Romeo's Rules

by James Scott Bell

  This show was the contemporary equivalent. The spilling guts were out-of-control emotional expulsions, and the smiling wine-sogged emperor was this guy with the bad hair job who got up every day and actually looked at himself in the mirror, actually walked out to his car and got in and came to the studio to exploit poor people like they were in a freak show in Toad Suck, Arkansas in 1923.

  Then the overweight woman was collapsing on the stage and Bad Dye Job was hovering over her as if he cared.

  I tried not to barf on the carpet of my motel room.

  I changed the channel and found a Judge named Judy who was yelling in a New York accent at a poor slob who was trying to justify keeping naked pictures of his girlfriend for posting on the internet.

  Got away from that.

  There was another show with some weasel in a T-shirt laughing and talking about catching a former child star—now grown into a drug addled national joke—with a cell phone camera outside a gas station bathroom. I thought I had descended into the ninth circle of hell.

  Finally, I got to the local news. I left it on and heard about a man accused of killing his girlfriend and cooking her and eating her. I wondered why this guy wasn’t on the show with the guy with the bad dye job.

  I poured myself a double Knob Creek and sat on the bed and let the news drone on. I wanted to see if they had picked up the story of a guy getting shot outside El Cholo earlier that day.

  After forty-five minutes, nothing.

  I turned the TV off and flopped on my back on the bed and listened to a couple arguing in the next room.

  The woman screamed about the man’s male member being of the wandering sort, and that she was not going to stand for it any longer. Or words to that effect.

  The man screamed back at her that his member could go where it pleased him to go and that she did not hold title to his life. Or words to that effect.

  I thought the best thing for them would be to go on that show with the guy with the bad hair job.

  And then I thought about what I should do next.

  I decided it better be to call Ira. I took some change and went out to the pay phone by the front office.

  “HI, IRA.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “Home. What I call home.”

  “Good. Nothing bad happened today?”

  “Define bad.”

  “What happened?”

  “I had a little car trouble.”

  “What? Your new car?”

  “That’s a very generous use of the term new.”

  “How bad was this trouble?”

  “Well, not flat-tire bad.”

  “Good.”

  “A little worse.”

  Silence.

  “Ira?”

  “What … happened … to the car?”

  “It’s a funny thing about fire—”

  “Don’t tell me—”

  “Okay—”

  “Tell me.”

  “Well, it sort of burned up.”

  “Burned up?”

  “Completely.”

  Silence.

  “Ira?”

  “Give me a second.”

  Silence.

  “All right,” Ira said. “What happened?”

  “Some guys set it on fire.”

  “Who?”

  “A couple of pros.”

  “You caught them?”

  “After the fact.”

  “I’m afraid to ask.”

  “I had to shoot one of them.”

  Silence.

  I said, “He was going to shoot me, if that means anything.”

  “I’m having trouble with anything meaning anything at the moment—”

  “So I took their car—”

  “—anything at all.”

  “—and ditched it. And I have a gun now and no means of transportation.”

  “I’m not getting you another car.”

  “I’m thinking of a bike, a cruiser. A Schwinn maybe.”

  “I think that might be a good idea. And only ride it on a playground.”

  “I’m going to mess him up.”

  “Now you promised—”

  “I’ll wait a couple of days before I do it.”

  “What are you—”

  “Thanks, Ira. You’ve been a real peach.”

  “Did you just say peach?”

  “The cops are going to come calling on our friend Saul. They’ll trace the Dodge to him. He’ll tell them to come talk to you. Have you done any of the paperwork yet?”

  “I have a headache—”

  “Give the cops some lawyer talk. Tell them you have to respect the privacy of the people who trust you, you know, the kind of stuff you toss off all the time.”

  “You wound me.”

  “Stall them.”

  “Michael!”

  “Gotta go.”

  “Don’t hang—”

  I WENT BACK to my room. The couple was still arguing at the top of their respective lungs. I decided to give them another few minutes to sort things out. I went for a walk down Cahuenga and found a little cigar shop. Went inside and sniffed around and selected a Hemingway. The guy at the counter cut it and offered me a light. Being one handed, I accepted.

  Back in the evening air I walked the streets, thinking about Natalia Mayne and how much I wanted to be with her somewhere else. On a beach maybe, far away. With her kids playing in the sand and the water, and me sitting next to her with two working hands that went into her hair and pulled her head toward mine.

  Then I thought how impossible that really was. A dream, too, is from Zeus, says The Iliad.

  I walked on and found an enclosed grassy area. Wrought iron fencing surrounded it, but there was a little gate that was open. Eucalyptus trees provided the flora. A little sign next to the gate said that this was a senior center. I did not see any seniors sitting on the bench near the fence, so I took it.

  The heat of the day had given way to some breezes that funneled into Hollywood from Santa Monica. I was enjoying the breeze when I heard a small voice say, “Stinky.”

  I looked outside and saw that there was a woman and a little girl standing just outside the fence, staring at me.

  “Are you smoking?” the woman said.

