“Is that a rash on his neck?” I asked Curtis, turning on the lamp on the nightstand.
Amy stepped up before Curtis could answer and looked closely at Mendel’s neck. “His collar’s been rubbing.”
The doctor gave the rash a cursory glance and nodded, smiling at Amy.
“She’s right. Let the man sleep it off, ladies. For God’s sake, quit fussing.”
“All right.” I backed off.
I had been amply reprimanded with sexist overtones, which I accepted quietly under the circumstances. I had invaded the male post-drinking ritual. And rashes, after all, do come and then go with a little Cortisone.
I glanced at Mavis, who was observing impatiently. I had overstepped my bounds. I was an interloper paired with Mavis who, in point of fact, only had a tenuous color-of-authority from Esther. Moreover, Mavis obviously wanted to get back to dining and Esther.
“I’ll get the steward.” The doctor stepped outside leaving the self-closing door ajar by flipping the bar of the privacy lock resting between the jamb and the door.
“I’ve got to report back to Esther as fast as I can,” Mavis whispered to me. “Don’t bother the doctor anymore.”
“Of course.” I watched Amy zeroing in on Curtis across the room with her charming dimpled smile and coquettish body language. “Maybe we all need to leave?
“Esther and I have to plan a backup for the panel tomorrow. My guess is Mendel won’t be up in time after this,” Mavis gnawed on.
The doctor came back with the steward in tow and interrupted Mavis’s self-important prattle.
“Check on him and get him something to eat later.”
“Yes, sir.” The steward was exasperated at the drunk who would multiply his duties that night and rumbled in a nasal working-class accent. “Shouldn’t he be in sick bay, guv?”
“Do your job, man,” the doctor barked, noting he had lost Amy’s attentions to Curtis. “I’ll do mine.”
The doctor leaned over and peered down at Mendel. He reached to lift Mendel’s eyelid. The minute the doctor touched Mendel’s lid, Mendel’s eyes popped open wide.
“Bloody Hell!” The doctor jumped back.
“What happened?” Mavis stepped forward and I shadowed her.
“Nothing,” Frederick chuckled. “He’s just out of it.”
Mendel looked at the doctor and tried to speak but couldn’t control his tongue. He slathered something low and inaudible. The doctor ignored him, but Mendel’s eyes caught mine. His pupils were small, like pin heads. Something flashed across his eyes. It was unmistakably fear. Then Mendel’s eyelids closed slowly.
“Did you see that?” I asked Curtis, concerned but also intentionally and calculatedly distracting him from Amy.
“Drunk as a skunk,” Amy shrugged her shoulders and walked towards the door.
“Yeah, he’s really tied one on,” Curtis shook his head. “I’ve got to get back to my clients. Coming, Veronica?”
“I’ll stay with Mavis.” I hated to leave Curtis with Amy, but my instincts were telling me that something was just not right. “Thanks for the help.”
“Interesting group,” Curtis whispered in my ear as he walked toward the door behind Amy. “Later . . . in the bar?”
“I remember.” I smiled, comfortable that Amy was not making any headway.
“Let’s get out of here,” Frederick said to Brent. “Hold on, Curtis, we’ll go back with you.”
“We all will. Let’s let him sleep it off.” Amy held the door open. “Coming, doctor?”
“Yes, one minute.” The doctor took a last look at Mendel lying quietly on his bed.
Mavis walked over and took the door from Amy, holding it open for me.
“Let’s go, Veronica. I have to fill Esther in.” Mavis was annoyed that I was not moving fast enough for her. “He’s passed out.”
Amy, Frederick, and Brent waited with Curtis in the hall. Amy formally introduced herself to Curtis and engaged him in banter. I didn’t like the competition.
As I moved toward the door, I glanced back at Mendel. His eyes were closed, but he was struggling to sit up, leaning on one elbow. His arm was shaking as he tried to support himself.
