The view switched from a two-shot of Patton and Gemma to an angle that included the actress.
“The missing hands do kinda rule out suicide, babe,” Patton told her. “But, like the old joke says, they could always use what was left for third base.”
“That’s disgusting,” Carrie said.
Patton shrugged. “All in the eye of the beholder. I know people who say pole dancing is disgusting. Personally, I’m a fan.”
Carrie glared at the grinning man.
“If you can get your MIND off of POLE-dancing for a few more minutes, Pat,” Gemma said, “is there anything else you can tell us about the mysTERious body?”
The camera moved in on Patton.
“Sure,” he said. “The vic was Caucasian. Male. That much is still in evidence. In his forties, they think. No DNA match so far. The feeling at Homicide is that he’s somebody whose identity would point the way to the killer or killers.”
The camera closed in on Patton and Gemma, catching the glint in her green eyes. “And they have no iDEA who the poor soul might be?”
“They don’t.”
“But you do?”
“Let’s just say I’ve got a hunch. If it pans out, you and your audience will be the first to hear, Gemma.”
“Does your HUNCH have anything to do with the work you were doing before your reTIREment, on the Organized Crime Task Force?”
He smiled. “Good try, Gemma. But no. Those Outfit guys usually didn’t bother cutting off any body parts. If they put somebody in the drink, they stayed in the drink.”
“W-whoever did this didn’t try to keep the … d-dead man submerged?” Carrie Sands asked, catching the camera operator off-guard. By the time he’d found her, Patton was answering the question.
“They tried. The theory is the body had been anchored by a heavy weight, but broke loose when the fish came to dinner. Judging by the teeth marks, they say it mighta been a bull shark did most of the dining. I been living in Chi my whole life and I never knew there were bull sharks in Lake Michigan.”
Gemma Bright must have realized the idea of a shark nibbling on the corpse was one nightmare image too many for her lunchtime audience. “Yes. Well. NaSty business, inDEED.”
She turned to the camera and said, “A real-life murder MYStery and we’ll be bringing you the events as they unFOLD. Now, coming up is a CHARMing man—you all know him from Wake Up, America!, seen every WEEKday morning from seven to nine on WWBC Chicago, and on his own cooking show on the Wine and Dine Cable Network, Chef BILLY BLESSING!
“But first …”
As the show cut to a commercial, I stood, fully aware of Kiki’s gimlet eye. She was on the verge of saying something but Larry Kelsto interrupted her.
“Only fourteen minutes left,” he whined. “I’m getting that bumped feeling. I knew it as soon as Patton showed up, the asshole.”
I took a few deep breaths and tried to relax. A young woman appeared at the door, wearing jeans, a white WWBC T-shirt, a barbed wire tattoo on her left wrist, and a headset. Whispering into the headset, she approached and swiftly and efficiently checked a tiny wireless microphone and hid it behind my tie.
“This way, Mr. Blessing,” she said.
“Lose the goofy grin, Billy,” Kiki advised. “It’s inappropriate with all the talk about a headless dead body.”
As I followed my guide along the darkened backstage area, I heard Gemma announcing, “Here he is, one of your FaVorites and my VERY good friend, superchef BILLY BLESSING.”
A stagehand pulled black a flap in the dark curtain and I stepped into bright lights and a response that sounded, to my ears at least, a little more enthusiastic than the blinking “APPLAUSE” signs usually produced.
The other two guests shifted on the couch as I took our hostess’s hand and kissed it. I can be debonair when I want. I gave the still applauding audience a friendly wave and took my place on the end of the couch.
Gemma smelled of magnolias. Patton smelled of a spicy aftershave and, unless I missed my guess, a midmorning gin.
“Billy, it’s WONderful to have you here again,” our hostess said. “It’s been MUCH too long since your last visit.”
“About three years,” I said, “Definitely too long. This is a great city.”
Gemma faced the camera. “This is the busiest man I know. In addition to his so VERY entertaining television work, Billy has a MARvelous restaurant in Manhattan. He writes cook books and—”
“He was mixed up in some murders on the West Coast,” Patton said.
A shadow of annoyance fitted over Gemma’s face. She wasn’t used to being upstaged, especially by a guest who’d already moved to the less-active middle of the couch. “How right you are, Pat,” she said.
