The Reporter (29 page)

She had been knocking around this town for a lot of years, and she’d come to a stone-cold dead end. She had a nowhere job,
she lived in a dump, she drove a wreck, she had no friends, no love life, no money, no prospects. That all could have changed,
should
have changed with Jack Nathanson. They were good together, had been from the start. She was the only woman who could give
him what he needed—hadn’t he told her that a hundred times? She was the one he kept coming back to. Yet she was the only one
of his women who had ended up with nothing. Not even an acknowledgment that she existed.

She’d gone to his funeral, couldn’t stay away. She used her station ID to get in, put on a hat and horn-rimmed glasses, pretended
she was a reporter. The transparent casket freaked her out—for a minute she thought she was having a drug hallucination, seeing
him lying there with that smug smirk on his face. How typical of him, even dead. Stifling the urge to scream at him, she turned
away, and there stood the widow. She pulled out the pad and pencil she’d brought to pass herself off as press, and actually
started to interview her. Zahna had no idea why she did that, or what she’d expected; she only knew that it made her feel…like
nothing.
Nobody.

They were all there, his wives, driving their expensive cars or riding in limos, dressed in their fancy clothes, talking to
each other, taking their bows, sucking up everybody’s sympathy. Janet Orson, the grieving widow; Debra Angelo, the madonna
with
child; Maxi Poole, the big-deal newswoman. His real love, his Zahna, was there, but not one person said hello, or said they
were sorry, they hoped she was holding up all right. Nothing. That’s what she had to show for giving him three years of her
life: exactly nothing. At least Monica Lewinsky had her fifteen minutes and some bucks in the bank.

Saturday, she did some crack and went to the auction. She’d found herself in an alien world again. Nobody knew that she was
Jack’s real love. Janet Orson walked around with her nose in the air. Maxi Poole did a news story, acting like she owned the
world. Debra Angelo didn’t even bother to show up, even though all the money was going to her kid, according to the news reports.
Everybody was talking about Jack Nathanson. But she, the woman he loved more than any of them and all of them, couldn’t say
a word.

She hooked up with that weirdo, the actress who bought the cross. God knows what
she
was on—the woman was out of it. But Zahna had sensed a kinship, had felt that she could talk to her, share Jack Nathanson
stories. She’d connected with her, offered her pot, followed her out to the beach. And she was staggered when Meg Davis led
her right to Debra Angelo’s house, then proceeded to babble about saving the kid’s soul. What the hell was
that
about? A nutcase.

She got stoned again on Sunday, with nothing to do and nobody to do it with, as usual, so she drove back out to the beach.
And sure enough, there was Ms. Crazo again, just as she said she’d be, guarding the house, or casting a spell, or whatever
the hell she thought she was doing.

Zahna got off watching
her
watch
them
for a while, then, to her amazement, Maxi Poole, wife number two, came over and took Meg Davis by the hand and brought her
up to see Debra Angelo, wife number one. This was better than watching
Saturday Night Live!
Meantime, Zahna noticed, the ditso had left her bag, her books, and that bizarre cross on her blanket.

Zahna ambled over and snatched the cross, then dashed to her car and raced home. That’s when she got the idea to go over to
Jack’s house and see if she could find some of the things she’d given him, expensive gifts that she couldn’t afford and was
still paying off on her credit cards, like the Sony CD player and the antique gold pocket watch. Or the exorbitant black leather
jacket he had admired in Bijan’s window—it actually looked terrific on
her.
Now that Jack was dead, why should Janet Orson have her things? She would take them back.

And maybe she’d snatch that twenty-carat diamond engagement ring
People
magazine said Jack gave Janet, or the white ermine jacket she read he gave her at the glitzy birthday party he threw for
her at The Palm. And other pricey baubles, things he should have given Zahna. Janet Orson had everything, and Zahna had nothing.
She hadn’t meant to kill anybody that night at his house. She just wanted…
something.

For Jack had never given her anything significant. Cheap, sexy underwear, a bottle of perfume, a teddy bear. Guess he thought
his scintillating presence was enough for her. But he gave his wives
everything.
Cars, furs, jewelry, exciting nights on the town in limousines, first-class trips abroad. She would read about it in the
columns. And he gave them marriage. Legitimacy. But Zahna wasn’t even good enough to introduce to his ex-wife once removed.

