Death On the Dlist (2010) (13 page)

RACING UPTOWN ON MADISON AVENUE, SOOKIE DOWNS NEARLY VOMITED
in the back of the cab. She wasn’t used to this.

First of all, the cab stank. She couldn’t distinguish the exact origin of the stink. Pursing her lips instinctively downward while wrinkling her nose at the smell, she had several candidates from which to choose. There was the white gooey pool of liquid on the backseat’s floorboard beneath her feet. Sookie had no choice but to delicately levitate the black spiked heels of her Dior boots a few inches above the floor mat. She certainly did not want the smell to attach itself to her shoes.

Then there was the clear but extremely sticky substance on the seat on which she was sitting. Just because it was clear didn’t mean it didn’t smell. What was it? Some sort of soup? Chablis, perhaps? Spilled from a celebratory flute there in the back seat? Or was it just old urine? At least she hoped it was old. But did age matter? Was urine sticky? She paused to think. She’d never really changed her children’s diapers herself, so she didn’t know whether urine became gooey or sticky over time, left on a smooth plastic surface such as a dark blue car seat, unattended and unsanitized.

A strong possibility, obviously, was the previous passenger. He looked homeless, with a shock of dreads coming out from under a colorful Rasta hat. He very likely stank.

Sookie just couldn’t be sure. Didn’t Rastas refuse to bathe? Or was it washing their hair they hated? They certainly didn’t take care of their nails, from what she observed in the fleeting moment when they had exchanged looks, each sizing the other up, each looking disdainfully at the other.

Why did
he
look at
her
that way?
He
was the one that stank.

Sookie smelled delicately of perfume that sold for $250 an ounce. She better smell good.

Then there was the cab driver himself. He also looked to Sookie as if he stank. His hair was greasy, from what she could tell in the backseat, separated from the driver by a dingy, scratched-up plastic partition covered almost completely with directions, warnings, fare notices, and a taxi driver identification card bearing the driver’s name and photo.

He could be a terrorist. She couldn’t even mentally pronounce his last name. It was nothing but consonants. And it was probably fake.

Maybe Harry should do a show on terrorists.

No, the viewers would hate hearing about
that
again.

But they’d love a show on body odor. Hmm. Who could they book, other than stinky people? Doctors, specialists, victims of physical eccentricities that caused horrible smells through no fault of their own?

Anyway, she hoped the smell in the cab did not attach itself to her. That’s the last thing she needed. To absolutely reek in a meeting with Noel Fryer.

Noel was finally out of his bathroom and en route to his office. That’s what his personal assistant had whispered into the phone less than five minutes ago.

Sookie wanted desperately to lower the window. She was so tempted to punch the electric window button there on the door beside her. But A, she’d have to touch the button, and she knew it was a virtual colony of germs more likely at home floating in a petri dish under a microscope. And B, the breeze could ruin her hair.

She’d come this far and she wasn’t ruining her look now. Although vomit on the sides of her mouth would also destroy the look.

Sookie Downs lightly touched the window control, lowering the window only an inch or two so as not to get a direct breeze on her hair.

The cab suddenly took a violent left turn and there they were, in front of GNE.

Sookie handed the driver cash through a small, square slot in the cab’s plastic partition. Not waiting for change, she grabbed the paper receipt he handed out the window to her, for expenses of course, balanced herself on the Dior spikes, straightened her spine, and walked coolly toward the network’s giant, glass-front entrance.

A loud buzzing sound directly behind her made her turn back.

It was Fryer, for Pete’s sake. So much for the casual but dramatic entrance into his all-windowed corner office up on the thirty-first floor. Here he was in the flesh.

She hoped her coppery hair was perfection.

The irritating buzzing sound was coming from Fryer’s moped. Or whatever it was. A Vespa, he’d told her in the past. She’d acted like she knew what a Vespa was, exclaiming about his manly brilliance for purchasing it.

It sounded like “viper.” So this was it? It had to be. No, Fryer’s little motor scooter was in fact the Vespa he’d described. She would somehow work it into the conversation to look in the know.

Fryer dismounted the thing like it was a horse and he was in a Western. Sookie supposed that made him . . . who? John Wayne? Or did it make him James Dean in motorcycle motif? Or Marlon Brando, who also looked great on-screen on a motorcycle.

But they were all dead. She’d look old and dated if she compared him to them.
Think! Damnit! Think of something brilliant to say! Brilliant . . . but light . . . . something witty . . .

He left the Vespa parked horizontally in the space between two cars as if he owned the street. Noel Fryer took off his helmet, balancing it briefly on the seat of the Vespa, brushing his hair to the side, what there was of it, and unwrapping the scarf around his neck. Reaching into his front pocket, he pulled out a black cashmere beret. He had recently taken up wearing it around the office. While he unwrapped the scarf, he still left it hanging loose around his neck. He’d walk around the network like this all day, with the cashmere scarf hanging draped around his neck over his hand-tailored suit.

Who the hell did he think he was? Pavarotti?

Utterly ridiculous.

“Hello, you handsome man!”

Did she give it a
touch too much verve
?

“Hi, Sookie! I thought that was you when I pulled up. Glad you could make it into the city today.”

“Well, Noel, I’m here every day. You know, for the show.”

A chill went down her back. Did Noel know she actually never came in to the show? Why bother? She could think and direct just as well from her home out in the Hamptons. Her physicality had nothing to do with her talents. It was all in her head. Creative masterminds were all the same. They didn’t fit into the confines of a nine-to-five workaday setting like all the others did.

They both walked through the glass doors and headed toward the wide expanse of the security desk.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Fryer.” The security guard said it, barely looking up.

But, glancing over at Sookie, his face was blank. “Name and ID, please.”

