Killer Wedding Read online

  “A thousand pounds, live. On the dot. How do you do that?” Freddie asked, smiling widely. “Flown in a few hours ago.”

  I could barely hear Freddie. Not far off, a droning roar like the unmuffled scream of a dirt bike engine whined from beyond the far end of the tent. I looked up, startled. Through an opening at the back, I could see a powerfully built man, shirtless, wielding a chainsaw. He was standing in the loading dock carving a five-foot-high ice sculpture of a rhino. Each time the jittering saw blade bit into the 300-pound block of ice, the pitch of the aggressive buzz changed.

  I stood watching. The quivering blade kissed ice once more, gouging out the area under one perfectly formed tusk, and then the man looked up. The dark, intense eyes of a power chainsaw freak met mine.

  “He’s Ethiopian,” Freddie Fox commented. “Or South African. Anyway, he’s a brother.” He smiled.

  The iceman, muscled chest wet with sweat, stood out in the night under a lamp, breathing hard. He pulled his saw from the sculpture in progress and let it rev noisily in the air, his gaze still on me.

  “He’s wild,” I said.

  Freddie snorted. “We’re all wild in here, take a look.”

  Three men, young and Hispanic, moved closer and began to lift the first large tub teaming with seafood. Their joking Spanish stopped for a moment as they heaved the tub up and began to tip nearly 200 pounds of crawfish into the boiling water in the trough. There was practically no backsplash. Pros.

  “So,” Freddie said, leading me to a quieter corner. “Are you here to look us over? From what I hear, you’ll be running Vivian’s business pretty soon.”

  “Is that right? And when will I be elected Queen of the May?”

  “Just give me a call and I’ll set up a demo dinner for you,” Freddie continued. “We’ll have fun. Now that you’re giving up catering, we can work together on weddings. Cool, huh?” My former competitor’s eyes gleamed.

  Cool? I was about to answer when a shout from the back of the tent called Freddie away to make some critical decision about the balsamic vinegar and whether or not it was the same brand he had ordered.

  “Gotta get this,” he said, turning to take over that debate. “Call me.”

  “Where is Vivian, do you know?” I had my own crisis to solve.

  “I saw her about ten minutes ago with her old man,” Freddie said, happy to pass on one last comment. “Whoeee. Man, she was brutal.” He put his hand up and rubbed his short, black hair under a navy Negro League baseball cap. “Now I know Vivian is loaded, but no man should take that abuse. Know what I’m saying?”

  I stopped backing out of the room. “Vivian is what?”

  Freddie chuckled. “She’s worth millions, they say. Shit, she don’t have to do any of these damn wedding gigs. But, shi-i-it…” He walked back to me, lowering his voice, forgetting his balsamic worries for a second, “I would sooner be kicked in the groin than be married to the woman.”

  “Freddie.” I laughed.

  He gave me a peck on the cheek and hurried off to his vinegar debate.

  Back in the semidark hallway of the museum, taking the first turn quickly, I jumped. Someone had been standing there, just outside the kitchen door. Waiting. Silently.

  Startled, I collided with dark flesh—smack into the warm, hard, damp body of the mad dog, chainsaw-toting ice sculptor.

  Chapter 8

  “Who was that guy?” Holly lifted a flute of Taittinger to her lips, taking a tiny sip of the pricey champagne, branding the crystal with a curve of her bright red lipstick.

  “It’s that dress,” Wes observed, checking out my exposed assets. “It’s effective.”

  I began to feel self-conscious. At most parties, you’d find me in my high-buttoned white chef’s tunic. I was, frankly, more comfortable cooking the meat than being the meat.

  “You know, being a guest is stressful.”

  Holly drained her slender champagne flute. As soon as her arm lowered, a waiter magically appeared, offering a tray for her empty glass. Holly stared after him. “How do they do that?”

  “They have a huge number of waiters,” I said. “The service is mega.”

  I surveyed the crowd of wedding attendees, postceremony, as they milled about in the giant foyer, clustering in groups around the twenty-foot-high pile of dinosaur bones exhibited in the center. Now, awaiting dinner, the noise level had ratcheted up a few notches. More drinking does that. The bride and groom were still inside with the photographer and would be out to greet guests in a few minutes. It would be another half an hour, at least, before dinner would be served.