“Just lay down and sleep it off,” the doctor ordered, giving Mendel a push on his chest.
Mendel flopped back down.
“Doctor,” I asked. “Don’t you have a nurse who can stay with him?”
“Of course, we have a nurse. A registered one. But she mans the infirmary . . . excuse me ‘womans’ the infirmary at night.”
The doctor hurried past me and out the door, determined, I was sure, on getting Amy’s attentions back from Curtis. I could smell the testosterone radiating from his thoughts.
I looked at Mendel for a moment. His eyes were shut, but his tongue fluttered between his parted lips and drool slid down from the corner.
“Doc,” I called, but the doctor was already out the door.
“Come on,” Mavis insisted, still holding the door open. “He’ll be fine.”
“I’m not so sure. Did you see him shaking?”
“Of course, he’s plastered. He’ll be fine, Veronica.” Mavis signaled me to come. “You heard the doctor. There’s nothing else to be done.”
I joined the doctor and Mavis outside the door. “Doc, shouldn’t we try to get some food or coffee down him?”
“No, we should get back to our dinner and . . .”
Amy interrupted, deserting Curtis and taking the doctor’s arm, “Doctor, can you lead us back to the dining room? I’m afraid we might get lost.”
The doctor smiled at Amy and then turned to me.
“Let him sleep it off. The steward will check up and feed him.”
I looked away from the doctor as he spoke. The smell of whiskey on his breath was overwhelming. “The blind leading the blind,” I thought. More precisely, “the drunk leading the drunk.”
“Let’s go. We’ve done everything we can do.” Mavis started down the hall with the slowly migrating group.
“Yes.” The doctor leered at Amy, who pulled him down the hall, too. “There’s no antidote for drunkenness but sleep. A nice long sleep.”
The doctor, arm-and-arm with Amy, took the lead for the troop of do-gooders who followed him down the hall. The three other men continued to “sailor” all the way back to the dining room.
I hesitated and then followed—unsupported in my concerns by anyone.
⌘
Chapter 12
An Anticlimactic Dinner
Back in the dining room, the world of eating and drinking and conversation not only had regenerated, but had even gained momentum.
Mendel’s plight and person were forgotten. Frederick and Brent were back at our table post-bonding and talkative. Mavis, Amy, and I stopped to report to Esther. Esther, however, was more interested in her wine and bantering with the male seated next to her than in Mendel’s status.
Over the years Esther had produced a fairly successful, but cookie-cutter, L.A. female detective series with less-than-graphic sex. She had enjoyed the status and sociability of the MWW presidential office for years and had recently married well. She had always been a part of the strong L.A. Jewish community, and her husband was a very prominent member of that community. They were, or to be precise, he was, a major donor to Wilshire Boulevard Temple, the oldest Jewish synagogue in Los Angeles. His father had been close personal friends with its most famous rabbi, Edgar Magnin. Esther had come from decidedly more humble origins, and occasionally it showed. Now, though, she displayed on her fingers and around her neck the diamonds that signaled her newfound freedom from the necessity of publishing and promoting books for a living. Indeed, her productivity had waned.
I concluded that this woman, whom I had looked forward to meeting, could be described with one word—boring.
Mavis cut her rendition of our Mendel excursion short. “Bottom-line, the doctor said Mendel was inebriated and had to sleep it off.”
Only Mary O’Co
nnell was listening to Mavis and called from across the table, “You mean the plotzed doctor’s learned opinion was that the plotzed Mendel should go to bed. Did he prescribe two aspirins?”
The table chuckled and so did I.
“Mendel was too out of it to take two aspirins.” Mavis responded to Mary, the only person actually paying attention to her report.
“This is nothing new for Mendel,” Amy volunteered to the entire table.
“You know him well?” I probed, because after all Mendel had called her his “little love.”
“Not that well, but enough to have seen him do that before.” Amy’s hazel golden eyes bored through me and belied her casual voice.
