Spygirl (29 page)

Unfortunately, we did. She may have noticed we were a little freaked, because she flipped through her photographic growth chart cursorily and excused herself after giving us some tips on lighting. “The uppa left bulb is out. They just put a new orange background in—whateva you do, don't wear blue. You'll look dead.”

We thanked her and piled into the booth. “Holy shit. Did that just happen?” Skye said, cradling her temples.

“I feel like we should wipe this down with Windex first,” I lamented.

“I know.” The pictures came out funny. In the first one we both looked like we were just slapped, and in the last three there
are tears running down our faces from laughing, our mascara crumbling down our cheeks just like that lady's, a record of a crime in progress, in four parts.

It turned out that even though Egghead had left no credit trails in Kansas, he was named as the plaintiff in a lawsuit in Johnson County District Court in Kansas during the time period we were looking for. He was the plaintiff, and the case was filed against a processed-cheese manufacturer that owned a company he had worked at before developing his billion-dollar-revenue-producing mock egg batter with no required refrigeration and an appetite-killer shelf life of two years. The catch? The courthouse had physically lost the complaint. All it contained was a dismissal order showing that the matter, which was coded as “contract-related,” was dismissed four months after the first filing. I called several executives at the Icky Cheese company, who were tight-lipped, but I finally happened on a sweet and slightly surprised HR representative named Lois who, at the very least, didn't tell me to go kiss off.

“Oh, you're calling about Mr. Caruso,” she said, in a tone that indicated sweetness masking familiarity masking suspicion. “I'll be honest with you, Lois,” I said, adopting a hushed manner of shared secrecy. “My clients are concerned about this situation. They know he didn't part on good terms with your company, and, frankly, they don't know why. They are on the verge of a major deal with Caruso, but it would put their minds very much at ease if they could find out what happened here, Lois.” Repeating a person's name was a Sol technique, one he really pushed. I noticed he did it around the office, too, except he had pet names for people, like “Fuck Stick” or “Chump Change” or “Dick Squad.” I wasn't sure if I was doing
it too much. It also reeked of Dale Carnegie to me. But I wanted to win friends.

Lois was waffling. “Well, you know we have a policy here of not speaking about former employees, and of course I can't violate that …” (I heard Sol's words to us that morning: “Let people speak. They want to. This is that HR lackey's chance to shine—for the first time, someone gives a shit what
they
think about what's going on.”) “Um-huh.” I bit my lower lip.

“But I can tell you that he didn't leave of his own volition.”

Booyah!

I tried to play it cool. “I see. Now, Lois, if I were to draw conclusions from that, I might assume that his job performance was sub-par, perhaps.”

“Well,” Lois let drop, “I suppose I could also say that he was hired about two months before he was supposed to start, and he never did start. He was fired before he started, basically.”

What the fuck did that mean? I was trying to think about instances when friends of mine had lost jobs before they even
started
them. I knew Ben was once fired from a job at a local Providence television station when, about an hour after hiring him, the supervisor reread his résumé and noticed that there was an unfortunate embellishment on it. He had already listed himself as having worked there.

“Was he dishonest about his working past, Lois?”

“No, not really. But let's say all new employees are subject to a company orientation, and Mr. Caruso was found to be unfit for the environment we'd like to maintain here. But that's really all I can say.” The phone was rustling like she was about to close out on me, and I could not let that happen.

“Lois, I completely understand. I'm not going to ask you any more questions. Let's just say that I might draw the conclusions that he was found to be engaged in prohibited behavior, maybe
drug use, or, um,
sexual
behavior. Would that be accurate?” I could practically hear Lois blush.

Long silence. “Well, the latter would be correct.”
Boom.
“Lois, I just want to make sure we understand each other. Was Mr. Caruso maybe harassing a fellow employee in a sexually inappropriate way?”

“Well, it was inappropriate in that way, but it wasn't directed at anybody, umm, in particular. If I'm making myself clear.”

