Jellwagger hung up on Pat Dinner before he knew what he was doing.
“You remember!” Sam T. Lee said with a grin and a cackle. The impeccably coifed man’s teeth shone more harshly than the office fluorescence. It gave our poor Jellwagger a headache. “Muy impressive, if I may say so myself.”
“Did you just say muy? As in the Spanish for very?”
“Si, sir.”
Jellwagger had only seen Sam T. Lee once before, during that night of drunken, Lagavulin-soaked revelry atop the Hotel Standard a couple weeks ago, the night Carla sent him to Spago to surveil Pat Dinner, an escapade that ended with the intrepid Jellwagger befriending said Dinner before a certain billionaire Dinner made Jellwagger his gopher. You remember all that? I hope so, because you see this Jellwagger here? He can’t recall most of it. It’s mostly a Scotch-stained haze courtesy of the aforementioned Lagavulin. Through the haze, though, Jellwagger kinda sorta recalls Sam T. Lee’s pointed questions, which not so subtly intimated that he knew our Jersey-bred Jellwagger had a secret motive for having shown up at Spago that night. In fact, the longer Jellwagger stared at the baby-faced Mr. Lee, the more those teeth with the supernova wattage burned through the haze to make Jellwagger remember how Sam only stuck with light beer that night, while the rest of the cast and crew drowned in Lagavulin. Sam, in other words, had been sober as an IRS audit, and the memory of it gave Jellwagger a jolting, albeit fleeting, chill. What struck Jellwagger even more was the man’s face. From what he recalled, Sam T. Lee was an Asian. But here, in the cold artificial light of the law firm, he looked only sort of Asian. What was it? What Sam T. Lee said next brought it home.
“You okay, amigo?”
Mexican!
Jellwagger wasn’t a hundred percent sure—who is?—but he’d bet a healthy chunk of Pat Dinner’s bank account that Sam T. Lee was Chinese-Mexican.
“Chexican.”
Holy shit, did a certain Jellwagger just say that out loud?
Sam T. Lee’s smile dissipated as he concentrated hard on something on Jellwagger’s surround. Jellwagger tried following his line of site but was blocked by his monitor. What the hell was the Desi lookalike so focused on that he suddenly seemed to forget our man here? Finally, and ever so delicately, Sam T. Lee picked something up from the surround and held it up like an appraiser holds up a precious stone. Only, this particular stone was a pebble left over from the kitty litter Grant had scattered across Jellwagger’s desk during his week off. Sam T. Lee’s smile returned while he studied the pebble. He walked around the surround until he was on Jellwagger’s side, leaned over ever so delicately, and didn’t drop so much as place the litter pebble on the clear plastic interior lining of the trashcan.
Sam T. Lee straightened up and wiped his hands. His smile shone upon Jellwagger the way an alien spaceship shines a beam on whoever they’re about to abduct and perform experiments on. “Chexicano.”
No way, did he just say….?
“White people say Chexican, but the correct way, sir, the truly authentic way of saying this word of words, is Chexicano. Can you say this word?”
“I assume so. I mean it’s just a matter of adding that o at the end, right?”
“So you cannot say it. Not truly. This is okay. I already knew I had much to teach you anyway, as Mr. Dinner may have mentioned on the phone.”
“That filthy rich blindsiding bastard could barely get the words out that you were going to be here before you showed up, Mr. Lee. He didn’t have the time to give me a reason for your impeccable appearance. And might I say your cologne is downright awesome?”
But Sam T. Lee wasn’t looking at Jellwagger anymore. Once again his eyes and every fiber of his noodle were focused on something nearby.
This time Jellwagger could follow his gaze just fine. The new target was his Donald Duck cane.
“Yes, it’s really a Donald Duck cane. You want the short version?”
“Si, why not?”
“I took a slug in the thigh thanks to a career-misdemeanor-committing kid who sometimes shows up at my dingbat, where his mom lives, when he needs money from her. He broke into my place the morning after I had a threesome with these two hot chicks.”
“Muy bueno!”
“And he was going to shoot all of us. At least that’s what it seemed like. But one of the chicks, who used to be a nun but is now an escort, talked him out of it.”
“Fascinating. You couldn’t make this stuff up.”
“You really couldn’t.”
“So the miscreant shot you anyway?”
“Total accident. He and the ex-nun escort got along famously and cracked jokes about me.”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
“Totally used to it. What I’m not used to is getting shot, which is what happened when Stefania had him laughing his ass off.”
“At your expense.”
“Si, Sam T. Lee.”
“So in the end, that episode was entirely at your expense in every possible way.”
“Don’t forget about the threesome, though.”
“Then perhaps the universe was keeping things on an even keel. You had more luck than most, and right after that, balance was restored when you received worse luck than most.”
“Listen here, Sammo, I’ve got a week’s worth of data entry to catch up on, and that includes over a thousand e-mails sent to me on purpose for no valid reason whatsoever by the same passive-aggressive masterpiece who convinced the alley cat near his house to perform a Broadway show on my desk. Comprendes? So if there’s nothing else…”
“I do have a valid reason for showing up out of the blue.”
“Spill it.”
“That you, Lee?”
The Titanic-sized Mahoney had been huffing it back to his office, granddaddy-sized coffee in hand from the ground floor café, when he stopped at his doorway at the sight of Sam T. Lee.
The inestimable Señor Lee took his time turning—Jellwagger had a feeling he was never caught off-guard—and raised his eyebrows, and his smile, ever so slightly. “Hola, Ricardo.”
Mahoney thumped down the way to shake hands. “You’ve got balls showing up here.”
“But Ricardo, you and I are on the same team.”
“Teammates need to look out for each other. Seriously, what the hell are you doing here, Sammy? I assume it’s important if you’d take a big risk like this.”
“I’m here to visit my amigo here, Mr. Jellwagger.”
“Just Jellwagger’s fine,” Jellwagger said.
“Only with you would a name like that be fine,” Mahoney said. “But seriously, Sammy, what are you doing here?”
“As I said.” He gestured at Jellwagger.
“This kid had cat shit all over his desk this morning. Now you’re here. Since when did our marketing department’s data entry gopher get so God damned important? You bill folks by the quarter hour, Jellwagger?”
“I won’t even justify that with a response.”
“I rest my case. Look, Sammy, whyever you’re really here, just be careful, okay? If the local papers get wind that you just walked in like this, they’d have photographers camped outside the Sanwa Bank building in no time.”
“All is well, Ricardo Mahoney. I promise you.”
“Speaking of quarter hours and ripping people off, don’t you have somewhere you need to be, Bob’s Bigger Boy?” Jellwagger said.
“Good point. I’ll see yas. Watch yourself, Sammy. I mean it, don’t let Roz know you’re here.” He thumped into his office.
Sam T. Lee turned back to Jellwagger and appeared more at ease. His smile still evoked an alien spaceship beam, but at least the smile didn’t seem so forced, even if the threat of alien abduction was just the same. “You and I are having lunch this afternoon.”
“Wow. You didn’t even ask me to check my calendar to see if I had any time today.”
“We have much to discuss, do we not?”
“Hell if I know.”
“And after we discuss all of that…”
“All of what?”
“Perhaps you can provide more background and context to the Donald Duck cane, the threesome, and your colleague convincing his neighborhood stray to, as you put it, perform a Broadway show on your desk.”
“Today’s less than ideal for any of that.”
“How about noon?”
“Sure.”
“Do you have a usual place where you luncheon?”
“I usually bring it. Saves money, you know? Although you wouldn’t believe who took me out to pizza a couple weeks ago.”
“Si, I probably wouldn’t. How about I meet you downstairs in the lobby at noon?”
Jellwagger turned to his monitor, to the one thousand plus e-mails waiting for him, and was about to suggest Sam T. Lee take a gander at it before he said adios and left. Something about the way he walked away reminded Jellwagger of Korben Dallas, Bruce Willis’s character from The Fifth Element. Awesome flick. Jellwagger watched it a few times during his week off to keep his creative Exit the Danish juices flowing. Remember that one scene where Korben opens the freezer door and takes that paper off the frozen Brion James character? That’s how Sam T. Lee seemed now, so casual in spite of the circumstances, circumstances which Jellwagger still didn’t understand fully but which he understood couldn’t be all good, not if Carla felt compelled to call him this morning, not if Pat Dinner felt compelled to call soon after that. What the hell was the deal with this guy?
“By the way.” Sam T. Lee stopped and turned back. “No need to call me Mr. Lee or Señor Lee or my full name or anything like that. Sam is fine. As is Samuel, Sammy, Sam. But please, no Sammo, I trust you will drop that shit.”
“Consider the shit dropped.”
“See you at noon, Jellwagger. Oh, may I call you Miguel?”
“Fuck no. One more Miguel out of you and Donald Duck’s getting to know the side of your head.”
“Point taken. See you soon, amigo.”
For the first time since getting here this morning, the entire coast around our limping Jellwagger’s desk was clear. Naturally that could only last so long. Barely a minute went by before Mahoney poked his head out of his office. When he saw that Sam T. Lee was gone, he crept over to Jellwagger’s desk. Jellwagger fought the urge to laugh his ass off. Rick Mahoney must’ve weighed half a ton if he weighed an ounce. He’d give Stu a serious run (or roll?) for his money, let’s put it that way. So his idea of creeping was the equivalent of Jellwagger hopping up and down as hard as he could like the Easter bunny on crack.
“Hey Jellwagger, just who the hell do you think you are receiving guests like that?”
If you take the way Mahoney asked that question and combine it with his bulldozing into Jellwagger’s personal space and the shit morning Jellwagger’s been having in general, it’s no surprise at all that our boy here would spring out of his seat, grab Donald Duck, and start whacking Mahoney in his thick side. He was skeptical Mahoney would feel anything through the lard, but sure enough, the big dude backed away immediately with pudgy paws raised. “It’s not even eleven o’clock yet, and already my first day’s gone to shit in a shit basket. There are people paying you for the time you’re giving me shit about having someone visit my desk when I had no idea that person was coming. Who are you to give me shit for that? You honestly think Donald and I are going to take that lying down?”
“Who are you now, Jellwagger? Some puny data entry hack. I’m the attorney bringing in the money.”
“And I’m the one with Donald Duck.”
“True, you got me there, but… Damn it, I had IT take care of you.”
“Roz Powler fixed everything, not you.”
Mahoney’s mouth hung open as he took a couple steps back toward Jellwagger before the latter brandished Donald. He stopped in his tracks but didn’t lose the awe in his flabby face. “Did you just say…?”
“Week before last? Before I took a slug in the thigh? I had pizza in Pershing Square with Roz Powler.”
“No you fucking didn’t.”
“Want me to call her?”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Leave it to you to call my bluff, fat boy.” Jellwagger limped over to his phone, picked it up, and had his finger an inch above speed dial before:
“Okay you win!”
“Pizza with Powler, Mahoney. You know what that means, right?”
“Leave me alone! I’ve got quarter hours to document!”
Mahoney huffed it back into his office and slammed the door.
If you don’t count the thousand plus e-mails from Grant, and the few hundred other e-mails, the rest of the morning passed uneventfully for Jellwagger. And maybe you shouldn’t count Grant’s mails. At least not all of them. A healthy share, well over half, were blank. The rest were actually relevant to Jellwagger’s job and contained anywhere from a few to dozens of rows of new contacts for Jellwagger to input into the database. At first, Jellwagger was encouraged that Grant, for all his passive-aggressive indignation, hadn’t been too nasty with the spam. Nah, the cat shit took care of the nastiness in more ways than one. But then, as he sifted through his inbox, he realized the hell Grant had inflicted on him. Sure, most of the mails were blank, but because some weren’t, Jellwagger had to click on every God damned one of them. If he deleted several rows at a time, naturally he’d risk deleting one or more relevant mails.
