SNAP: The World Unfolds

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

My phone rang just after midnight.  I’d been reading—pleasure, not work—and was dozing off.   The sudden noise startled me enough that I dropped the book on my nose so my “Hello?” was rushed.

“What’s the matter?”  Concern came through with Jean-Louis’ voice.  “You sound upset.”

“No, I just dropped a book on my nose,” I said without thinking.

“You dropped a book on your nose?  What in hell were you doing? Standing on your head?”  I could hear irritation as well as an undercurrent of amusement.

Testily, I said, “I was reading in bed.  I’d snuggled down a little and must have gone to sleep for a minute.  When I reached for the phone I dropped the book.  Are you still at the office?”

“Yes, I just wrapped up the conference calls.  The time difference makes for a limited window.  I try and catch Stefan just before dawn.”

“Is everything alright there”

“So far, the Huszars are quiet tonight.  Not sure what today brings.  You wanted to talk about Jazz?”

What I wanted to talk to him about was touchy.  I had a couple of false starts before he spoke. “Just tell me.  You’re stumbling around and that’s not like you.”

“Does she know about you and SNAP?” I managed to get out.

“Know what about me and SNAP?”

“Does she know you’re a vampire?  Does she know that SNAP is a vampire company?”

Jean-Louis was quiet.

“Well?”  I prodded.  “One time I found blood in a bathroom, like one of you dropped a cup.  When I went to get Jazz, she seemed surprised.  It had been cleaned up when we got back the bathroom and she looked at me as though I was half a sandwich short of a picnic.”

Laughter rang in my ear.

“It’s not funny. If my assistant thinks I’m nuts, it makes for an iffy work place.”

“I’m not laughing at you; I’m laughing at your idiom.  My English is excellent, but more formal than yours.  Your sayings are odd.”

Sometimes I did slip into weird slang and jargon without realizing it.  Well, tough.  This is one thing that Jean-Louis would have to live with.  Or not.  I wasn’t going to watch every word.

“Whatever, my question was, ‘What does Jazz know?’”

“As far as I know, she’s not an employee who knows about us,” he answered slowly.  “Why?”

“She’s naturally curious about the trip, about the Baron—Stefan—about what I did there.  I don’t want to say anything that she’ll question.  She’s plugged in to the circuit and ...”

“How plugged in do you think she is?”  His question stopped me.

“I’m not sure.  When you first came she’d heard your real name was Johnnie Lew, that you came from another glossy, maybe Southern Life, that you may be gay and that someone ‘up there’ had your back.”

“Well plugged in.  I’m glad it worked.”

“What worked?”  Jean-Louis and I weren’t having the same conversation.

“Disinformation.  We dropped a few pieces about a week before I actually showed up at the offices, counting on SNAP’s garden of gossip to grease my arrival.  It seems like every seed took.”

Now it was my turn to laugh.  I got out “You guys,” before I had to catch my breath.  “I’m astounded at you people.  Even when I can’t see a plan, there’re threads and webs tangled in the background. Boy, I’d hate to be on your ‘disinformation’ distribution list.  Oohh...”  

Was I jumping off the cliff of assumption?

“Am I part of your disinformation?  Are you feeding me lies, thinking I’ll pass them along?”

Watch it, I told myself.  Take your time.

“No. you’re not.  But part of the plan evolved because of you.”

“Me?  Why me?”

Jean-Louis’ voice softened.  “I told you we’d been watching you.  Stefan was interested in your background.  You’d worked for Hello! which meant you had an understanding of the aristo coverage in Europe.  You were fearless but careful and knew how far you could push the envelope.  You’d never had to retract a story and never had a fact disputed.  We want to stay way away from libel suits—even threats of one—not only for the money but because of the publicity it would bring to SNAP Holdings.  We’re privately held and intend to keep it that way.

“And after you started with us, I watched you first hand before I ‘joined’ the staff.  My interest in you was stretching beyond your work at SNAP.”

I could feel a low hum coming through the earpiece.  I knew he could turn the glimmer up for impact; the hum was a sign of truth-telling.  Like a cat’s purr, it was involuntary.

“I can’t begin to tell you how glad I am that you’re not Johnny Lew from the south and how eternally happy I am that you’re not gay,” I said quietly into the phone.

This time the tone of his voice told me he was tickled.  “It’s amazing that that seed of disinformation made it as far as it did.  Jazz is a good conduit and we can use her.  How well do you work together?”

“Very well.  I like her; she’s efficient, anticipates things, handles routine decisions on her own, keeps me scheduled, goes beyond, like setting up the personal shoppers and arranging for my furniture delivery.  She’s been with SNAP long enough to know where most of the bodies are buried and watches for my missteps.  I guess I was hoping she knew everything about you vampires.  It would be comfortable to have a confidant.”

There was a subtext to this.  It would be wonderful if I could share things with someone who knew about the vampires, but wasn’t one of the family.  I wasn’t about to swap confidences with Carola or Mira or, God forbid, Pen.

When I moved back to L.A. I’d looked up some of my friends from college and earlier in my career.  I had two women I could go to lunch or dinner with and one closer friend, Donnell, who was always up for a girly day at the spa.

They’d gone on with their lives. Donnell was divorced and worked for a PR firm in the Valley.  She worked hard, long hours, but would always fit me in.  Krista and Holly were married with kids.  Krista was a family law attorney and I marveled at her staying power after watching other marriages fall apart with anger, nastiness and violence. Holly was a real estate agent who worked part-time.  She’d married well, a client to whom she’d sold a $4 million house.  She was available between tennis lessons, play dates and carpools.

None of these women could ever know who Jean-Louis really was.  I could, and did, regale them with stories of my travels and celebrities but as I grew closer to the vampires, I was growing away from these women.