Basket Case (23 page)

She finds this uproariously funny. "Don't worry, Daddy, I'll be fine. Now beat it."

I reach the beachfront parking lot just as Loreal is mounting his Harley. By the time I get the Mustang started and wedge myself into the heavy flow on A1A, Cleo's studhunk already has a five-block head start.

Florida's legislature recently passed a law allowing motorcyclists to ride without helmets, a boon for neurosurgeons and morticians. Tonight I benefit as well, for Loreal's lack of a head protector makes him easy to follow even at night, his long hair streaming behind him like a red contrail.

He doesn't go far; a billiards joint called Crabby Pete's. I park my car next to the chopper and wait twenty minutes, enough time for Loreal to get at least two more drinks in his system. Then I grab my notebook and enter the bar.

"What paper'd you say you were from?"

"The Union-Register."

"Never heard of it."

"We're the only rag in town."

"To be perfectly honest, I don't have time to read all that much."

This hardly comes as a thunderous shock. Loreal and I have been chatting for an hour and it's my impression he'd need a personal tutor to get through a set of liner notes. Mostly we've been discussing music—specifically, his sizzling career as a record producer. His resume lengthens with each beer, though he has stumbled once or twice when reciting the various artists who've sought out his genius. My notes reflect a certain recurring confusion, for example, between the Black Crowes and Counting Crows. Young Loreal's credibility has also been dented by boastful references to his clever (though uncredited) studio work for a band he insists on calling "Matchbox Thirty." I've made no effort to correct him because—as any reporter will tell you—there's no finer thrill in our business than interviewing a hapless liar. I've gotten him rolling by telling him that I recognized him from a photo in Ocean Drive, and that I need a few quotes for a feature story about Cleo Rio's soon-to-be-released CD.

He says, "She told you I was producing it, right?"

"Actually, she said her husband was the producer."

"For sure, he was." Loreal is tracing a tic-tac-toe pattern in the rime on the bartop. "It was a real bummer, what happened to her old man. She came to me all crying and was like, 'I don't know what to do. I need help finishing the record.' "

"I'd gotten the impression they were almost done," I say.

Loreal clicks his teeth and feigns demureness. "Hey, I'm not gonna say anything about Jimmy Stoma, okay? He did a good job, considering it was his first-ever gig on the boards. All I told Cleo was, hey, this record could be even better with a little extra juice. And she's all like, 'Go for it, man. That's what Jimmy would've wanted.' So," he says in a confiding tone, "we're gettin' there. We're real close."

Merrily he watches me jot each golden word. I expect his demeanor would change if I asked about his unconventional way of consoling Jimmy's wife; to wit, placing his pecker between her lips. But I avoid that line of inquiry, tempting as it is, and allow Loreal to imagine himself the portrait of the cool young auteur, patiently explaining his craft to the stolid middle-aged journalist. His true roots are revealed, however, by the sound of a thick-soled motorcyle shoe tapping along to a Bob Seger song on the jukebox. I resist the urge to like him for it.

"Maybe you could explain something to me," I say.

"For sure." Loreal has milky girlish skin with a spattering of cinnamon freckles, though I would swear his cheeks have been lightly rouged. He has baptized himself liberally with the same rotten-guava cologne that he wore that day in Cleo's elevator, which explains the bartender's brisk retreat. Every so often Loreal tilts his head so that the glossy mane hangs clear of his shoulders, and gives it a well-practiced shake.

"I thought record companies didn't release a single until the whole album was done. But 'Me' came out months ago," I say. "It seems strange there's still no Cleo Rio CD."

"She's with a small label and they do things different." On this subject Loreal is not so thrilled to see me taking notes. "Plus, the lady's a righteous perfectionist. She wants to take her time and do it her way. But, yeah, there's pressure to get the record wrapped, and we're almost there. Basically it's down to one song."

"Which one is that?"

'"Shipwrecked Heart.' The title cut."

"The one she sang at the funeral," I say.

