Naked in Dangerous Places - Cash Peters [91]
Dinner is served in a dark corner of the main hallway. Despite the fact that there's no place set for him, Willy joins us anyway. The man has the table manners of a horse, shoveling ungodly amounts of bread and vegetables and rice and braised lamb into his mouth, not to mention all the wine he knocks back at our expense, his armor-plated ego impervious to the daggers of loathing being flung his way.
“Hey, guys,” he says mid-forkful, head buried in his food, “do me a favor, will ya? Shoot a few scenes of the hotel and put them in the show.” It's so casual, the way he does it. A throwaway line tossed out randomly, giving us the option to say no, while at the same time leaving us in no doubt that doing so would be a very bad idea. “Please? Just a couple—in the grounds, your rooms, and so on. It would really help.”
Help? Help whom?
Then the penny drops.
The sly dog. I knew it!
This is the deal. The deal he's done with the hotel. That's how we got such a great rate, by using the leverage of free publicity. “They're from an American TV network,” he must have told the owner's son, clearly spelling out the word “American”: M-O-N-E-Y. I can see it all now. “Give them rooms and I guarantee you publicity in the show.” When a little more research—say, by asking us—would have told him that we never put the hotel we're staying at in the show itself, as that would spoil the illusion; only the place where I spend the five hours we call night. So we couldn't do the sweaty, conniving creep a favor even if we wanted to.
By now, several pairs of “bad eyes” are trained on Willy, boring holes in his forehead. “Your home had better be stuffed to the rafters with Hands of Fatimah,” I'm thinking. “You're going to need all the bloody protection you can get tonight.”
After a noncommittal “Hm, I'll see what I can do” from Kevin, to be nice, but which in TV terms is another way of saying “absolutely not,” Mike hurriedly changes the subject. “Hey, buddy, d'you have our tickets with you?”
“Yeah,” Willy says, guzzling a glass of Merlot. “They're in my coat.”
“Well, could we have them?”
“Sure. But I mean …” Inconvenienced, he points his knife and fork at his food to show he's not finished. “… you know, first? Okay?”
“Okay. Just make sure you give me mine before you leave tonight,” I say.
“I told you, I will,” he snaps back, crossly. “It's fine.”
Once he's labored over two helpings of dessert, devouring almost a third of a fruit pie, being sure to leave room for cookies, some of which he stuffs in his pocket, Willy slips away from the table, we assume to bring his coat, disappearing for several minutes. Then several minutes more. And, oddly, for several more minutes after that.
Having given him the benefit of the doubt for long enough, Tasha hurries to the window and lets out a gasp. “Hey!”
“What?”
“The sonofabitch! His car's gone!”
“NO!!!”
I run to the window too. I don't believe it. She's right. The clapped-out Skoda is no longer in the driveway. What the hell kinda game is this jackass playing?
Is it possible that he sold our tickets to someone else? Can that even be done? Aren't they nontransferable? And if not, does this mean that, instead of being upgraded to better flights and/or seats, we've actually been downgraded to having no flights at all and being stuck in Morocco over Christmas? Oh hell! My mind's doing cartwheels now. Or, is he merely holding them hostage to ensure we perform our side of a bargain we didn't even agree to?
As we're all mulling this over, the French owner's son emerges from the shadows, accompanied by a bronzed male friend with dusky features so flawless one can only assume that God himself personally signed off on them.
“Here,” the owner's son says, handing out press packs and DVDs. “I've included an up-to-date price list and some stills. Use any material you like from the disc. If there's anything else you need, just let me know.”
“We will,” Tasha says, starting to bite her bottom