by Al Roker
I decided to slink away before I was spotted, but that didn’t work.
“Billy,” Trina/Minnie called out. “Hold a minute.”
She marched toward me, Arnie doing his best to keep up. “I was going to call you, but this is much better face-to-face,” she said. “I want to personally thank you for the professional way you reacted to our benching you. It was a mistake I wouldn’t have made if I hadn’t been so new to the job. You’ve a whole lot of fans out there who missed you.”
“Good to hear,” I said, biting my tongue to keep from calling her Minnie.
“And that segment this morning, you and Gin discussing the Bruno fire with Lance, pure gold.”
Arnie looked uncomfortable. “Ah, speaking of Phil, we, ah, got word a while ago that the, ah, remains in the burned building were definitely his,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Any word about a funeral service?”
Trina looked blank. Arnie said, “Doesn’t look like there’s gonna be one. I spoke to Phil’s sister. She’s flying in from Miami. Plans to stay here just long enough to settle with the insurance company, arrange for the sale of the property, and have Phil’s remains quietly planted next to his father. She said something about donations to the Shriners children’s hospital in Manhattan.”
“Thanks for the information,” I said.
“Anyway, Billy,” Trina said, “I think we should capitalize on all this brand-name attention you’re getting. Arnie, I want you to fill Billy’s dance card every morning. Let’s put him to work and make his fans happy.”
“We have Billy’s segs with Mr. Turducken on our list,” Arnie said. “I could schedule it for Monday.”
“Mr. Turducken?” Trina said. “I hope that’s a trade name?”
“Guy claims to be the ultimate supplier of turduckens in the U.S.,” Arnie said. “Sends ’em out from his place in Fairview. You know the place, Billy?”
“Not exactly.”
“You should drive over and check it out before Monday,” Arnie said.
“I, ah … I’m not big on trips to Jersey,” I said. “The Lincoln Tunnel freaks me out. If God had meant for us to travel underwater, he would have given us gills.”
“Take the bridge,” Arnie said. “It’s a much longer trip, but if you—”
“I want you to give Billy some entertainment segments,” Trina interrupted, evidently bored with our New Jersey discussion. “I’m growing more and more disenchanted with our resident showbiz diva, Chuck. In fact …” She appeared to be thinking. “Yes. The Friday Favorites remote from the Manhattan Museum of Culture and Art.”
She turned to me. “They’re opening a new exhibit. The Mortal Superheroes: The Reality of Fantasy. It focuses on the comic-book superheroes who’ve died.”
“There are dead superheroes?” I asked.
“Quite a few, I gather,” Trina said. “I think even Superman is represented.”
“Sounds a little narrow and downbeat for our audience,” I said.
“I disagree,” Trina said. “Their thesis is that the comics mirror reality a little more than we think. Should make for an interesting discussion. And there will be plenty of eye candy. Arnie has talked them into letting us bring in some hot male and female models to wear those skintight costumes and show off some real flesh. It should be a fun segment with its touch of humanity, right?”
“Sure,” I said, trying to put her possible involvement with Felix out of my mind. “Superheroes. Sex. Death. It’s got everything.”
“And after you’re done there,” she said, “you can go visit Mr. Turducken.”
Chapter
TWENTY-SEVEN
“You’ve been eating onions,” Cassandra said as I entered the Bistro. Her tone wouldn’t have been more accusatory if I’d broken several commandments.
“I was feeling deprived, so I treated Joe to a fine lunch at Le Haut Dog on Fifty-second.”
“Well, you reek,” she said.
“Thanks for sharing,” I said. “What’s your take on turduckens?”
She blinked. “You mean the chicken inside the duck inside the turkey? You’re asking the wrong person. I don’t even like mixing peas and mashed potatoes. Are you thinking of putting turducken on the menu?”
“No. I just … going to Jersey … Never mind. I’ll work it out. How’s business?”
“The weekend is looking good,” she said, walking with me to the rear stairwell. “I think all the murder talk is starting to help.”
“Say what?”
“It’s not just our cuisine that’s bringing them in. They’re curious. They want to see what a murder suspect looks like up close, Billy. People love bad boys.”
