by Al Roker
I was beginning to feel like those mastodons who’d paused to take a sip of water and wound up trapped in the La Brea Tar Pits. Ever since I’d arrived in L.A. I’d been stuck and slowly sinking. Opening up with everything that Fitz had told me would only put me in deeper.
But I realized now he hadn’t been raving. He probably did have a good idea why Des had been killed. Even more disquieting, if he was right about that, who’s to say he wasn’t right about somebody connected with the show being involved in the murder? Or that the somebody had sent a milk-eyed man to stalk him? These were things Brueghel should know.
“Is that it, Blessing? You’re clamming up?”
“No,” I said, and told him the salient parts of my late-night visit.
Chapter
FORTY
“You didn’t consider any of that significant enough for a call?” Brueghel asked.
“He was drunk as a skunk, singing songs and speaking in riddles. So no, my feeling was he was talking through his beard. And just a reminder, Roger was still in jail, and you were convinced he was the killer, so you would have agreed with me.”
Brueghel’s frown deepened. Any more and his brows would completely overlap his eyes. He turned to the others. “Don’t suppose any of you know of a man with a milky eye? I guess that might be a cataract.”
They didn’t.
“That’s utter nonsense about someone on the show being involved in Des’s murder,” Max said. “Nobody had even met him before he was signed. And that was only a few months ago. Right, Trey?”
“As far as I know, Des spent surprisingly little time in Southern California.”
“Could there be a reason for that?” Brueghel asked. “Maybe somebody out here he didn’t want to see?”
Trey shrugged.
“Once he arrived, was there any kind of incident or problem?” Brueghel asked.
I looked at Max, and he looked away. He and Trey had been eyewitnesses to the beating of the transvestite. But they evidently were not going to mention it. Maybe that was the correct choice. The only certain result would be the transvestite winding up at the top of the detective’s list of suspects. And he’d already been through enough.
“Blessing,” Brueghel said, startling me out of my reverie. “About the mess in the house out in Malibu, did it look like it had been caused by a struggle?”
“That or a drunk floundering around by himself.”
“But the realtor put a cleaning crew on it. Probably not much to see, Mizzy, but still we ought to drive out there, look around. And we need to get a handle on this Fitzpatrick. Find out where he is. Here. In Ireland, or wherever.”
Max glanced at his watch. “If that’s it, we’d better move on to our staff meeting,” he said. “Thanks for the update, detectives.”
“We should probably stop by that meeting on our way out,” Brueghel said. “Check in with the rest of your people. Maybe they’ve bumped into the guy with the milky eye.”
“As you wish,” Max replied.
“I appreciate your cooperation.”
The daily meet had been relocated to the executive conference room, down the hall from Carmen’s office. The multiwindowed space was bright and airy, and the chairs cushioned, all of which seemed to lighten the atmosphere. Until the detectives began asking questions about Des and Fitz and the milky-eyed man.
Though Brueghel did most of the initial talking, the staffers seemed more responsive to Campbell. It appeared that while he’d been involved in his pursuit of Roger Charbonnet, she’d had meetings with many of them, investigating what was then the less likely scenario of Des being the intended victim.
Brueghel was quick to read the room and smoothly deferred to his partner. The two detectives spent nearly half an hour with us, mainly answering questions. If they got any information in return, I missed it.
What I did notice was Gibby’s thoughtful silence, which struck me as being slightly out of character.
When they departed, Max gave us a pep talk about putting our concerns regarding “this regrettable situation” on hold. In the grand tradition of our industry, the show must go on. “Our responsibility is to entertain. Let Billy deal with the harsh reality in his segment.
“By the way, Billy, Jim McBride will be your guest tonight. You guys can kick around the official LAPD announcement.
“Okay, kids, I’ll see you on Stage Seven in fifteen minutes.”
Chief Weidemeyer held his press conference at precisely four that afternoon, timed to make the early newscasts on the West Coast and the late news in the East.
