When she heard that he was in California, she softened a little. He had probably had to leave town on short notice, as he had always said he might. She had had the phone unplugged most of the day before, when she was at home working. She was making excuses for him before he made them for himself.
What he had to say was even more interesting. He obviously assumed that she knew something she knew nothing about. Jail? Nicole? The car in the woods? She had no idea what he was talking about, and said as much. And then he leaped to his defense, not believing that she was serious. “Have you written me off?” he said. “Without even hearing my side of the story?”
She asked to hear his side of the story. She said again that she had no idea what he was talking about. No, it wasn’t in the paper. Yes, she was sure. No, the front page was all about the mass murders at McDonald’s. Then he turned the subject to police corruption. He had paid a bribe to keep his name out of the paper, taken a long shot. Was she telling him that it had worked?
Maybe she was wrong, but she hadn’t read anything about it in the paper. She had been in town that day, and nobody was talking about it. What exactly happened? she asked him. He began to describe two cops who sounded like something from a Marx Brothers movie. Two cops, one of whom he swore was stoned, who had nearly crashed into a car he had borrowed for the day. The crazy cop had insisted on arresting him, and in the cop car, he had made it plain that money would be just the thing to hush this up. He had talked about how much toys cost these days, saying that he bet his son would be very pleased to have as many Kermits as money would buy. Edward, terrified and trying to console Nicole, had to listen to a long talk about toilet training on the way to the police station. There wasn’t anything about … indecent exposure in the paper?
The closest thing to that was a news item about Miss America, whose nude pictures were in Penthouse and who might have her crown taken away.
He told her the story, conveniently changing some of the facts. He and Nicole (what an irony that he and a dishwasher were the only people who put themselves out for Nicole; how lonesome stars really were) had gone to the woods, where he was going to take more photographs of her. They had decided to go for a swim, and just as they were stripping down to their underwear (okay, in retrospect he realized that that was chancey, but why did people have to have such dirty minds?) a car had zoomed into the woods and veered off into the bushes … He could try to describe to her where to look; surely the mess would still be there. He stopped talking, amazed at how well he was doing so far.
“I don’t understand,” she said.
The cops had gotten hysterical. They were hysterical to begin with. What cop who thought he had a pervert in the car would drive him to a K Mart and go in with him and load a shopping cart full of stuffed frogs? The cop was a pervert. Edward thought he might be so crazy he was dangerous. He had his credit card with him, so what the helclass="underline" hush money for fifty frogs.
“This didn’t really happen,” she said.
“It did!” he said. “You’ve got to find out about this cop and get him off the force. It’s your civic duty. He’s a madman. Not capable of helping anybody.”
“Go on,” she said.
“It happens all the time,” he said. “Cops burglarizing houses, running drug emporiums …”
He said that he didn’t know what the cops had said to Lucy, but she had even refused to see him in jail, apparently. He had been given the word, when he finally got in touch with a lawyer who got bail posted and sprung him from jail, that under no circumstances should he go anywhere near Lucy or Nicole and that he should go back to California. He had his camera, and all the photographs, but the easel was still at Lucy’s house. The whole sketch pad, with the drawings of Nicole.
“What do you think I can do about it?” she said.
“Do you think there’s any way you could get it?”
“I’ve never been to her house,” Myra said. “Let me get this straight: you and Nicole were going swimming, and then you were going to take pictures. Wouldn’t her hair be a mess?”
Action shots. The toy manufacturer didn’t want studio portraits.
“Listen,” Myra said. “This is pretty crazy. I don’t really know what to say. But there’s no way I can help you.”
“She’s not there a lot of the time. She never locks the door.”
“You’re insane,” Myra said. “You think I’d go out to her house and steal something? Can you imagine keeping that out of the papers? The Robber Reporter?”
She should really do a piece on police corruption …
Not her territory.
This was important. Worth talking to the higher-ups at the paper about. He would take a lie detector test saying that he had been forced by a policeman to buy every Kermit frog at the K Mart.
She believed him. It was just one crazy story after another. Day after day.
Lucy was having an affair with Hildon. They went off together at least once a week, and always on Monday.
Not a chance in hell.
He’d helped her out. Introduced her to Lucy. Confided in her about Nicole and the dishwasher.
She met him at the party by chance. By chance he knew Lucy, and Lucy was at the party. He hadn’t had to stretch far to do her the favor. And she didn’t care about Lucy and Hildon or Nicole and the dishwasher. It wasn’t that kind of story. It was an article about Country Daze magazine.
That was the problem everywhere: only little stories got told. They were misleading. No one would know that the cops were madmen. No one was willing to listen to his side of the story, and he could explain everything.
Oh: did he want her to write what he’d just told her?
He thought that he could confide in her. He didn’t think of her as a cold-blooded reporter, but as … a friend.
Who would break into someone’s house.
It was unfair! He had done nothing wrong.
He was lucky he wasn’t still in jail.
That was true.
Welclass="underline" it wasn’t the phone call she expected, but it was nice to hear from him, and she hoped he would have a good summer in California.
“Wait a minute,” he said. “The job photographing those elevators in New York came through. I’m going to be there in a couple of weeks. I don’t have any desire to walk back into Looney Tunes, but I’d like to see you again.”
That got a slight smile. He couldn’t see that, of course. She said she didn’t see how that would happen, but she was glad they had met. To have a good summer.
“I’m serious,” he said. “You could get a flight from Burlington to New York for twenty-seven dollars. I’m going to be in a room at the Plaza.”
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Think about it,” he said. “I’d like to see you again.” He gave her his phone number.
When she hung up, she got a Coke out of the refrigerator and sat on the kitchen counter to drink it. It was very cold, and so strong that it burned going down. She thought about hopping a plane and going to the Plaza. It was such a nice idea that it made her realize how unhappy she was in Vermont. The Country Daze piece was finished, and she had no other big assignment. She was owed a week’s vacation; she could go to the city and stay for a week.