Amy strutted away without another word and took her seat at the table. She ate her waiting salad and buried herself in Mary’s irritating soprano rendition outlining her latest sex torture book set at a Lake Michigan summer cottage.
As Mavis and I walked back to our table, I was even more curious about Amy and Mendel and, for that matter, Frederick and Mendel. What could a man like Frederick possibly owe a man like Mendel?
* * *
As soon as Mavis was reseated, she took it upon herself to deliver the Mendel report to our table. She recited the same Mendel update she had given to Esther. It was endured politely, but impatiently.
I ate my mushroom Brie en croute and started on my pear salad, which were both waiting for me.
“I can guarantee Mendel has no Irish blood in him or he’d be sitting here like a man now,” Sean laughed, reaching for the wine. “All the more for us.”
“Right,” Frederick approved. “Pass that bottle over. Mavis, you need to catch up, too.”
“Thank you,” Mavis beamed as Frederick reached over and filled her glass.
“Veronica? Wine?”
“Please.”
Frederick poured my wine and then more generously filled his own glass.
Sean immediately took center stage and entertained us with a humorous arrest he had made that went awry. Then he told us how he had modified it and used it in his latest book. I had actually read that book. It was fun hearing about the incident it was based on. As the laughter faded, I took the opportunity to ask Frederick about Mendel.
The Mendel incident had activated my detecting juices, justified or not. I found the comments and looks, apparently lost on others, curious and a catalyst for my inquiries. Admittedly, inquiries into nothing of moment, but interesting to me.
Humanity and its foibles fascinated me. I studied the frailties of human beings with interest: the justifications, the excuses, the seemingly uncontrollable passions, the envy, the laziness, the mistakes, and the choices wrongly made—choices that form lifetimes of regret and sometimes financial and emotional ruin. I guess I enjoyed judging people without condemning them. Or, in some instances, condemning them too.
“Frederick, it was kind of you to help with Mendel. Do you really owe him your career?”
Frederick stopped his merriment and sat up straight. He looked at me without saying a word. I could see his mind racing behind his icy blue eyes. After a short hiccup in time, he smiled amicably.
“Where did you hear something like that?”
“When Amy asked you to get Mendel out of there.”
“Oh, that.” Frederick’s eyes softened and he leaned back in his chair. “It’s nothing. We all studied under Otto together. It’s all in the family. Why?”
“No real reason.” I ducked-and-covered. “I just gathered that Mendel has had this drinking problem for years.”
“I think that’s common knowledge,” Frederick turned abruptly to Sean. “Do you think being an actual homicide detective helped you become a writer? Because it seems to me that seeing so much would have made you too jaded to write. It didn’t?”
* * *
At our table, not another word was said about Mendel the rest of the evening.
Helga repeatedly snapped at Brent and also repeatedly referred to the killing her last book was making. Brent took refuge outside the circle by leaning back in his chair and talking to Frederick about sailing. Frederick leaned back too—literally behind Helga’s back. That is, until a peeved Helga put an end to it by scooting her chair back, blocking their interchange.
Helga made sure she was the arbiter of conversation and the center of attention, especially Brent’s.
For the rest of the evening, I took on the role of a charming listener as Sean and Elias vied for the floor with Helga. I was content to fly under the radar . . . for now.
I did attempt subtly to catch Curtis’s eye several times, but he was busy with his table of clients. I had to admit that our table was the lively one, and after Helga had a few glasses of wine she—quite pleasantly—started to laugh loudly at Sean’s detective escapades, too.
I surmised she was interviewing him, that is to say pumping him for detective information for her books.
Our table lingered after dessert with aperitifs. I guessed that was a benefit of the second seating.
I intentionally ordered a second double espresso because I was meeting Curtis in the bar. I wanted to be alert and at my best, if I could be, after such a long day. I hoped he remembered.
Curtis’s table lingered too, but broke up before ours.
