“And what are you going to do to get over Charlie?”
“I won’t need to get over Charlie. From now on, I’m concentrating on my career. Charlie is just a fling.”
Joe looked at her as if she were demented. “Except you’re not the kind of woman who has flings. And you’re already concentrating too much on your career. That’s how you ended up with Mark, because he was convenient. And I don’t think Charlie is the kind of guy you forget.”
“Well, I’m thirty-six,” Allie said, exasperated. “If I don’t start having flings now, I never will. And I’m tired of getting all wrapped up in a guy and then trying to cope when he’s gone. I want a nice, simple, short, purely sexual one-night stand, and then I can forget about Mark. And Charlie’s out of here in six weeks, he said so. This is perfect.”
Joe spoke very slowly to her. “This. Is. A. Dumb. Idea.”
“Listen.” Allie fought back the anger that suddenly threatened her voice. “I know how dumb I am. I know Mark is worthless. I knew it when I was with him, but I kept making excuses. And now I’m stuck in this stupid thing where I want to be with him, and I don’t even know why. Haven’t you ever wanted somebody you knew wasn’t worth it?”
“Yes,” Joe said. “I imagine almost everybody has.”
“Well, all I’m trying to do is get over it.” Allie stuck out her chin. “Is that so bad?”
“No.” Joe stood up and the sympathy in his eyes almost laid her low. “No, of course not. But Charlie is…well…I don’t think I’d mess with Charlie.” He looked over her shoulder. “He looks like the kind of guy who makes an impression.”
“Not on me.” Allie turned and saw Charlie walking toward them. He looked wonderful: big and broad and solid and fun. But not permanent. She could take him or leave him. Or take him and leave him. No problem.
Charlie came back to the table and smiled at them. “Let’s go. You can tell me all about the station. Leave nothing out, no matter how disgusting. I’m braced for anything.”
“Good,” Allie said.
THEY GAVE CHARLIE a quick tour of old Tuttle in the late-September dusk. The town unfolded before him like a set of sepia-toned postcards: a white filigree bandstand in the park, a narrow Main Street mercifully free of aluminum storefronts, and a city hall that looked like a glowering, gargoyled sandstone castle.
“Historic preservationists, bless them,” Joe told him. “They fight tooth and nail to keep old Tuttle pure. Of course, over on the other side, new Tuttle is a symphony of aluminum siding, but who cares?”
“But even the preservationists can’t save city hall,” Allie said.
“They’re going to tear down that building?” Charlie craned his neck to look back at the ornate structure. He wasn’t a historic-building nut, but tearing down something that magnificently outrageous seemed a waste.
Joe shrugged. “I think they’re just going to abandon it. Too hard to heat or something. They’ve got a new building all planned. There’s a model of it in the basement of the old building. It’s awful.” Joe turned a corner and a few minutes later it was dark.
“What happened?”
“East Tuttle, better known as Eastown.” Allie pointed out the window. “See? Streetlights out, but nobody fixes them. This is not a Good Section of Town.”
“In defense of the city department, they try.” Joe slowed to let a weaving pedestrian cross. “The vandalism around here is pretty frequent.”
“Not that frequent,” Allie said. “These people get taken for a ride.”
Charlie looked around at the peeling paint and broken steps and a derelict corner grocery store, and tried to make it fit with what he’d seen of Tuttle before. “A lot of drugs down here?”
Allie shrugged. “Probably, but I hear the best place to score is right by the old bandstand in the park.”
Charlie started to laugh. “So much for Tuttle, the perfect small town.”
Allie sighed. “It used to be sort of like that. A lot of mom-and-pop businesses run by people who called you by name. Most of them are gone now, run out by the chains.” She peered out the window at another corner store left standing empty. “You know, I don’t think there are any independent groceries left in the whole city.”
“That’s a shame,” Charlie said absently. Tuttle was not a hotbed of crime. What the hell could be going on at a radio station in a town like this to make a man like Bill Bonner lose his cool and his father send him in as an amateur detective?
