Distemper (18 page)

I was contemplating what a career in advertising might pay when someone poked me in the arm. I looked up from the handlebars,
and there was Gordon Band. He was moving his lips, but what he was saying sounded very much like the lyrics to “
La Vie en Rose
.” I pulled off my headphones.

“… and can you please lose those goddamn…”

“Huh?”

“I said would you please take those goddamn headphones off.”

“I just did.”

“
Thank
you.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Looking for you.”

“How did you find me?” He looked insulted. “You went to my house and Emma told you I was here. Nothing for a newshound such
as yourself.”

“Can we get out of here?”

“Sure. Where do you want to go?”

“Anywhere people aren’t sweating.” Gordon is no fan of exercise, and he has the body to prove it. Jab him in the stomach,
and he feels like the Pillsbury Doughboy. “Do you have any idea how anti-evolutionary this is?” He looked around at the spandex-clad
legions. “Human beings were not meant to expend energy for no good reason.”

“It’s lovely to see you too. How long has it been? Four months? We’d given you up for dead.”

“Sorry.”

“What are you doing up here, anyway?”

“I heard what happened. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“Right. And you’re donating a kidney on the way back to Manhattan.”

“Come on, let me buy you a cup of coffee.”

“After not answering nine messages? You’re buying me breakfast.”

We went to a bagel place a quarter mile from the gym, a little gourmet deli that sells so many different kinds of olives,
even an urban guerrilla like Gordon feels at home. I ordered a Long Island bagel with chive cream cheese and tomato, half
a cantaloupe, and a large cup of the darkest, nastiest coffee they had, and when the time came he opened up his wallet with
reasonable grace.

“So how the hell are you?” I said when we settled into a booth. “You still seeing that radio chick? The one you stayed with
when we went down to the city last summer?”

“You mean the one who dumped me for that asshole from
Nightline
?”

“Oops.”

“Forget me anyway. How are you?”

“I’ve been better. Once upon a time.”

“Didn’t you get the message I left with Madison? I’m not the only one who sloughs people off, you know.”

“Yeah. Thanks. It was nice of you to check up on me. I’m sorry I didn’t call back. Things have been kind of crazy.”

“There’s an understatement. What’s happening to your little rural paradise, anyway?”

“You sound like Mad.”

“Drunk and surly?”

“Just surly.”

“So come on, I’m dying here. What the hell is going on?”

“I don’t feel like talking about it.”

“You? You always feel like talking about
everything
.”

“Yeah, well, this is kind of close to the bone right now.”

“That bad?”

“I’m in this up to my ears. It’s fucking d? vu all over again.”

“Are you okay? Physically, I mean?”

“I’m still kind of sore. Nothing serious.”

He took off his little round John Lennon glasses and wiped them with a napkin. “Holy shit, Alex. I just about flipped when
I saw your name in that wire story.”

“I didn’t know you cared.”

“What kind of a jerk do you think I am?”

“Don’t tempt me.”

“So what happened to you, anyway? The AP didn’t have much, and all I could get out of Madison was that you fell off your bike.”

“Falling off my bike has been the high point of my month.”

I didn’t elaborate, and after a minute Gordon brought out the big guns. “How about something dessertlike? Want to split one
of those big chocolate-chip cookies?” He pointed at the glass case with an expression resembling desire. On Gordon, it looked
like a toothache.

“Worming your way back into my heart through my tummy?”

“If that’ll work.”

“Come across with the pastry and we’ll talk.”

Five minutes later the cookie was history. Gordon and I slouched across from each other in the booth, feet up on the opposite
seat. “It’s weird being back up here.”

“Just like old times?”

“I hope not.”

“Don’t you miss the simple country life? Just a little bit?”

“No.”

“Infidel. Heretic. Unbeliever.”

“I miss you, though.”

“And well you should.”

“You look great.”

“You know, everybody’s been saying that to me lately, in exactly the same tone of voice. They say, ‘You look great,’ but what
they really mean is, ‘You look like something the cat dragged in and sat on, and I pity you.’ “

“You sound fried.”

