“What?” I said.
“Come on, chickenshit, I ain’t gonna pluck your feathers. You want to see Dr. Bahari or not?” He pulled open the door to the Benz. “From here you ride with us.”
The lady chauffeur shot me a worried frown as I got out of my car and into theirs. Blond Man shut the door, cut around and slipped in beside me, pointing his little black Glock at my belly. My hands crept up on instinct.
“What’s dat for?” Lady Chauffeur said with a scowl in the rearview. “Put away.”
“Zip it,” he said. “I don’t need this little dork to get any funny ideas about turning tail.”
In disgust, she rolled her window and pressed the gate intercom.
“Hello”—a smooth man’s voice.
“Yes, Marco, hi, this is Giuliana.”
“You took care of that thing?”
“Dat’s right.”
“Nice.” He sounded tentative. Then: “I’ll get the doctor.”
The gate began to open in slo-mo—with a giant lurch, we rolled forward on gravel. Up another short hill, we came to a loop—a spitting baby fountain stood before a behemoth log cabin, circular with twisting wooden staircases jutting over the mountain peak like a zoo habitat for monkeys. I took in the opulence, one eye on the gun. You see so many oversized homes in LA, but this was different, embedded in banana palms, unfurling into the raw nature that sloped down in every direction. One descending incline broke out into dark vineyards, perfect rows and rows of purple-green. I never knew you could make wine up here, but there was plenty about the wealthy I didn’t know. Down in the middle of the vineyard sat a raised lookout house with glass walls. Inside was a round table surrounded by funky face chairs—Picassos. They looked as panicky as me in the night glare.
I looked over my shoulder—the gates were closing smooth behind us.
Giuliana parked in front of massive doors, cut the engine, and was about to get out when Blond Man said, “Ohhh no, sister, you wait here. This is my catch. And don’t get any funny ideas about breaking ranks.”
“What does this mean, break ranks?”
“You just stay put and keep your mouth shut.”
The giant double doors opened and a bruiser with a conspicuous pistol of his own poking out of his sweats made his impatient appearance known. In a flurry, Blond Man got out, cut around the car, pulled me out. Only when my feet hit the gravel did it occur to me that I was at the highest peak for miles in every direction. I turned 360 in the high breeze—the ocean, the basin, the valley stretched out forever, city clusters cropping up like fingers of silver grasping for the sky.
The monster, Los Angeles.
Blond Man caught my one-second reverie, said, “Move” and gunned me to Bruiser who immediately frisked me again and yanked my wallet and keys. Then Blond Man tucked his gun and said, “Marco—apologies for the late intrusion,” just as a slender man in a charcoal gray suit appeared at the door.
“Doesn’t bother me. You caught the fish.”
“A live one—for now.”
Blond Man was trying to be funny but Marco didn’t laugh. He turned on his heel, disappearing into the cavernous home. A few minutes later, Bruiser got a text. In a thick Israeli accent he said, “You coming with me.”
“I’m coming too,” Blond Man said.
“Incorrect. The doctor want only him.”
“But my dad said—”
“Your dad says thank you and you go home now.”
Blond Man seethed as Bruiser herded me into a high-ceilinged vestibule, through an enormous room with mustard couches, a giant oak table, a stone bowl of potpourri, and the longest fireplace I’d ever seen. Above it, an enormous painting covered one wall—the Rape of the Sabine Women, bodies tangled, terror-filled eyes. He whispered something to Marco that I couldn’t make out. Marco took it in, sized me up, decoded the situation through a shield of agitation, then they disappeared down some piss-elegant oak passage.
Time passed. It might have only been ten minutes, but not all ten minutes are created equal.
Finally, Marco reappeared at the doorway, all business, brandishing a gun of his own. “Now—let’s go.”
Back out into the vestibule we went, down a long hall, through a kitchen fit to serve banquets, with industrial steel sinks and rows of ovens. Out a side door, we stepped back into the cold. Topiary, metal furniture, gargoyled separators—and in the dark distance, a flurry of wild turkey vultures moving through the trees, slow then frantically fast, ugly arched red faces zooming by like scalped skulls, the messengers of impenetrable fear.
“Fuckers keep me up all night,” he said. “You can hear ’em hissing a mile away.”
Marco opened a low garden gate and led me past a small waterfall bleeding into a long koi pond, then around the corner to a door—some kind of a dilapidated guest cottage, maybe the old service quarters. He unlocked the door—inside, a former office, piled high with junk.
“Go,” he said with finality. “Wait here for the doctor.”
I hesitated and he yanked me in. I steadied myself, looked around dumbly—a ratty old brown leather shrink chair and matching reclining couch, a busted green lamp, a busted moped lying on its side without a rear wheel, a golf bag without clubs, and stacks of old Playboys, rotting board games, precarious towers of musty books—Fromm, Perls, Cialdini—enough psych to choke a horse. A person could go crazy in a room like this—the moonlight blue damask wallpaper was unraveling in upside-down waves.
“Sit down,” he said, wagging the gun at me, “or lie down, whatever. But you will be monitored, so don’t try anything foolish.”
“Like what?”
“Like if you try to run? I’ll shoot you in the leg and drag you out back, let the turkeys peck you to death.”
He gave me one last scowl for good measure, but just as he turned away, a beam of light hit us so strong my eyes watered. Coming forward, a distant silhouette, short, wide, hobbling on a cane, and I knew it was him—Dr. Aharon Bahari, PsyD. Behind him, Bruiser kept the flashlight on my face but Bahari waved him back—lights cut and Bruiser retreated into shadows.
Now from the dark, Bahari shuffled into focus in pearl-colored slippers, baby blue pajamas, pearl-colored bathrobe over his shoulders, cane in his grip, curious, scratching his beard, squinting, trying to make sense of the dim scene before him. He stepped forward and the contours of that tragic face came into the moonlight—white bearded and sad eyed and vulnerable. There was something powerful in his countenance, though, a mystery force that hit the space between all of us in an instant.
“What…in God’s name is going on here?!” At the sight of the gun, Bahari flared with rage and in a single motion, yanked it right out of Marco’s hand. “Give me that thing, you nitwit.”
