Secrets & Lies (22 page)

A lot of the action was in front of Grauman's Chinese Theatre, right on top of the cement with the hand and footprints. People were just coming out of the movie, and suddenly I was the object of everyone's attention. Men flirted with me, saying, “I bet there's a pretty face underneath that mask!” and things like that. Several folks asked me for an autograph! I was flattered and enjoyed the accolades, but then I realized it was all phony. It was a joke. It started to bug me that to them I was only a
pretend
Black Stiletto. That autograph didn't mean anything, it was just a Hollywood souvenir. I had to do something to make them realize I was the real thing.

So what did I do? I removed my coiled rope and attached the pulley hook to it, swung it in the air, and caught the top edge of Grauman's marquee! I tugged on the rope to make sure it held my weight, and then climbed to the top. Everyone gasped and applauded. I waved and blew kisses to the crowd.

Then they started to shout, “Do another trick!”

“Throw your knife!”

“Do a somersault!”

I was tempted to honor the requests, but the manager stormed out of the theater and shook a fist at me. “Hey you!” he yelled. “Get down from there this instant! I'm calling the police!”

Some of my audience members protested, but the man was adamant. “You clowns have no right to climb up there. They ought to outlaw all of you costumed idiots!” He meant the actors who dressed up as celebrities. Well, I had no choice in the matter. I didn't want the cops called on me, so I slithered down the rope and pulled the hook loose.

“Sorry,” I said, “I was just putting on a little show.”

“You want to get hurt and sue us,
that's
what you want! Are you in Actors' Equity? I bet you aren't! You do any kind of performance on our premises, you have to be in the union and you have to be paid. I don't want Actors' Equity coming after me. Now
get out of here!
”

Gee whiz!

I bowed to him and said, “Yes, sir,” a bit too sarcastically, and
then I turned around and headed east on the boulevard. The crowd dispersed and most of them chalked the scene up to a street performer getting told off by a property owner; however, a few men followed me with catcalls and taunts. I began to feel uncomfortable, but I did my best to ignore them. When the heat got to be too much, I started to run. I passed Superman and James Dean and kept going. The men shouted, “Where are you going, Stiletto?” “Is the Black Stiletto a coward?” and junk like that. Well, I wanted to put some distance between me and them, so I ran all the way to Cahuenga Boulevard, just past the big Florsheim Shoes store. I stopped to catch my breath. On that part of Hollywood Boulevard there weren't as many tourists, and it seemed as if the town was shutting down for the night. There were a handful of bums sitting on the sidewalk against the buildings and very few pedestrians on that end of the block.

I crossed Cahuenga when the light changed and went on until I was at Hollywood and Vine. Looking north, I could see the big old Taft Building and the Capitol Records Building, the one that looks like a stack of records. The streets were dead. Hollywood just wasn't as vibrant as New York at 10:30 at night.

But then I saw something fishy. Around the corner on Vine, near the El Capitan Theatre, I noticed a car idling in front of a liquor store. A driver sat at the wheel, his arm holding a cigarette out the open window. The lights were on in the store, but the rolling steel grate was halfway down in front, as if the place was in the process of closing. I don't know what it was about the tableau, but I had seen too many idling cars in front of storefronts in Manhattan. My senses recognized it as a robbery in progress, so I decided to check it out.

I positioned myself across the street from the liquor store to get a better view, but it was difficult to see what was going on inside due to the grate. When there was a lull in traffic, I stepped out onto Vine and crept closer. The driver of the sedan never turned his head to look at me, but he seemed nervous. He kept looking at the street ahead of him, glancing behind him in the rearview mirror, and gazing
at the store. He didn't expect anyone to come up to the car on the driver's side, so I silently crouched beside the car and peered over the tail end at the shop. Sure enough, a guy stood inside pointing a gun at the proprietor, who was busy emptying a cash register.

Time to act. I moved to the driver's door and opened it, scaring the man out of his wits.

“No parking here,” I said. He started to scream when he saw me in my mask, but I grabbed him before he could utter much of a sound. I pulled him out of the car and threw him on the street. Two swift kicks—one in the stomach and one in the head—silenced him. I left the man lying in the road and got inside the car. I honked the horn several times, alerting the other robber that it was time to get out of there. In ten seconds he had stuffed whatever cash the shop owner had given him into what looked like a woman's purse, and then he came charging outside. By then, I was waiting for him on the sidewalk. The gun was still in his right hand, so I focused my efforts on disarming him first. It was surprisingly easy. I delivered a simple
Mae-geri
front kick and knocked the piece out of his grip. This guy
did
scream when he saw me. He tried to run, but I shouted, “Hold it!” and caught him before he could travel a foot. I pulled him over my hip and used a
judo
maneuver to throw him to the sidewalk. He landed flat on his back. I drew my stiletto, shoved my right boot into his chest, bent over him, and pointed the blade at his face.

“You can start by handing over that purse.”

The robber was too scared to defy me. The shop owner came outside, holding a baseball bat. He was an older man, gray haired, wide eyed, and open mouthed. He obviously couldn't believe what he saw. I handed the purse to him. “Here. Count it. Make sure it's all there.” He did and nodded. “Now call the police.” He said he already had.

To the thief I commanded, “Roll over and put your hands behind your back.” He obeyed, so I took a piece of rope from my belt and tied his wrists together. To the proprietor I said, “That should hold him. When the cops get here, tell them it was the
real
Black Stiletto
from New York who did this.” The old man just stared at me; he was probably just as frightened of me as the robber was. “Did you hear me?” He finally nodded. I sheathed the knife and ran across Vine. Instead of retracing my steps on Hollywood Boulevard, I went north to Yucca Street and ran west. I crossed Cahuenga and Wilcox, and followed the curve of the road up to Franklin. There, I found a shadowy spot, removed my mask, put on my trench coat, and casually walked home to my building.