Just then Grant IMed him and basically said the same thing.
Jellwagger had neither the time nor the patience to IM back. He picked up the phone and dialed Grant’s extension and spoke so loudly he was certain Grant could hear him in his office down the way. “The cat shit and the spam better be the extent of your righteous indignation, you deadpan West Virginian file cabinet killer.”
“Shades of Cream is just the beginning, Grass Hopper. I’m fond of how well it may be undervalued by the masses. If we get as many people to see it as there were at Sky’s that one night, it would certainly be good motivation for Shades of Creamer.”
“Oh for Christ’s sake, Shades of Creamer? Did you really just say that?”
“Just like you called me a West Virginian.”
“Which of course you are.”
“Not.”
“I don’t have time for this shit. Do you have any more tricks up your sleeve or don’t you? I have work to do!”
“Yeah.”
“You do? Where? Give me a head’s up.”
“Yeah. Well. I may originally hail from the Mountaineer State, but I’ve lived out here in the sunny, palm frond-lined Granola State since the beforetimes. I’d say I qualify as a Southern Californian, Jellwagger.”
“It’s going to take me for-fucking-ever to get through all this.”
“Yeah. Yeah.”
Jellwagger rubbed his head and could picture so clearly, in spite of himself, Grant’s caged teeth to go along with his deadpan, perfunctory “Yeah.” “So are you and Zach cool?”
Grant prefaced his answer with a pronounced swallow, which made Jellwagger’s stomach lurch. “Well, um, that’s a loaded question if I may say so myself, especially from you. Without divulging too many personal deets, let us just say he and I are still together and have no plans to be torn asunder.”
“Let’s not forget, shall we, that I didn’t make you fuck Stu in the office after hours. Not that I’m not sorry. I am, man, big time, but I want to be sure you’re not being a total victim about this.”
“I have accepted the fact that my own actions were irresponsible, yes. But I also believe in damage control. I had no intention of pursuing a relationship with Stu. Therefore, sleeping dogs should’ve stayed put.”
“That’s debatable.”
“Yeah.”
“At any rate, last week was shit for you, I get that, shittier for you than for me, and I’m the one who got shot. So as fucked up as your pranks were, and as tempted as I am to utilize my newfound contacts in this firm to have your artiste ass kicked to the curb, I’m going to let all this slide. I’m the one who was fucking shot in my own apartment and don’t really need this shit, especially since I thought the universe had restored things to an even keel, seeing’s how the bullet came right after the threesome.”
“Whoa, that’s a deep thought, Jellwagger.”
“I’m letting it all slide, Grant. In the interests of moving on. And I’m not being a smartass when I say I’m glad you and Zach are getting over this.”
“Yeah. Yeah. Well, the getting over of this, as you put it, may take some time yet, Jellwagger. Let us say I am not out of the woods. Indeed, I’m stuck in the middle of a thick wood the way the Sheriff of Nottingham’s men could sometimes get stuck in the sprawling Sherwood Forest.”
“A random analogy if I ever heard one.”
“Without divulging too many domestic deets, let us just say the domestic environment in which I dwell is, to quote kids these days, fucking awkward.”
“I refuse to apologize anymore. And if you have a fucking problem with that, I fucking dare you to pull any more shit with me, literally or figuratively.”
Jellwagger slammed the phone down, slapped on his headphones to pick up where he left off week before last with Civilization and Its Discontents (it was like he and Bruce Willis had never been apart), and continued plodding through the mails. Jellwagger was determined to keep his cool going forward. He made a conscious effort to breathe evenly while focusing every fiber of his noodle on cleaning up his inbox in a steady, methodical manner. Thinking about John McClane helped. That was one of Jellwagger’s favorite things about the Die Hards, how McClane, even, nay, especially when things looked bleak, hardly ever spoke above a whisper. He’d have a whole bunch of evil terrorists right on top of him, or right below him, depending on the film, and he’d crack jokes all calm like. Shit, if McClane could be like that in such extreme circumstances, what was Jellwagger’s excuse for blowing his top? Was his life in danger? Well, maybe two weeks ago, thanks to Aaron, but he was in the clear now.
Soon enough he didn’t have to try so hard to be nice. Betsy walked by shortly before noon and asked how the mountain of mails was going. Jellwagger told her it was all hunky-dory, and he meant it. By the time he had to head downstairs for lunch with Samuel Tijuana Lee, Jellwagger was just over halfway out of his inbox.
Jellwagger’s stomach had that oatmeal feeling that comes from being nervous, but he wasn’t nervous enough to deny his hunger. He’d been too excited and anxious about getting back to work this morning to have any breakfast or to make his lunch. He made sure Chump E. Chips had full bowls before limping out of the joint. Last night wasn’t much better. He was on his third Spaten and halfway through the microwave ‘corn before he conked out in the middle of Death Becomes Her (one of Bruce’s most underrated performances). Suffice it to say our man had a pit in his stomach that felt deeper than Bruce Willis’s resume.
When he got down to the lobby, he didn’t see Sam T. Lee anywhere. He checked the line spilling out of the café, but no go. Just as Jellwagger entertained the thought that maybe Sam T. Lee couldn’t make it—he had to be a super busy guy, right?—he heard a young man’s voice behind him.
“Don’t turn around. Pretend I’m not talking to you. Calmly walk to the doors. Thank you in advance.”
Jellwagger was too hungry to argue. He wound his way through the café line and the rest of the lunchtime crowd, which was more complicated than he’d anticipated with his cane. What made it doubly so was that the pain in his thigh decided to flare. Naturally he’d left his painkillers upstairs in his backpack.
Grant was on his way in with his lunch. As always, he’d gone to one of the fast food joints downtown, got it to go, and was coming back with the perfunctory enclosed Styrofoam tray to eat it at his desk. Jellwagger was sure he’d be able to tell whoever it was behind him was directing Jellwagger, but apparently not, judging by how Grant stopped in front of Jellwagger and addressed him directly with no indication he even saw anyone behind him. “Cat shit and spam won’t kill friendships. Not real friendships.”
“’Scuse me, sir.” The owner of the young voice appeared beside Jellwagger. “Jellwagger and I are on our way to lunch.”
“Whoa, a Chexican,” Grant said. “You don’t see you every day.”
“Judging from the way you greeted Jellwagger just now, you must be the guy who played all those practical jokes on him this morning, making his first day back after a long week of convalescence that much more stressful.”
“Were you born here after a chance meeting between two people from completely different parts of the world? Because honestly, that’s the only logical explanation. Well, not the only one, but by far the most likely.”
“Jellwagger, is this the man?” The guy couldn’t have been older than twenty-five or so. Like Sam T. Lee, his face was smooth and his hair impeccable. “The man who fed his alley cat something big, most likely a big fish, a salmon perhaps, a delicacy most cats, even those in the 310, don’t get the privilege of eating, and waited for it to come out the other end, nice and messy, before transporting it to your desk?”
“You’re good. How’d you know it was salmon?”
“What’s truly remarkable is the lengths you went to, and on a Sunday, just to lash out at the man who helped you be honest.”
“Come on, guys,” Jellwagger said. “Let’s move on. If I’m cool with it…”
“I’m not cool with it, amigo. It was petty.”
Grant’s caged teeth and deadpan look weren’t fazed. “You should be called Baby Face. Yeah.”
“Get the hell out of our way, you pathetic piece of shit.”
“Grant, we’re cool. Don’t listen to this guy.”
“I can’t stop looking at him, Jellwagger. Not only is he smoking red hot, he might just be the last Chexican I ever see. These people are fucking mythical in Silverlake.”
“I can personally guarantee I’ll be the last Chexican you ever see, you back country pissant.”
“How did you know…?”
“I swear I didn’t tell him you were from West Virginia.”
“Let’s go. Mr. Lee is waiting.”
“I have to know your name,” Grant said. “When I get home and tell my better half that I met a Chexican, he won’t believe me if I don’t give him a name.”
“Cho.”
“Just Cho?”
“First name’s Na.”
“Na Cho. Oh my God, that is so fucking perfect. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe too fucking perfect. Zach might not believe me.”
“My sister Jo wouldn’t believe that either,” Jellwagger said.
“And by the way, asshole, I was born in China. The woman who became my mother traveled to western China with a volunteer church group to help the recovery efforts after an earthquake leveled several villages and wiped out thousands of people. She came across a small house turned to rubble when she heard a voice coming from within it. A young man her age had been in that house when it collapsed. He’d been stuck under the rubble a whole entire week. My mother dug him out. And eventually she married him.”
“That was your fucking father?” Grant said.
“Correct.”
“Jo still wouldn’t believe it.”
“I can’t wait to tell all my friends about you and your awesome fucking story. Now if you’ll pardon me, my burrito is getting cold. Or is it burri to?”
“Go chop some wood, Paul Bunyan.”
After they exited the building, Na Cho indicated south. They negotiated their way through the lunchtime crowd and the smokers and panhandlers for a couple blocks. At Seventh Street they swung a left and headed a few blocks down to the Roosevelt, a huge block of 1920s era Renaissance Revival that Jellwagger had walked past before, most recently when he and Roz went for pizza, but never knew too much about. That changed the minute he and Na Cho got into the tan sedan with tinted windows parked in front by the curb. Na Cho opened the rear passenger side door for Jellwagger, who got in to find himself sitting next to, you guessed it, a certain Mr. Sam T. Lee. Na Cho hopped in up front. As the car pulled away, the engine made nary a sound.
“Thank you for accommodating me, sir,” Sam T. Lee said. “I thought it would be nice to get you away from your place of employment and all those crowds. I’ve heard through not one but several grapevines that you are a very self-conscious, sensitive, indeed, touchy feely young man.”
“Who’s spreading gossip?” Jellwagger said.
“So I don’t want anyone who might know you to see you get into an expensive sedan with tinted windows at the direction of a smooth-faced, impeccably dressed individual like Na Cho. Plus, I live in the Roosevelt. If I was making you and Na walk, I didn’t want to make myself walk. Defeats the whole purpose of a convenient rendezvous if both parties are inconvenienced.”
“You live in that huge block of Renaissance Revival that dates back to the twenties?”
“Good for you, Jellwagger. You know your architecture.”
“I’ve worked at Powell and Powler four years now, Sammy T Bone. I don’t always bring my lunch. You walk around the ‘hood, you get to know the various joints around here. Shit, just the other week I had pizza with Roz.”
“So you like reminding everyone. Not that it’s not impressive.”
“And she divulged some pretty fascinating shit about her and her man living and working downtown. Another time, Mr. Lee, another time.”
“It’s a new time for the Roosevelt. In 2008 they turned it into an apartment building, exactly two hundred twenty-two units. Well priced, but they are new, and the location is convenient. It’s not my main home, but it’s a nice pad to have when I have extended business in the city center.”
“Where’s your main home?”
“Where we’re headed now, sir. But actually, I’m not going to take you to my house. I don’t trust you enough just yet to show you that. But we are going to the section of the city where I, Na Cho, and most of the Chexicanos of Los Angeles dwell. It’s an enclave very few know anything about. Some think it’s part of the mostly Latino and unincorporated East Los Angeles. And while it’s not too far from there, it’s nonetheless a separate and distinct entity. Tell me, Jellwagger. Have you ever heard of Chi Wa Wong?”
