The Organ Grinder's Monkey

By Rangel Robert and Steve Hui

A riveting saga of deceit, scandal, sex, greed and power

I've traveled all over the world. I've stayed in the best hotels and eaten in the best restaurants. But that isn't me. I'm a simple man. I have simple tastes and I live in a simple house.

But people who knew of my past life still want to know . . . what's it like? What's it like to work for the richest family on earth, the Royal Family of Brunei?

"Well they have money and they spend it," I answer them. I tire of the subject. I know once they get a taste of the story, the questions will keep coming.

"No," they answer. "That's not what I mean. What's it like to travel with the Royal Family? What are they like?"

How can I answer that?

What are they like? They are one of the last true monarchies here on earth. They still rule with a word and with a wave of their hand, no different than they did centuries ago. I worked for a true monarchy, which could have been taken straight out of the movie, "The King and I".

There is not enough time in a day or even a week to tell them all there is to tell.

Yet this story is true. It is no movie nor is it a fairy tale.

I lived it.

For a simple man like me who lives in a simple house, to become a slave of the highest order and to have lived in their world is still surreal.

I see you interrupting me, "A slave you say. There are no longer any slaves."

I scoff at you. I was indeed a slave. What do you call a person who has no life other than what the prince or princess gives them as their daily morsel. What do you call a man who does not sleep but maybe three hours a night waiting by the phone for orders or instructions for twelve years on end? Shall I tell those who ask that the work almost killed me several times over? Shall I tell them that I was indeed a slave who lost his wife because of years of neglecting her and who did not get to see his own children grow up?

Shall I tell them of the deceit, lies, and backstabbing which were the normal part of my everyday existence. Shall I tell them that maybe only one out of ten thousand men could have done my job because of the miracles that they expected me to perform?

No slaves indeed!

Welcome to my life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 30, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483626819

Book preview

The Organ Grinder’s Monkey

_____________

Robert Rangel / Steve Hui

Copyright © 2013 by Black Knights LLC.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,

without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date: 05/28/2013

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

127277

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Prologue

List of Key Characters

Chapter 1   Robert’s Beginning: The Real Deal

Chapter 2   Robert Gets Broken… In(to)

Chapter 3   Steve’s Beginning: The Journey Begins

Chapter 4   Let the Rammage Begin

Chapter 5   The Lone Ranger Resurrected

Chapter 6   Lessons Learned

Chapter 7   A Born Survivor

Chapter 8   Let’s See What You Got

Chapter 9   Twenty Toes

Chapter 10   My Man in America

Chapter 11   Heavy-Duty Cargo

Chapter 12   The Monkey and the Organ Grinder

Chapter 13   The Monkey Is a Hairy Little Pimp

Chapter 14   So Many Masters, So Little Time (Another London Vacation)

Chapter 15   Who’s Who

Chapter 16   The Monkey Exposes Himself in Brunei

Chapter 17   Big Spender

Chapter 18   Almost Killed By Golf Carts

Chapter 19   Working for Idiots

Chapter 20   Women Rule

Chapter 21   The Incredible yet True Theory of the Nearly Invincible Tofu Man!

Chapter 22   The Buzzard and the Monkey

Chapter 23   The Buzzard Is a Freep

Chapter 24   Fairy Tales Are Real

Chapter 25   Love in Another Hotel

Chapter 26   Spies and Lies

Chapter 27   Indestructable

Chapter 28   The Spy at the Wedding (The Test Monkey)

Chapter 29   Parties and More Parties

Chapter 30   The Monkey Gets the Money

Chapter 31   It Just Never Ends: The Monkey Gets Caged (But Escapes)

Chapter 32   Lying to the Lady

Chapter 33   The Monkey Loses Disney and Sleep

Chapter 34   Hanky-Panky Shenanigans

Chapter 35   The Spirit of the Monkey

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Cover illustration by Christy Lifosjoe. She can be found at her website: christylifosjoe.com

The author wishes to thank his father and mother, Robert and Marie, who read through numerous manuscript drafts.

Special thanks to Michael Siegel who read the first one hundred or so pages of the manuscript right after they were written. You told me that you could not help me with the project. Then stating you had nothing to be gained by lying to me, and you were going to be brutally honest, you said you liked it, that the characters were alive and no one else had a style like mine and not to ever stop writing. I’ll never forget your words and the encouragement they gave me.

To all of you who read the manuscript I thank you for your time and suggestions. Special thanks to Cynthia Avery and J.J. Williams, I appreciate your special comments and help.

To Karen and Doug Richardson who have not read the manuscript but have inspired me to be brave I thank you. Doug Richardson, may your continued success as an author be great.

