, a good-looking Hispanic kid in his midtwenties.
“He’s fine,” the EMT said, “for somebody who got cracked on the head with a blunt object.”
“What happened to doctor-client privilege?” Nestor asked.
“I’m not a doctor,” the EMT said.
As the EMT applied butterfly bandages to Nestor’s scalp, I asked him if he knew Dr. Quan at the UCLA Medical Center in Santa Monica. It turned out he did. Dr. Quan’s first name was Grace and she was always too busy to go out with him, even though he usually went out with (his exact words) better-looking women.
“Gracie’s not wicked hot,” he said, “but there’s something about her.”
“Y’ever consider that she turned you down because she picked up on your attitude?” I asked.
“What attitude?”
“That you think she’s not good-looking enough for you.”
“You mean like she’s psychic?”
“Dr. Quan seems like the kind of a woman who knows if a guy figures he’s wrestling a weight class down.”
“It’s a curse being this handsome,” the EMT said. “I’m just being honest.”
“You get a piece of whoever attacked you, Nestor?” I asked.
“Why you keep calling me Nestor?”
“It’s got a meaning. I told you, look it up.”
“Nestor was one of the Argonauts,” the EMT said.
“Argonauts? What’s that?”
“The Argonauts were ancient Greek heroes who backed up Jason on his quest for the Golden Fleece,” the EMT said.
“Why are you wasting a classical education cleaning up after car accidents?”
“I’m really an actor. I played a bad-guy extra in a low-budget sci-fi version set in space. Got my head chopped off by Nestor. In slow motion,” the EMT said, patting Nestor on the shoulder to show he was done with the butterfly bandages. “My pay was they let me take my head home in a box.”
“I guess that explains why you need to moonlight as an EMT.”
Nestor laughed but swallowed it when the Samoan and Avila approached.
“All good?” the Samoan asked.
He waved a new green-shirt guy into position, this one packing a Taser and a look of firm resolve not to end up like Nestor.
“Any idea who did this?” I asked.
“Nothing for you to worry about,” the Samoan said.
He turned to Avila. “We have some security footage for you to look at, Mr. Avila.”
“See?” Avila said to me. “Mister. Why can’t you do that?”
“You want me to drive Nestor home?”
“Who’s Nestor?”
I pointed at Nestor, who was patting his aching head like a church lady checking her blue hair.
“You told him your name is Nestor?”
Nestor looked at the Samoan and made a face like, How can you even ask such a question?
“His name is not Nestor.”
“He wouldn’t tell me his name. I had to give him one. How’s Nestor getting home?”
“We’ll take care of getting him home, thank you. Nothing for you to worry about.”
“Looks like I got nothing in this world to worry about.”
The Samoan was working at no
t being irritated. I found this heartening.
“So, how’s the no-name thing work? You assign your people numbers?”
“Mr. Avila?” the Samoan asked. “Could we head up to the house? No use standing out here on the street in public.”
“In public? Nobody’s even driven by here in twenty minutes.”
The Samoan looked at Avila, who shrugged and said, “He’s annoying, right? It’s not just me?”
The Samoan glanced at me again. Obviously a pro. Ex–federal agent of some kind. He possessed the unnatural patience of a federal marshal. Which made it all the more challenging and fun.
“Want me to drive you up to the house?” I asked. “Or are you taking a golf cart?”
“We’ll take the car,” Avila said, to the Samoan’s disappointment.
I opened the car door for Avila. The Samoan got into the front seat with me, identifying himself as one of Avila’s employees, not as an equal—meaning he was somebody whose ego existed outside the apparent hierarchy.
“I’m Michael Skellig,” I said to the Samoan and extended my hand to shake.
“I know who you are, sir.”
“You look into my background?”
“I told him not to bother about you,” Avila said from the backseat.
“If he’s any good at his job, he ignored you.”
“I know all about you, Mr. Skellig,” the Samoan said, and then over his shoulder to Avila, “Special Forces Weapons Sergeant Michael Skellig, three Silver Stars and a Delta Sierra Charlie.”
Not a military man, because we don’t call the Distinguished Service Cross Delta Sierra Charlie, but hey, nice effort, Samoan guy.
“I never won any Silver Delta Charlies but I got six world championships,” said Avila.
The Samoan finally accepted my hand, looking me in the eye. “I asked some contacts in a couple federal agencies about you, Mr. Skellig. Turns out the best stuff you did isn’t in the public record.”
“Nothing for you to worry about,” I said.
He nodded at me and crinkled his eyes, admitting he deserved that, keeping a grip on my hand long enough to give me my props. And hard enough to show me he was not a man to be fucked with.
Definitely a fed.
“You being who you are is the only reason I allowed Mr. Avila to leave the house today.”
“Excuse me? Allowed? You know you work for me, right?”
The Samoan winced in the manner of somebody who has spent time being a human shield for puffed-up egomaniacs who don’t know any better. You see that quality in a lot of publicists and second wives in LA.
And the Secret Service.
“I misspoke, Mr. Avila. I should have used the verb advised instead of allowed.”
“Damn right use your verbs,” Avila said. “Nobody allows me.”
“Hey, John Frederick Parker, we were followed today,” I said.
The Samoan laughed.
“That’s not his name,” said Avila.
“If a man refuses to tell me his name, I gotta call him something.”
“That’s what you come up with? John Parker?”
“John Frederick Parker.”
“Why not Jay Z, or Kendrick, or some such normal name?”
“Mr. Skellig is making a joke. John Frederick Parker was the Secret Service agent assigned to guard President Abraham Lincoln the night he was assassinated.”
