Westlake, Donald E - Sara and Jack 01 (17 page)

 
          
Jack
held the photo in both hands, studying it, studying the two old guys in the
wheelchairs, surrounded by obvious partygoers. The two old guys were identical,
with identical bad-tempered expressions. One held a floral design plastic cup,
the other a crumbled cookie. Jack could see this photo, touch it, look at it;
so why did he mistrust the goddamn thing so much?

 
          
“Well?”
Sara asked, standing there, bobbing on the balls of her feet, filling and
overflowing his squaricle with her triumphant smiling presence. “All right,”
Jack said grudgingly. “All right.” Well, it had to be all right, didn’t it?
Here were the hundred-year-old twins. Here they were again in photos with the
twenty-foot-long birthday cake, the
Galaxy’s
name prominent. Here they were with the three mayors. Here they were with the
long-lost cousins from
Cicero
,
Illinois
. Here they were with the nursing home
doctors and staff. Here they were with their fellow residents. Here they were
looking balefully at the camera and wearing tall conical birthday hats.

 
          
Here
they were, all right. And here was Jack, hip deep in verification and
authentication; so what was there about this story that made him feel as though
somehow or other he’d just bought the
Brooklyn
Bridge
?

           
It shouldn’t matter, really. If the
story was solid enough to get past the fact checkers and into the paper, that
was all anybody needed. It was just that ... it was just that ... if there was
any conning to be done, Jack was supposed to be one of the conners, not one of
the connees.

 
          
Oh,
well. At last, knowing that if in fact he
had
been taken for a ride it had been masterfully done, that he would never see
the seams—no, it hadn’t been done with mirrors, he’d already checked that
possibility—he tossed the photo back among the others on his desk and said,
“Well, you did it.”

 
          
“I
sure did,” she agreed, swelling with pride. “You sent me to do a birthday party
for one- hundred-year-old twins, and that’s what I did. Sorry about the
governor.”

 
          
“That’s
okay,” Jack assured her. “The three mayors are fine, very American.”

 
          
Mary
Kate paused in her typing to say, out of the comer of her mouth, “It’s a real
heartwarming story.” And she went on with her typing.

 
          
“It
was a really nice party,” Sara said.

 
          
“Sorry
I couldn’t be there,” Jack said truthfully.

 
          
Sara
laughed and said, “What next?”

 
          
“Felicia,”
Jack told her. “The famous Felicia. Or the nonfamous Felicia, unfortunately.”

 
          
“You
want me to talk to her? What if she’s—”

           
“We still need to
find
her,” Jack said. “That’s why you’re
going to be taking another little trip.”

           
The idea pleased her, that was
obvious. “Back to
America
?”

 
          
“Not
exactly. Just to
Miami
, this time.”

 
          
Her
expression sardonic, she said, “Another restaurant?”

 
          
“Better,”
Jack told her, refusing to rise to the bait. “Much better, if it works out.
You’re new here, so you aren’t known to be a
Galaxy
reporter. God knows you think on your feet,” he added,
tapping the photos of the birthday party. “So just maybe it’ll work out.”

 
          
“What
am I supposed to do?”

 
          
“Apply
for a job,” Jack said.

 
          
Later
that same day, Jack had a chat with Ida Gavin, also back from
America
; or, that is, from Bel Air, and the
swimming pool of the overly excitable Keely Jones. The interview had gone
well—when Keely Jones at last did collapse, she collapsed all the way, and Ida
was precisely the right vulture to be waiting on the branch overhead at the
time—and Ida had transcribed the tape and written her story on the flight back;
no grass grew under old Ida’s feet.

 
          
Jack’s
attitude toward Ida contained all the ambiguity of anyone who employs a mad dog
because of the mad dog’s useful qualities. At work, Ida was fast, dedicated,
smart and utterly without pity. Behind the harsh expression and watchful eyes,
she was a very good-looking woman of thirty-four, for whom sex was merely
another weapon in the arsenal of reportorial techniques.

           
Given her speed and single-minded
dedication, she was the most resourceful and reliable person on Jack’s team,
more responsible than anyone except Jack himself for the team’s success; but
she was also the one member of the team he couldn’t possibly see himself having
a drink with, or a conversation with, away from the job. (As for going to bed
with her, ye gods!) Ida was an android, cold and ruthlessly efficient, which
made her perfect for what he now had in mind. “Your next task,” he told her,
when Ida came by the squaricle to drop off the Keely Jones piece, “awaits.”