“What the hell is that?”
Na Cho said something to the driver in Spanish that made them both laugh. Sam T. Lee said something in Chinese which gave all three of them a good hearty laugh for a good hearty minute or two.
“If you don’t want me to get all paranoid and think you’re talking shit about me, you better tell me what you just said,” Jellwagger said.
“We won’t, if you don’t mind,” Sam T. Lee said. “If we told you the truth, we’d only feed and justify your paranoia.”
“Meaning you really were talking smack?”
The driver said something in Spanish that cracked them all up even more.
“Knock that shit off!” Jellwagger said. He brandished his Donald Duck cane at the driver. “Just because Donald and I don’t know your name doesn’t mean we can’t beat the shit out of your smug ass.”
Sam T. Lee put a hand on Jellwagger’s arm and gave a squeeze. Not a cold, threatening squeeze, but a warm, paternal, embracing squeeze. “You’re okay. Even if we are having fun at your expense, it’s harmless. And it’s not like you haven’t done the same to my kind.”
“As a matter of fact, I have not. I didn’t even think you guys actually existed until today.”
“Americans.”
“So what the hell’s this Chi Wong Wong?”
“Chi Wa Wong is an L.A. neighborhood that sits comfortably between Chinatown and East Los Angeles.”
“Perfect. So on one side you’ve got the Chinese and on the other…”
“Exactly.”
“I’m guessing it’s a small neighborhood.”
“True, you won’t find it in the Thomas Guide, but what we lack in presence, we make up for in passion.”
“In more ways than one,” Na Cho called back.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jellwagger asked.
Sam T. Lee laughed his cackling laugh. Jellwagger thought it’d be awesome for Sam T. Lee and Pat Dinner to have a contest to see who could break a window first.
No one said anything else, in any language, for the remainder of the ride. If this Chi Wa Wong place was where Sam T. Lee said it was, it shouldn’t have taken more than a few minutes to get there from downtown. And yet it was a good half-hour or more before they finally came to a stop. Thanks to the shenanigans he’d already been through courtesy of a certain on again off again billionaire couple, Jellwagger was developing a sixth sense for shady shit. He figured Sam T. Lee had told his driver ahead of time to take the scenic route to their Chi Wa Wong destination on the off chance, or perhaps very on chance, that they’d be followed.
Jellwagger stepped out to find himself in front of a restaurant called House of Ta Ko. The architecture was a marriage of Spanish adobe and Oriental temple. While you might think such a marriage would repulse, it didn’t at all. Jellwagger stood there and got lost in how the building merged East and West in a manner more subtle than at first glance. “I say,” was all our man could think of saying. Then he managed to get out, “I’ll be God damned, Na,” when Sam’s man appeared next to him. It wasn’t until they were passing through the entrance when Jellwagger noticed the restaurant’s subtitle, if you will, above the doorway in a font he’d never seen before but could only assume at this point to be a marriage of Chinese and Mexican scripts: Your Rice Cantina Home.
Sam T. Lee took the lead when they were inside. The hostess, also Chexican, nodded at Sam T. Lee and Na Cho as they walked past and into the dining room. Much to Jellwagger’s amazement, the clientele wasn’t remotely all Chexican. Almost every race that lived in Los Angeles, which was almost every race period, was represented.
They attracted a significant look from almost every table they passed. Each set of eyes would behold Sam T. Lee and Na Cho with unmistakable awe/reverence/fear, and then move on to Jellwagger with a slightly milder version of the same look. Aw yeah, Jellwagger could get used to this. What must it be like to command that kind of attention wherever you go? Pat and Carla, for all their clout, didn’t possess this kind of mojo.
Sam T. Lee led them to a round table in the center of the huge, vaulted-ceilinged dining room, directly below the skylight. “Have a seat, one and all,” he said, even though Jellwagger and Na Cho were the only others with him. No sooner were they seated than a cute young Chexican waitress brought Sam T. Lee the same kind of light beer he’d had at the Hotel Standard. For Na Cho she brought a club soda. Sam T. Lee nodded at Jellwagger. “And a Lagavulin for my main man here.”
“I resent that remark,” Jellwagger said. To the waitress: “Spaten please.”
No one said anything for the next minute or so. Jellwagger was getting it into his head that they’d eat their lunch and pretend everything was all fine and dandy before, dabbing his mouth from a delicious meal that he’d say reminded him of what his mother made back in the Old World, Sam T. Lee would reveal Jellwagger’s fate, Goodfellas style. But Jellwagger was too tired for this shit. He took a healthy pull from his Spaten before saying: “I’m not going to sit here and pretend everything’s fine and dandy, Sammy T. to the Lee. Why in tarnation have you dragged me here? And by the way, the longer the lunch break, the longer I have to stay tonight. And I really don’t want Chump E. Chips taking a shit on the carpet.”
The cute waitress came back to get their entrée orders. Sam T. Lee went first, followed by Na Cho, and then they all looked at Jellwagger.
“I haven’t a fucking clue. Order something for me, I’ll assume it’s poisoned, and we can get the show on the road.”
“Combo number seven for our guest of honor,” Sam T. Lee told the waitress before handing her the menus.
“What nonsense,” Jellwagger said. “At some point during the meal I’ll black out and wake up in a ditch or in the afterlife. Which could be one and the same.”
“So long as they serve beer in hell, eh?” Sam T. Lee said, raising his light beer.
“You’re not supposed to play along with my paranoia, asshole.”
“Do you have any idea who this is?” Na Cho said.
“Bite me, Na Cho. What, is your sidekick Guac gonna come out and pummel me to death with a Chexican baseball bat?”
“You jest, Jellwagger, but Chexicans do indeed love baseball. I and most of the folks in my employ get season tickets to the Dodgers.”
“But some prefer the Angels,” Na Cho said. “By the way, it’s Gwak with a w and k, and you’ll meet her later.”
“You’re shitting me.”
Sam T. Lee took another pull from his light beer before putting his hands flat on the table. “Now. For the sake of your dog’s intestinal tract, amigo, perhaps I should explain my last-minute lunch invite that didn’t appear in your Outlook. First and foremost, I know Carla sent some photos to you recently. In fact, I’m fairly certain you received them this morning. Am I right?”
“You know something? The first time we met, on the roof of the Hotel Standard…”
“When you were too bashful about taking a dip in the pool…”
“That’s precious, coming from you. Anyway, one of the few things I remember through the Lagavulin haze were your fucking questions.”
Na Cho said something in Chinese.
“Dude, English,” Jellwagger said. “Or, if you’re going to stick with a non-English language, could you at least be consistent? You were speaking Spanish on the drive over, were you not?”
“We choose our language of the moment based on several variables,” Na Cho said, nursing his club soda oh so delicately. “First, you have the general tone. Is the tone playful? Or is it all business? Or somewhere in between? Second, the setting. Are you inside or outside? Also, whom are you addressing? Man or woman? Is said human older or younger?”
“Jesus, really? How have you not been driven nuts by this?”
Sam T. Lee cackled for what seemed like forever. “I’m afraid my main amigo over here is yanking your Valley chain, Jellwagger. He’s not entirely kidding. We bounce between English, Spanish, and Simplified Chinese depending on a few variables, but nothing so intricate.”
Na Cho finished off his club soda with relish and sucked intensely on an ice cube before spitting it out. He signaled the waitress for a refill. “Funny. You don’t think about it, do you? The variables?”
Sam T. Lee cackled on his way to saying, “Hardly!” And then he said the rest of what he had to say in Spanish.
“See?” Jellwagger said. “What the fuck was that? What sorts of variables have to align to get two languages in one go?”
“Well, just as you say ain’t, we break our rules as well.”
“I never say ain’t, Samuel. I’m a writer, and while I remain unknown, unsold, and obscure, I hope you extend me at least a little bit of respect.”
“Back to your previous comment about our first meeting, if my questions seemed pointed to you, it can only be due to having just suffered the biggest suck-ass day ever.”
Na Cho said something in Chinese.
“Jellwagger, Carla Houde sent you some photos. These photos show Pat Dinner with an African-American woman named Kit Figures, yes?”
“Here we are!” The waitress arrived with the food. Sam T. Lee and Na Cho had each ordered tortillas, fried rice, soy sauce, salsa, black beans, and various other thises and thats which, taken together, added up to a hearty representation of their two cultures. Jellwagger found himself suddenly famished taking in the sight and especially the smell of their lunch, all the more so since his own meal looked all but useless. How in Van Nuys was he supposed to eat paper-thin corn chips with chopsticks?
“House of Ta Ko isn’t very forgiving of those who don’t abide by the cultural norms. If you so much as touch one chip with your fingers, I’m making you pay for all our meals. Now you have nice sauces in the middle of your plate there.”
Jellwagger figured he’d practice on one of the flimsy vegetarian enchiladas. It was wide and weighed down with its contents. No sooner did he pluck it up with the chopsticks, gripping it by the middle, than the sides drooped down and spilled the vegetarian innards all over his pants.
Sam T. Lee cackled and Na Cho laughed his annoying laugh which, strangely, now that Jellwagger thought about it, reminded him of Jo. Even worse, though, everyone else in the joint was getting a yuk at our man’s expense.
“Few things bring the populace more pleasure than the sight of a Chexican restaurant virgin. And maybe a restaurant virgin in general.”
“You’re supposed to spread the napkin across your lap,” Na Cho said.
The waitress brought Jellwagger another Spaten.
Jellwagger took a long pull before saying, “Fuck you people,” and picking up his chopsticks and going back at his food with gusto. Through the corner of his eye he saw Sam T. Lee, Na Cho, and seemingly every other face in the joint aimed at him, but he kept his eyes pointed determinedly down at his plate. He broke several chips and attracted more laughter. Undaunted, our intrepid Jellwagger kept it up with the concentration of John McClane crawling through the Nakatomi building’s HVAC system. That “have a few laughs” line seemed especially perfect right about now.
Just as McClane eventually nailed Hans Gruber, so too did Jellwagger finally get a chip from the plate to his mouth without a single crack. And when he did, the cheers and applause almost made it worth it. Next up, he figured out how to fold the flimsy enchiladas in half. He couldn’t put the entire thing in his mouth, but taking a bite and keeping the rest gripped between the chopsticks, sans spillage, was no problem.
“And these photos,” Sam T. Lee said, as if no time had passed since the food arrived. Jellwagger felt like he’d just completed an adventure since then. Or at least an initiation. “Why do you think Carla sent them to you?”
“She and Pat hate each other’s guts.”
“Ooooookay. And?”
“It’s obvious, right? She’s looking for any way to make him look like a fucking idiot.”
“And has she done that?”
“Well, look. You’ve got photos of Pat Dinner, billionaire extraordinaire, hanging out with another woman. Right there in the open.”
“You say other woman as if he’s leaving a woman at home,” Na Cho said.
“Well…” Jellwagger stopped. Damn, this was tricky. He was about to say something about lingering feelings between those two filthy rich slave drivers, made manifest when they fucked each other’s brains out the night he got home from Valley Presbyterian and exposed Grant’s fling with Stu. Jesus, what a night that fucking was.
“Yes?” Sam T. Lee said.
“Well, Pat Dinner’s got all the money in the world. Someone like that never has to spend the night alone if he doesn’t want to. So what if he and Carla fell through and she hates his goddam guts? Surely Pat could find another squeeze in no time. I guess I just assumed he had a special lady friend at home.”
