Size 12 and Ready to Rock (28 page)

I look down at my handiwork after I’ve pulled it from the office printer. Is it too much, I wonder? Gary hasn’t, after all, been
convicted
of murder. Maybe I should have written “
suspected
of assault with a deadly weapon and murder.”

On the other hand, we’re down to forty campers. Gary Hall’s managed to kill one crew member and rid us of ten campers in a twenty-four-hour period.

Screw it, I decide. I’m hanging this memo at the front desk, and the security desk as well. The photo—blown up from the one printed off the website of Tania’s high school—isn’t very clear, but it’s all I’ve got. I’ll make enough copies to distribute one to each of the RAs, the desk attendants, and the mail forwarders, and even to the basketball team. No reason everyone shouldn’t be put on alert.

Maybe not the campers, though. Don’t want to start a panic.

Except in the people who need it. Time to place a wake-up call. I sit down at my desk and take out my cell phone.

“Hello?” The voice on the other end of the phone sounds only half awake.

“Hi, Jordan,” I say more cheerfully than I actually feel. “May I please speak to Tania?”

“Tania?” I can picture Jordan in his enormous circular bed—why circular? He’d never been able to offer an adequate explanation—with its gray silk sheets. “She’s asleep. Heather, is that you? Why are you calling here so early? It’s like . . .”—there’s a pause as he looks for a clock—“ . . . ten.”

“I know,” I say. “And I’m sorry. But Tania and I made plans to have a girls’ day out, and I just wanted to let her know that—”

“Heather?” Tania picks up on the other line. She sounds wide awake, but I’m certain Jordan wasn’t lying. She’s always reminded me a little of a cat, so I’m not surprised she’s capable of becoming wide awake at a split second’s notice. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” I say. “I was calling about that plan we made to go shopping today at that new store in SoHo, Gary Hall—”

“You guys are going shopping?” Jordan says, his voice doubly amplified because he hasn’t hung up the phone on his side of the bed and is also lying beside Tania, who is on the extension a few feet away from him. “How come you didn’t tell me?”

“Jordan,” Tania says. “Hang up the phone.”

“But I want to go to Gary Hall. It sounds cool.”

“Jordan,” Tania says again, her tone deadly. “Hang up the phone.”

There’s a click, and then Tania says, her voice a little breathless, as if she’s been moving rapidly—probably to shut herself into their master bathroom—“What do you want, Heather?”

“I just thought you’d want to know,” I say, “that ten of your campers moved out last night. Ten girls lost the opportunity to become empowered through music, like it says on the Tania Trace Rock Camp brochure, all because you’re too frightened of Gary to stand up to him.”

“I
did
stand up to him,” Tania hisses. There’s an echo-y quality to her voice. She’s definitely in a bathroom. “And it got someone killed. It’s all they were talking about on the news last night after we got home.
And
there was a message from Jordan’s dad saying that they might have to cancel filming. So I can understand why all the parents are upset. Maybe it’s best that we—”

“Tania,” I say. “Did you know that I walked into Fischer Hall this morning to find it filled with flowers and cards and balloons from your fans? So many of them, we don’t even have the space to put them all. And they aren’t from Gary. They’re from your
real
fans. The fans who love you and want nothing from you but for you to go on performing and helping them forget their own problems with your beautiful voice.”

God,
I think to myself.
I’m good at this.
Maybe I should change my major and become a publicist instead of an international crime-solver . . .

“Yeah?” Tania says, sounding tired. “Well, for me to do that I have to figure out a way to handle my own problems. Listen, Heather, I’ve decided. I’m just going to send him the money. I’m going to pay him what he wants and maybe he’ll stop. Maybe he’ll finally go away.”

“No, Tania,” I say to her. “That’s the
worst
thing you could do. Before he was asking for ten thousand a month. Now it’s twenty. What amount is going to be enough? A hundred thousand?
Two
hundred? When is he going to stop?”

“That’s fine,” Tania says, sounding like she’s about to cry. “Two hundred thousand is fine. Two million. What do I care? I have the money. I have nothing
but
money. What I don’t have is peace of mind that when I walk out my door he’s not going to be there with a gun, trying to shoot me—”

“Why would he try to shoot you, Tania?” I ask her. “You’re his only source of income.”

“He tried to poison me, didn’t he?” she asks.

