Suddenly, Harris was beside himself. Could she be his mysterious scribbler? Only one way to find out. He broke ranks and retread the red carpet, Tony at his heels.
“You can’t do this, mate. Trust me. McCann’ll ‘ave your balls.”
“I don’t care. He’s not God.”
“Maybe not, but ‘e can blackball you all the same.”
Harris reached where the lady in black denim had stood. Again, gone. Fled. Immediately, the crowd crushed in, trying to tear off a souvenir — his white jacket perhaps. Perhaps his ear. A security guard pushed the fans back.
“Mr. Cartwright,” he said. “Mr. Bentley-Jones. It’s best you both go back to the press queue.”
“Listen to ‘im, mate.”
Harris ignored them. He saw his target on the other side of the street, and in motion, heading south on Third Avenue. He glanced at the guard, assuming command.
“I need to leave,” he snapped. “If you don’t want my body in a bag, you’ll corral these fans and clear a path.”
The guard blinked, but then waved two other guards to follow the order. When a gas giant speaks, who disobeyed? They pushed the adoring fans to form a narrow path.
“‘arris,” Tony shouted. “This’ll be on the Internet in less than an ‘our.”
“I don’t care. Enjoy your sleep.”
Harris didn’t wait. He scurried between outstretched arms and dashed along Third Avenue into the night.
3
Harris had lost the lady in black denim at once. But he felt her presence — a pheromone trail. He couldn’t tell why. He was like a lion stalking an antelope. But who stalked whom, and was Tony’s suggestion true? Could the lady be a stalker? Could she have planted those mysterious messages in his hotel room? Even so, why was she at a festival on the East Coast, when she was a West Coast denizen? Many questions more interesting to the police than a working actor loomed. But Harris didn’t need answers. He needed her and he couldn’t tell why.
The magnetic draw entranced him until the neighborhood changed. After marching through Cooper Square and passing Cooper Union, he now tramped in the Bowery, the homeless haven. In the past, these down on their luck indigents were called bums. Drunks and foul-smelling society weeds huddled in doorways, strewn to the curbside and confronting Harris. One staggered to a car stopped at a traffic signal and cleaned its windshield with a dirty rag. This returned Harris to reality. He stood at the corner of Second Street and the Bowery. He hung a right, not because he knew where he was going, but it felt correct.
His pace quickened. As he progressed, he had second thoughts. Tony could be right. By bolting from the Tribeca Festival’s press queue, Harris would be broadcasted on YouTube. The world would wonder what’s up with Harris Cartwright? Had this good conduct paragon finally tapped the drug fairy? Had he a secret longing to squeegee stalled cars in the dead of night? What’s up, mate? What would Mom think about her squeaky-clean little boy?
Then he heard the click of high heels — stilettos. Had he entered the realm of prostitutes and street-walkers? This was the East Village, after all — a neighborhood that never closed its doors to business. But no. Ahead he spotted his target and thought to run. But even in Santa Monica on that fateful night with his sister, the dark lady vanished when he stormed her. So, he too followed with caution when he crossed Second Avenue and then, a block later, First.
She turned left and crossed the street, halting in front of a landmark — one Harris knew, although he had never been inside. Happy Pings. A Chinese restaurant with a twist, because all the waitresses were drag queens — a vision of gay China. The fact this lady stopped here gave Harris pause — a pang of wonder. She didn’t enter, so Harris darted into an alleyway and peeked over the garbage cans.
He peered long and hard, but when a rat distracted him (or perhaps a cat prowling deep in the nightshades), it shook his focus. When he refocused on Happy Pings, the lady was gone.
“Shit.”
She probably entered the restaurant. He slipped along the concrete wall, the cold bricks marring his white jacket. He heard the vermin stir again before sensing a presence behind him. He turned and, from the darkness, a shadow emerged.
“Fuck,” he yelped. “You scared the shit out of me.”
“You should be scared,” she said. “I do not take well to stalkers.”
“Stalker? Me, a stalker? I’m not the one who shows up everywhere I show up.”
She laughed. When he thought about it, he laughed too.
“So here you are again,” she said. “And you showed up just where you showed up.”
“It’s stupid, but you know what I mean.”
“Do I?”
He got a good look at her face. Bleach white — unnatural — a canvas for face paint. Her lips were crimson, and she still had a green beauty mark on her right cheek. She smelled of roses — a whole damned floral shop’s worth.
“I’m sorry if I’ve jumped to conclusions,” he said. “It’s just, I thought . . . I thought, since I keep seeing you, you might have . . . might have . . .”
“Been looking for you?”
“Well, you’ve crossed my path more than once — here and in L.A. What am I to think?”
She lit a cigarette, took one draw, puffed out smoke, and then crushed the butt on the alley’s foul pavement.
“At least you could buy me a drink.”
Harris regarded this change to Mae West with suspicion. Caution raised its head.
“Sure,” he said, affably. “You were heading into . . .”
