Perfect Sax Page 5

  “I think Dil was feeling a little guilty,” Hilary said in a low voice. “By June, she and Zenya were simply leaving their committee and the board out of everything. They were calling all the shots. I admit, they did a very nice job, but feathers do ruffle. You know how we are. This luncheon will go a long way to smoothing them down again.”

  “It sounds wonderful to me,” I said.

  “They’d like to schedule the party just as soon as possible. Next week, if that is okay with you and your partner. I think most of us are going to escape L.A. in August. So let’s coordinate by e-mail and set the date.”

  The Entemanns’ silver Mercedes SUV arrived at the curb and Hilary called out good-bye as she departed. I checked my watch. Where was my Jeep?

  “Oh, Mad,” Holly called, meeting me out on the steps. “I’m glad I caught you. Sara is in a bind. Sara Jackson, remember? The redhead? She’s got to meet her boyfriend. It’s urgent. And her car battery is dead. I don’t have a car or I’d lend it to her. Wesley drove me here, and he’s out now, driving one of the trucks back to the rental-company lot. What should we do?”

  I looked at Holly. She was so compassionate. One of our servers, a graduate student at USC, I think, had a boyfriend problem and Holly was ever ready to help.

  “Can’t one of the other servers give her a lift?” I asked.

  “That’s the trouble. Mostly everyone has already split. She can wait around until Wes gets back, but that could take hours. I thought about calling him. I’ve got his spare keys and his car is still here. But I’m supposed to supervise the rest of the cleanup and I can’t exactly ask him to lend out his brand-new Jag.”

  “No.”

  “Right.” Holly fixed me with her bright blue eyes. “See, Sara said it was life or death, Maddie. She’s got to see her boyfriend right this minute.”

  I watched as the valet finally pulled up in my old Grand Wagoneer.

  I’m afraid I melt for any young woman with boyfriend problems so urgent. “Just ask her to please drive it back over to my house. Tonight.”

  “Mad, you’re the best!” Holly yelled at me, turning to run and tell Sara.

  “I mean it, Holly. And she needs to come in and put the keys on my kitchen table. Give her the combination to the kitchen door lock.”

  “Thanks, Mad. So how will you get home?”

  “I’ll catch a ride.”

  In less than a minute, Holly was leading Sara Jackson down to the valet and I met them so I could tip the guy. Sure, it had taken him twenty minutes to find my car, but even parking attendants have to pay their shrink bills in this town.

  Sara climbed into the driver’s seat and rolled down the window, giving me a sad smile. “Sorry to be such a burden,” she said. “You are being so great. I can’t thank you enough. Brett is just raging. His dissertation committee met and he’s been told he won’t get his degree.” As she talked, she pulled out the band that was holding her hair up. As she rubbed her head, pulling the ponytail out, her fine red hair fell straight down her back. “I can’t explain, but I don’t think it was a good idea for me to leave Brett alone. I told him I couldn’t bail on this gig tonight. We need the money. And I knew you were counting on me. I mean, Brett knew I couldn’t blow off this job. I’d never be able to work your parties again.”

  I blushed. It was true. I would have been annoyed if any of tonight’s crew hadn’t shown. Being short-staffed puts an extra burden on all the other waiters. Hell, I hate being a boss sometimes.

  “And then my VW stalled out. I mean, what next?” Sara asked, stress making a deep vertical line between her green eyes. “I’m scared. I know it’s just a school thing, but you don’t know Brett. He’s sensitive. I just have to get home. Thank you so much, Madeline.”

  “No problem,” I said. “So you think you can bring the Jeep back tonight?”

  “I promise. You’ll have it back in less than an hour.”

  I believe in helping out true love and all that. But I have heard more crisis stories from more temp workers than you can dream up. I’m all for kindness—but I needed my car, too.

  “You sure you’re gonna be okay?” Holly asked me, and I shooed her away, laughing. I watched her lean, long form trot back up the steps to the entrance, and when I turned back to the cars, I noticed Zenya Knight, one of the evening’s cochairs, standing next to a huge, pristinely white Hummer H1, a tanklike, military-style wagon that goes for like $116,000, and that’s without the options. The valet was holding the passenger door open, but Zenya was looking back toward the entrance of the Tager.

  “Zenya, you leaving?” I asked, walking fast. Here might just be the wheels to get me home.