She leaned closer to me. Using a softer, more intimate voice, she said, “You went through QUITE an ordeal in Southern CaliFORnia last year, Billy. And before that, you helped the police with a series of murders in New York CITY, as we know from the fasciNAtingly suspenseful BOOK you wrote. What was it called?”
“Wake Up to Murder,” I said. “It’s available in trade paperback.”
“You’re becoming a regular SUPER sleuth, like … Monk.”
I myself would have opted for John Shaft or Easy Rawlins. Or even Guy Hanks.
“The police did most of the work,” I said.
“Well, I’m SURE you contri—”
“You were right in the middle of the West Coast murders.” This time, it was Carrie Sands, speaking up from the never-to-be-heard-from far end of the couch. “I just read poor Stew Gentry’s book and he says you did all the detective work.”
“Ah, yes,” Gemma said coolly. “THAT book. We had the young man on the show who helped poor, SAD Stew write the book. Harry something …”
“Harry Paynter,” I said. There’d been a time when Harry was supposed to have helped me with my book, but he’d declined, in favor of Fade-out: The Stew Gentry Story. Just as well. Harry was a little too much of a hack for my taste.
“His and Stew’s book garnished unANimous critical raves,” Gemma said. “And it’s at the TOP of the bestseller lists.”
“In second place, actually,” Carrie corrected. “Gerard’s latest, The Thief Who Stole Big Ben, is number one.”
The French novelist Gerard Parnelle had begun a series of thrillers about a scruffy Marseilles orphan who, through several improbable encounters, had been transformed into a beautiful, remarkably resourceful master thief. Book one, The Thief Who Stole the Eiffel Tower, had been the basis for a motion picture so successful in Europe and Asia it had heralded a Newer Wave for the French film industry. The movie Carrie was making in Chicago was an American version, The Thief Who Stole Trump Tower.
The recently published sequel, Big Ben, had arrived at the tipping point of the series’ international popularity.
“Gerard’s book is numero uno, of course,” Gemma said. “Carrie, I want you to remind that BAD boy that he owes me a visit.” She turned to me and without batting an eye asked, “Do you agREE with what Stew had to say about you in HIS book, Billy?”
“I … I haven’t read it.”
That was a lie, but, from what I’ve observed lies don’t count on TV talk shows any more than they do in politics.
“Sandy Selman’s making a movie based on Stew’s story,” Carrie, apparently the source of all that was literary in Hollywood, announced.
“Really? Will you be in it, Billy?”
“Doubtful,” I told her. Hoping to close down the topic and move on to the reason the network’s public relations team had arranged for me to be on the show, I added, “That whole thing is pretty much old news.”
“Still, it’s exCIting to hear about it firstHAND. As I recall, it was only by the MEREST stroke of good fortune you weren’t killed. I’m sure our audience would love to hear what that was LIKE.”
Sighing, I dutifully obliged with a brief wrap-up of my brushes with death, careful not to say anything that was not part of the public record. Having returne
d to Los Angeles for the trial, I’d had my fill of courtroom command performances.
“Do you think the punishment fit the crime?” Gemma asked me.
“Happily that was not my call,” I said.
“What the hell does it take for those touchy-feely idiots in LaLa land to put killers away?” Pat Patton exploded.
“They didn’t go free,” I said.
“No. But they could be out in eight. And then they might come looking for the guy who helped put ’em away. Something to think about, huh, Billy?”
He was actually grinning. “Anything to make you happy, Pat,” I replied.
Then, assumng that even a lame segue is better than none at all, I said, “Speaking of ‘looking’ for something, Gemma, I hope your audience will be looking in on Monday when Wake Up, America! begins the first of two weeks telecasting right here from Chicago. We’ll be reminding the rest of the country about what a great city this is.”
Thankfully, Gemma hopped right on board; we went back and forth on the glories of the Second City for a while.
I’m usually pretty relaxed even in this kind of environment, but I was thrown off a little by the sight of Patton in my peripheral vision. He kept staring at me—not in fascination or awe or even professional courtesy, but with narrowed eyes, as if I were an irritant that was causing him some internal distress.
