At The Hotel Bel-Air that morning every table on the patio was occupied.
The demure hostess seemed flustered. They were booked up for breakfast and she wasn’t sure what to tell the people waiting how long their wait would be.
That hadn’t been covered in her perfunctory training, so she improvised.
“It should be just a few minutes.” She figured that was sufficiently vague yet reassuring.
She saw two tables open up. The guests had left to join others at a nearby corner table.
The pitcher of mimosas was poured by a woman in a green velvet blazer, black jeans and tall black boots. That seemed to be her uniform now, and she had bought a skull ring like she saw Keith Richards wear.
After breakfast she would go to Burbank to find out what her father had left for her in the safe deposit box. She sat next to a short man with curly hair who began to tell her he had just quit his job as a network security consultant.
Then everything around her shattered. The air went away. Her wicker chair flipped over. She felt the man grab her and drag her under their tilted round table.
The explosion sent a fierce concussive wave rolling back and forth between the walls of the patio.
Shards of large terracotta pots sliced through the air, which was laced with the odor of mercaptan. Glasses, plates and silverware sailed across the patio in a seething torrent. Wicker chairs were upended. Nearby hotel windows shattered.
The man with curly hair helped her up. Then he steadied the three other women who crawled out from beneath the table.
Each stood up. Two were bleeding. All were conscious and able to walk. She handed the two women who were bleeding linen napkins.
The woman in the UCLA cap motioned them to follow her. She guided them across the patio, past all the bodies, over bloodstained tablecloths, shorn palm fronds and debris strewn on the patio floor. Above them, heavy iron cannister lanterns swung with silent fury.
They moved quickly through the hotel and out to the parking lot. She watched the woman in the UCLA cap aim her phone at a Mercedes-Maybach GLS SUV. The doors unlocked.
She brushed dust off her green velvet coat and climbed into the back seat.
There would not be a trip to the bank in Burbank to find out what her father had left for her in the safe deposit box.
