What's a Girl Gotta Do?

by Sparkle Hayter

  Fortunately, I still had my computer terminal and my telephone. As little white spermatozoa shucked and jived across my TV screen, I logged on to the computer and started a Nexis search for newspaper and periodical articles about Paul Mangecet. Then I called Spencer Roo. He claimed to have airtight alibis for Corbus. He was just having a little trouble locating them.

  While I was talking to him he almost had me convinced but as soon as I got off the phone I began to doubt. This was, after all, Spencer Roo, who once used a “nicotine fit” defense for a client who went berserk and killed his wife and all her terriers.

  I was starving, but I was “grounded,” under office arrest, and Jerry was keeping an eye on my door from his office so I couldn’t escape. Finally, he went out to a lunch meeting with some Japanese advertising guys and I was able to flee to the company cafeteria, or Bad News Café, as the writers called it, a large room painted in toxic-waste colors with sludge green-brown walls and surface-scum yellow furniture. Rumor had it Dunbar consulted a cut-rate colorist, who determined that these colors would discourage long lunch breaks by creating an uncomfortable atmosphere. The menu, it was said, was designed to reflect the same principles. And, I might add, the same colors.

  Eric was there, about ten people ahead on the line for trays. He was talking to Claire, who was getting a diet soda. At first when we saw each other, he turned away, then turned back to me, puzzled. Claire smiled, got out of the way, and Eric came over.

  “Hi,” I said, guarded.

  He just looked at me.

  “What?!” I said.

  “You were supposed to call me,” he said.

  “Uh-huh.”

  Yeah, the best defense is a good offense, I thought, but then I realized he was right. I remembered. He’d asked me to trust him, to sleep on it, to call him the next day—and the next day Susan called and I got all caught up in that.…

  “Oops,” I said. “I forgot, I was preoccupied.…”

  “Sure. Well.”

  “No, really. I was wondering why you hadn’t called me. God, I’m sorry, I really am. Eric, it’s been a long time since I dated, and when I did, it didn’t matter so much somehow.”

  “It’s okay,” he said, like it was just academic anyway, of no personal interest. “Saw you with Burke. Things going well with you two?”

  “With that sociopath? No. Why would you think that?”

  “He kissed you.”

  “And I slapped him. You saw that too, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah, but I thought it demonstrated a kind of passion for him.”

  “It wasn’t a passion slap. It was an easy shot, a punitive slap. I saw the opportunity and I took it.”

  “I heard a rumor you and Burke were hot and heavy again.” But he smiled. He believed me.

  “Where did you hear that?”

  “Madri Michaels.”

  “She is such a troublemaker, man,” I said. We had fabulous eye contact for a moment.

  “So—are you going to trust me?”

  “Sure,” I said. Having mistakenly doubted him, what else could I say?

  “Say it.”

  “I trust you.”

  “Want to do something tonight?” he asked.

  “Okay.”

  “I’d invite you to join me for lunch, but Greg and I are working with a new lighting designer this afternoon, so I have to get my lunch to go.”

  “Speaking of Greg, I need to talk to him.”

  He bristled. “Uh-huh, that’s why you’re being so nice,” he said. “You want to talk to Greg.”

  “No.” This came out of nowhere. How do you respond to something like this? God, he was suspicious of me. “No, I was being nice because I like you and I need to talk to Greg.”

  “Well, he doesn’t like you much.”

  “I know.”

  “For me, that’s another mark in your favor,” he said.

  We had fabulous eye contact for another while as we waited on the tray line. God, he was cute.

  “This is like high school, but with all these complications,” he said.

  I wasn’t sure what he was talking about. Did he mean our little romance was like high school, because if he did, I knew exactly what he meant. I hadn’t been so afraid of liking someone since this guy in high school, William Sperry.

  Or did he mean standing on line in the cafeteria was like high school? I waited for him to elaborate as I reached for my plastic cafeteria tray.

  “Do you know what I mean?” he asked.

  I barely heard him. “Oh my God!” I said, flipping over my tray. “I got the death tray!” There, in big black letters, someone had written DEATH TRAY.

