by P. J. Morse
I had an idea. I yelled at Kevin, “Can you stretch over to roll down the passenger window?” In the meantime, I started hitting all the buttons that rolled down windows and moved forward to the passenger-side window directly behind the cab’s passenger window.
“My arm’s not that long!” Kevin responded, his butt moving side to side.
“Stretch!” I leapt over Tortoise and shoved Hare out of the way. They both kept filming.
I pulled my torso out of my passenger window and saw that Kevin managed to roll down the window of Fred’s cab. Unfortunately, the Hummer was listing toward cars parked along Columbus, and I saw a police car coming up behind us, sirens blasting. I ducked back inside.
“Kevin! Turn the wheel left, or I can’t get in! We’re too close to the cars!”
I heard a terrible groan as Kevin twisted his large body so he could reach the steering wheel. But he gave me a little breathing room to shift from one window to another. Now the Hummer was straddling two lanes and blocking traffic completely. The noise of the honking was almost unbearable.
I went back through the window, pulling out my whole upper body this time. I struggled to grip the roof, but I felt a hand on my left leg. I could see enough through the window — it was Patrick, steadying me.
“Move the right leg out!” he yelled. “You have room! Kevin, turn left a little more!”
I pulled myself out more so that my butt rested on the top of the limo door. Then I stuck out my leg and inserted it into the cab’s passenger window. We were still moving too fast, and I saw the cyclist Fred almost hit catch up to us.
“Road hog!” he yelled. He was a typical daredevil San Francisco bike messenger, thinking he could outpace a stretch Hummer.
I tried to be optimistic. If he could catch up to us, things couldn’t be so bad. But then I saw the stoplight coming up, plus cars waiting at the intersection. The light turned from green to yellow.
“Kevin! Push his leg down! Push it! Beat the light!” If we didn’t beat that light, I’d either be smashed up against the Hummer’s side or flipped over the roof of a Prius.
Using his beefy arm, Kevin pushed Fred’s leg down, and we flew through the intersection just as the light turned from yellow to red. Although we put some space between the Hummer and the unfortunate cars stuck behind us, there were still plenty of stoplights ahead.
“Now lift his foot! Ease up!” I screamed. I could feel Patrick’s hand steadying my torso, holding me against the steel that divided the front and the back of the car.
The speed decreased steadily. I shifted my weight right and slowly slid my lower body into the passenger window. I felt Patrick’s hand move my left leg. I tried to get that leg in quickly, worried I’d hang it up on something. I had a vision of my left leg soaring in the air and kicking the bike messenger in the face.
But I still couldn’t reach the wheel so I could at least get us in one lane or turn us into a tree. Old Fred was snoring peacefully in my ear.
All of a sudden, I felt Patrick bend my left leg sharply and tuck it under me. I gulped, but I trusted him, letting him bend it so I could finally get it inside the cab.
Once I was inside, I saw another light up ahead, and I had the choice of screeching to a stop or speeding through. Given that Fred was still slumbering peacefully, I opted for the latter. I told Kevin that I had it under control, and I sat right in Fred’s lap. My weight forced the car through the next intersection. By this point, the cab of the Hummer was crowded, with Kevin’s head and right arm still wedged into the window.
I tried to steer with one hand as I wedged my leg in between Fred’s legs so I could reach the brake. Since Fred was of such ample proportions, I felt squeezed between his tummy and the wheel, but I hit the brake and turned a hard right into a parking lot. The front of the Hummer skidded against a graffiti-spattered wall, and Lorelai shrieked when we plowed into the unfortunate cars that happened to be in the lot that day. Alas, a Volvo, a Corolla and a Scion are no match for a stretch Hummer piloted by a sleepy black Santa, an overweight television producer and a reality-show contestant amped up on a can of Major Rager and multiple alcoholic beverages.
Once the Hummer hit the wall and we heard the sirens descend upon us, Fred began to stir. He let out a low rumble against my back, and I felt my insides vibrate.
“Best sleep I ever had!” he sighed.
“Well, sure,” I told him. “It’s not every day you can catch some shut-eye with a nubile young woman on your lap.”