This was getting very interesting. “Lois,” I said, “I'm going to use a euphemism that might make this more comfortable—might I assume that Mr. Caruso was caught pulling the pud on company property?” I really hoped Lois had a teenage son, and I wouldn't have to get any more graphic—or technical. She conceded, but added, “My name is Lourdes, by the way.”

Not good. Definitely a big fuckup. But I pushed forward. I wanted to be clear. “You mean, like Madonna's baby?” She laughed and said yes and before I blew it any more I squeezed out, “You should feel very good about this, ma'am,” and got off the phone.

When I went to deliver the good news to George he was on the phone, so I left him a note. Sometimes the Agency tries to get pictures of subjects just for identity-verification, and in the glossy attached in my case file Mr. Caruso even looked like a pervert. I attached his greasy mug to a note that said, “George, he pulled a Pee-wee in a bathroom stall at work. Go figure.”

My razor-sharp interrogation skills did not go unheeded. Eventually, George came to find me. I was sitting at my desk, where I'd been anxiously facing him for the past four days, and he threw me a bone. “Gray—I spoke to the client about that case. Thanks for not fucking it up.” I felt my face go rosy. Our client ended up confronting Mr. Caruso about it, and he copped to the sullied truth. The clients went through with the deal anyway.

Having been warned about the Halloween party since practically the day I was hired at the Agency I was expecting to be impressed. Nothing prepared me for it.

I waited until the eleventh hour—the day before Halloween— to pick out my costume, which I found by accident while walking to the subway after work. A brown suede and macramé halter top beckoned from the window of a thrift store called Grandma's Attic. I immediately conjured Cher and ran inside. The halter top was fifty-eight dollars, eighteen dollars over my entire Halloween budget, but I figured I didn't have time to be frugal at this point, since otherwise I had no costume to wear. I bought a long black wig and some brown leather bell-bottoms to match. I had some giant white plastic clip-on hoops from my dress-up days, and I wore some old platforms to seal the deal.

That day, Wendy, Renora, and I had to buy plastic cauldrons for candy and apple-bobbing. The largest costume-rental company in New York was next door to our building. Around Halloween, the lines of people seeking costumes snaked out the door around the block, but Tommy, our fixit guy, let us in by the back entrance. The place looked like the scene of a gruesome slaughter in the dressing room of an L.A. child star. It was swarming with pushy girls grading their boyfriends, as well as a chorus of grim reapers and cackling dwarfs. “Eww,” Wendy whined. After we had arranged our witchy pots artfully, and I went to Cassie's to get dressed for the party, because, as usual, she didn't want to show up alone.

By the time I finished applying my fake lashes and putting bronzer all over my body, I barely recognized myself. I just needed the Sonny to my Cher, which really wasn't going to happen between now and later, so I'd asked Cassie to come. She was a 1970s prom queen, but her Salvation Army-bought silver pumps broke
on the way down the stairs to meet me, and she had an identity crisis.

“Va-va-voom! You look like a hot piece of 1975 ass.” She had on a gorgeous lavender polyester disco dress with a swishy pleated skirt and puffy three-quarter-length sleeves. The dress had silver zig-zags across the waist. Then I noticed she looked like she was about to puke. “What's the matter?’

“I can't wear this! I only have one heel,” she wailed.

“Why don't you try on some other shoes?” I suggested.

“They don't match!”

Eventually, after much coaxing, she wore some black shoes she'd bought for a black-widow costume the year before.

Noah and Renora were on the decorating committee. All the furniture had been moved into the conference room. The entire loft was festooned with cobwebs, although, it occurred to me, many of these might not be decorations.

Everybody seemed to choose characters they already resembled, somewhat. Wendy was exercise guru Jane Fonda, after her teen-princess era and before she was a billionaire's wife. Her span-dex bodysuit with its deep V-neck and stripes were set off by a pair of silver hand-knit legwarmers. Other girls gathered around to admire her impeccable rendition, completed by sweatbands around her wrists and head.