  Eric laughed. “I wouldn’t worry about it. Greg got it last week. He’s still around.”

  A stupid prank, a death tray, something one of the younger writers no doubt dreamed up. And yet, I’ve always had this fearful respect for omens.

  “What do you think of Eric?” I asked Claire later, after we screened the finished sperm piece—part one—and put the tape on Jerry’s desk.

  “He’s okay.”

  “He’s okay? That’s like saying Michelangelo’s David is a nice chunk of marble. This guy has … he’s so, so …” There was no appropriate adjective, so I grunted softly instead. “He looks me in the eye and I have a pelvic contraction. You know, the kind that makes you want to cross your legs.”

  “And bounce your foot,” Claire said.

  “Exactly.”

  “Obviously, there is chemistry going on with you two. Enjoy it. Don’t analyze it. Have fun, be animals, but use condoms.”

  “Hey, I’m going to take this slowly. I’m going to learn from my experience with Burke.”

  “Good,” she said. “But don’t take it too slowly. I mean, don’t just stand there.”

  “But, Claire, maybe he’s a playboy.”

  “I don’t think he’s that much of a playboy,” Claire said. “He’s single, he’s cute …”

  “Gorgeous.”

  “It’s in the eye of the beholder, but he is cute and single and so he dates a lot but he isn’t macho about it, except in a joking way.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He dated Amanda in Graphics for three months when Amanda and I were roommates. He seemed like a nice guy, as guys go.”

  Even though Claire’s love life was not exemplary—she was kind of a heartbreaker—her opinion of Eric carried a lot of weight with me, and helped assuage my fears.

  In the afternoon, he justified my faith even further when he messaged me: If you come now, I’ll get you in to see Greg.

  On my way, I typed back. I told Jerry I was going to the ladies’ room—then ran, not walked, to the Browner offices. Frannie had been sent on an errand, and Eric was waiting for me.

  He kissed me on the lips.

  “Greg’s in there now. I can’t let you in. You’ll have to sneak in behind my back,” he said. “Understand?”

  “Sure.”

  “I’m turning my back,” he said. “In fact, I’m going to the vending machines to get a soda. I’ll give you ten minutes. Don’t forget, nine-thirty tonight, the Haddock Bar on Ludlow.”

  “I’ll be there,” I said.

  I gave Eric a thirty-second head start before barging into Greg’s office. His back, or rather the back of his chair, was to me.

  “Who is it?” he said, without turning around.

  “Bachelorette number three,” I said.

  Slowly, the chair turned.

  “Who let you—what do you want?” he asked.

  “I want to know about Larry Griff.”

  Greg was one of those aging men, once handsome, who thinks he is entitled by way of his years, experience, and position to a steady supply of nubile young women. Controllable, nubile young women. As a young man he had had matinee-idol looks, but he had become cynical looking in middle age. His lined face had a taut meanness and his lascivious eyes, once twinkly, had grown cold and glinting. A few more years and they’d be rh
eumy. Of course, on television he was “avuncular.”

  His healthy, virile head of hair, carefully tinted to leave just enough silver for authority, was probably a weave, I thought. Had he had surgery? It was hard to tell if he’d had a lift or a tuck, as he was already in full on-air makeup, although his show was several hours away. Today he had an excuse as he had been sitting for a lighting designer, but Greg wore his on-air makeup all day every day, having it touched up several times before air. He claimed this was in case a catastrophic story broke, like a presidential assassination or a nuclear attack, and he was needed to go back to the anchor desk to inform and reassure an anxious nation.

  That may be, but I think he just liked the way he looked in makeup.

  Browner was taking a long time to respond.

  “What did he have on you, Greg?”

  Not a muscle in his face moved.

  “Who hired him to investigate you?” I asked.

  Greg smiled a little and gave me a look, a victorious and condescending look. This guy was good.

  “You are a ranting madwoman, Robin,” he said. “And I am not going to get caught up in one of your wild intrigues. Now, I have work to do. If you don’t leave, I’ll call security and ask them to remove you.”

