Extending her warm, dry hand, she took his and said, “Officer Weiss. You look so different in civilian clothes.”
“The uniform makes the man, huh?” He tried to keep the tremble out of his voice, needing one drink to mellow out.
Seeming to read his mind, she said, “What can I get you to drink? And to answer your question, you don’t need a uniform. In fact, you look much younger now.”
Nate tried on a broader smile and said, “Wine?”
“Name your flavor.”
“Whatever you’re having.”
“Pinot grigio it is,” she said. “I’m not a wine snob. Just give me an honest California pinot and I’m happy as a lark in the park. Come in and pour while I finish the pasta.”
Nate entered and was drawn at once to the living room, with its view of Hollywood and beyond. Blankets of lights, some twinkling, some still, and the summer smog hanging low and dark against the golden glow of sunset actually calmed him. The view wasn’t as good as some he’d seen from houses in the Hollywood Hills farther west, but this would do. He couldn’t imagine how many millions a home with a view would cost around there.
As far as the furnishings, it looked a trifle overdone, like many of the westside living rooms he’d seen in Los Angeles magazine and the L.A. Times. An unpleasant image of the Arab ex sitting on one of those plush sofas smoking a hookah flashed and faded. Nothing could spoil it for him. It all smelled like big bucks to Hollywood Nate Weiss.
“You know,” he said, “from here even the smog looks beautiful.”
Margot chuckled and he thought it sounded charming and warm. Everything about her was warm.
She said, “Come on, boy, let’s away with us to the kitchen, where you can pour us some grape. I need to let my hair down whenever my five-year-old stays over with our au pair.”
Nate followed her into a very large gourmet kitchen with two stainless-steel side-by-side refrigerator-freezer combinations and a commercial gas range and oven, also done in stainless steel. There were three steel sinks, and he wondered which she’d choose when she drained a pan of pasta. Too many choices!
He picked up the corkscrew and the bottle of pinot grigio and tried to peel off the neck seal and extract the cork like he’d seen sommeliers do it on those occasions when he could afford to take a date to an expensive restaurant. He had some trouble with the cork, but she didn’t seem to notice.
“Have you been a police officer long, Nate?” she asked.
“Yeah, almost fifteen years,” he said.
“Really?” Margot said. “You don’t look old enough.”
“I’m thirty-six,” he said. Then he added, “You don’t look old enough to have a five-year-old child.”
“I could have one a lot older, but I’m not telling you my age,” she said.
“I already know,” Nate said. “Your driver’s license, remember?”
“Drat!” she said. “I forgot.”
Nate poured wine into the glasses and put one on the drain board by Margot.
“Does your son stay with your nanny often?” Nate asked.
“Only on very special occasions,” Margot said, and there was that coy smile again.
He took a big swallow then but told himself to slow it down, way down. He began thinking of acting tricks, such as pretending that this was a movie starring Nate Weiss. Trying to get himself into character but uncertain whom the character should resemble. Hollywood Nate Weiss simply had no frame of reference for a date like this one.
“So are you really interested in the Mercedes?” Margot said.
“Of course,” Nate said nervously. “Why else would I have called?”
She stopped slicing the mango. Repressing a grin, she glanced at him before saying deadpan, “I can’t imagine.”
Nate felt his face burning. He was like a kid around this woman! “Am I lame or what?” he finally said. “Sure, I love the Mercedes, but I just bought a new car last year. You should kick me right outta here.”
Margot brought the wine bottle to the bar counter, topped off his glass, and said with sudden seriousness, “I was glad you called, Nate.”
“Really?”
“Really,” she said. “To tell you the truth, I’ve been frightened about something and I was thinking about talking to the police.”
“Frightened of what?”
“Let’s have supper and then we’ll talk,” Margot said.
Gert Von Braun was teamed with Dan Applewhite for the first time after he returned from his days off. The other cops figured that putting Doomsday Dan with someone as explosive as Gert would produce a match made in hell. The surfer cops had bets on how long Gert could listen to Dan talking about the worldwide Muslim calamity on the horizon, or the imminent collapse of the world financial markets, before she threw a choke hold on him. What they didn’t know was how much Dan and Gert’s mutual loathing of Sergeant Treakle would produce a bond that nobody could have predicted.
It began when Sergeant Treakle informed Gert that the accidental discharge of the shotgun was going to result in an official reprimand for certain, the first in her eleven-year career. She was ready for it, of course, but not in the way the information was delivered.
Sergeant Treakle, who rarely bothered to learn any cop’s first name, called her into the sergeants’ room and said, “Von Braun, you will be getting an official reprimand for your carelessness with the shotgun.”
“I figured,” Gert said and prepared to leave.
“Furthermore,” he said, and she paused at the doorway, “it will result in a serious penalty if such a thing should ever happen again.”
Gert’s rosy complexion went white around her mouth and she said, “You think it’s ever gonna happen again, Sergeant?”
“I’m just giving you a word to the wise,” the young sergeant said, looking away nervously. Gert’s collar size was larger than his, and it was rumored that she had embarrassed a male cop at Central Division when he’d boozily arm wrestled her at the Christmas party.
She forced herself to stay calm and said, “Thanks for the words of wisdom.” And again she tried to leave.
But Sergeant Treakle said, “Part of the problem could be your physical condition.”
That stopped her cold. In fact, she took a step toward his desk and said, “What about my physical condition?”
“Your weight,” he said. “It must be hard to move around quickly enough when something unexpected happens. Like your cell phone falling and you trying to grab it, and accidentally hitting the shotgun trigger. Police officers must be ready to think and act quickly. Like athletes, as it were.”
Gert dead-stared Sergeant Treakle for a moment and then said very softly, “I’ve passed every physical since I came on the Job. And I was first in the agility test for women in the academy. And I’ve competed twice in the Police Olympics. Now I have a question for you. Have you ever heard of EEO laws?”
“Equal Employment Opportunity?”
“That’s right, Sergeant,” she said. “It’s all about discrimination in the workplace. And I’m giving you a gift right now by forgetting about this conversation. Because you’re offending me in a very personal way.”
Sergeant Treakle blanched and said, “We’ll talk later. I’ve got some calls to make.”
By the time Gert Von Braun joined Dan Applewhite in the parking lot, the grim set of her jaw told him that it wasn’t the time to tell her that staph infections had stricken several officers in neighboring divisions and an outbreak was imminent.
She drove in silence for five minutes, and when she spoke, she said, “Have you had any personal dealings with Treakle?”
“Once,” Dan Applewhite said. “He told me I had a sour expression when talking to citizens and that my attitude needed improving. He said he was sure I could improve my outlook on life by attending Bible study with him. He’s a born-again and got baptized in a pond somewhere, with people singing on the bank.”