Mumbo Gumbo (17 page)

B
y ten o’clock, the sun was a pure white globe hanging behind a thin gray scrim. That globe had burned, by now, through most of the thick morning haze, and had almost conquered the chill. In thirty minutes, the city would be warm. Its citizens would begin to relax. In Los Angeles, the sunshine was soothing, forgiving, and free, making it even better than Xanax. With an entire city eagerly basking in the generous sun, where no one wants to check in dark corners, I began to wonder if it might be easier here for evil to hide its secrets.

I squinted at the parked cars, picking out the spot where I’d left my black Jeep. I’d be late for Greta’s ten o’clock writers’ meeting, but I had left my notebook computer in my car and I would need it to take notes. I didn’t rate one of the few prime parking spots located right next to our office building—they were reserved for the biggest moguls on the lot—but I didn’t mind. As I’d walked the couple of blocks across the KTLA studio compound, I’d checked the thinning cloud cover above and felt reassured. We’d have clear, blue skies by ten-thirty. Another sunny day.

The computer had slipped under the passenger seat.
Figures. After quickly relocking the car door, I made a slight detour. A shortcut around the broadcast building would allow me to make better time.

The more I thought it over, the more convinced I became that Tim Stock might still be alive. His death was just speculation, after all. Until the body was identified, it was nothing more than a conclusion to which the officials would naturally jump—guy’s garage burns down, body is found in garage, ergo: body = guy. But if someone had wanted to make it look like Tim had died, they might have tried to pull off something like that fire. Of course, that would require a dead body available to be sacrificed in the scam. That was a tricky and disturbing thought. And who would want to make it look like Tim was dead?

I turned up a narrow alley between soundstages. Up here, there was a lot of activity. Prop guys were running power saws in the street. A huge sign, which would be used as part of a stage set, was being freshened; the curly letters of the title
Let’s Make a Deal
were in the process of being reoutlined in new gold paint. I had to smile. I remembered that old game show. Perhaps they were doing a pilot for yet another remake. Or perhaps some sort of anniversary special.

I went back to my thoughts. Let’s say Tim was in some kind of trouble. That could explain his recent behavior. He had tried to lay low—not returning messages, staying away from work, living in the hidden bedroom on the lot. Perhaps he still felt in danger. Could he have faked his own death in order to convince whoever might have been after him to give up? And what did it have to do with the $50,000 in cash he had hidden away in an assortment of old cookbooks? It all seemed slightly unreal and theatrical and
over the top. With what sort of danger had Tim Stock gotten himself entangled that could possibly necessitate literally playing dead? How the hell had a game-show writer with a dream of doing historical research in London and a fondness for Broadway musicals earned himself such serious enemies?

I turned the corner and stopped. Thoughts of Tim Stock and deadly plots and cover-up fires flew out of my head. Standing twenty feet ahead of me was a lion. A yawning lion. On a leash. The leash was held by a short man who was looking off in another direction. The lion, however, was looking directly at me.

Quick panic question: If a 400-pound lion, on a leash, decides to pounce and attack and maul and eat a 118-pound caterer, how much freaking good is that leash going to do? Even though it might be made out of a nice sturdy chain, how much freaking use could it be considering it was being held loosely by a bored, 130-pound guy who gets paid roughly the same amount they pay kids to ask if you want to super-size that?

I stopped breathing. Perhaps some primitive instinct suggested I wouldn’t seem too noticeable if I wasn’t moving a muscle. The natural camouflage afforded by my bright pink sweater and short tan skirt was minimal. My tan suede boots probably just pissed Mr. Lion off.

I was afraid to move. Where could I go? Forward, I’d be rushing into the jaws of death. Backward, I’d just look like a little elk (clothed in a Prada sweater) fleeing into the woods. I would be pulling hard on the lion’s “chase” trigger. Flying after me would be the jaws of death.

Why, I wondered, hadn’t I given more money to the
World Wildlife Fund? Why hadn’t I more vigorously protested the use of lions in circuses? Why hadn’t I sent a thank-you note to Siegfried & Roy for all their good work? I stood still and prayed. Please, dear God, let the attendant, the sleepy little fellow at the end of Mr. Lion’s chain, turn his bored little head. Please, let him just look my way. If he did, dear God, and if he had a compassionate bone in his body, he might offer up a suggestion. What, if anything, was a good way to extract myself from the role of “soon to be dead meat” in our little live scenario?

