Planet Willie (12 page)

“We’re going
to Saudi Arabia!” he screams across the table like we’ve just won the Super
Bowl.

“Maybe not
yet, but if you’ll join us I think you’ll find the possibilities for travel
extremely interesting,” somebody says behind me in an accent I’d place
somewhere near Long Island. I turn and find at about face level the smooth stage
announcer with the gold tie.

“Don’t tell me
I’ve won,” I say. “Seems to me it’s just not right if it’s not done in a
bikini, though admittedly I’m not up on the rules of competition belly
dancing.”

“Oh, don’t
worry about that,” he says with a smile he seems to have got up in a pocket
mirror. “Allow me to present myself. My name is Carlo Le Mons, and I am the
Chief Executive Officer of a prominent live entertainment company, Mister….”

“Willie M. Lee,”
I say. “M as in Mohamed and not as in Mons, which last I heard was a part of
the female anatomy.”

He grins
around at the other Mohameds, and give the brethren credit, they’re not
grinning back. Fellas like us aren’t partial to the kind of grin that avoids
the subject, particularly if that subject is the female anatomy. I nod around
the table in recognition of the fellow feeling. Men like us just want to drink
their tea and be left in peace. Again, I’m talking the finer things in life,
such as a well-groomed mustache, which honestly I’m thinking of growing and
maybe giving a name. Carlo sees what he’s up against and also sees his only way
out may be Kafka, who’s grinning like a lunatic at anything he can set eyes upon.

“What I meant
to say to your friend with the amusing hat here,” Carlo says to Kafka, waving a
few girls to his side to aid in the presentation. Thankfully the girls also appear
to have my wardrobe in hand. “What I meant to say is that we are always looking
for fresh and entertaining talent. I am prepared to offer your friend a monthly
salary that, if I am not mistaken, is more than he is accustomed to. Am I right
or aren’t I? You could use a new suit, couldn’t you, Mister Lee?”

Which is about
all I need to hear. Ralph was right. It’s time to get serious about this case,
and I’m starting with Le Mons. “With all due respect to the ladies of Colorado Springs and the prospect of accompanying them in a worldwide capacity,” I say, “honestly
I don’t think there’s room for you on my resume.”

He’s still
grinning, Le Mons, but the girls are glaring behind the chief like they’d just
assume use my belt in a whipping capacity. Catty bunch, belly dancers. Tough
world to break into. Don’t make it easy for the fresh young talent. “This must
be quite some resume, Mister Lee,” Le Mons says.

“Yeah, well I
had some people come out from Los Angeles to try to get me to put it into movie
form,” I say, flexing my fist beneath the table, “but what most of these movie
types are looking for is a narrative arc, and mine just keeps going up like
Sputnik. Also it’s just an impossible task to fit into two hours my shining
moment, the reception of the Nobel Prize for the Brazilian Flying Fish.”

The Mohameds
get to laughing real low. Sounds like the motor of a Jaguar or one of those
Bentleys. Carlo’s still willing to play along, however, which suits me and my aforementioned
fist under the table just fine.

“And what, may
I ask,” says Carlo, with this smirk on his face that really just deserves it, “is
the Brazilian Flying Fish?”

“Funny,” I
say. “Thought maybe you would have encountered it in your travels.” Then brother
I just give it to him – spin up out of my seat and launch the right from about
waist level. And he’s reeling, stumbling back into those dancers, but there’s
one thing I hadn’t counted on, and that’s the sudden appearance of an angel
named Ralph with a fist of his own. If you’ve caught a few fishes on the chin
in a lifetime, what he delivers feels more like a sperm whale, and if I’m not
mistaken it’s the sperm whale who sings those sad songs as it swims through the
deep, deep sea.

I don’t know
how long I’m under, but when I’m eventually returned to the world, I feel a
little tickling about the nose and open my eyes to a thousand silver stars
glittering down. For a moment I panic that I’ve been whisked back up onto my
cloud. Then I rub the eyes a little, and those stars become an exceptional pair
of breasts, which is a particularly pleasant way to be welcomed home. It’s
number seven, I believe, who’s bent over me with some concern. My old friend
twelve’s huddled there next to her, I see now, bare feet arched up off the
floor. Every few seconds one of them will dab at my cheek with a scarf. Two perfect
foreheads bunched up in concern for yours truly.

“Oh girls,” I
say, moaning a bit for our mutual pleasure. “The three of us aren’t made for
this kind of thing. What do you say? Cast off those arm bands and let’s make
this a conga line in room 142.”

Some giggles
from the girls here, and if I’d known God at the time of creation, I would have
encouraged him to put all the girls in spangles just to watch them giggle all
over.

