Charles Lasser stopped talking to three men in his office, and peered toward the doors. ‘Stanley!’ he called, his voice was a thick, volcanic rumble. ‘What the fuck is going on?’
‘This gentleman’s lost, Mr Lasser, sir, that’s all.’
‘Get rid of him, will you?’
‘Yes, sir, Mr Lasser, sir!’
But then Frank wrestled his way past him, and said, ‘You beat her, didn’t you? You stubbed your cigarettes out on her back! What else did you do to her, you goddamned sadist?’
The black man twisted Frank’s arms behind his back and manhandled him back through the doors, but Charles Lasser shouted, ‘Wait!’ He came striding across the office and stood over Frank, looking down at him in disbelief.
Charles Lasser had a forehead like an overhanging rock formation, under which his eyes glittered as if they were hiding in caves. His nose was enormous and complicated, with a bony bridge and wide, fleshy nostrils, and his chin was deeply cleft. His thinning hair was dyed intensely black, and combed straight back over his ears.
He was wearing a billowing white shirt with bright green suspenders and a garish green necktie with purple patterns on it. He smelled very strongly of lavender.
‘Who the fuck are you?’ he demanded.
‘Frank Bell. You know that comedy show If Pigs Could Sing? That’s mine. Creator, writer, associate producer.’
‘What are you doing here? What’s all this crap about cigarette burns?’
‘You’re asking me? I should be asking you, for Christ’s sake. Five cigarette burns, all over her back, not to mention multiple bruises and contusions and black eyes! Gives you a thrill, does it, beating up on defenseless girls?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. Stanley, throw him out of here!’
‘I’m talking about Astrid, Mr Lasser. Don’t tell me your memory’s that short.’
‘I don’t know any Astrid, my friend, and if I were you I wouldn’t say one single word more about beatings or bruises or cigarette burns, because if you do I will sue you into total poverty.’
Stanley tried to frogmarch Frank away, but Frank jabbed his elbow into his stomach and pushed him back against the door jamb. ‘You don’t know any Astrid?’ he challenged. ‘Who are you trying to kid? Brunette, short hair, twenty-four years old, came to see you at your house yesterday morning? Ring any bells?’
Charles Lasser stared at him with those tiny, deeply hidden eyes. He breathed steadily through his mouth but for nearly ten seconds he didn’t say anything at all. It seemed to Frank as if he were trying to work something out in his head, something that didn’t fit his known perception of the world around him.
‘If Pigs Could Sing?’ he said at last. ‘That’s Fox, isn’t it?’
Frank said, ‘I’m warning you, leave her alone. I can’t tell her what to do. I can’t tell her not to see you again. But if you hurt her once more, just once, then I swear to God I will personally beat the shit out of you, and I will make sure that the cops and the media know why I did it.’
Charles Lasser pointed a finger at him – a big, thick finger with a squared-off nail. ‘You listen to me, little man. I don’t know who you’ve been talking to, or where you got all of your lunatic ideas from, but you’re treading on very dangerous ground here. My advice to you is to leave this building right now. If you ever repeat this slander to anybody, ever again, I’ll have you hunted down like the vermin you are, and exterminated.’
‘OK,’ said Frank. ‘I’m going. But you be warned, Mr Lasser. One more bruise, one more bite, one more cigarette burn, and I’ll be coming after you.’
Charles Lasser had already turned his back. The three men in his office took two or three nervous steps away from him, like gazelles when a lion unexpectedly changes direction.
‘Now what about this fucking offer?’ he growled. ‘Where do we stand on the anti-trust laws?’
Frank tried to phone John Berenger from his car to tell him that he couldn’t make their appointment, but his personal assistant told him, ‘Mr Berenger is in a meeting with Mr Lasser right now.’ Jesus, already? He hoped that Sloop wasn’t about to lose his job. Charles Lasser had been known to fire people simply because they smiled at him in a way that he found disrespectful. ‘Did I say something funny? Here’s something really hilarious: you’re sacked.’
He called Lizzie and at her suggestion they met for lunch at Injera, an Ethiopian restaurant on La Brea. Frank’s car was parked by the tallest, spindliest black man he had ever encountered, and it seemed that all of the waiters in the restaurant were equally tall and spindly, with knowing smiles that seemed to suggest that they knew something Frank didn’t. The walls were covered in red and brown batik and there were copper lamps and carved birds hanging from the ceiling. Lizzie was sitting in a dark corner hidden by a frondy plant. She was wearing a lime-green suit with extravagantly flared pants and a necklace that looked like a string of cherry tomatoes.
‘I don’t think I ever ate Ethiopian before,’ said Frank, settling into his carved wooden chair and picking up the menu.
‘It’s an acquired taste,’ Lizzie told him. ‘I have to confess that I haven’t acquired it yet, but they let me smoke.’
A waiter came up and Frank ordered a Harar beer. It was sweeter and stronger than domestic beer, but it was served with a dish of hot chilies and pickles and spicy nuts so he barely tasted it. Lizzie stuck with her usual Polish vodka, straight up and straight out of the freezer compartment.
‘You’ve had more than your fair share of romances, haven’t you?’ Frank remarked.
‘Uh-oh. That sounds as if you’re looking for advice.’
‘Not really. More like clarification.’
‘Go on.’
‘I was wondering if you’ve ever had an affair with somebody you knew nothing about. I’m not talking about a one-night stand here, I’m talking about an ongoing relationship that looks as if it could get serious.’
Lizzie took out a Marlboro and lit it. ‘I once had an affair with a man who told me that he did all of Marilyn Monroe’s lighting. Biff, his name was, can you believe it? Biff Brennan. “Miss Monroe, she doesn’t trust anybody else with her lights but me.” It turned out that he cleaned her windows.’
Frank shook his head. ‘I’m not kidding, Lizzie. After Danny died I met this girl and we started this incredibly intense affair. Intense physically, that is. And mentally, too, as far as she allows it to go. Her first name’s Astrid, but she won’t tell me her second name, or where she lives, or what she does for a living, or anything about her family. In the beginning it didn’t bother me, because I thought that she was just a way of taking my mind off Danny and escaping from Margot and all of those death stares that Margot kept giving me.’
‘But now you’re really beginning to care about this girl, and so it does bother you?’
Frank ran his hand through his hair. ‘Badly. More than I ever thought possible.’
The waiter returned. Lizzie ordered yemisir wat. ‘Red lentil stew. It tastes disgusting but I can’t resist the name.’ Frank went for alitcha fit-fit, a kind of pungent lamb casserole, and injera bread to mop it up with.
‘Maybe she’s married, this girl,’ Lizzie suggested, breathing smoke out of her nostrils.
‘I’m pretty sure she isn’t.’ He told her all about Astrid’s bruises, and her cigarette burns, and about his visit to Charles Lasser’s office. Lizzie crowed with delight when he told her that he had called Charles Lasser a sadist.
‘Why didn’t you ask me to come along? You’re such a killjoy! I have at least a thousand names I’d like to call Charles Lasser. Fundament Features, for a start.’