There you have it, dear diary. My first outing as the Stiletto in Hollywood was a success! I have to admit it was exhilarating. It felt so
good
; it was that wonderful sensation of having got away with something. I started laughing like a fool. It was as if I'd played a monumental trick on the world and it worked. I immediately put on my new Elvis album and danced alone in the middle of my studio apartment, singing along to “I'm Comin' Home,” “In Your Arms,” “Put the Blame On Me,” and, of course, “Judy.”

Hello, California! I HAVE FINALLY ARRIVED!

T
HE
P
RESENT

Today I couldn't think of anything better to do, so I went to Gina's Krav Maga studio to watch and observe. I figured I needed to get a handle on exactly what it was my daughter was doing with her life. In many ways, I wanted to crawl into a hole this morning. After leaving that letter in Betty Dinkins's mailbox, I felt foolish, as if I'd done something extremely silly. My intentions were sound—I simply wanted the woman to fess up and stop telling the world she was the Black Stiletto. The veiled threat that she might be in danger was probably bullshit, but if Uncle Thomas was to be believed, then I suppose there was an element of extortion in my letter. “Do this or else bad things will happen.” Would Dinkins show the letter to the police? I doubted it. She probably wanted as little doubt as possible reflected on her story. For a while, I considered contacting John Richardson again to get his opinion, but ultimately I didn't want to open that can of worms. I'd just have to prevent letting Dinkins's antics get to me and allow her Black Stiletto claim to play out, so I decided to forget about it and go back to Illinois tomorrow. I had one day to kill in New York, so it was best to spend it close to Gina.

When I got to the studio, my daughter was on the mat doing the same kind of sparring with Josh I'd seen before. There was one other spectator besides me, a man who sat in a folding chair in the corner of the room with an iPad in his lap. He looked to be in his thirties
and he wore a suit, which seemed really out of place. The man was watching Gina and Josh intently, and every now and then he'd type something on his pad. His eyes met mine when I came in and he continued to stare at me until I nodded at him and took a seat several feet away, against the wall. He must have figured I belonged there, so he went back to his iPad and continued to make notes, or whatever it was he was doing.

As the couple on the mat sparred, Josh periodically spoke words I didn't understand. He kept saying things like, “Protect your danger zone,” or “
Retzev!
” or “Nice
secoul
.” In a way, the couple reminded me of wild animals I'd seen on TV nature shows. They'd circle, size each other up, and then
blam
—they went at each other with a barrage of punches and kicks and slaps and pushes. It looked to me like Josh wasn't holding back his blows, either. Poor Gina was getting pummeled. I almost stood and said, “Hey, take it easy!” but I knew that would be a mistake. When they stopped, Josh angrily scolded her. “You can't think about
retzev
; that has to happen automatically. You're
thinking
about it, Gina! When you move into action, whatever you do must be so natural to you that it's involuntary. By the time your brain has thought about it, you might already be dead.”

Sheesh. This is what my daughter wanted to do?

“Let's take a break.” Then he was all smiles, and the two of them walked over to me. Although she appeared to be mostly on the receiving end, Gina was undoubtedly good at this Krav Maga thing. I couldn't believe some of the moves I saw her make.

“Hi, Dad.”

“Good morning, Mr. Talbot, er, I mean Martin.”

I stood and shook hands with Josh and gave my sweaty girl a hug. “That sure looks like rough stuff,” I said stupidly.

Gina laughed. “It is! But it's not really so bad. We were just working on instinctive defenses and a few punches.”

“It looked to me like you were getting your butt kicked.”

She shrugged. “I have a lot to learn.”

“What's
retzev
?”

Josh answered. “That's a Hebrew term that means ‘continuous motion.' One of the fundamental concepts of Krav Maga is the idea of
retzev
, that you don't think about your defense and then execute it; you have to train your mind and your body to seamlessly combine a series of defenses and strikes so that they happen automatically. It has to be second nature.”

“And how's Gina doing?”

“Like I said before. She's a natural. Gina's the best student I've ever had, and I've never seen anyone progress as quickly.”

“You're not just saying that because she's standing right here?”

He laughed. “I normally
wouldn't
say that in front of her.”

“Most of the time he tells me how awful I am!” Gina said.

Josh excused himself and ran off to his office, leaving me with my daughter. She sat next to me and chugged on a water bottle.

“When are you leaving?” she asked.

“I figured I'd catch a flight tomorrow morning. I know now I'll never be able to change your mind about school and this crazy fight club thing you're doing, so I might as well go back to my humdrum life in Buffalo Grove.”

“Oh, Dad, your life isn't humdrum.”

“You sure thought it was when you lived there.”

“That was then.”

“Yeah, less than a year ago!”

That made her laugh again. She was so cute when she laughed. In fact, the way her mouth was shaped reminded me a lot of my mother when times were good for her.

“I talked to Mom last night,” she said.

“Oh?”

“Yeah. I think I convinced her I'm doing the right thing. For me.”

At that point, the man in the suit got up from his chair and walked across the studio toward Josh's office. When he was out of earshot, I asked, “Who's that?”

Gina shrugged. “Some guy who comes in and watches. A friend of Josh's.”

“He looks like he belongs in a Fortune 500 boardroom.”

“He has something to do with Josh's funding.”