  “Oh, hi, Maddie. How are you? Bill should be here any minute; he’s getting the items we bought at the auction. Wasn’t it the best? I thought you did a spectacular job on the party. We all owe you so much.”

  “You’re welcome. Of course.”

  “Did you see Bill had the highest bid on the Selmer?” Zenya was enjoying an after-party high. She was younger than most of the Woodburn women, and filled with enthusiasm, even after such a long, draining day.

  “Wow. Congratulations.” So it was Zenya’s table that was so hot to win the Mark VI tenor saxophone.

  “Kirby is going to be out of this world with excitement. He’s twelve and he’s just going to go nuts. Hell, I think my husband, Bill, may even take sax lessons—and he’s a guitar player!”

  “Oh, Zenya. The bidding was ferocious, wasn’t it?”

  She shrugged slender shoulders and smiled. “That Dave Hutson. Honestly, we’ve known them for years, but Dave is just not a very nice guy, now, is he? Imagine him getting so upset over who was going home with that sax. Really.”

  “This was a wild auction,” I said. “What a finish!”

  Zenya tossed her long, thick wavy blond hair and grinned. “No one messes with Bill. Bill told me it would be a shame to see that fine instrument go to that Hutson boy. The boy actually writes out all his solos in advance! That’s just not jazz.” She looked sorry for the boy. “The dad really shouldn’t push Ryan so much, you know? It’s sad.”

  See, here is where I think parents really need to get their own life. But that was me. I steered the conversation back to the bidding. “It was such a generous winning bid, Zenya.”

  “Oh, Bill can afford it,” she said, laughing. “My husband collects art, cars, vintage rock guitars. Over the years, I swear he’s paid a fortune for his Stratocasters and whatnot. And he tells me the prices just keep climbing up. You know collectors. They want something and they have to have it now. You should have seen the way his eyes were gleaming when they were describing that saxophone. Anyway, the money goes to a good cause. We can’t complain.”

  I shook my head, wondering what life must be like when one can spend a hundred grand on a whim. My personal reactions moved back and forth between discomfort at how these people seemed to take wealth for granted and gratitude that they supported worthy institutions. The Woodburn School people provide a number of full scholarships to some of the city’s least-advantaged kids. And they also donate brand-new instruments to our city’s beleaguered public schools. Without the fund-raising work and generosity of supporters such as the Knights, these children would not have such wonderful musical opportunities.

  “So you’re leaving, Madeline?”

  “By any chance, Zenya, are you driving near Hollywood on your way home?”

  “We could. Do you need a ride?”

  “Actually—”

  Just then there was a commotion at the entrance. A man in a tuxedo, one of the guests, was standing at the main door to the Tager Auditorium, yelling.

  “What’s that?” I asked, interrupting myself.

  “It’s Bill,” Zenya Knight said, her face perplexed. “What’s he going on about?”

  “Zenya!” Bill was calling to his wife and rushing down the steps toward us. “It’s the goddamned sax. It’s gone. It’s disappeared. Can you believe that? I bet you th
at asshole Dave Hutson stole Kirby’s priceless frigging Selmer!”

  “Dear Lord (BREAKDOWNS AND ALTERNATE TAKE)”

  Rich guys. There are just not enough bucks out there to convince me to marry one. I get the part about the fabulous home, the fabulous shopping, the fabulous bling-bling. It’s just I also see the huge hunk of her soul a girl has to pay in order to catch a rich guy and keep him. My mom used to tell me it’s just as easy to fall in love with a rich guy as a poor guy…but it really isn’t. Not for me. And judging by my father’s modest teaching income, not for my mom either. So what the hell was she talking about?

  “Saddle up!” yelled Bill Knight as he pulled open the trunk hatch, tossing in a heavy gift basket, and jumped onto the driver’s seat of the incredibly large, incredibly white Hummer H1, ready to roll.

  “Bill,” called his wife breathlessly, “I told Madeline that we’d be happy to drive her—”

  “Get in, y’all!” Bill commanded.

  Both Zenya and I trotted around the white behemoth and jumped in.

  “Are you sure—”

  “Come on!”

  I was not quite certain catching a ride home with the enraged Texan and his young wife was such a good idea.