 
          
Ida
looked alert, like a leopard smelling a deer. “Felicia?” she asked.

 
          
“No,”
he said. “What I’m giving you is the only thing right now that’s even more
important. It’s industrial espionage.”

 
          
Ida
had engaged in industrial espionage before. She smiled thinly, perhaps at the
memory of the three-week affair she’d once had with the chief surgeon of a
large Dallas hospital in order to find out whether or not a hospitalized TV
series star had AIDS; negative, unfortunately, but still, it was better to
know. “Which industry?” she asked.

 
          
“This
industry,” Jack told her, waving a hand generally at Editorial. “Ida, some
member of this team fed the Felicia name to Boy Cartwright.”

           
Fire shot from Ida’s eyes. Her
nostrils quivered. Her fingernails grew an inch. “Who,” she said.

   
        
“That is what you are to tell me.”

           
“I will,” Ida said.

           
She would, too. Ida’s short grim
history is quickly told: As a bright local Midwestern TV newsreader in her
twenties, she had been swept off her feet by the sophisticated Englishman from
the
Weekly Galaxy
, Boy Cartwright
(less puffy and less obviously degenerate then), who had rushed her into an
affair much as she would later do with such as that Dallas surgeon, swearing
eternal fealty, encouraging her to abandon her well-begun TV news career with
its first few useful contacts, and promising her a job as his good right hand
at the
Galaxy
, while all the time he
had been actually interested in nothing but some passingly newsworthy piece of
showbiz info.

 
          
Her
first life in ruins, Ida had followed Boy to
Florida
, unbelieving at first that the romance was
dead, and had even managed to get herself hired by the
Galaxy
, though Boy had talked against her behind her back, not
wanting the responsibility of her continued presence in his life. (He’d had less
power at the paper, then, and so had failed.)

 
          
Once
Ida had at last understood what had been done to her, something curdled in that
body and brain. She had determined to out-Boy Boy, to become better than he at
his own game, to beat him to scoops, outshine him, become the only woman in the
world Boy Cartwright could admire and respect, while at all times keeping
turned toward him a face of unremitting hate.

 
          
Hatred
of Boy, and cold implacable efficiency on the job, begun as conscious
determination, had both settled into habits, and by now these two
characteristics had
become
Ida Gavin,
the news machine. If she had any other facets to her personality, no one knew
about them; and no one wanted to know.

 
          
“It’s
within the team,” Jack told her. “Find out which one of them, Ida. Strip them
naked.”

           
“I will bring you,” Ida said,
“Polaroids of their hearts.”

 
          
Felicia
scraped omelette residue into the garbage and fitted the plate into the
dishwasher. Johnny, having put the butter and cream away, stood in the middle
of the kitchen watching her, a discontented frown on his quasi-handsome face, a
face that one critic had described as “a sculptor’s first draft of Adonis.”
Felicia, aware of Johnny’s eyes on her, closed the dishwasher and looked
smiling around the kitchen; not entirely spotless, but it would do. “All done,”
she said. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

 
          
“Felicia,
you shouldn’t have to do
housework
,”
Johnny said, his voice thick with the clogged fury of a man who isn’t used to frustration.
“And it won’t be for long,” he added. “I promise you.”

 
          
Felicia
laughed. It wasn’t that she was a beautiful girl, exactly; she had pleasant and
regular features, clear eyes and ash blonde hair done in a style whose cunning
secret was simplicity. It was the person behind the features, the individual
who animated them, that made it seem she was beautiful. When she laughed,
lifting her head just slightly in that fashion, Johnny wanted to die for her;
to kill for her; to live for her; to give every other creature on the planet
life in her name. “Johnny, Johnny,” she said (he loved her voice always, but
never more than when it was saying his name), “I’m not the princess and the
pea, you know. I’ve taken care of myself for years.”

 
          
“Well,
I’m taking care of you now,” he said, then heard what he’d just said and
laughed at himself. (One of the reasons
she
loved
him
was that, against all the
odds, he frequently did laugh at himself.) “That is,” he corrected, “I’m
hiring
the people to take care of you
now.” Laughter gone, he glowered around the kitchen. “Soon, I hope.”