To the rest of you who continued to beat the dead horse and made him get up and write again, thanks.

Check out the Author’s website at robertrangelbooks.com

The robertrangelbooks.com website was built by Dillon Rangel with assistance from Nick Backus. Thanks guys, you are both very talented and did a great job.

While writing the book some told me to add spice, I added coriander.

Dillon and Christy, I love you both.

PROLOGUE

I’ve traveled all over the world. I’ve stayed in the best hotels and eaten in the best restaurants. But that isn’t me. I’m a simple man. I have simple tastes and I live in a simple house.

But people who knew of my past life still want to know… what’s it like? What’s it like to work for the richest family on earth?

Well they have money and they spend it, I answer them. I tire of the subject. I know once they get a taste of the story, the questions will keep coming.

No, they answer. That’s not what I mean. What’s it like to travel with the royal family? What are they like?

How can I answer that?

What are they like? They are one of the last true monarchies here on earth. They still rule with a word and with a wave of their hand, no different than they did centuries ago. I worked for a true monarchy which could have been taken straight out of the movie the King and I.

There is not enough time in a day or even a week to tell them all there is to tell.

Yet this story is true. It is no movie nor is it a fairy tale.

I lived it.

For a simple man like me who lives in a simple house, to become a slave of the highest order and to have lived in their world is still surreal.

I see you interrupting me, A slave you say. There are no longer any slaves.

I scoff at you. I was indeed a slave. What do you call a person who has no life other than what the prince or princess gives them as their daily morsel. What do you call a man who does not sleep but maybe three hours a night waiting by the phone for orders or instructions for twelve years on end? Shall I tell those who ask that the work almost killed me several times over? Shall I tell them that I was indeed a slave who lost his wife because of years of neglecting her and who did not get to see his own children grow up?

Shall I tell them of the deceit, lies, and backstabbing which were the normal part of my everyday existence. Shall I tell them that maybe only one out of ten thousand men could have done my job because of the miracles that they expected me to perform?

No slaves indeed!

Welcome to my life.

LIST OF KEY CHARACTERS

CHAPTER 1

Robert’s Beginning: The Real Deal

In 1995 I was working as a detective for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. In the ten years I’d been on the job I’d been shot twice, and had spit eight different bullets at three different people. I now lug a .22-caliber bullet in my shoulder for all that fun. I’d nearly gotten killed a few times (My car caught on fire with flames licking my windshield while driving over a hundred miles an hour chasing a guy on a motorcycle. He had just robbed a guy at an ATM with a .45 and was trying to get away. I’d fought lots of guys on PCP, even wrestled my partner in an alley over some forgotten disagreement. I had lived through the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles and had snapped my knee on the job). You could say that I’d been to the circus and seen the show. I was known as The Calamity Kid! Oh, I’d been a busy boy!

Well, there I was just minding my own business, you know the drill, working, going to court, handling criminal cases, writing search warrants, trying to make sense out of it all. I mean, what was it all about? Maybe no one cared but me. Maybe I was just spinning my wheels. What did it all mean? I was busy as hell, as all us detectives were, when I got the call. Yeah, the call. I was trying to make ends meet for my second wife, my two kids, and I get the call from one of my former trainees, Mike. Mike had been my trainee in 1990 and, by this time, had quit the department and transferred out to the Las Vegas Police Department.

In case you’re wondering, a trainee is a deputy who is not yet completely patrol-trained and is considered lower than a whale turd on the deputy food chain. You know, Sit down, shut up, get up, get out! Watch the door doesn’t hit you on the tukas, (That’s Jewish for ass, which I am not, but he was. No, no, not an ass, he was Jewish. Okay, maybe he was both), on the way out! They are cannon fodder. This is a totally expendable person, unproven and therefore untrusted.

Back to Mike. He was patrol-trained by me after I’d been hurt on the job a couple of times. I guess they figured if I was still around after what I’d been through, I should get a little promotion and a deputy to train.

Ever get those life-changing moments that don’t seem like much at the time it happens? Like when you go on a blind date and a week later you are drunk in Las Vegas and married to her forever? Well, my phone rang and it was Mike. The call.

Hey, Robert, there’s a Royal Family coming into Los Angeles and the Chief of Security, ‘Steve,’ needs someone to guard one of the Family members.

Mike, you’re smoking your socks! I hadn’t talked to Mike in two or three years and now it’s a Royal Family.

No, really, Robert, this is the real deal. It’s the richest guy in the world.

Oh now it was not just a Royal Family but also the richest guy in the world.