She’d always believed that he would come around to her eventually. He had made her think he would. He’d only married Janet
Orson to jump-start his career, get the acting jobs she could throw his way. Everybody knew that. Once he was back on his
feet he would drop Janet and marry his Zahna. For keeps.

But now he was dead, and she had nothing, only his picture cut out of the newspaper to remember him by. Early in their relationship,
her engineer had snapped a photo of the two of them in the KBIS studio while she was on the air. She’d had it enlarged, put
it in a silver frame from Cartier, and gave it to him as
a gift. He took it, but he told her he hated having his picture taken, she was never to let that happen again. He said he
loathed being photographed because the paparazzi were always snapping away, invading his privacy. Later she’d realized that
he simply didn’t want to be photographed with
her.
She was sure he’d accepted the gift just to get rid of the photograph. Now some other woman’s picture was probably ensconced
in the expensive frame.

Since the day he was murdered, she’d been growing more and more enraged. She stayed stoned night and day, on the job and off,
and now it took more stuff just to get high. That’s when she started adding crack to the mix of powder, pot, and pills. Rocks
were faster and more intense, made her feel powerful. And Sunday night, when she was coked up, gripped with obsession and
seething with rage, she’d headed over to Jack’s house to snag some things that should have been hers.

She’d had copies of his keys for a long time. He used to have her drive with him to the airport. It was precious time they
could spend together, he’d tell her. Oh sure! He just wanted taxi and delivery service, with a quick feel thrown in. He liked
to have his cars serviced while he was away, so he’d pick her up, she’d ride with him out to LAX, then drive his car back
into town and drop it off at the shop, and his mechanic would have somebody run her home.

A couple of times, while driving his car, she had taken his key ring into a hardware store and had his keys duplicated, when
he was living with Maxi, and then Janet. She liked having her secret keys. She knew his alarm code; he’d used the same combination
of numbers for twenty years, he’d mentioned once, for his home alarm system, his PINs, his computer passwords, to retrieve
messages on his answering machines, wherever he needed digits. It was always 25225. On a Touch-Tone phone, those numbers spelled
out the word “black,” for his biggest hit picture,
Black Sabbat.
He would never forget his codes, he’d said. Neither would she.

On Sunday night, back at her place, she’d put three tens in a
pipe and went flying. She could do anything! She changed into a black sweater and black jeans to suit her mood; then, as an
afterthought, she’d put that nutty costume on over her clothes. Every Halloween, the gang at the station dressed up and got
crazy, and she had picked up this year’s rage, a Dracula outfit. With it, she’d pulled on a black hooded mask she’d bought,
which covered her entire face except for her eyes.

And the cross! The
Black Sabbat
prop was the capper to her disguise. When she’d got home from the beach the night before and flipped on the TV, she saw footage
of Meg Davis and her precious cross all over the news. Now Zahna had that cross, she had the keys and the alarm code, she
was ripped out of her mind, and she was ready to do the caper, ready to break into Jack’s house. She’d seen in the trades
that Janet Orson planned to move out of the mansion and take up residence at the Beverly Hills Hotel that weekend. So she
figured the house would be vacant. If the house looked empty, Zahna was going in, and if anybody saw her, she would just wave
the cross and spout some witchcraft gibberish and run like hell.

There was no way anyone could recognize her, and even better, they were sure to think she was that freaked-out Meg Davis.
Everyone who watched the news or read the papers knew that this was Meg Davis’s cross, and it wouldn’t be hard for them to
believe that this was the kind of thing Meg Davis would do, because she was obviously somewhere on the planet Blippo!

The house was dark. She had tried several of the keys until one of them fit, and she’d eased her way in. She pounced on the
alarm box and punched in the code numbers, no problem. It was all working; it felt so right. She had no trouble finding the
master bedroom on the ground floor. She’d switched on a light and was having a party, rummaging around grabbing cash, jewelry,
and anything expensive-looking that she could carry.

She just hadn’t figured on Carlotta. Carlotta had always worked for Jack; with Jack gone, it hadn’t occurred to Zahna that
Carlotta might still be there. Carlotta had surprised her in the doorway of the bedroom suite. Still, she never would have
killed her. She waved the cross and chanted some shit, and was about to power right past her and scram out the door. But Carlotta’s
eyes popped and she shrieked, “My God, it’s Zahna!”