  “I’m going,” I said. “But I think I’m right. He was blackmailing you and the women who worked for you. Do you have an alibi for the time he was murdered?”

  Greg reached down to his phone and speed-dialed security. “This is Greg Browner. There is a crazy woman screaming accusations at me.…”

  “I’m leaving,” I said.

  I was in enough hot water; I didn’t need the added indignity of being escorted out of my own workplace by security.

  Before returning to Special Reports, I stopped back by Susan’s office and barged in.

  “Robin, I’m really busy now …,” she said, looking up from her desk.

  “Did Greg ever sexually harass you?”

  “My employment relationship with Greg is nobody’s business,” she said.

  “Aw c’mon,” I said. “He fired you from his show. Was that after he sexually harassed you?”

  “I’m not going to answer that.”

  “Where were you when Griff was killed, roughly speaking?”

  “I told you,” she said, whining. “I was throwing up in the bathroom.…”

  “That’s strange. Because when I went to the ladies’ room a little while later it was empty. That was shortly before Griff died. There’s something you’re not telling me,” I said. “What is it?”

  She sighed deeply, like she was deflating, took her glasses off and wiped the lenses. I noticed she had the words for the Mary Tyler Moore theme song framed and on her wall. Both verses.

  “Well, I was pretty drunk that night—,” she began. “This is really embarrassing.”

  “Go on.”

  “I went through the wrong door and passed out in a stall,” she said, her voice cracking slightly. “In the men’s room.”

  “Oh. Anybody see you there?”

  “Yeah. Dillon Flinder found me a little later, around eleven or twelve, I guess.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I told you,” she said, displaying some backbone. “I was puking in a stall in the men’s bathroom, and then I passed out there. Look, ask Dillon Flinder. My glasses had fallen in the toilet. I had vomit in my hair. I couldn’t fake that. I was a mess when he found me.”

  Actually, she could have faked being that much of a mess, under the right circumstances and with the right incentive. But I went to ask.

  Dillon didn’t see or hear me come up behind him at his desk, where he was hunched over, trying to cut a cantaloupe with a letter opener. Thinking of his watermelon, I smiled.

  “Bringing that to room temperature?” I asked.

  “Ah, Robin,” he said, removing his bifocals and self-consciously running his fingers through his gray hair. “This is my dinner, dear heart. It is far too small for self-gratification. Only a watermelon can accommodate me. And what can I do for you?”

  Dillon had such a classy vulgarity, you couldn’t help but be charmed.

  “Did you find Susan in a stall in the men’s room on New Year’s Eve?”

  “Oh yes! Poor kid,” he said, tsk-tsking. “She was so drunk she went into the wrong bathroom.”

  “You know, I don’t understand how she could make that mistake,” I said. “I’ve been in a few men’s rooms—well, boys’ rooms actually, and it was years ago—but there’s usually a long line of urinals. You can’t miss them.”

  “If you’re holding back a gallon of Jonestown Punch while diving for a toilet, everything else tends to be a blur. I’ve been there, haven’t you?”

  “But are you sure she was drunk?”

  “She was passed out when I found her. I’m positive that woman was seriously inebriated, but I’d rather not go into detail. It would be unchivalrous.” Even the satyr of medical news had his good side.

  So Susan had an alibi. And apparently so did Madri, or at least Amy Penny believed it. But something else she’d said was eating at me: Eric had helped her and Madri get a cab. How come?

  Unfortunately, I couldn’t ask him about it because I’d promised to trust him.

  Jerry came back later and ordered a complete recut of “Sperm, Part One,” and wanted it and a script for part two (or “Son of Sperm,” as Claire called it) on his desk first thing in the morning. After several hours of feverish work, Claire and I turned in our projects and got ready to go home. I put on my coat and stuffed my briefcase with articles on Mangecet.

  I couldn’t get a cab downtown to the Haddock Bar so I took the bus to East Houston and walked the rest of the way. East Houston was a long stretch of shuttered shops punctuated by the grainy yellow light of the occasional bodega. The sidewalks beneath me were black and buckled and there were little groups of junkies on every corner.

