Romeo's Rules

by James Scott Bell

  Some modern stuff, not as interesting to me as the classics.

  Like Euripides. There was a nice volume of his plays for three bucks. I’d been wanting to read Medea again. Don’t ask me why. It’s not exactly the cheeriest play in the world.

  But I figured I had three perfectly balanced books now.

  Medea was perfectly poised against Groucho.

  And Reid was right in the middle, preaching common sense.

  I took the three books to the counter, behind which stood a woman wearing a UCLA sweatshirt. She was about six-feet tall with an athletic body. Her hair was the color of sunset at the beach—the red-orange that flames the sky and makes people go “Ahh.” In her black-framed glasses she gave the impression of a museum docent who could spike a volleyball.

  “Looks like a good haul,” she said.

  “Some light reading for later,” I said.

  “Euripides is light?”

  “Medea. I’m into family values.”

  She laughed. “Groucho Marx and Thomas Reid?”

  “They were a Vaudeville act.”

  “Oh sure. Groucho for the absurd. Reid for common sense.”

  “You know Reid?”

  “A little. He was responding to Hume, wasn’t he?”

  Are you kidding me? If Nature was to design my ideal woman, that is exactly the kind of thing she would say. So I should have said, Hey, baby, why don’t we discuss some Scottish common sense realism over a beer?

  But I was not ready to drag another innocent down.

  “Have you been in our store before?” she asked, adding up the prices of the books on a calculator sitting on the counter.

  “First time.”

  “Fantastic! Would you like to be on our mailing list? We have sales and readings, things like that.”

  “It would be a major tragedy if I wasn’t on that list.”

  She smiled and gave me a form and a pen. I wrote down Ira’s name and address, and his e-mail, since I didn’t have one.

  “This is the guy I’m staying with,” I said. “A friend,” I quickly added.

  Don’t do it, Romeo. She’s smart and free and joyous and she has a future. You’d only take all that away from her.

  She put the books in a paper bag for me. I gave her a ten, my last big bill, and she gave me back a buck eighty.

  “I’ll be back,” I said.

  “I’m here Tuesdays and Thursdays.”

  Then extended her hand. “My name’s Sophie.”

  Her hand was soft, her grip firm. “Mike,” I said.

  “Nice to meet you, Mike.”

  And nice to meet you, Sophie, but be glad there is a counter between us. It’s best for you that it ends here, even though I want to write you a sonnet.

  I went down the street to an ice cream place and sat at an outside table with a cup of mint chip. I kept thinking of Sophie and Natalia and their gravitational pull, like I was an asteroid hovering around Venus. I hadn’t felt this way in a year, at least. Being on the run is like that. You only feel the pull of who wants to get you if you slow down.

  I took out the essays on Reid. It was warm in the late morning and the smell of the street—a mix of car exhaust, Thai food, and old sidewalk—thickened the air.

  I was reading the intro to the book, which gave a little history of the correspondence between Reid and Hume, when a metal chair scraped next to me.

  A guy with a bald head and sunglasses sat down. He wore a sport coat over an open-neck black shirt.

  Behind me, another chair scraped, and another guy joined my table. This second guy was stocky with buzzed, slate-colored hair. He also had a coat but under it was a red golf shirt that looked a size too small for him.

  Bald Guy said, “What’re you reading?”

  Ah, the passive-aggressive greeting of the goon. Was it raining thugs in L.A. all of a sudden? I knew I could take out one and then the other, but this was not the time or place. The street was crowded enough that someone innocent could get hurt, and I was not going to pile more of that on the cardboard plate of my sins.

  So I said, “A little Scottish common sense realism.”

  Bald Guy craned his neck so he could read the cover. “Is that like self-help?”

  “A little,” I said. “Philosophy could be described as the ultimate self-help.”

  “I like positive thinking,” he said. “You ever read a book called The Magic of Thinking Big?”

  “I’m guessing that’s not a diet book,” I said.