“I'm so into these legwarmers,” she said to me, panting as she pumped her arms in the air as part of her aerobic-dancing routine. “I'm gonna wear them all the time. They're so
comfortable!”

“Honey you already wear legwarmers all the time,” I pointed out.

Wielding a cane and a pipe, Linus approached us. He had shaved the top of his head and dyed the rest of his hair gray.

“Who am I?” he asked.

“I don't know … an old man.”

“Amy, Amy Amy” he muttered, shuffling away from me. “That's obvious. But which
one?”

“What are you, Rain Man?” It turned out he was Carl Jung.

Renora was a sexy romance novel cover girl. She'd bought C cup saline boob enhancers (they're called Curves), and stuffed herself into a tight and flouncy green velvet ball gown. She had a curly brown appliqué attached to her short hair. “Where's your Romeo?” I asked.

“Shhh.” She pulled me aside. “I'm a little disturbed by his costume,” she whispered. “I feel like he's
really
eighty years old.”

“It is a little too good,” I agreed. We watched as Linus stumbled by with Gus, dressed as a Hell's Angel; Evan, who was looking freaky as Gene Simmons in full ceremonial dress; and Nestor, who was Gonzo from the Muppets.

“Have you seen Sol or George?”

“No, but I heard. It's awful.” At that moment I fleetingly spotted Sol cutting a rug on the dance floor. I didn't know it was Sol, though. He was wearing a woman's tennis outfit, and had a racquet in his hand. The costume was smudged with black paint. Every visible inch of skin on his body was covered with black paint, except for his eyes, white and blinking, like two gleaming sand dollars sinking into black velvet.

Evan came over and stood with us. “Pretty fucked, huh?”

“What
is
he?”

Evan pointed to Sol's back, where he had pinned a tiny black doll to himself, also outfitted in tennis whites. “He's the Williams sisters,” he coughed.

“You're joking.”

“I'm not.” Sol was bouncing, apparently ignorant of his racist gaffe.

“That's not funny.” Sol bounced over the dance floor, kicking
his legs up with Jane Fonda and then pantomiming an atrocious serve over his head.

“Didn't blackface go out with the four humors and hydrogen-filled Zeppelins? There's something so completely wrong about that guy.”

“How about everything?” he agreed. “Have you seen George?”

“No,” I said, and Renora chimed in, joining us.

“I'll go get him.” Evan went to get him, coming back a minute later with George naked but for a pair of CK boxer briefs and several little yellow Post-its stuck all over his body.

“Okay, fucksticks, what am I?” We all stared on, disbelievingly.

“The naked guy?”

“A pervert?”

“The guy at the party who drinks too much and makes a fool of himself?”

“All true, but that's not my gig tonight. C'mon, fishlips, you're smarter than that.” He waited for another guess. “I'm the Naked Truth.” On closer inspection, the notes stuck to him had things penned on them: I read them aloud, almost as a question.

“Girls don't swallow? I think I've found a factual error in your costume.” I kept reading. “Yes, you do look … fatter? … Black men have bigger dicks? Your wife must love that one,” I cracked. “How would you know?”

“What's up with Sol's costume?” Evan asked. “Isn't that, I don't know … politically incorrect? Offensive? Illegal?”

“Brown sugar, baby,” he countered, smacking his lips in satisfaction.

“I can't believe I work here,” Renora reflected later.

“I know.”

I thought doing this kind of work would make me very
powerful. Even if I saw a gruesome investigation in perfect clarity, it didn't matter. Our clients’ interests dictated the response, and I was no more or less powerful. Or I'd take a really dull case and will it to be sensational, all in service of my hunger to be clever and almighty. In my own life, I was a terrible detective—I struck a hypothesis and found things to support it. Even in the face of a faulty theorem, I would pursue it like a demented, lovelorn fool. Perhaps the learning curve of the Agency had flattened for me. I loved my job, but wasn't sure I was any good at it, and I wasn't sure if it was good for me, either.

TWENTY-TWO