The Straight Man - Roger L Simon (15 page)

"Not yet."

"Funny. I didn't think he'd be late for an event
like this. It's loaded with potential clients."

We arrived at the back of the crowd and edged our way
toward the stage. Otis was standing there with a microphone in his
hand looking straight out of Interview magazine in a dinner jacket
and jeans with a tieless tuxedo shirt. "I had to clean up my
act," he was saying to the appreciative audience. "We're
talkin' about poverty here, and just because there are fifty studio
executives at this party who can fire my ass don't mean I'm not here
for one reason only—to feed the bellies of starvin' babies. So no
motherfucker or pussy jokes." There was a round of nervous
laughter that died off quickly, perhaps too quickly, and Otis
realized it.

"But seriously, folks," he continued,
"dirty words are not the killers in this world. Dirty acts are.
And one of the dirtiest acts around is not feedin' people when
there's plenty to go around. And I'm not just talkin' about that
orange juice pizza you people been eatin' out there. Don't you think
that's weird? The more people die in Africa, the stranger the food is
we eat. Pretty soon the whole continent'll be dead over there and
you'll be eating ice cream with Worcestershire sauce." Laughter.
"Now isn't that just my style? Insultin' the hell out of the
white people and makin' 'em laugh. You be a bunch of masochists, huh?
And what that make me—the Marquis de Spade? So open up your
wallets, masochist babies, and call your accountants, 'cause the man
I'm about to introduce to you deserves all your attention and all
your money. And I do mean all! I'm talkin' about none other than the
man that rocked and rolled, funky-chickened, jerked, and slam-danced
right into your pockets-the Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen,
Prince, and Mick Jagger of international aid . . . Fast Eddy
Sandollar."

"Thanks, Otis," said Sandollar, taking the
microphone from the comedian, who remained on the stage with him. "I
think we'd all rather be insulted by you than praised by a lot of the
moral hypocrites who are around these days. Now I know most people
out here have gone through a 1ot—we had a dream with Martin, we had
a New Frontier with Jack, and a Great Society with Lyndon. And
although some of those dreams faded, I've gotta tell you—look
around—we don't have it so bad. But I also don't have to tell you
that there are a lot of people out there who don't have it so good.
Putting it bluntly, there's a second Holocaust going on, and the
scene of that Holocaust isn't Buchenwald, Auschwitz, or
Bergen-Belsen; it's Ethiopia, the Sudan, and Mali. You say Holocaust
is a big word? Well, let me tell you, I didn't realize how bad it was
myself a few years back when I was sitting in my penthouse office as
president of Licorice Records, listening to demos and smoking dope.
So at the risk of boring people who spend their days watching dailies
and rough cuts—"

"Bore 'em, Eddy," shouted Otis. "Bore
the shit out of 'em. Then we'll give 'em some more of that strawberry
pizza with garlic cookies and they'll be all set to go again."

"Sounds good, Otis." Sandollar nodded to an
aide, who switched on the video projector. An image of a barren
desert appeared on the screen. "This is East Africa. According
to the United Nations Economic and Social Council, twelve million
people there are on the verge of extinction. It is the greatest human
need crisis of our time." The camera turned 180 degrees to
reveal about a dozen near naked, sad-eyed waifs who looked as if they
were all suffering from infectious diseases or acute malnutrition.
"To avert this catastrophe, if it's not already too late, we
need to triple our contributions of medical supplies and food."
Several of the children, flies buzzing around their heads, stretched
their hands out to the camera, imploring the audience directly for
aid. It was hard to watch. "We need to do it now. And we need to
avoid the greedy, corrupt local politicians, whether they be Marxist,
capitalist, fascist, or whatever." As Sandollar continued, I had
the odd sensation people were pushing their way through the crowd,
causing it to shift about. "So we have come to you, the members
of the community that is historically the most generous because your
creative gifts make you the most closely attuned to the suffering of
others." The shifting continued and I turned to my left,
noticing Koontz edging his way toward the stage. Behind him were
Estrada and another plainclothes detective in a black  leather
jacket and Carrera glasses. "And it is that suffering I call
upon you to alleviate, to commit yourselves to alleviating not just
once, but on a continuing basis."