  “Yo! Mad!” Holly waved to get my attention. “Finish the story. Who was the amazing half-naked black dude, for God’s sake?”

  Before I could answer, she spotted a circulating champagne server and made eye contact. The obliging young woman delivered fresh drinks to our group and moved on.

  “They are good. They are very good.” In the noise of several hundred conversations, I was ignored.

  Wesley, who had been carefully scoping out the rest of the crowd, said, “I don’t see any half-naked men. Don’t tell me I missed them.”

  “The ice sculptor guy,” I said. “He was wild. He works without a shirt, although you would think that might not be the safest policy. I don’t know, maybe the clothing gets in the way of his chainsaw.”

  “You,” Wes said, considering the deep plunge of my new dress, “attract an odd sort of man. I’ve noticed that before.”

  We all sipped our champagne. What’s true is true.

  “Say what you will about Vivian Duncan,” Wes acknowledged, “but she does put on a hot event.”

  Holly’s eyes roamed for celeb sightings as she sipped. “This place rocks. Did you see all those beady little eyes staring at us during the vows?”

  Wes asked, “Is she talking about the taxidermy or the groom’s family, I wonder?” And then, as we laughed, he lowered his voice a notch. “You must admit, this is a bizarre site for a wedding. What’s the bride’s deal, again? Doesn’t she write sitcoms?”

  “No. Sara’s the granddaughter of the guy who produced that famous old wildlife T.V. series. Do you remember Exotic Kingdom from the sixties? I think I still see it rerunning on cable.”

  “Exotic Kingdom.” Wes smiled. “Why is all this use of dead puma in the décor suddenly making sense?”

  “Exotic Kingdom?” Holly asked. “Wow. I’ve caught it on TBS.”

  “It was one of the earliest nature shows. Big Jack Gantree went out on safari and did the narration,” Wes said. “So, that’s who Sara’s grandfather is! He’s so old now, I hardly recognized him.”

  “I hear he gives beaucoup bucks to this museum,” I said.

  “Big Jack Gantree. I wanted to be him when I grew up,” Wes said.

  I took Wesley by the shoulders and repositioned him a half-turn.

  “Well, there’s your hero. Right over there,” I said.

  Directly beneath the Triceratops under attack stood an elderly man with a rugged tan and a hardy crop of white hair.

  “Right, right, right,” Wes said. “So Big Jack is alive.”

  “Just barely,” Holly noticed.

  Wes chuckled. “I knew that old guy giving the bride away looked familiar. Man, he’s changed.”

  “He started doing Exotic Kingdom before I was born,” I said. “He paid for this whole wedding. I gather Gantree took over raising Sara when she was a baby. I’m not sure what happened to Jack’s daughter but I think she died. And Sara’s father left or something. So Big Jack Gantree raised his granddaughter in the deep bush country of Beverly Hills.”

  “Sometimes,” Holly said, “I drive around B.H. just looking at the houses. All those big, giant houses, you know? And I figure each big old house is worth like two or three million dollars. Maybe more. There they are. Block after block. Up and down the streets of Beverly Hills, there are like thousands of them…”

  Wes shot me a look, which I interpreted to mean: we had better pr
event Holly from making eye contact with any more champagne servers.

  “So!” Holly seemed to be making rather a zigzag line toward, one could only now hope, her final point. “I just drive around B.H. and think, ‘Who are all these rich people?’ You know? Like how could so many people I never even heard of have made so goddamn much money?”

  “Well,” I said, “there are a lot of affluent families in Los Angeles…”

  “No, no, no, no, no…” Holly interrupted. “I mean, yes that’s true. But I mean, like who are they? And I always think they must be people who made truckloads of money back in the old days of Hollywood. Way, way back, so no one would ever know who they are now. See? Like this old dude Jack Gantree. That’s all I’m saying.”

  As Wes and I considered the two main points Holly had made—(1) Who are all these rich people who can afford homes in Beverly Hills? and (2) How could anyone, inebriated or not, call “the sixties” the “old days of Hollywood”?—I spotted Vivian across the foyer, speaking with this evening’s host.

  Gathering my resolve, I stepped away from Wes as he began to wax lyrical to Hol about his favorite Exotic Kingdom episode—the one where Big Jack and the team took a foray into the protected game reserves of Rhodesia—and approached Vivian and Gantree.

