Biko came dashing into the lobby with his sword. From his perspective, it evidently appeared that we’d all been attacked by a lunatic with a lethal sculpture, and now a wounded Nelli was trying to defend us. So he lunged forward and shoved the point of his rapier against Henry’s chest. “Drop it!”
“No!” Henry howled in response to this new attack.
“Biko!”
Catherine Livingston shouted from somewhere nearby. “What are you
doing?
”
“Drop it!”
Biko moved his arm and Henry cried out, evidently feeling the tip of the sword prick his flesh.
The chubby mambo was still lying across the desk, fighting with the boa constrictor. Catherine was shouting. Biko was stabbing a man who was brandishing a piece of art. Max was being dragged along the floor. I was clinging to a hysterically barking Nelli, and there was blood all around us.
This, then, was the scene that greeted Lopez as he entered the lobby of the Livingston Foundation with my purse in his hands.
15
“P
olice!” Lopez shouted. “Everyone
FREEZE!
”
I’d had no idea his voice could be so piercing.
“Police! NO ONE MOVE!”
Henry and Catherine fell silent. Biko froze and looked at Lopez, a comically surprised expression on his face.
Nelli was still panting anxiously and growling, but she ceased barking. Even the mambo’s shrieks reduced in volume.
Still clinging to the dog, I was shoved aside and fell down. Nelli yelped in surprise as she was seized from behind, and then she started choking. I looked up to see her dangling from Lopez’s grasp on her pink collar, her-front feet flailing in midair as she gasped and coughed.
“Biko! Stand down,” Lopez ordered. “Right now!”
Biko lowered his sword and backed away from Henry, but he turned a hard stare on the man.
Lopez glanced at the wooden sculpture.
“Drop it.”
Henry dropped it. Catherine gave a little moan as it cracked and splintered upon hitting the hard floor.
Looking at the shaking, sweating older man, Lopez said in a clipped voice, “Go sit down.”
Henry nodded and staggered over to the wall, where he slumped down into one of the lobby chairs, at a safe distance from both Nelli and Napoleon.
Still holding the struggling dog, Lopez said urgently to me, “Is this your blood?”
“Huh? What? Oh!” I shook my head, still disoriented. “No, it’s Nelli’s.”
He turned his attention next to Mambo Celeste. An extraordinary expression crossed his face as he watched her struggle with her writhing snake. He lowered Nelli to the ground and, keeping one hand on her collar, he used the other to reach for his holstered gun.
“No!” Catherine, Max, and I all cried at once.
“It’s her pet,” Catherine said. “It’s just frightened.”
“Good God.” Lopez left his gun in its holster and instead used his free hand to reach down, grab Max by his shirt, and haul him to his feet. “Can you control your damn dog?”
“Well, now that she is somewhat calmer, I believe—”
“She needs a vet.” Lopez handed Nelli’s leash to Max.
“Nelli!” Max cried in alarm, realizing that her blood covered the floor.
“My vet’s just a few blocks away,” Biko said. “I’ll take them.”
Lopez said to Biko, “Hand me that sword.”
Biko looked shocked. “I can’t give you my
sword!
”
Moving swiftly, Lopez seized the weapon from the appalled young man and headed for the struggling mambo.
Biko said in horror, “Hey, don’t
touch
that thing with my—Oh,
man
. . .”
Unable to bear the sight, the lad looked away as Lopez poked the writhing snake sharply with the rapier.
Napoleon responded sensibly to this new attack by slithering away from the mambo and fleeing. Seeing the snake on the move again, Nelli barked.
“NO!”
Nelli flinched at Lopez’s tone and lowered her head. Moving with disturbing speed, Napoleon had already reached the far wall and was frantically trying to climb it, intent on escape. He kept falling down and trying again. I was torn between pity and revulsion.
Lopez returned the rapier to Biko and then grabbed a pretty batik cloth that was draped over the small table that stood next to Henry’s chair. He knelt by Nelli’s side.
Realizing his intention, Catherine protested, “You can’t use
that!
It’s—”
“Shut up.” He wrapped Nelli’s bleeding paw with the material as he said to Catherine, “You and that woman have five minutes to get that snake into its cage. If I don’t see it safely contained by then, I’m calling animal control to come get it.”
Nelli’s dewclaw lay near me. I moved away from it and climbed laboriously to my feet.
Lopez finished wrapping Nelli’s paw. He ignored the dog’s attempt to lick his hand as he rose to face Catherine, who was still standing there frowning at him. He said to her, “Now you have four and a half minutes.”
She gave him a coldly affronted look, opened her mouth, and drew breath to speak. I thought she was going to threaten to complain to his superiors, and I recalled that she was a billionaire’s widow and probably well-connected. But, meeting Lopez’s hard gaze, she evidently changed her mind. After a pregnant pause, Catherine closed her mouth, looking sullen as her shoulders sagged slightly.
She turned on her heel and walked swiftly to the reception desk, where she took the gasping, cursing Mambo Celeste by the shoulders and tried to get her to calm down. Then, moving like people who were a lot more familiar with snakes than
I
ever wanted to be, the two women picked up the squirming, disoriented boa constrictor and carried him out of the lobby.
Lopez said to Biko, “Lock that sword away someplace safe, then take Max and his dog to your vet.”
The young fencer nodded and went to do as ordered.
When Max attempted to thank Lopez for his help, the exasperated detective interrupted him. “Get that man a glass of water or something, would you?” He pointed to Henry, who still sat slumped in a chair. “He looks like he’s going to faint.”
