last six hours on a plane.
Gwen picks up on it, too, and calls him sweetheart, as in, “Why are we here, sweetheart?”
“Creed and I have business here.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Come in with us, and sit tight.”
“What are you gonna do?”
“Find something she hid.”
“What?”
“I can’t tell you. But it’s important.”
I park the car. As we remove our seat belts, Lucky gets a call. I make eye contact with Gwen in the mirror. She blows me a silent kiss.
Lucky, on the phone, says: “Any way we can make it tomorrow? Well, does Surrey have to be there? Oh. Right. Well…” He looks at his watch. “Fifteen minutes? The Candlewood? Okay. Yeah, I’ll get us a table. All right, we’ll see you there.”
“The Candlewood?” Gwen says, whining. “Really, Lucky? We’ll be there all night!”
“Guy’s got ten million to invest. He wants to eat at fuckin’ Denny’s, that’s where we go.”
“Can’t it wait till tomorrow?” she says. “I’m tired.”
“You believe this shit?” he says to me. “Twelve hours ago I’m in Jamaica with the Roto Rooter man adding a pipe extension up my ass, and this one’s tired.” He glances behind him. “You’re always tired! When I was your age, I wanted to do it ten times a day. But you? You’re too fuckin’ tired. Tired from what? That’s what I’d like to know.”
“I’m sorry, Lucky,” Gwen says. “I know you’ve had a bad day. Not to mention your fucking girlfriend got snuffed, and put my life in danger.”
Lucky looks at me. “You believe this shit?”
“I’m not from here,” I say. “What’s the Candlewood, a restaurant?”
“Yeah,” Lucky says. “A little off the beaten path. Good food, shitty service. But you won’t notice either.”
“Why’s that?”
“Eddie’s bringing Surrey with him.”
“Who’s that?” Gwen says.
“His wife.”
“What, is she supposed to be beautiful or something?”
He laughs. “You’ll see.”
“How do I get there?” I ask.
“Go straight, get in the left lane. I’ll tell you where to turn.”
Ten minutes later, as we pull into the parking lot, Lucky says, “Gwen? Listen to me. Whatever happens, go with it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’ll see. But don’t fuck this up for me. I’m cash poor right now.” To me, he says, “That doesn’t apply to you. I’ve got your money, no sweat. I’ll pay you in advance, when we get back to the house.”
The parking lot is only half full. I find a good spot, pull in, turn off the engine. Before we get out, Lucky puts his hand on my arm and says, “Prepare yourself.”
“For what?”
“The strangest dinner meeting you’ll ever attend.”
17.
If you were to ask, “Creed, what’s the strangest dinner party you’ve ever attended?” I could tell you at least a half-dozen stories you’d be hard-pressed to believe. In my years overseas with the CIA I had numerous occasions to dine under extreme circumstances, during which I was often exposed to some of the zaniest, most bizarre situations imaginable.
In short, I don’t know what you might consider the strangest. But to me, it’s the time I saw tribesmen eating human feces at a dinner table in the jungle, sniffing it like a fine wine, touching it to note the texture, and savoring each mouthful as if it were the most delicate pate de foie gras. It was all I could do not to gag, which probably would have caused an international incident, as fucked up as everyone gets in that part of the world over the most ridiculous things. After sampling from each pile and enthusiastically nodding, as though they could discern some subtle nuance of flavor between each morsel of turd, two warriors brought me a steaming pile of excrement no one else had been allowed to sample.
“No thanks,” I said to the translator. “Sadly, I ruined my appetite eating bird shit all afternoon.”
When he translated my message, the warriors grew agitated.
“You have just insulted the entire tribe,” the translator said. “And their wives.”