“Maybe I should wear a black turtleneck and an eye patch,” I said.
“I said bad boys, not pirates. Anyway, we’ll be at close to full capacity on Friday and Saturday nights,” she said.
“What about tonight and Thursday?”
“We’re at about seventy percent tonight, and your former squeeze’s assistant just reserved a private room. We’re in good shape.”
“That’s what I like to hear.”
“I’m surprised Ms. Di Voss isn’t still in mourning,” Cassandra said. “Maybe she’s like a praying mantis, strutting her stuff after the death of her mate.”
“You’re confusing your insects,” I said as we entered my office. “Praying mantises sort of hop, not strut. And they eat their mates, so it’s unlikely they’d feel the need to come to a restaurant.”
“You’re so literal, Billy,” she said. “The checks are on your desk. Please sign them today. But try not to breathe on them or they may wither and turn to dust.” She made an about-face and left me alone in my oniony literalness.
I slipped out of my jacket and draped it over the couch, rolled up my sleeves, and sat down at the desk to face the monthly stack of bills and accompanying checks. I booted up the computer and opened our accounting program. Then I began going through each bill and payment, double-checking Cassandra’s figures.
She did not make mistakes. And I spent the next hour or so proving it.
When I was finished, I considered what it might be like being the bad boy. I don’t think I qualified, even when I was younger and engaged in activities that were what some might call illegal.
I was momentarily distracted by the sight of my jacket, which I’d thrown carelessly on the office couch. I frowned, got out of the chair, and went to pick it up. I brushed the wrinkles away and placed it on a hanger. So much not the bad boy.
The coat’s heft reminded me that the late Rudy’s DVDs were still in the pockets. Before relegating it to the closet, I removed the jewel boxes, careful not to snag or tear the lining of the pockets. My plan had been to box and mail the disks to Melody Moon, but I decided it might be friendlier if I dropped them off myself when I had the chance. Do not misconstrue my motives. Melody was still seventeen, and I was not the bad boy. Though, I have to admit, I sometimes had bad-boy thoughts.
I opened a desk drawer and, to make room for the disks, pushed aside the junk I’d accumulated over the last half-dozen years. Dental floss, ear buds, an assortment of coins, Gem clips, key chains, a mirror, tiny knives, a plastic eyeball, nail clippers, triple-A batteries that were probably deader than Rudy, my business cards, hundreds of business cards from people with whom I’d never be doing business, ancient breath mints that were not so ancient that I didn’t pop two to combat the onions, plastic spoons, a small airline-size bottle of single-malt scotch.
And Rudy’s little black book.
I made a nest for the DVDs and picked up the black book. I’d just opened it when Cassandra returned to pick up the checks. She stared at the black book and shook her head sadly. “So old school, Billy. So depressingly old school.”
“Is there anything else you wanted?” I asked.
“Do you know a man named Parkhurst?”
“Ted? Sure. Why?”
“He’s in the bar. Says he’s a friend of yours. But
he seems a little seedy to me.”
“Seedy?”
“Well, drunk.” She grabbed the stack of checks and bills and carried them away.
Without thinking about it, I put Rudy’s black book in my pocket, stood, grabbed my jacket from the hanger, and headed downstairs.
Chapter
TWENTY-EIGHT
At a little before five, the lounge was far from lively. Two regulars from an ad agency down the street were at one end of the bar, having their usual martini before hitting the Metro North to Darien. Ted was at the other end, staring into a tumbler of melted ice that looked like it may have once contained an old-fashioned.
Juan Lorinda was at his post behind the bar. He looked at Ted, then at me, and shrugged.
Since I’d never seen Ted drunk before, I wasn’t sure exactly how deep he was in the bag. Deep enough that he wasn’t bothering to brush back his forelock. I headed toward him, calling his name.
He was a little slow twisting on his bar stool, but the smile on his face suggested he was still partially aware. “Billy,” he said, “nize place.”
He leaned a little too forward on the stool and stumbled off it. But he kept his legs under him and, with minimal help from me, was able to sit back down again.