“Happy Pings. Do you know Happy Pings?”
He clicked his tongue, scuffing his feet.
“Not personally,” he replied, and then decided on full disclosure. “Damron gives Happy Pings one-and-half to two stars for Szechuan cuisine and . . . drag queen waitresses — a gay hoot.”
“Good. It is one-off . . . like me.”
Red flag. Harris smelled a practical joke — a Bentley-Jones practical joke. Revenge. Harris pulled one on Tony on The Magic Planet set. Good, clean fun, but not taken in the spirit intended. McCann Phillip’s assistant, Pam, slipped script changes under the actors’ trailer doors — line alterations for the next day’s shoot. Harris jiggered these with devilishly inappropriate dialogue for his co-star. Tony dutifully memorized them and came swaggering onto his starship’s deck delivering (in his best American accent) the bogus lines.
Last night’s prawn makes me ill today. Who’s got the cuttlefish to cure me?
Everyone roared — Harris doubled-over. However, McCann was furious, and not at Harris, but at Tony, who flew off the handle in his best Yorkish — a word shower of fookin’ arse’oles and bloody mudder’umpers. He didn’t talk to ‘arris for a week.
Harris thought now: This is revenge. Hire a drag queen to allure him at the première, and then have her show up in New York (with mysterious Tony-planted messages). Then, when the sexually ambivalent Mr. Cartwright came to it in the end, he’d be up on YouTube in the arms of a dick-and-balls Amazon (shy the black denim). Kinky and mean. With these thoughts, he paused.
“Are you coming?” she asked, beckoning with her eyes. “Or are you afraid to be seen in public with me?”
“I’m coming. I’m surprised you’d want the drink at . . .”
“Oh, I get it.” She pressed him against the alley’s wall, smothering him in floral iniquity. “Go ahead. Explore if you must. Satisfy your curiosity.”
Her aroma overcame him, his heart beating wildly. But the invitation to feel her up would dispel doubt. He decided to accept, feeling her firm breasts as they engulfed him. If these were falsies, they were good falsies. They terrified him at first. As attractive as she was, Harris wasn’t into the bizarre.
Was this the answer to the prank script?
His hand crept down to her skirt buttons. Nervously, he explored, cautiously travelling toward her crotch. No bulge, thank God. Not Bruce in Black Knickers.
“Satisfied?” she asked, her eyebrows rai
sed.
He withdrew his hand like the Dutch boy from the dike. She gave him a wet kiss, and then drew back, continuing her course toward the restaurant. He galloped after her.
“I’m sorry I doubted you,” he said. “I’m not a prig. I’m open to almost anything. But I think of you as a woman and if you turned out to be a man, I wouldn’t get violent or anything, but . . . but when I look for blueberry pie and discover steak tartar, it’s a letdown.”
She lit another cigarette, took a deep drag and blew smoke over his head.
“Shut up.”
He noticed that brilliant jade ring on her right hand — incised with a funny emblem — a shepherd’s crook or something like it. His eyes followed the ring as she smoked.
“You like my ring?”
“It’s bait to wear it on First Avenue. I’ve expensive bling, but I wouldn’t sport it in this neighborhood.”
“No. You are just sporting a completely white outfit, walking the streets like a lighthouse in a storm.” She turned him around. “Nice brown brick mark on the back.”
Harris slipped off his jacket and stared at the stain — brown as if he had changed a diaper on his new, Indochino dinner jacket. This outfit had been earmarked for fashion week. Now it was earmarked for the dumpster.
“I’ll leave it off.”
“You will not,” she snapped. “You look like the Green Hornet with it off.”
“Do I?” he laughed. “The Green Hornet?”
“I did not mean to flatter you.”
She tossed the cigarette aside, not bothering to stomp it. She grabbed the jacket, holding it high. Her black fingernails, the most prominent items free of her fingerless gloves, raked the stain. She turned the coat around, and then presented it back to him. Clean as the day it was bought, only two days ago.
“How did you do that?”
“Magic is my hobby. My daddy is a magician.”
Harris grinned, and then donned the jacket.
“You could open a dry-cleaning business.”
She didn’t seem amused. Instead, she retrieved her still-burning cigarette from the pavement, and took another drag, before extinguishing it on the restaurant’s stoop. Harris wondered if she just lit it up for effect. At any rate, he never would pick up anything from the pavement and shove it between his lips.
Yuck.
“So are you up for me?”
Harris chuckled. He was up and hoped he could keep his self-control in the restaurant, especially one served by flaming Chinese drag queens.
“I’ve come this far,” he said.
She gave him her arm. He escorted her beneath the chintz lanterns into Happy Pings.
Chapter Three
Happy Pings
1
Happy Pings bustled — a glitter palace for every bad choice in Chinese décor — paper lanterns, dragon tinsel, lucky characters and, of course, six drag queen waitresses running the gamut from Suzie Wong to Mei-lin Schwartz (outsized in a tight dress like a squid overhanging its cuttle bone). The Maitre D’ (a Mandarin named Jose) popped two menus from a gigantic red fan-shaped rack, and then bowed. Harris expected Fu Manchu to roll by in a rickshaw.