“Tania, he knew you were never going to eat those cupcakes. Come on. You’re a professional. Have you ever once eaten a gift of food a fan has left you at a concert or venue? He knows you. He’s probably the one who warned you against doing that.”

Tania sniffles. “Which means he did it on purpose to hurt someone else. And that’s even worse.”

“Of course it is,” I say. “It’s why you were right to stop paying him all along. It’s why you’ve got to keep doing what you said in the song . . . stand up to him, make it on your own. You’ve got to be an example to these girls, because I’m telling you, Tania, they need you. You’ve got to show them that by expressing themselves creatively through singing, songwriting, and performing, they can be whoever they want to be . . . not someone who takes off her clothes on top of a pool table for beer, not someone who can be bought and sold, not some sexual object for a man’s desire, but a strong, tough businesswoman and artist.”

Tania sniffles again. “That’s a really great speech, Heather,” she says. “But he almost killed Bear. And he
did
kill poor Jared. I’m not going to risk him killing one of those girls, or Jordan, or the baby, or Cooper, or
you.
And that’s what he’ll be mad enough to do if I don’t—”

“
Good,
” I say. “Let’s
make
him that mad.”

There’s an astonished pause before Tania says, “What?”

“You heard me,” I say. “Let’s make him mad. Good and mad. Let’s kick
his
ass for a change.”

“I already told you, that’s exactly what the police said
not
to do when I—”

“Tania,” I say. “When you talked to the police before, was Bear around?”

“No,” she admits tearfully.

“What about Cooper? Was Cooper around?”

“No,” she says. “But—”

“Was
I
around? How about Jordan? Or his dad? Or Jessica or Nicole? Were any of the people who love you and are around you now, around you back then?”

“No. But—”

“No. Things are different now. We’re going to help you, but you have to let us. I think you want to. That’s why you asked for the rock camp to be moved out of the Catskills and into my building. Am I right about that?”

I hear her voice break.

“Ye-e-es,” she says uncertainly. “But I only did it because you’ve caught so many bad people, and I thought if there was anyone who could catch Gary, it would be you. But I was wrong. I didn’t think anyone else was going to get hurt—”

“I know,” I say. I’ve never thought of myself as someone who catches “bad people,” even though I’ve done it before. It’s strange to hear that this is how I’m perceived by a stunningly gorgeous—if completely messed-up—rock diva. “But if we’re going to fix this thing, you have to be honest with me. You’ve got to trust me and you’ve got to help. Okay? Do you think you can do that?”

She sniffles some more, but finally says, “All right. I’ll try. Help how?”

“You say Gary’s been e-mailing you. Can you forward me copies of his e-mails to you?”

“What are you going to do with them?” Tania asks sus-piciously.

“Tania,” I say in a warning tone. “Just do it.” I give her my e-mail address.

“Okay. Is that all?” Tania asks, sounding as if she feels a little sick to her stomach.

“That’s it for now,” I say. “Just remember. You are a role model to all these girls. You cannot hide, and you cannot give in to Gary’s demands.” Then I add, as an afterthought, remembering Detective Canavan’s comment about Lifetime movies, “But don’t do anything dumb either, like go meet him alone on some dark street corner.”

“Why would I do that?” Tania asks. “I hate him. Heather, did you tell him?”

Confused, I ask, “Tell who what?”

“Cooper,” Tania says. “You did, didn’t you?”

I hear a key being slid into the office door’s lock. Rather than propping it open, as I always do on weekdays, I’d closed it behind me.

“Uh, Tania,” I say, “I gotta go. Someone is coming.”

“You told him,” Tania says in a resigned voice. “It’s all right. I knew you would. So long as he doesn’t tell Jordan, I don’t mind.”

“I think
you
should tell Jordan,” I say. “He’s going to find out anyway. And I promise, he’ll understand. Bye for now.” I hang up just as Lisa comes in, her dog Tricky at her side.

“Oh,” she says, looking surprised but not displeased to see me at my desk. “Hi! What are you doing here?”

“Yesterday was such a disaster,” I say, indicating the key cards and service requests on my desk. “I thought I’d come in and try to catch up.”

Lisa rolls her eyes. “Oh my God,” she says. “I know. Me too. Did you hear about the ten checkouts? And the girls from 1621, with the basketball players?”