Well, I’ll tell you something, folks. You don’t get to be a detective without hearing all sorts of real deals that turned out to be not such real deals. The scams that people get involved in, all stemming from real deals that were too good to be true. They always turn out to be not so true. Right? If you don’t believe me, remember when your mama told you, If it sounds too good to be true, then it’s too good to be true! Why do you insist on dreaming of things that just don’t happen? Anyway I mean out of the clear blue, I get this phone call. I hadn’t talked to Mike in two years. I wondered how many times Mike’s mother had dropped him on his head when he had been a baby.

I mean Royal Family?! Richest man on earth?! Real deal?! Come on!

Okay, OKAY . . . I went for it. I’m a dummy and a dreamer! Hey, you laughing, you would have gone for it too! Right? Right? Am I right?!

But Mike was right. It was the real deal.

*     *     *

The job fell through. I felt like a sucker. I didn’t feel like a sucker; I was a sucker! I went for it and it didn’t happen. So the story I got was that they changed their mind and canceled everything. The Royal Family changed their mind the day before they were to arrive in Los Angeles. I see you yawning and asking, Robert, what do you mean ‘everything’? So they canceled. So what? You sound upset, Robert. Relax.

Damn right, I was upset!

Maybe there was no Royal Family. How much sense did it make that they would just call the night before their arrival and cancel everything? People don’t do that. Do they? I was thinking how could they just cancel the night before after supposedly booking hotels, security, drivers, and town cars?

Do you have any idea what I had gone through to get ready for their arrival? I had put in for a month off at work. I had spent seven hundred dollars to update my 1980s wardrobe. I ended up having to cancel my time off. I was a class-one real-deal dumbass sucker-believer. I had believed it was the real deal.

As I was asking the sergeant to put me back on the schedule, he looked at me like the jerk I was, since he had already filled out the schedule for the month and had me off and someone else to cover my shifts. I had to explain to my wife why I had spent next month’s mortgage on clothes I no longer needed. I went from becoming the new hero on the block to Rasputin. I was a pariah, something to be shunned. The Royal Family changed their minds about coming to Los Angeles. Now I was a whale turd. I was at the bottom of the food chain.

What I didn’t know was that maybe one out of ten thousand people who arrange things for the Royal Family of Brunei can do so and not have a nervous breakdown. Why? Quick lesson. When the Royal Family of Brunei tells you they are coming into town, you don’t just meet them at the airport and drop them off at the hotel. There are certain arrangements to be made. There are certain protocols to follow and niceties to observe. They require certain special accommodations. This includes but is not limited to housing, drivers, and security. Short list, right? Sounds easy, right? These are only three things you say. What you don’t understand is that each one of these things by itself is immensely complicated.

I hear you asking, Oh, Robert, why is it so hard? You still don’t get it, do you? The Family might have up to one hundred and fifty different people accompanying them. That’s right, one-five-o. This would include friends, assistants, assistants to assistants, maids, cooks, nannies, phone technicians, security from their own country, and spies. (What is it now? Yes, I said the word spies. I know you saw the word spies. Yes, I ignored it, be patient and wait until you get to that part in the book!) When you set accommodations up for everyone, it needs to be done to the liking of that particular Prince or Princess. Each of the assistants had their own demands that needed to be met. To ignore the Royals’ demands is to be fired. Never make the mistake of thinking that just because someone is an assistant they can be ignored. This will also result in your standing in the unemployment line.

I see you are unimpressed. You still don’t get it. Remember Steve? Remember the Chief of Security for the Royal Family of Brunei? He was responsible for fourteen different Princes and Princesses. I’ll bet you couldn’t keep track of each and every individual’s likes and dislikes, including the assistants. Let me put it in perspective, how long did it take you to learn what your husband or wife or boyfriend or girlfriend liked or didn’t like? How many times did he or she have to tell you again and again and again, Don’t do that, I don’t like it! I know because I’ve been through two wives and I never could get it straight. Now you understand, don’t you? You are just are getting an inkling of the intricacies and nuances of the job.

In comparison to what I had been put through, Steve’s inconvenience was a hundredfold more. Picture the day you almost had your nineteenth nervous breakdown. Nervous breakdown? You bet. Steve had to get word to everyone he had hired that they were no longer needed. He had to cancel hotel rooms, security, drivers, cooks, cars, restaurant reservations, and on and on and on. Of course he did not know what to tell everyone except that the Family had canceled the trip. It was that simple, and that complicated.

I didn’t know it then, but in a short time, I would be assisting Steve with these arrangements. I wasn’t smarter than anyone else; it’s just that I was willing to endure more pain than anyone and put up with an unbelievable amount of bullshit. Well, okay then, I admit it. That actually made me more stupid than everyone else. But because I was more stupid, I learned more than most about the job from the Maestro, Steve, who was actually more stupid than me because he put up with more pain than even I. But he became a trusted and valued slave for his willingness to forgo seeing his children grow up and time spent with his wife. He gave up his personal life for twelve years for the Royal Family.

