Dating is Murder

by Harley Jane Kozak

  She didn’t let go. She pulled me in close and said softly, “You better back off, bitch. I’m going to take you down.”

  I pulled my hand out of hers and backed up. She was smiling again. She said something to Vaclav in the eastern European language, and he said something back and they both laughed. What did she think I was doing here? I turned, apologized to the shopping-bag people, and started back to my own table, feeling sick, embarrassed, tall, and soup-drenched. And stupid. In a nice restaurant, a hooded sweatshirt is as inconspicuous as a nun’s habit. What was I—

  “Hi, Wollie.”

  Isaac was sitting at my table. Our huge sound guy, his trademark headset covering his ears as if he expected airplanes to land. I sat, shocked. In two months, Isaac had barely uttered my name, let alone initiated conversation. “Hi, Isaac,” I said.

  He took off his headset. “Whatcha doing?”

  “Just . . . hanging out.” I stared, wondering what had prompted this overture. Maybe it was my civilian clothes, my lack of circus makeup, the complete spectacle I’d just made of myself. Something occurred to me. “Isaac, I never asked you: do you have any thoughts on what happened to Annika? Our Annika, Annika Glück?”

  “I always figured she found out about her boyfriend.”

  “Her boyfriend? Rico? What about him?”

  “Catting around. Getting it on with Savannah.”

  My mouth dropped open. “R-really? You know this for a fact?”

  “Heard Savannah talking to Venus while they were doing her roots.” Isaac nodded toward an orange-and-purple-haired woman across the garden, sitting alone with a makeup kit. Venus, Fredreeq’s archrival. “Savannah said, Don’t knock it till you try it. He’s fifteen years younger than her. She made him wear a rubber, though, because he was getting it all over town.”

  Well, yuck. I started to ask Isaac if he’d recorded this incriminating conversation, but Bing yelled, “Let’s go!” and Isaac lumbered off.

  Savannah and Rico. I remembered how she’d raced into the Krav Maga studio, turning on the TV the day his disappearance hit the news. What did this mean in terms of Annika?

  I wondered about several things over the next few hours, including what I was doing on the set, now that my cover was blown. Or was it blown? Did anyone know why I was here? Paul dropped by to say hi, as did Vaclav. Vaclav was the only one with a European accent; there were no more shopping bags, no pay phones. Either it was a slow night on the drug circuit or Little Fish wasn’t there. Or Little Fish was there but had canceled all dead drops.

  By three A.M. it was a wrap. The work nights were getting shorter, as if Bing’s shooting style was losing steam along with the show’s ratings. I felt both frustration and relief. I’d learned zip for the FBI, I was no closer to Annika, but I could at least get some sleep.

  “If only Savannah had been Rico’s last date,” I said to Joey, on the way home, “that would interest the cops. And then I’d point out that Annika had introduced them, which would make it a love triangle, with two of the three sides disappearing within a week of each other—”

  “How do you know she wasn’t his last date?” Joey asked.

  “Rico told his mom he was seeing a blonde.”

  Joey looked at me, her eyes wide. “Savannah’s blond.”

  “What?”

  “She’s blond.” Joey looked back to the road. “Bing wanted a blonde, a brunette, and a redhead so the audience could keep you guys straight. They decided your hair was too thin, it wouldn’t survive coloring, so they made Savannah go red.”

  “My God,” I said.

  Savannah was beautiful. She knew three languages: English, French, and whatever it was she’d spoken to Vaclav in.

  And she was blond. She was the bad blonde, the mystery girlfriend of Rico Rodriguez, the last known person to see him alive.

  36

  I wanted to drive straight to the cops, but Joey dissuaded me.

  “We stumble in at three A.M., saying Rico Rodriguez slept with a redhead who dyes her hair, according to some sound guy on some TV show, and some desk cop writes this on a Post-it, and that’s the end of it. We need a hard-core theory that makes sense of things, and hard-core evidence to back it up. But I agree, it’s the cops we have to go to, if whatever happened to Annika happened to Rico. I don’t think the Feds are interested in Rico, or we’d have heard it on the news. They’re always doing press conferences. I’ll drop you at home, then head to the production office and check out Savannah’s B.C. application for clues. I’m too wired to sleep.”