“I’m positively crispy.”

“Don’t you think it might help to talk about it?”

“You’re just dying to hear the gory details, aren’t you?”

“Of course.”

“Then you better get me another goddamn cookie. Peanut butter this time.”

He delivered it, and after I washed down half with the rest of my coffee I took a deep breath and started from the beginning.
I told him everything that had happened so far, with the exception of my tryst with a certain homicide
detective. Gordon must have been following the story pretty closely over the wire, because he didn’t look at all that surprised
until I told him about C.A.

“Cathy Ann Keillor was your
roommate
?” he said, his eyebrows rising over wire frames. “Holy crap, Alex. Let me get this straight. You found the second body. Your
roommate was the third body. And this putz sent you letters
and
called you at home?”

“That’s about the sum of it.”

“So why aren’t you hiding out in… I don’t know, Vancouver or something?”

“Why Vancouver?”

“Wherever. Off the end of the planet.”

“Someplace they don’t deliver the
Times
?”

“Right.”

“Interesting question.” I thought about it for a minute. “Maybe I don’t feel like getting chased out of my own town.”

“Tough little country girl.”

“Shut up. Jesus, I don’t know, Gordon. Truth is, once you’ve been as scared as I was last year, it kind of gives you calluses.
I don’t think anything could get to me that much anymore, or any
one
, for that matter. Kind of makes me sad.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m twenty-six years old and I feel like I’m all used up.”

“Bullshit.”

“Thanks a lot, Mr. Sensitivity. You’re damn good at trampling over other people’s feelings. I bet you fit right in down there
in your West Side hellhole.”

“Yeah, I’m a pig in shit.”

“That’s frighteningly accurate.”

He stared at me for a second, then laughed in a violent snort. “You always did have my number, Bernier.”

“Welcome home, Gordon.”

“This is
not
my home. But I’m willing to think of it as my cabin in the woods.”

“So come on, what’s going on with you? How’s life down there at the Pink Lady?”

“The
Gray
Lady.”

“Pink is prettier. You covering some cool stuff?”

He didn’t say anything, just started scratching his head in that Gordon way of his, attacking the follicles so the hairs stood
up straight when he was done. I could tell he didn’t want to answer, but he finally did. “Stringing night cops.”

“You mean you’re the fourth guy in line to cover a car fire in Queens at three o’clock in the morning.”

“Boss’s really rubbing my nose in it.”

“The same guy you decked in the city room?”

“That’s the one.”

“But you’d still rather be a peon at the
Slimes
than cover a serial killer for the
Gabriel Monitor
.” He stared more, scratched harder. I got the feeling there was something he wasn’t telling me. “Gordon, what the fuck are
you up to?”

He focused on his plate for a long time, like he was counting the holes in the Swiss cheese on his bialy. Finally he looked
me in the eye. “I’m covering a serial killer. For the
New York Times
.”

I was speechless, which doesn’t happen often. When I finally thought of something to say, it wasn’t all that eloquent. “You
jerk
.”

“Give me a break. What was I supposed…”

“You fucking weasel. So
that’s
what you’re doing up here. I can’t believe you’re up here covering this thing. Don’t you think you might have mentioned that
before you got me to spill my guts? Jesus Christ, I told you all sorts of shit that hasn’t run in the papers. Like how this
son of a bitch cut my roommate open and took out her major fucking organs. Man, I am such an idiot…”

“Take it easy, Alex.”

“Take it easy my ass. You knew what you were doing, and I fell for it. I can’t believe I let you finesse me like a
source
. ‘Talk about it, Alex, you’ll feel better.’ You are such a prick.”

“What did you
think
I was doing up here?”

“Did you bring your tape recorder? Have you been recording this?”

“Of course not. I can’t believe you’d even think that.”

“It would hardly be out of character.”

“I didn’t have to tell you about the
Times
thing, you know. I just didn’t want you to find out from somebody else.”