“Shit. That’s not funny, Mickey.”
I said I thought it was kind of funny.
“It’s not funny because if he’s Lincoln’s bodyguard, then I’m Lincoln and that night ended up bad for Lincoln!”
“I’m not John Frederick Parker, Mr. Avila.”
“His name’s Cody, okay, Mickey? Jesus Christ, whyn’t you just put a curse on me?”
“Cody is not a scary name. Tell me you at least got an intimidating nickname.”
“What the fuck is it with you and names?” Avila asked. “You got a fixation!”
“What do you mean you were followed?” Cody asked.
He listened carefully as Avila described our short car chase, glancing at me in the mirror.
“Fox Lot,” Cody said. “Clever.”
“I’d be more impressed if we actually got away,” Avila said.
“Mr. Skellig knew you couldn’t get away from them due to your vehicle, so he took you to a place with lots of cameras and an armed security force where there were too many people for them to do whatever it is they intended to do.”
“We’re here!” I said, jabbing the brake so that Cody had to brace himself on the dash and Avila thumped against the back of the front seat.
I stayed in the car as Cody and Avila bailed. Nina appeared at the front door wearing a shiny, clinging, cream-colored deal with a plunging neckline, and bare feet. Avila kissed Nina, and Cody nodded at her like she was just another ugly dude. (That’s what I call a pro!) The three of them conferred for a couple of minutes and then all three turned to look at me in unison. What could I do?
I waved.
Nina thrust her hip out and crossed her arms, Cody adjusted his sunglasses, and Avila beckoned me.
Cody led us to where his technical guy sat at a folding card table set up in the foyer. I knew he was the technical guy because he was soft and had a beard and wore glasses and his polo shirt was baby blue, not green or black.
“Let me save us all a lot of pain. This is Seth,” Cody said.
Seth showed us surveillance footage from two angles. One was from a camera mounted on the left column of the entrance gate, the other from a camera mounted on the dashboard of a golf cart parked in the street.
The golf-cart cam showed a late-model white F-350 pickup pulling up and disgorging two figures, both carrying aluminum baseball bats. They entered from screen right on the column camera, much closer, much more identifiable. I realized that Nestor had set up the camera that way on purpose, showing a wide shot and a close shot. Everybody in LA wants to be in movies.
One of Nestor’s attackers was a biker-looking guy, very hairy, with a filthy beard, truly obese (over three hundred pounds), slow but intimidating. The other one was much younger and weighed at least a hundred and a half less and bounced around on his toes a lot like he’d hoovered up a nostril or two of meth before the attack. When fatso biker rolled up to Nestor and took a swing, Nestor ducked, then came up and cracked him in the forehead with his elbow, Krav Maga style, which gave the speeding younger dude the opening he needed to pop Nestor on the noggin with his baseball bat.
Which did not deter Nestor. He spun-kicked fatso in the chest and punched the younger kid in the kidneys.
“That boy might be better at attacking people if he pulled up his pants,” Nina said.
Nestor made sure that the big one never got a chance to land a blow, while the kid walked off a bit to get his breath, grimacing and holding his kidneys with his back arched. After a moment, they fled back to the truck. Nestor stepped back out of the way when they tried to run him over. It was only when the truck was out of sight that Nestor took a knee and held his head.
Cody told Seth that was enough and Seth stopped the playback.
“Recognize anybody?” Cody asked.
“No,” said Avila.
Nobody asked, but Nina shook her head anyway. Cody looked at me, so I shrugged (which is not the same as lying).
“Fans who wanted to see Biz,” Nina said.
“Sure,” I said, “just like the TMZ guys in the Taurus today.”
“Fans show up all the time at that gate. Some people are really rude when they get told no.”
“You get a lot of fat, white-supremacist-type biker fans?” I asked.
“Biz got all kinds of fans,” Nina said.
I nodded, trying to decide if Avila genuinely didn’t recognize Nestor’s smaller assailant or
if he was trying to send me some kind of message to shut up, because it was unmistakably the stocky, buzz-cut, zitty Slavic skater boy who’d shot Avila’s bodyguard in the gut and killed him.
“Mr. Skellig?” Cody asked.
I decided to back Avila. “Those no-goodniks mean zilch to me. But major props to Nestor, taking a conk like that and coming back hard.”
“Go on home, Mickey,” Avila said. “Tell the kid good luck with his operation.”
Seth was replaying the footage again when I left.
THE AFGHAN SCOWL
Waiting at the hospital for Ripple to come out of surgery, Lucky and I drink coffee and fidget in a room put aside for the friends and loved ones of patients undergoing surgery on their man parts. Lucky reads me excerpts from a pamphlet on the prostate that warns against sitting all day—not particularly constructive advice for a limo driver. Lucky encourages me to emulate him by executing a series of squat thrusts several times a day and demonstrates a series of stretches despite my complete lack of interest.
To my surprise, it was Dr. Quan who came looking for us.
“Are you doing a testicle rotation in your residency?” I asked.
“No,” she said, turning red.
Of course, with a minimum of coaching, Ripple had changed his story from innocent toilet accident to victim of sexual perversion and, knowing him, relished the description of his supposed depravities more than, say, a normal young man would.
“Dr. Quan,” I said, “this is Luqmaan Qadir Yosufzai, but it’s easier to call him Lucky. He shares the duplex with Ripple. Lucky, this is my personal physician, Dr. Grace Quan.”
“Do you bring news concerning our Ripple?” Lucky continued (which, when you think about it, was the more appropriate conversation opener than a testicle joke).
“The surgery was a success,” Dr. Quan said, sitting down on the coffee table to face us.