Here goes an unbelievable story, but believe . . . it’s all true.

CHAPTER 2

Robert Gets Broken… In(to)

The Royal Family needed guys that were personable, charming, persuasive, and highly manipulative in a sweet way. Like taking a woman into bed who doesn’t want to go, but afterward realizes she didn’t mind the trouble. Those being manipulated should not realize that they are being manipulated, or if they did, the manipulation should be done so that they do not mind. They had to be able to make happen whatever was needed to happen, with no resentment by those who were being manipulated. They needed guys that looked about thirty years old, good looking, but not too good looking. Perish the thought that one of the Princesses should plunge from deity status and fall for an error-ridden mere mortal pauper. This would definitely incur the wrath of the Prince, be it her father or husband. When something like this happens, as it rarely does, someone will pay. Usually it is the person who the Princess fell for and the person who recommended him and the person who recommended him to be hired. Why? Why punish the persons up the chain who hired them all? It’s very simple. If one person is bad, then how can the person who hired him be good? This is the Asian way. This is a hint into the Asian mind, which is where Brunei is located. This will be a common theme throughout the book, remember it well.

The security guy should look like a guy who can speak five languages, a guy who’s handy with guns and knives and bare hands, someone who can whip at least five guys bigger than him, single-handedly, while carrying two fully grown Princesses out of imminent danger. These are other things that you’ve seen in the movies that you already know about.

I am here to tell you that the stuff in the movies is not true, both about what you think about cops and what you know about working for Royal Families or how they think. But what’s waaaay cool is that the truth is more fascinating than the movies.

I assume that since you are on the second chapter, you have bought this book. If not, go pay for it and read it. I guarantee you will never look at money and power the same way again.

Back to the basics. The reality is that the Family needed to find the best concierge service they could find. Ninety percent of the job was about making things happen. I told you that three paragraphs ago. That’s what the job was all about—arranging things and making them happen immediately, perfectly and smoothly. Smooooth, baby! Like an oiled baby’s butt. No problems!

To be a top-notch concierge guy, you have to know whom to call to help you. It helps to have a worldwide reputation as being the real deal yourself. In other words, people in powerful places, from the managers of amusement parks, to parking valets, to restaurant owners, to hotel managers, to customs agents and government officials should know you by reputation and by name.

They needed a concierge guy. What did they get? Me! A cop! Actually, ex-cop. I had just retired. I had no concierge training at all, if there is such a thing. I just got the right phone numbers. I learned how to walk and talk like I knew what was going on. I learned how to ask and beg and subtly threaten people. I learned how to smile and flirt and flit and swish to get people to help me. I told them that if they didn’t help me and I did not accomplish my mission, I would be fired and I and my wives and ex-wives and kids and animals would starve. I looked at them with deer eyes like Bambi, or I would look at them like a mafioso don. Whatever worked. Basically, I bullshitted my way through. Thank God I’m high on bullshit!

*     *     *

When I finally did go to work, it wasn’t for the Royal Family of Brunei. But it was for a Royal Family. It was for Sultan Iskandar who was the Sultan of Johor. Johor is a state in the country of Malaysia.

The morning I was to start, Steve called me and told me to meet him inside of the lobby of the Beverly Hills Hotel. This hotel is also known as the Pink Palace.

For anyone who doesn’t know about the hotel, it has quite a history. Although made of inanimate wood, steel, glass, and plaster, it really is a living thing. The history of the place is amazing. Google it. You’ll see. Movie moguls love and have made love in it.

Stay, eat, drink, lounge, cut deals, and screw. It is a luxurious five-star hotel located on Sunset Boulevard, specifically at 9600 Sunset Boulevard. Let’s put it this way: it was good enough for Marilyn Monroe and the famous Kennedys. You know of whom I speak. Howard Hughes lived there for years before moving to Las Vegas; anyway, I could go on and on and on. It’s one of the most famous, infamous places to go and be seen and not seen.

Hell, I grew up in Los Angeles, next to Beverly Hills, and when I got to the lobby, I was impressed.

Steve was late. Really late. When he finally called me, he told me to come up to the house just north of the hotel on Crescent Drive.

I still had not seen Steve; I didn’t know what he looked like. I walked to the house and was met by another security cop hired by Steve. I was wearing a suit. Everyone else was wearing casual clothes like Dockers and polo shirts. There were probably ten guys waiting around.

So there I was standing around and in walks Steve and passes me, only I didn’t know that it was Steve and he didn’t say hello or introduce himself.

