by Tony Bulmer
‘It will be a bonding experience,’ I said, ‘we could get sea food…’
A twinge of brightness, Crossed Dakota’s face, ‘I refuse to listen to sports on the radio, or any of your hippy-drippy old people’s music.’
‘Are we going to have a father, daughter bonding conversation instead? Goody!’
Close quarters touchy-feelinesss, there’s nothing teenagers love more.
Dakota folded her arms, gave me a pitying look. ‘I suppose that means we are listening to KROQ then? That’s sooo mainstream.’ Her idea of music floated somewhere at the far extremities of the avant-garde spectrum. The kind of post-industrial audio-torture that came stickered with stern warnings of profanity, and sounded like a jet engine that had just popped a fan blade out it’s exhaust port.
‘I could hook up my iPod to your stereo,’ suggested Dakota helpfully.
‘Unfortunately this vehicle is still not USB compliant.’
‘You promised you would sort that out dad.’
‘What can I say? It’s on the to do list.’ I told her, driving west now, towards the freeway, five lanes of traffic coming up fast.
My phone trilled. Paris. Daughter number two. The name had been Kimberly’s idea, which was fitting, as seventeen-year-old Paris was a chip off the old block and then some.
‘Can you pick me up Daddy?’
‘The agreement was I pick you up at school honey, where are you at, your mom’s?’
‘I’m with friends Daddy,’ the emphasis on the word friends betraying exasperation and a sense of boredom at my failure to interpret from this nuanced inflection, just where these friends might be located.
I swallowed down a silent five count–one–two–three–four–five. Then asked where both she and her friends might be found. Mr. Patient.
‘We are at the Country Club of course.’
‘Beverly Hills?’
‘No daddy, Bel-Air,’ again the exasperation, again the nuanced inflection.
‘What they running out there, a teenage youth-club?’
‘Jeez daddy you’re so nineteen-eighties, and not in a good way either.’
I looked at Dakota. ‘You know anything about this?’ Dakota mouthed the word slut. ‘Is that any way to speak about your sister?’ I asked.
‘Excuse me?’ Paris’s voice confused now.
‘I was talking to your sister.’
‘That little throwback was supposed to pass on a message. She was supposed to tell you I had a free period this afternoon.’
‘You can’t pick up your own cell phone and tell me what’s going on?’
Paris’s voice flowed smooth and cold. ‘Oh, I rang Daddy, but I couldn’t reach you. At work, were you?’ a simple enquiry, a reasonable enquiry. But things were never simple or reasonable with Paris. She had learned that from her mother. She had learned that I was a martyr to my job, a workaholic some might say, and for that she blamed me.
I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel, feeling Dakota’s eyes upon me, awaiting a detonation. I gave it another five count, in fractional increments this time. The idea that princess Paris, the fluffy-skirted pony-clubber and soft-animal fancier had turned into a carbon copy of her mother, burned worse than any law suit my estranged former spouse could throw, and the really sickening upshot of this reality: it was all my fault. I exhaled a Zen breath and said, ‘No problem Paris, we’ll be right over to pick you up. I cut the call while I was ahead, knowing that further discussion would only lead to trouble. The kind of trouble I didn’t want to deal with right now.
Dakota cocked her head in the silence that followed the call and twisted her face with an expression that screamed disapproval. Finally I could bear it no more. ‘What?’ I almost shouted.
‘You would have balled me out,’ accused Dakota sniffily.
‘You are fifteen years old,’ I said, ‘You need to be balled out.’
‘That’s so unfair,’ moaned Dakota sulkily. She paused briefly to work at her nails, picking off flakes of black polish and flicking them on the floor. ‘She’s not going to be pleased,’ said Dakota.
I kept my eyes on the road. ‘How do you mean,’ I asked.
‘You picking her up at the Country Club, in your ancient pick up truck with her kid sister in tow. She is going to die of embarrassment.’
I gave Dakota a quiet smile, raised my right eyebrow fractionally.
Dakota smiled back happily, ‘Really father, you are as wise as you are evil.’ Dakota liked to call me father. As a teenager she had long since favor that she was the social and intellectual superior of any adult, especially those in her immediate family.