  There was no one lurking on my block. I was sure now that the previous lurkers were the plumber paparazzi, that my street, at least, was safe from whatever danger Annika had hinted at in her e-mail. That I could sleep tonight.

  Except that my mother was waiting up for me.

  “Green tea,” she said. “I had a bit too much, so I’m awake. You’re out of champagne.”

  “It’s not a staple item in my life, Prana. No sign of plumbers, I take it?”

  “No, but the mailman came to the door, as it was too much mail for the box. All those holiday catalogs. Such a waste of trees. How did it go in San Pedro, dear?”

  I looked up in surprise, but she seemed interested, not like she was about to criticize my hair but like she really wanted to know. So I joined her in the living room. I told her about my night. Breaking and entering, near arrest, Joey’s assault on the photographer.

  Prana nodded placidly. “I practiced civil disobedience with you in utero. Not with P.B., he gave me morning sickness, but you were a cooperative fetus. They put me on the front lines. The media loved it, the pregnant woman and the military industrial complex. Theo has clippings. Did I spot a Cabernet in the kitchen? I prefer white, but I’m having sleep issues . . .”

  I left June Cleaver to her memories and went in search of wine and pajamas. My body ached, from being pilloried in a bathroom window, frozen at an outdoor restaurant, tortured at Krav Maga days before. If I were a tadpole, I could regenerate limbs. Four new ones would do.

  I brought the Cabernet and wineglasses into the living room to find my mother surrounded by her Tarot cards in a pattern I’d seen all my life, a circle within a circle within a circle. “Whose fate are you reading now?” I asked, sitting opposite her.

  “Your German friend.”

  “Annika? Really? She doesn’t have to be here for it to work?”

  “No, I’m good at remote readings. I often lay out cards for you and your brother.”

  I felt strangely pleased. Sandalwood incense and the tuneless bell-like music on the CD player filled the room, calming me. My mother had been New Age before the phrase had been coined. It was a language I’d turned a deaf ear to, wanting to fit in with my friends whose mothers read Reader’s Digest, not Tarot cards. “What do they say?” I asked.

  My mother stared at her layout, then with one arm movement swept it aside. “The answers are in her own backyard.” She picked up her wineglass, took a sniff, and made a face.

  “Meaning?”

  “Your friend must return home or what she left unfinished will haunt her forever. The lessons we choose not to learn recur, again and again, until we surrender to them.”

  Like math, I thought.

  “You, however, must stay out of it, Wollstonecraft. Her backyard is not yours. There is Evil present. My guides are clear on this matter.”

  The dreaded guides. There was, I knew from experience, no way to win an argument with my mother’s guides. Arguing with almost anyone in the spirit world is fruitless. My eyes started to glaze over, drifting across the Tarot cards. Then an image jumped out at me.

  I popped up out of my chair and shrieked.

  “Mom—Prana—what is this?”

  “The Devil.”

  “This little squiggle down here at the bottom? That’s the Devil?”

  She put on her reading glasses and took the card. “No, that’s the symbol for Capricorn. The Devil, the card you’re holding, is associated
with the Egyptian sun deity, Ra, and with Pan, half man and half goat, which in turn connects to Capricorn, the goat. A very sexual card.”

  “I’m sorry, you’re losing me. Capricorn’s astrology, isn’t it?”

  My mother took off her reading glasses and sighed. “Of course. Tarot embraces astrology, numerology, mythology—”

  “So if someone uses that symbol, does it mean they’re into Tarot cards?”

  “Not at all. Astrology is everywhere—dinnerware, stationery, toothbrushes. Well, look at what you’re wearing.”

  My flannel pajamas. There it was, the stylized little squiggle against the black background, alongside a goat. On my left sleeve, knee, chest, the cuff of my pants. I’d seen it hundreds of times. “When is Capricorn?” I asked. “What month?”

  “My God, you’re ignorant. Next month. It follows Sagittarius. Winter solstice through mid-January. Christmas. Jesus was a Capricorn, didn’t you ever hear that?”