So Steve walked past me into the house. I didn’t know anyone. Finally one of the guys hanging out said to me, Did you meet Steve?

No, I haven’t.

He said, He walked past you about five minutes ago.

I was wondering how why he hadn’t introduced himself to me. So I asked the security guy, Which guy that walked past me five minutes ago?

The Chinese guy.

Everybody was Asian except the drivers and American security. I thought hard and long, but I finally was able to remember an Asian brother who looked like he came from a different mother. Steve looked like he was twenty-five years old. I thought, Oh shit, a kid is running this thing. Little did I know that Steve is nine years older than me and was a master of running these types of security details. Boy, did I have a lot to learn, and over the years, learn I did. Just a little at a time. All in Steve’s time according to the amount he doled out to me. This was after he figured that I probably wasn’t going to try to backstab him like damn near everyone else had. The possibility of making major money makes great backstabbers. Well, I am not a backstabber. I am many things, but above all else, I am loyal. William Holden said it best in the movie The Wild Bunch: When you side with a man, you stick with him, otherwise you’re nothing but an animal.

Well, I am an animal, but a loyal one (actually more like a beast according to my second wife!).

Anyway Steve finally came outside of the house and introduced himself to me. He said, Did you bring udda crothes?

I’m wondering what the hell were crothes. Finally I caught on. Oh, clothes, hell yes, I got other clothes.

He said, You better hurry and change into more casual crothes, the Princess is ready to go out.

Well, my car is parked halfway down across the world. That’s where my clothes were. I mean someday you got to go the hotel and you will know what the hell I’m talking about. Go change? Hurry up? The Princess is ready to go? I just got there. Man oh man! I wasn’t late, Steve was, but I was on the spot to hurry. I was getting major league pressure and I had just got there. I was getting broken into. How apropos this introduction was, because every day there would be times like these. You just had to make it work and not complain. Figure it out and make it work. It would have been easier though if Steve had been gentler.

I walked a fast two thousand miles in three minutes back to my car. I got my crothes and walked even faster back the two thousand miles in two minutes and got changed and met my driver. I mean the Princess’s driver. Let’s call him James. That’s not his real name, but it’s the name that the Princess called him and he liked it. So did I. I never had a driver before, but if I did, I would want his name to be James. I was sweating a river.

The Princess came out and said, James, let’s go. James looked at me and said, Let’s go. I got in the car and all three of us got. Things eased up then. This Princess was truly one of the nicest and most down-to-earth persons you would ever like to meet. You see, as a rule, Princes and Princesses don’t talk much to security. In fact, if they can avoid it, they will not talk to you at all. But how was I to know that, this was my first detail.

The Princess was sitting right behind me and out of the silence yelled in my ear, Call me Zaza, (short for Zabedah). I almost jumped out of my skin. I thought what a nice name. I know I was being a little rude by not responding with a polite, Nice to meet you, my name is Robert, but I was trying to calm my hammering heart from her sudden screaming from six inches from my head.

She yelled again. She thought I hadn’t heard her. This time I just quivered as the air shock waves from her thunderous vocal cords hit me. She said, What’s your name?

Robert.

I almost jumped out of my skin again. Rrrrrroberrrrt, we will shop!

Yes, Princess. Oh man, I believed her.

RRRRROBERRRRT, call me Zaza, and he’s James. James, she said, let’s go back to the store we went to yesterday.

James said, Yes, Zaza.

We were riding around in a Lincoln town car. Very comfortable! We cruised by Rodeo Drive. I thought, Well, we’d stop here soon. Versace, Gucci, Chanel, Bijan, Ferragamo, Van Cleef and Arpel, Harry Winston, and Tiffany—man, where were we going to stop? I’d never been to any of these stores. The list goes on and on. Well, we passed Rodeo Drive and went west. West meant Century City. There was another whole bevy of stores.

We passed Century City.

Hey, now you’re just like me. You want to know where we were going.

We went to the Westwood Village. Inside of the Westwood Village, there are trendy boutiques and nice stores where many cute women shop to their hearts’ delight. This would be exciting. Robert was going to see beautiful Los Angeles women in five-inch pumps shopping in their tight pants and short skirts on a hot sunny summer afternoon in Westwood. I was like a Mexican jumping bean, all excited and quivering!

At the corner of Westwood Boulevard and Brockton Avenue in the village, there used to be a Thrifty Drug Store. That’s where Zaza had shopped the day before and where we went shopping that day. I can see why.

Folks, in case you didn’t know it, there’s toothpaste and hairbrushes and shampoo, toilet paper, Coke and vitamins, and all kinds of great buys and bargains. It’s a shame that I didn’t get to see the entire store because we spent all of our time, three hours’ worth of shopping, in one aisle looking at diet supplements.