“Money never buys love, Jellwagger. Look at all those filthy rich Hollywood celebrities, better looking and wealthier than most, and yet perfectly miserable, right? You know what that’s called? A clue. And speaking of clues, I’m still searching for why Carla Houde would send you those photos of Pat. It can’t be to out an affair. First, he and Kit Figures are not having an affair. And even if they were, Pat wouldn’t be cheating on anyone. He’s alone. Completely and utterly. It is just Pat and his chronic sickness.”
“I knew something was wrong with him.” Jellwagger was about to ask what ailed Pat when Sam T. Lee forged ahead.
“The reason for those photos, at least the main reason as far as I see it, although there may be others, is to prove to you, amigo, that Kit Figures is alive.”
“Come again?”
“Those photos were taken in the past week.”
“In other words,” Na Cho said, “since she did a Greg Louganis off the Santa Monica Pier.”
Jellwagger finished swallowing his enchilada before digesting Na Cho’s words. He took a swig of Spaten to aid in the cause. Of course they knew who she was. They knew Pat Dinner, and it was Pat who introduced Jellwagger to Kit when he had our favorite L.A.-based data entry clerk deliver that Butterfly McQueen stamp to Kit in the BonaVista Lounge. So why wouldn’t they know Kit? What was driving Jellwagger nuts, though, was the how. How did they know her? How did they know Pat for that matter? Connected to that was Kit’s job. Jellwagger had the woman in his apartment to watch The Fifth Element, and he still had no clue what she did for a living. What did anyone do, for the matter of that? Was Jellwagger the only chump here who had to drag his Jersey-bred ass out of bed to earn a friggin’ paycheck?
“Sam T. Lee. Na Cho. What the hell do you people do for a living?”
The room went silent. Even the Muzak turned off. Once again, all eyes in the joint were aimed at Jellwagger.
Sam T. Lee cleared his throat. “Is it time?”
“Time for what?” Jellwagger said. “You mean I can go?”
But Sam T. Lee was talking to Na Cho, who looked at his watch and said, “Are you ready for Freddy?”
“Listen, guys, it’s been real, but unlike you, I have a paycheck I need to earn or else how in Jersey do I keep the microwave ‘corn flowing, you reading me?”
“Amigo!” Sam T. Lee said, his smile blossoming into another cackle. “We can’t let you leave without dessert. It’ll be a small dessert, we promise, and then we’ll have you back at the comfy confines of Powell and Powler before you can say Chump E. Chips.”
“’The fuck did you know the name of my mutt? I mean, purebred beagle?”
“Hey, Na Cho, send him over,” came a tiny voice out of Na Cho’s watch.
“Copy that,” Na Cho said, still looking at his watch. “The clerk is on his way. I repeat, the clerk is on his way.”
Sam T. Lee cackled. “Oh Na Cho, knock it off. Do we really need to be that formal?”
“She likes it that way.”
“Is that what she told you?”
“What do you mean?”
Sam T. Lee finished off his light beer and signaled for another before saying, “My poor, befuddled amigo, is there a woman who doesn’t play you like a keyboard?”
“Hold up,” Jellwagger said. “Are you talking to someone with that watch, Dick Tracy?”
Sam T. Lee took a big bite of his orange chicken burrito and shook his head at Na Cho. The waitress arrived with his light beer, which he took a quick pull from before forgetting Na Cho and giving Jellwagger his full attention. “Amigo, it’s been lovely having lunch with you. Yes, you’re confused. You have much to figure out.”
“You can say that two times.”
“Not just about the complete mess you’re in with Patrick, with Carla...”
“With you, with Dick Tracy over there…”
“No, no, I don’t mean that whole drama so much as yourself. You need to figure yourself out. Know who you are, Jellwagger, the rest will follow.”
“Gracias, Yoda.”
“And your father.”
“What about the old man?”
“Make peace with his memory. That, amigo, is the first step toward knowing who you are. You can’t make peace with yourself until the decks are clear, if you catch my meaning. Even if your sister Jo is lying to you about what his last words were, so what? Maybe she has a good reason to do that, have you thought about that?”
“What the fuck, Samuel? Do you know Jo?”
“Haven’t had the pleasure. And speaking of pleasure…” Sam T. Lee nodded at something behind Jellwagger, who turned around to see the back of a woman sitting at the bar. She was the only one there. He looked back at Sam T. Lee, who smiled. Na Cho, meanwhile, had already disengaged from the whole conversation. He looked at nothing in particular and cussed under his breath in Spanish and Chinese.
In the interest of ending this weird-ass lunch break as quickly as possible, by far the weirdest lunch break he’d ever taken in his life, Jellwagger got right up and didn’t even bother putting his napkin on the table. It fell to his feet while he pushed the chair back with his legs, harder than necessary to vent some of the pent-up frustration that had been mounting since he sat down. The back of his chair bumped against the back of the diner behind him, but like the napkin on the floor, who gave a shit? The man in that chair said something to Jellwagger, who didn’t give a shit what the guy said. As he wove through the chairs and all the faces looking at him, Jellwagger had the same two words for everyone: “Fuck” and “you.” He must’ve said fuck you a dozen or more times on his way to the bar, using his Donald Duck cane to bop the occasional chair leg just to emphasize how little he gave a shit about any of these people.
“Hey now, Hank Kingsley,” the woman at the bar said as Jellwagger sat next to her. “That’s not a very nice way to introduce yourself.”
“It’s been a super long and frustrating lunch break. My leg’s killing me. I’m wiped out. I just want to finish out the day and get the hell home.”
“Cute cane.”
“Go fuck yourself.”
“I mean it! It’s adorable. I love Disney. Huge Disney freak, man. You know the Disney marathons? I do those. I’ve got nineteen medals so far. Gwak.”
“So you’re the mysterious Gwak. I was just joking when I said that.”
“I know, I heard everything through Na Cho’s watch.”
“Fuckin’ Gwak, man. That’s awesome.” Only when he shook her hand did Jellwagger bother giving her a good look, and it was a wonder it took him so long. Gwak was gorgeous. If Stefania were Chexican, she’d be Gwak. Jellwagger’s face must’ve betrayed that opinion. Gwak smiled a heart-vaporizing smile and said:
“My pleasure as well.” She nodded at the barkeeper, who slid across two small dishes of flan and two pairs of chopsticks. “Here’s how this works. It’s tricky.” Gwak scooped out a chunk of the flan with her chopsticks.
“Let me guess. Very delicately, lest I invite the wrath of L.A.’s entire Chexican community, I use the chopsticks to eat the flan without any spillage. Correcto?”
“Correcto! But you forgot the fortune. When you’ve eaten about half, you pull the fortune out, very gently of course, and after you read it, you can devour the remaining half of the delicious dessert. Cool beans?”
“By the way, who’s Hank Kingsley?”
“Oh you poor, culturally deprived man. You’ve never watched The Larry Sanders Show with Gary Shandling?”
“Believe it or not, I missed that one.”
“It was a sitcom on HBO. Gary Shandling plays this talk show host Larry Sanders, and Jeffrey Tambor’s the sidekick Hank Kingsley. And Hank’s always like, ‘Hey now!’” She cracked up.
Jellwagger rose to the flan challenge. In no time he was about halfway through it and had the warm, wet, soggy fortune in hand. “A close friend of yours will surprise you in bed.”
“Nice.”
“Yours?”
“Today you will make a new ally in bed.”
“Awesome.”
“So listen, Jellwagger, I didn’t want you returning safe and sound to Powell and Powler without letting you know that Kit’s doing perfectly fine.”
“And that’s why Carla sent me the photos? As comforting as that should be, it’s not very comforting that she’d know I know Kit since that could mean she knows other things I don’t want her to know.”
“That you’re just as much a gopher for Pat Dinner as you are for her?”
“That’s one example, sure.”
“Can’t help you there, Jellwagger, but listen, Kit Figures is a good friend of mine. We’ve been girlfriends since college. And you should know you’re not the reason she did a Greg Louganis off the pier.”
“Why did she then?”
“She’s going through some issues. Seriously fucked up issues.”
“I could’ve guessed that.”
“I shouldn’t say more.”
“I have to admit it was kinda sorta weird when she just showed up at my apartment that one night, but I went with it. We watched The Fifth Element. She even gave me some awesome feedback on Exit the Danish.”
“What the hell’s Exit the Danish?”
“A loaded question for another time. When I’m loaded. But seriously, we hit it off. Of course it helps that she’s from Jersey.”
“Isn’t it inspiring to see that someone can come from New Jersey and still be awesome?”
“Hey now, Hank Kingsley!”
“That was perfect, Jellwagger!”
“You’re from Jersey too, I assume, hence your awesomeness.”
“San Diego. Kit and I met at San Diego State.”
Jellwagger scraped his chopsticks along the sides and bottom of the dish to collect as much flan residue as he could. God damn, this was good.
“Kit says hi, by the way.”
“Can we go see her? I have half a mind to give her the third degree for scaring the shit out of me.”
“You’ll go easy on her, though. Remember, Jellwagger, she’s my dear friend. An offense against her is an offense against me. You don’t want that.” Her smile didn’t waver, nor did her cordial tone of voice. Nonetheless—maybe it was the eyes, although they shone bright as ever—Jellwagger could tell she meant it. If Carla Houde wasn’t someone you crossed, Gwak was someone you didn’t even want to risk blinking at the wrong way.
At this point he had completely polished his flan dish until it looked new again. “I’ve no doubt you people are not ones to fuck with, as we say in Jersey.”
“You people?”
“The Chexican mafia. That’s what you are, right? Like Sam T. Lee’s enforcer or something, the Frank Nitti to his Al Capone?”
“You think I work for Sam?” She cracked up. “Nice one, Jellwagger.”
“Who then?”
“Me, amigo!”
“Come again?”
“I’m what you’d call an independent contractor.”
“It’s funny, Gwak. When I first got here, I was sure Sam T. Lee and Na Cho wouldn’t let me leave alive. Sam T. Lee and Pat Dinner are rivals somehow. I can’t make sense of it. Yet.”
“They get along.”
“Sure, same as any two mafiosos get along since the common enemy is the law. But they’re competitors. The way Sammy T. spoke to me that night at The Standard. I’ll never forget it. He knew my tie to Pat and so accordingly viewed me as a potential threat. Or at least a pest to step on and squash with his hot leather Chexican boot. When we sat down over there, I was convinced they’d poison me. Maybe they already have, but it’s a delayed reaction. It’ll get me in my sleep tonight. And tomorrow Chump E. Chips starves.”
“Oh no, that’s not the Chexican style, Jellwagger,” Gwak said. “It’s already happened.”
“Of course it has, Gwak. Jesus, what are you thinking?” He was taking a pull from his Spaten when he choked it out. “Wait a second, what’s happened?”
“The drug,” she said. “It’s already in your system. But don’t blame Sam or Na. It’s my deal. Sam may own House of Ta Ko, but not everyone here works for him. The bartender, for example. He’s on the Gwak payroll. And I had him drug your flan. That’s why you feel so awesome. It’s a side-effect before the blackout.”
“You did not just say blackout, did you? I’ve got so much work to catch up on.”
She checked her watch. “How are you feeling?”
Jellwagger opened his mouth to say awesome, and that’s when he felt the dumbbells fall on his eyelids. Holy shit, she was right. This whole time, she was the threat. Gwak. The independent contractor.
Gwak never did eat the rest of her flan after reading her fortune. She slid it over to Jellwagger. “Want the rest? It’s not drugged.” She cracked herself up.
Jellwagger looked at the flan. And then he found he didn’t have the strength to look up. Every muscle in his body had gone to bed, which was why he was completely powerless to stop his face from falling.