“How many, prease?”
“We’re here for drinks only,” Harris said.
The man raised an eyebrow and returned the menus to the bin.
“You can feed me, while you are at it,” the lady chirped. “I am far from home and could stand a meal.”
“Of course,” Harris said, grinning. “Then it’ll be two for dinner.”
The Maitre D’ snatched the menus again, bowed (again), and then pointed the way — a short flight to the mezzanine, which had a fine view of First Avenue. Suddenly, he halted, turned and looked Harris over.
“Wait,” he said. “Aren’t you . . .”
“No,” Harris snapped. “I know what you’re about to say. People often mistake me for him, but I’m not him.”
Jose, or whatever his name was, grinned, registering disbelief.
“The customer is arways light,” he said, in his best (or worst) imitation Charlie Chan. He strode toward the table, pushing aside a beaded chandelier. He waved the menus at a few gawking diners. “No,” he said. “It’s not leary him. Just a rook-a-rike.”
Harris tried to hide his face. He was in no mood to hold court. Only one person held his attention and not for autographs. (Jose) stopped at a window-side table — a perfect view of First Avenue.
“Bo Peep will be your server,” (Jose) said, dramatically presenting the menus. “Enjoy your happy meal at Happy Pings.”
He drifted back to his station, whispering to anyone who would listen:
That man over there is Hallis Cartlight, but no one ret on.
Harris shifted his face to the shadows. He fumbled the menu, perusing an unusual blend of Chinese-Jewish entrees.
“What looks good?” he said to the lady.
She reached across the table and pushed the menu flat.
“I do.”
Harris smiled, his gap most fetching.
“I won’t argue with that, although . . .”
“I am different from your usual fare.”
“Just like this menu. But how d’ye know that?” He paused. “Ah, yes. You’ve been . . . you’ve been watching me.” He wanted to say stalking, but feared renewing that discussion.
“You have been watched before.”
“By whom?”
“Millions.”
“That’s not what I meant. Millions don’t know me. They certainly don’t know my dating habits. I’m careful. It’s hard to see how you’ve figured it out.”
“Regard this as an audition.”
Cheeky comment. Perhaps the lady went too far. Still, as she said audition, she smiled for the first time, her ivory whites beaming between those luscious, crimson lips. Harris chuckled, and then lifted the menu.
“Are you on the menu tonight?” he asked, a good opening line.
“That depends.”
“It certainly does.” He laid the menu flat again, and then stared into her eyes, trying not to be sucked in. “I generally don’t date fans.”
“Generally or never? Am I a fan? Is this a date? I do not recall being asked out, and for that matter, accepting. Who is the pickup here?”
“Is this a pickup?”
She didn’t answer, but raised her menu, blocking eye contact. This released Harris from a dozen other questions. Drowning a first encounter in a rhetorical sea was always unwise. Was this the Q&A he had bolted from at the Tribeca? Then, at the menu’s edges, he spotted the ring — that jade ring with its curious sigil. Fascinating. It unsettled him. He heard it hum, so compellingly he looked out the window at First Avenue. But in that glance he saw the reflection of a woman draped in robes, a shimmering tiara crowning her head. He gasped before realizing it was their server’s reflection — the ever-fetching Bo Peep.
“Do you need a few minutes, hon?” Bo Peep asked in a raspy stevedore’s voice.
The server was poured into a costume — one-part Japanese, one-part Chinese, one-part Thai and the balance in Bangladesh — a Cook’s tour of Asia from crown to toe. She sported a lampshade hat crowned with red tassels and a swirl of golden spikes. With a five o’clock shadow at midnight, dim light was Bo Peep’s friend. Since no one replied at once, Bo Peep tapped pencil on pad.
“I guess you lovebirds need more time.”
Bo Peep’s retreat unplugged the interrupted conversation. The lady fanned herself with the menu and batted her lashes.
“I am a fan, Harris Cartwright,” she said emphasizing his name.
He shot a look toward the other guests, hoping this announcement wouldn’t trigger an autograph stampede.
“Glad to know it,” he whispered. “I usually don’t announce my name when I’m out.”
“Trust me, they know who you are and will try nabbing you the first chance they get. But they cannot.”
“You’re sure about that?”
“Yes. I sha
ll prevent them. If hounded, I shall ring you with fire and singe their eyelashes. I will bite their fingers and devour their passions.”
He laughed.
“Hungry, eh?”
“You do not know how hungry,” she said. “My appetite brooks all passion.”
Brooks all passion? Harris thought. She must be in the Berkeley crowd.
Suddenly, Harris felt passionate from his little toe to his groin — less hungry now. More horny. The lady continued to fan and preen like Theda Bara in Silent Film Classics Class 1.0.
Belmundus (The Farn Trilogy Book 1) Page 3