“Before we get
to that, however, I’d be curious to know what happened to the big guy.”

“Hotel
security,” number seven says. “Took three of them to drag him out. What did you
do to that creep?”

“Stopped to
smell the roses,” I say, which gets their foreheads all bunched up again, this
time in concern for my sanity.

“If you’re
okay, we have to go,” number twelve says.

“Alright, girls,
but remember that seven plus twelve plus Willie equals room 142.” Then they
rise up on the balls of their feet to wiggle off. Before they’re gone, however,
they turn for one last glance at me, which I acknowledge with a little
double-eyed wink that really brings the point home. Our little secret, and it’s
those little secrets that give a man hope when he’s been laid out on the floor
in front of a troupe of belly dancers. Because that’s what we’re looking at,
and in my earthly experience that’s precisely the moment where some kind of
hope, and I mean more or less any kind, is absolutely essential.

14

Back in the suite
I crack open the door in anticipation of my spangled guests and start the bath
running. In the bathroom mirror I check Ralph’s damage to the face, which is
nothing more than a slight cut to the cheek and, if you ask me, nicely balances
out the previous damage to the ear. As the mirror begins to steam, I remember
the name Jeffrey got from Fernanda’s purse – Professor Barry Farsinelli, I
believe – and go back out to the bedroom for a quick glance at the Madonna folder. 

Sliding my
suitcase from underneath the bed, I take out the folder, and after a minute or
two of flipping through pages, I find what I’m looking for. It’s a stamped
paper certifying the authenticity of Harry Shore’s Blue Madonna, signed by a Professor
Barry Farsinelli of Denver, Colorado. The next paper tells me he teaches at Denver University and is well-known to be one of America’s foremost experts on Botticelli.
There’s a phone number there too, which thanks to Jeffrey I’ve already got.
Very interesting, indeed, I’m thinking, as I replace the folder in the suitcase
and slide it back under the bed. Stripping down to the essentials, I can’t help
but thinking that Fernanda may in fact be a step ahead of me on this one. Although
what she wants from an expert if she hasn’t got a painting for him to see is
another mystery entirely. I decide I may have to pay a little visit to the
professor myself, but for the moment that bath’s calling. Turns out there’s a
button that makes a bath a Jacuzzi, and I’m more or less champagne by the time
I slip off into dreamland.

The sound of jingle
bells wakes me, and I’m up out of that bath like a tsunami. The water’s gone
arctic, and from the sound of that tinkling, belly dancers await. Hopping
across the tile floor with chattering teeth, I wrap myself up in three or four
of these thick towels they’ve got. End up looking more Saudi Arabian than
Italian, but then I don’t intend to be wearing those towels for long. And who
knows, I’m thinking as I step out into the bedroom, a couple of girls from Colorado Springs might well appreciate the chance to indulge some sheikly fantasies.

In the bedroom,
however, I get a surprise. First, there’s only one girl, which is a
disappointment. More serious, however, is that this girl’s armband says four,
and I don’t recall any conversations with a four. Also she’s found my suitcase under
the bed and is studying the Madonna folder. When she hears me come in the room,
she snatches up the folder and takes off running, which leaves me no choice but
to take off after her, which is about the last thing I want to do, particularly
in an outfit made of bath towels.

So I’m wrapped
up in bath towels and running again through a hotel in the middle of the night,
so tired that for a brief moment I wouldn’t mind sinking back into a cloud for
a while. Then I think of Ralph loafing around on his own cloud, and the feeling
passes soon enough. A little girl from room service comes by too terrified to
even break stride, and if they’re serving breakfast, it does make you wonder
what time it’s gotten to be. As long as those corridors are, I don’t have too
much trouble keeping in sight of the spangles. I follow her through the sports
complex and around the indoor pool, learning once and for all that bath towels
just aren’t designed to be worn with any kind of dignity.

Through the
weight room and out the other side there’s a sign advertising massage and sauna
up another corridor. That’s the only way she could have gone, I figure, so I
move up the corridor, opening doors and checking empty rooms as I go. Massage
beds with holes in them for the head. A room they call the aquablast with these
hoses in it where I guess they spray you down like livestock. Some people will
pay for anything once. A clock through an office window says five thirty in the morning. Jesus, I must have slept a while. Really a man can’t help but
shake his head as he runs along, going through massage rooms at five thirty in the morning while all the masseuses sleep.