  “Hello, Madeline, dear,” Vivian said. “Have you met our host this evening? Jack Gantree meet Madeline Bean. I believe if I can be persuaded to retire someday, Madeline might just make a very nice wedding planner. We’ll see.”

  “Vivian,” I said, evenly, ignoring her pointed comment until I could pay my respects to our host. Like any culture, L.A. has its rituals. “Hello, Mr. Gantree. I’m such a fan of your television career. My friends were just reminiscing about our favorite memories of Exotic Kingdom.”

  “Was it the one with the bull elephants?” he asked, excited now, a gleam in his eye. “That stampede was real, you know. You couldn’t fake it back in those days. My God, the cameraman was almost killed in that shot, but he stood there like a man. Was it the elephants? Or was it the chimps? The young ladies,” Gantree explained to Vivian, “just adored the chimpanzees. My daughter was with us when we shot that show and she wanted to dress the chimps up in clothes. What nonsense! But the children who watched the show loved that episode.”

  While his body had grown frail compared to his robust “Big Jack” image from T.V.’s past, his spirit seemed quite vigorous.

  I smiled. In Hollywood, it was considered polite to allow elderly producers to relive their favorite shots from their glory days. As well as good business.

  “What a beautiful wedding you’ve made for your granddaughter. I hope you are having a good time.”

  “Marvelous,” said Gantree, giving my hand a squeeze. “Viv throws the best parties in the world. This retirement talk of hers is ridiculous!” Gantree gave Vivian a disbelieving look.

  “Now, Jack. I think I deserve a break, don’t you?” Vivian asked, her throaty voice laughing a staccato ha-ha-ha. “And Madeline is making me an offer I simply can’t refuse.”

  “Actually Vivian, no. I’m not…”

  Jack Gantree smiled.

  Vivian’s smile, on the other hand, vanished.

  “I could never do justice to the empire you have built,” I finished, hoping to strike a gracious note.

  “Here, here,” Jack said, raising a champagne flute to Vivian. “We old-timers have a lot of life left in us yet!”

  “But we were all set,” Vivian said, a disturbing note of gravel edging into her party voice. “And I’m sure we can teach you…”

  “In any event, my lawyers tell me I will soon have no money,” I said with finality.

  “Lawyers!” Jack Gantree said, his ruddy face darkening. “They’re like niggers! Don’t you trust them.”

  “Jack!” Vivian said, coloring a little. “Now I’m sure you don’t mean that.”

  I was shocked. “I…I try very hard to fight prejudice, Mr. Gantree. I try not to lump every…every lawyer, or any other type of human being, into one heap. I believe every…lawyer should be judged as an individual. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  I noticed that Vivian was trembling a little, whether from the fact that I’d turned down her business offer or that I was telling off the host at his own party, I couldn’t say. I continued, quickly, as no one said a word. “Why, I just learned tonight that Vivian’s daughter is an attorney.”

  Gantree lowered his glass and looked at me. “I stand corrected. On behalf of all the…lawyers in the world,” he smiled at our little game, “will you accept my apology?”

  Damn. I’d really gone too far. Diplomat Bean. Vivian put her hand on my arm, grabbing tightly.

  “Excuse us, Jack,” she said, with a wink and a smile, “Madeline and I need to discuss business. Negotiations can be so unattractive, and we don’t want to spoil your granddaughter’s big night.”

  “Not at all,” he said, smiling back at Vivian, but leaving me out of the gesture.

  “Dinner’s coming,” she promised, and then led me off to one side, literally in the shadow of the towering Tyrannosaurus rex.

  “Don’t you ever make a scene at one of my weddings again,” Vivian scolded.

  “I’m leaving now, Vivian.” I was furious. “Get a grip and just back the hell off.”

  In that instant, Vivian shifted gears and gave a good impersonation of an impish smile. “How wonderful! Looks like the dinner is being served. Go on ahead, Madeline. Sit down with your friends and enjoy. We can discuss silly old business details another time. You’re absolutely right.”

  I thought I glimpsed Honnett in the crowd that had begun moving toward the side hall.