When Jack lived alone in the Stone Canyon house, Zahna would sleep over sometimes, and hang out by the pool after he went
to work. Carlotta used to call her Miss Zahna and bring her iced tea. And often, when she was on the air at night, Jack told
her he would keep the radio on, piped through the speakers in the house, to listen to her music and her sexy rap. Zahna Cole’s
whiskey voice was distinctive—low and raspy and sultry. A good chunk of Los Angeles knew that voice. And Carlotta knew that
voice. So Zahna had no choice that night.

M
rs. Ziggy sat stiffly at the redwood table on Debra’s deck, barely containing her fury. Mrs. Ziggy was married to the actor
who played the lead in the popular CBS children’s series
Ziggy
& Me. Debra could never remember the couple’s name; she always thought of them as the Ziggys. They lived a few houses up
the beach, and Gia occasionally played with their eight-year-old daughter. The mother had rung her doorbell this afternoon,
she said, because she had a very serious complaint about Gia. Debra had to bite her tongue to keep from telling her she’d
have to take a number.

Now the woman was sitting across from her and spitting out that Gia had made her daughter take her panties down in the cabana
on the beach at their house. Debra didn’t register surprise, didn’t protest, didn’t ask questions, she just listened. She
was beyond being shocked at anything Gia did.

“Then Gia told Samantha she wanted to
touch
it,” Mrs. Ziggy was hissing. “She told my daughter that she thought they could make a
baby!
She said, ‘My mom says a girl can do anything a boy can do,’ and—”

“I’m so sorry, Mrs., aah,” Debra murmured. “Gia has been under tremendous strain—”

“I’m sure she has”—the woman cut her off brusquely—“but I have to look out for
my
child’s welfare. I just came here to tell you that Gia is not welcome at our home again.”

With that she stood up, marched down the steps off the veranda onto the sand, and headed up the beach. Debra watched her go.
She didn’t have the energy to even try to smooth this one over.

Debra slumped forward in her chair, leaned her elbows on the table, and put her head in her hands. She despaired of ever having
any forward movement in her life again. It seemed there would be no break in the case, no work for her, no social life, no
leaving town, and Gia would just keep on getting worse. She felt like Sisyphus pushing a ten-ton boulder up a hill, forever.
It wouldn’t budge, but she couldn’t stop pushing or it would roll backward and kill her.

She got up and walked back through the living room to the kitchen where Gia sat with Bessie, carving pumpkins and having a
great old time. She looked at her daughter, so sweet and adorable; she had Bessie laughing and chatting and totally charmed.
So like her father. A budding “Bad Seed” child with the face of a Botticelli angel, and invisible horns growing out of that
mop of curly dark hair. A preadolescent sociopath in the making if Debra didn’t nip it, and soon. But how? Should she hire
round-the-clock shrinks, like the rent-a-cops who were now guarding her house?

She sat down at the kitchen table, and Gia and Bessie started talking at once, excited about showing off their jack-o’-lanterns
in progress. How to handle this? Debra pondered, then decided it was too late in the day for subtleties. Just lay it out there.

“Please listen to me,” she began. “Mrs. Ziggy, whatever her name is, that woman who was just here, has told me something dreadful
about Gia, and we have to discuss it.”

The activity stopped, the babbling ceased, the two smiling faces sobered, and two pairs of apprehensive eyes fixed them
selves on hers, Yup, Debra thought,
that’s the thing I do best lately
—
cheer down a room.
She blurted the whole sorry story. Bessie pushed her chair back and made embarrassed noises to excuse herself; Gia started
crying.

“Stop that, Gia,” Debra snapped. “Tell me, what exactly did you do to Samantha?”

“Nothing,” her daughter whimpered. Bessie walked over to the sink, as Debra lowered her eyes and counted to ten.
Not her fault; they are just so much clay
—the refrain echoed through her mind. Jack had always allowed Gia to sit up with him and watch movies with explicit sex scenes.
Expose the child to everything, he’d say, and she will learn to discriminate. She won’t have to look for smut in porno magazines,
or get distorted information on the streets.