I tried to shift off, but the wall blocked the driver’s door, and Kevin was blocking my path to the passenger side.
Fred slowly realized all was not well. He gasped, “You? How did you get up here? What are you doing in my lap? And why are you shaking so hard?”
I didn’t realize I was shaking until Fred brought it up. I looked at my hands, and they were all over the place. I reached out toward the front windshield and realized how close I came to flying through it.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “All I know is that we’re alive.” This whole incident was going to be as hard for me to figure out as it was for Fred.
The SFPD arrived quickly. One of San Francisco’s finest stuck his head into the passenger window. His mouth fell open. “I have seen a lot, but I do not know what to make of this. What the hell happened here?”
“I have no idea!” Fred yelled. He started shaking almost as much as I was.
The cop turned to one of his buddies. “You better get some Vaseline, partner! We got a fatty stuck in the window here! And another fat guy behind the wheel! And a lady doing…” he stared at me and blinked. “I have no idea what she’s doing.”
Kevin growled.
Fred cried out in horror, “What’s going on?”
“It’s okay, Fred.” I patted his hand, which he had instinctively placed on the wheel so he was practically hugging me. “You have any pre-existing conditions? Narcolepsy? You fall asleep at random times?”
“No, no.” He shook his head. “I’m an insomniac. I love Craig Ferguson!”
Unless Fred’s age and weight suddenly conspired to work against him, I had a feeling we had just been played by the Stripper Pole Saboteur. “Well, we should find out what kind of a Mickey someone slipped you before you go back to bed. Do you really feel okay?”
“Yeah… I’m fine. I just got sleepy. I didn’t mean to crash the limo!”
I gently removed Fred’s hand from the wheel and started to squeeze myself out from under the wheel, around Kevin’s head and toward the passenger door. I peeked at the condition of his body, and he was wedged into that window tight. “Kevin, can you still breathe?” I asked.
Kevin just moaned. “Barely. I’m getting too old for this sort of thing.”
Fred turned to see Kevin stuck in his window. “Damn it! They’re going to have to cut you out of there! How in the hell am I going to explain this to my insurance guy? Do you know how expensive that is?”
“Fred, that is the least of my problems right now.” Kevin shook his head as his cheeks flamed up. “This is one time I wish we didn’t have the 24/7 filming policy. God, they’re probably filming my ass.”
I decided not to tell Kevin that, as I was sliding out of the passenger door, I saw Tortoise and Hare filming his behind. Tortoise had one hand over his mouth, trying not to laugh.
When I finally got out and turned around to help Fred out of the limo, I noticed a Thermos on the floor of the passenger seat. “Hey, Fred, this your Thermos?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He started trying to slide out behind me, but he was having trouble getting around Kevin.
I opened it and sniffed the contents. Straight coffee, no booze. “Coffee shouldn’t make you sleep. Where did you get this?”
“The house,” Fred replied. He sucked in his gut and managed to squeeze himself under Kevin. Then he popped out of the passenger door and steadied himself against the limo.
“Your house or the mansion? This afternoon?” I asked.
; “The mansion,” Fred said, rubbing his stomach. “There was a pot of coffee brewed, and I filled ‘er up before I got going. I already drained what the wife made me this morning. I love coffee. Iced coffee, hot coffee, chocolate-covered coffee beans…”
“No wonder you’re an insomniac!” Kevin interjected.
I looked inside the Thermos. The coffee was black, no cream. Then I took a sip. Just cold coffee and some sort of sweetener. I spat it out in case there was something else mixed in.
“You take anything in your coffee?”
“Those little yellow packets. My wife makes me use them because of…” he patted his tummy.
“And you don’t take any other medications daily? Nothing else weird?”
“Just the cholesterol ones.”
“Do you drink liquor?”
“Only when I’m grilling.” He made a gesture like popping a top.
“Eat anything unusual today?”
“All I had was a granola bar. And a sandwich my wife made. I’m on a diet. I could use some food, to be honest with you.” He sniffed the air. “I smell pizza. I’d like some pizza.”
