Dating Is Murder

9

Thursday night on the set of Biological Clock I talked about A

“Yeah, she brought her boyfriend around a couple times.” Henry Fisher scratched his beard. “He’s got no idea where she is?”

“No,” I said. “And there’s a guy named Feynman-did she ever mention him to you?”

“No, we mostly talked the Bible. Football. Guns.” Henry pulled at his collar. Tonight’s location was Hot Aloo, an Indian restaurant in west L.A., small, redolent of body heat and curry, doing a brisk business. Henry was built for a Barcalounger, not Hot Aloo’s flimsy furniture. And beer. Hot Aloo didn’t have a liquor license, so the ubiquitous Takei Sake bottle would hold water. Henry was now drinking nimbu ka pani, a sort of lemonade. He was as handsome as Carlito, in a very different style, with lots of facial hair, a respectable amount of head hair, and a predilection for jeans and fla

“What kind of fool thing is that to tell a teenage girl?” Fredreeq said, approaching with a compact of translucent face powder.

“She’s here to see America,” Henry said. “What’s more American than gun shows?”

“Jell-O. Pez. The Brady Bunch.” Fredreeq brushed flecks of powder from his beard.

“Henry, did you tell A

“Nope. Told her to educate herself. Talk to people. Find a class. Gun safety. Practice regime. No point owning a piece of equipment you can’t use. Too many ignorant people think buying a gun makes them safe. It doesn’t.”

“Did she mention wanting one right away?”

“Yup. Wanted to know if I had one I could lend her. Told her that’s not how we do things. Regardless of what they say about us over in Europe. Or what Bing Wooster says.”

“Bing?” I looked through the plate-glass window at our director, pacing outside the restaurant, cell phone to his ear. I was about to ask what Bing had had to say about guns when Isaac, the sound guy, approached. He handed me a small bullet-shaped thing attached to a wire and pointed to my cleavage.

“Body mike. Ambient noise,” he said. I told him this meant nothing to me. With a sigh, he reached inside my silk blouse and attached the bullet thing near a buttonhole with a piece of electrician’s tape. I have large breasts, so we couldn’t avoid physical contact, but I feel safe in saying it was not an erotic experience for either of us.

I now had a microphone between my breasts and a wire ru

Bing came into the restaurant and picked up the Betacam. Fredreeq retreated. I joined Henry on his side of the table. Paul set up a cheap light on a tripod, augmenting Hot Aloo’s votive candles. A burst of laughter across the room punctuated a foreign-language discussion.

“Paul, what’s with the crowd?” Bing asked. “You said the place was empty when you did the scout.”

“That was lunchtime,” Paul said.

“So?”

“It’s Ramadan. They have a big Muslim clientele.”

“So? Okay, whatever. Wollie,” Bing said. “Same drill as the other night. Ask Henry what he does for a living. Action!”

It always startled me, Bing yelling “Action!,” since he seemed to do it only when everyone was within whispering distance. Joey said it was also inappropriate to a videotape format, but this was a distinction only she and Isaac would understand.

“Henry,” I said, trying to sound spontaneous, “what do you do for a living?”

Henry was a Christmas-tree farmer, something we all knew. “Monterey pines,” he said, warming to his subject. “A long-needle tree. Not as classy as your noble; more like a good Douglas fir. Your four-year-olds will run eight to ten feet. I do a four-year rotation on fifty acres, fifteen hundred trees per acre, one-fifth lying dormant.”

“Uh… huh.”

Bing, his camera ru

“What else?” I said. This was not inspired repartee, but all those numbers had frozen my thinking process.

“Lot of farmers do seventeen hundred per acre, but I don’t like to squeeze my trees.”

“Okay. Good,” I said.

Henry perked up suddenly. “Fu

“Cut,” Bing yelled. “Hey, guy, none of our viewers knows who A

“Oh. Okay.” Henry deflated a little. The camera started rolling and I quickly asked him what he did when it wasn’t Christmas-tree season.

“Pull stumps,” he said. “Plant. Irrigate. Irrigate more. Prune, spray for mites and pine-tip moths, weed control. You can’t slack off, you start right in after Christmas. Santa Ana winds come before the baby trees have time to manufacture root hairs, you’re sunk.”

I loved that he called them baby trees. I hoped that moment would make it onto the TV screen, because I thought it showed Henry in his best light, strong yet vulnerable. I was fond of Henry. I was fond of Carlito too, but Henry Fisher didn’t have a self-promoting bone in his body, and that was an endearing quality.

Then it was my turn. Bing had me describe my home, something Sava

Two women in saris came out of the ladies’ room as I went in. I wondered what to do about the sound system I was wearing. Would Isaac listen to me pee? No, Isaac was a professional. He could’ve listened to bodily functions of people far more famous than I, if he were so inclined. Nevertheless, I covered the microphone between my breasts in toilet paper and squeezed my fist over it. It was so tiny, a microphone for a mouse. Or a frog. This brought on a greeting card idea, karaoke for frogs. I began to develop it as I exited the ladies’ room.

Isaac, in headphones, came out of the men’s room at the same time. He avoided me.

Henry sat at the table reading a magazine while Paul sat opposite, working on a laptop. I squeezed in next to Paul and glanced at the folded-over page Henry held in front of him, an opinion piece. “If our allies harbor drug lords like Joseph Juarez and Vladimir Tcheiko,” it read, “are they deserving of the term ‘ally’? Why not make trade agreements contingent upon extradition treaties-” The rest of the sentence was hidden beneath Henry’s index finger.

Vladimir Tcheiko. I’d heard of him, but I couldn’t recall the context. He sounded less like a drug lord than a drug count, I decided. Count Tcheiko. A vampire. I tried that on, seeing if there was a greeting card in it, a vampire awaiting extradition. As with frog karaoke, no occasion immediately presented itself. Some images you have to live with for a while.

“Hey, Henry,” I said. “You think A

He lowered the magazine, shocked. “That little girl? Not likely.”

Paul looked up from his computer and stared at me.

“What, Paul?” I said.