"I wasn't there," Loreal says pointedly, "but I heard she did." Two more beers have been delivered, and he snatches at one.

To keep the conversation moving, I ask him if he'd heard about what happened to Jay Burns.

"Yeah, Cleo told me. Unfuckingbelievable," he says. "Jay was supposed to play piano on 'Shipwrecked.'"

"Any of the other Slut Puppies working with Cleo?"

"Nope," he replies, between swigs. I'm waiting to see if he mentions meeting Tito Negraponte tonight, but all he says is: "Jimmy had a good band, but Cleo wants her own sound. Definitely."

He stands up, digs into his stovepipes and throws a twenty on the bar. "Listen, I gotta motor. You need anything else, call Cueball Records in L.A. and ask for the publicist. Sherry, I think her name is."

"Thank you, Loreal."

He smiles and sticks out his hand, which is moist from the bottle. "What'd you say your name was?"

"Woodward. Bob Woodward." I spell it for him. He nods blankly. "Good luck with the album," I say.

"For sure, bro."

At that salutation, I'm overtaken by a whimsical urge to mess with his head. "Doesn't all this creep you out?" I ask as we're heading for the door.

"All what?"

"First Jimmy Stoma, now Jay—it's almost like there's a curse on Cleo's record."

Loreal tosses his magnificent hair and laughs. "Shit, man, it's just the music business. People are always dyin'."

18

Nine-fifteen on Sunday morning, Emma calls.

"Hi, there. You awake?"

I can barely hold the phone. My eyelids feel like dried mud. I had only three beers last night so it's not a hangover; I'm just whipped. Pertly my female caller says:

"Everything all right? How's the story going?"

I remember that Emma makes a mean cup of espresso, and it sounds like she's had about seven cups.

"You got any interviews set up for today? I thought maybe you could use some company."

"Sure," I hear myself say as though it's no big deal, Emma playing sidekick. "But first I've got to know: Did you kiss me the other night?"

"Hmmm."

"When I was on the couch."

"Yes, I believe that was me."

I'm too groggy to know whether Emma is being playful or sarcastic. "I need some guidance here," I tell her.

"Regarding the kiss."

"Exactly. How would you describe it?"

"As friendly," she says, unhesitantly.

"Not tender?"

"I don't think so, Jack."

"Because that's how it felt to me."

"You were in pain. Your judgment was clouded." Emma is a tricky one to read over the phone. "Well, what about today?" she sallies on. "You want me to swing by and pick you up?"

"Sounds good. I've got to track down a source of mine in Beckerville." Now I'm even talking like frigging Woodward. It would seem I'm trying to impress her—all I need is a parking garage for the rendezvous.

"Great," she says. "See you in an hour."

You learn a lot about people from the way they drive. Anne, whom I loved anyway, was a rotten driver; inattentive, meandering and, worst of all, slow. Anne behind the wheel made my eighty-three-year-old grandmother look like Richard Petty. But Emma, to my surprise, is a regular speed demon. She's buzzing along the interstate at ninety-two miles per hour, deftly winding through the church-bound traffic, which is light. She says she's wild about her new car.

"Excellent mileage, highway and city," she reports, sipping from a plastic bottle of boutique spring water. Like almost everyone else I know these days, Emma travels with her own clear fluids. I should probably do the same, as I'm entering the stage of life when kidney stones tend to announce themselves. I must have mumbled something along these lines, for Emma is now extolling the wonders of ultrasound bombardment, a technique that successfully atomized a granular constellation in her father's urinary pipes. That's right, her father.

I'm driven to ask how old he is.

"Fifty-one," Emma replies, and I take unwarranted comfort in the four-year gap in our ages.

"He's a reporter, too," she adds.

"Really? Where?"

"Tokyo. For the International Herald Tribune.'1'1

I'm surprised Emma has never mentioned this; I had her pegged as the daughter of an academic.

"Are you two close?"