Something here didn’t make sense. And since his father and Bill were involved, two men notorious for getting their own way no matter what the cost, Charlie was especially wary. They were up to something.
He sat silently while Joe drove and talked and eventually they came to a slightly better part of town full of old frame houses with big front porches, and Charlie smiled in spite of himself. Tuttle was a nice little town, the kind of town he’d always liked when he’d driven through one on his way to someplace else. He avoided stopping in any town like this one on the grounds that if he really liked it, he’d stay, and then he’d take a permanent job. And if things went the way they usually did, he’d get promoted, and then he’d be in charge, and pretty soon he’d be his father.
No town was worth that.
Then Joe turned again, and in a few minutes they were in a more modern neighborhood, passing a mall.
“Tuttle has a mall?” Charlie asked, amazed.
“There’s a lot more to Tuttle than meets the eye,” Allie said, and Charlie wondered exactly how much more there was, how much of it Allie knew, and how long it would take him to get it out of her.
IT WAS LATE when they got back to the apartment. They’d picked up Charlie’s car at the restaurant and he’d followed them home, parking behind Joe on a side street away from the blare of the traffic. He joined them, and Joe gestured to a three-story white brick house. “This is us. Three apartments. We’ve got the second floor.”
The house was simple but elegant in its proportions, and Charlie felt good just looking at it. “Very nice,” he said and followed them up the wide stone steps and into the cream-walled hallway.
It was a great house. A comfortable house.
That made him uneasy. Getting too comfortable would be bad because he was leaving in November. Maybe he’d be better off in a really ugly motel.
“Come on up, Charlie,” Allie called to him from the stairway, and her voice was husky, and he began to climb the steps to her without thinking about it.
ALLIE SHOWED HIM around the apartment: a big cream and peach living room with two couches and lots of lamps and bookcases, a white kitchen big enough for a full-size oak table and a mass of cooking gear, a large sea-green bathroom about the size of the bedroom in Charlie’s last apartment with an old claw-foot tub about the size of his old bed, and two large bedrooms, one in gray and red for Joe, and one in peach and white for Allie. It confirmed all Charlie’s suspicions that Joe and Allie were wonderful, warm, generous people who shouldn’t be allowed out without a keeper.
“This is great,” Charlie said when they were back in the living room. “But you people are nuts.”
Allie flopped down on one of the overstuffed couches. “Why?”
“I’m a complete stranger and you just invited me into your apartment and showed me everything you own.” Charlie shook his head at both of them. “You’re asking to be ripped off.”
“Nope. We know Bill.” Joe headed back to the kitchen. “Want something to drink?”
“Iced tea, please,” Allie called after him, and Charlie sat down across from her.
“What does Bill have to do with it?”
Allie snuggled down into the couch cushions, and Charlie let his mind wander for a moment. Allie was as well-upholstered as the couch. A comfortable woman. The kind of woman without angles or sharp bones or—
“Bill owns the station,” Allie said. “And nothing or nobody gets in the station that Bill doesn’t know everything about. If he hired you, he’s seen your
baby pictures.”
Since Bill was Charlie’s father’s college roommate, this was truer than Allie knew, but Charlie was still not convinced. “You’re telling me it’s impossible for Bill to have hired a creep? Then how did he get Mark?”
Allie grinned. “You’re biased. Mark’s not so bad. He’s a little insecure, and he’s ambitious for his show, but who wouldn’t be?”
“Me,” Charlie said.
Joe came back in the room bracketing three iced-tea glasses in his hands. “You’re not ambitious?” he asked as Charlie took one.
“Nope. I’m just here to have a good time.” Charlie leaned back and sipped his tea. It was full and rich, sun tea laced with just enough lemon and sugar. He settled more comfortably into the couch. “And it’s a good thing I’m not ambitious since I’m on from 10:00 to 2:00 a.m.”
Allie smiled at him brightly. It was a smile he was learning to associate with Positive Career Talk. “The time could be a lot better,” she told him. “But don’t worry. I’m going to make you a star.”