  “Nope,” Bald Guy said. “It’s about how you visualize what you want in life, you really keep that in your head, and you’ll get it.”

  “What if the thing you want is meaningless because life ends in nothingness?”

  Bald Guy shook his head. “Don’t think like that. Can’t think like that. You do, you never get anything you want. I got a kid. Seven. I’m teaching him to think big. He wants to be a baseball player. I’m teaching him to think he’s playing center field for the Dodgers, to picture that.”

  “But can he hit?” I said. “It helps if you can hit.”

  “He’s getting lessons. From a guy used to play in the bigs. Nothing but the best. But” —Bald Guy pointed at his dome—“it all starts up here.”

  “Can I buy you guys something?” I said. “Some Rocky Road maybe? We can move on to a discussion of epistemology.”

  “What’s the name of that guy you live with?” Bald said.

  “That’s more of a personal question,” I said.

  Bald put his elbows the table. “The gimp in the wheelchair. What’s his name?”

  “You’re asking the wrong questions,” I said, looking at the street with peripheral vision, calculating the cost of putting these two guys down. But I was sure they were both carrying, and that could end in a bystander getting shot.

  “Let’s hurry it up,” Stocky said.

  “We don’t want anything to happen to the wheelchair guy,” Bald said. “And you don’t want to be responsible for anything like that, right?”

  “Mayne send you?” I said.

  “Who’s Mayne?” Bald said.

  “Sure,” I said.

  “Here’s the thing, there’s somebody wants to talk to you, just talk. You’re not going to die, or anything. We’re not killers here. We’re messengers.”

  “Like winged Mercury,” I said.

  Stocky said, “I don’t like the way this guy talks.”

  I said, “Come now, gents. Let us reason together. You can have your guy submit to me some written questions. Or a tweet. Does your guy tweet?”

  Bald said, “Look, I make a call and your wheelchair friend gets hurt.”

  I could have told him then that it would probably be the other way around. That an ex-Mossad in a wheelchair is better than any number of punks on their feet.

  But these were professionals and their threat was professional and I didn’t want to put Ira at risk. For anything.

  I said, “Why don’t you just tell your boss I’m not taking sides in anything and I won’t take that little visit by Tomás personally. I’m done with the cops or family matters. No worries.”

  “Let’s go,” Bald said.

  “At least let me finish my scoop,” I said.

  Bald pushed the paper bowl to the side. “You’re finished,” he said. “We got a car. And guns.”

  “Like you had to tell me that.”

  “Up.”

  “What about my books?” I said.

  “Leave them,” Bald said.

  “Let me leave them at the bookstore, how’s that?”

  “Leave them on the table, get up, walk down the street. We know you can fight. We can shoot.”

  “You owe me for those books,” I said.

  “Shut up about the books and stand up.”

  I stood up. Stocky was well back, watching me.

  We walked half a block to a silver Benz parked at a meter. Heavy tint on the windows. Stocky opened the rear door and waited for me to get in. For a secon
d I considered closing the door on his hand. But once more, concern about Ira overcame my instincts, which is just how moral restraint is supposed to work.

  I got in the car. Stocky slipped in next to me, closed the door. Bald Guy got in and flashed his heater at me. It was a revolver just the right size for a conceal.

  Stocky pulled some black silk material out of his pocket. “Turn around,” he said.

  “No thanks,” I said.

  “You’re getting a blindfold.”

  “Delenda est Carthago.”

  Stocky’s brain froze a second, his face following.

  Bald said, “Let’s all just take it easy. We don’t want you to see where were taking you, for your own good. Honest. We just want to take you to this place, have you talk, and then you can go home.”

  “Tell you what,” I said. “I give you my word of honor, as a gentleman, I won’t say anything to anybody about our little trip here. Long as I’m out of there in ten minutes.”