  Bill was still fuming. “Can you believe it, Zenya? I am just betting that Dave Hutson took our sax.” His short, steely-gray hair seemed to bristle as he punched the gas pedal, jerking the gargantuan tank away from the curb with a burst of pent-up horsepower, nearly mowing down the parking attendant, and then slammed on his brakes at the last second. “Jeeesus!” he yelled. “Get that guy out of my frigging way!”

  “Oh, dear.” Zenya sighed, mostly to herself.

  “If you want to let me off here…?” I had more than second thoughts. I was trapped in a mammoth-size luxury vehicle with a madman who had just been robbed of his “precious.” Holy cow.

  “We’ll get you home.” Bill Knight’s voice was tight and I could guess he didn’t really want to hear much more from me in the backseat. I pulled on the seat belt and fastened it just as our tank cranked into a torque-frenzied sharp right turn.

  Zenya sat quietly in front. “What did they tell you?” she asked, her voice holding just a hint of quiet concern. “Did they really say Dave took our saxophone?”

  “No one knows what happened, Zenya,” Bill said, frustration and anger making him mock her. “It was just gone.”

  “But the instrument case…?” she asked.

  “The case was there. Lucky I insisted they unlock it and show me the sax. And well, looky there, it was gone. Like they thought I’d hand over a hundred-thousand-dollar check and not even look at my sax? Right.”

  In the well-lit, almost vacant avenues of downtown, the extraordinary stainless-steel-clad Disney Concert Hall, with its massive silvery swoops and flips, loomed over us as Bill slowed before he took another turn.

  “I’m sure it’ll all get straightened out,” Zenya said.

  “Like hell it will. I was ticked off that they let Sebastian play the Selmer. That was bad enough. But now, who knows? Maybe that asshole Hutson is going to wake up his boy tonight and let him play it. I bought a sax in pristine, mint, new condition. Now that sure ain’t what they are delivering, I can tell you.”

  “Oh, dear,” Zenya said again.

  I could see her face reflected in the side mirror. Despite her husband’s aggressive driving, she remained serene. Zenya Knight was not like the other Woodburn committee women. She was probably only a few years older than me, maybe midthirties, tops. She seemed softer, more passive than some of the Woodburn women I’d dealt with. While the other women were undoubtedly attractive—their beauty was premeditated. These wealthy women had begun to take on an artificial sameness, hair all highlighted to perfection, acrylic nails polished, this body part reduced or that body part enlarged by gifted cosmetic surgeons. Dressed expensively in the same designer labels, they had become more perfect and less individual. In contrast, Zenya had genuinely lovely skin, a naturally youthful face, true beauty. Needless to say, Zenya was a second wife.

  “Bill, we need to drop Madeline at her home. She’s in the Hollywood Hills,” Zenya said.

  “I really appreciate this lift,” I said, trying to get back to polite small talk.

  “Zenya, I’ll be damned!” Bill Knight was yelling again. “Who the hell is that in the silver Escalade up ahead.”

  We were just slowing down for a red light, all the more ridiculous as it was almost one in the morning and there were only two other cars on the entire eight lanes of First Street. These cars were slowing to a stop ahead of us, following traffic laws, despite the fact that there was no cross-traffic whatsoever. “Isn’t that Dave Hutson up ahead of that Beemer? I’ll be damned. Dave Hutson thinks he’s making his getaway!”

  “What are you going to do?” Zenya asked.

  “Maybe I should just run him down. If that frigging BMW wasn’t stopped right between our cars, I think I’d just give it a try. The Hummer could do it, too.”

  I gulped.

  “Did I tell you, Madeline,” Bill called back as we waited out the light, “that the Hutson boy, Ryan Hutson, can’t play a lick?”

  See, I realize Bill Knight is a successful businessman. I get that he’s an old rich guy and used to getting his way. Sure, he’s a little high-strung. I just wished like hell I wasn’t strapped into his car, right about then, as the man envisioned pulling troop maneuvers over another man’s Cadillac.

  “You hear me okay back there, Madeline?” Bill called.

  “Sure thing.”

  “I say, this Hutson kid isn’t really much of a sax player. He got into the jazz band at the Woodburn, but it’s pretty clear he doesn’t belong there. The boy is a fair sight-reader, I’ll give him that. He can read the sheet music a bit. But the thing is, he can’t go off the page. He can’t improvise. He’s got no brain for it. And ear? Hell, that Hutson kid has no damn ear whatsoever, does he, Zenya?”