I watched the East Coast feed of the complete seventeen-minute conference with Carmen in her office. I discovered she had a habit of snorting derisively. When the chief told the members of the media about the unique bomb-delivery device and purposely left the toy’s brand name unmentioned, she let out a snort. When he spoke of the 180-degree shift in the homicide investigation, he made it seem more like a breakthrough than the correction of an initial deductive misfire. Another snort.
He began his wind-down with a substantive comment: “The popular musician known by the name Fitzpatrick, a close friend of the victim’s, is currently being sought. If anyone has any knowledge of Mr. Fitzpatrick or his current whereabouts, please contact the LAPD. I should emphasize something: Mr. Fitzpatrick is not a suspect.” Snort. “We do believe, however, that he may possess information that would assist our investigation.
“Other than that, I can assure you that the investigation is on course. We are making excellent progress, and we expect to make an arrest shortly. Thank you.”
I snorted with Carmen on that one.
Chief Weidemeyer clearly hoped to exit on that note, but the noisy crowd wasn’t finished with him. The newsies wanted more sound bite material on just about everything, and their questions, once begun, were relentless, repetitive, and overlapping. They boiled down to: Was Fitzpatrick missing? What was it he knew? Did they suspect he might be dead? Did they know why Des O’Day had been murdered? Whom did they suspect, if not Fitzpatrick?
The chief’s face remained unreadable throughout. He seemed to be staring just over the heads of the crowd, as if counting the windows in the building across the street. Finally, he’d had enough. He bent slightly to get closer to the mike, cleared his throat, and repeated, “Thank you.”
That didn’t stop the flow of questions, but he no longer seemed to care. He gathered his notes, paused to whisper something to the public information officer, and made his getaway. The perky public-relations lady, who seemed to enjoy confrontation, assumed the role of blocking guard for the chief and responded to questions with the usual canned nonanswers designed to close down a conference.
That’s when I noticed Jim McBride plant himself directly in the chief’s path, ready with a question. He opened his mouth just as the chief’s female flying wedge moved in on him, a perfect smile plastered on her perfectly made-up face.
Jim suddenly buckled, and the chief and his entourage squeezed past his bent body.
“The bit about Fitz means that the detectives reported our meeting to the chief,” I said.
“That should make it fair game for the show tonight,” she said. She stood, an indication that she was no longer fascinated by my presence. “I assume you and Jim will get together as soon as he arrives from the conference.”
“Right,” I said, backing toward the door. “It looked to me like the chief’s PIO nearly knocked Jim on his ass.”
“Kneed him in the balls, if I’m any judge,” Carmen said.
The rehearsal for the last Midnight Show of the week was in full swing when I slipped onto a seat in the nearly unpopulated audience section of Studio 7. A black-and-yellow-haired member of the Asian group No Fangs was goofing on Gibby mercilessly, pretending to teach him hip-hop while getting him into positions that defied gravity and inevitably resulted in his hitting the deck with a thud.
Gibby was supposed to be holding his own verbally with the No Fangser, but he s
eemed a little distracted. One of the comedy writers was standing by, feeding him lines that he kept fumbling. Somehow that made it more amusing.
Suddenly, I got a whiff of camellias and felt a warm body pressed against the back of my head. Graceful hands covered my eyes.
“Guess who?”
“Hmmm. Give me a hint. Ebony or ivory?”
“Definitely ebony.”
“Jennifer Hudson?”
“No,” she said.
“Beyoncé?”
“No,” she said again.
“Then you must be my dream girl,” I said, taking her hands in mine, pressing my head back, and looking up at Vida smiling down at me.
She circled the seat, trailing her fingernails across the back of my neck. I rose as she brushed past me to take the adjoining seat.
“How was Yorba Linda?” I asked.
“You first. On the drive in, every news station was blowing up with stories and speculation about you and Des, and new evidence in the investigation.”
“You probably know more than I do.”
“Oh, sure. You’re not going to hold out on me, Billy?” she asked.