I turned to see three more policemen in uniform
stationed in the back. "We don't want to be cultural or even
intellectual imperialists. We just want to give them the money and
materials directly so they can help themselves." I turned
forward again. Koontz had reached the stage and was talking with
Otis, who was staring down at him with a puzzled expression. "In
these days we have to fight cynicism; we have to fight inertia. There
is hope. We can make a better world. In the words of John Lennon:
'Imagine!' "

Koontz said something else and Otis tensed, moving to
his right a couple of steps. Suddenly he bolted from the stage,
running across the tennis court like a halfback digging for the goal
line. As he did so, the three uniformed cops started sprinting to the
fence gate ahead of him. Otis jumped backward and spun around only to
find Koontz and his cronies right behind him.

"What the hell kind of bullshit is this?"
Otis's voice suddenly boomed out over the crowd like a small dynamite
explosion. "These cops is crazy! Get the hell out of here!"

"I'm sorry, folks. Sorry to inconvenience you
here," said Koontz as he and Estrada each took Otis firmly by an
arm. "We wanted to do this more quietly."

"Fuck quiet! This is bullshit! This is racism!
You been tryin' to kill me since I was born!"

Otis took a wild swing at the third detective, who
reached for a pair of cuffs and started to clap them on him as Koontz
and Estrada grabbed his arms and pulled them back again.

"I'm sure you know your rights under the Miranda
decision, Mr. King."

I pushed my way forward through the astonished crowd.

"Jesus Christ, Koontz, what're you doing? We're
not in Needle Park here."

"I'm doing what I have to, Wine. What the
taxpayers pay me to do." He stared at me sharply. I looked
around at the crowd. Everybody looked as stunned as I was.

"
C'mon, Koontz." I tried to lower my voice.
"You can't take a man like this away in front of all these
people. You're going to ruin his career. Give him a break. Besides,
he's under twenty-four-hour psychiatric care. He's not going
anywhere."

"Twenty-four-hour psychiatric care, huh?"

"Yes. With Dr. Carl Bannister. In Malibu."

"Well, Wine, from here on in I don't think
anybody's gonna be under Bannister's care, whatever it was worth.
Because he was found dead about four hours ago. And as of this
moment, Otis King is under arrest for his murder."

14

"How long do you figure he was in the bushes?"
asked Jacob, my older son. We were sitting around my kitchen
table—he, Chantal, Simon, Aunt Sonya, and I—eating a plain,
ordinary pepperoni pizza five hours after the Comedians and Chefs
Benefit for Africa broke up with large quantities of untouched
gourmet food, including mine, sitting on the flower-strewn picnic
tables.

"Supposedly they went jogging at six A.M. That's
the schedule, anyway. They run out the gates of the Colony, across
the PCH, and up into the hills in an area called the Serra Retreat."

"I know that place," said Simon, who often
went surfing in Malibu Lagoon. "There are some ranches up there.
Lots of eucalyptus trees."

"And so they say the black man killed the white
man with a knife," said Sonya. "This is not so very
different from the Scottsboro Boys."

"Oh, come on," I said. "That was 1931.
They couldn't get lawyers until the day of the trial and eight of
them got death sentences."

"
Yes, but they were freed on appeal three years
later," said Jacob.

"Wise guy," I said. For the last couple of
years Jacob had often affected a world-weary attitude, as if all of
society were dictated by jaded journalists and blasé fashion
designers. He and his friends were after security and money. It was
their way of rebelling against sixties parents who had themselves
lost most of their ideals. But, I figured, like everything else, this
too would pass. "Anyway," I continued, "this is
totally different. A black millionaire is accused of slitting the
throat of a white celebrity psychiatrist."