“Señora!”

He saw me. He was talking to me. Heaven was not indifferent. I would have to join a church or temple tomorrow.

“
Señora.
Maybe go back,” he suggested.

Why hadn’t I thought of that? Oh, I did, but I was frozen in “I’ll be prey” anxiety.

I walked backward, slowly. It was only a few feet until the corner. I kept eye contact with the beast on the chain—by that I did
not
mean to disparage my 130-pound Hispanic savior in any way—and calmly, calmly got my butt out of there.

What the hell was that? Why were lions just hanging around in the street? When any zoo in America would have six different cages and moats and metal bars and posted signs between a wild animal and a civilian, the studio lot had a live lion out for a stroll on a leash? A live, mane-embellished, SAG-card-carrying lion, I should point out, who was likely being staged for a few minutes off to the side before he would be used as a freaking “Zonk!” on a freaking game show, for crying out loud. My breathing came back with a vengeance, hyperventilation all over the place. While I
have always been one to argue against the prejudice that one should “know one’s place,” I had just this second discovered that at least some stuffy rules were really worth upholding. Starting with: keep huge lions in Africa. I’m absolutely certain the lion would back me on this one.

As the charged-adrenaline high began to wear off, I realized how late I was now sure to be to Greta’s meeting. But, I mean, who cares? I was just this very second
not
eaten by a lion. The rest of the world would have to wait. I took a moment to listen to the birdies chirp. Life was good.

Come to think of it, Greta had seemed less gung ho about starting her writers’ meeting after she heard about the fire at Tim’s house. She hadn’t looked all that good when I left. And, of course, that brought me back to thinking about Tim Stock. Tim and Greta had worked together on many of Artie’s shows over the years. What was their relationship like? Perhaps Jennifer Klein might know.

I opened the main door to our building and entered the front reception area. The place was bustling. The chairs, which had been empty only three hours earlier, were now filled with an assortment of aspiring
Food Freak
contestants, chatting or joking or milling about. The show uses teams of adults in any combination of relations or friends, but they all have to be avid amateur cooks. Teams were usually made up of siblings, coworkers, spouses, and college roommates. There were often mother/daughter or mother/son combinations. For some wacky reason, the people who had come in to audition together seemed to be dressed in matching outfits. One chubby couple had on bright red polo shirts with their own shish kabob logos and
their names embroidered above the heart: “Sheree” and “Lloyd.” A male threesome who might work at any big eight accounting firm, so Brooks Brothers was each of their suits, sported matching navy blue aprons embellished with sequins. Most of the groups were filling out applications. Two senior ladies were standing by the white wall next to the credenza. Their unnaturally red hair was teased into up-flung styles that made each of their heads seem aflame. Nellie called out, “Say Provolone!” and snapped their picture.

“Hi, there. You’re the new writer, right?” asked the young, pretty woman sitting at the reception desk.

“That’s right. I’m Madeline Bean. Hi.”

“I’m Dawn Weiss. We haven’t actually been introduced.” Dawn had big brown eyes and a cheerleader’s smile.

“Nice to meet you.”

“I should be forwarding calls to you,” Dawn said, looking at her phone list, “only no one told me your extension. Sorry.”

“I’m only here for the week. I’ve been using my cell phone to get calls.”

“Well, it’s no problem,” Dawn said. “Where did they put you?”

“I’m in Tim Stock’s office.”

“Oh. Tim. Have you heard about what happened?” Dawn lowered her voice, mindful of the ears of the contestant pool sitting not far away.

“Yes, I have.”

“It’s so sad,” she said. Her heart-shaped face was perfectly framed in long, dark hair. “And did you hear? Quentin Shore quit.”

“What?”

“That’s what I was told. Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if he got fired.” Dawn looked up at the couple that had just arrived. “May I help you?”

“I’m Lois Hirt, dental hygienist, and I’m here with my favorite cooking dentist, Dr. Hy Gennaro?” Lois was a trim, attractive blonde. She wore a pale green dental smock, which perfectly matched Dr. Gennaro’s scrubs. They each wore equally green chefs’ hats.