  “Now, Bill. Ryan is a very nice boy,” Zenya said, in her soft way. “He really is.”

  “I’m talking about an ear for jazz now, darling. Not whether we should invite the kid over to swim in our pool. But what I’m telling Madeline here is this Ryan is not like our Kirby. Kirby is a gifted individual and he can play the pants off of that Ryan Hutson.”

  Mercifully, the light changed. But that was when Bill Knight, fueled by smoking martinis, goaded by the pain of seeing his prize Selmer disappear, and empowered by the heft of a vehicle the likes of which Arnold Schwarzenegger drives, hit the gas.

  “Hold on,” Zenya called back to me, grabbing the side rail above the passenger door. I gripped the side of the table that is conveniently placed in the middle of the backseat, just in case anyone was in the mood for a picnic. And then to her husband she asked, “Bill, what are you doing?”

  “Watch what you say, Zenya,” he answered. “I’ve gotten rid of better wives than you, darling, for saying less.”

  See? Didn’t I tell you the marrying-a-rich-guy thing was wildly overrated? How many vacations in Paris are worth withstanding such contempt? How many Rolexes? How many six-hundred-dollar pairs of heels?

  Zenya just laughed a girlish laugh.

  Well, perhaps I’m more sensitive than some.

  “Here we go!” Bill had managed to shoot out and pass the BMW X5 and gun the Hummer right up behind the Escalade. “Looks like Dave is driving a new car. Let’s say hello.”

  The large Hummer H1 closed in on the back of Dave Hutson’s SUV. “They don’t know we’re here,” Bill said, bugged at being ignored. “Can you believe this guy? He’s not even worried about driving off with my saxophone. How do you like…” At that point, the front of the Hummer made contact with the back of the brand-new Cadillac Escalade. Holy shit. “…that?” Bill asked.

  The horn blared from the car we’d just struck. Then it pulled into gear and barreled off, turning sharply up a nearly deserted Figueroa.

  “Bill…” Zenya’s voice was light, if slightly ag
itated.

  “Drop me off anyplace here, folks.”

  “So Hutson believes his Caddy can outrun this cruiser? I don’t think so,” Bill said, and he gunned the engine, pulling across the double yellow lines and right up beside the Cadillac. We were now driving on the wrong side of the street, side by side, as both vehicles shot down the boulevard with their speeds, as near as I could tell, approaching fifty. Bill Knight pushed the button that rolled the power window down next to Zenya. “Pull over, Dave!”

  The tinted window of the Cadillac SUV slid down and a round, red-faced man started yelling. “You’re crazy, Knight. You’re going to pay for the damage to my car.” Connie Hutson, seated beside him, looked as pale as a piece of white bread despite her excess makeup.

  “Right. Just subtract it from the hundred thousand dollars you owe me for stealing the goddamned saxophone, moron.”

  “Screw you!”

  Just then, up about a block ahead, from out of nowhere, a lone Toyota Tercel carefully turned the corner. It found itself smack in our lane, aiming straight at us. Never mind that the small red car was in the proper lane and we weren’t—we were doing nearly sixty miles per hour and we weighed just over seven thousand pounds. Let’s say Mr. Tercel wasn’t too proud to launch his car quickly up on the curb in order to avoid certain annihilation.

  “Bill, this is getting dangerous.”

  “Not to us, darling. To that bastard Hutson. He could have pulled his car over anytime, but then he’d have to face arrest charges for stealing our property.”

  While we were avoiding getting ourselves tangled with the Tercel, Dave Hutson and his shocked wife had made another sharp turn, heading down Ninth Street. Bill cursed. We had already charged through the intersection, missing Ninth, but now Bill put his foot on the break and tried to pull a fast 180-degree turn. Not the H1’s best move. Luckily, there was no traffic here, because the Hummer is a hugely wide, hugely tall, hugely heavy vehicle, one big enough and bad enough to strap a missile launcher to its hood, and I, for one, was thanking God Bill Knight hadn’t ordered that option. But all that torque or G-force or whatever the hell was now pulling at us hard, swinging us out way too wide. A few seconds of painful tire screeching and we had overshot the street and blasted up on the sidewalk, picking up speed. In a few seconds more I realized we were about to barrel right back into the dazed Tercel, still hanging up on the curb. Hell.