He said, “So after a few years of marriage, what? He was no longer a gentleman?”
“He’s a fucking pig!” Margot said it so viciously it startled him.
“What happened?”
“Women. Cocaine. Even gambling. And the scary thing, he kept talking about leaving Hollywood. Leaving America. Going back to the Middle East with Nicky and me.”
“Nice,” Nate said. “I can just see you in a burka, or one of those other beekeeper outfits.”
“He said I’d like Saudi Arabia. Claimed he had connections there, even though he’s not a Saudi. I said I’d die first, and that he wasn’t taking my son anywhere.”
“And that started the fireworks?”
“Definitely,” she said. “And it resulted in my filing for divorce and starting a really big-time dispute over the division of property. But that’s another story.”
Nate finally decided that even if all this was gospel, it was hard to feel sympathy for rich people. He offered an official police response, saying, “Has he hurt you or threatened you in any way?”
“That’s why I wanted to talk to you tonight,” she said. “He has threatened me, but in very subtle ways.”
“Like how?”
“Like when he comes to pick up Nicky for his visit. He’ll say things like, ‘Enjoy this while you can.’ Or, ‘A boy needs his father, not a mother like you.’ Then he makes signs.”
“What signs?”
“He points a finger at me like a gun. Once he mouthed the word bang. Things like that.”
“That’s not much in the way of a threat. And it’d be his word against yours.”
“That’s what the other officer said.”
“What other officer?”
“I’ve talked to another of your officers about it. An officer I met last year with my husband at one of the Tip-A-Cop fund-raisers. I can’t remember his name. I told him what was going on, but he said that I should talk it over with my divorce lawyer. He said that so far, my husband hadn’t done anything criminal that I could prove.”
“Took the words right outta my mouth,” Nate said.
“But last week when Ali brought Nicky home, he said something that made my blood run cold.”
Nate remembered his screen-writing professor saying that no screenplay should ever contain those last three words. “Yeah?” he said, trying to muster enthusiasm.
“He said if I didn’t agree to sign certain business documents, something very bad would happen.”
“What documents?”
“Documents pertaining to the businesses, the stock portfolio, and properties we own.”
In a minor way Nate had an understanding of divorce law, and at last something piqued his interest. He said, “You mean you’re an owner right along with him of everything?”
“Yes, of course,” she said.
And now Hollywood Nate started getting a woody once again. This Barstow babe must be a world-class piece of ass to have rigged a deal like this with a dude from the Middle East! Nate said, “He wants you to sign off on certain things?”
“On certain things I can’t even talk about. Signatures I agreed to give so that he could avoid certain tax liability, as well as others of his dealings I can’t discuss.”
“Back to the very bad thing that would happen,” Nate said. “Did he describe what might happen?”
“He’s too smart for that,” Margot said. “But he drew his finger across his throat.”
Here we go again, Nate thought. Finger across the throat. Every time she said something he was ready to buy into, she came up with lines that could have come from the piece-of-shit movies he’d appeared in.
Nate said, “Did you tell your lawyer about it?”
“Of course,” she said. “But he told me Ali would deny it, and just to change my locks and alarm code. Which I had already done.”
“Anything else by way of a threat?”
“Yes. One night last week I saw him standing on the street when I came home from dinner with a girlfriend. He was half a block down behind a parked car. He ducked when I drove past, but I’m sure it was him. When I got in my driveway, I saw taillights driving down the hill.”
“Did you call the police?”
“Yes. I called Hollywood Station and talked to an officer at the front desk. I told him I wanted a car to patrol my street, and if they found my husband, to stop and investigate. The officer said he would tell the area car to be on the lookout for Ali prowling around. I insisted that he make a record of my call. My lawyer advised me to be sure that there is official verification of every incident.”
“So you’ve told the cop you met at the fund-raiser, and you called Hollywood Station, and now you’re telling me. Any other police officers know about this?”
“Yes, last Saturday night I was sure I heard footsteps beneath the bedroom balcony at about eleven P.M., and I called Hollywood Station again. And two officers arrived, along with a sergeant. They didn’t find anything.”
“Do you remember the sergeant’s name?”
“Let’s see…no, but he was young and officious. He issued a lot of orders to the officers.”
“Did he have lips?”
“What?”
“Was his name Treakle?”
“That’s it. Sergeant Treakle.”
Well, Nate thought, she’s done everything but put it on MySpace and send up smoke signals. Help! Ali Aziz is threatening me, but I can’t prove it.
“Does your husband still see your son?” he asked.
“Oh, yes. I had to agree to reasonable visitation rights. Ali has a luxury condo in Beverly Hills and a full-time housekeeper and au pair. There was nothing I could do about it.”
Nate felt his woody withering again, especially when she said, “Won’t you let me make you a vodka martini? It’s a wonderful mood enhancer.”
And yet hers wasn’t half finished. This chick was way more interested in pouring booze into him than into herself. What about her mood? It occurred to Hollywood Nate Weiss that wealthy people could be very perplexing.
He once again declined a martini and said, “If you’re really scared of him, have you considered moving away?”
“I have,” she said, “and I will. But in the meantime I went to a gun store in the Valley where they have a pistol range and I took a shooting lesson. The gun store owner said I’m a fast learner. I’m thinking of buying a pistol. Do you like the Glock or the Beretta?”
“Whoa!” Nate said. “Are you that scared?”
“I am,” she said. “I’d have bought a gun already, but with Nicky getting into every nook and cranny in this house, I’ve been afraid to do it. The alternative is more expensive but might be wiser.”
“And what’s that?” Nate said.
“I’ve been thinking about hiring someone from a security firm to stay here in the house until it closes escrow. Oh, did I tell you that I sold it already?”
“No, you didn’t,” he said.
“Well, I did. With the agreement of my husband and his attorney. And with proceeds to be shared. I’ll just need someone here for forty more days, maybe less if the buyer can close early. We have bedrooms and bathrooms we’ve never used. But then I thought, Who knows what kind of person might be employed by those security firms? And I got to thinking, there might be a police officer from Hollywood Station who’d be interested in a very nice room-and-board arrangement for a month or so. I think I could feel safe with a real police officer being here. Is that feasible, do you think?”
Now Nate was so baffled by this woman that he decided to test her. He said, “I might be interested.”
“I was hoping to hear that, Nate,” Margot said with a little sigh. “I’m truly scared for my safety and for my son’s.”
“Where’re you moving to?” he asked.
“Haven’t decided yet,” she said. “That’s another thing our lawyers are fighting about. He doesn’t want me to take Nicky out of Los Angeles, but we’re trying to show the court that Ali’s business environment does not make this the ideal place to raise Nicky. Ali knows I love San Francisco and New York. But until that’s settled, I’ll rent a condo for Nicky and me right here in L.A.”