Reluctantly, he agrees, but I can feel in my bones that he’s up to something. I hang up and make another hour’s worth of calls.
· · ·
I go to the safe in my bedroom, open it and sit on the floor in front of my closet and count the last of my cash. The six thousand Jock gave me was gone within an hour after I paid two months’ rent and past-due bills. I balance my checkbook and figure out how much room I have left on my credit cards. My situation is embarrassing and pathetic. I’m forty years old and about to call my mama to hit her up for money. Of course, she only has her monthly Social Security check, so how much can she help me?
Thinking about how Hubert might try to trick me, I feel the need to go to Jock’s house to get the money sooner rather than later.
Meandering slowly through Hollywood Hills’ narrow roads to where there is a remote, little-known and seldom-used back entrance to Jock’s house, I park at the back of the property. I descend a small wooden staircase, precariously perched on the side of the hill where Tito the gardener has planted tropical foliage so densely that I’m reminded of a trek through Jamaica’s Blue Mountains.
Letting myself into the guesthouse and locking the door behind me, I realize how paranoid I’m being. My hands are trembling, my stomach is rumbling, and I can’t seem to breathe deeply. I know my loss of breath is not from climbing down a hill. I’m scared, despite the fact that it’s daylight and I’m right where I’m supposed to be, where I’ve been a hundred times before. I’m not trespassing; I’m carrying out Jock’s request. Fumbling through my purse, I bring out my .38 and put some ammunition in it.
Maybe what my mom says is true. I watched too much television as a teenager. In crime dramas and soap operas, everyone is suspect and most people have an ulterior motive.
Going upstairs to the bedroom and running my fingers along the underside of the bed frame, I feel the key taped to the leg of the bed. Pocketing it, I let myself out, reset the alarm and enter the main house through the kitchen. Disarming the main alarm, I hesitate for a moment and watch the activities of the house through a monitor on the tile counter. Cars pass on the street outside. Sprinkler heads pop up for a midday watering. A lone man approaches the gate and sticks a direct-advertising mailer in the front gate, then disappears down the street.
Punching “Command Eight” to engage the alarm and have it protect the perimeter of the house, I go into the meditation room and descend the stairs to the range.
I practice breathing deeply trying desperately to calm my frazzled nerves. With shaking hands I turn the pop-out button with the key—the first part of entering the safe—but I’ll never be able to enter the proper combination with the accuracy needed to do it on the first or second try. This specific safe will shut down after three consecutive unsuccessful attempts at entering the code. Then I’ll have to wait another twenty-four hours before trying again.
I blow it on the first and second attempts. A safecracker I’m not! Having sixty seconds to attempt the code one last time, I breathe deeply, blow out my breath hard, then enter the code. I pull the handle down and the heavy steel door opens smoothly.
There isn’t a hundred thousand dollars in here . . . there’s seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Here I insisted that he have a thousand measly dollars in small bills for his earthquake kit. No wonder he always told me not to worry about it. There are also forty-three DVDs like the one that disappeared. They are filed and categorized by name: Angie, Bibi, Cissy, Deidre, Ellie, Farrah, etc. I was thinking that Tree was the first when she was actually number twenty in the alphabet.
· · ·
As I hike back up the hill I feel a little self-conscious about carrying my gun. I haven’t thought about my weapon since I took the bullets out and stored it out of sight a few days after Blaise was born. Now I’m huffing up the hill with a loaded pistol and a shitload of money and I start to laugh. I stop halfway up the hill, panting slightly, and realize how terribly out of shape I am. I remind myself that when I don’t have work I also don’t have an excuse not to exercise. I sit on a stone bench at the top of the hill and rest a moment, wondering how I got myself into this situation.
After safely securing my loaded gun and the money in the glove compartment, I back Betty out of the single parking space. If Hubert is waiting out front for me, and I have a feeling he is, he’ll be waiting a very long time. Driving down Laurel Canyon Boulevard and heading toward home, I notice a police car pull in behind me. It stays with me whether I slow down or speed up.