"That is a revolutionary act," said Sonya.

"
Very funny."

"
So what is revolutionary? Charity benefits?"
Sonya snorted. "They accomplish nothing. Worse—they push
things backward. I hate to quote the Bible, but it was all in the
Fifth Book of Ecclesiastes: 'When goods increase, they are increased
that eat them.' All charity does is create more people with more
starvation and more disease. In order to change, a nation must change
itself. Now, in China—"

"Okay, okay. I know you just took my son to see
a rerun of The Battle of Algiers, but this event is about as
revolutionary as a stock merger and Otis King is going to have about
as thorough a legal defense as John DeLorean."

"So you think he's guilty." This was
Chantal.

"I didn't say that. But either the police are
stupider than I think they are or whoever set Otis up is a bloody
genius, because nobody would have pulled in a man like that on such
short notice without a helluva case; And look at what we already know
they have: a murder weapon with Otis's prints on it; yards of
motivation from Bannister's case notes stating the details of his
brother's criminality and, Koontz intimated to me, Otis's personal
involvement in it; several witnesses who saw them running into the
woods together and Otis running out by himself; and Otis's own
extreme paranoid personality and background of child abuse, crime,
and drugs."

"Inadmissible," said Jacob.

"Yes, inadmissible, but not to us if we're
trying to figure out if he really did it."

"What has happened to you?" said Sonya.
"Have you turned into one of them?"

"Sonya, this is a millionaire. Not some poor
junkie. And if it were some poor junkie who had killed this guy, I'd
call it like it is, too. But, all right, I don't think he did it."

"Ay . . ." Sonya sighed deeply. "You
almost gave me a heart attack."

"
But I'm not sure. Let me tell you that."

"
I don't care. At least you haven't turned into
one of them. I was scared that therapy had destroyed you."

"Therapy? Therapy doesn't destroy anybody!"
I was so defensive I was almost shouting. Despite the high drama of
the past few hours, I was still unable to shake my last session with
Nathanson. Even a casual mention of the subject set me off. Chantal
looked at me.

"Why don't we calm down and examine some of the
facts here?" she said.

"Okay. What about you?" I turned to Simon,
who was scribbling some graffiti on the back of my New Republic.

"Any homework?"

"
Some math. An English composition."

"
Go."

"What?"

"Do it. Just go do it. I don't want to hear
about it. And stop using the covers of my magazines for artistic
expression. You've got a sketch pad."

I pointed to the bedroom. He glowered at me as he
trudged off.

"All right, let's go back to square one."

The phone rang. I picked up. It was Emily.

"Uh, Moses," she said. "I know it's
late, but I didn't want you to go off tomorrow morning and waste your
day without my talking to you."

"Waste my day?"

"Yes. I don't think I'll be needing your
services anymore. As far as I'm concerned, this is all a police
matter from here on in and they seem to be doing a satisfactory job.
Thank you very much for what you've done. You've been more than
adequate professionally, and if you'll send me a bill, I'll of course
reimburse you for all your time and expenses, but I don't want you to
go any further." She said it all quickly, as if she had
rehearsed it.

"Are you sure about this?"

"Absolutely. Good night, Moses. Thank you."
She hung up.

"We're fired," I said.

Chantal put her hand to her head. "Wow, this is
worse than stand-up comedy. At least there they give you notice.
Well, it's been interesting, but brief." She stood and picked up
her shoulder bag. "I'll drop the car off in the morning. I'll
let you know the gas and mileage. You can send me my check."

"Hey, I didn't say you 're fired. I said we 're
fired."

"
The case is over. What're you going to pay me
with, worry beads?"

"Well, you've already put this grandiose message
on the machine about International Investigative Consultants. Maybe
we should try to live up to it. This is the era of yuppie
entrepreneurship, isn't it? For the next six weeks, anyway. It's
either that or open a restaurant."