Page 29 of Killer Body

Rikki

Maybe it’s the eyes, large and frightened.

Maybe it’s the pathetic way she tries to cover herself with the sad blue towel.

Maybe it’s something deeper, the realization that we are all no more than our lowest common denominator, and that this shivering creature deserves better than she’s getting from my colleagues and me at this time in her life.

Or perhaps I’m just greedy, and I see an opportunity for an exclusive. I am capable of that; I am capable of anything right now.

Before I can question the reason for or the wisdom of my decision, I take Tania Marie by the arm. Then, before anyone figures out what’s happening, I guide her through the cameras and the questions, with a posture of authority I’ve learned to imitate by being on the wrong side of it since my first newspaper job.

“Let us through, please. Excuse us.”

At least a dozen reporters follow us past the lockers into the main club. We’re in luck. Someone has turned on the light, and several manager types hasten toward us.

“What the hell is going on here?” asks a short-haired blonde with a gym-teacher voice. She flies past us, raging at the reporters. “Didn’t you read the sign? There are no men allowed in here.”

“Run,” I say to Tania Marie, and we bolt to the door. My car awaits on the other side. She scrambles into the passenger side, and I get behind the wheel and take off.

“My clothes,” she wails.

“They’re the least of your worries. Be glad you’re out of there.”

“My cell phone.”

“I’ll go back and get it for you.”

“Damn, thank you.” She wipes her eyes with the towel. “You can’t imagine how it felt to be trapped like that. I’ll be all over the news. Everything will start up again.”

I don’t tell her that it never really stopped. That’s what it must feel like, being a top news story, the subject of gossip. Being out of the papers for even one day must seem like the beginning of normalcy once more. But I know as I glance across at this woman in the black bathing suit and the blue towel, that normalcy is years away, if ever.

When a newsman of Marshall Cameron’s reputation is involved in something as sordid as the Honey Bee Affair, the public will find reason to blame the woman—especially if she’s young, and okay, especially if she has a weight problem. America doesn’t want its trusted analyzer of the news to stray from his path of dignity. But if he did, even once, it’s the woman’s fault.

I stop at Hollister Avenue and ask, “Where to?”

“Home,” she says. “I need to get some clothes. Can I use your phone to call my bodyguard?”

I hand it to her. She calls and immediately begins swearing. Hangs up in a huff.

I start driving in the direction of her complex.

“Let me drop you off. Then I’ll go back and get your things.”

“I used a different name at the gym,” she says.

“I can understand why.”

“Now, I can never go back.” Her voice trembles, and she wipes her eyes.

“You probably can, after a day or two. This will quiet down in no time.”

She turns to me in the car. “You really did get a phone call that I was there? You didn’t make it up?”

“I really got a phone call,” I say. “A message, actually, at my hotel.”

“Man or woman?”

“I don’t know. It was left at the front desk. I’ll find out.”