“No, no, I’m all right,” Henry said faintly. “It was all just a little . . . overwhelming. I’ve never liked that snake. And this dog is . . . Well, she’s awfully
big
, isn’t she?” His gaze shifted and he pointed to something. “Oh, look, miss. I think your purse has arrived.”
“My purse!” I said to Lopez, “Oh, thank you!”
I scooped the bag off the floor, where he had dropped it, and began investigating its contents. My wallet, money, ID, various plastic cards, apartment keys, and cell phone were all there. “Oh, thank God! It would have such a nuisance to have to replace all this stuff!” It would have cost money, too, and I didn’t have money to waste.
Lopez went downstairs to the hounfour to make sure Napoleon was properly contained. Max began apologizing at length to Henry for the disturbance while a subdued Nelli sat beside him, her injured paw wrapped in its colorful makeshift bandage. When Henry felt able to stand up again, he decided to retreat to the restroom and compose himself there.
Meanwhile, I sat down on the stairs and listened to my voice mail messages. There had been a number of calls since the phone was taken from me, but it turned out that they were all ones that I already knew about, so I deleted the messages.
Biko returned from stowing his fencing gear. He and Max hurried for the exit with a limping Nelli, pausing only to ask if they’d see me at Puma’s shop later.
“No,” I said. “By the time you’re done at the vet’s, I’ll be on my way to the restaurant.” And since I’d be at Bella Stella all day Saturday, we agreed to meet here at the foundation again on Sunday before attending the Vodou ritual downstairs.
Since I had been reunited with my phone, I decided to call the
D30
production office to let them know I was taking calls at this number again. I also wanted to make sure they knew I had indeed paid my required visit to Michael Nolan.
I spoke with the same woman who’d taken my call yesterday. I still didn’t know her name. But she knew mine.
“Esther! I was just about to call you!”
“I visited Mike,” I said firmly. “I was unavoidably detained, but I did show up and do my time. Er, I mean—”
“Yes, I know. He mentioned that.”
“He did?”
“I talked to him earlier today. He’s checking out of the hospital today and plans to come back to work on Monday.”
“What?” That seemed awfully soon to return to his demanding work schedule. “Are his doctors agreeing to that?”
“I don’t have the impression that he and his doctors have reached a consensus yet,” she said carefully. “But Mike’s determined. And, well, we do need to finish the episode.”
“Ah.”
With Nolan chomping at the bit and with his character at the center of an unfinished episode in a tightly budgeted TV series, the production staff would certainly go
find
a doctor willing to declare him ready to return to work, if need be. The
Crime and Punishment
empire had a lot of experience at keeping the wheels of production rolling forward. So if they said they would start filming with Nolan again on Monday, then I believed them.
“When do want me back on the set?” I asked.
“Can you hang on for a second, Esther?” Without waiting for my reply, she put me on hold. A couple of minutes later, she came back on the line. “I’ve got Mike on the other line. A doctor has cleared him to return to work.”
“That was fast.” I was tempted to get the doctor’s name, so that I could make sure never to entrust my own medical care to him.
“We’ll need you on the set at six o’clock Monday evening. All right?”
I would have to go straight to the
D30
set from the foundation, where I was scheduled to teach a class that afternoon. “No problem,” I said, glad I could feel confident that Jilly’s abused costume would be ready by then. “Where am I going?”
“The same location Mike got sick. You remember where it is?”
“I doubt I’ll ever forget,” I said sincerely. “So we’re still doing the original scene?” The one where I would spend most of my time on my knees in front of Nolan.
“Yes. Oh, and Esther? Mike is waiting on the other line because he wants to talk to you.”
“He does?” I said in surprise.
“Yes. Anyhow, unless something changes and you hear from us again, we’ll see you Monday evening,” she said cheerfully. “Now hold for Mike Nolan, please.”
“Hello?” I said when I heard the line click.
“Who the fuck is this?” said Nolan’s familiar voice.
I resisted the urge to hang up on him. “Esther Diamond. You wanted to speak to me?”
“Oh, right.”
He was still at the hospital, but he had just finished checking out and was now waiting for the arrival of the car that would take him home. And he wanted to talk to me about the scene we’d be filming on Monday. Mostly, he seemed to be concerned that I would screw it up.
After a few minutes of listening to him giving me unsolicited advice and unwanted direction, I decided it was time to change the subject. “I want to thank you, by the way, for how nice you were to my friend yesterday evening.”
“What friend?” he said.
“Jeff,” I said. “Jeffrey Clark.”
“Who?”
“The man I brought with me to visit you last night,” I said.
“The old guy from Oxford?”
“No, the bald man who stayed with you after I left.”
“Oh, right! Nice guy.” There was a pause. ““His name was Jeff?”
Apparently the bonding had been a little one-sided.
“I gather you offered to speak to the show’s casting director about him,” I said. “That was very good of you.”
“Huh?”
“You’re going to talk to the casting director about Jeff,” I reiterated.
“Why would I do that?” He sounded puzzled.
“So that Jeff can audition for him.”
“Jeff’s an actor?” There was surprise in Nolan’s voice. “I thought he was a fan. I thought that’s why he asked you to introduce us.”
“He’s an actor,” I said. “And you’re going to talk to—”
”Oh, come
on,
Esther. I can’t go pestering the casting director on behalf of every aspiring actor who talks his way past security to meet me.”
I gave it one more shot. “Jeff Clark’s not aspiring. He’s very accomplished. He—”
“Forget it,” Nolan said. “I’m not a charitable institution.”
I sighed and dropped the subject. I felt a little sorry for Jeff, but Nolan’s reaction wasn’t exactly a surprise to me.