228
Chad “No Worries” Meldrun comes into the parking structure like he has a problem.
Worries.
Has that “places to go, people to see” look on his face as he strides to his Benz, gets in, and peels out.
Ben follows him.
West on Jamboree.
North on the PCH.
All the way to the Newport Beach Yacht Club.
Which figures, Ben thinks.
Money is a pigeon.
It always finds its way home.
229
This is, like, Republican Central. The party could hold its California convention right here, and Ben feels like he should have a visa to even get in.
A twenty slipped into the doorman’s palm
(“Are you a member, sir?”
“No, but he is.”) is sufficient documentation, but Ben feels Out of Place and a little hostile as he makes his way through the lobby and watches Meldrun go out onto the patio, overlooking the harbor, overlooking the yachts, where on this late Friday afternoon the elite are there to have a drink and to see and be seen.
Ben’s working hard at being Joe Detective, trying to blend into the crowd and still keep an eye on Meldrun without being seen when he hears “Ben?”
230
It’s a woman’s voice.
“Ben? Ophelia’s friend? Is that you?”
Ben panics momentarily because
(a) he doesn’t want to lose sight of Chad, and
(b) he can’t think of her actual name, only “Paqu.”
“Oh, hi. Mrs…”
He damn near says “Four.”
“It’s Bennett, now,” she says in a tone that manages to combine self-deprecating charm with a warning not to push the subject. (Indeed, she’s here cruising for his replacement. Four is about to become Four mer.)
“Mrs. Bennett.”
She’s statuesque, sexy, beautiful, with all the genuine human warmth of an ice sculpture.
(Except, Ben remembers, O swears that she will not melt. O has watched The Wizard of Oz, like, twelve thousand times to get tips.)
“What brings you here?” Paqu looks a little surprised, as if she either can’t understand why a friend of her daughter’s would be at the club, or forgot that they let Jews in now.
Ben catches sight of Chad’s back. “Oh, you know-Friday… the patio.”
Paqu glances at his left hand. “Yes, it can be quite the place to meet eligible young ladies.”
Subtext: you’d better not be doing my daughter.
“Is O with you?” Ben asks, aware that if she is, she’s in handcuffs and leg irons, because O would rather sip cat urine straight from the cat than iced tea with her mother on the patio.
Paqu lets the “O” reference slide. “No, I believe she’s out seeking employment.”
And I believe, Ben thinks, that bin Laden is hitting open-mike night at the West Akron Holiday Inn.
He watches Meldrun go up to someone-Ben can’t make out his face-along the railing bar.
“What do you do?” Paqu asks.
“Sorry?”
“What do you do, Ben?” Paqu asks. “For a living?”
“I’m an environmental consultant,” Ben says, still unable to get a good look at who Chad is talking to.
“What does that mean?”
It means I have to tell the IRS something, Ben thinks. “When a big building or a complex is going up, I advise the landscape architects what kinds of trees, plants, and grasses to put in.”
“That sounds fascinating,” Paqu says. “Very ‘green.’ Is that the word?”
“That’s one of them.”
“What’s another?” she asks.
That’s when Ben realizes she’s a little drunk.
“Bullshit,” Ben tells her. “It’s all bullshit, Mrs. B.”
She looks him straight in the eyes. “Ain’t that the goddamn truth, Ben.”
Yeah it is.
Because some people move out of the way and Ben sees who Meldrun is talking to.
Stan.
231
O-wearing a blue knee-length dress-walks up to the distinguished older home on Balboa Island and rings the bell. When the man comes to the door, she says, “Hi. Would you be my sperm donor?”
The man blinks and says, “Could I just take three boxes of Thin Mints, please?”
232
Brian Hennessy opens the door of his apartment to a nasty surprise.
Chon.
Who lays a shotgun stock into the base of Brian’s skull.
233
Places Ben Would Expect to See His Father Before He Would Expect to See Him on the Patio:
1. A Republican National Committee Fund-raiser
2. Dollywood
3. Wines R Us
4. A Monster Truck Show
5. Rush Limbaugh’s Small Intestine