What do the Chinese know about torture? Bamboo shoots under the fingernails. I scoff; I tell you, scoff at that. American Indians thought they had torture down to a science: Hey, chief, me wanna light white man on fire, then make’um run naked through cactus patch. The chief’s going, Yeah, heapah good fun!

Girls, in case you didn’t know it, if you ever get mad at your man, don’t nag or yell at him. Forget about the Chinese, or the Indians—no, no. Just take him shopping and spend three hours in one twenty-foot aisle looking at diet pills. Oh, you’ll break him like Venetian glass at a frat party!

As my feet and ankles started to ache and swell, I wondered if this was normal. I felt self-conscious. Kind of like I was naked and everyone else was clothed, or like I had a booger hanging off of my nose or something. The same people who worked at the store kept walking by and asking me, Do you need some help?

I would smile and respond, No, thank you, just looking.

Now, this worked for the first hour. The second hour, the workers would kind of look at me and smile. But it was not a happy smile. It was more of an Are you some kind of weirdo? smile. At hour three, the employees outwardly disliked me. I mean I was standing in one aisle in one spot for three hours in a twenty-foot section trying to be inconspicuous. Inconspicuous? I’m six feet two and two hundred and twenty pounds. Now just to let you know, I’m not a shy guy, but standing inside the store for three hours really made me feel like everyone was staring at me. Hell, they were staring at me!

Finally we ended up buying $200 worth of diet supplements. Now you’ve got to understand, this Princess is from Malaysia. Zaza is not even five feet tall and only weighs eighty pounds. It turns out that the diet supplements were for her boyfriend back in Malaysia.

If only I could find a woman with such devotion as Zaza.

Zaza loved to shop. What’s more it was fun—she shopped in the same places as me!

*     *     *

Malaysia has thirteen states. Nine of these have Sultans. Iskandar is the last name of the Sultan of Johor, which is one of these nine states. When addressing the Sultan, we addressed him as Your Majesty.

The Sultan of Johor is the father of Zaza. He is in charge of the Johor province or state. He’s about five feet seven inches tall. He, like Zaza, prefers to yell when he talks. He yells if he’s happy, he yells when he’s angry. Mostly he is extremely impatient. It is when he’s impatient that he yells the loudest.

The Sultan’s routine is fairly simple. He wakes up early in the morning and has breakfast then goes back to sleep. After a couple of hours napping, he’s off to eat and play golf or shop. After golfing or shopping, it’s back home to rest to get ready to dine. After dining, it’s back home and then it’s story time.

Story time is his time to impress people. This is when he talked mainly about his knowledge of guns or military matters. He was in the Malaysian army and was cross-trained with the United States Army Airborne. The talks could last most times till one or two in the morning, then off to bed to start the next day over, with the same routine.

The Sultan of Johor is extremely cheap. I am talking about cheeeaaaap as far as money goes. Cheap for you or I is one thing, but when you are a Sultan, it should be embarrassing when you’re haggling with a part-time college or high school salesperson over money.

I’ve been told to shorten this book. I can, but I want you to have fun and really enjoy, so I’m going to tell you stories. True stories.

One time Steve was with the Sultan at the store shopping. The Sultan had chosen close to $300 worth of T-shirts to purchase. This $300 price had already been reduced 15 percent. When it came time to pay the bill, the Sultan asked for an extra 10 percent off. That’s 25 percent off! When the poor salesperson told the Sultan that he couldn’t discount the T-shirts any more than he had, the Sultan stormed out of the store. Steve made up the difference out of his own pocket to pay for what the Sultan refused to pay for.

Of course the Sultan never knew about this. The Sultan’s assistants knew about this though. They seemed to accept this type of action as business as usual. The Sultan believed that he was able to get the 25 percent discount and was proud he got his price.

What a great negotiator! The great Sultan had the guts to have his little tantrum, storm out of a T-shirt shop in Hollywood, and thereby, by the sheer might and force of his will, get his price!

Here’s the truth. He is a billionaire. A multibillionaire! Estimates are that at this time he was worth somewhere in the 2-billion-dollar range.

I’m going to draw a comparison for you so that you understand what I’m talking about when I talk about a billionaire.

The Sultan is a very good friend of Prince Jefri of the Royal Family of Brunei. At the time that this visit was taking place, Prince Jefri himself was a multi-multibillionaire. Prince Jefri of the Royal Family of the country of Brunei is the youngest of four brothers. His oldest brother is the Sultan of Brunei or the ruler of the country. You know the King. The monarch and sole ruler of the Kingdom. Prince Jefri had a position within the country as the minister of finance. As the minister of finance for the country of Brunei, Prince Jefri was in charge of the Brunei Investment Agency. This entity is in charge of all the foreign investments for the country of Brunei.