I tried shifting on the couch until he was out of my line of sight, but that left me at an awkward angle. Which was making Gemma nervous.
During the commercial break, I turned to Patton and said, “So how do you like me so far?”
He continued to glare, ignoring my question. Then, lowering his voice, he said, “We’ve met before, right?”
“Not that I recall. But I’m on TV every morning. Sometimes people—”
“I’ve seen you on TV. Not so much on your show. I listen to the radio in the morning. It was on the news coverage of those murders. But I’ve got a crappy little screen. Eyeballin’ you up close and personal, I’m pretty sure we met way back, Billy, when you had a lot more hair and less pounds. Yeah. Only the name wasn’t Blessing. Billy … something else.”
“We’ve never met,” I said, wondering if that was true. Hoping that it was.
“We’re chatting with one of our FAVorites, Chef Billy Blessing.” Gemma signaled to us that we were back on camera. “He and the rest of the Wake Up, America! team will be greeting you LIVE from Chicago for the next two weeks over WWBC. Will all the co-hosts be here, Billy?”
I’m sure I answered the question and that I continued to keep up my end of the conversation, but my thoughts were definitely elsewhere.
I heard Gemma announce tomorrow’s guests and apologize to Larry Kelsto for bumping him once again. She then informed the studio audience that each and every one of them was getting a complete makeover, courtesy of several local entrepreneurs. With the squeals of their delight almost drowning out her good-byes, the Midday Show wound to a close.
While the credits rolled, Gemma, Carrie Sands, Patton and I all stood and pretended to be chatting among ourselves as if we were old pals. Actually, Carrie was saying she’d be seeing me on Tuesday’s Wake Up. We were giving her movie a big push because we’d made a first look deal with its writer Gerard Parnelle for a TV series idea he was putting together.
Patton was not playing our game exactly. He remained silent, staring at me, sly smile in place.
Given the all clear, I headed for the green room and Kiki, but Patton blocked my way. “Billy Blanchard. That’s your real name, right?”
The sight of his smile had taken the surprise out of it. I stared at him. “My real name is Billy Blessing,” I said, walking around him.
“Now maybe,” he said, keeping pace. “But back at the tail end of the eighties, pal, you and I both know it was Blanchard. And you claimed a body that turned up in Cal City. I’ll have the stiff’s name in a second.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Patton,” I lied.
Frowning, Kiki marched toward us. “I’m sorry, Billy, but we have to go now.”
I nodded to Patton and allowed my very efficient assistant to pull me away.
“Judging by the helpless expression on your face,” she said, “I assumed you didn’t want to continue your conversation with that creep.”
“Absolutely not.”
“What was he saying to you, anyway?”
“Nothing very pleasant.”
“I told you,” she said. “He’s a monster.”
I turned.
Patton had been joined by a very tall, very muscular, very black man, neatly dressed in tan slacks and a tight white T-shirt. The newcomer was in his twenties, but the slicked-down hair and thin moustache belonged to another generation. He shifted from one foot to the next, somewhat impatiently, while Patton continued to stare at me.
The ex-cop raised one hand and gave me a jolly finger wiggle, as if he was seeing me off on a pleasant journey.
“A monster,” I agreed.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
AL ROKER is known to more than thirty million viewers each week for his work on NBC’s Today show, a role that has earned him ten Emmy awards. He also has his own show on The Weather Channel, Wake Up With Al. He is a blockbuster New York Times bestselling author for his book Don’t Make Me Stop This Car!: Adventures in Fatherhood. An accomplished cook, Roker also has two cookbooks to his credit, including the bestselling Al Roker’s Big Bad Book of Barbecue. The Morning Show Murders marks his first foray into fiction. Bantam Dell will publish the third Billy Blessing mystery in 2011. Roker resides in Manhattan with his wife, ABC News and 20/20 correspondent Deborah Roberts, and has two daughters and a son.
DICK LOCHTE is the author of a list of popular crime novels, including the award-winning Sleeping Dog, named one of the “100 favorite mysteries of the century” by the Independent Booksellers Association. His crime fiction column that ran for nearly a decade in the Los Angeles Times earned him the 2003 Ellen Nehr Award for Excellence in Mystery Reviewing. He lives in Southern California with his wife and son.
Al Roker Page 30