“No, you are not.” Charlie narrowed his eyes at her. The only thing that was going to save him was that he was on late enough that nobody would notice how inept he was. All he needed was Allie drawing attention to him as he stuck a microphone in his eye or something, and then questions would be asked. “Don’t you even think about holding up a cue card for me. I told you. I don’t want to be a star.”
Joe snorted. “You don’t have any choice. If Allie wants you famous, you’re going to be famous.”
“Forget it,” Charlie told Allie. “Wipe the thought from your mind.”
“We can talk about it later,” Allie said smoothly. “Now, tomorrow night’s your first show and I thought—”
“Don’t.” Charlie scowled at her. “Thinking is bad for a woman. Tell me about the other people at the station. I already know about Mark and Lisa.”
Allie sat silent with her tea, obviously regrouping, so Joe chimed in. “Bill owns the station and theoretically runs it as general manager.”
“Theoretically?”
Joe exchanged a glance with Allie. “His wife, Beattie, decided about six months ago that she wanted a career. Bill gives Beattie anything she wants, so she’s pretty much running the place now.”
Charlie quirked an eyebrow at Joe. This was news Bill hadn’t shared. “Is that good?”
“I think so,” Joe said. “She fired Weird Waldo.”
“He thought Martians were invading the station through the consoles,” Allie said. “He kept announcing during his show that they were getting closer. It was actually kind of interesting if you suspended logical thought. Beattie wanted him gone, but Bill said he was just being colorful.”
“And then he shot the console,” Charlie said.
“Yep, just last week. Blew the whole thing away.” Allie sighed. “At least we gained a new console. And lost Waldo, thanks to Beattie.”
“Wouldn’t even Bill have fired him at that point?” Charlie asked, incredulous.
“Bill’s ability to ignore anything unpleasant is legendary,” Joe told him.
“Great.” Charlie drank more of his iced tea. If Bill could ignore somebody shooting up a broadcasting booth, the one anonymous letter that had made him call for help must have been a beauty. He brought his attention back to Joe. “What else should I know?”
They talked on into the night, Joe and Allie filling him in on the rest of the station personnel, like Albert the anal-retentive business manager who recited ad prices in his sleep, and Marcia the ambitious afternoon DJ who was breathing down Mark’s neck for the prime-time slot, and Karen the receptionist who knew all the gossip not fit to print, and Harry the Howler who was on right before Charlie.
“Harry howls from six to ten,” Allie told Charlie. “He likes to think he’s wild and crazy, but he’s really sweet with the volume turned up. His real area of expertise is cars, so if you ever have problems with yours, ask Harry.”
“And then there’s me.”
Allie nodded. “Yep. Harry’s audience usually starts to fade about nine, nine-thirty, and then we had Weird Waldo.”
Charlie tried not to show his relief. “So, at the moment, my show has a listening audience of about…”
Allie grinned at him. “Oh, six or seven, tops. And they’re all listening because they’re concerned about the Martians, and they’re waiting for the update.”
Charlie started to laugh. “Oh, God. This is going to be awful.”
“Then at two o’clock, there’s Grady.”
“Tell me Grady’s normal.”
“Well…” Allie stopped, obviously searching for the words to describe Grady. “Grady is sweet. He talks about things like the life force and crystal power and personal auras, and then he plays classical guitar music and Gregorian chants and other…” She stopped. “I can’t describe Grady. His show is very soothing, and he has his own small but fanatically loyal following.” She shrugged. “I like him. Grady’s a good person.”
“If he has only a small following, why is he still on the air?”
“Because he’s Grady Bonner. Someday, all this will be his.”
“The son and heir? Then why is he on the graveyard shift?”
“Because his following is small. Bill gave Grady two to six to keep him off the streets.”
Charlie took a deep breath. “So I’m sandwiched in between Howling Harry and Grady ‘I Have Lived In Other Times’ Bonner?”
“That’s about it.”
It couldn’t be better. No one would ever hear him. He started to grin. “I’m in big trouble.”
