Rubout (23 page)

Still no answer. Now he was at the trunk, and I was right behind him.

“Do you think it was a biker? Or someone from your own social circle?”

He pinched his thin lips together as if he were zipping them. Then he opened the trunk. Wow, those cars had huge trunks. I moved closer to see inside. Since he wasn’t answering my questions anyway, I decided to ask a really rude one, just to see if I’d get any reaction.

“Mr. Vander Venter, the police say there are fifteen minutes you cannot account for at the cigar smokers’ dinner the night your wife was murdered,” I said. “Can you tell me what you were doing during that time?”

He turned on me. He didn’t bother to get angry. I wasn’t important enough. He just spit out the words while he stared at me with his flat gray eyes. “Whom do you think you are badgering, young woman?” he said. “I’ll have your job.”

I was impressed. This was a man so controlled he even said “whom” when he was angry. He threw his gym bag into the trunk. It snagged on a cardboard box. The box flap came open. Inside were about half a dozen plastic quarts of motor oil—and room for six more in the half-empty Exxon oil box. What was Hudson doing with motor oil in his car? If he changed his own oil, I’d drink it. Was that oil left over after he killed Jack? Was he so sure he wouldn’t be caught that he didn’t bother to remove it from his car? Wait till Mark Mayhew heard about this.

“What about that oil in your trunk?” I said. “It looks like you had a dozen quarts in the box, and six
are missing. Can you tell me what happened to them?”

He didn’t answer. He walked purposefully to the driver’s door, as if I were invisible. He opened it and got in. I kept peppering him with questions: “Are you aware that the man your estranged wife lived with was murdered Friday night? And his death involved motor oil? Can you tell me where you were at midnight Friday?”

He refused to answer. I refused to move, hoping I could goad him into saying something I could use. Instead, he started up the car and began backing it out of his spot. If I hadn’t jumped out of the way, he would have run over my foot. As he pulled out, the front bumper hit my knee. Well, okay, it bumped my knee slightly. But I could have been seriously hurt if I hadn’t jumped out of the way. He didn’t care. He didn’t even stop to look back. A man who could coldly run me down could just as coldly kill. I didn’t get any answers to my questions, but I got a demonstration of what Hudson Vander Venter could do. As far as I was concerned, he was capable of murder.

I stopped at a nearby yuppie soup and sandwich shop for a quick lunch. The soups were six bucks a bowl and they all came from exotic places. It wasn’t bean soup, it was Tuscan bean soup, Italian plum tomato with basil, and Yukon gold potato soup. I ordered a turkey sandwich from nowhere special. It came with a huge gob of those hairlike sprouts. I ate them, too, hoping they might absorb some of the grease in my system.

By one-thirty I was in the office, chuckling at my mail. Howard Ohlendorf had sent me another joke.
Howard was president of a dental supply company and the father of nine. He had an eye-glazing list of civic honors and achievements, and ran for the U.S. Congress twice. But Howard had something I never saw on any resume—a sense of humor. He loved jokes, even at his expense. When he lost the bid for Congress, he said he received a twenty-five-thousand vote mandate to stay home. Howard kept me supplied with jokes, quips, and witticisms. I appreciated all the laughs. The letter contained his current one, called “What Does the Graduate Ask?”

I laughed out loud. This one was a keeper. I tossed it into my bulging Jokes folder, which was filled with funny lines, letters, and stories from readers. I never knew when I was going to be in serious need of a good laugh. There was no author credit with Howard’s joke. I wondered who wrote the original. Jokes seemed to arise spontaneously and move around the country by snail mail and e-mail on some migration pattern I couldn’t figure out. A shrill voice interrupted these pleasant thoughts.

“There you are!” said Wendy the Whiner, as if I were a two-year-old who had wandered out of the
yard. She stood at my desk, hands on her hips. “Charlie’s looking for you. He wants to see you immediately.” Wendy didn’t bother to conceal her satisfaction. I was in trouble, and she was delighted. I needed to give her something else to think about.

“Interesting outfit, Wendy. You must tell me where you buy your things.”