  “No,” I said. “But my cigar is.”

  “Would you please put that out?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’re polluting the air.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Don’t you realize what you’re doing?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I’m trying to bore a hole in the ozone layer so Greenland will melt.”

  “Stinky, Mommy,” the little girl said.

  “You’re disgusting,” the woman said. She took the girl’s hand and walked quickly away.

  Yes, disgusting. Could be a career move. Maybe I could go on the show with the bad hair guy. Maybe I could get yelled at, foul cigar-smoking villain that I am.

  What people get inflamed at is a source of wonder.

  Feeling fouler than ever, I did not enjoy my cigar. I threw it into the street, becoming a befouler of the Earth.

  Then I felt bad and went out to the street, picked up the butt, stubbed it out, carried to the nearest trash receptacle.

  There. I had done my duty. Now I could go out and find some baby whales and beat them to death with the dead bodies of baby seals.

  WHEN I GOT back to the motel the couple was still going at it. I wondered if they’d ever paused, like a halftime break.

  I knocked on the door.

  The yelling stopped.

  I knocked again.

  “Who is it?” the man said.

  “Hey,” I said. “I want to get some sleep. Why don’t you take a break?”

  He told me to mind my own expletive-laced business.

  The woman screamed that he was piece of something excremental.

  The man screamed that she could do something physically impossible to herself.

  The quality of t
he discourse had elevated.

  I pounded on the door.

  It flew open. A white guy, about forty or so, shirtless, in jeans without a belt so low his boxer shorts were a fashion statement, stood there holding an aluminum baseball bat in his right hand. His head was shaved. He was short. But muscled.

  He had a couple of tats on his chest. On his left side was a bulldog head and the words A Deal’s a Deal wrapping around it.

  On the other side was a weeping Jesus on a cross.

  “What is your problem, man?” he said.

  “I want to go to sleep,” I said. “And you two need to knock this off.”

  He elevated the bat slightly, from casual position to resting on his shoulder. “Are you for real?”

  “I’m very real and very tired.”

  “Get away from my door.” He tried to close it but I kicked it all the way open with my right foot.

  The woman on the bed yelped in surprise. She had long black hair and wore only an oversized T-shirt. She would have been pretty if her eyes weren’t puffy. I couldn’t tell if that was from crying or getting slapped around, or both.

  The guy took a batting stance, threatening to use my head as a softball and my neck as a tee. When someone threatens you with a club you don’t back away or duck. You go into them and take away the leverage. And that’s what I did as soon as he made his move. A good batter always takes the bat back a fraction before coming forward. This guy had played some ball.

  But he hadn’t been in a cage, so when I went into him with my shoulder and felt the bat wrap harmlessly around my back, he went down without much effort. I was conscious of keeping my left hand out of the proceedings. It was one of those rare occasions when I’ll fight you with one hand tied behind my back is thrust upon you.

  I was now on top of the guy, his back on the floor. My left hand was useless except for the palm. Using my right hand for propulsion I got astride his chest. I put my knees on his akimbo arms, rendering him helpless.

  For about one second.

  Then the woman jumped on my back and started scratching my face.

  It is a never-ending source of psychological amazement that so many women abused by men, even to the point of physicality, will defend the slimeballs with their nails. So many domestic incidents never go anywhere in the law because the woman refuses to testify or sign a statement against her abuser. In some cases it’s fear, in others it might actually be chemical. Some research I saw once suggested a woman’s brain can change because of abuse, like a soldier’s brain changes in war.

  If we could all think rationally when bad things were happening, we would all walk out of most movie theaters today.

  But when your face and chest are being scratched by a screaming woman, you only think of these things in a flash in the corner of your mind. You do think this is crazy, this is nuts, but you also want to get the clawing thing off you as fast as possible.

  So I reached behind and got my hand on the back of the woman’s neck and, bending fast, I flipped her over my head. At the same time I head butted the guy on the floor in the nose. Two birds, as they say.

  The woman crashed into an end table where a lamp was sitting. The lamp fell and went out, putting the room in temporary darkness.

  I grabbed the bat and bent it against the guy’s thumb and removed it from his hand. I stood up and went to the door and found the light switch. The overhead light went on, giving a dismal, dull, yellow glow to the room.

  The man was holding his bloody nose. The woman was moving around, stunned. I went into the bathroom and grabbed a towel and wet it, came back in and tossed it to the man, who was now in a sitting position.

  He took it and put it on his face and said, “What’s your deal?”

  I sat on the bed, putting the bat across my knees. The guy and his girl were now sitting on the floor at my feet. I felt like Socrates.

  “Look,” I said. “Let’s just reason together, okay?”

  “What?”

  “Let’s think rationally, shall we? Talk it out?”

  “You’re crazy!”

  “Shh,” I said. “On your chest it says a deal is a deal. Is that right?”

  He looked confused.

  “Are you a man of your word, is what I’m asking?”

  He paused, shrugged.

  “When you’ve got that on your chest, right next to Jesus, you better mean what you say.”