We eventually got up and, in the hall just outside the dining room, I left Mavis sucking up to Esther. I made my way past the bright, jingly, and robust casino to the main cocktail lounge across from it. Both had inviting wide and open arched entries—wide and open, I assumed, to tempt the imbibed to gamble and the gamblers to imbibe.
It was half past eleven. I hurried.
⌘
Chapter 13
Bar Sinister
When I entered the large dimly lit bar, I spotted Curtis sitting on a barstool with two glasses of red wine. He was watching the door for me.
He smiled he saw me, picked up the wine glasses, and walked to greet me.
“Two fisted?”
“Yep.”
We laughed together—the nervous laugh of expectation.
“I’m glad you remembered.” Curtis said.
We surveyed the large room lit with soft flickering votive candles at each table.
“There’s one.” Curtis headed to a row of tables along the wall of glass separating us from the churning, dark night waves of the Atlantic Ocean.
As we stopped at the empty table, I looked out the window. The ship’s lights bounced off the white foam and swells that lapped just below the window and intermittently splashed up onto it. A wall of blackness and the dark sea faded out beyond.
“A bit frightening,” I said.
“What?” Curtis set the glasses of wine on the table.
“The sea so close below, with just that glass between us.”
“That’s not glass.” Curtis held my chair for me. “That is as strong as any ship’s hull.”
“I hope so.”
“I was beginning to think you weren’t coming.”
“No, our dinner just seemed never to end.” Didn’t he know that no sane woman would stand up this wonderful specimen?
“I did notice that you had a lively table.” Curtis smiled across at me.
“We did. It was fun.”
“My group was sedate.”
“I saw.”
“Oh, you did?”
“Yes.” My admission was unqualified and unembarrassed.
I gazed into Curtis’s dark eyes in the flickering candlelight. I was wrong. They were not eighty-five percent cocoa. Instead, they looked ninety-five percent dark cocoa or almost black. It was approaching midnight, but suddenly I was not tired at all.
“To a wonderful transatlantic crossing with all its possibilities.”
Curtis clicked my glass and took a drink. I drank, too.
“Thanks for helping with Mendel.”
“Hey, the poor guy was being videotaped. That’s not fair. Famous or not . . . we had to get him out of there. Everyone deserves dignity.”
“I agree.”
There was a bleep in the radar of discourse and I began a topic that I knew Curtis would run with, until I got the lay of the land.
“So do you sail often?”
“I guess everyone knows that now. When we get back, Frederick and I may get together out at the Marina for some of the Cal Yacht Club’s Sunset Series of races towards Malibu. He has a friend with a Hinckley 49-footer who could use another good man or two, though the races are more about socializing than winning. It’s a shame Brent’s on the other coast.”
“I’m not sure Helga lets him off her leash, anyway.”
“There is a bit of tension there, isn’t there?”
“That’s an understatement,” I chuckled and drank my wine.
“But she has to lock herself away and write sometime. She’s always got a new book on the shelves. That woman can write.”
“Yes, in our circles she’s what is known as prolific.”
“Prolific and good. I’ve read quite a few of her books. Do you think she actually writes them all?”
“The word on the street is ‘yes.’ But who really knows. Some authors who turn books out one after another do use ghostwriters. They say that’s where the has-beens go to make a living when their creative juices die—to ghostwriting.”
“If I may ask? Do you?”
“Do I what?” I was truly confused.
“Use a ghostwriter?”
I stalled as my mind rummaged for a way to deflect his focus on my yet-to-begin literary career.
“No,” I stumbled, telling a lie by omission.
I chuckled to myself. How could I possibly use a ghostwriter? I didn’t even use myself at the moment. My muse was gone and I hadn’t had a good idea, or any idea, for a book, a chapter, or even a sentence for months. I hadn’t even written a word in my theatre mystery. In fact, not since I solved the Valentine Theatre murders and had a taste of local celebrity. I ate my celebrity up, and it ate up my muse.
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