I drove Sunset to the Westgate entrance of Bel-Air and cruised Bellagio to ‘The Club’ as the locals called it. The locals were a high-faulting crowd: entertainment people, corporate moguls, movie stars. It was the neighborhood that Kimberly wanted to move to. She nagged me relentlessly. She stamped, pouted, cajoled and threatened. Intimated that her family would be brought into the equation. Oh, the humiliation. Her family were old money corporate wolves, who had made their millions from the mundane necessities of modern living: packaging, logistics, storage and commodities. Yawn—I never understood how they could keep their eyes open long enough to fork over the cash for the ridiculous Scrooge Mc Duck spread, they had built in Beverly Hills.
Rolling to a halt out front of the club, a mass of Polo shirted flunkies swarmed the vehicle. Parking attendants, glad-hander’s and doormen. The club was a bastion of old school elitism, a refuge for super annuated high rollers of every description. Such people expected a certain kind of treatment. Demanded it. Lesser mortals were expected to be impressed by such things. But I had been to the club on many occasions. It was impossible to avoid when you were married to a Pro-American social climber, and you lived just down the road, even if it was on the wrong side of the tracks.
‘Mr. Costello, how wonderful to see you again, we have been expecting you.’ The nametag read “Howard” I thrust him a fifty and thanked him for his trouble. Mere seconds after the exchange, the Dodge was sailing away to Valet parking at full throttle.
‘Good to see you again Howard’ I breezed, but we won’t be stopping long, I am here to pick up my daughter. I noticed a melting look on Howard’s face, the kind of look you might expect to see, if a 200-pound Rottweiler had just crapped on the forecourt. I turned to see Dakota, surrounded by the polo shirted goon squad, who were looking to Howard for direction, with growing signs of unease.
The dress code.
I turned back to Howard. ‘Let me guess, this young woman falls foul of the no jeans and no shirts with printed phrases ordinance?’ Howard’s head moved back and forth in halting confirmation, his customer-service smile frozen wide across his face. ‘Thought so’ I nodded confidentially. ‘Here’s the thing, I leave her out front here and she is liable to pull out her harmonica and start panhandling for change. Her mother is from Brentwood,’ I added quietly, by way of explanation.
‘I don’t know if the young lady would be interested Mr. Costello, but we do have a rather delicious selection of milk-shakes available, perhaps Chef could make her one—in the Pantry?’
‘I am sure the young lady would be delighted Howard, and it is most gracious of you to suggest that.’ I folded out another fifty.
Dakota’s eyes bugged outwards with the force of a building tirade.
I shot her a stern look and whispered, ‘Haul ass Gothella, the nice man has a milk shake for you.’
THE SEX NET 22
The clubs polo shirted facilitators escorted me through the Country Club foyer. They were smart kids, whose manners and appearance were manicured to the very same level of perfection as the club’s verdant shrubbery. We paraded out into the immaculate grounds. The place was an oasis, lodged deep in the jaws of a crazy city. Impressive. But for me, the tranquility was tainted by an aura of elitist schmooze. The club reminded me of Kimberly and big-bucks business deals. I shivered at the thought.
The flunkies guided me to a waiting
golf cart, with beaming smiles. I was surprised that the cart was necessary. Even more surprised when my escorts diverted the tiny vehicle away from the tennis courts. A trajectory that I expected would lead me to Paris and her bluestocking chums, whooping it up for all they were worth. We veered instead, towards the seventeenth fairway and a group of garishly dressed seniors. I counted a round half dozen. The old guys had all the kit, giant golf bags and designer golf duds, yet something boded strange about them. I felt the urge to leap off the cart and head back to the clubhouse, but my curiosity held me fast.
‘I think we might be going the wrong way gentleman,’ I suggested.
‘No mistake Mr. Costello. You are our honored guest,’ beamed the lead facilitator, his smile breaking wider than a doorstep bible salesman. They slowed the buggy and dropped me off at the edge of the seventeenth green. One of the old men moved in and started folding greenbacks into their eager fingers. The facilitators folded away their cash and bade the assembled throng a subservient farewell, before melting away at speed towards the clubhouse.
