The Proof is in the Pudding (38 page)

Will Parker had described Roland Gray’s apartment building as “a bloody tall white building on the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Garland Street,” with “Gates across the driveway. Gorgons at the doors. Security up the arse.”

The big white building with ornamental iron gates across the driveway was easy to spot. An elderly man in a guard’s uniform occupied the kiosk just outside the gates.

“My name is Della Carmichael. Mr. Gray is expecting me.”

The guard checked his clipboard, found my name, and nodded. “Do you know where it is?”

“No.”

“Apartment three twelve, third floor, in the back,” he said.

“Thank you. Where can I park?”

“Follow the driveway down into the garage. Use any space marked ‘visitor.’ Take the elevator up to the third floor and turn left.”

He pressed a button and the gates swung open.

As I drove past the front of the building, I didn’t see any “Gorgons” at the door. Nor did I see any as I steered the Jeep into the dim, subterranean parking garage. I’m not fond of poorly lighted garages. It would have been comforting to see a couple of those big guardians playing cards down here. Maybe they were on a break.

I found an empty “visitor” space near the elevator and parked. With the bowl of pudding cradled against my chest, I got out and locked the Jeep.

It took only a few seconds for the elevator to arrive at the garage level. As I was whisked upward, I was pleased that I didn’t feel any protest from my stomach. I didn’t really expect one because it was empty, except for a spoonful of pudding. The fact that I was hungry again was testimony that my distress of the morning was over.

The third floor hallway was well lighted and painted a soft shade of blue. Plexiglas-enclosed prints of beautiful birds in flight decorated the walls. Without traditional framing, it looked as though the birds were soaring through the sky.

At the door to apartment 312 I reached into my bag and turned on the recorder.

I’d no sooner touched my finger to the bell outside apartment 312 when the door opened.

Roland Gray, a welcoming expression on his face, greeted me warmly and stepped aside for me to come in. He was wearing a soft blue open-neck shirt, and a red cashmere cardigan. The only sign that he’d been shot four nights ago was the narrow strip of tape almost the color of his skin that ran across his forehead, just below his hairline.

I saw his nostrils twitch. Gesturing at the bowl I carried, he said, “I’m getting the scent of a heavenly something. What have you brought?”

“It’s a new kind of chocolate nut butter pudding I made this afternoon. My partner and I are considering selling containers of it in our retail store. You’re the one who got me interested in pudding, so I would appreciate your expert opinion.”

“It will be my pleasure.”

We were in a large, comfortable, no-particular-style living room with a dining area on one side. The room opened up onto a balcony enclosed by a waist-high ornamental iron railing. Several big terra-cotta tubs filled with bright red geraniums provided wonderful splashes of color against a sky that today was gray with smog.

Roland took the bowl of pudding from me and smiled with pleasure.

“Ahhhh, slightly tepid. Exactly how I like it, from a little warm to room temperature. Cold pudding I regard as a beastly perversion.”

Roland gestured toward the dining room table, which was already arranged with two sets of cups, saucers, and dessert plates, silverware, a teapot in a cozy, a platter of little pastries, and a basket of scones. The scones were surrounded by tiny pots of jam and a dish of whipped cream.

Still holding the bowl of pudding, Gray used one hand to pull out a chair in front of one of the two sets of cups and saucers and dessert plates. “Sit here,” he said.

My chair faced out onto the patio; behind me was a swinging door that I presumed led into the kitchen. I put my bag down casually on the chair beside me.

“You have a lovely view,” I said. “No tall buildings around.”

Roland removed a metal trivet from the nearby sideboard, placed it on the table next to me, and put the bowl of pudding on it. “The flat agent said that on a clear day one can see the ocean, but I’ve yet to spot it. I suppose one must take that statement on faith.”

He took the seat opposite me and smiled. Indicating the teapot, he said, “Would you like to be Mum?”

I knew that the phrase “to be Mum” meant that he wanted me to pour the tea.

He placed a silver tea strainer over his cup as I removed the cozy from the pot and put it to one side. As I poured the dark amber-colored liquid into his cup, a very pleasant aroma was released.

After serving Roland, and depositing the wet leaves into the little saucer next to the strainer, I strained a cup for myself, and took a sip. Although I’m essentially a coffee person, I had to admit that this was very good.

“What kind of tea is it?” I asked.

“A special blend I get at Harrods in London. I haven’t found it anywhere else. If you like it, I’ll ring Will tonight and have him bring some back for you.”

“Thank you; I’d like that. And when you speak to him, please tell him that I hope his mother is all right.”

Roland indicated the scones and the pastries. I took a frosted pink petit four.

“He’ll appreciate that.”

“I was rereading the first of your Roger Wilde books and I noticed your acknowledgment to Will. You said he helped your hero out of a tight spot?”

“Ahhh, yes. I was doing research on the British Commandos when I met Will. It was at a point in the book where I’d written myself into a corner, so to speak.”

I frowned in sympathy. “That must have been an awful feeling.”