“You could have told me
before
you grilled me.”

“Then you wouldn’t have said anything.”

“You bet your ass.”

“Come on, Alex. You know I can’t use anything you said on the record. I have to get it all confirmed someplace else anyway.
What’s the big deal?”

“The big deal is that I’m supposed to be your friend and you just
screwed
me. Jesus, Gordon, what happened to all those fancy ethics of yours? I seem to remember you lecturing me plenty last year.
And now you come up here and trick me just so you can get some stupid scoop?
Well you know what? I hope you win your fucking Pulitzer, and I hope you choke on it.”

I stood up, but he didn’t move. And when I stopped wanting to kill him long enough to look at him, I could tell he was actually
upset. It was the first time I’d ever seen Gordon express an emotion that wasn’t either journalistic blood lust or generalized
disdain, and I got the feeling he was worse off than he was letting on. I sat back down. “You look like hell, you know.”

It was true. He had big circles under his eyes, and since Gordon is so pale he’s practically transparent, he resembled a sad
Jewish raccoon.

He reached up to loosen his collar, only to realize he was wearing a T-shirt. He let out a strangled sort of groan and put
his head down on the table for a minute. Then he twisted his neck just enough to talk over his elbow. “What you see is what
you get.”

“What’s your damage? I mean, you’re back in the city, getting mugged every Saturday night. What’s the problem?”

“I fucked myself but good.”

“By coming up here for six lousy months? You weren’t out of the loop for
that
long.”

“Yeah, but you know how it is. You can bust your ass for years, but step out of line for a second and there’s ten guys killing
each other to fill your slot. I don’t have to tell you how fierce the competition for jobs is, especially for white guys.
When I got canned, I was up for doing investigative shit. Now I’m back at the bottom of the sludge heap.”

He banged his head lightly on the table, loud enough to make a statement but not so hard as to shave any points
off his 160 I.Q. “Jesus, Gordon, cut it out. Come on, sit up and calm down.”

He stopped banging. It seemed a good sign. “My life is a living hell.”

“I don’t get it. If they hate your guts, why’d they hire you back in the first place?”

“Good fucking question.”

“So how did you get this story? Just because you know people up here?”

“I promised I could deliver the merchandise.”

“That’s it?”

“I also begged.”

“That I’d pay to see.”

He finally sat up. “You’re really pissed at me, aren’t you?”

“Why? Just because you’re a manipulative schmuck who ignores me for four months, then shows up to pump me like I’m some idiot
beat cop?”

“Come on, Alex, please don’t be mad at me. My wires are crossed.”

“Are you pleading insanity?
Non compos mentis
? I don’t believe it for a minute.”

“I’m desperate.”

“Really? I think I like the sound of that.”

“I don’t have what you’d call a well-rounded life, you know. I don’t have a passel of people eating at my house every Thursday
night. Women don’t exactly throw themselves my way. My career is pretty much it.”

“You could get a cat.”

“Now you’re just being mean.”

I sighed. He was right. “So what are you going to do?”

“Start seeing my shrink three times a week instead of just two.”

“I mean about this story. What are you going to do with the stuff I told you?”

“You want me to sit here and promise I’ll forget it all? You know me better than that.”

“I want you to tell me the truth.”

“The truth is, I’m going to bust my hump to write the best goddamn story my wanker of an editor has ever seen. One of those
eighty-inchers, jump off the front of the metro section, two sidebars. ‘Murders strike fear into upstate town,’ by Gordon
Band. We’re talking simile, metaphor, onomatopoeia, all that writerly shit. And when they catch the guy I’m going to crawl
up his ass and suck on his brain.”

“There’s a lovely image,” I said, but he wasn’t listening.

“Page one, above the fold,” he went on. “ ‘Inside the mind of a killer.’ I love that shit. And
that’s
going to win me my fucking Pulitzer.”

“Speaking of minds,” I said, “I think you’re losing yours.”