Kevin suddenly blurted out, “This is a swell conversation and all, but can someone please get me out of here! I feel like Winnie the Pooh!”
“You ain’t that sweet,” I heard Tortoise wisecrack in a low voice.
Meanwhile, the cops had been discussing how to handle this situation, including how to free Kevin from the Hummer and how to get the limo out of the parking lot without blocking all of the traffic on Columbus. One of the officers began moving toward Fred, and his hand was hovering around his weapon.
“You can’t arrest him!” I yelled, jumping between Fred and the officer. “It’s not his fault! He just got sick! I really think he needs to see a doctor!” I immediately screwed the top on the coffee in case a bumbling officer wrecked any evidence while trying to show off.
Then the rear door of the Hummer opened, and Patrick emerged. Lorelai followed, and she draped herself on his arm. With the wrecked limo, the graffiti wall and the outlandish fashion, they looked like an album cover come to life.
That sudden burst of glamour on an otherwise ugly scene shifted the cops’ perspective. One of them asked, “Have I seen you before?”
“Yeah. I’m Patrick Price.” Patrick shrugged as if crashed limos were an everyday occurrence.
“The dude with the Nuclear Kings! Too bad about Sean Morgan, he was awesome…”
Patrick cut him off. “Are you gonna let my friend go?” He tilted his head toward Fred.
The other cop, who apparently wasn’t into grunge music, hesitated. Then he said, “A limo crashes on Columbus and makes a helluva mess. I see a woman on a guy’s lap with another guy stuck in a window. It looks like a freak scene to me. Somebody’s gotta get arrested for something.”
Patrick walked over to Fred and put his arm around him. “This man has been working for me for five years. This woman — ” he nodded toward me “ — is a hero. She risked her life and climbed through a window to stop the car. I’d prefer it if you took Fred here to the hospital, not the jail.”
Fred looked at his hands, as if to make sure he was really, truly all there after his near-fatal nap.
Kevin wailed, “What about me?”
Skeptical Cop asked, “Yeah, what about him?”
Patrick shifted from Fred and leaned up against the side of the limo. “He’s my producer. He tried to save my life, too. I would be nowhere without this man.” Patrick reached in as if he were going to give Kevin a reassuring pat but, since the only body part readily available was Kevin’s ass, he thought better of it.
Lorelai rushed up to the skeptical cop. She had been crying the whole time, working herself up in a state where her mascara was running. Her acting skills were on full display as she broke out a breathy, little-girl voice: “They saved our lives, officer, really! The driver passed out, and Kevin tried to go through the window to take the wheel.” She paused. “That didn’t turn out so well, so Katherine got in through the side window. Like a stunt woman!”
“So, that’s how these two got in the cab?” the skeptical cop asked.
“We have videotape, sir!” Hare piped up. “You wanna watch it?”
The cop shrugged and looked at Lorelai. She blinked her big, blue eyes. Unlike the other cop, who was easily swayed by fame, the skeptical cop liked the ladies. “Okay. We’ll take statements and try to clean this mess up. I suggest you call Triple A or something about the guy in the window.”
“You got it!” Lorelai cheered. She threw her arms around Patrick with glee. I was ready to give her an Oscar on the spot.
The police hung around for a bit to make sure we were going to do something about the Hummer, as if someone could just ditch a car that big. So the rest of us sat inside to enjoy the drinks while waiting for Triple A and a minivan cab to take us all back to Belvedere.
The Triple A guy showed up. After gawking and taking some pictures of both Kevin and Patrick with his cell phone, he assessed Kevin’s situation. “Yep. I’m gonna need some Vaseline,” he declared.
“Can’t you just twist me and pull me out?” Kevin asked. “This is a designer shirt!”
“Look, pal, you’re in there tight, and I gotta grease you up. It’s either that or a blowtorch,” the Triple A guy said.
“Have you done this before?” Kevin asked.
“You’d be surprised. What I’ve seen would make for some awesome TV.”