Shit. My paranoia is peaking. I don’t have any outstanding parking tickets, my registration is current, there are no burned-out taillights and I’m going the speed limit.
Go away!
As soon as I see an opportunity, I use my blinker and safely switch to the faster lane. The police cruiser switches right behind me. At a stop sign, I watch through my rearview mirror and see the officer in the passenger seat entering information into the computer on his dashboard. I get in the left-hand lane, using my blinker for certain, and they follow along. God, if they stop me and I have to open my glove compartment for my registration . . . do I have my CCW in my wallet? Of course I do . . . breathe.
I pull out into the intersection, waiting for the traffic to clear so I can make a left turn. The traffic thins, the light turns yellow, then red. Already out in the intersection, I cautiously start my left turn. It’s a standard way of making a left turn in Los Angeles, and it will surely help me lose the cops behind me. Thank God for red lights!
Suddenly, a driver speeds through the red light and slams hard into my passenger side. My perception goes into slow motion as my head and body jerk forward, then back, while my SUV flips over. The seatbelt locks and the force pushes Betty sideways, smashing me violently into the police cruiser that had been following. After hitting two parked cars, Betty and I come to a rest on her side, rocking precariously. Through a huge gaping hole where my windshield is now crushed and ripped from the frame, I see the driver who hit me try to drive his crumpled blue Chevy away. His front wheels are caved in and his car is so crippled that the police catch up to it on foot.
I am hanging in my seatbelt like a parachutist braced by her harness. I unlatch myself and fall down onto my driver’s-side window, my knees buckled underneath me. Besides the windshield being gone, my rearview mirror is missing and the contents of my truck are strewn everywhere. I try to push myself up but when I do so, the SUV wobbles unsteadily.
“Ma’am, are you hurt?” a man’s voice calls out.
“No, I don’t think so,” I yell. “But if I move, it feels like the truck is going to flip over again.” I hear fire engines in the background and suddenly remember the money and my gun.
Taking the key out of the ignition, I stretch to unlock the glove compartment. The truck rocks.
“Ma’am, don’t move. What is your name?”
“Corki.”
“Corki, I’m Officer Bill Roberts with the Los Angeles Police Department. You’re going to have to hold still until the fire department can get here to secure your car so we can get you out of there.” He is kneeling down on the street, not two feet away from me.
“It’s not going to catch fire, is it? I just filled it with gas,” I say, panicking.
“Corki, you’re fine. Gas isn’t leaking. Are you hurt anywhere?”
“I’m not hurting, but I’m shaking and I can’t seem to stop.”
Officer Bill reaches through the windshield and holds my hand. Just as he takes it, a thick stream of blood rolls out of my hairline, down my forehead and down the ridge of my nose. I pull my hand away and wipe at the warm wetness streaming down my face.
“I’m bleeding from my head.”
“Corki, I see it. The ambulance is pulling up right now.”
“I don’t want to go to the hospital. I have to pick up my son from school.”
“Slow down, Corki. We need to get you out of here first and then we’ll get your son situated. L.A. schools don’t let out for another hour and a
half. Your son’s fine.”
“Officer Bob, I have a CCW, sir.”
“Corki, calm down.”
“Please, Bob, listen to me.”
“It’s Bill, and I’m listening, but you need to calm down and not move around so much. Did you have your seatbelt on when you were hit?”
“Yes. Please, listen to me before anyone else walks over here. I have a CCW and a loaded weapon in my glove compartment. I also have other things in there that could have jammed against the gun. I don’t want anyone to get shot. Do you hear me?”
He pats my hand.
“Okay, Corki, hold on and do not try to open the glove compartment. Hold still while I go talk to my partner.”
I sit as still as I can.
Half an hour later, a handsome fireman leans his face close to my windshield. I smile at him and wonder if it’s a requirement for the Los Angeles Fire Department trainees to be gorgeous as well as skilled. I can’t recall ever seeing an ugly one in Los Angeles.