“Yes,” I say, picking up the incident report and reading from it. “I also heard that you’re a dirty whore who needs to take a shower in order not to be so dirty.”

“Well,” Lisa says, laughing, “what I heard is that
you’re
a stuck-up bitch.”

We both begin laughing. Once we start it’s hard to stop. It’s probably because we’re a little giddy from all the stress. But it feels good.

“Oh God,” I say after we’ve calmed down a little. “Has anyone heard from Stephanie?”

“I haven’t,” Lisa says. “She didn’t look so good when she left the hospital yesterday.”

“Well,” I say, “I can’t imagine why she would. I’m guessing she’s going to be out of commission for a few days.”

“Which leaves us with a dorm full of adolescent girls with nothing to do,” Lisa says, “and a male Division III college basketball team that we physically cannot watch all the time. This is a recipe for disaster. Did you ever get an itinerary for the camp activities?”

“No,” I say. “Did you?”

“Why would Stephanie share it with me?” Lisa leans back against the couch onto which she’s sunk. “I’m just a lowly dorm administrator.”

“Residence hall,” I correct her somberly.

“Right,” she says and looks thoughtful. “We better think up some activities for these girls, and fast.
Outside
the building, so they don’t happen to run into Magnus and his crew while they’re painting the lower floors. How about one of those
Sex and the City
tours? Everybody would like that, even the moms.”

“That’s good,” I say. “But how about first we take all the flowers and stuffed animals that people have been dropping off for Tania and deliver them to the Children’s Hospital of New York? Jared told me before he died that that’s what Tania likes for people to do with the gifts her fans bring her. And we could make sure that the cards get sent to his family.”

Lisa’s eyes look as if they’ve suddenly filled with tears. “Oh,” she says. “Oh, I think that would be a great programming activity for all the girls. But it would be especially meaningful for the girls in 1621, who don’t seem to have their priorities very straight.”

“Exactly,” I say. “You know what else would be fun to do with them? Take them to famous rock-and-roll landmarks in New York City.”

Lisa claps her hands. “Like that place where John Lennon got shot. Or the hotel where that Sid guy murdered Nancy!”

“Or,” I say calmly, “places not associated with murder, to get their minds off what happened here. Maybe a more positive, female-centric tour.”

“
Are
there any places having to do with female rock-and-rollers that don’t involve drug overdoses or murder?”

“Yes,” I say, giving her a horrified look. “Of course. Just a block away from this building, there’s the Washington Square Hotel, where Joan Baez lived. She sings about her stay there in her song ‘Diamonds and Rust.’ Not very flatteringly—she refers to it as a ‘crummy hotel,’ which it probably was back then. But she mentions it.”

“Joan
who?
” Lisa asks, looking bewildered.

“Never mind,” I say, my heart breaking a little. How could she not know who Joan Baez is? It’s weird working with a boss who’s younger than I am. Not that Joan and I are exactly contemporaries, but at least I’ve
heard
of her. “There’s Webster Hall, where everyone from Tina Turner to the Ting Tings has performed. And the Limelight, where Gloria Estefan and Britney Spears and Whitney Houston all performed before it got shut down. And . . .” I say, leaning forward, starting to feel excited, “ . . . there’s John Varvatos. He’s a fashion designer who has a menswear store at 315 Bowery, where CBGB used to be, but he uses the underground nightclub scene as his inspiration, so we could take them there, and they could feel what it was like when Deborah Harry was bringing the house down with Blondie and ‘Heart of Glass’ . . . sort of. And Madonna lived in the Chelsea Hotel, so we could emphasize that part of it, not the death part. Janis Joplin, Joni Mitchell, Patti Smith, you name it, there are so many great rock-and-rollers who stayed there—”

“I have no idea who Patti Smith is,” Lisa says, scratching Tricky on the head as he leaps up onto the couch beside her. “But I’m sure he’s great. This
all
sounds great.”

“What’s great?” Sarah says, stomping into the office in her Doc Martens. Her dark hair is flying every which way, and one of the straps to her overall shorts is undone. This comes off as less sexily mussed than harried and upset.

“Heather’s going to take the campers on a rock-and-roll tour of New York,” Lisa says brightly. “After we take all of Tania’s gifts from her fans to the Children’s Hospital.”