“They want to send me to the East Side. It’s bullshit. I don’t want to cover boring suburbs. I’ve done good stuff. I’ve paid dues. I came here to cover real news.”
I smile inside at her wounded passion, recalling myself from years before, when I didn’t even know what I didn’t know. Maybe I still don’t. The waitress brings martinis and I take a deep pull, trying to slow my heart, which is still pounding, heavy and insistent. I absently reach inside my jacket, where Rachel’s note sat before I burned it. I alternate between the liquor and a glass of ice water, trying to get the sandpaper taste out of my mouth.
“Assholes. Fuckers.” She takes a full swig. “Have you met with the fucking consultants, yet?” I shake my head. “You’re in for a treat. Anyway, this isn’t even the worst. Something is going on with the cops. I went to pull the report on your guy, Troy Hardesty, and they wouldn’t release it. Then the same thing with Megan’s boyfriend. Nada. So I go to the M.E. to get the lawyers on it. This is freedom of information. This was their big story, the little missing blonde teen. Now they’re not interested.”
“What do you mean they’re not interested?”
“Just what I said.” Her voice rises. “He said I could hand it off to Kathy.” She’s another, more experienced cops reporter. “He said we’d had too much on the story lately and readers are getting tired of it. ‘There’s nothing new.’ Can you believe that? Ryan’s suicide is new as hell! Nobody has it. Television doesn’t have it. We could have a national scoop. Anyway, that’s when he tells me I’m going to the ‘burbs. Should I quit?”
“Wait, wait.” I ask her again about the police reports. “How often do they withhold this kind of thing?”
“Never. And my good sources among the detectives clammed up. One did tell me that Troy had put his wallet and wedding ring in a plastic bag when he took the big dive.”
I tell her Troy never wore a wedding ring.
She exhales hard. “This is a big deal.”
“So what did the M.E. say?”
“He said it was ‘premature’ to do anything.” Her face contorts at the word. “Can you believe that? The Free Press has always been aggressive on freedom of information. These are public records. Suddenly they’re chickenshits.”
Amber keeps talking and I nod sympathetically. Inside, I am making “eleven/eleven” connections, warranted or not. Sealed reports concealing what? That these supposed suicides are really homicides? I can’t decide whether to involve her, tell her about the note from Rachel. Maybe I should pay for our drinks and let her go to the suburbs and live a happy life. Maybe she’s in as much potential danger as me.
“I want to work downtown,” she says earnestly. “I want to work with the great journalists. I can learn so much from you.” She reaches across and takes my hand. She’s a toucher.
I interrupt her. “I need your advice, Amber. What would you think if I said the words…”
A group of businesswomen walks by and I feel one lingering by the table. It’s Pam, wearing a chic navy outfit with a tight skirt. The Phantom’s trench coat rests innocently over her arm. I smile. She doesn’t.
She says my name and curtly nods toward Amber. “She’s a little young for you, isn’t she?”
I laugh the laugh of the clueless and start to introduce Amber when I feel the cold water cascade off the top of my head. Pam pours it with the slowness of a performance artist. It sluices off my shirt, down my tie, into my crotch. Ice cubes rattle off my chest onto the table. A black straw rests momentarily on my left ear before falling into my shirt pocket. One of her friends giggles.
Pam glares at me for a long time. Then, in a low voice, “You are a monster.”
Her blond hair flies behind her like a contrail of wheat as she hurries out the door.
I say nothing as I stand, releasing more ice cubes from my clothes. My hair and shirt are downpour wet. At least I’m not hot anymore.
“Excuse me for a minute.”
In the restroom I tear out paper towels to clean up the mess. Pam is the last person I would have expected to be jealous. Not only does she have a fiancé, but she gets off on sex talk, including about other women in my life. She’s the only one who knows details of the two Melindas. Rachel, I didn’t talk about. Now Pam is suddenly jealous. I guess it makes sense in a way I will understand when I am not so damp. Thoughts of 11/11 are temporarily tabled.
The door latch sounds and I am about to say something when I see Amber. She comes in and locks the door.
“It says unisex bathroom.” She dabs at my shirt and coat with paper towels. Her very fair, freckled hand strokes at my tie, then she uses it to pull me to her. She is tall. The kiss evolves over long seconds and her tongue lightly probes inside my mouth.
When we finally stop, she says, “If you’re doing the time, may as well do the
crime.”
“Amber…”
She kisses me again, and my resistance, not much to begin with, vanishes.
The door jiggles and I stop. She pulls me back to her and says “mm, mmm, mmm,” in a low voice. With my hands on her slender waist, she hoists herself onto the vanity. Again using the tie, she pulls me close. Then I feel her hands on my crotch, on my zipper. She reaches into my boxers and I feel skin on skin.
“My, my, you’re a big one.”