Dating Is Murder

30

We got to West Hollywood an hour before I was to meet Simon. The lights were on at Book ’Em, D’Agneau, and on impulse I had Joey drop me there. I wasn’t the only customer. My uncle was in the back, having decaf with Lucien.

“Waiting for my ride,” Uncle Theo said. “Your brother rode back with the troops, but Prana and I took in a cabaret act. She’s in deep meditation now, which requires solitude.”

Lucien offered me a liquer. I declined. “Do you know a drug called Euphoria?” I asked.

“Don’t you mean Ecstasy?”

“Related to it, I think. Do you know much about Ecstasy? Like, how it’s made?”

“My friend Roger could tell you,” Uncle Theo said. “You remember him, Wollie, the homeopath in Ojai. He’d make up batches of the stuff for Christmas presents. For close friends. It was handy because safrole, the operative ingredient, is derived from sassafras oil, which Roger had on hand for his medicines. Safrole has few other legitimate uses, you see. Unhappily, he’s doing time now, although not for the Ecstasy. He didn’t believe in paying taxes.”

“Okay. So if Roger had gone beyond Christmas gifts,” I said, “and built a thriving business, would that get the attention of a drug bigwig? Like Vladimir Tcheiko?”

“I don’t believe I know him,” Uncle Theo said.

Lucien shook his head. “It would take more than Ecstasy to interest Tcheiko.”

“Like a new drug?” I said. “If it’s a really big deal? If this Euphoria, for instance-”

“U4,” Uncle Theo said. “Is that the same, do you suppose?”

I stared at my uncle and nodded.

“A young man at the hospital with P.B. described it to me,” he said, “as tripping on clouds at the bottom of the ocean. ‘U4 is 4U, U4 is 4U’ he liked to say. He had repetition compulsion, repeating words in multiples of eight. The drug sounded quite delightful.”

“Mental hospital,” I said to Lucien, by way of explanation. “Okay, would that do it? Would a new drug that’s big with college kids interest Tcheiko?”

“Oh, undoubtedly.” Lucien refilled Uncle Theo’s coffee cup. “But how far would he go for it? Actually, I’m inclined to think that if it’s big enough, he would go very far. The man is a megalomaniac, a publicity slut, a player. Outsize ego made larger by his famous escape last year. He is in retreat now, on the coast of Africa, they say, but he will no more live there quietly than movie stars retire upon wi

He sipped his coffee and gazed at me. “Now we have questions. Yesterday a man came in asking about you. I made him buy two books and one of your greeting cards and told him nothing.” He nodded at my reaction. “Receding hairline. Medium height. Unlike the well-proportioned being who walked you down the street today, who came in Sunday and bought one each of your cards, thirteen in total. I charged him for twelve. Question: why did the man yesterday leave here and drive off in a van with a plumbing logo on its side?”

“And why,” Uncle Theo said, “did your building superintendent stop by to say Happy Thanksgiving and that he wasn’t aware of your plumbing problem?”

I had no answers. I had no plumbing problems. I had other problems, though.

Uncle Theo and I pondered these while walking to my apartment. We arrived without incident and once I’d delivered my uncle to his friend Gordon, who was waiting in his truck on Larrabee, I headed to my own car, parked right in front of my building. I opened the trunk, removed my art portfolio, and went to wait for Simon in the lobby. While I waited, I sketched. Sketching relaxes me, occupying my hands when thoughts trouble my mind.

I’d been doing a line of condolence cards, initially inspired by my broken engagement. There is no end to things deserving of sympathy. “Sorry about that canceled wedding” led to “Sorry about your cholesterol levels,” “Sorry your house has mold,” and, this being Hollywood, “Sorry your series was canceled.” I finished “Sorry you flunked” and was starting a new one, “Sorry about your biological father,” when a knock on the building’s glass door made me jump.

I slapped my sketchbook shut and went outside to meet Simon Alexander.

“Nice office,” he said, indicating the lobby. He took my sketchbook. “May I?”

I nodded, watching him study my work. He’d changed clothes since this morning: different dress shirt, different dark pants, no tie. He turned the pages slowly, studying each as if it were directions to buried treasure. I realized I was holding my breath. Finally, he closed my sketchbook and handed it back. “I like your mind,” he said.

I let out my breath.

He escorted me to his sports car and opened the passenger door. A first-date sort of gesture. I wondered how long he’d do that, hold the door open for me. A lot of guys never do it, which is okay. Other guys start out doing it and after a while they get in the driver’s side and lean over to open the door for you, and then sometime later they dispense with opening your door at all, and the next thing you know, they’re in the car and halfway down the block before they even unlock your door, leaving you to hop after them in your high heels, waving your arms. Would we last that long, Simon and me?

I wasn’t in heels tonight. B.C. dictated flat shoes, since my feet were never seen on camera and Bing didn’t want me towering over Carlito, Henry, and Vaclav. I was also in a tight black skirt that went with my tight polka-dot blouse, part of my recent Beverly Center haul. And a lot of makeup. TV makeup, as applied by Fredreeq, is just slightly more subtle than what you’d see at the circus. Would Simon think I’d worn three coats of mascara to impress him?

I snuck a look at the bump in his nose I was growing fond of, prominent in profile. He caught me looking, smiled, and went back to his driving.

“Nice wheels, your cheap Bentley,” I said. “I thought Joey’s husband Elliot’s BMW had an impressive dashboard, but this one’s downright-” I stopped before saying “sexy.”

“Thank you,” he said, as though I’d finished my thought. “What kind of BMW?”

“I don’t know. Some convertible.”

He smiled. “I thought we’d go to Falcon. Do you know it?”

“No.”

“You’ll like it.”

“Naturally you know what I like, based on-my FBI file?”

He kept his eyes on the road. “Your favorite potatoes are french fries. You support the legalization of pet ferrets. You like watches. You hate sisal carpets, tolerate Berber, love Persian rugs, but worry about little girls in Third World countries sitting at looms making them.”

Oh.

He continued. “You designed your first greeting card when you were six, you listen to Christmas carols all year, you used to think James Bond was your father.”

I cleared my throat. “Okay, perhaps a government file is redundant for a contestant on Biological Clock. Still, you ca

“Falcon. I’ve watched you eat without complaint at seedy restaurants across L.A.”

“They haven’t all been seedy.”

“A good restaurant wouldn’t allow a show that bad to be filmed on its premises.”

“Is it really as bad as I think it is?”

“Biological Clock,” he said, “is as bad as it gets. I’m hooked. I fell asleep in front of the TV one night and woke up to your face. Your date berated the waiter for not knowing if the beef was domestic or Argentinian, and you stood up for the waiter.”

I stared. “But that was our first episode. Weeks before I appeared on your radar.”

“If you’re looking to keep a low profile, you might consider a different line of work.”

“Okay, I’m confused. I thought I came to your attention because of this sting operation, you thinking I was in with the bad guys, Little Fish, Big Fish…”