Harley Kozak - Dating Is Murder

Joey’s husband, meanwhile, had invested money in this reality show, Biological Clock, which had inspired Joey and Fredreeq to send my audition video to the casting director. I hadn’t known I’d made an audition video. I’d thought I was being interviewed for Fredreeq’s niece’s sociology project. Apparently, though, me talking about my dating history was compelling stuff. Also, I was the right age and had attributes-big chest, long legs, and height, six feet of it-that made a nice visual contrast to the other two front-runner women contestants, and I’d thus beaten out several hundred hopefuls for the job. Not that I’d wanted the job. I’d turned it down flat once it was explained to me. I found the premise of the show cheesy, despite the disclaimer at the end of each episode that no couple would be required to have sex or bear children. As for fame, I’d have been happy to fork over my fifteen minutes to someone else, the way senators give away their floor time in debates to fellow senators.

But then Biological Clock had mentioned money. Despite the low budget, I’d be paid five hundred dollars a week for two nights’ work, unusual for reality TV. And that wasn’t all. The producers had invested in a number of other businesses, including a health maintenance organization offering benefits to the winning contestants and their dependents, current and future. Some people say insurance isn’t sexy, but for those with dependent paranoid schizophrenic brothers on pricey antipsychotic medication, it’s sexy enough.

A horn honked.

“Girl, you got some kind of bad gene that makes you change lanes every twenty seconds?” Fredreeq asked Joey.

“Yeah, it’s called effective driving.”

“Well, maybe they do that in Nebraska to get around the cows, but here people get shot for those maneuvers.” Fredreeq and Joey had an ongoing city mouse, country mouse routine, although Joey was no more country than any other ex-model/actress who’d lived in L.A., New York, and Paris for the last fifteen years. “And can we turn down this twangy banjo stuff? You want people to think you’re a hick?”

“I am a hick. Hey, Wollie,” Joey threw over her shoulder, “why so quiet?”

“Cell phone.” I’d dialed the number Mrs. Glück had given me for Annika’s host family. In Encino, a machine answered. The voice was warm, chatty, female. “Hi there. You’ve reached the Quinns. Gene, Maizie, Emma, Annika, and Mr. Snuggles can’t come to the phone right now. But leave us a message and we’ll call you back. Bye-bye. Woof.”

“Hi,” I said, envisioning the people Annika had described. “I’m trying to reach Annika, your au pair. If she’s not around, I’d appreciate a call from any of the Quinns. Preferably one of the humans.” I spelled out my name and repeated my home and cell-phone numbers.

“Is that our Annika? From the show?” Joey asked. “How’s she doing?”

“I’m not sure,” I said. “She seems to be sort of… missing.”

Joey turned to me. Traffic was at another dead stop as we neared Beverly Hills. Fredreeq had switched on the interior car light to rummage through her purse, and the glow made Joey’s eyes very green and her face very white against her auburn hair. She was more than beautiful; she was intriguing, with a subtle scar running from temple to chin, white on white, a half-moon. “What do you mean, missing?” she said.

“She didn’t show up for my math tutorial last night. And she didn’t call her mom in Germany, which is her Sunday night ritual, so her mom is seriously upset, and she doesn’t know a soul in America. Except me. And the host family, who’s not returning her calls.”

“Interesting.”

“What is?”

Traffic moved. Joey faced forward. The Mercedes inched ahead. Our eyes met in the rearview mirror. “Annika,” she said. “On the set last week, she was asking people where she could get hold of a gun.”

“The set” is one of those show biz terms that always makes me think of dancing girls in the forties doing the cancan on a stage at the MGM studio, or maybe a street in the Old West, the saloon and general store and jail all false fronts with nothing but fields behind. The set of Biological Clock, however, was whatever bar, bowling alley, or bistro Bing Wooster and the producers could persuade to let us film in. It wasn’t filming but taping, as Joey pointed out, but Bing, who had filmmaking aspirations, had us all using movie lingo.

It was going on nine P.M. The set du jour was a restaurant called Pine on Beverly Boulevard, on a site that had seen a lot of restaurants come and go over the years. The fact that Pine was the kind that let a show like B.C. shoot there did not bode well for its longevity.

“Keep it moving, folks,” Bing Wooster said to the onlookers gathered with us on the sidewalk in front of Pine. “Come on, it’s L.A. You never saw a film shoot before? Never saw a gorgeous six-foot blonde? Go watch her on TV. Eleven P.M. weeknights, ZPX.”

I stopped scanning the crowd for teenage German girls and tried to look unconcerned, as if Bing’s speech had nothing to do with me, as if the sidewalk were full of six-foot blondes wearing too much makeup. Bing was our big kahuna. Joey had explained that most shows have producers and directors and cameramen, but Biological Clock, being low budget, had Bing. Bing made creative decisions, operated the camera, and generally played God, six nights a week. Bing had an assistant, Paul, who did everything else: lighting, heavy lifting, crowd dispersal, and sending out for pizza. There was also Isaac, the sound guy, but he was so quiet that, despite his being the size of a grizzly bear, we tended to forget he was there. At the moment, Paul was changing tape, which was why Bing and I were stuck on the sidewalk, waiting to videotape me walking into Pine.

“Bing?” I said. “When did you last see Annika?”

Bing frowned at a figure halfway down the street, a bulked-up guy with a goatee. “Who? Annika? Saturday, maybe. I don’t know. Paul, let’s go, let’s go, let’s go.”

Paul nodded, his baseball cap bent over the Betacam, a twenty-five-pound video camera the size of a small dog, something I was trying to make friends with.

I tried again. “Because Joey says-”

“Oh, well, if Joey says, let’s all pause to listen to Joey, our instant producer… ” Animosity curdled his voice. Since Joey’s husband was the new investor in Bad Seed Productions, Bing was convinced that Joey was there to spy on and eventually wrest power from him. “What does our esteemed Mrs. Rafferty-Horowitz say?”

“That Annika talked to you about buying a gun,” I said.

Bing stared at me for a moment, then glanced at the goateed guy down the street. “What am I, the NRA? Paul, thirty seconds to reload that camera or you’re fired.”

“I can’t be fired, I’m not paid enough.”

I said, “Because she’s disappeared, Bing. Annika. Have you noticed?”

Bing looked at me again. “What do you mean, disappeared?”

“I mean that nobody’s been able to reach her for-well, I don’t know how long, exactly, but at least twenty-four hours. Which is scary. It’s not like her.”

Bing’s eyes grew wide, stricken. “She’s not here? I have a call in to the German guys tonight, I need her to translate.”

Paul’s baseball cap tilted up, revealing an acne-scarred face. “She hasn’t been around all weekend.”

“Christ. And you didn’t think to tell me?”

“She’s not on the call sheet,” Paul said.

“She’s not on the payroll, idiot, but we have a deal-she talks to Munich for me every time we-. Christ, get that camera loaded, then see if Sharon’s still in the office, tell her to find someone who speaks German. What time’s it in Munich?”