Chore Whore by Heather H. Howard Page B

when I first started working for Jock, Concepcion came across firearms stashed under his bed, in certain drawers, in his car and in the gym. After she found the guns, Jock’s lawyers cooked up a paper for her to sign in which she was sworn to keep her mouth shut about every aspect of his personal life. Jock didn’t know she’d already told me about her findings.
    Right after that, I saw Jock go into his meditation room, but when I entered the room he was gone. His meditation room is a pristine alcove off his bedroom. There are no pictures, awards, books, windows, doors or artwork. The room is wallpapered in an unusual pumpkin orange stripe pattern. It features a pillow on the floor and a huge statue of a Buddha in a recessed niche on one wall. That’s it. Jock is what they call a Jew-Bu, genetically Jewish but practicing Buddhism.
    I stood in the doorway, dumbfounded, searching for an explanation as to where he had gone. I called out to him. No answer. Stupidly, I picked up the pillow, as if to find him there. I leaned into the niche and looked behind the figure . . . only a renegade dust bunny and the earthquake strap securing the carved figure to the wall in case of a temblor.
    The following week, Lucy and Jock left for a two-week trip to St. Tropez with Jack Nicholson and Angelica Huston. Concepcion had the two weeks off, and I was left to my own devices. Jock asked me to get the air-conditioning filters changed for the summer season and the pool’s bottom paint changed from light blue to black. Before they came home, he also wanted me to drain, clean and rearrange the scenery in his wall-length fish aquarium that was home to a two-foot shark and other fishies that kept getting eaten when “Jaws” wasn’t fed enough. Not willing to lose my right arm in this endeavor, I called the pros. While they cleaned the tank, I had plenty of time to snoop in the meditation room.
    I went in, sat on the pillow and stared at the walls, ceiling, and floor, then examined the motion detector sensors whose invisible beams cross the middle of the room. I touched Buddha in every place I could, even some unmentionable ones. Standing in front of the statue, I looked out across the room.
    I found what I was looking for when I ran my fingers over the molding that surrounded the recess. One piece of molding was looser than the rest and slightly separated from the wall. I pulled it gently. As if it were on hydraulic hinges, the entire wall opened to reveal a steep staircase going down to complete blackness.
    Silently scolding Buddha for keeping secrets from me, I went to get a flashlight from Jock’s earthquake kit and returned to the meditation room. As I descended the tightly twisting spiral staircase, I entered another world. Images of hell, Italian catacombs, Parisian sewers and Cold War bomb shelters flew rapidly through my mind. I hit the last stair and it dawned on me where I was. This had to be his safe room, and here, all this time, I had thought the basement was the only room below the house.
    It was explained to me by an FBI agent I once dated that criminals who break into celebrities’ homes don’t typically want to kill them. Thrilled by the proximity to their idols, they want to steal their stuff or perhaps even kidnap them. Celebs respond by finding a way to barricade themselves from such a threat. Safe rooms are lined in steel so no gunshot can penetrate. They have telephone lines that are buried underground so no one can cut them, or they are equipped with cellular. They usually have television monitors split into four or more screens so occupants can watch everything going on outside their home. Some have safes in the ground or wall. Some also have a wine cave, storage room, closet, bathroom and dressing room. All have a button that when pushed forces the alarm system into panic mode. And most have a loaded gun for the worst-case scenario.
    I turned on the lights. Bright, fluorescent bulbs