"My best friend," she says, "and a good writer, too. A really good writer." She peers dubiously over the rims of her sunglasses. "Didn't run in the family, obviously. That's why I became an editor. Which exit do we get off?"

Emma is wearing snazzy tangerine sandals, but only one of her toenails is painted—with a charm-sized red heart, if I'm not mistaken. What could that mean?

She catches me staring and says, "It's just a scab, Jack. I stubbed my foot on the rocking chair."

My mother has always been a zippy driver, and adept at talking her way out of speeding tickets. When I was a kid she would take me to Marathon every summer, and on the trip down we'd always get stopped once or twice by state troopers. We stayed at a tatty one-story motel on the Gulf, and in the mornings we'd rent a small Whaler and go snorkeling, or fish the mangroves for snappers. I couldn't catch a cold but my mother is a canny, intuitive angler, and more often than not we'd return to the dock with a full cooler. I can't recall why or when we stopped vacationing in the Keys, but it probably had something to do with baseball and girls. These days my mother occasionally goes fishing in the man-made lakes on the golf course in Naples, where she and Dave own their condominium. Once she called to say she'd caught a nine-pound snook on a wooden minnow plug, and offered to FedEx me one of the fillets on dry ice. Dave, she explained, eats strictly red meat.

Yet she loves him still.

"Here's our exit," I inform Emma, who engages the ramp at a gut-puckering velocity.

"Right or left?"

"Left. Guess who showed up in the newsroom yesterday—Race Maggad his own self."

"Again?" Emma's brow furrows attractively.

"We had a conversation that he will likely recount as unsatisfactory. He demanded an advance peek at the MacArthur Polk obituary—"

"Which you haven't finished."

"Or even started! I told him he couldn't preview it under any circumstances. Rules are rules."

"The CEO of the publishing company—you told him that?"

"Emphatically. Two more lights, Emma, then hang another left."

She's gnawing on her lower lip, a job I would gladly (here I go again!) undertake. "What did he say? Did he mention me?" she presses on.

Once upon a time I wouldn't have hesitated to tell Emma that the chairman of the company had botched her name, but now I don't have the heart. "He'll be speaking to you shortly," I say, "about my impudence and so forth. But he did provide a dandy quote for the story. Old Man Polk would blow out an artery."

"Dammit, Jack," says Emma.

"Oh, come on. You can handle young Race."

"That's not the point. Why do you insist on causing trouble?"

"Because he's a phony, a fop, a money-grubbing yupster twit. And he's murdering this newspaper and twenty-six others, in case you hadn't noticed."

She says, "Look, just 'cause you've given up on your own career—"

"Whoa there, missy."

"—doesn't give you the right to sabotage mine."

Sabotage? A scalding accusation from mild-mannered Emma. Of all my schemes to rescue her from the newsroom, sabotage was never once contemplated.

"You think I want to spend the rest of my days doing this?" she says. "Editing stories about dead scoutmasters and bromeliads?" (Emma is also in charge of our Garden page.)

"How can Maggad blame you? He's the one who's too scared to have me canned," I point out. "His lawyers think it would look punitive, after our dustup at the shareholders' meeting. They fear it would generate unwanted notice in the business columns."

"They're afraid you'll sue him," Emma says flatly.

A station wagon hauling a raucous, elementary-school-age soccer squad has stalled in front of us at a traffic signal. That, or the beleaguered parent at the helm has simply bolted from the car. To soothe Emma, I decide to risk a confidence. "What if I told you it won't be long before I'm out of your hair for good. I can't say exactly when, but it's almost a sure thing."

"What in the world are you talking about?"

The station wagon is moving again, Emma accelerating huffily on its bumper. I'm tempted to share the delicious details of MacArthur Polk's offer, but the old loon could easily change his mind—or forget he ever met me—before taking to his deathbed for real. Moreover, I'm not wholly confident that Emma wouldn't spill the beans to young Race Maggad III if the corporate screws were applied.