  I sat, trying to process information. “What if you saw this used as a logo, on a pill, something like Ecstasy? The drug, not the state of bliss.”

  “Thank you, I live in an ashram, not a rest home. It could signify the insight and revelry of Pan and Dionysus, or it could be the sun sign of the pill manufacturer.”

  “Wouldn’t that be a little risky, for a drug dealer? A signature of sorts?”

  “Drug dealers, in my experience, are not particularly risk-averse. And they tend toward large egos. Speaking of ego, Wollie, this television enterprise—”

  “Forget that for a minute—”

  “Is the City of Angels so bereft of men you need to seek one on television? It wasn’t that way for me, I assure you.”

  “You don’t need to assure me. I was there, Mom. I grew up with you.”

  “Then perhaps you should have taken notes.”

  “For the record,” I snapped, “I was engaged. Recently. To a married man. Who has a child, so there was going to be a custody issue, and he was a convicted felon, so he was going to lose her, so instead, he left me. Happy?”

  My mother’s face brightened. “Intriguing. This isn’t the man who came to brunch?”

  “No. That was Simon.”

  “He’s not one of these reality people, is he? By the way, he left messages on your machine. I’d watch myself with him, if I were you. Those intense, testosterone-driven men, even one in the Peace Corps—”

  “Simon’s not in the Peace Corps. He’s an FBI agent.”

  I’d done it. I’d rendered my mother speechless. But not motionless. She rose from the sofa, like a goddess out of the sea. Aphrodite, I think. She found her voice. “You’re dating—Feds?”

  “One date. One Fed.”

  She spat out the words. “My father—your grandfather—smoked a cigar with Fidel Castro. I followed Carlos Castaneda into the rain forest. This is your bloodline. For you to desecrate it by— Why not join the Marines and be done with it?” She turned and swept out of the room in the manner of Isadora Duncan, caftan swirling.

  I sat on the sofa and closed my eyes. I opened them. I looked at my watch. Still too early to call Marie-Thérèse, even with the time difference. But not by much. I closed my eyes again.

  The next thing I knew, the sun had found its way onto my face through the curtainless living room window, waking me. I was on my second cup of coffee before I realized my mother had packed up and gone.

  37

  At seven A.M. I left a message on the machine of the Johannessen family in Minnesota, asking that their au pair, Marie-Thérèse, call me anytime, collect, concerning our mutual friend, Annika, about whom I was worried.

  I turned on my computer and looked for a new e-mail from Annika. Nothing. I looked again at the old one. “It will be over soon.” Three days old, those words. Was it over already? Time was running out. Biological clocks, ticking clocks, the sun moving from Sagittarius to Capricorn, the sun approaching its eclipse, twenty-eight shopping days till Christmas, missing persons not found in the first forty-eight hours not getting found at all.

  I called Joey to ask if Savannah’s work application showed her birthday, to see if she was a Capricorn. Joey didn’t answer. Sleeping, probably. I should’ve been sleeping too, but thoughts leaped in my head like frogs. Frogs. Rex Stetson and Tricia, his bride, would return—I looked at a calendar. My God. Impossible.

  Tomorrow.

  The phone rang. “Had breakfast?” Simon asked.

  “I barely—”

  “Don’t. I’ll pick you up in ten minutes.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  Simon was not big on chatter. In fact, he hung up on me. Maybe it was his seven calls I’d neglected to return, or maybe he wasn’t a morning person. Or maybe, as we had a contract, as I was a cooperating witness, this was a business breakfast. One I didn’t have time for. I’d suggest debriefing each other or whatever in the car, over doughnuts, so I could get to work.

  Eleven minutes later I was outside my building in my best paint clothes, wearing makeup. Not a lot of makeup, because I didn’t want to look like I cared. I did care. My nerve endings buzzed. The Bentley pulled up, and Simon reached across and opened the passenger door for me from the inside. Aha. We were progressing. The last time he’d gotten out of the car to open my door. The next time I’d open my own door.

  If there was a next time.