That way I could avoid the place. Wendy was wearing a gathered brown skirt that looked like it was made out of burlap. It sagged on one side, as if she had rocks in her pocket. Her white blouse had a matching brown stain on the pointed collar. There were three long mouse-colored hairs on her wrinkled brown jacket lapel.

Wendy knew when she was being made fun of. “I don’t have time for your foolishness, Francesca,” she whined. “I’m swamped with work. Go see Charlie now.” As she turned and walked off, I saw a hunk of dingy slip hanging below her skirt.

Charlie’s secretary wasn’t there. I knocked on his half-open door. “Come in, Francesca,” he said sharply. Charlie had completely redecorated the office after he took over from his predecessor. He cleared out the newspaper museum the old managing editor maintained in that office. He had workers rip up yards of perfectly good beige carpeting and throw out expensive beige curtains. Then he put in pale-gray carpeting, black vertical blinds to cover up the view of the
Gazette
parking lot, and a black Lucite desk big enough to seat twelve people—or one Charlie-size ego. Rumor had it that his black-leather-and-chrome chair was specially built to make him look taller, but none of us could prove it and his secretary
wouldn’t tell. He had two computer terminals on a black credenza, Dell Pentiums with twenty-one-inch color monitors, bigger, better, and faster than anything the staff had. One wall was covered with pictures of Charlie with celebrities: Charlie grinning at the publisher. Charlie and Dan Quayle grinning at each other—a meeting of the minds. Charlie and the mayor solemnly shaking hands. Charlie staring open-mouthed at a stunning Vanessa Williams, while she maintained a dignified distance from him.

The rest of the walls were covered with awards. The
Gazette
hadn’t won a major newspaper contest in three decades. But we had won the American Pre-Treated Materials Association’s Good Media Citizen Award for a business feature called “No Quality Ceiling on Pre-Treated Flooring.” Professional associations thanked the
Gazette
for portraying them in a positive light. Small-time newspaper associations gave us plaques that said:

The award plaques were cheap wood covered with fanciful gold seals and ugly knobs of bronze. Woodward and Bernstein wouldn’t have touched them with tongs, but Charlie went to every rubber-chicken lunch and two-day newspaper conference, and accepted each useless award as if it were a huge honor. He always made sure a
Gazette
photographer captured the moment, and he always looked proud.

Now he looked stern. Charlie, the great leader, was
putting down an employee rebellion. He sat up straight behind his desk, trying to appear taller. I stayed standing. He knew I was looking down on his bald spot. He cleared his throat and began his speech, solemnly listing my sins. “Francesca, Mr. Hudson Vander Venter, a respected businessman and a recent widower, says that you followed him to his car in a private parking garage and accosted him with questions about his wife’s unfortunate end. Then you had the temerity to mention the biker who lived off that sad woman. How could you do that? How could you embarrass poor Mr. Vander Venter that way? Obviously his wife was off her head to take up with such a person. He says she was probably menopausal. But you didn’t have the decency to ignore her mental problems. You mentioned that biker person to Hudson Vander Venter. You had to remind him of his wife’s public shame. And if that wasn’t bad enough, you virtually accused him of murdering the man. Accused Hudson Vander Venter, a community leader, of murder. Even for you, Francesca, that is too much.

“Mr. Vander Venter was absolutely shocked and appalled by your unprofessional behavior. He called me. He called the publisher—the
publisher,
Francesca, the man who runs this newspaper. The man who saw your revolting display yesterday at the Voyage Committee meeting. And now, one day later, you are badgering his griefstricken friend with improper and unprofessional questions.” Charlie was sputtering with rage, and probably fear. The publisher must have been really pissed if he bothered to chew out Charlie. If Charlie lost this job, no other newspaper
would hire the untalented little stump. The best he could do was teach journalism at some godforsaken hole.

“Fortunately for you, Mr. Hudson is a personal friend of the publisher. So he will not be bringing legal action against this paper. But I have promised the publisher that you will be disciplined for your pushy behavior.”

“That’s called reporting, Charlie,” I said mildly.