 
          
Her
own expression now troubled, she said, “Are you really sure you had to fire
everybody?”
“The place was riddled with
spies,” he told her. “I got lax, honey. Until you came along, for a long while
I didn’t have anything in my life I cared that much about, so I just let things
happen, and that goddamn
Galaxy
bribed its way into my
closets
, into
my
bathroom.
There was no way to tell
who hadn’t sold out, so the only thing to do was start all over, and be
sure .”

 
          
“That’s
so hard on the innocent ones, though.” “Everybody got a first-rate
recommendation,” he pointed out, “and fat severance pay. And if any of them
were innocent and got hurt, that’s something else for the
Galaxy's
conscience, if it has one.”

 
          
“I
don’t even see,” she said cautiously, knowing how strongly he felt about this,
“why they’re so
important.
It’s just
a trashy gossip paper, nobody believes it or pays it any attention.”

           
“People pay it attention, yes, they
do,” he told her grimly. “But that isn’t the point. The things they say, the
intrusions, the violation of the simplest standards of decency and privacy. You
don’t have the thick skin, Felicia, you aren’t toughened.” He crossed the room
to put his arms around her, looking at her as solemnly as a child. “They’d tear
you apart, my darling. I’m not going to let that happen. I want you never in
this world to be anything but happy.”

 
          
“I
am happy,” she said, and kissed him. Then she laughed again, saying, “And when
we have a whole new staff here, screened and guaranteed by that
brilliant
employment agency man—”

 
          
“Reed.
Henry Reed is his name. And he is brilliant.”

 
          
“And
when he’s done his work,” Felicia said, laughing at Johnny, but fondly, “and we
have a new cook, and a new maid, and a new gardener, and a new butler, and new
security people, and a new secretary, and a whole
army
of new people, then you’ll be happy, too,
man general.
Isn’t that so?”

 
          
“Stay
with me, Felicia,” he told her, his arms tight around her waist, “and I’ll be
happy. That’s all it takes.”

 
          
Henry
Reed rested his palm on the employment application form and looked at the young
woman across the desk. In a few minutes, if it seemed worthwhile, he would
study the answers she’d written on that form, but at first, as was his invariable
practice, he would simply talk to her, ask her questions and listen to the
answers, and watch her, become aware of her on a person-to-person basis. That
was much more valuable than all the filled-out applications in the world, and
it was his skill at reading people rather than reading forms that had made
Henry Reed Personnel Inc.
the
premier-quality placement service
\'7bnever
employment agency, nothing so blue collar and crude) in south Florida, for both
the better corporate clients and the most discriminating private individuals.
There’s a lot of money in south
Florida
, and it was Henry Reed’s service to that
money to provide for it the upper echelons of discreet, practiced, highly
trained servitors.

 
          
“So,
Miss Henderson,” he said, “you’re looking for work as a personal secretary.”

 
          
“That’s
right.” She was attractive, in her twenties, neatly and personably dressed; she
met Reed’s searching look clearly, without fuss. “I prefer not to work in
offices,” she went on, and smiled. “I’m afraid I get bored too easily, though
maybe I shouldn’t admit that to you.”

 
          
“Not
at all,” he murmured. So far, he was impressed. There were several clients he
could think of—one in particular, in fact—who would perhaps be very grateful
for his introduction of this young woman into their lives.

 
          
“For
me,” she was saying, “it just seems to work out better if I work for one
specific person in a more informal setting, be he an entrepreneur, an artist, a
venture capitalist, or whatever he might be.” Laughing lightly, she said, “Or
she
might be, I have nothing against
working for a woman. In either case, that’s what’s more likely to give me the
kind of varied work experience that keeps me happy.”

 
          
Reed
nodded. “Would that include,” he asked, “well-known people?”

 
          
She
looked alert, but uncomprehending. “I’m sorry?”

 
          
“Celebrities,
you might say.”

 
          
“Oh.”
A sardonic expression crossed her face. She crossed her legs, crossed her
wrists on her lap, leaned back slightly in the chair; all body language for
rejection. “Oh, I’ve had my celebs,” she said. “Yes, sir.”

 
          
“And
would you prefer a well-known employer again?”