To be continued...
“You remember!” Sam T. Lee said with a grin and a cackle. The impeccably coifed man’s teeth shone more harshly than the office fluorescence. It gave our poor Jellwagger a headache. “Muy impressive, if I may say so myself.”
“Did you just say muy? As in the Spanish for very?”
“Si, sir.”
Jellwagger had only seen Sam T. Lee once before, during that night of drunken, Lagavulin-soaked revelry atop the Hotel Standard a couple weeks ago, the night Carla sent him to Spago to surveil Pat Dinner, an escapade that ended with the intrepid Jellwagger befriending said Dinner before a certain billionaire Dinner made Jellwagger his gopher. You remember all that? I hope so, because you see this Jellwagger here? He can’t recall most of it. It’s mostly a Scotch-stained haze courtesy of the aforementioned Lagavulin. Through the haze, though, Jellwagger kinda sorta recalls Sam T. Lee’s pointed questions, which not so subtly intimated that he knew our Jersey-bred Jellwagger had a secret motive for having shown up at Spago that night. In fact, the longer Jellwagger stared at the baby-faced Mr. Lee, the more those teeth with the supernova wattage burned through the haze to make Jellwagger remember how Sam only stuck with light beer that night, while the rest of the cast and crew drowned in Lagavulin. Sam, in other words, had been sober as an IRS audit, and the memory of it gave Jellwagger a jolting, albeit fleeting, chill. What struck Jellwagger even more was the man’s face. From what he recalled, Sam T. Lee was an Asian. But here, in the cold artificial light of the law firm, he looked only sort of Asian. What was it? What Sam T. Lee said next brought it home.
“You okay, amigo?”
Mexican!
Jellwagger wasn’t a hundred percent sure—who is?—but he’d bet a healthy chunk of Pat Dinner’s bank account that Sam T. Lee was Chinese-Mexican.
“Chexican.”
Holy shit, did a certain Jellwagger just say that out loud?
Sam T. Lee’s smile dissipated as he concentrated hard on something on Jellwagger’s surround. Jellwagger tried following his line of site but was blocked by his monitor. What the hell was the Desi lookalike so focused on that he suddenly seemed to forget our man here? Finally, and ever so delicately, Sam T. Lee picked something up from the surround and held it up like an appraiser holds up a precious stone. Only, this particular stone was a pebble left over from the kitty litter Grant had scattered across Jellwagger’s desk during his week off. Sam T. Lee’s smile returned while he studied the pebble. He walked around the surround until he was on Jellwagger’s side, leaned over ever so delicately, and didn’t drop so much as place the litter pebble on the clear plastic interior lining of the trashcan.
Sam T. Lee straightened up and wiped his hands. His smile shone upon Jellwagger the way an alien spaceship shines a beam on whoever they’re about to abduct and perform experiments on. “Chexicano.”
No way, did he just say….?
“White people say Chexican, but the correct way, sir, the truly authentic way of saying this word of words, is Chexicano. Can you say this word?”
“I assume so. I mean it’s just a matter of adding that o at the end, right?”
“So you cannot say it. Not truly. This is okay. I already knew I had much to teach you anyway, as Mr. Dinner may have mentioned on the phone.”
“That filthy rich blindsiding bastard could barely get the words out that you were going to be here before you showed up, Mr. Lee. He didn’t have the time to give me a reason for your impeccable appearance. And might I say your cologne is downright awesome?”
But Sam T. Lee wasn’t looking at Jellwagger anymore. Once again his eyes and every fiber of his noodle were focused on something nearby.
This time Jellwagger could follow his gaze just fine. The new target was his Donald Duck cane.
“Yes, it’s really a Donald Duck cane. You want the short version?”
“Si, why not?”
“I took a slug in the thigh thanks to a career-misdemeanor-committing kid who sometimes shows up at my dingbat, where his mom lives, when he needs money from her. He broke into my place the morning after I had a threesome with these two hot chicks.”
“Muy bueno!”
“And he was going to shoot all of us. At least that’s what it seemed like. But one of the chicks, who used to be a nun but is now an escort, talked him out of it.”
“Fascinating. You couldn’t make this stuff up.”
“You really couldn’t.”
“So the miscreant shot you anyway?”
“Total accident. He and the ex-nun escort got along famously and cracked jokes about me.”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
“Totally used to it. What I’m not used to is getting shot, which is what happened when Stefania had him laughing his ass off.”
“At your expense.”
“Si, Sam T. Lee.”
“So in the end, that episode was entirely at your expense in every possible way.”
“Don’t forget about the threesome, though.”
“Then perhaps the universe was keeping things on an even keel. You had more luck than most, and right after that, balance was restored when you received worse luck than most.”
“Listen here, Sammo, I’ve got a week’s worth of data entry to catch up on, and that includes over a thousand e-mails sent to me on purpose for no valid reason whatsoever by the same passive-aggressive masterpiece who convinced the alley cat near his house to perform a Broadway show on my desk. Comprendes? So if there’s nothing else…”
“I do have a valid reason for showing up out of the blue.”
“Spill it.”
“That you, Lee?”
The Titanic-sized Mahoney had been huffing it back to his office, granddaddy-sized coffee in hand from the ground floor café, when he stopped at his doorway at the sight of Sam T. Lee.
The inestimable Señor Lee took his time turning—Jellwagger had a feeling he was never caught off-guard—and raised his eyebrows, and his smile, ever so slightly. “Hola, Ricardo.”
Mahoney thumped down the way to shake hands. “You’ve got balls showing up here.”
“But Ricardo, you and I are on the same team.”
“Teammates need to look out for each other. Seriously, what the hell are you doing here, Sammy? I assume it’s important if you’d take a big risk like this.”
“I’m here to visit my amigo here, Mr. Jellwagger.”
“Just Jellwagger’s fine,” Jellwagger said.
“Only with you would a name like that be fine,” Mahoney said. “But seriously, Sammy, what are you doing here?”
“As I said.” He gestured at Jellwagger.
“This kid had cat shit all over his desk this morning. Now you’re here. Since when did our marketing department’s data entry gopher get so God damned important? You bill folks by the quarter hour, Jellwagger?”
“I won’t even justify that with a response.”
“I rest my case. Look, Sammy, whyever you’re really here, just be careful, okay? If the local papers get wind that you just walked in like this, they’d have photographers camped outside the Sanwa Bank building in no time.”
“All is well, Ricardo Mahoney. I promise you.”
“Speaking of quarter hours and ripping people off, don’t you have somewhere you need to be, Bob’s Bigger Boy?” Jellwagger said.
“Good point. I’ll see yas. Watch yourself, Sammy. I mean it, don’t let Roz know you’re here.” He thumped into his office.
Sam T. Lee turned back to Jellwagger and appeared more at ease. His smile still evoked an alien spaceship beam, but at least the smile didn’t seem so forced, even if the threat of alien abduction was just the same. “You and I are having lunch this afternoon.”
“Wow. You didn’t even ask me to check my calendar to see if I had any time today.”
“We have much to discuss, do we not?”
“Hell if I know.”
“And after we discuss all of that…”
“All of what?”
“Perhaps you can provide more background and context to the Donald Duck cane, the threesome, and your colleague convincing his neighborhood stray to, as you put it, perform a Broadway show on your desk.”
“Today’s less than ideal for any of that.”
“How about noon?”
“Sure.”
“Do you have a usual place where you luncheon?”
“I usually bring it. Saves money, you know? Although you wouldn’t believe who took me out to pizza a couple weeks ago.”
“Si, I probably wouldn’t. How about I meet you downstairs in the lobby at noon?”
Jellwagger turned to his monitor, to the one thousand plus e-mails waiting for him, and was about to suggest Sam T. Lee take a gander at it before he said adios and left. Something about the way he walked away reminded Jellwagger of Korben Dallas, Bruce Willis’s character from The Fifth Element. Awesome flick. Jellwagger watched it a few times during his week off to keep his creative Exit the Danish juices flowing. Remember that one scene where Korben opens the freezer door and takes that paper off the frozen Brion James character? That’s how Sam T. Lee seemed now, so casual in spite of the circumstances, circumstances which Jellwagger still didn’t understand fully but which he understood couldn’t be all good, not if Carla felt compelled to call him this morning, not if Pat Dinner felt compelled to call soon after that. What the hell was the deal with this guy?
“By the way.” Sam T. Lee stopped and turned back. “No need to call me Mr. Lee or Señor Lee or my full name or anything like that. Sam is fine. As is Samuel, Sammy, Sam. But please, no Sammo, I trust you will drop that shit.”
“Consider the shit dropped.”
“See you at noon, Jellwagger. Oh, may I call you Miguel?”
“Fuck no. One more Miguel out of you and Donald Duck’s getting to know the side of your head.”
“Point taken. See you soon, amigo.”
For the first time since getting here this morning, the entire coast around our limping Jellwagger’s desk was clear. Naturally that could only last so long. Barely a minute went by before Mahoney poked his head out of his office. When he saw that Sam T. Lee was gone, he crept over to Jellwagger’s desk. Jellwagger fought the urge to laugh his ass off. Rick Mahoney must’ve weighed half a ton if he weighed an ounce. He’d give Stu a serious run (or roll?) for his money, let’s put it that way. So his idea of creeping was the equivalent of Jellwagger hopping up and down as hard as he could like the Easter bunny on crack.
“Hey Jellwagger, just who the hell do you think you are receiving guests like that?”
If you take the way Mahoney asked that question and combine it with his bulldozing into Jellwagger’s personal space and the shit morning Jellwagger’s been having in general, it’s no surprise at all that our boy here would spring out of his seat, grab Donald Duck, and start whacking Mahoney in his thick side. He was skeptical Mahoney would feel anything through the lard, but sure enough, the big dude backed away immediately with pudgy paws raised. “It’s not even eleven o’clock yet, and already my first day’s gone to shit in a shit basket. There are people paying you for the time you’re giving me shit about having someone visit my desk when I had no idea that person was coming. Who are you to give me shit for that? You honestly think Donald and I are going to take that lying down?”
“Who are you now, Jellwagger? Some puny data entry hack. I’m the attorney bringing in the money.”
“And I’m the one with Donald Duck.”
“True, you got me there, but… Damn it, I had IT take care of you.”
“Roz Powler fixed everything, not you.”
Mahoney’s mouth hung open as he took a couple steps back toward Jellwagger before the latter brandished Donald. He stopped in his tracks but didn’t lose the awe in his flabby face. “Did you just say…?”
“Week before last? Before I took a slug in the thigh? I had pizza in Pershing Square with Roz Powler.”
“No you fucking didn’t.”
“Want me to call her?”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Leave it to you to call my bluff, fat boy.” Jellwagger limped over to his phone, picked it up, and had his finger an inch above speed dial before:
“Okay you win!”
“Pizza with Powler, Mahoney. You know what that means, right?”
“Leave me alone! I’ve got quarter hours to document!”
Mahoney huffed it back into his office and slammed the door.
If you don’t count the thousand plus e-mails from Grant, and the few hundred other e-mails, the rest of the morning passed uneventfully for Jellwagger. And maybe you shouldn’t count Grant’s mails. At least not all of them. A healthy share, well over half, were blank. The rest were actually relevant to Jellwagger’s job and contained anywhere from a few to dozens of rows of new contacts for Jellwagger to input into the database. At first, Jellwagger was encouraged that Grant, for all his passive-aggressive indignation, hadn’t been too nasty with the spam. Nah, the cat shit took care of the nastiness in more ways than one. But then, as he sifted through his inbox, he realized the hell Grant had inflicted on him. Sure, most of the mails were blank, but because some weren’t, Jellwagger had to click on every God damned one of them. If he deleted several rows at a time, naturally he’d risk deleting one or more relevant mails.