“Shut up, Francesca! I don’t want any more of your smart mouth. You are insubordinate. A written warning will be put in your file. Here is one copy. Another copy goes to the publisher, so he knows you have been disciplined. This is your second written warning in a month. Let me remind you, according to the Newspaper Guild contract, you can be fired after three written warnings. And I’m telling you now. You
will
be fired. You will have nothing to do with Hudson Vander Venter or his son, Hudson Junior. You will not write, you will not, call, you will not accost those grieving people again. You will have the decency to leave them alone. Any contact whatsoever, and you will be fired. That will be your third transgression, and you’re out—out—out! Fired, fired, fired!”

Even his bald spot was beet red. He was pounding on the desktop like our other wimpy managing editor used to do. Yelling this way couldn’t be good for Charlie’s blood pressure. If he kept it up, I stood a good chance of outliving the little twerp. Who did he think he was, lecturing me about proper professional behavior, a man who promoted his girlfriends? His idea of good reporting was when the reporter who
copied the press release spelled all the names right. As for labeling poor Sydney crazy, wasn’t that just like a certain kind of power-mad man? When Sydney got herself a lover, she had to be crazy—crazy to want anything besides the great Hudson Vander Venter. She was supposed to mope around in whatever house he let his castoff wife live in. Funny, nobody called Hudson crazy because he took up with Brenda the lawyer.

I grabbed the warning notice and stuffed it in my purse. Then I left his office and walked through an unnaturally quiet newsroom, straight for the elevator, without telling anyone where I was going. It was two-ten and I was feeling insubordinate. I was supposed to meet Mark at three. I made it back to my place in record time—fifteen minutes. I parked Ralph around back in the alley and ran upstairs. I needed to wash away that encounter with Charlie. I had just enough time to take a shower. No point in wearing old underwear after a fresh shower. I rummaged in my drawer until I found the fancy stuff I bought at Neiman Marcus: a lacy bra and those expensive trashy-looking panties. Then I put on my black jeans, a black cashmere turtleneck sweater, and an absolutely killer pair of square-toed Calvin Klein boots. Finally, I pulled on my black leather jacket and fished around in the pocket for my leather gloves.

Mark was in front of the store at exactly three o’clock, motorcycle rumbling softly. I didn’t invite him inside. I pulled my front door shut and went outside. He was wearing the same thing I was: black leather jacket, black cashmere sweater, black jeans,
and black square-toed boots, and they looked even better on him. He had a black-and-chrome Harley to complete his outfit. He was also wearing a black helmet. He handed me one, too.

“Here,” he said. “You’ll need this.”

I’d forgotten how heavy helmets are. They feel like you’re wearing a hollowed-out bowling ball on your head.

“Hold on tight,” he said. When we first took off, I was scared. We were only going thirty-five, but it felt faster. I held on even tighter when we hit the highway and started going sixty-five. Cars and trucks screamed past us, and I felt naked without a car’s protective metal shield. When you’re on a motorcycle, the big lug nuts on a semi’s wheels look like the blades on a war chariot. I thought about trucks hitting my unprotected legs and turning them into ground chuck. When a van cut us off, I imagined the cycle flipping, or sliding, and I saw myself flying through the air and then through a windshield. Or bouncing off the hood of a Toyota and landing under its wheels. I remembered that Cutup Katie called motorcycles donor cycles.

Then I decided if I was going to die, I might as well enjoy it. And I quit worrying. Just like that. I’d either die or I wouldn’t. If I didn’t, then there was a lot to enjoy. Mark’s Harley felt sexy between my legs. The ads don’t mention that interesting little vibration. We hit a bump, and I hung on tighter to Mark. He smelled good. Different from Lyle, but definitely masculine: coffee and peppermint and a hint of spice shaving lotion. I missed having a man around. We couldn’t talk during most of the trip, except for a few
shouted phrases. The last few miles of Missouri before we crossed the Mississippi River into Illinois were a dismal stretch of flat land, fireworks stands, and cheap cinderblock businesses, including the Discount Barn. No one wasted money on architectural niceties. This was flood plain, and it still showed the ravages of the Great Flood of 1993. We passed lonesome stands of drowned, blackened trees killed by the rising water.