Dawn looked up from the master list of that day’s contestant interviewees and their appointment times. “I have checked off your names so we know you are here. Please take a seat, go over these forms, and make sure you answer all the questions. We really need as many phone numbers as you have, so give us your work numbers, cell phone numbers, pagers, everything. When we need to reach you, we
really
need to reach you. You might get a call to be on the show and if you miss it, that would be a shame.”

“No problem,” Lois said in her cheery, spit-please lilt. “And we know we’re going to get that call. We have created some terrific dental-licious recipes. Dr. G. and I only prepare food that is good for your teeth.”

“That’s wonderful,” Dawn said, her voice full of enthusiasm. “Fill out these forms first, and then you’ll get to talk with Stella and Nellie, okay?”

Dr. G. and Lois said thank you and went to find a pair of chairs.

“Dawn…” I was too curious to leave, no matter how late I was going to be to the meeting. “What do you mean, Quentin quit? When did Quentin quit?”

“I just got the word. Frankly, it will make my whole job much easier.”

“Really?”

“I do a lot of the odd jobs on the show. I answer the main phone lines. I keep track of contestant interview times. I sit here in reception. I also help out with the show correspondence. I answer all of Chef Howie’s fan mail.”

“You do? How funny. Does he get love notes?”

“You can’t even imagine,” Dawn said, stifling a laugh. “He gets hundreds of letters a day. Some of them are really wicked. I send the nude photos of housewives to Kenny upstairs. He enjoys them. Mrs. Finkelberg got really pissed at me when I used to give those to Chef Howie.”

“Do you have to answer every letter?”

“No, no,” Dawn said, smiling. “Just send off a signed photo of Chef Howie. And guess who signs them?”

“You?”

“I am actually quite good at doing his signature. Anyway, I also have to answer the general fan mail for the show. We get lots of people who want to find out how to be contestants, and I send them the standard packet. And we always get hundreds of letters after each episode airs if there have been any mistakes, or if people at home think there have been mistakes. Sometimes, people are so nuts. You would think they would wake up and get a life, but no, they spend their nights sitting by their television sets looking for mistakes and then they spend their days writing to us about it.”

“Wow. So you have to write back?”

“We can’t ignore our loyal fans. We usually send them a correction and an apology. It’s a standard thing.”

“I didn’t know that. What sort of mistakes are we talking about?”

“Nothing that really affects the game part of the show. If we made those kinds of mistakes, like not accepting
the correct answer to a question, we would have to bring back the contestants and give them another chance on the show. The only errors that ever get made on
Food Freak
are in the stupid little recipes that go in the bumper.”

“I see,” I said. She smiled at me. “Um, what exactly is that?”

“The bumper?” Dawn asked. “It’s the fifteen seconds or so of infotainment that comes right before the commercial. You know, like, ‘How do you make macaroni and cheese for a crowd of forty hungry tots? Just use seven sixteen-ounce packages of dry macaroni,’ and so on and so on. ‘Come back for more
Food Freak
in a moment.’ We bump out to commercial. That’s the sort of thing.”

“Oh, thanks.”

“Or if they say, ‘Want to know how to make the most decadent chocolate mousse? Chef Howie will show you, when we come back.’ That’s a tease.”

I shook my head. “I am so new.”

“Don’t worry. You’ll get the hang of it. The bumpers on
Freak
are really sort of lame. They don’t add anything to the show at all. But presenting pithy little recipes was originally Artie’s idea, cheesy though they are. I guess that’s why they stay in. The problem is, they gave all the bumpers to Quentin to write, and the guy always gets something wrong.”

“Wrong?”

“I mean it. Every week we get a thousand letters telling us you can’t possibly cook seven sixteen-ounce packages of dry macaroni in two cups of water, or something stupid like that. So I have to mail out a thousand letters with the corrected recipe and say thanks for watching
Food Freak.
”

“I had no idea. I wonder what Tim thought of that.”

“He and I used to joke about Quentin all the time,” Dawn said, sighing. “Tim was a great guy. We went out a few times, you know.”

“You did?”