“Hi, Corki,” he says.
“Hi. I’m getting cramped in here. Can I get out soon?” I ask.
“Can you move your limbs? I see a laceration on your scalp, but are you hurt anywhere else? Any numbness?” he asks.
“My legs are starting to fall asleep, but it’s just from being in the same position for so long. I can move. I’m not hurt.”
“Corki, tomorrow you may feel pain in your neck and other places in your muscles, so I’d refrain from making statements saying that you’re not hurt,” Gorgeous offers.
Legal and medical advice. I shut up.
“Okay, Corki, we have the truck supported. Do you have the ignition key?”
I hold up my hand with the key in it.
“Okay, I want you to put it in and turn the key on, but not the car. Don’t turn over the engine.”
I do so and my dashboard lights spring to life.
“Now, push the button on your console between the seats and see if it will roll down the rear window.”
I do it and like a champ, the back tinted window opens effortlessly.
“Corki, do you want me to come in the back and help you out?”
“No, I can get out myself, but—”
“Corki, don’t worry. I’ll take care of the glove compartment,” Officer Bill says.
I draw my legs up and bend over, crawling through the space between my bucket seats. I see my purse in the back along with a few of Blaise’s magazines and my cell phone. I pick them up and put them in my purse and bring it out with me. Gorgeous helps me out and walks me to the ambulance. He seats me on the bumper at the rear. The paramedic who comes out looks mighty familiar.
“We meet again!” I say.
“Yes,” he says. “I thought you looked familiar.”
“Bank robbery a while ago in Beverly Hills,” I offer. “Bloody nose.”
The paramedic, Angelo, nods. “That’s right. I knew the face was memorable, I just couldn’t place the accident. You specialize in bloody incidents?” he asks.
“I try not to. I just seem to always be in the wrong place at the right time.”
“Remind me. Your name?” he asks.
“Corki Brown.”
“Okay, Corki, bend your head down so I can take a look at this cut on your scalp.”
I lean over.
“Corki, we’re going to have to take you to the hospital to sew the laceration on your head. It’s just a bit bigger than a butterfly bandage will hold.”
“No. I can’t go. I have things I have to get out of my truck and I have to pick up my son.”
“Corki, no one is going to take anything out of your truck, and you can use my cell if you want to call your son’s school.”
“I have a cell and I’ll call, but I have to get a few things out of my truck. Please, talk to Officer Bill. He knows. I really have to.”
“All right. Just let me wrap your head to stop some of the bleeding and then we’ll go talk to him.”
After Angelo’s handiwork, I feel as if I’ve been freshly delivered from a facelift. My eyes feel swollen and puffy and the rest of my face is wrapped with white gauze. I call Envision and Shelly and arrange for Blaise to be picked up.
I walk over to Officer Bill.
“Excuse me, but did you get the glove compartment open yet?”
“No, I have someone who is about to do it,” he says. “You want to show me the CCW now?”
“Yes, but I need to ask you to watch whoever does it, because I have something else in there,” I say sheepishly.
“What is it?”
“A huge amount of cash. A hundred thousand dollars. I don’t want it accidentally falling into someone’s pocket.”
“All right, Corki, let me see your license and CCW.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong!” I say defensively.
“Never said you did.” He holds his hand out while I nervously fumble through my wallet to get him the papers he’s demanding. “Stay right here.” Suddenly he’s more cop than friend.
I wait by the curb. I can see my glove compartment being opened, my weapon and the money being removed and taken directly to Officer Bill as he sits in his car checking out my record. As far as I know, I don’t have one. But that doesn’t stop my imagination from wondering. What if a police report shows I put a toilet paper roll on backward? After ten solid minutes, Officer Bill calls me over.
“Corki, is this your money?”
Oh shit, I’ve been sitting here on the curb for ten minutes watching the tow truck flip poor Betty upright and I haven’t begun to think of what to say about the money. Did I think Officer Bill wasn’t going to ask?
“Is this your money?” he asks again.