Eventually
there’s just one door left. The sign says steam room, and as I push open the
door, it appears that somebody’s forgotten to shut off the steam. Visibility’s
so bad I can’t even see my feet, and within seconds the towels are so
waterlogged that they’re weighing several times my body weight. Making my way
to the edge of the room, I bang up against a wooden bench, which appears to run
around the whole room. As I feel my way along next to it, I get the sense I’m
not alone. Then I get the sense I’ve heard a little jingling, and I lunge for
the sound, losing at least one towel in the process, not that I still need
layers considering you could crack an egg in there and have an omelet before it
hit the floor. Then I’m crashing into something pink, and she’s putting up some
fight, but the momentum I’m carrying takes us to the floor. The girl squirms
out from underneath me, the folder held wide in one hand, her limbs slick with
steam and tough to catch. She makes to escape, I grab a thrashing ankle and
pull her back. Then I jump past her and collapse against the door, blocking her
exit, and we both sit there catching our breaths on the floor, where
fortunately the steam’s not quite as thick. Her sweat-slicked limbs are sprawled
in all directions, and the bikini can hardly be said to be doing its job. I’ve
had fantasies about this, but never in my fantasies did her veil slip down to
reveal a certain Albanian acquaintance of mine whom I like to call Twiggy.

“Let’s do that
again,” I say, still having some trouble breathing.

“You’re
disgusting,” she says.

“Any idea how
to turn off the cloud formations?”

“I tried the
switch,” she says. “It’s stuck.”

“Then so are
we, sweetheart,” I say. “At least until you tell me what you were doing in my room.
And what you’ve done with number twelve and number seven, for that matter.”

“Don’t make me
laugh,” she says, though clearly there’s no danger of that.

“How’d you
turn up as a belly dancer anyway?”

“You saw me on
the chorus line,” she snarls. “I got a job for the night with the girls. I
wanted to keep Fernanda in sight. Then once we left the charity benefit he made
me stay for belly dancing.”

“I imagine Le
Mons found your belly as exciting as your legs and the rest of you,” I say.

“You’re a
monster,” she says, moving the folder around behind her. “I’m not giving it
back.”

“Dear Twiggy,”
I say. “Last I saw you, apart from that chorus line, which was quite honestly
riveting, you were running off into the night with my old pal Billy Sidell.
Tell me it’s true love and you’re moving to Arizona once you don’t find that
Madonna.”

She claims
she’s never heard of anybody named Billy. I wink at this and tell her I admire her
fidelity, even if it’s to Kafka.

“I hate him,”
she says, removing a few scarves and spangles, “but he’s got a car. Alberto had
a car. Now I hate him too. Why the hell is it your business anyway?”

“I’m a private
investigator,” I tell her. “I was hired by the owner of the painting to get it
back.” The heat’s making me feel drunk. Seems like words are getting more
difficult to pronounce. I take off another towel to let the body breathe a bit,
which brings me down to one, and that’s just a hand towel, I now realize, and
nothing you’d want to attempt to use as clothing. A codpiece, I believe it’s
called, although unfortunately what it’s trying to cover is a few notches up
from the cod on the food chain.

“You ever hear
of Ricardo Queso?” I say.

Her eyelids
droop, then flicker open. “No,” she says, removing a last scarf, and her arm
band, which brings us down to practically nothing.

“Cleans the pores,”
I say. “Give me the folder back. God knows what you think you’re going to do
with it.”

“God? Do you
believe in God?” she says, quite possibly beginning to experience the effects
of heat stroke.

“More than
you’d believe, sweetheart,” I say, sliding a little closer so I can get my
hands on that folder once she passes out.

“Once I fasted
for thirty days,” she murmurs, eyelids drooping shut again. “It was a bit like
this. The mind begins to lose its hold on reality, but I pushed further, and on
the other side I found God.”

“That wasn’t
God,” I say, struck for about the billionth time by the dumb things people will
say about God. You can spend your life pretending to play hide-and-go-seek with
him, but I can report with great and unwanted authority that you won’t find him
till you’re dead. “Twiggy, that was more like starvation.”

“Who’s
Twiggy…?” she says. Then her chin drops to her chest, and I lunge for the
folder. She perks up as quick as a wildcat, and if she was slick before, she’s
greased lightning now. Thankfully I am too, but that’s not exactly helping me
get my hands on the folder. I grab it, she grabs it back, and even with all the
flesh she’s showing, I can’t say I’m enjoying it. I lose her in the clouds, I
find her on the floor again, the folder keeps going back and forth till she’s
holding part of it and I’m holding part too, and before it’s all through we’ve
got enough parts that they’ll never make a Madonna folder again. Wet scraps
cover the floor like somebody’s soggy cereal, and from now on any photographic
evidence of those dark blue eyes will exist only in my mind.