Gladyss of the Hunt (40 page)

I got the train to Times Square, then pushed through the busy midtown streets toward Bryant Park. Fearful that I wouldn't be able to find him, I called Noel.

“I just arrived,” he said. “Meet me at the stone stairs on the east side of Sixth Avenue and Forty-first.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

I was relieved not to see Eddie O'Ryan among the officers assigned to the back steps of Bryant Park. Noel emerged just beyond the French doors where photographers were lined up to catch any stars. Flashes exploded as Noel dashed outside and gave me a quick kiss.

“Do you plan to arrest any more models?” some asshole reporter asked me.

Inside the doors Noel handed me a large scarlet box with a beautiful golden bow. It contained the brand new dress along with a pair of black pumps.

“You look very Jackie O in those sunglasses,” he replied, “all you need is the white headscarf.”

The frames hardly looked glamorous. “My pupils are dilated,” I explained. “That's why I have to wear them.”

“I just hope you'll be able to see
me
,” he said.

He led me through a wide lobby to a smaller venue area within the park. A banner read, “Welcome to the Fashion Dogs on the Catwalk.”

People were running around sporting various laminates, screaming into phones and headset walkie-talkies.

“So what's the drill?” I asked, swept up in all the hullabaloo.

“The whole thing should be over in a second. I just hope Venezia makes it on time.”

“You said she
wasn't
coming!”

“Crispin persuaded her to, because he's not going to make it. But don't worry, you won't have to see her.”

In the distance, I could hear dogs barking.

“Oh, they want me to spend some time bonding with a goddamned mutt before the show. We better get a move on.”

He asked some slim blonde usher wearing a headset if she could show me to a changing room, and told me he'd be back shortly.

While Noel went off to bond with his bitch, I pulled on the Roberto Cavalli dress. It was a little too loose up top and too tight in the bottom. The pumps were too long and narrow, but I squeezed into everything and put my own clothes into the scarlet box. Noel greeted me when I emerged.

“I feel like Cinderella,” I confessed. “But I'll turn back into a cop at midnight.”

“Just don't arrest anyone,” he said, only half-kidding.

“So where's your canine?” I asked, hoping to see one.

“I hear it's a French Bulldog, but they still haven't located it. Come on, let's find your seat. It should be in the front row. Be sure to back away if one of the dogs lift a leg.”

“Has Venezia shown up yet?” I asked nervously.

“No, she's still in the kennel,” he quipped. “Crispin is going to be furious if she misses the show. They've put gowns aside for her.”

Suddenly someone paged him. Noel told me where to meet him after the show. Loot and his wife Sheba were throwing an after-party bash we had to attend. He gave me a kiss and vanished.

Inside was a huge banner publicizing
Fashion Dogs
. It showed a bare-chested Noel Holden, dressed only in tails and top hat, following Venezia, who was in a two-piece bathing suit.
This bitch runs with style
, read the tag line. The catwalk was painted and modeled like a city sidewalk, complete with faux street signs, occasional parking meters, and at the very end a large cardboard fire hydrant. Along the far wall was a huge, stark cutout of a dramatically lit New York skyline. It was the first time I'd ever seen an image of the skyline without the Towers.

An usher checked my ticket and led me to an uncomfortable folding chair in the conspicuous front row. Half the row was already occupied with spectators, and the photographers were already clustering at the front too. I wasn't sure, but I feared that some of the photos being snapped before the show were of me—the catfighting cop who was dating Noel. Black-vested caterers began circulating with trays of white wine. I really wanted some, but I passed.

In a matter of minutes all the seats were taken. I think I spotted Jack Black, Courtney Cox, Ivana Trump, and one or two of the
newer comedians on the
Saturday Night Live
cavalcade. A fanfare of Loot's unintelligible rap along with strobing, colorful lights signaled that the show was about to begin. With bouncy steps and arrogant stares, a succession of young, incredibly tall female models strutted forth. The pooch walk was evidently for later. The regimented way they jerked forward, moving each leg in conjunction with their hip and shoulder, was both amusingly absurd and stringently sexual. As their shoulders dropped and thigh crossed over thigh, each kept her head and eyes focused militaristically straight ahead. They marched like heat-seeking robots.

Then came the men. To my undiscriminating eye, Loot's gangsta wear looked no different than Phat Farm and all the other loose gangsta wear—pants missing the hips and revealing the waistbands of colorful underwear, yet defying gravity by clinging just above the ass cheeks, while bunching up at the ankles to reveal odd, wedge-shaped sneakers, worn with plastic bubble jackets that were inflated like balloons. As a cop, my first thought was: they were good clothes for concealing weapons. Hoodies and sweatpants bore Loot's distinctive logo, a drunken thunderbolt.

Once the human show was over, it was the canines' turn. Several supporting actors from
Fashion Dogs
were set to walk first. Reading the preface in the show's catalog, I learned that the pack of modeling mutts had only been paroled from the local pound for the duration of the show. Charitably, each dog was listed by name and all were up for adoption. Pit bulls seemed to be the most prominent breed on the runway, but German Shepherds and assorted terrier mixes were also present. I kept my eye open for Venezia, but that particular bitch never showed up.

Finally Noel emerged to loud applause wearing a T-shirt that was cut off above the waist to display his flat, six-pack abs. He must've just executed a thousand high-speed sit-ups. He held a short leather leash that restrained a Rottweiler, not exactly the adorable French Bulldog he'd been expecting. He'd told me the dogs had been given several trial walks before the show to test their suitability, but obviously this was different. Perhaps it was the bright lights and throng of spectators that made them jumpy. Or that the inexperienced dog handlers didn't hold the leash confidently enough. In any case, some of them bolted skittishly back and forth. Several barked and tried
to fight with other dogs. Occasionally they leaped up at their disaffected human companions.