The afternoon sun angled sharply across the green. No sign of Paris, just the seniors gathering around, all loud trousers and sun-visors. They looked like a bunch of twilight-years tourismos, on a coach trip from Florida. I was about to ask where I could catch the next sightseeing bus to Hollywood Boulevard when a voice spoke out.
‘Shalom Mr. Costello, how nice that you could join us.’
I squinted against the sun.
Frank Rothstein.
‘Where’s my daughter?’ I asked, fighting hard to keep the emotion down. I drew in a Hapkido breath, and counted down against the fury that was building within me. I channeled the energy, suppressing the overwhelming urge to attack. I looked hard at Rothstein. I relaxed, felt myself smiling slightly, as the myriad possibilities of how I could hurt him multiplied within me.
‘Paris is a sweet name for a girl, and so beautiful she is Mr. Costello.’
‘Cut the bullshit Rothstein,’ I snapped, taking a step forwards. ‘I told you last time I saw you I would hurt you properly if you messed with my family. You not hear me or something?’
‘You can relax Costello; your daughter is quite safe, enjoying a mint-tea in the clubhouse with my youngest nephew Hal. Not the sharpest boy on the planet granted, but his prowess at sports makes him very popular at school, especially with the young ladies.’
‘You dragged me out here to tell me your retard nephew is dating my daughter?’ I enquired.
You will excuse the subterfuge Costello, but my uncle Sol and his associates just got into town to discuss the misplacement of certain merchandise. Naturally I want to talk that over with you and see what progress you are making recovering said merchandise.’
‘I see, and you thought you’d slip in a round of golf while you were mulling it over?’
‘Yeah, something like that Costello, Sol and the boys like a little golf.’
‘That’s nice,’ I said, ‘but your dealings are none of my concern Rothstein.’
At this, one of the oldsters threw down his sun-visor and waded across the green, waving his putter menacingly. The dude must have been eighty plus. Walked with a limp, like he had a false leg or something. I raised my hands to arrest the oldster’s progress. ‘Whoa!”
‘Never mind whoa, you schmendrick cocksucker, where’s my motherfucking diamonds?’ The assembled party of seniors mumbled their encouragement.
I cast my eye over the assembled group, not a single one of them under seventy a bunch of frail, wizened old men. Menaced by geriatric gangsters, the situation was bizarre, surreal.
‘Like I told Frank here, I haven’t got your diamonds sir.’
The old man straining to hear now, eyes squinting at me, his jaw hanging open with the effort. ‘What’s he saying Frank, he ain’t got my diamonds? What’s this bupkis talking about, he ain’t got my diamonds?’
Rothstein gesticulated, palms wide to the heavens, like he should know. He turned to me. ‘You see Costello, my uncle Sol comes all the way from the east coast to play golf with his friends and now he gets upset.’ He wagged his finger accusingly, ‘I’m blaming you.’
‘Blame away Rothstein, it looks to me like it was you who lost your uncle’s diamonds in the first place.’
Rothstein turned to his uncle. ‘You hear this prick uncle Sol, first him and his shit-for-brains buddy shtup the broads who were carrying the ice, then he comes round the house and works a number on me, ruined a perfectly good cashmere sweater, cost $400.’
‘You paid 400 bucks for a fucking cashmere sweater?’ Uncle Sol turned to the assembled seniors. ‘That’s twice my nephew here gets robbed.’ The witticism was met with a rumble of delighted approval. A frail looking man in a straw panama snorked phlegm, savored it, then hawked it out on to the pristine grass. Charming.
‘OK,’ I said, tearing my eyes away from the still glistening loogie, ‘so now we have established that I don’t have your diamonds, I will catch you guys later. I hope you enjoy your stay in town, but if you do go to Magic Mountain, stay clear of the black dragon ride. You might find your travel insurance has a clause about it.’
‘What’s this punk talking about Frank, he got the verbal diarrhea or something?’
‘He’s smart mouthing you uncle Sol, trying to get the rise, so you’ll forget about him and the Cabrillo slut stealing your diamonds.’
The old man turned back towards me. ‘That right sonny, you been shtupping that airhostess?’
‘Actually no, but I understand there has been no shortage of suitors vying for her attention, including Frank here.’