“Ah, if only that question were sex-related.”
“With me, baby, news is sex.”
“I hope that’s a joke.”
She smiled to show me that it was. “Okay,” she said. “If you won’t tell me yours, I’ll tell you mine. Satan has officially left Yorba Linda. The woman who started the whole mess broke down this morning under some very tough questioning by the teachers’ attorney. She admitted she may have been mistaken about what her son said in his sleep re: the school celebrating a devil mass.”
“How old is the kid?”
“Four.”
“And she still monitors his sleep?”
“My guess is she’d chew his food for him if he’d let her. The real story, and the one I’ll be reporting, is that a teacher at the school had incurred mommy dearest’s wrath by laying hands on her precious son. The teacher, a twenty-five-year-old pregnant lady, had pulled the monster boy off of a little girl after he’d knocked her to the ground and was kicking her.”
“Sounds like Mom was looking for Beelzebub in all the wrong places.”
“You got it. Her brat acts up, and her reaction is to spread a lie that sends five innocent, dedicated teachers, one of them with child, to prison for over a month.”
“But the bad genie is back in the bottle?” I asked.
“Pretty much. The DA is afraid of looking like the idiot he is and hasn’t quite given up the fight. But his case is dissolving as we speak, and it appears the teachers will be exonerated.”
“That kind of toxic cloud doesn’t blow away all that easily,” I said. “There’ll be quite a few empty desks in those classrooms for a while.”
“I know. But at least the teachers will be spending tonight in the comfort of their own homes. And I’ll be spending tonight in mine. Alone, unless I can find somebody who’s free for dinner.”
“Short notice,” I said.
“Boeuf bourguignon,” she said. “I use a recipe in a cookbook by my favorite TV food expert.”
“I’m flattered.”
“You? I was talking about the Muppets’ Swedish Chef.”
“Oh. But you’ll be serving real F-O-O-D, right?”
“As real as a clogged artery.”
“The earliest I can get there is ten-thirty,” I said.
She stood. I stood. “It’ll take me that long to do justice by the Swedish Chef,” she said. She leaned against me suddenly and kissed me, her tongue darting between my lips. As I raised my arms to pull her closer, she slipped away.
“Don’t be too late,” she said, “or I may have to start without you.”
I watched her as she strolled gracefully toward the exit.
When she was gone, I turned and found Gibby staring at me from the stage. He gave me a wink and a thumbs-up, then began a series of pelvic thrusts, humping the air.
Ever the class act.
I turned to go in search of Jim McBride, who should have made it back from the press conference an hour ago.
“Hold up, Billy,” Gibby shouted.
I watched him grab a towel from the back of a chair and walk toward me, blotting his perspiring face.
“I … need some advice,” he said, lowering his voice.
“What’s the gag?”
“No. No gag. I’m seriously freaked.”
He looked it, and he wasn’t that good an actor. “How can I help?”
“Today, when the cops mentioned—”
He was interrupted by McBride, lanky and as immaculately dressed as always, calling out, “Billy B. Great to see you in the flesh, as it were.” He approached us slowly and carefully, wincing with each step.
I introduced him to Gibby, who thanked him for guesting on tonight’s show. Then, inching away, Gibby added, “I, ah, better get back. Billy, can you spare a couple minutes later, after the show?”
“Sure,” I said.
“He seems a little nervous about something,” McBride said, as we watched the comic heading for the set. “They dumping him?”
“Not that I’ve heard,” I said, turning to McBride. “You look a little nervous yourself,” I said.
“That’s pain, brother. At a press conference today, the chief of police’s PR lady kneed me in the ’nads.”
“I saw it happen on the tube. You got in her sight line. She was a beauty, by the way. Roger Ailes should hire her for FOX News. They have a thing for hot women.”