The Brunei Investment Agency, also known as BIA, operated with approximately $30 to 40 billion as an investment fund.

Let me put that in perspective. A billion is a lot. A billion minutes ago, Jesus was alive. A billion seconds ago, it was 1959. A billion hours ago, our ancestors were living in the stone age.

That’s just one billion. What we are talking about here is thirty to forty billion dollars!

If you spent a dollar a second, it would take you eleven days to spend one million dollars. If you spent a dollar a second, it would take you thirty-one years to spend a billion dollars.

Are you in awe? Not yet? Read on.

If you took a stack of one-hundred-dollar bills, let’s say enough one-hundred-dollar bills to make a million dollars, and stacked them up in a single pile, they would be 1.094 yards high. This is just a little over three feet. You could stand on top of the pile and jump. You probably wouldn’t get hurt. Now if you took a stack of one-hundred-dollar bills and made it high enough to make a billion dollars, that would be one hundred thousand bundles of one-hundred-dollar bills. Each bundle would stand .621 miles high. That is over half a mile high. Now multiply that by 20 and you have . . . Well, you’d have a lot of miles of one hundred dollar bills and you probably would not want to jump from the top of that stack now, would you?

I want you to remember the Sultan of Johor had his own stack of at least a mile high one-hundred-dollar bills, probably a mile and a half or two.

I know this is taxing your brain, but I am going somewhere with this, so please bear with me.

The Sultan of Johor would visit the United States and stay for free at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Free that is! This hotel of course was owned by the Brunei Investment Agency that was under the control of Prince Jefri. Prince Jefri also owned the house on Crescent Drive just north of the hotel. There were times where the Sultan would stay at this house instead of the hotel. These vacations were paid for by Prince Jefri.

So you say, What’s the big deal? Well, the big deal is the rooms at the Beverly Hills Hotel are quite expensive. On average, the rooms were at least $200 a day; the bungalows were $2,500 a day.

On this particular visit, the Sultan was traveling with his entourage of three daughters and three security agents. That alone was seven people.

Each of these people needed to eat. In case you didn’t know it, at the time, a cheeseburger at the Beverly Hills Hotel with french fries and ketchup was $12.50. You’re probably going to want to order the four-dollar Coke just to wash it down with. That’s an eight-ouncer by the way, not a twelve-ouncer.

I’ll tell you, they are very good cheeseburgers. And oh my, by the way, the Coke is so succulent with those nice, cool, fresh ice cubes, it just trickles down your esophagus.

Now on top of that, you have two security guards at the house, one security guard with each of the daughters, one security guard with the Sultan himself, plus Steve who’s running the whole show. There were also two butlers we hired to serve the Sultan. On top of this, there were five drivers and their cars. These drivers also ate with us. Before you know it, you’re talking about lodging and feeding anywhere from fifteen to twenty people three times a day. All these people loved to hobnob with the Sultan and the Princesses, but they still wanted to get paid. Including all of the above could cost and did easily cost around $18,000 a day (and that’s on the conservative side).

Now if you were to figure out $18,000 a day, times 44 days, which was how long they were in town, you come up with a grand total of $792,000. This did not include the cost of hiring the limousine with drivers and the pay for security.

Oh, I almost forgot. He also had to house and feed his pilots who flew his private jet. These pilots were housed in a separate hotel and were on standby for the whole forty-four-day period.

I probably forgot some people in this equation, but it’s a pretty fair estimation of the cost of the vacation.

All these costs were paid by Prince Jefri, not the Sultan who had his own stack of money.

Why, you ask? We already covered one reason. The Sultan is cheap! But there’s another reason. I guess it’s time for a history lesson.

Brunei has no military to speak of but Malaysia does. Therefore Brunei relies on other countries nearby to assist them in case of immediate need of emergency assistance. I guess you could say it’s a way of Brunei buying safety for their country. The other reason is that Prince Jefri and the Sultan of Johor are related. No doubt this relation goes back several hundred years at least. But this makes no difference. Relations are relations. And so ends this part of the story.

*     *     *

Back to the Sultan of Johor who likes to impress people.

Steve had specific instructions from the Royal Family of Brunei that he was to pay for the Sultan of Johor’s entertainment. Of course this was not Steve’s money; it was Prince Jefri’s. There were dining in the restaurants around Beverly Hills or golfing at all the top golfing clubs in Los Angeles. These were all paid for by Prince Jefri.