The old man advanced towards me wagging his finger shakily, ‘Course Frank is shtupping her, the kid’s a human tent-pole it’s a wonder he can fit into his fucking trousers most mornings. Difference is, Frank here is family and he knows me well enough to realize that if he steals my diamonds, he is going to turn up as lawn mulch on the thirteenth fucking fairway. You however, look like the kind of smart-mouthed kid, who might just be stupid enough to rip off an old man and think you can get away with it.’ The finger froze accusingly, ‘You think you can rip me off Sonny?’
I sensed the group of seniors straining towards me, in order that they might hear my answer, their beady vulture eyes alert for the slightest sign of deceit.
I breathed a tired sigh, ‘Let me tell you Sol, it is thirty years since anyone had called me sonny. But you are evidently a businessman and since you are asking, I will tell you. Your nephew here is a real piece of work and as such, I would be surprised if you had him working an ice-cream truck, let alone a multi-million dollar diamond deal.
The old man looked to his nephew, ‘You hear that Frank. “Ice cream truck”. This schmendrik is one funny guy,’ he turned back to me. ‘Trouble is bozo, you didn’t answer my question.’
‘Fact is, your nephew lost the diamonds. He wasted an innocent girl and now her friend has run off to who knows where. Maybe she has your precious diamonds, maybe not. All I know is Frank the genius here, dumped the girls body out back of my apartment building, to make it look like I killed her and now the cops are buzzing all over this. He couldn’t have drawn more attention to your problems if he had emailed the police department himself.’
‘He’s lying his ass off uncle Sol,’ blurted Rothstein.
‘You been shooting you mouth off to the cops?’ asked the old man staring beadily at me.
I felt the old mans spittle wafting on the afternoon breeze. ‘All I wanted was a date and thanks to Frank here, I am sitting on the wrong end of a murder rap. Not only that, He’s been threatening my family.’
Sol turned to his nephew. ‘You been threatening his family? Frank nodded quietly. A taught smirk passed briefly across the old man’s face. ‘Congratulations, I guess you ain’t a total moron after all.’
‘He had one of his goons stop by my parent’s house last night with a machine gun, you should see the mess they made.’
‘I had nothing to do with that uncle
Sol, I swear,’ gushed Rothstein.
The old man rolled his eyes.
I said, ‘I hate to be a tattle-tale Franco, but you’ve had those two Hispanic goons following me around for days…’
A murmur of ill omen broke out amongst the assembled group. The old man looked agitated, ‘The black-hand are wise to this now? Those taco-eating motherfuckers? Talk to me Frank.’
Rothstein stepped behind his golf bag, ‘I never told them about the situation we are having with the diamonds uncle Sol—I swear. As far as they know the deal is going down as planned.
The old man narrowed his eyes. Holding the putter like a baseball bat now ‘You got any more of our private business you want to discuss in front of Mr. Costello here, before I sock you in the mouth with this putter?’
Rothstein raised his hands in capitulation. ‘I ain’t the enemy here uncle Sol.’ He turned to me, ‘I ought to pop you right here Costello.’
You are going to pop me on the seventeenth green of the Bel-Air Country Club? Give me a break Rothstein, if I am forced to knock you on your ass again one of your relatives here might have a coronary.’
‘You hear this prick uncle Sol?’
‘Can it dumb ass, I got this thing buttoned up.’ The old man turned to me, ‘You seem like a loudmouth know-it-all Costello, but you are a family man and I give you credit for that. I can see you are upset, I would be too if some wise guy had involved my family in a thing like this. Trouble for you is you are involved now, and so are your family. So I even get a hint that you are trying to cheat me, or shoot your big fat blabbermouth off to the cops, then bad things are going to happen to you and your family. You get me tough guy?
I opened my mouth to respond.
The old man raised a finger of warning ‘Not another fucking word. I may be laid low by age and infirmity, but if I hear one more wise-ass crack out of you, I will wrap this putter round your head like a fucking corkscrew, am I clear?’
I nodded an affirmative.
‘See that Frank, we got progress.’ Frank Rothstein masticated gum, regarding me with a frigid stare from behind his giant golf bag.