“Hot and mean,” Jim said with a wide grin. “Just like we like ’em. Except for their politics, of course. So what’s our plan here, Billy? I understand we’ve got twelve minutes to fill. Do we do this 60 Minutes style, write down a series of talking points, each stopwatch-timed, each feeding off the other until we arrive at a final conclusion that has a kick harder than an LAPD PR flack? Or do we go to plan B and find us a couple of comfortable chairs in whatever passes for a greenroom here in lotusland and chat about the good times and then, when we get the red light, wing the whole damn thing as smoothly and effortlessly as the old pros we are?”
“I vote for plan B,” I said.
Chapter
FORTY-ONE
I won’t say we were Emmy material, but we whipped through the recent developments of what was now considered the Des O’Day murder in just under eight minutes and finished up with Jim, whose news-anchor persona is smooth, efficient, and buttoned-down, displaying his off-camera charm and wit reminiscing about a murder case he’d covered early in his career.
After our segment, Whisper conveyed a late supper invitation to Jim from Carmen. He turned to me. “You joining us?”
“Not that I was invited,” I said, “but I’ve got a previous engagement.”
“Yeah? Starlet?”
“Better than that,” I said.
On my way to Vida’s, I stopped at a twenty-four-hour liquor store and was pleased to find, hidden among its otherwise uninspired wine selection, several bottles of Adelaida HMR Estate Paso Robles pinot noir. I purchased one—well, two, actually. It was, after all, the beginning of the weekend.
Whistling a merry tune, I carried my purchases back to the Lexus and discovered that someone had stuck a folded ad flyer under its driver’s-side wiper. Still whistling, I removed the paper and surveyed the parking lot for the nearest trash bin. Too far away.
The Lexus’s automatic wireless unlock did its thing. I opened the door and eased behind the wheel. I placed the wine bottles gently on the passenger seat, then transferred them to the rubber floor mat. Finally, I unfolded the sheet, preparing to give it a cursory glance before balling it and tossing it beside the wine bottles, to be disposed of later.
It consisted primarily of a very familiar design. “I (Heart) NY,” bold, black letters surrounding a red heart. Beneath it, a copy line read: “Live It Up in the Big Apple!”
Someone had added, in hand-printed block letters, “Or die in L.A.�
��
I refolded the sheet and stuck it in my shirt pocket. Then I twisted on the car seat and took a hard look at my surroundings. There appeared to be nothing terribly sinister about the liquor store’s narrow, brightly lighted parking lot. Still, I didn’t feel quite panicked enough to do anything more than get the hell out of there.
My finger was an inch from the Lexus’s starter button when the concept of a car bomb came to mind.
No, I told myself. A bomber, even a demented one, would not have bothered to put a warning on my windshield if he intended to send me to New York in little pieces. I pressed the button, and the car started as safely as always.
I rolled the Lexus out into the street.
Half a block behind me, a car left its curbside parking spot. The black BMW.
I speeded up. So did the BMW.
Up ahead was Melrose Avenue, which I knew would be bustling with customers of the late-hour boutiques and restaurants and clubs. I eased into the traffic. The BMW fell back a little but remained on my tail.
What to do? I could think of only one thing. I got out the cellular and was about to phone Brueghel when the black car made a right turn and apparently left the chase.
I drove another few blocks to make sure. No black BMW.
I’d seen enough movie thrillers to consider the possibility of a two-car shadow. With that in mind, I made an abrupt right turn onto a less-traveled side street. I drove it all the way to Santa Monica Boulevard. Nobody followed.
I remembered how paranoid Fitz had sounded with his story of a milk-eyed man in a gray Mercedes. I’d made that flip comment about the number of gray Mercedeses in the city. Weren’t there just as many black BMWs?
The threatening note made my concern a little more credible. But as a scare tactic, it was a pretty lame effort. And shaking Brueghel’s tree with it would only set him off on an I-should-never-have-set-Charbonnet-free rant and tie up the rest of my night.
On the other hand, I had a beautiful woman waiting to feed me dinner. I had two bottles of very good wine. And tomorrow was a work-free Saturday.