There were exceptions. For instance was when the Sultan of Johor himself invited Eva Gabor and some guests out to lunch with him at the Hotel Bel-Air.

The Hotel Bel-Air is situated north of Sunset Boulevard in the Santa Monica Mountains in Bel-Air. The grounds of the hotel are nestled along Stone Canyon Road. There is a creek flowing through the middle of the hotel. In fact, to enter the hotel, you need to cross a bridge over the creek, which is babbling under your feet. At night the grounds of the hotel are lit up with lights above and throughout the trees, giving a sparkly starlight effect everywhere. It’s a beautiful hotel, and the grounds are truly magnificent with trees and ferns and lions and tigers and girls, oh my!

On a warm sunny afternoon, the Sultan left the Crescent Drive house for lunch. There was one black Lincoln town car in the lead with one driver and one security for the Sultan. Following behind was a blue Rolls Royce driven by the personal driver of the Sultan. In the backseat of the Rolls Royce were the Sultan and Steve. First they picked up a couple who was to lunch with them. At this time, Steve moved to the front seat of the Rolls Royce. Remember Steve was hired help. Next they picked up Eva Gabor.They made their way to the Hotel Bel-Air, where they had lunch outside in the fern-strewn flower-laden patio area.

After a leisurely lunch, the Sultan excused himself (even Sultans use the bathroom). Of course he knew that Steve and his own security from Malaysia would follow. This is normal procedure. The Sultan and Steve stood at the urinal and did their business side by side, looking straight ahead as if they did not know each other. After their relief, side by side washing their hands, the Sultan looked at Steve and told him, Steve, you cannot pay for lunch. I have to pay for the lunch, because they are my guests. I have to keep face. You know his dignity.

Steve came up with a better plan. What he did was he found the manager of the restaurant. Steve told him, I would like to pay for the bill with this credit card. He then handed the manager his own personal credit card. He then told the manager, When the Sultan asks for the bill, I want you to tell him that the hotel appreciates his visit and that lunch is complimentary.

Feed that ego.

Oh, I forgot to mention that this hotel was also owned by Prince Jefri.

Such were the games that were played.

This is partly how the game was won.

The game?

The game is how to keep everything smooth and enjoyable so that you become indispensable to the Families. This must happen, no matter how difficult the task. You must do whatever it is that you have to do . . . smoooothly. You then become the only person who can make things happen. At least this is how they come to view you. They must believe that without you, nothing can work. If by chance someone else tries to go over your head and ingratiate themselves to the Family and make you look bad, you have to make sure that their plan doesn’t work. I’ll explain how these things happen later, just be patient; you can tell by the thickness of the book that there is a lot to tell.

While Steve was dining at the most exclusive restaurants, and playing golf at the best courses in Los Angeles and Beverly Hills, I was eating McDonald’s Big Macs with Zaza and James. Despite all my eight to twelve hours of torturous shopping days at Sav-On’s or the Ninety-Nine Cent store (in this store, no items are over ninety-nine cents, ya gadda try it, ya gadda go there), I was having a great time with Zaza. I thought she had a great wit and down-to-earth attitude about life. I respected her very much. I could talk to her like a human without the usual layers that one had to go through with the Royals.

*     *     *

Was my job dangerous? You bet it was. Deadly. As deadly as AIDS. I’ll explain. We went to lunch at the Polo Lounge inside of the Pink Palace. Princess Zaza met someone for lunch there. My job was to watch her and make sure she was safe. She was sitting outside in the patio area, and I was inside at the bar watching her. There was only one seat at the bar where I had a clear view of her table, so that’s where I sat. In walked Andrew. He was a hulk. I didn’t know him and had never met him before, but I was about to.

I saw him out of the corner of my eye, standing at the entrance to the lounge. He looked around. I noticed that he sort of looked me up. He then pranced over to me . . . like Bambi. I did say prance, didn’t I?

Is this seat taken?

I looked at him. He was pointing at the chair next to me. How sweet he was. All smiling down at me like I was the cat’s meow. He was a six feet four black guy with a white skunk stripe going down the middle of his hair. I was the only one at the bar. There were plenty of seats available. Why me? I’m not that hot.

No, it’s not.

Eewww ewww . . . oooh! he said. I’m Andrew.

He held out his hand to me, palm down, fingers pressed together.

I took his fingers and said, That’s nice.

When my hand touched his, he said, Eww eww . . . oooh, what’s your name?

Craig. So I lied. Everyone lies in bars, right?

Ewww ewww . . . oooh, I like that name. I’m Andrew.

Yeah, so I heard.

"So, Craig, I just flew down from San Francisco. I had a date with this man . . . ewww ewww . . . oooh, and he canceled on