Just then Grant IMed him and basically said the same thing.
Jellwagger had neither the time nor the patience to IM back. He picked up the phone and dialed Grant’s extension and spoke so loudly he was certain Grant could hear him in his office down the way. “The cat shit and the spam better be the extent of your righteous indignation, you deadpan West Virginian file cabinet killer.”
“Shades of Cream is just the beginning, Grass Hopper. I’m fond of how well it may be undervalued by the masses. If we get as many people to see it as there were at Sky’s that one night, it would certainly be good motivation for Shades of Creamer.”
“Oh for Christ’s sake, Shades of Creamer? Did you really just say that?”
“Just like you called me a West Virginian.”
“Which of course you are.”
“Not.”
“I don’t have time for this shit. Do you have any more tricks up your sleeve or don’t you? I have work to do!”
“Yeah.”
“You do? Where? Give me a head’s up.”
“Yeah. Well. I may originally hail from the Mountaineer State, but I’ve lived out here in the sunny, palm frond-lined Granola State since the beforetimes. I’d say I qualify as a Southern Californian, Jellwagger.”
“It’s going to take me for-fucking-ever to get through all this.”
“Yeah. Yeah.”
Jellwagger rubbed his head and could picture so clearly, in spite of himself, Grant’s caged teeth to go along with his deadpan, perfunctory “Yeah.” “So are you and Zach cool?”
Grant prefaced his answer with a pronounced swallow, which made Jellwagger’s stomach lurch. “Well, um, that’s a loaded question if I may say so myself, especially from you. Without divulging too many personal deets, let us just say he and I are still together and have no plans to be torn asunder.”
“Let’s not forget, shall we, that I didn’t make you fuck Stu in the office after hours. Not that I’m not sorry. I am, man, big time, but I want to be sure you’re not being a total victim about this.”
“I have accepted the fact that my own actions were irresponsible, yes. But I also believe in damage control. I had no intention of pursuing a relationship with Stu. Therefore, sleeping dogs should’ve stayed put.”
“That’s debatable.”
“Yeah.”
“At any rate, last week was shit for you, I get that, shittier for you than for me, and I’m the one who got shot. So as fucked up as your pranks were, and as tempted as I am to utilize my newfound contacts in this firm to have your artiste ass kicked to the curb, I’m going to let all this slide. I’m the one who was fucking shot in my own apartment and don’t really need this shit, especially since I thought the universe had restored things to an even keel, seeing’s how the bullet came right after the threesome.”
“Whoa, that’s a deep thought, Jellwagger.”
“I’m letting it all slide, Grant. In the interests of moving on. And I’m not being a smartass when I say I’m glad you and Zach are getting over this.”
“Yeah. Yeah. Well, the getting over of this, as you put it, may take some time yet, Jellwagger. Let us say I am not out of the woods. Indeed, I’m stuck in the middle of a thick wood the way the Sheriff of Nottingham’s men could sometimes get stuck in the sprawling Sherwood Forest.”
“A random analogy if I ever heard one.”
“Without divulging too many domestic deets, let us just say the domestic environment in which I dwell is, to quote kids these days, fucking awkward.”
“I refuse to apologize anymore. And if you have a fucking problem with that, I fucking dare you to pull any more shit with me, literally or figuratively.”
Jellwagger slammed the phone down, slapped on his headphones to pick up where he left off week before last with Civilization and Its Discontents (it was like he and Bruce Willis had never been apart), and continued plodding through the mails. Jellwagger was determined to keep his cool going forward. He made a conscious effort to breathe evenly while focusing every fiber of his noodle on cleaning up his inbox in a steady, methodical manner. Thinking about John McClane helped. That was one of Jellwagger’s favorite things about the Die Hards, how McClane, even, nay, especially when things looked bleak, hardly ever spoke above a whisper. He’d have a whole bunch of evil terrorists right on top of him, or right below him, depending on the film, and he’d crack jokes all calm like. Shit, if McClane could be like that in such extreme circumstances, what was Jellwagger’s excuse for blowing his top? Was his life in danger? Well, maybe two weeks ago, thanks to Aaron, but he was in the clear now.
Soon enough he didn’t have to try so hard to be nice. Betsy walked by shortly before noon and asked how the mountain of mails was going. Jellwagger told her it was all hunky-dory, and he meant it. By the time he had to head downstairs for lunch with Samuel Tijuana Lee, Jellwagger was just over halfway out of his inbox.
Jellwagger’s stomach had that oatmeal feeling that comes from being nervous, but he wasn’t nervous enough to deny his hunger. He’d been too excited and anxious about getting back to work this morning to have any breakfast or to make his lunch. He made sure Chump E. Chips had full bowls before limping out of the joint. Last night wasn’t much better. He was on his third Spaten and halfway through the microwave ‘corn before he conked out in the middle of Death Becomes Her (one of Bruce’s most underrated performances). Suffice it to say our man had a pit in his stomach that felt deeper than Bruce Willis’s resume.
When he got down to the lobby, he didn’t see Sam T. Lee anywhere. He checked the line spilling out of the café, but no go. Just as Jellwagger entertained the thought that maybe Sam T. Lee couldn’t make it—he had to be a super busy guy, right?—he heard a young man’s voice behind him.
“Don’t turn around. Pretend I’m not talking to you. Calmly walk to the doors. Thank you in advance.”
Jellwagger was too hungry to argue. He wound his way through the café line and the rest of the lunchtime crowd, which was more complicated than he’d anticipated with his cane. What made it doubly so was that the pain in his thigh decided to flare. Naturally he’d left his painkillers upstairs in his backpack.
Grant was on his way in with his lunch. As always, he’d gone to one of the fast food joints downtown, got it to go, and was coming back with the perfunctory enclosed Styrofoam tray to eat it at his desk. Jellwagger was sure he’d be able to tell whoever it was behind him was directing Jellwagger, but apparently not, judging by how Grant stopped in front of Jellwagger and addressed him directly with no indication he even saw anyone behind him. “Cat shit and spam won’t kill friendships. Not real friendships.”
“’Scuse me, sir.” The owner of the young voice appeared beside Jellwagger. “Jellwagger and I are on our way to lunch.”
“Whoa, a Chexican,” Grant said. “You don’t see you every day.”
“Judging from the way you greeted Jellwagger just now, you must be the guy who played all those practical jokes on him this morning, making his first day back after a long week of convalescence that much more stressful.”
“Were you born here after a chance meeting between two people from completely different parts of the world? Because honestly, that’s the only logical explanation. Well, not the only one, but by far the most likely.”
“Jellwagger, is this the man?” The guy couldn’t have been older than twenty-five or so. Like Sam T. Lee, his face was smooth and his hair impeccable. “The man who fed his alley cat something big, most likely a big fish, a salmon perhaps, a delicacy most cats, even those in the 310, don’t get the privilege of eating, and waited for it to come out the other end, nice and messy, before transporting it to your desk?”
“You’re good. How’d you know it was salmon?”
“What’s truly remarkable is the lengths you went to, and on a Sunday, just to lash out at the man who helped you be honest.”
“Come on, guys,” Jellwagger said. “Let’s move on. If I’m cool with it…”
“I’m not cool with it, amigo. It was petty.”
Grant’s caged teeth and deadpan look weren’t fazed. “You should be called Baby Face. Yeah.”
“Get the hell out of our way, you pathetic piece of shit.”
“Grant, we’re cool. Don’t listen to this guy.”
“I can’t stop looking at him, Jellwagger. Not only is he smoking red hot, he might just be the last Chexican I ever see. These people are fucking mythical in Silverlake.”
“I can personally guarantee I’ll be the last Chexican you ever see, you back country pissant.”
“How did you know…?”
“I swear I didn’t tell him you were from West Virginia.”
“Let’s go. Mr. Lee is waiting.”
“I have to know your name,” Grant said. “When I get home and tell my better half that I met a Chexican, he won’t believe me if I don’t give him a name.”
“Cho.”
“Just Cho?”
“First name’s Na.”
“Na Cho. Oh my God, that is so fucking perfect. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe too fucking perfect. Zach might not believe me.”
“My sister Jo wouldn’t believe that either,” Jellwagger said.
“And by the way, asshole, I was born in China. The woman who became my mother traveled to western China with a volunteer church group to help the recovery efforts after an earthquake leveled several villages and wiped out thousands of people. She came across a small house turned to rubble when she heard a voice coming from within it. A young man her age had been in that house when it collapsed. He’d been stuck under the rubble a whole entire week. My mother dug him out. And eventually she married him.”
“That was your fucking father?” Grant said.
“Correct.”
“Jo still wouldn’t believe it.”
“I can’t wait to tell all my friends about you and your awesome fucking story. Now if you’ll pardon me, my burrito is getting cold. Or is it burri to?”
“Go chop some wood, Paul Bunyan.”
After they exited the building, Na Cho indicated south. They negotiated their way through the lunchtime crowd and the smokers and panhandlers for a couple blocks. At Seventh Street they swung a left and headed a few blocks down to the Roosevelt, a huge block of 1920s era Renaissance Revival that Jellwagger had walked past before, most recently when he and Roz went for pizza, but never knew too much about. That changed the minute he and Na Cho got into the tan sedan with tinted windows parked in front by the curb. Na Cho opened the rear passenger side door for Jellwagger, who got in to find himself sitting next to, you guessed it, a certain Mr. Sam T. Lee. Na Cho hopped in up front. As the car pulled away, the engine made nary a sound.
“Thank you for accommodating me, sir,” Sam T. Lee said. “I thought it would be nice to get you away from your place of employment and all those crowds. I’ve heard through not one but several grapevines that you are a very self-conscious, sensitive, indeed, touchy feely young man.”
“Who’s spreading gossip?” Jellwagger said.
“So I don’t want anyone who might know you to see you get into an expensive sedan with tinted windows at the direction of a smooth-faced, impeccably dressed individual like Na Cho. Plus, I live in the Roosevelt. If I was making you and Na walk, I didn’t want to make myself walk. Defeats the whole purpose of a convenient rendezvous if both parties are inconvenienced.”
“You live in that huge block of Renaissance Revival that dates back to the twenties?”
“Good for you, Jellwagger. You know your architecture.”
“I’ve worked at Powell and Powler four years now, Sammy T Bone. I don’t always bring my lunch. You walk around the ‘hood, you get to know the various joints around here. Shit, just the other week I had pizza with Roz.”
“So you like reminding everyone. Not that it’s not impressive.”
“And she divulged some pretty fascinating shit about her and her man living and working downtown. Another time, Mr. Lee, another time.”
“It’s a new time for the Roosevelt. In 2008 they turned it into an apartment building, exactly two hundred twenty-two units. Well priced, but they are new, and the location is convenient. It’s not my main home, but it’s a nice pad to have when I have extended business in the city center.”
“Where’s your main home?”
“Where we’re headed now, sir. But actually, I’m not going to take you to my house. I don’t trust you enough just yet to show you that. But we are going to the section of the city where I, Na Cho, and most of the Chexicanos of Los Angeles dwell. It’s an enclave very few know anything about. Some think it’s part of the mostly Latino and unincorporated East Los Angeles. And while it’s not too far from there, it’s nonetheless a separate and distinct entity. Tell me, Jellwagger. Have you ever heard of Chi Wa Wong?”
“What the hell is that?”
