She had steeled herself for the worst.
Instead of raping or kidnapping her, the attacker simply shot a roll of thirty-five-millimeter film of Cheeta, tied to the chair, dressed in Lyi dynasty ham-bok dress, and sputtering scorn.
Then he had left, much to Cheeta's relief.
After she had struggled free of her bonds, Cheeta Ching had contacted Don Cooder, her arch-rival, and accused him of staging the attack. Cooder had denied it.
"You're not even in my class," Cooder had snarled.
Cheeta then hung up and hired thugs to beat him up, shouting "What's the frequency, Kenneth?"
Satisfied, Cheeta then waited for the photos to appear in some tabloid. They never had. Nor had they been used to blackmail her.
It was a mystery, and eventually Cheeta Ching had put it out of her mind. But she had never been able to put her strange assailant out of her mind. There was something about his cruel forcefulness that lingered, and sometimes made her fantasize about his return-even though the memory of that ugly incident still made her shiver.
The man who had attacked her reminded her of Nero. A little. The face was different. The eyes were alike. But it was not the same man, she was sure of that. The other had been a pig.
But Nero was different from other men. He was . . .
Words failed Cheeta Ching. No surprise. Most of her on-air material was written for her. Still, there was something about him, something that had made her shiver at the first glimpse of his lean, strong body. Shiver in the same way she had just shivered at the memory of the strange, picture-taking intruder. He was . . .
"A dreamboat," she decided finally, dipping into her half-forgotten teenage vocabulary. "That's what he is. A dreamboat."
Cheeta was hunched in a cubbyhole of the local network affiliate, eating spicy jungol casserole soup. It was in her contract that she be catered in Korean ethnic foods, and God help the idiot who served her Moo Goo Gai Pan. She was trying to figure out what had happened to the tape of her self-interview.
Nero couldn't have stolen it, she told herself. Never.
Yet the tape he had given her proved to be blank. And the network had refused to run her interview with Enrique Espiritu Esperanza, calling it "Soft and unprofessional."
Cheeta had instantly blamed this on her cameraman. But the missing tape still bothered her.
There is only one way to solve this mystery, she decided, as she stirred her jungol and let the scrumptious turnip-and-cabbage odor soothe her flaring nostrils.
She picked up the phone and called personnel.
"Did anyone named Nero drop off a resume today?" she asked the personnel manager.
"No. Nor Demo. Nor Nemo, or any of the other names you keep mentioning."
"Well, if anyone with any of those names drops off a resume, I am to be notified instantly or it's your job."
"You don't hire and fire at this station," the personnel manager had said.
"Fine," Cheeta Ching replied tartly. "I won't fire you. What I'll do is rip your Adam's apple out of your gullet with my naked teeth."
There was a pregnant pause while the threat sank in.
"The very minute anyone with those vowels in his name drops off a resume, you'll be the first to know, Miss Ching," the personnel manager said, helpfully.
"Thank you," Cheeta said sweetly. "I'm glad we understand each other."
Cheeta hung up the phone. It rang a second later. It was the station news director.
"We just received word that Esperanza is giving a speech down in the South Central district. I can get you a cameraman, if you want to cover it."
"I want to cover it," Cheeta said quickly, bolting from her chair. Here was her chance to redeem herself. And maybe run into Nero the Divine, too.
The thought of coming into contact with the dark-eyed Nero made more delicious shivers course up and down her spine. She wondered if it would stimulate ovulation. She had tried just about everything else.
The station microwave van came off the freeway and into the worst section of South Central Los Angeles.
The driver looked startled. He pulled over to the side of the road, his face wearing a confused expression.
From the back of the van, Cheeta poked her stickyhaired head forward.
"What's wrong?" she demanded, shrill-voiced.
"I think I took a wrong turn," he said, pulling a folding map from the glove compartment.
"Don't you know your own city, you nitwit?"
"I thought I did. But this can't be South Central."
Cheeta peered through the windshield. She saw a neat downtown area. No litter clogged its gutters. The sides of buildings were wet from recent scrubbing. Even the sidewalks looked freshly washed.
More incredibly, there were no loitering gang members, no back-alley drug dealing, no hookers in tight clothes leaning against building facades.
"Why not?" she asked, her too-smooth face puckering in perplexity.
"Look at this place," said the driver. "It's neat as a pin. South Central is a dump."
"Maybe the city cleaned it in preparation for Esperanza's speech," Cheeta suggested.
"Lady, you don't know this city. Or South Central. The cops are petrified to come here after dark."
The driver returned to the map.
"Says here we should be on Compton Street," he said doubtfully.
"The sign says Compton," Cheeta pointed out.
"I know," the driver said bleakly. "I feel like I'm in The Twilight Zone."
"If we miss this speech," Cheeta warned, "I promise to cable you to a fire plug and leave you there after sundown."
The driver pulled out into traffic. "We're on the right street. We gotta be."
As he tooled his van further down the street, the driver began feeling light-headed. Gone were the graffiti. The gutters were immaculate. Even the air smelled good. He noticed air-wick dispensers located at strategic points, on window sills and storm drains.
And surreally, he saw two black teenagers scrubbing spray-painted profanity off the side of a church. One wore a blue Crips bandanna on his head, and the other had a bloodred Bloods bandanna stuffed into the back pocket of his jeans.
"I am in The Twilight Zone," he muttered.
The media had already set up cameras and microwave stations in front of the Ebeneezer Tabernacle Church, where Enrique Espiritu Esperanza was scheduled to make a speech. Rival anchors milled about. They were merely local anchors, but to Cheeta Ching all anchors were potential rivals. They were either clawing their way up to her slot, or they were sniping at her as their careers crashed and burned.
Cheeta saw that two of the female reporters were of Asian descent, and her eyes became catlike slits.
"Look at that," she hissed to her trembling cameraman. "Those sluts. Trying to steal my thunder. Why can't they be teachers, or work in restaurants, like the rest of their kind?"
The cameraman said a discreet nothing. He lugged his minicam out of the back of the van, saying, "Looks like we got here too late for a choice position."
"I'll fix that," Cheeta hissed, storming ahead.
Her red nails flashing in the California sun, Cheeta Ching waded into the crowd. She yanked cords from belt battery packs and hit fast-forward buttons where she could.
Instantly, cameramen began to curse and check their equipment for malfunctions.
Cheeta turned and waved to her cameraman to follow. The man dashed through the path Cheeta's sabotage had opened up. He made excellent time. He had been told his predecessor had been demoted to the mail room for being too slow.
By the time they reached the front of the pack, Cheeta had staked out a prominent position. From her handbag, she pulled out a tiny can of hair varnish and began applying it liberally to her crowning glory, turning so that stray bursts got into the eyes of selected rivals. That cleared even more space.