Dating Is Murder

“Let’s move to the guest expert,” Bing yelled. “Paul! She here yet? Noel Whositz?”

“Not her. Him,” Paul said. “‘Nole,’ not ‘No-Elle.’ Professor Wiederhut. In the john.”

“Whatever. Get him.”

Carlito picked at his molars with a fork. I offered him a toothpick, but he plucked a strand of hair from his head and set about flossing. How… resourceful. Could Carlito be Little Fish? I couldn’t see him in charge of a drug operation, but I could see how a paralegal on the team could be useful. Also, why had A

“Lovely, lovely!” A gnomelike man approached, escorted by Paul. He wore a striped turtleneck, bringing to mind a black-and-yellow poison-arrow frog, Dendrobates leucomelas. “I so love your American Thanksgiving. Cornucopia, rich in metaphor. Vessel and phallus all at once. The fertile turkey. No coincidence there, what?” His accent was delightful. European?

“Yo. Nole. No-elle,” Bing said. “However you say it. No turkey talk once we roll.”

“Hullo, what?”

“This show isn’t live. When it airs, Turkey Day’s history. So don’t refer to it. Go again. Action.” Di

“I’m a Celtic neo-Jungian,” the professor said. “I applaud your program’s iconoclasm. Not easy to challenge this country’s conservative culture, yet this road you travel is not without precedent. Footprints! I speak in metaphor, the language of myth, to-”

“Don’t. Speak in English,” Bing cut in. “Dumb it down. Go again.”

“Hullo? Ah, yes. In a nutshell, then. Parenting as Life Path in mandatory conjunction with Sacred Partnering is a construct imposed from without by a society that paradoxically-”

“English!” Bing screamed.

The little gnome face turned to me with a pained look.

“American,” I said softly.

“Indeed. Some people are gifted at raising children. Others, at sex-phenomenal, lustful, playful, erotic, adventurous, dirty, imaginative, dangerous, mysterious, mystical sex, year after year, decade after decade with the same partner in a long-term intimate relationship.” Noel severed off a forkful of gelatinous cranberry sauce and tried to get it to his mouth. He was not successful. It slid onto the table with a quiet plop. “The problem is that modern society demands that each of us be both.”

Celtic. His accent was certainly Euro, but would Little Fish be one of the weekly experts? Unlikely. Joey booked the experts. Besides-

The professor was still talking, reminding me that I was on camera too. “… onerous professional responsibilities requiring total dedication,” he concluded. He tried the cranberry sauce again, but it fell onto his mashed potatoes.

Carlito piped up. “So your contention is, it’s okay to go have kids and not get married.”

“The gods governing motherhood are not those who reign over erotic love. In ancient times, we experienced all roles through ritual and tribe, not as individuals. We paid communal tribute-tribe-ute-to the archetypes. Nowadays tribe is dead, ritual is reduced to greeting cards on holidays, community is television-”

“Wollie designs greeting cards,” Carlito said. I was touched that he remembered.

The professor nodded. “Lovely. I am not denigrating greeting cards, I merely-”

“Denigrate,” Bing said. “Go ahead. Liven things up.”

“No. Design is art. Artists are sacred storytellers. They carry the psychic wound, transform it, and bring it forth as symbol. They are to be revered.” He took a sip of his wine.

From inside my purse, my phone rang.

“Oh, Christ!” Bing put down his camera. “It’s probably the network, canceling us. Anyone got a Xanax?” He walked off toward the back of the restaurant.

I found my phone, embarrassed that I’d neglected to turn it off. It better not be my mother, I thought. “Hello,” I said, discouragingly.

“It’s Simon. Bad time?”

“You mean you don’t know? The water glasses aren’t bugged?” I walked to a quiet corner of the restaurant, lowering my voice. “Tell me something. Can you figure out where I am by me using my cell phone?”

“Does the technology exist? Yes. Are we doing it to you? No.”

“But other parts of my life have been bugged, right? In the last week or so?”

“I’m more concerned with who’s listening to this conversation right now.”

“You mean your own agency is bugging you?”

“No. I mean on your end.”

I looked around. Carlito was checking his teeth. Professor Wiederhut was sniffing the stuffing. Diners were dining. Bing was sulking. Isaac was stepping out for a smoke. No one was looking at me. “I think we’re safe.”

“And plumbers? Anyone follow you to the set?”

“No. And Joey drove, so I’m not alone.”

“What time do you get off?”

“Eleven,” I said. “Bing’s estimate. That’s early for us, but it’s a holiday.”

“You busy?”

“At eleven? You overestimate my social life.”

“How about if I pick you up at your apartment? You up for that? Midnight.”

My heart thumped and was still. “For… debriefing?”

“Call it that if you like. I’m calling it a date.”

We finished at nine-thirty. I called Simon, but I got voice mail, the first time I heard his recorded message. It was also the first time I left a message. My message was rambling, explaining that I could meet him earlier, unless I didn’t hear from him, in which case midnight was fine. His message was two words: first and last name. It didn’t seem fair.

“Bing’s losing it,” Joey said, gathering Fredreeq’s makeup supplies. “All night, same table. No camera moves. We’re not going for the Emmy, but would it kill him to do an establishing shot? And the after-hours club on the schedule-canceled. Paul doesn’t know what’s going on, and Paul knows where all the bodies are buried.”

I looked at Paul, packing his lights into their compact cases. He was A

Or he could be a drug lord. Paul too. Paul would be a junior drug lord. A drug princeling. I wondered why the world of drugs used such aristocratic terms: drug lords, drug barons, drug czars. Other criminals didn’t get that kind of respect. There were no assault earls or homicide dukes. I was pondering the possibility of a greeting card on the topic when my phone rang. It was Cziemanksi, working, as I was.

“Slow night here,” he said. “Hey, I’m still feeling bad about the di

“I absolve you. Listen, Pete-we’re friends, I can call you Pete, right? I have kind of an odd question: why would the FBI get involved with a drug operation? Why wouldn’t that be the DEA, or the police?”

“It’s a question of degree. A guy shooting up on the street is LAPD. An epidemic of new crack houses around town might involve DEA. Drug traffic in and out of Asia, South America, Europe, crime syndicates-that brings in FBI and CIA, with bigger resources. In theory we all share information and work together seamlessly.”

“Naturally,” I said. “Any big drug lords out there right now?”

“You mean like Tcheiko? And Forio, but he’s dying of cancer. Joe Juarez they’ll never get-he’s got his own army, never leaves the jungle.”

“Tcheiko. What’s his story?”

“Interesting one. Convicted last year on racketeering charges, then escaped. Left the Feds standing there with their dicks in their hands, pardon the language. Two agents died and a couple more wished they had. Careers died. Escapes are bad. No one’s supposed to escape.”