  He blinked. The girl didn’t seem to know what to do. She kept looking at the guy, back at me, and shaking cobwebs out of her head.

  “You crazy kids need to work this thing out before one of you ends up in the big sleep,” I said. I picked up the bat by the fat end and pointed the knob end at him. “You need to stop hitting your girlfriend, am I clear about that?”

  He frowned. I jabbed the knob of the bat into his forehead.

  “Ow!” he said.

  “Are we clear?”

  He rubbed his forehead, then nodded.

  I pointed it at the woman. “And you need to respect yourself. If he is doing this to you, find a place to get some space between him and you. Don’t be alone with this guy until he shows he’s a man.”

  That made him puff out his picturesque chest. “Whatta you mean?”

  “A real man doesn’t hit a woman,” I said. I felt the irony of that statement boil in my chest. “A real man gets a job and takes care of his woman. And he doesn’t go out on her. And lie about it. And then call her names. We clear on that?”

  He lowered his head and shook it, like he was getting sick of this whole thing.

  I gave him a love tap on the head with the knob of the bat.

  “Stop doing that!” he said.

  “Did you hear me?”

  He said, “Whatever.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Okay!”

  “Now if I hear any more noise tonight, I’m going to get angry.”

  I left them. I locked my door and put the .38 where I could reach it, in the drawer of the bedside table. Right next to a Gideon Bible.

  I left the gun and took up the Bible.

  My neighbors were quiet, so I lay on top of the bed and cracked open the book. It opened in the Gospel of Matthew and I read, “For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly, so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”

  The belly of the beast.

  It came to me like a sign from heaven.

  MARK DAVID MAYNE, when he was in town, conducted his business from the belly of the U.S. Bank Tower, the tallest building in Los Angeles. The morning after my friendly chat with my neighbors I took the subway to Pershing Square and walked up to the beast.

  I was greeted by a large, black security man sitting behind a horseshoe-shaped console. He wore a navy-blue coat and gave me a pleasant smile.

  “Help you?” he said.

  “Yes,” I said. “I’m here to see Mark David Mayne.”

  He looked me over. I was dressed in my best thrift store attire, a clean Hawaiian shirt and faded jeans. I did not flinch.

  “Your name?”

  “Phil.”

  “Phil who?”

  “Just Phil. It’s a personal visit. He’ll know.”

  Security frowned and said, “If you’ll just wait a moment, sir.” He picked up a phone and punched a couple of numbers. I looked at the black marble with gold inlay, and pretended to be impressed.

  The security guy mumbled my name and something about being personal. He waited, nodded, put the phone down.

  “We need a last name,” he said to me.

  “Rizzoli,” I said. “And it’s about the plans for the luxury box at Staples.”

  Mr. Security went back to the phone and mumbled what I’d said. Waited. Hung up. “Twentieth floor, Mr. Rizzoli,” he said.

  I thanked him and went to the elevator and pushed the up button. I thought of my grandfather then, who was a die-hard Yankee fan and had loved Phil Rizzuto most of all and used to tell me stori
es about him. How he was considered too small by the Dodgers and then made it with the Yankees and kicked Dodger butt in the World Series ever after. How he was old school, which my grandfather was. Using the name Phil Rizzoli was close enough, and an homage to him.

  The doors opened up into a huge reception area, with a flight-deck sized desk right in the middle. On either side of the desk were glass cases full of art and artifacts. Little statues, plates, Roman-ear stuff. Like a museum.

  Behind the desk sat a smallish man in a crisp suit and tie and tortoise-shell glasses. He could have been an accountant from the year 1959 transported here through a time warp.

  I walked to the desk. There was a little nameplate on the desk that said Sheldon Meeks. He looked up from his computer monitor but did not stand up.

  “I’m Phil Rizzoli,” I said.

  “Of course you are,” Meeks said. He was about forty and his short brown hair was beating a retreat from his forehead. In five years he’d be shaving the whole pate and growing a goatee.

  “Your name sounds very much like an old shortstop for the New York Yankees,” Meeks said.

  “I’ve been teased about that,” I said.

  “And I’m sure you’ve got some ID, Mr. Razz …”

  “Rizzoli. I left it in the car.”

  Meeks smiled. “Are you a reporter?”

  “No.”

  “What happened to your hand?”

  “My accordion snapped shut.”

  The smile left his face. “You’re someone who wants to see Mr. Mayne for something other than business, and you’ve lied in order to make it happen. You’re not the first, you know.”

  “I will be straight with you, Mr. Meeks.”

  “Please do.”

  “I have reason to believe that Mr. Mayne and I have some people in common. I thought it would be best if I could discuss these people with him face to face, because it would save a lot of time.”

  “That doesn’t tell me anything.”

  “Does the name Tomás mean anything to you?”

  The eyebrows of Sheldon Meeks inched upward.

  “I’m not an unreasonable man,” I said. “Just want to talk.”

  “Mr. Mayne is not available,” Meeks said.

  “I’m not surprised.”