“No, you’re not.” Allie leaned forward. “From ten to two, you have a lot of freedom. This is so all the really knee-jerk conservatives go to bed early so they can get up with the chickens, which means your audience, once you build one, will be open to new things. As long as you don’t do anything that upsets Bill, you can say anything you want. We can do this, Charlie. We—”
“No, we can’t.” Charlie hated to ruin her plans, she looked so cute trying to sell them to him, but he was not going to be a success. “I don’t want to be famous. I just want a nice little radio show for a few weeks. That’s all.”
Allie shoved her glasses back up her nose. “But, Charlie—”
“No,” Charlie said firmly.
Joe stood up. “I’d love to stay and watch this, but I have to go to work in the morning. Good night, all.”
He disappeared into the bathroom, and Charlie leaned back on the couch.
“I think we should talk about this,” Allie said.
“I don’t,” Charlie said, but Allie did anyway, explaining all the good things that would come his way if he just put himself in her hands.
She was a good persuader, and under any other circumstances he might have listened just because she talked such a good fight, but he was only temporary. He wasn’t staying. He wasn’t going to be a success.
He wouldn’t mind being in her hands, though.
He jerked his mind away from the thought when Joe came out of the bathroom in his robe.
“Bathroom’s all yours. Good night.” Joe looked at Allie and shook his head, and then he went into his bedroom and closed the door.
Charlie frowned at Allie. She’d abandoned her argument about his career and was now looking at him as if she was sizing him up. He had the damnedest feeling she was going to try a new attack. It wasn’t a reassuring feeling. “Why did Joe shake his head?”
“What?” Allie stood up and moved to stand beside him, smiling brightly. “Never mind. My bedroom, as you know, is on the left. Want to see it again?”
“Come here, McGuffey.” He pulled her down beside him, trapping her hand in his. “What are you up to? Tell me everything, now. I can take it.”
“I was going to tell you, anyway.” She sat stiff and straight. “I just wanted to be in my nightgown to do it.”
“Your nightgown.” Charlie clamped down on his evil thoughts and patted her hand. “Well, I�
�m sorry I’m going to miss that. Why your nightgown?”
She sighed. “Joe thinks this is a bad idea.”
“Joe’s no dummy. If he thinks it is, it probably is.”
“I think so, too. Forget it.” She stood up, and he caught her hand.
“Oh, no, you don’t. Just in case you change your mind, I need to be prepared. Are we going to go Vaseline Mark’s car windows? Put Tabasco in Lisa’s diaphragm?”
Allie sat down again next to him. “All right. I have a favor to ask.”
Charlie tried to look encouraging. “Shoot.” Allie looked so uncomfortable, he was ready for anything.
She took a deep breath. “I want you to sleep with me.”
CHARLIE DIDN’T SAY anything, and she stole a glance at him.
He looked stunned.
She should have know it wouldn’t work. She wasn’t the seductress type. She flopped back against the couch, defeated. “I know it’s dumb, but I had this plan. I thought maybe if I slept with somebody else, I’d get over Mark permanently. Sort of like getting right back on the horse after you’ve been thrown.”
Charlie made a sound like a strangled laugh.
“What did you say?”
“I whinnied.”
Allie fought back a smile. “You laughed. Okay, go ahead. I just…” The words were too dumb to say out loud, so she shut up and shrugged instead.
Charlie leaned back beside her. “Why don’t you tell me about it?”
Allie hesitated and then gave in. “Well, it’s hard to explain without sounding stupid. Everybody at the station thinks Mark is God. We were working together, making the show a hit, and when we started dating, it just felt right, I guess.” She wrinkled her nose as she thought. “And he was really good to me.” She turned her head to look Charlie in the eye, trying to make him understand. “I know he wasn’t impressive today, but he really was good to me. I’ve never been that anxious to settle down, but I thought we’d be together forever, working on the show.” She shook her head in disgust. “I was stupid. But it was still hard to give up. And I still miss it.” She stopped and frowned. “But you know, I think I miss the relationship more than I miss him.”
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