“What about the party or parties unknown who hacked up the fairy?”
“What fairy is that?”
“Come on,” Cohen said. “Nelson.”
“Was he a fairy?” Peter asked, innocently.
“Wasn’t he?”
“I didn’t know him that well,” Peter said. “Did you?”
Cohen smiled at Wohl approvingly.
“Maybe the princess has met her match,” he said. “I knew there had to be some kind of an attraction.”
“Leonard, for Christ’s sake, will you shut up?” the intense young woman snapped, and then, “Two, you’re out of focus, for Christ’s sake!”
Cohen shrugged.
“Good night, Louise,” Barton Ellison said to Louise Dutton.
“See you at eleven, Barton,” Louise said, “when we should have film of the fire at the Navy Yard.”
“It should be spectacular,” Barton Ellison replied. “A real four-alarm blaze.”
“Roll the logo,” the intense young woman said.
Through the plate-glass window, Peter saw a man step behind Louise. She took something from her ear and handed it to him, and then stood up. Then she unclipped what he realized after a moment must be a microphone, and tugged at a cord, pulling it down and out of her sleeve.
Then she walked across the studio to the control room, entered it, walked up to him, said “Hi!”; stood on her toes, and kissed him quickly on the lips.
The intense young woman applauded.
“You’re just jealous, that’s all,” Louise said.
“You got it, baby,” the intense young woman said. “Has he got a friend?”
Louise chuckled, and then took Peter’s arm and led him out of the control, through another door, and into a corridor.
“Since we’ll be at my place,” she said, “and I want to change anyway, I can wipe this crap off there.” She touched the heavy makeup on her face. “Where are you parked?”
“Out in front,” he said.
She looked at him in surprise.
“Right in front?” she asked. He nodded.
She started to say something, and then laughed. She had, Peter thought, absolutely perfect teeth.
“I was about to say, ‘My God, the cops will tow your car away,’ “ she said. “But I guess not, huh?”
“There are fringe benefits in my line of work,” he said. “Not many, but some.”
“How do they know it’s a cop car?”
“Most of the time, they can tell by the kind of car, or they see the radio,” he replied. “Or you just have the ticket canceled. But if you have a car like mine, with the radio in the glove compartment, and you don’t want it towed away, you put a little sign on the dash. Or sometimes on the seat.”
“Can you get me a sign?”