“Tell ya what,” Kevin panted. “You get me out of here, and I will personally write a pitch on the life of a Triple A guy. I am not joking. I have contacts at A&E.”
“OK, then.” The Triple A guy popped his knuckles and went back to the truck for some Vaseline, which he apparently kept handy for moments such as these.
Patrick decided he’d rather not watch the Triple A guy grease Kevin down with Vaseline, so he called Wolf back at the mansion to find out if the minivan was in transit. They chatted for a moment, and then Patrick hung up.
He said, “Wolf told me the mansion was quiet this afternoon, no fighting. A lotta naps.”
“Naps?” I asked.
“Most of the crew and some of the women slept like babies. Not him, though. He’s just been drinking Major Rager. That guy is brand loyal!”
Kevin interjected, “Not like some people! Oooh… that’s cold!” He got quiet again as the Triple A guy continued to apply the petroleum jelly.
Naps did not seem right, especially in that house. Just before we left for Bimbo’s, women were already hitting the bar, and Greg was installing a new stripper pole. Maybe, like Fred, they drank something that knocked them out.
I tried to think of when and where this could have happened. I had the coffee that morning, and I was fine. Fred had the coffee in the afternoon and fell asleep. The crew would also be likely to enjoy a second pot of coffee since they were already strung out and had worked late into the night making plans for the next day. Maybe some of the women took their coffee in the afternoon, but Kevin encouraged us to drink as much alcohol as possible.
That didn’t mean much, actually. Whatever was in the coffee wasn’t going to kill Fred. A car crash was going to do that job. The person who drugged the coffee could have drank it and emerged just fine. Fred could have fallen asleep immediately or later. It didn’t matter. The Stripper Pole Saboteur’s ideas were all passive-aggressive. The Saboteur was just laying traps and waiting for us to walk into them.
Chapter Fifteen:
Toasted Centerfolds
We returned to the mansion at about ten pm, far later than expected, and the crew was still rubbing sleep out of their eyes. Only Greg, who would have been high strung after taking a full bottle of Valium, yelled, “You’re late! We gotta do elimination! Let’s go!”
He grabbed Patrick and shouted for Wolf, and they headed off to do some shots in Patrick’s lair, during which he would debate who would stay and who would go.
I saw Tina standing on her stilettos
by the stripper pole. While we were gone, she had turned a deep shade of lobster. She was toting a bottle of water in one hand and a bottle of aloe vera in the other.
“What happened to you?” I asked.
“I fell asleep by the pool and baked myself. Don’t gloat about it. It’ll turn golden, thank you very much.” She took a gulp of her water.
“I’m not gloating. It must hurt,” I said. Given my fair skin, that kind of burn would have put me in the hospital. She was lucky she was olive-skinned.
“Easy for you to say, Miss I-Already-Got-A-Date. Kiss my ass.”
“Whatever.” I was tempted to walk off, but I thought better of it. She had said that she fell asleep by the pool, and Tina wasn’t the sort of woman who put her skin-care routine in jeopardy. “Did you drink coffee this afternoon?”
“Why the hell does that matter?” She looked at her bottle of aloe vera. “Look, I gotta go and put more of this on. God, I’m going to need Botox when I’m thirty.”
She started to walk away, but I stood in front of her. “It’s important. Did you drink coffee this afternoon?”
“Yeah — we had some by the pool. We were tired, so we had Irish coffees. I had some after the old fat guy filled up his mug. He stuck us with the dregs. Now, will you leave me alone?” She tried to make a face at me but gave up, since it probably stung to do so.
“Whose idea was it to make Irish coffee in the afternoon?” I asked.
“You’re not on an episode of CSI. Jesus,” she said, brushing me off and walking around me. “The Case of the Sunburn From Hell!”
Ah, Tina. I had only known her for a few days, and her kind, gentle personality made such an impression. I was more than a little happy that she was going to be tingly, flaky and red for the rest of the production.
I went upstairs to the room we’d staked out and saw Cookie sitting on the bed, looking alert while using nail polish to try to stop a run in a pair of stockings. “Did you see Tina?” she asked. “Dumbass fell asleep by the pool.”