Na Cho said something to the driver in Spanish that made them both laugh. Sam T. Lee said something in Chinese which gave all three of them a good hearty laugh for a good hearty minute or two.
“If you don’t want me to get all paranoid and think you’re talking shit about me, you better tell me what you just said,” Jellwagger said.
“We won’t, if you don’t mind,” Sam T. Lee said. “If we told you the truth, we’d only feed and justify your paranoia.”
“Meaning you really were talking smack?”
The driver said something in Spanish that cracked them all up even more.
“Knock that shit off!” Jellwagger said. He brandished his Donald Duck cane at the driver. “Just because Donald and I don’t know your name doesn’t mean we can’t beat the shit out of your smug ass.”
Sam T. Lee put a hand on Jellwagger’s arm and gave a squeeze. Not a cold, threatening squeeze, but a warm, paternal, embracing squeeze. “You’re okay. Even if we are having fun at your expense, it’s harmless. And it’s not like you haven’t done the same to my kind.”
“As a matter of fact, I have not. I didn’t even think you guys actually existed until today.”
“Americans.”
“So what the hell’s this Chi Wong Wong?”
“Chi Wa Wong is an L.A. neighborhood that sits comfortably between Chinatown and East Los Angeles.”
“Perfect. So on one side you’ve got the Chinese and on the other…”
“Exactly.”
“I’m guessing it’s a small neighborhood.”
“True, you won’t find it in the Thomas Guide, but what we lack in presence, we make up for in passion.”
“In more ways than one,” Na Cho called back.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jellwagger asked.
Sam T. Lee laughed his cackling laugh. Jellwagger thought it’d be awesome for Sam T. Lee and Pat Dinner to have a contest to see who could break a window first.
No one said anything else, in any language, for the remainder of the ride. If this Chi Wa Wong place was where Sam T. Lee said it was, it shouldn’t have taken more than a few minutes to get there from downtown. And yet it was a good half-hour or more before they finally came to a stop. Thanks to the shenanigans he’d already been through courtesy of a certain on again off again billionaire couple, Jellwagger was developing a sixth sense for shady shit. He figured Sam T. Lee had told his driver ahead of time to take the scenic route to their Chi Wa Wong destination on the off chance, or perhaps very on chance, that they’d be followed.
Jellwagger stepped out to find himself in front of a restaurant called House of Ta Ko. The architecture was a marriage of Spanish adobe and Oriental temple. While you might think such a marriage would repulse, it didn’t at all. Jellwagger stood there and got lost in how the building merged East and West in a manner more subtle than at first glance. “I say,” was all our man could think of saying. Then he managed to get out, “I’ll be God damned, Na,” when Sam’s man appeared next to him. It wasn’t until they were passing through the entrance when Jellwagger noticed the restaurant’s subtitle, if you will, above the doorway in a font he’d never seen before but could only assume at this point to be a marriage of Chinese and Mexican scripts: Your Rice Cantina Home.
Sam T. Lee took the lead when they were inside. The hostess, also Chexican, nodded at Sam T. Lee and Na Cho as they walked past and into the dining room. Much to Jellwagger’s amazement, the clientele wasn’t remotely all Chexican. Almost every race that lived in Los Angeles, which was almost every race period, was represented.
They attracted a significant look from almost every table they passed. Each set of eyes would behold Sam T. Lee and Na Cho with unmistakable awe/reverence/fear, and then move on to Jellwagger with a slightly milder version of the same look. Aw yeah, Jellwagger could get used to this. What must it be like to command that kind of attention wherever you go? Pat and Carla, for all their clout, didn’t possess this kind of mojo.
Sam T. Lee led them to a round table in the center of the huge, vaulted-ceilinged dining room, directly below the skylight. “Have a seat, one and all,” he said, even though Jellwagger and Na Cho were the only others with him. No sooner were they seated than a cute young Chexican waitress brought Sam T. Lee the same kind of light beer he’d had at the Hotel Standard. For Na Cho she brought a club soda. Sam T. Lee nodded at Jellwagger. “And a Lagavulin for my main man here.”
“I resent that remark,” Jellwagger said. To the waitress: “Spaten please.”
No one said anything for the next minute or so. Jellwagger was getting it into his head that they’d eat their lunch and pretend everything was all fine and dandy before, dabbing his mouth from a delicious meal that he’d say reminded him of what his mother made back in the Old World, Sam T. Lee would reveal Jellwagger’s fate, Goodfellas style. But Jellwagger was too tired for this shit. He took a healthy pull from his Spaten before saying: “I’m not going to sit here and pretend everything’s fine and dandy, Sammy T. to the Lee. Why in tarnation have you dragged me here? And by the way, the longer the lunch break, the longer I have to stay tonight. And I really don’t want Chump E. Chips taking a shit on the carpet.”
The cute waitress came back to get their entrée orders. Sam T. Lee went first, followed by Na Cho, and then they all looked at Jellwagger.
“I haven’t a fucking clue. Order something for me, I’ll assume it’s poisoned, and we can get the show on the road.”
“Combo number seven for our guest of honor,” Sam T. Lee told the waitress before handing her the menus.
“What nonsense,” Jellwagger said. “At some point during the meal I’ll black out and wake up in a ditch or in the afterlife. Which could be one and the same.”
“So long as they serve beer in hell, eh?” Sam T. Lee said, raising his light beer.
“You’re not supposed to play along with my paranoia, asshole.”
“Do you have any idea who this is?” Na Cho said.
“Bite me, Na Cho. What, is your sidekick Guac gonna come out and pummel me to death with a Chexican baseball bat?”
“You jest, Jellwagger, but Chexicans do indeed love baseball. I and most of the folks in my employ get season tickets to the Dodgers.”
“But some prefer the Angels,” Na Cho said. “By the way, it’s Gwak with a w and k, and you’ll meet her later.”
“You’re shitting me.”
Sam T. Lee took another pull from his light beer before putting his hands flat on the table. “Now. For the sake of your dog’s intestinal tract, amigo, perhaps I should explain my last-minute lunch invite that didn’t appear in your Outlook. First and foremost, I know Carla sent some photos to you recently. In fact, I’m fairly certain you received them this morning. Am I right?”
“You know something? The first time we met, on the roof of the Hotel Standard…”
“When you were too bashful about taking a dip in the pool…”
“That’s precious, coming from you. Anyway, one of the few things I remember through the Lagavulin haze were your fucking questions.”
Na Cho said something in Chinese.
“Dude, English,” Jellwagger said. “Or, if you’re going to stick with a non-English language, could you at least be consistent? You were speaking Spanish on the drive over, were you not?”
“We choose our language of the moment based on several variables,” Na Cho said, nursing his club soda oh so delicately. “First, you have the general tone. Is the tone playful? Or is it all business? Or somewhere in between? Second, the setting. Are you inside or outside? Also, whom are you addressing? Man or woman? Is said human older or younger?”
“Jesus, really? How have you not been driven nuts by this?”
Sam T. Lee cackled for what seemed like forever. “I’m afraid my main amigo over here is yanking your Valley chain, Jellwagger. He’s not entirely kidding. We bounce between English, Spanish, and Simplified Chinese depending on a few variables, but nothing so intricate.”
Na Cho finished off his club soda with relish and sucked intensely on an ice cube before spitting it out. He signaled the waitress for a refill. “Funny. You don’t think about it, do you? The variables?”
Sam T. Lee cackled on his way to saying, “Hardly!” And then he said the rest of what he had to say in Spanish.
“See?” Jellwagger said. “What the fuck was that? What sorts of variables have to align to get two languages in one go?”
“Well, just as you say ain’t, we break our rules as well.”
“I never say ain’t, Samuel. I’m a writer, and while I remain unknown, unsold, and obscure, I hope you extend me at least a little bit of respect.”
“Back to your previous comment about our first meeting, if my questions seemed pointed to you, it can only be due to having just suffered the biggest suck-ass day ever.”
Na Cho said something in Chinese.
“Jellwagger, Carla Houde sent you some photos. These photos show Pat Dinner with an African-American woman named Kit Figures, yes?”
“Here we are!” The waitress arrived with the food. Sam T. Lee and Na Cho had each ordered tortillas, fried rice, soy sauce, salsa, black beans, and various other thises and thats which, taken together, added up to a hearty representation of their two cultures. Jellwagger found himself suddenly famished taking in the sight and especially the smell of their lunch, all the more so since his own meal looked all but useless. How in Van Nuys was he supposed to eat paper-thin corn chips with chopsticks?
“House of Ta Ko isn’t very forgiving of those who don’t abide by the cultural norms. If you so much as touch one chip with your fingers, I’m making you pay for all our meals. Now you have nice sauces in the middle of your plate there.”
Jellwagger figured he’d practice on one of the flimsy vegetarian enchiladas. It was wide and weighed down with its contents. No sooner did he pluck it up with the chopsticks, gripping it by the middle, than the sides drooped down and spilled the vegetarian innards all over his pants.
Sam T. Lee cackled and Na Cho laughed his annoying laugh which, strangely, now that Jellwagger thought about it, reminded him of Jo. Even worse, though, everyone else in the joint was getting a yuk at our man’s expense.
“Few things bring the populace more pleasure than the sight of a Chexican restaurant virgin. And maybe a restaurant virgin in general.”
“You’re supposed to spread the napkin across your lap,” Na Cho said.
The waitress brought Jellwagger another Spaten.
Jellwagger took a long pull before saying, “Fuck you people,” and picking up his chopsticks and going back at his food with gusto. Through the corner of his eye he saw Sam T. Lee, Na Cho, and seemingly every other face in the joint aimed at him, but he kept his eyes pointed determinedly down at his plate. He broke several chips and attracted more laughter. Undaunted, our intrepid Jellwagger kept it up with the concentration of John McClane crawling through the Nakatomi building’s HVAC system. That “have a few laughs” line seemed especially perfect right about now.
Just as McClane eventually nailed Hans Gruber, so too did Jellwagger finally get a chip from the plate to his mouth without a single crack. And when he did, the cheers and applause almost made it worth it. Next up, he figured out how to fold the flimsy enchiladas in half. He couldn’t put the entire thing in his mouth, but taking a bite and keeping the rest gripped between the chopsticks, sans spillage, was no problem.
“And these photos,” Sam T. Lee said, as if no time had passed since the food arrived. Jellwagger felt like he’d just completed an adventure since then. Or at least an initiation. “Why do you think Carla sent them to you?”
“She and Pat hate each other’s guts.”
“Ooooookay. And?”
“It’s obvious, right? She’s looking for any way to make him look like a fucking idiot.”
“And has she done that?”
“Well, look. You’ve got photos of Pat Dinner, billionaire extraordinaire, hanging out with another woman. Right there in the open.”
“You say other woman as if he’s leaving a woman at home,” Na Cho said.
“Well…” Jellwagger stopped. Damn, this was tricky. He was about to say something about lingering feelings between those two filthy rich slave drivers, made manifest when they fucked each other’s brains out the night he got home from Valley Presbyterian and exposed Grant’s fling with Stu. Jesus, what a night that fucking was.
“Yes?” Sam T. Lee said.
“Well, Pat Dinner’s got all the money in the world. Someone like that never has to spend the night alone if he doesn’t want to. So what if he and Carla fell through and she hates his goddam guts? Surely Pat could find another squeeze in no time. I guess I just assumed he had a special lady friend at home.”
