“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“You were a protestor. Ginnie told me.”
“I was involved in a veterans-against-the-war group. We lobbied, we didn’t riot. We worked within the system.”
“Oh, isn’t that sweet! A condescending tone for those of us who really got out and got it done.”
“I didn’t mean to be condescending. People like you helped stop the war; I won’t take that away from you.”
He laughed from down in his chest; I never heard a laugh more bitter. “Isn’t that big of you. Where are you, now? What are you doing now, for the cause?”
“What cause?”
That threw him for a minute.
Then he said, “Any cause. Any good human cause.”
“I write mysteries. You write ads. So spare me the condescension, too, while you’re at it.”
With tight, barely restrained anger, he said, “My agency has handled the campaigns for a dozen Democratic candidates on state and national levels, for cost.”
“You’re doing a hell of a job, too, judging by all the Republicans getting elected.”
Looking out the window again, he said, “We do what we can.”
“Wasn’t there some bad publicity that probably helped lose an election for that guy, what’s-his-name, who was running for U.S. Senate a while back? When it came out his ad campaign was being run by the former Propaganda Minister of the Yippies?”
He just nodded, as if he barely remembered I was there.
I said, “I doubt any politicians will be using your agency again, even if you do give your services to ’em at cost.”
Still looking out the window, he smiled faintly. “I have other clients, including some rather conservative ones, who are able to coexist peacefully with the radical skeletons in my closet. I have three national TV spots airing this month, Mallory. And I have the single largest advertising account in the state; don’t let my modest offices fool you.”
I hadn’t found his offices particularly modest — or him, either, for that matter.
I said, “I suppose you’re talking about Life-Investors Mutual.”
One of the hundred top insurance companies in the world.
“That’s right,” he said.
“Ain’t it great,” I said.
He looked at me. “What?”
“Capitalism.”
He gave me a smile that was almost a sneer and said, “I never, ever said I was anything but a capitalist. I also happen to be a socialist, and those terms aren’t contradictory.”
“Whatever you say.”
“You are a shallow son of a bitch, Mallory. I wonder what Ginnie saw in you.”
“You took the words right out of my mouth.”
He opened a drawer and took out a pipe; not the hashish variety, either. He poked some tobacco in and lit up. “Did you ever make it with Ginnie?” he asked.
“No. We were never that way.”
“Just friends.”
“That’s right.”
“Are you gay or something?”
“I’m gay in the sense that I’m a cheerful sort of guy. Other than that, how would you like to ride that pipe?”
He patted the air with his free hand, drawing on the pipe like an older, wiser man than I would ever be. “Take it easy. I just wondered. Ginnie was... well, you know how she was. She seemed to be open, telling you the damnedest things, to shock, to provoke, to entertain you. But she kept certain things to herself. And despite her mentioning you frequently... well, not frequently, but enough that it got on my nerves... I never got a sense of what your relationship might’ve been like.”
“We were friends,” I said. “We grew up together.”
“Brother and sister sort of thing.”
“If you insist. I think of it as friendship and let it go at that.”
“I, uh... guess we’re both a little testy. We’ve both suffered a loss.”
“Yes we have.”
“I loved Ginnie, you know.”
“I did, too, in my way. Do you mind my asking a personal question?”
“Ask, and we’ll see.”
“Why did you and Ginnie break it off?”
He leaned back in his chair, thinking, puffing. The pipe smoke was overly sweet smelling and mingled with the pot smell in a way that turned my stomach.
He said, “I tried to honor her... independence. We had an open sort of relationship. We could see other people, if we liked. And sometimes we did. That... that didn’t bother me. At times I even liked it; my profession is one... conducive to promiscuity.”
An ad man ought to be able to come up with a better way to say “screwing around” than that. But I didn’t point it out.
He went on. “It was certain other habits of hers that I couldn’t put up with.”
“Such as?”
He sighed again. “She’s barely gone. Do we have to talk about that side of her?”
“What side? Was she doing drugs?”
“Drugs wasn’t the problem. Not really.”
“What was?”
He winced. “She was too wild.”
“Wild. Not sexually...”
“No! Well, that, too. But that I could live with. It was a, well...”
“Trade-off. It let you tomcat around if you felt like it.”
He smiled, barely. “‘Tomcat.’ That’s a term I haven’t heard in a while. You really are a small-town boy, aren’t you?”
“I meant to say, it allowed you to lead a life more conducive to promiscuity.”
“Okay. So I called you a hick, and you called me a pompous ass. Can we move on?”
“Sure. Move on to why you and Ginnie really broke up.”
“I couldn’t handle her. Couldn’t handle it.”
“What?”
He put on his glasses; they were tinted, obscuring his eyes. “Well,” he said, sitting back. “You might say I’d about had it with that angst in her pants routine. Long all-night bull sessions about the meaning of life with somebody who hadn’t really grown up yet after thirty-some years on this planet, immature crap, as far as I was concerned, considering what she was doing with her life.”
“What was she doing with her life? What was bothering you about her?”
“Frankly — the gambling. It wasn’t just that she lost money. After all, sometimes she’d win. But it was just too much. She would have a lunch appointment with me, and wouldn’t show up. I’d go home that night and find a note saying, ‘Gone to Vegas.’ Or Tahoe, or even Atlantic City.”
“She’d just go at the drop of a hat.”
He nodded. “Yes. And the drop of thousands of dollars.”
“Was she losing?”
He shrugged. “She had her ups and downs.”
“What about lately?”
“Downs. I’d say, downs.”
I had a hunch; I played it.
I said, “Before you broke up, had she made a Vegas trip recently?”
“Tahoe, actually.”
“Did she use her own money?”
He thought about that before answering. Reluctantly, against his better judgment, he revealed, “She took ten thousand dollars of mine.”
“Where’d she get her hands on that much cash?”
“We had a joint account. It was something she’d been trying to talk me into for a while. As a show of confidence.”
“And you showed her confidence, and she conned you.”
“Essentially, yes.”
“Did she pay you back?”
“No. She said she would, though.”
“What do you know about her selling ETC.’s?”
“Not much. I think she may have played the same sort of game with Caroline as me, though. Caroline Westin is not the sort who’d put up with that kind of thing very long.”
“Why’d Ginnie take your ten grand? She must’ve had money left from the sale of ETC.’s.”