Crack-Up Read Free Page B

the call was for me.   It wasn’t, but the sound of the ring had startled me into realizing that I’d forgotten all about calling my billionaire client back.
    Yet there was dinner just ahead, and Ellie’s bedtime soon after that, and so I didn’t phone John Helms until the following morning.   What was the wealthiest person in America when compared to the most important person on Earth?
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 3
     
     
     
     
    My overdue phone call to John Helms the next morning resumed our discussion of an alleged spy who’d built a backdoor into some software.   He was a good deal more upset than usual about a potential security breach.   I promised to put an investigator on the case right away.
    “I want those programmers grilled,” he said.   “I want them investigated.   Followed, if need be.   One of them’s lying.   One of them’s up to something.   And I won’t allow anything—anything at all—to go wrong with this project.”
    “What’s so important about this project?”
    “The client—a Wall Street consortium—will be using our software to query an extremely large database containing highly sensitive information of a personal nature.   We can’t be too careful with data like that.”
    After hanging up with John, I assigned the investigator, Dale Robo Robinski, a new hire and recently discharged US Army veteran with about a dozen years of investigations experience for the military police.   Next, I phoned my psychiatrist’s office.   My regular, monthly appointment wasn’t for another fifteen days, but I managed to reschedule for the following week.   Then my life returned to normal, so to speak, until the middle of a business trip to the west coast.
    At the time, my firm was nearly ten years old and prospering.   In regard to our personal protection unit—a kind of Secret Service for the rich and famous—we’d developed a sizable clientele, more than one hundred accounts.   Half of these clients lived in Hollywood .   One I’ll call Peggy Van Horne.   I can’t tell you her real name, but she’s a legendary singer and an Oscar-winning film star with a couple of television Emmys to boot.
    She rarely sang live anymore.   She rarely left the house anymore, I’d been told, a recluse, at least by show-biz standards.   Her long-time business manager had let me know she hadn’t been the same since the death of John Lennon.   Stage fright and crowds had haunted her ever since.   But once or twice a year, she’d perform at a charity event for one of her pet causes.   On this business trip of mine it was an Aids benefit in Los Angeles .   She was a new client and, walking backstage at the Universal Amphitheatre before the show, I was looking forward to meeting her in person, even though I’d been warned her nerves were on edge.
    “It’s just performance jitters, Mister Ward,” said her personal assistant, Malcolm, breathless from the pace he set us.   “We’ve been through this before.   Before you were hired, I mean.   So just humor her.   ‘The show must go on!’ ”
    “By the way, what exactly is a diva?”
    Malcolm sighed and shook his head.   “After today, Mister Ward, I’d say diva’s just a four-letter word for a five-letter word.   Here we are.”   He halted us in front of a star-emblazoned dressing room door and knocked.
    “Come!”   With one word, one syllable, I recognized the voice calling to us from the other side of the door, famous the world over, a soaring, sighing, sultry voice, a ménage à trois partner inside millions of bedrooms.
    “Remember,” said Malcolm, whispering as he opened the door, “don’t make eye contact.”
    “I’ll try to remember,” I whispered back.   “But it would help if she’s wearing something low-cut.”
    Inside, we were greeted by an eerie shimmer.   But it wasn’t simply all the sequined costumes.   The entire dressing room, it seemed, had been Saran-wrapped.   The fruit tray, the deli