"Traditional," she says. "Derek wanted to write his own, but Mom thinks she talked him out of it."
"Thus averting disaster."
"Afterwards the newlyweds are off to Ireland, and then to sunny Prague."
"Ugh-oh."
"Not to wreck your day, Jack, but they're making a miniseries from The Falconer's Mistress.Derek's gonna punch up the script."
"It's only fair," I say with level calm.
"Boy, you mustbe getting some. I haven't see you in such a good mood since that big-haired Karen chick was polishing your knob."
"Carla, are you poaching from Emily Dickinson again?"
"You know what I'm talkin' about."
Now I remember what I wanted to ask her. "The other night, did anything happen after I left the club?"
"Yeah. Two Japanese businessmen offered me four hundred bucks for a friction dance. They were incredibly lost."
"No, I meant with Cleo."
"She tried to score some X off me in the ladies' room, but that's about it. Hey, I really gotta get back to work."
"Tell your mom I wish her the best. I mean that, too."
"I know you do." She scoots out of the booth and slings a mailbag-sized purse over her shoulder. "Sure you aren't up for some dirty snapshots? There's this one blond cow, she's got some wrangler tied naked to a barber's chair with a string of Christmas lights." In a whisper she adds: "The lady who brought in the film, she's a big shot with the Junior League."
"Very tempting," I say to Carla, "but I'll pass."
Naughtily she cocks an eyebrow. "Jack, you old hound. She must be a hottie, this new babe of yours."
" 'Hope is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul.'"
"Whatever," says Carla, sticking out her tongue.
To avoid working on MacArthur Polk's obituary, I busy myself in the newsroom by scrolling up the many bylines of Emma's father on the International Herald Tribune'sdatabase. He is, as she told me, a topflight reporter. Among other big stories, he covered the fall of Suharto in Indonesia, the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, and the investigation into the automobile crash that killed Princess Diana and her boyfriend. Painfully I realize the disparity between my career arc and that of Emma's father is so vast as to render insignificant the four-year gap in our ages. He's batting cleanup in the big leagues, I'm riding the bench in the minors. Anticipating the withering onset of a depression, I abruptly click off the Herald Tribunesite and return full bore to Jimmy Storm patrol.
The obliging archives of the Palm Beach Postreveal that the Sea Urchins, the chief beneficiary of Jimmy's estate, is an old and well-regarded charity that sponsors children's marine camps in Key Largo, the Bahamas and the Caribbean. The kids are of elementary-school age, and come from impoverished neighborhoods throughout the United States and Canada. The seven stories on file contain no hint of scandals or misdeeds connected to the program. A recent feature piece about prominent Sea Urchins boosters includes a quote from a "James B. Stomartie" that I assume to be Jimmy, surname misspelled. "Every kid, no matter how poor, deserves a chance to dive into an ocean at least once in his life," he said.
Janet's brother wasn't a complicated man, and his bequest was born of uncomplicated motives. He probably figured that a glimpse of the undersea world would do for those kids what it did for him. Cleo might be fuming about the terms of her husband's will but she'd be an idiot to challenge it now. The headlines alone would annihilate her career (Pop Star Widow Sues to Claim Kiddie Charity's Loot).As
Janet said, if Cleo wanted Jimmy's money, she'd have been better off divorcing him than killing him. If she did murder him, it surely was over something else.
I hope to learn much more when, at noon sharp the day after tomorrow, the phone should ring in a booth at the end of the Silver Beach fishing pier. Maybe it'll be Cleo calling, maybe somebody in her posse.
Or maybe the phone won't ring at all, and then I'm stuck again. Maybe she never found the "Cindy's Oyster" disc with the phone number. What if she's allergic to coleslaw, and tossed the bag in the garbage?
"Jack."
It's Emma, sneaking up on me like in the old days. Only now, instead of acting officious, she seems rattled and hesitant.
"Do you have a credit card?" she says. "Because I haven't figured out how to get the paper to pay for this yet. But I will, don't worry. I'm waiting to corner Abkazion between the five– and six o'clock news meetings."
"Pay for what? "I ask.
"A plane ticket to Los Angeles. Here, look." She hands me a printout of a short piece from the Associated Press. Before I can begin to read it, Emma blurts: "Tito Negraponte was shot last night."
"No shit," I hear myself saying. "You were right ... "
"He's not dead. They've got him listed as serious at Cedars-Sinai. You want to take a crack at an interview?"
I'm dumbstruck. "You mean it? You want me to get on an airplane and go chasing a story, just like a real reporter?"
Emma reaches out lightly to touch my arm, as if she's brushing away a fleck of lint. "You've got to promise you'll be careful."
Already I'm groping in my desk for extra notebooks and pens. "Emma, you were right. You were absolutely right!"
"Sure looks that way."
"Somebody's killing off the Slut Puppies!" Then I clutch her pale startled face and smooch her lustily on the forehead, right there in the newsroom in front of God, the assistant city editors, everybody.
23
By the time I got to L.A. it was ten-thirty at night. Most hospitals are penetrable at any hour, so I was surprised to be turned away by the late-shift lobby crew at Cedars-Sinai. My next stop was the emergency room, but heart-wrenching lies failed to thaw the glacial resolve of a senior trauma nurse who had thrust herself, as demurely as Mario Lemieux, in my path.
At first I figured the problem was me, rusty at double-talk after so long on the sedentary obit beat. Then I remembered this was the Spago of hospitals; every major star of the entertainment industry winds up at Cedars one way or another. Madonna and Mrs. Michael Jackson came here to deliver their babies; Liz Taylor, for brain surgery. This is where they brought Spielberg after his limousine crash, and where Francis Albert Sinatra was pronounced dead of a heart attack at age eighty-two. The place is constantly under siege by tabloid vultures whose subterfuges are elaborate and advanced by fistfuls of cash. No wonder security is tight.
So I retreated to a habitable motel on Wilshire Boulevard near Alvarado Street, and as a light rain fell I dozed off with a can of Sprite in one hand and my portable Sony tuned to the endless Jimmy Stoma sessions. The rhythm guitar track for one of the numbers seemed distantly familiar, which was odd because it was the first cut of the song—"Gltitle0l"—that I'd called up. Yet I found myself humming the tune in the shower this morning, and it played in my skull all the way to Cedars, where I'm now standing in the elevator holding a preposterously large vase of fresh-cut carnations, sunflowers and daisies.
Flowers will get you practically anywhere in a hospital. I've told the front desk I'm taking them to my brother in Room 621. Because my arms were full and I acted like I knew the drill, nobody made me sign in; a plastic pass was clipped to my shirt and here I am, getting off on the sixth floor.
Tito Negraponte was admitted under his own name—this I'd discovered earlier when, pretending to be a florist, I phoned the hospital switchboard. His private room number was disclosed so offhandedly I had to conclude that neither a Grammy Award nor a gunshot wound is enough to elevate a bass player to the A-list at Cedars. I'm feeling optimistic about a one-on-one interview until Tito's door is opened by a cheerless Los Angeles County detective. Even minus the badge on his belt I would have figured him as a cop. Luckily he's on his way out, and I receive only a nod and a cursory glance at my floor pass.