“Money never buys love, Jellwagger. Look at all those filthy rich Hollywood celebrities, better looking and wealthier than most, and yet perfectly miserable, right? You know what that’s called? A clue. And speaking of clues, I’m still searching for why Carla Houde would send you those photos of Pat. It can’t be to out an affair. First, he and Kit Figures are not having an affair. And even if they were, Pat wouldn’t be cheating on anyone. He’s alone. Completely and utterly. It is just Pat and his chronic sickness.”
“I knew something was wrong with him.” Jellwagger was about to ask what ailed Pat when Sam T. Lee forged ahead.
“The reason for those photos, at least the main reason as far as I see it, although there may be others, is to prove to you, amigo, that Kit Figures is alive.”
“Come again?”
“Those photos were taken in the past week.”
“In other words,” Na Cho said, “since she did a Greg Louganis off the Santa Monica Pier.”
Jellwagger finished swallowing his enchilada before digesting Na Cho’s words. He took a swig of Spaten to aid in the cause. Of course they knew who she was. They knew Pat Dinner, and it was Pat who introduced Jellwagger to Kit when he had our favorite L.A.-based data entry clerk deliver that Butterfly McQueen stamp to Kit in the BonaVista Lounge. So why wouldn’t they know Kit? What was driving Jellwagger nuts, though, was the how. How did they know her? How did they know Pat for that matter? Connected to that was Kit’s job. Jellwagger had the woman in his apartment to watch The Fifth Element, and he still had no clue what she did for a living. What did anyone do, for the matter of that? Was Jellwagger the only chump here who had to drag his Jersey-bred ass out of bed to earn a friggin’ paycheck?
“Sam T. Lee. Na Cho. What the hell do you people do for a living?”
The room went silent. Even the Muzak turned off. Once again, all eyes in the joint were aimed at Jellwagger.
Sam T. Lee cleared his throat. “Is it time?”
“Time for what?” Jellwagger said. “You mean I can go?”
But Sam T. Lee was talking to Na Cho, who looked at his watch and said, “Are you ready for Freddy?”
“Listen, guys, it’s been real, but unlike you, I have a paycheck I need to earn or else how in Jersey do I keep the microwave ‘corn flowing, you reading me?”
“Amigo!” Sam T. Lee said, his smile blossoming into another cackle. “We can’t let you leave without dessert. It’ll be a small dessert, we promise, and then we’ll have you back at the comfy confines of Powell and Powler before you can say Chump E. Chips.”
“’The fuck did you know the name of my mutt? I mean, purebred beagle?”
“Hey, Na Cho, send him over,” came a tiny voice out of Na Cho’s watch.
“Copy that,” Na Cho said, still looking at his watch. “The clerk is on his way. I repeat, the clerk is on his way.”
Sam T. Lee cackled. “Oh Na Cho, knock it off. Do we really need to be that formal?”
“She likes it that way.”
“Is that what she told you?”
“What do you mean?”
Sam T. Lee finished off his light beer and signaled for another before saying, “My poor, befuddled amigo, is there a woman who doesn’t play you like a keyboard?”
“Hold up,” Jellwagger said. “Are you talking to someone with that watch, Dick Tracy?”
Sam T. Lee took a big bite of his orange chicken burrito and shook his head at Na Cho. The waitress arrived with his light beer, which he took a quick pull from before forgetting Na Cho and giving Jellwagger his full attention. “Amigo, it’s been lovely having lunch with you. Yes, you’re confused. You have much to figure out.”
“You can say that two times.”
“Not just about the complete mess you’re in with Patrick, with Carla...”
“With you, with Dick Tracy over there…”
“No, no, I don’t mean that whole drama so much as yourself. You need to figure yourself out. Know who you are, Jellwagger, the rest will follow.”
“Gracias, Yoda.”
“And your father.”
“What about the old man?”
“Make peace with his memory. That, amigo, is the first step toward knowing who you are. You can’t make peace with yourself until the decks are clear, if you catch my meaning. Even if your sister Jo is lying to you about what his last words were, so what? Maybe she has a good reason to do that, have you thought about that?”
“What the fuck, Samuel? Do you know Jo?”
“Haven’t had the pleasure. And speaking of pleasure…” Sam T. Lee nodded at something behind Jellwagger, who turned around to see the back of a woman sitting at the bar. She was the only one there. He looked back at Sam T. Lee, who smiled. Na Cho, meanwhile, had already disengaged from the whole conversation. He looked at nothing in particular and cussed under his breath in Spanish and Chinese.
In the interest of ending this weird-ass lunch break as quickly as possible, by far the weirdest lunch break he’d ever taken in his life, Jellwagger got right up and didn’t even bother putting his napkin on the table. It fell to his feet while he pushed the chair back with his legs, harder than necessary to vent some of the pent-up frustration that had been mounting since he sat down. The back of his chair bumped against the back of the diner behind him, but like the napkin on the floor, who gave a shit? The man in that chair said something to Jellwagger, who didn’t give a shit what the guy said. As he wove through the chairs and all the faces looking at him, Jellwagger had the same two words for everyone: “Fuck” and “you.” He must’ve said fuck you a dozen or more times on his way to the bar, using his Donald Duck cane to bop the occasional chair leg just to emphasize how little he gave a shit about any of these people.
“Hey now, Hank Kingsley,” the woman at the bar said as Jellwagger sat next to her. “That’s not a very nice way to introduce yourself.”
“It’s been a super long and frustrating lunch break. My leg’s killing me. I’m wiped out. I just want to finish out the day and get the hell home.”
“Cute cane.”
“Go fuck yourself.”
“I mean it! It’s adorable. I love Disney. Huge Disney freak, man. You know the Disney marathons? I do those. I’ve got nineteen medals so far. Gwak.”
“So you’re the mysterious Gwak. I was just joking when I said that.”
“I know, I heard everything through Na Cho’s watch.”
“Fuckin’ Gwak, man. That’s awesome.” Only when he shook her hand did Jellwagger bother giving her a good look, and it was a wonder it took him so long. Gwak was gorgeous. If Stefania were Chexican, she’d be Gwak. Jellwagger’s face must’ve betrayed that opinion. Gwak smiled a heart-vaporizing smile and said:
“My pleasure as well.” She nodded at the barkeeper, who slid across two small dishes of flan and two pairs of chopsticks. “Here’s how this works. It’s tricky.” Gwak scooped out a chunk of the flan with her chopsticks.
“Let me guess. Very delicately, lest I invite the wrath of L.A.’s entire Chexican community, I use the chopsticks to eat the flan without any spillage. Correcto?”
“Correcto! But you forgot the fortune. When you’ve eaten about half, you pull the fortune out, very gently of course, and after you read it, you can devour the remaining half of the delicious dessert. Cool beans?”
“By the way, who’s Hank Kingsley?”
“Oh you poor, culturally deprived man. You’ve never watched The Larry Sanders Show with Gary Shandling?”
“Believe it or not, I missed that one.”
“It was a sitcom on HBO. Gary Shandling plays this talk show host Larry Sanders, and Jeffrey Tambor’s the sidekick Hank Kingsley. And Hank’s always like, ‘Hey now!’” She cracked up.
Jellwagger rose to the flan challenge. In no time he was about halfway through it and had the warm, wet, soggy fortune in hand. “A close friend of yours will surprise you in bed.”
“Nice.”
“Yours?”
“Today you will make a new ally in bed.”
“Awesome.”
“So listen, Jellwagger, I didn’t want you returning safe and sound to Powell and Powler without letting you know that Kit’s doing perfectly fine.”
“And that’s why Carla sent me the photos? As comforting as that should be, it’s not very comforting that she’d know I know Kit since that could mean she knows other things I don’t want her to know.”
“That you’re just as much a gopher for Pat Dinner as you are for her?”
“That’s one example, sure.”
“Can’t help you there, Jellwagger, but listen, Kit Figures is a good friend of mine. We’ve been girlfriends since college. And you should know you’re not the reason she did a Greg Louganis off the pier.”
“Why did she then?”
“She’s going through some issues. Seriously fucked up issues.”
“I could’ve guessed that.”
“I shouldn’t say more.”
“I have to admit it was kinda sorta weird when she just showed up at my apartment that one night, but I went with it. We watched The Fifth Element. She even gave me some awesome feedback on Exit the Danish.”
“What the hell’s Exit the Danish?”
“A loaded question for another time. When I’m loaded. But seriously, we hit it off. Of course it helps that she’s from Jersey.”
“Isn’t it inspiring to see that someone can come from New Jersey and still be awesome?”
“Hey now, Hank Kingsley!”
“That was perfect, Jellwagger!”
“You’re from Jersey too, I assume, hence your awesomeness.”
“San Diego. Kit and I met at San Diego State.”
Jellwagger scraped his chopsticks along the sides and bottom of the dish to collect as much flan residue as he could. God damn, this was good.
“Kit says hi, by the way.”
“Can we go see her? I have half a mind to give her the third degree for scaring the shit out of me.”
“You’ll go easy on her, though. Remember, Jellwagger, she’s my dear friend. An offense against her is an offense against me. You don’t want that.” Her smile didn’t waver, nor did her cordial tone of voice. Nonetheless—maybe it was the eyes, although they shone bright as ever—Jellwagger could tell she meant it. If Carla Houde wasn’t someone you crossed, Gwak was someone you didn’t even want to risk blinking at the wrong way.
At this point he had completely polished his flan dish until it looked new again. “I’ve no doubt you people are not ones to fuck with, as we say in Jersey.”
“You people?”
“The Chexican mafia. That’s what you are, right? Like Sam T. Lee’s enforcer or something, the Frank Nitti to his Al Capone?”
“You think I work for Sam?” She cracked up. “Nice one, Jellwagger.”
“Who then?”
“Me, amigo!”
“Come again?”
“I’m what you’d call an independent contractor.”
“It’s funny, Gwak. When I first got here, I was sure Sam T. Lee and Na Cho wouldn’t let me leave alive. Sam T. Lee and Pat Dinner are rivals somehow. I can’t make sense of it. Yet.”
“They get along.”
“Sure, same as any two mafiosos get along since the common enemy is the law. But they’re competitors. The way Sammy T. spoke to me that night at The Standard. I’ll never forget it. He knew my tie to Pat and so accordingly viewed me as a potential threat. Or at least a pest to step on and squash with his hot leather Chexican boot. When we sat down over there, I was convinced they’d poison me. Maybe they already have, but it’s a delayed reaction. It’ll get me in my sleep tonight. And tomorrow Chump E. Chips starves.”
“Oh no, that’s not the Chexican style, Jellwagger,” Gwak said. “It’s already happened.”
“Of course it has, Gwak. Jesus, what are you thinking?” He was taking a pull from his Spaten when he choked it out. “Wait a second, what’s happened?”
“The drug,” she said. “It’s already in your system. But don’t blame Sam or Na. It’s my deal. Sam may own House of Ta Ko, but not everyone here works for him. The bartender, for example. He’s on the Gwak payroll. And I had him drug your flan. That’s why you feel so awesome. It’s a side-effect before the blackout.”
“You did not just say blackout, did you? I’ve got so much work to catch up on.”
She checked her watch. “How are you feeling?”
Jellwagger opened his mouth to say awesome, and that’s when he felt the dumbbells fall on his eyelids. Holy shit, she was right. This whole time, she was the threat. Gwak. The independent contractor.
Gwak never did eat the rest of her flan after reading her fortune. She slid it over to Jellwagger. “Want the rest? It’s not drugged.” She cracked herself up.
Jellwagger looked at the flan. And then he found he didn’t have the strength to look up. Every muscle in his body had gone to bed, which was why he was completely powerless to stop his face from falling.
To be continued...