When the show finally ended, the models playfully pulled the reluctant designer out onto the catwalk, where he displayed a modesty that wasn't present in any of his clothes.

As soon as people stood up to leave, the next show began loading in. Noel rushed me out through a private exit and into an awaiting car on Fortieth Street.

“Crispin's plane just landed. He's going directly to Cithaeron's from the airport.”

“Is Maggie meeting him?” I didn't particularly want to see her, either.

“I think they broke up a while ago.”

“Can I ask you an odd question?” I began cautiously.

“I'd expect no less.”

“Where were you last night?”

“In LA,” he said. “I arrived at 3:30 this afternoon Why? Was another girl murdered?”

“No, it's not that.”

“I can show you the airline ticket.”

“You've officially been removed from the list of suspects.”

“How exciting. Do you know Ji Andersen?” he asked, referring to a recent “break-out star” from some WB tween show.

“Wasn't she at Miriam's party?”

“Oh, right. Well, Crispin's bringing her. He's trying to get her into his next film.”

“What kind of name is Ji?”

“It was Jill, but first she dropped one I, then she pulled the other.”

When we pulled up to the curb in front of Cithaeron's, a bullfrog-chested, bling-blinged doorman opened our car door. Photographers snapped away.

A bulge of would-be gatecrashers was being kept at bay on the sidewalk. We walked along the red carpet through the lobby and around an indoor fountain, and were led into the grand ballroom. Loot and his beautiful blonde Asian wife, Sheba, were greeting everyone as they entered.

Noel shook Loot's hand. Sheba, a former model, complimented my Roberto Cavalli.

“But isn't it it's a little dark in here for sunglasses?” she asked. When I explained that I'd just had my pupils dilated, she chuckled as though I'd used a euphemism for sex.

The DJ was mixing Loot's music with the classics. Attractive, well-dressed youth mingled. Noel, like a politician, was shaking hands, pecking cheeks. Hugs all around. Everyone seemed to be in the middle of a laugh, as though the world was just one big private joke that everyone knew but me. Noel spotted a group of film people behind the sizable VIP lounge and we headed there for shelter.

Usually I didn't mind the bullshit. In fact, I had come to love the artificiality of it all, the world in the clouds in which beauty and popularity were richly rewarded and protected, where facelifts were the self-evident remedy to aging. And even after death, it seemed, you could live on through fan-based web sites—on a strange, velvet-roped summit, where doormen and bouncers protected you from the vulgarities of cloven-footed types like O'Flaherty and Bernie, along with all the rest of the world's victims of deprivation.

Crispin entered the grand ballroom with Ji, who rose to a sheer height of about thirteen feet and had the misshapen face of an eternally angry teenage boy. When she turned around, all beheld a thick waterfall of luminous blonde hair that dropped straight to her perfect ass like golden rays from the heavens. As I stared at her jealously, I could just imagine her with a majestic bow and a quiver of arrows hanging from her back—I was clearly out-Dianaed here.

“Loot's wife just chewed me out cause Venezia's a no-show,” Crispin yelled, “Where the fuck is her fat ass!”

“Who knows?” Noel said. “I just tried calling her publicist.”

“Loot personally invited her, for fuck's sake!”

“Well, she missed it,” Noel said.

“This is fucking lame. These fucking actresses get a little fame and they think they're the Queen of the Nile.”

“Not all of us are like that,” said Ji, the figurative and literal pillar of post-adolescence.

“You know who Noel is, and this is Gladyss.” Crispin made the introductions. “Everyone, this is Ji.”

When we shook, her fingers were cold and oddly vestigial, like gills. She didn't even look at me, just Noel.

Music started blaring. Loot and Sheba took to the floor and
danced flatfootedly, as if they were stomping out flames. Noel asked if I wanted to dance. We slowly rocked and rolled through three songs before Crispin and Ji started vibrating next to us.

“Hey, sexy!” Crispin called over to Noel. “Let's swap.”

“Why not?” Noel replied.

“You dance marvelously,” Ji said to me, then I thought she added, “like Liza.”

“Who?” I asked.

Just as Ji broke out in squeaky giggles, Noel grabbed her and swung her around onto the dance floor.

“Who did she compare me to?” I asked Crispin.

“Liza Minnelli, I think,” he replied while leering at his freakish date. “Look at her boogie!”

I wondered whether Ji was implying that I was fat, or old, or drunk. As I politely danced with Crispin, I sensed that the sleazy director kept trying to move me away, to a more distant place from where I couldn't see Noel. Finally I walked away from Crispin and found Noel doing this slow, lurid number with the blonde freak.

They clung together as though for dear life, tiptoeing tightly around the dark outer perimeter of the dance floor as if searching for a way out. I wasn't sure, but I suspected Ji was the instigator.

“So,” Crispin said, coming after me. “I wanted to ask you about this fingerprint thing.”

“What about it?”

“Noel said that I'm a suspect.”

“It's nothing to worry about. It'll only take a sec,” I said, still unable to take my eyes off of them.

“I'll tell you right now, that's the wrong way to get your man,” Crispin finally whispered into my ear, as if caressing my brain. “There's nothing more unattractive than clinginess.”

Completely vexed, I let out a loud, long sigh.

“Hey, I might not have throngs of suicidal fans, but spend a little time with me and you'll find loyalty and true love,” Crispin said. He gently took my hand and swung me back toward the bar. I continued to try and keep Noel in view, and finally he turned toward us and waved. While I was frantically waving back, I knocked my sunglasses off. Crispin hastily picked them up before someone could step on them.

“I thought you were getting some sort of operation to be rid of these?” Crispin said.