“It was more painful than I can describe.” He sipped his tea. “There’s an old story in publishing circles—I’ve used it several times when I’ve lectured to rooms full of poor sots who think they want to write. It’s about a writer of magazine adventure serials—long ago, when periodicals serialized such things. The late, great Sidney Sheldon told me the story. He said he didn’t know where it came from because he’d have loved to give proper credit. But here it is. Each month the serial writer plunged his hero into worse and worse trouble—just as I was trying to do to poor Roger Wilde. The readers loved those stories and the magazine’s sales went up. Partway through the adventure, the writer asked his editor for a raise. He was denied. That was disappointing, but like a good soldier, the writer turned in the next episode on schedule. The end of that chapter was especially exciting. He had plunged his hero into a deep pit filled with poisonous snakes. Up above was a ring of hungry tigers, and beyond them there was a raging forest fire. The sides of the pit were so hard and slick it was impossible to make handholds. The snakes at his feet were coiling to strike.

“After that issue went to press, the writer went back to his editor and said that he wasn’t going to write the next episode unless he was paid more money. The editor refused, and ordered his other serial writers to come up with a way to get the hero out of that pit.

“Time went by. The publication clock was ticking. No one could figure out how the hero was going to survive. Finally, just before the next issue absolutely had to go to press, the editor surrendered. The writer got a fatter pay packet and he handed in the next chapter. The first line began, ‘Once out of the pit . . .’ ”

I laughed. Roland’s smile was wry.

“You may find that amusing. So would I have—if I hadn’t been in a similar spot, and unable to take the easy way out. My publisher would have rejected that solution in a novel, cancelled my contract, and blackened my name in the industry. Publishers regard lack of imagination in a thriller writer as a worse failing than heavy drinking.”

“There are eight or nine Roger Wilde books, so you must have solved the problem.”

“I didn’t,” Roland said. “Will was the one. We were drinking in a pub in London and I was crying in my cups, telling him my problem. He wasn’t sympathetic. He said he’d been in a military unit dubbed ‘Thatcher’s Butchers’ by other commandos and that he’d faced a lot worse than—as he described Roger—‘that silly
ponce
.’ Then he proceeded to tell me some things . . . If my hair hadn’t already begun to go gray it would have started on the spot that night. We went back to my flat in Cadogan Gardens and I showed him my troublesome pages. He suggested a few changes to the situation, and then he showed me how Roger could rescue himself. It turned out to be a great scene. Many of the reviewers mentioned it favorably, even the ones who look down on the espionage genre.”

“That was a lucky meeting,” I said. “Will has the most interesting business card—he gave it to me the night you were in St. Clare’s Hospital. ‘NID question mark, space, and then WCD.’ I figured out the WCD pretty quickly: ‘Will Can Do.’ But what does the NID question mark stand for?”

“That’s one of his old cards. Those first three letters stand for ‘Need It Done?’ and then you were right, the rest is: ‘Will Can Do.’ ”

“What does it mean?” I made my tone light to sound innocently curious. “Is he a kind of handyman?”

“Not in the usual sense of the phrase, as you might understand it,” Roland said. “Will likes complex challenges. But he can also fix anything mechanical. I haven’t needed to hire a plumber or an electrician in ten years.”

Roland finished his first cup of tea and asked for another.

Since he was already talking about Will, as I poured, I took a chance and probed deeper. “I met Yvette Dupree the night of the gala. She’s delightful. Have she and Will known each other a long time?”

“Oh, at least a decade or so, but Will likes to stay out of her limelight. He never goes around with her to social engagements, but they’re quite devoted to each other. I call them—jokingly, of course—Beauty and the Beast.”

At that moment, I heard a slight squeak, and felt a whoosh of air from the swinging door opening behind me.

“You bloody dim-witted sod!” Will Parker said. “Why don’t you tell ’er the lot? I warned you this bird knew too much already.”

Turning, I saw that he’d leveled the barrel of a pistol at my head. Screwed onto the end was a sound suppressor.

Terror held me frozen for a moment, but then the powerful instinct for self-preservation took over. I dropped my teacup, letting it break on the top of the table, grabbed the full bowl of pudding beside me, and heaved it at Parker’s head.

His reflexes were too good. He ducked, but my white Wedgwood missile struck him on the shoulder and split with a
crack
. Great globs of chocolate fudge pudding splashed all over the front of his shirt.

Enraged, Parker screamed, “Bloody ’ell!”

I jumped out of the chair, but he caught my arm, spun me around, and hit me a sharp, terrible blow on the side of the head. I went down . . .

When I woke up, I sensed that it was dark, but I kept my eyes closed and lay still. I heard Roland Gray and Will Parker talking and hoped they’d think I was still unconscious. Moving my limbs just fractions of an inch at a time I realized that I was bound at the ankles and that my wrists were tied behind my back with some soft material.

I was lying on my side, one cheek and my nose pressed down against the carpet. There were particles of dust caught in the fibers. I had an urge to sneeze, but forced myself to hold it in while I listened and tried to learn what my fate was going to be.

“Compare me to a bloomin’ plumber! Weren’t fer me, you’d be teachin’ in some low-class boarding school, licking the ’ead master’s arse.”

“Will, don’t say things like that. We’re a team.”

Parker’s voice was bitter. “Some bloody team. You get all the credit,” Parker said.

Roland sounded close to tears. “We split all the money. I told you it has to be this way because the publisher pays more with just my name on a book.”

“You wouldn’t get a freakin’ Euro without me. An’ we wouldn’t be in this fix if you ’adn’t started everything by messin’ with that girl’s speech. Bloody stupid prank you pulled. Nobody with the brains in a donkey’s arse deliberately makes an enemy—especially not one that rich.”