  “You look like a guy knows what’s going on, knows what leverage is, knows when to dial it back and go with the flow. I’m asking you to make it easy on everybody, because we all got things to do. I got baseball practice to go to, you got reading to do, or whatever it is you do. Just think of this as a meeting that needs to take place, and the sooner it’s over the better. Just grant us this one request. We put the blindfold on and we all have a nice conversation as we go. I’ll put on some Mel Torme. You like Mel Torme?”

  A Sun Tzu aphorism popped into my head. Simulated weakness postulates strength.

  “Go ahead,” I said.

  Stocky threw the scarf or whatever it was over my eyes.

  I flexed my head.

  You can do that. You can make your hat size a notch bigger. It’s an old Houdini trick.

  Stocky made it tight, checked it.

  Bald fired up the car and we took off, heading north on Vermont.

  “Wake me when we get there,” I said. “And send up some coffee.” I put my head back and relaxed it. The blindfold loosened slightly.

  “You don’t want to talk?” Bald said.

  “Not with Mel Torme singing,” I said.

  Bald laughed, and a few seconds later cool jazz piano filled the car. I could see little slits of the neighborhood from under the blindfold. Then the Velvet Fog started singing about that old Blue Moon, about standing alone, no dreams in his heart and no love of his own.

  Welcome to my world, Mel.

  He had pipes, he did.

  We headed into the snaking streets of the hills. I know them. I run there. I had a feeling Bald was messing with my sense of direction. Sure enough, after playing mouse in the maze, we headed down again.

  By the time we came out of the hills, Mel was singing “Stardust.” The romance didn’t quite jibe with a glimpse of a green road sign that said Glendale.

  No good songs have ever been written about Glendale.

  Then we turned right onto the freeway. Had to be south. I started my internal stopwatch. It’s a skill you can acquire by practice. By my calculation, we got off the freeway in just under eight minutes.

  I saw fencing and a freeway underpass and graffiti.

  “How you doing back there?” Bald Guy said.

  “Can’t a man sleep?” I said.

  “You’re not thinking of doing something stupid, are you?” Bald Guy said. “The doors are child locked. Not that you’re a child or anything, you understand.”

  “Can we be there now, Daddy?”

  Bald Guy laughed.

  Stocky said, “I don’t think that’s funny.”

  We rolled into a commercial locale. I saw a big red sign, Pizza, and four black numbers on the glass door—2862.

  Then a hand was over my eyes, hard.

  “He’s lookin’!” Stocky wailed.

  “Relax,” Bald said.

  Stocky slapped me and put his hand over my eyes again.

  I burned the address and the word Pizza into my brain.

  And, once again, started my stopwatch.

  Around two minutes later the car took a hard right, then another, tires squealed and we stopped. I was guessing a garage. Stocky was still holding his hand over my face.

  “Let him go now,” Bald said.

  Stocky waited a full ten seconds before he finally took his hand away. I took off the blindfold. I had to blink a couple of times before I could focus. Stocky was pointing a .38 revolver at my face.

  “This is just to make sure you don’t get crazy on us,” Bald said.

  THE BUILDING LOOKED like a warehouse that had been converted into office space. We went up some steps to a door with a keypad next to it. Bald did the honors and the door clicked open.

  They led me down a corridor that was the color of an old hospital. At the end of the corridor there was another door which Bald again opened by keypad.

  The large space we entered was paneled in wood. Looked like it could’ve been a dance club or gymnasium. No furnishings. A space waiting for some design.

  Bald and Stocky stood on either side of me. A door on the far end opened and an Asian woman came out. She was thirty-five and dressed in business attire. Total professional. She could have been a federal prosecutor or millionaire real estate agent. Her heels clicked on the hardwood as she crossed over to me.

  “Mr. Romeo,” she said, extending her hand.

  I shook it. She had a good, strong grip.

  “I saw you fight Mirum Possum, what, ten years ago?” she said.

  “You were there?”

  “He had you in the third,” she said. “Legs locked around your neck. How’d you ever get out of that?”