 
          
“Oh,
no,” she said, with a palm-down
right- hand sweeping movement away to the side.

 
          
“No?”
Reed watched her with great care. “Would you mind saying why not?”

 
          
“I’m
a good personal secretary,” Miss Henderson said, and gestured at the
application form on his desk. “And those people will tell you so. But
celebrities have great big heads and they’re the
worst”

 
          
“They
are?”

 
          
“They
think they’re all that matters in this life, and it’s
my
job to convince the rest of the world they’re right. No more
movie stars for me. Give me a nice doctor’s wife, an importer, a grapefruit
heir.”

           
Reed smiled, sympathizing and to
some extent agreeing; he had his own celebrity clients, and the grapefruit
heirs were considerably easier to deal with. “You sound very certain,” he said.

 
          
“That’s
because I am.”

 
          
“So
if I
had
a celebrity, you’d
absolutely turn the job down?”

 
          
She
frowned, as though faced with a difficult decision. “Well, not absolutely,” she
said. “I suppose it would depend. But my feelings are, I’d rather not get in
that rat race again.”

 
          
“The
person I’m thinking of,” Reed told her carefully, “is John Michael Mercer.”

 
          
“Oh.”
She looked rather taken—and taken aback—by the idea. “Well, I don’t know,” she
said. “He
is
famous, and ... I’d hate
to turn a good job down, but ... I suppose I’d have to talk with him first, see
how we get along.”

 
          
“Of
course,” Reed said. Smiling thinly, he glanced at last at the application form.
It would be solid, of course, every reference would check and double-check.
Still smiling, at the perversity and cleverness of the human mind, he folded
the form in half, then again, then leaned over to make an elaborate show of
dropping it in the wastebasket. “Thank you, Miss . . . Well, I’ll go on calling
you Miss Henderson, shall I? Thank you for stopping in.”

 
          
The
young woman stared in blank astonishment at his face, at the wastebasket, at
him again. “What are you
doing?”

 
          
“Not
that it matters,” Reed said, “but just out of curiosity, who are you with? The
Enquirer? People? Sixty Minutes?”

           
“I have no idea what—“ she
spluttered. “I’m just—”

 
          
“It’s
a very cute approach,” Reed assured her, not wanting to entirely ruin her day.
“Not absolutely original, of course, but then what is? Nevertheless, a nice
approach. And you did it very well.”

 
          
The
young woman, her expression on the brink of outrage, studied him a few seconds
longer, then abruptly shifted; her posture became looser, her expression more
frank, her mouth more sensual. “So what went wrong?” she said.

 
          
Reed
smiled; he liked her, really. Too bad he couldn’t seduce her away from her
present employer, place her with someone really good. But of course, he’d never
be able to trust her; no one would. “You switched,” he explained, “just a
teeny
bit too soon.”

 
          
Rising,
nodding, smiling back at him, she said, “Well, I’m new at the game.”

 
          
“You
are?” Reed viewed her with honest pleasure. “You’ll be something, when you get
your growth,” he said.

 
          
“Homosexuality
Linked to Atheism, Experts Say,” Jack said.

           
“
Massa
hates faggots,” Mary Kate informed him, as
she typed.

 
          
“No
no,” he assured her. “It’s true, he won’t touch
lesbianism
with a rake. Remember when I had that great one?”

           
“I remember.”

 
          
Jack
looked up, seeing it in lights. “Famous Writer’s Wife Leaves Him for Affair
with Actress.”

 
          
“
Massa
went away and washed his hands when you
told him that one,” Mary Kate recalled.

 
          
“I
had
everything ”
Jack complained. “I
had tapped phone calls, I had best-friend affidavits, I was covered more
completely than J. Edgar Hoover.”

 
          
“And
Massa
said no,” Mary Kate pointed out. “He hates
faggots.”

 
          
“He
hates
dykes
,” Jack corrected. “It’s
because he can’t figure out how to sell them anything. What we’re talking here
is male homosexuality, which he doesn’t give a shit about, and a positive
religious story, which he loves. You wait and see.”

 
          
“The
red pencil lines,” Mary Kate said. “I can see them now.”

 
          
Ida
Gavin entered the squaricle. “Industrial espionage,” she said, with a glance at
Mary Kate.