  “And don’t worry,” Vivian was saying. “I’ll give you the name of my attorney, dollface. Believe me, he can get you out of any legal mess you’ve gotten yourself into. He’s a savior. But for now,” she opened her arm expansively, “have a lovely evening, okay? You know my promise? I pledge that each and every Vivian Duncan wedding is a night to remember!”

  Before I could adjust to the sudden change in her tactics, she moved off. And in the crush of guests, I noticed the beautiful man with the thick mustache and the deep brown eyes—the most appropriately titled “best man” at the wedding. He was talking, earnestly, with a group of men about his own age. They all appeared affluent and attractive in their dark suits and dinner jackets. But the man I was drawn to had a leaner, more sensual look. Maybe it was the long hair. Something about him intrigued me.

  “Holly could use some food,” Wes said, approaching from another direction. “Shall we go in to dinner? I’m dying to finally see the setup.”

  Holly teetered just behind Wesley, stepping for a moment directly in front of the spotlights that illuminated the T-rex. Her short, white-blond hair became a halo.

  “I saw you talking to Vivian,” Wes said, concerned. “You didn’t tell her here.”

  “Oh, yeah. I told her.” We merged with the gathering crowd of guests heading towards the open doors of the Hall of Small Mammals. Just a human herd going to feed.

  “Vivian is taking my firm ‘No!’ as an opening gambit. I’m quite the little negotiator, Wesley.”

  He put his arm around me, concerned. “How about that.”

  “Maybe we should leave.”

  “Now?” Holly wailed. “Now?”

  We had entered the grand hall, where two hundred and someodd guests were finding their assigned tables and getting settled amid the glitter of potted trees with twinkle lights. Everywhere, guests were tossing their beanbag leopard place cards on tables to hold their spots, having fun. A new dance band was playing Baby Elephant Walk from Hatari!

  Standing there at the back of the giant hall, we analyzed.

  “Ice sculptures are so seventies bar mitzvah,” Wes said, commenting on the décor. “But check it out! With all these kitsch embalmed mammals, the ice thing works.”

  “They’re fabulous,” Holly agreed. “Real kooky.”

  I had to agree. The room was sp
ectacular, and now, brought to life with so many happy guests, there was finally that missing note of warmth and animation that the static dioramas had lacked.

  “Did you get a contact number on the naked ice guy?” Wes asked, ever the networking caterer.

  I held up a small, white business card. Wes smiled. In truth, I was every ounce the networking caterer as my partner.

  Holly drifted over to the table to which we’d been assigned. Sitting there, beside an unclaimed open seat, was a star of stage, screen, and T.V.—Dick Van Dyke.

  “Jeez, you guys. Did you see our table? I’m sitting next to the guy from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang!”

  How quickly these decisions are thrust upon us! How innocent they seem at the time. If we stayed, Holly could talk to a star. If we stayed, Wes could sample Freddie Fox’s cuisine. I considered our party clothes and began to soften. And then, Holly whispered something in my ear. I turned and saw Chuck Honnett at a nearby table. He caught my eye and waved. Who, I wondered again, was that skinny woman seated beside him?

  So I gave in and said, “Let’s just stay for dinner.” Just like that. Leaving would be such a hassle, I reasoned. Staying had so many attractions. I was hungry and food was here. A primitive reaction, I know, surrounded by so many pairs of small mammal eyes.

  Chapter 9

  The waiters were clearing the dessert plates which held scant traces of the masterpieces—miniature zebras made of white chocolate mousse drizzled with bittersweet chocolate icing. I turned to Wesley. “These servers…”

  “I know. The best.”

  Among top caterers, the actual food and the way it was prepared and presented were always exceptional. That was a given. But having on tap really well-trained serving staff was the critical difference, the mark of the elite and expensive best.

  I pushed out from the table, preparing to make a run to the ladies, and turned to see if Holly cared to join me. Her mouth was open, her arms thrown wide, as she appeared to be singing a line from the song “Truly Scrumptious” to Mr. Van Dyke. In the bustle and swell of so many diners, she couldn’t really be heard for more than a few tables and I had to admit, Mr. Van Dyke didn’t seem to be particularly annoyed. I guess he’d had to put up with worse fan encounters than a giddy blonde in a tube top reliving her recent youth. Don’t think celebrities have it easy. Even at private parties, everyone knows all the words to their songs.