Elimination Night - By Anonymous Page 0,30
valet in the Mel’s Diner parking lot, a borrowed cigarette fizzing in my hand.
And now… here I was, barely recovered, speeding my way to the home of Bibi Vasquez, a woman so famous, you could hike for weeks through the Liberian jungle, meet a one-hundred-year-old tribal elder, and he’d be able to recite to you the lyrics of “I Wanna Rock” without a moment’s hesitation. Shamefully, a part of me wanted to crow about where I was going. A casual, single-line Facebook posting, perhaps, in the obligatory format of the humblebrag: “Bibi’s for lunch—how weird is that??” But you can’t humblebrag in this job, let alone brag-brag. It’s like working for Homeland Security. They monitor you. One indiscretion—one blog post, one Twitpic, one status update—and you’re out.
I wondered if Len was coming today, too. I hoped not. Then again, it seemed unlikely—no, impossible—that Bibi had invited me over for a private get-together. The very thought of me and Bibi, alone, was enough to induce panic, and before I knew it, I’d cracked open the window and was gulping air, trying not to vomit.
“You okay?” asked my handsome driver, glancing back.
“Fine,” I said, pulling out my phone and dialing Brock’s number. This was long overdue.
“Yo!” said Brock, after barely half a ring.
“Hey, babe,” I began, trying to keep my voice down. “So, you’ll never guess—”
“This is Brock,” he interrupted. “I’m either busy right now, or a robot from the future has vaporized me and is impersonating my voice, hoping to lure you into a deadly trap.”
“Brock?”
“If you’re planning to meet me someplace, BRING WEAPONS. Otherwise, wait for the—”
Beeeep.
“Arrrgh! Jesus, Brock, how old are you?”
I hung up. Brock had no doubt been watching The Terminator again with Crazy Pete, his old high school buddy. Pete smokes weed like most people chew gum. I wouldn’t have cared, but Brock is annoying on weed. It makes him giggle. Men shouldn’t giggle.
About forty minutes had passed when the Rolls-Royce took a ramp off the freeway, crossed a bridge, wafted down a side street, crossed another bridge, then arrived at a gatehouse. The barrier opened automatically as we pulled up to it, and a uniformed attendant waved us in. “Welcome to Secret Mountain,” read a woodsy-looking sign on the other side. I knew the name from ShowBiz: This was a private town, with its own private supermarket, private cinema, private church, and private school, where celebrities could live beyond the lenses of the paparazzi. Or at least that was the theory. Unfortunately, the paparazzi had discovered an invention known as the helicopter.
After turning up a steep driveway, we at last reached Bibi’s house. Well, I say “house”… but the place was big enough to hold its own on the international palace circuit.
The Rolls came to halt in a circular motor court. The driver got out and opened my door. Stepping out of the car, I took in the view: Ranchland in every direction. Not a road, not a rooftop, not a single transmission tower. (I’ve since learned that Teddy paid to have all the electrical cables buried within a twenty-mile radius.) We were only a few miles from LA, yet we might as well have been out in Montana.
“Please,” said the driver—my God, he was hot—gesturing toward the entranceway.
A maid ushered me inside calmly. Russian or Polish, I guessed. Her manner was somehow both deferential and unfriendly. It occurred to me that I’d never been inside a celebrity’s home before. Not that the usual rules of domesticity apply, I guess, when it comes to the likes of Bibi Vasquez. No, for someone like her, a home isn’t so much a home as a private hotel, built and operated for the needs of a single guest. As such, they tell you little about their owners, aside from their choice of interior decorator, and the manner in which they manage their staff. In Bibi’s case, however, both of these tasks had been outsourced to Teddy, presumably in return for yet another percentage point or two on her income.
I was led down a gnarled-oak hallway. Along the way, we must have passed a dozen other household employees—not explicitly uniformed, but identifiable by their ironed polo shirts and creased khakis—attending unobtrusively to various chores. In one room, a woman was bathing five pit bull puppies. In another, a giant popcorn machine was being recalibrated. And then of course there were the cleaners, oddjobbers, security guards, and landscapers outside (using rakes, I noticed, not blowers, to avoid disturbing the peace). Finally,