  There must be a lot of good, cheap smack around, I thought, because the junkies were friendlier than usual.

  “Hey beautiful lady,” a stringy and gaunt Hispanic guy said to me. “Jus’ seein’ you makes my night.” He had that lightly glazed, low-lidded look junkies have when high.

  I smiled a benign I’m-OK-you’re-OK smile, knowing as I do that when junkies are high they’re too happy and dopey to pose a serious threat. “How ya doin’?” I asked.

  “Better now that you walked by with that smile. That smile knows somethin’,” he said to his friends. “What is it you know, pretty lady?”

  I was down the block, ten paces past them now. I turned around and shrugged, smiling, and then kept walking away from them. Ludlow was just ahead.

  Ludlow had a powerful sub-rosa feel. Thanks to some shifting earth pattern, the street was tilted just slightly. There was a man’s suit in the recess of a slumlike, sooty building, as though the man who was inside it had vanished in his tracks—puff—beamed up to the mothership from where he stood, leaving the suit behind in a crumpled pile on the dark sidewalk.

  The purple, blue, and orange neon lights of hip “skank” spots like the Haddock Bar radiated into the dark street while the glowing yellow sign of the EAT HERE café flashed on and off, slowly. The whole shadowy scene had the texture of a dream, peaceful in a sinister way, like the quiet places in nightmares. I walked into the Haddock, wondering why Eric wanted me to meet him here. Something suddenly seemed very fishy.

  The Haddock was perfect, though, for my mood of impending darkness and despair. It was an anarchist artist bar. I’d chitchatted with junkies and now I was hanging out at an anarchist bar with plastic skulls on the walls. I was too cool. On an impulse, I bought a pack of Marlboros for more nihilist kitsch. I hadn’t smoked in two years.

  At the bar, a black bartender wearing Dexter glasses asked me what I wanted.

  A morphine drip, I thought, but said, “Absolut Citron martini.”

  To my left, two men, one American and the other French, were discussing women.

  “
She said wait for me, don’t change, be patient,” the French guy said.

  From this one sentence I constructed a scenario, unable to hear what the other guy said because the music cranked up at that point. But easy to infer: His lady left him, it wasn’t a clean break, she’d gone off on an adventure and now he was sitting in the Haddock on Manic Depressive Night telling his girlfriend troubles to another single guy. Boy, did that get me down.

  A pretty woman with unruly brown hair slid up on the other side of me and bummed a cigarette. “Did you pay your taxes yet?” she asked out of one side of her mouth as she lit the cigarette and inhaled.

  “For this year or last?” I asked. It was only January.

  “For last year. I paid mine today. I had to fucking borrow money to pay my fucking taxes—to support a government and a system I fucking despise!” She spat out the word despise.

  I didn’t know what to say except a deadpan, “Bummer.”

  “Yeah,” she said.

  She was about twenty-four or twenty-five, with a powerful middle-class aroma to her. Her hair, while messy, was washed, violating a main fashion tenet of skankness. Her clothes, frayed and self-consciously grubby, were subversively chic and carefully put together. Skank is anarchy, but it’s bourgeois anarchy. The fact that she made enough to have to pay taxes said something about how she fit into the class struggle. Also, the drinks weren’t cheap at the Haddock. No starving artists sharing a cheap bottle of vinegary wine in this joint. I was drinking Absolut, the guy next to me was nursing Chivas, the anarchette was drinking Dos Equis.

  Eric came up behind her.

  “Hey, Lisl,” he said, kissing the anarchette’s cheek before sliding onto the stool next to me. He ordered Wild Turkey. He looked great, very casual and masculine (but not in a contrived, GQ way) in a khaki flight jacket and jeans, a look I love for the way it sets off the line of a man’s butt and legs. A man has to have the body to carry off a look like that, though, and Eric did, with strong shoulders, a well-toned butt, not too small and not too big, and nice long legs.

  She told him about her taxes and said by paying his voluntarily he was condoning all the wrongs of the U.S. government.