“Your mix-ologist makes a lovely cocktail.” His voice was thick and slurry. “But he’s very stingy.”
I looked at Juan, who’d been watching us.
“Celebrating something?” I asked Ted.
“Not egg-zack-ly. I have been trying to work some-thing out in my mind, Billy.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“Could I have another one of these?” he asked, holding up his empty glass. “Your mix-ologist cut me off. Even though I told him I was a per-sonal friend of yours.”
“What’s going on, Ted?”
“Does some-thing have to be going on?”
“You usually this hammered by five o’clock?” I asked.
“Oh, Christ!” he yelped, and lifted his arm to check his watch. “Is it five already? I’m sup-posed to meet Gin at the apartment at seven.”
“Then you definitely don’t want another of those,” I said. I turned to Juan and pointed to the coffeemaker. He nodded.
“I’m a failure, Billy,” Ted said. “I don’t have any money saved. I’m in a dead-end pro-fession. Reporters ten times better than me are getting laid off. They could decide to-morrow to close down the mag-azine. It’s just a matter of time. If Gin and I marry, I’ll be one of those hus-bands who take care of the house and su-pervise the goddamn garden. When papa-razzi catch us on the town, they’ll ask me to step out of the picture. I’ll be good for nothing. Hell, I can’t even hold my liquor. I’m god-damn James Mason in A Star Is Born.”
“Let’s focus on the most immediate problem,” I said as Juan placed two mugs of hot black coffee in front of us. “Getting you sober enough to meet Gin in two hours.”
The black coffee helped his sobriety, but it did nothing to lift his mood. He’d had lunch with a reporter who’d been let go in the course of the most recent downsizing at the Chicago Tribune. She’d come to New York hoping to find a job, but so far there’d been no takers.
“We both worked on the Trib about nine years ago,” Ted said. “The reason I left that job was that she always got the best assignments. Because she was so damned good. Now she’s out on the street.”
Eventually he admitted that there’d been another reason he’d left the paper. She’d been his girlfriend, and his machismo or ego or sense of competitiveness had made it too difficult for him to stay in a relationship where the woman was more successful than he.
At the moment, even though Gin was certainly more celebrated, their playing fields—television and print—were different enough and he was a respected investigative journalist, which more or less evened things up. But what if, after their marriage, he should find himself just another unemployed has-been?
“Have you talked with Gin about this?” I asked.
“Hell, no. She’s in the clouds right now. Why bring her down? It’s my problem, not hers.”
It was his problem, and I couldn’t think of even a Dr. Phil–level suggestion of what to do about it.
The lounge had attracted several other customers, at least one of whom was very loud. I looked at my watch. “It’s about six-twenty, Ted. You steady enough to make it to the apartment?”
“I’d like to freshen up. Splash some water on my face.”
“Use my bathroom upstairs.”
“No stairs, please. There’s a men’s room down here, right?”
I pointed toward it. “It’s well stocked. Soaps, colognes. All the comforts of home.”
“Do me one more favor, Billy. Wait here for me. I’m a little wobbly. Might need help getting out and flagging a cab.”
“I’ll be right here.”
He took a while. I occupied my time watching Juan work the bar. He was very good, attentive and polite, even to the loud jackass who seemed convinced that the whole room was interested in everything he had to say.
The early diners had arrived, and the waitresses were bringing Juan their drink orders. When Bridget Innes approached him with her requests, they exchanged quiet smiles. No problem with that romance. At least for the moment.
Ted was a little unsteady returning from the direction of the men’s room. I gave him my arm and we made it out of the Bistro with a minimum of fuss.
I asked one of the valets to flag down a cab, but Ted wanted to walk a few blocks, to clear his head and get his legs working. So we took a stroll in the general direction of Gin’s apartment. Ted didn’t bring up his A Star Is Born problem again, and I didn’t, either.
Instead we talked about the murders. Through his own research, he had put together a collection of articles and notices involving the mysterious Felix that sounded very similar to the printouts that Marvin’s magical software had produced. But his magazine also had access to informants who were convinced that the assassin was presently in the United States, presumably not on vacation.