  The car was heated, a good contrast to the nippy November morning air. I got in, said hello, went for my seat belt, and Simon went for me.

  The thing about morning kissing is that people tend to taste more like toothpaste than, for instance, red wine, which lends it a certain reality. You can’t say, “I was carried away by the spearmint.” But I was. That, the smell of shaving cream, whatever he used to starch his shirts had aphrodisiacal properties. The smells were cool, his body was warm, his mouth was cool, the car was warm. Even with the discomfort of the console between us, it was heaven. If one were considering making out in a Bentley, I’d recommend it.

  As suddenly as it began, it ended. He pulled back to study me, his face unreadable. He said, “What are you hungry for?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  That made him laugh. “I’m talking breakfast,” he said.

  “I’m not a breakfast eater.”

  “That’s gotta change,” he said, starting up the car. “Breakfast is key.”

  “To what? Anyhow, I don’t have time to eat. I have to get to work, my day job.”

  “Tell me about this mural,” he said.

  “There’s nothing to tell. It’s visual. Frogs. I’m serious, I don’t have time to eat; can’t we discuss things in the car?”

  “Start talking,” he said, but he pulled away from the curb.

  “Okay. Savannah Brook is Rico’s blond girlfriend, the one he had a date with on Saturday night. Either she’s working for Little Fish, or she is Little Fish—you know which. I think she’s Little Fish. Here’s my theory: Savannah met Annika and Rico on the set and offered them jobs. Annika was going back to Germany soon, she’d be a natural courier, and both she and Rico were students and Euphoria, this big-deal drug, this miracle, it’s big on campuses. Rico said yes, but Annika said no. Savannah threatened Annika with deportation, and threatened her mother. That’s where you guys came in. And when Annika disappeared. Maybe Savannah turned her in to Immigration, got her deported, and maybe you don’t know this because maybe their guys didn’t tell your guys. Or maybe Annika ran away and Savannah freaked out and sent people to Germany to kidnap Annika’s mother, to ensure that Annika would keep her mouth shut. Or maybe Savannah kidnapped Annika and her mother, but three days ago Annika got ahold of a computer, for five minutes, and she wrote to me, because . . . all right, as theories go, it’s got some holes, it’s a little sloppy, but some of it must be right.”

  He drove in silence, his face impassive behind his sunglasses.

  “Well, damn it. Tell me I’m right about something.”

  “You’re right about a lot.” He came to a light and
shifted gears. Traffic was heavy on Santa Monica. “Tonight, Biological Clock shoots in the back room of a restaurant called Fini, in Culver City. This is where the big meeting gets set up. You’ll be wearing a wire. Shooting starts at seven. I want you there at five.”

  “Five o’clock? Impossible. I’ll be knee-deep in frogs at five.”

  “Extricate yourself,” he said. “I want you on the set at five.”

  “No.”

  His head turned so fast I thought he’d hurt himself. If his dictatorial manner surprised me, my response surprised him more. He must be high up in the food chain, I decided, to be so shocked at the word no.

  “I quit,” I said. “I’m terrible at this. Everyone on the set last night recognized me, I haven’t helped you, I haven’t told you anything you didn’t already know. And you haven’t told me anything, period. I don’t believe you’re any closer to finding Annika than I am on my own, and I have to take it on faith that you’re looking at all. You know all about me, but I know nothing about you, what’s going on with you, because you get to lie and shut down and clam up, and I’ve been dating men like you for years, I don’t need to work for one of you.”

  Simon did a fast right. Horns blared as the Bentley cut off a car in the next lane and came to a screeching halt in front of a fire hydrant. He turned off the ignition, got his seat belt off in one snap, and threw his sunglasses on the dashboard. His blue eyes turned on me.

  “There’s nothing I wouldn’t tell you if I didn’t have ethical considerations. I do have them. I’m not apologizing. I like what I do. I believe in it. But I have a big conflict of interest here, and what’s going on with me is I’m doing every goddamn thing I can think of to make this work, I’m bending rules on both sides, and I still don’t know if I can pull off what I need to pull off, and I have no idea if you’ll want to know me when it’s over.”

  “Why will you want to know me?” I asked.