I’m not getting in trouble for Jock or anyone.
“No.”
“How did you get it?” he asks. “To whom does it belong?”
“It belongs to the person I work for,” I say, rubbing my now-aching head.
“Why do you have the money in your possession?”
“It’s a long story and my head is starting to really hurt.”
Officer Bill and his partner, Officer Dan, accompany me to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center’s emergency room. Cedars-Sinai is a movie-star hospital. Every room is a private suite complete with cable television, beds, a couch and a huge widow with a view of the hills or a cityscape of downtown Los Angeles. This is the place Elizabeth Taylor and other celebs frequent. This is where rock stars’ babies are born and sick actors die. The eighth floor is where all stars are housed.
I’m in the ER, on the first floor, where the resident in charge shaves a nice big two-inch-by-three-inch rectangle in the middle of my scalp, then sews me up. It’s so neatly shaved, it almost looks like a hairstyle . . . but not quite. Before he starts sewing, I ask him if perhaps he has a suture material that matches my scalp color rather than my hair.
“This is a hospital, not a hair salon,” he says, incredulous.
“Then perhaps some transparent thread?” I ask.
“No,” he says patronizingly, “then the doctor couldn’t see them to take them out.”
“Of course. I just figured with Cedars being located in West Hollywood that perhaps there might be something on the order of a vanity stitch. You know how casts now come in a variety of colors? There’s even one that glows in the dark. I just thought that perhaps . . .” I say, letting my words trail off.
“No. Our variety is black stitches and staples. Head wounds require black stitches. That’s your choice. Black stitches.”
I sit still. Afterward, he gives me a mirror to check the results. I compliment him on his technique and ask if he got an A in Home Economics.
When I’m done, Officers Bill and Dan interrogate me thoroughly, then very kindly drive me home in a new cruiser that was delivered to them at the scene of the accident. As Bill drives, I sit in the backseat like a common criminal, telling them my Hubert story, minus some “minor” details, like what was on Jock’s DVD.
“Why we
re you guys following me to begin with?”
They look at each other, then Officer Dan looks back to where I’m sitting.
“You have ‘limo black’ windows. People with dark windows usually have something to hide.”
They drop me at home . . . minus the money.
Now, instead of one hundred thousand dollars, I have a receipt for what they’ve taken until my story checks out true.
Chapter Eighteen
I lie in bed feeling terrible and understanding why Mr. Gorgeous Fireman told me not to say I wasn’t hurt. I can barely move. The trauma to my body has set in and I’m sorry I refused the pain medication the hospital offered. My head is throbbing. How stupid! I should have just taken the damn drugs.
When Shelly arrives home with Blaise and the girls in tow, she stays for a while and helps me by running a hot shower and covering my hair and stitches with a shower cap. She makes dinner, washes my dishes and helps the kids with their homework. We all do a gentle group-hug goodnight and I hug her extra tight even though it hurts.
The next morning, after Shelly picks up Blaise for school, I spend six hours on the phone to insurance companies, doctors and attorneys. Dr. Trabulus insists I see an orthopedic surgeon for continued care, and the attorney who was recommended to me by Jock’s accountant as being an “SOB” insists I do the same. I schedule an appointment.
There seems to be a fraternal network of “son of a bitch” providers—from doctors to lawyers to photographers to appraisers. Apparently using the word “SOB” means that that particular person will win you the most money in your impending lawsuit. The dirtier the word used to describe them, the more desirable they are to have on my “team.” Of course, desirability equals higher fees. It is Hollywood after all and I feel as if I’m putting together a production of sorts—a legal one to produce a picture about the terrible thing that happened to Corki Brown. All the SOBs want a piece of my lawsuit winnings, and apparently it will be more lucrative if I have anything broken. If it’s just “soft tissue damage,” I’ll get a nominal amount.
Now I need a rental car. Thankfully, where I live in urban Los Angeles there is a rental agency around the corner. My car insurance will pay for a thirty-day rental, so I walk over and get one.
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