Ted had found nothing to tie Felix to Deacon Hall, the murdered security guard, but was trying to make a connection from the other end. He was building a dossier on Hall, who was survived by a sixty-four-year-old mother, presently residing in Petaluma, California, and a four-year-old son who was living with Hall’s ex-wife and her current husband in Los Angeles.
L.A. had also been the security agent’s hometown. Hall had gone to UCLA on a football scholarship that ended when he nearly beat a teammate to death in a bar argument. He had spent six years in the Marines before joining Touchstone.
Somehow he became a favorite of the company’s CEO, Carl Kelstoe, who sent him to oversee its operations in Iraq shortly after the invasion. More recently, he’d been reassigned to Afghanistan.
Ted had got a journalist friend to sniff around Kabul. Neither Gault nor Fredricks, the other two mercs who’d attended their associate’s fatal dinner, nor any of Touchstone’s other employees in Kabul, would so much as admit they’d ever even heard of Hall. Since the killers were themselves deceased, the Afghan National Police had no further interest in the murder.
As for homegrown law enforcers involved in Rudy’s case, Ted had interviewed Philip Rodell, Cassandra’s favorite district attorney, and my two favorite detectives, Solomon and Butker, and discovered, no surprise, that they’d made no progress on the investigation into Rudy’s death. Their main course of action now was to wait for me to make some self-incriminating mistake.
I hoped they were holding their collective breath.
“Did Solomon say anything about Kabul?” I asked.
Ted grinned. “He mentioned you’d told him, in his words, ‘a bullshit story’ about Rudy’s and Phil Bruno’s murders being connected to Hall’s murder.”
“And you said …?”
“I told him that it was true we’d all had drinks that night. Then he asked me if I had any evidence to suggest that the deaths were linked.”
&n
bsp; “And you said …?”
“No. I don’t, Billy. If I did, the story would be appearing in the next issue of Now under my byline.”
We’d been strolling for about fifteen minutes when a vacant cab appeared, and Ted, feeling enough like himself, flagged it down, thanked me profusely for my help, and hopped aboard. That left me with a bracing predinner power walk back to the Bistro.
The dining room was filling nicely. And, Cassandra informed me, she had seated Gretchen and her guests in Private Room 1.
The guests, I discovered, were Trina Lomax; Arnie Epps; Vance Underwood, the VP in charge of the network’s legal department; Heck Cochran, the promotion and publicity VP; Gregory Korshak, head of network security; and a stunning, exotic-looking woman whom Gretch introduced as Lee Franchette, a VP at InterTec Security. Markham Books had hired Lee and her staff to guard the health and welfare of Goyal Aharon, who was starting his U.S. book tour with Gin’s interview on Wake Up!
In my time on the morning show and as a restaurateur, I’ve met supermodels and actresses and any number of the world’s great beauties, but they all took second place to the tall and slim and graceful woman who now offered me her hand. Her straight, black shoulder-length hair framed an exquisite face. Glittering emerald-green eyes with a slightly Asian tilt, cheekbones that would have made Pocahontas proud, lips as full and sweetly curved as a Nubian princess’s, all on smooth skin the color of café au lait. I had to force myself to stop gawking at Ms. Lee Franchette.
By an extreme effort of will, I released her hand and welcomed her and, when I thought of it, all of the others, to my humble little four-star restaurant. I informed them of our specials, adding a few suggestions of my own. I then left them to contemplate Duck à l’Orange and Venison with Pine Nuts and Scalloped Crab à la Blessing, while I was contemplating the extraordinary Ms. Lee Franchette.
I stopped off at the kitchen, where the delicious aromas moved me to order an early dinner of broiled venison cutlets with currant jelly.
I was feeling better than I had in weeks, eager to start the night off with that airplane bottle of single malt that I’d discovered in my desk. But I was distracted from that plan by one of the Bistro’s expensive white cloth napkins that I’d had imported from Italy. It was spread out on the center of my desk. Someone had used my own black felt-tip pen to sketch a childlike drawing on it: a familiar stick-figure cat, standing on its hind legs, holding a pistol in one of its paws.