  “Luck,” I said. This was gobsmack time. No one had talked to me about my fighting career in just about that same ten years. I didn’t go around advertising it.

  “Oh no, Mike.” She started to walk around me, checking me out. “You were awesome. Why’d you give it up?”

  “Health.”

  “Afraid of getting hurt, huh?”

  “No. The health of the other guys.”

  Asian Lady laughed. “Well, I do want to say it’s an honor. I don’t think the sport is better today. It was purer back then.”

  “Your name is?”

  “I’d rather not,” she said. “I am going to ask you some questions, okay?”

  “And if I don’t answer, these guys are going to use me as a workout dummy?”

  She smiled. It was a glistening smile. “I know it would take both of them and some electricity to do it. You look like you’ve kept in shape.”

  “Ask your questions and then buy me a drink.”

  “That is an attractive offer,” she said. “Really attractive. But it can’t be done. I’ve got a full schedule.”

  “You work for Mark David Mayne?”

  “How about I ask my questions, and if there’s time you can ask me one or two?”

  “Somebody owes me five bucks for books.”

  She frowned, looked at her thugs, then back at me. “What’s your relationship with Natalia Mayne?”

  “She is in the hands of the police.”

  “Where did you meet her?”

  “At church.”

  Asian Lady paused. “Were you there when the explosion happened?”

  “How do you know any of this? Tomás, he work for you?”

  “My turn to ask, remember?” she said.

  “Okay, you seem like a nice woman. Competent and perspicacious. I’ll give you all you need. I don’t have anything to do with Mrs. Mayne, and I don’t want to. I helped her out because she was hurt, is all.”

  “You took her to your home.”

  “Not my home. I’m just passing through.”

  “You’re leaving L.A.?”

  “I haven’t made any plans.”

  “Well maybe we can reach an agreement that will be mutually beneficial.”

  “I’m all for that. Win-win.”

  “The exact opposite of UFC, yes?” she laughed.

  “Sure,
” I said.

  “But I want to know what she told you about Mr. Mayne and the children.”

  “Children?”

  She shook her head slowly. “Come on, Mike.”

  I shrugged.

  “What is your interest in Natalia Mayne?” she said.

  “No interest.”

  “But you made inquiries concerning a certain automobile, and a certain home you went into.”

  “I don’t care about any of that.”

  “But we do, Mike.”

  “Who’s we?”

  “Please, Mike.”

  “I got nothing. I’m opting out. Just want to be left alone.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “Then change your belief.”

  She was unflappable. “Your rabbi friend, what’s his name?”

  I shook my head.

  “You want him safe and sound, don’t you?”

  “He’s made his peace with God,” I said.

  “That’s pretty cold,” she said.

  “Life is cold.”

  “You’re not going to give up anything, are you?” she said.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “Okay,” she said. “Here’s what we’re going to do. Take you out of Los Angeles. As a courtesy. We’ll drop you and you can take it from there. Go east. Just don’t come back here.”

  I said, “I’m not interested in leaving L.A. just yet. You can tell Mayne he can call off the dogs of war.”

  “We have various levels of escort, Mike. I’d like to give you the premium package. Maybe even a copy of the Wall Street Journal to read on the way.”

  “I prefer Sports Illustrated.”

  “That can be arranged.”

  “And The International Journal of Philosophical Studies.”

  “Now you’re being difficult.”

  “Nemo me impune lacessit.”

  “How’s that?”

  “It was the motto of the kings of Scotland. It means, ‘No one provokes me with impunity.’”

  “God, I love your attitude! I wish I could negotiate for you to stay, I really do. But I want you to know, again, it’s been an honor. I only wish you were more forthcoming.” She nodded at whoever was behind me.

  I heard a loud snap. Then I got it on the neck. Electricity crackled through my body and my arms disconnected from my brain. My legs gave out and I hit the floor.

  I heard a little ziiiip and felt something tighten around both my wrists. Then I was being pulled upright.