“Why, I’m Sookie Downs.” How dare he ask for her ID. Didn’t he know who she was?

“Beg pardon?”

“I’m Sookie Downs.”

The guard registered not a hint of recognition.

“You know,
Sookie Downs.
” She said her name slowly and with emphasis as if he were deaf. “I’m the executive producer of
The
Harry Todd Show
? Certainly you’ve heard of Harry Todd.
The
 
Harry Todd Show
?”

“Not ringing a bell. Name and ID, please.”

This was not going as planned. Sookie fished around the bottom of her purse for her GNE ID pass. Certainly she’d brought it. Normally she was with Tony whenever she came in. He’d meet her at her limo and walk her in, already clearing her entrance with security.

She couldn’t find the pass.

“I must have changed purses . . .”

“I vouch for her . . . You can let her up, Fred.”

“Yes sir, Mr. Fryer.”

Walking toward the elevator bank, Sookie breathed as evenly as possible.

“You know, I hate it when they put new guards at the front desk.
So irritating.”

What else could she say? The elevator doors closed in front of their faces as they zoomed upward.

I JUST WANT TO CONVEY HOW HAPPY WE ARE HERE AT GNE WITH THE
TODD SHOW’S
recent ratings.” Noel Fryer sat back in his leather swivel chair, his feet up on his desk, the view of Manhattan thirty-one floors below him. He’d had the chair specially ergonomically designed several years before. He’d even had the leather seat and arms individually crafted in Italy, and told anybody that happened to come into his office. Today, reared back in his chair, he looked like king of the city and acted like it too, like it all belonged to him.

“I know some time back I had mentioned that, in light of Harry’s, well, I hate to boil it down like this, in light of his ratings, maybe he should consider a graceful exit. You know, when that day does come, when your career is winding down . . . headed for a new phase . . . a new direction . . . and believe me, Sookie, it comes for everybody, even me, Noel Fryer, we would make it all look like Harry’s decision.”

“Noel, let me remind you that for years, Harry’s by far been the highest rated thing you’ve got going and you’d be crazy to end his run now . . .”

“Correction, Sookie, he
was
the highest-rated thing we
had
going.” Noel Fryer came down off his perch and put his feet on the carpet in front of him for emphasis. Sookie winced.

He went on. “There was the little slump . . . not so little actually, sixteen months of Todd’s ratings in the crapper. And we stood by him.”

Hardly. The moment Harry’s ratings dipped, they started circling like wolves and Sookie knew it. If Harry hadn’t had an ironclad contract locking them in for another eighteen months, he’d have been on the streets, and Sookie with him. What about
her
?
What would become of her?

“But that’s all behind us, Sookie. That’s why I called you in. Todd’s ratings are up. He’s leading the network again. It’s fantastic . . . we’re . . . ,” Fryer searched for just the right word, “ . . .
thrilled!
”

Sookie was still defensive, but kept it together and smiled brightly, pointing every single one of her veneers across the huge expanse of desktop separating her from Fryer. He was now kicked back in his chair again, the soles of his feet balanced on the desk-top, directly impeding Sookie’s view of his face. She kept peeking around his left foot to get a look at him.

Was he doing it on purpose? Was this some sort of mind game? Fryer was famous for messing with your head . . . and with Sookie, it didn’t take much.

She smoothed down the edges of her mini, not that she wanted to show less leg, she just didn’t have anything else to do with her hands. From this vantage, Noel couldn’t even
see
her legs. To remedy that, she got up and casually walked toward the window running the length of the office. She leaned against it, keeping a serious look on her face as if she were pondering his every word.

“In fact, research sent me an analysis of Todd’s numbers and, frankly, they look great.” Fryer reached down into the lower drawer to his left and, opening it, pulled out a stack of computer printouts labeled with yellow stickers. As he flipped through, Sookie could see some of the numbers highlighted in pink.

“And based on what we’re seeing”—“we” meaning only Fryer himself . . . he always talked as if he were a group—“you spike on the nights you feature Hailey Dean.”

Hailey Dean?
He had brought her up here to talk about Hailey Dean? Todd hated her . . . wouldn’t even have her on the same set with him. And Tony said the feeling was mutual. For her own part, Sookie didn’t think Hailey Dean was
all that
.

But she knew how to play the game.

“Oh, yes. She’s fantastic.” Always better to play along with the suits, tell them what they wanted to hear, and then go do whatever you wanted. “I’ll definitely have her back on the show. She’s great as a legal panelist.” Sookie consciously smoothed back her red hair, glittery with product in the sunlight.

“It’s more than that. I’ve watched when she was on. It was the Prentiss Love show. Hailey Dean practically jumped off the screen. She’s got it! She’s electric. Then there was the ah . . . what was it . . . the ah . . . the first one, the ice water. And she’s been on a few of the days you did follow-up shows. Police aren’t saying much, but you’ve done pretty well with the old boyfriends, neighbors, you know, the usual suspects. But that Dean, she’s got
something . . .
”

“Oh, Noel, you’re absolutely right. She’s lightning in a bottle. You’re so right, Noel . . . she’s . . . positively electric.”

It pained her to agree about Hailey. But the Prentiss Love show was huge. And Hailey did light up the screen. Sookie managed to shift her legs while leaning back against the window, crossing one over the other, trying to re-direct his attention back to her own calves and thighs and off Hailey Dean’s
“something.”
It didn’t seem to be working.

“So, I want you to make her a regular and pay her out of the
Todd Show
budget.”

“What?” Sookie was appalled. “We can’t afford to take money out of our budget for
Hailey Dean
!”

“You can and you will. You’ve already got the fattest budget at the network, and up until Dean came along, your numbers simply didn’t justify it.”

“Well you know, Noel, we did have the very last interview ever done with Leather Stockton, right after that DUI. And Prentiss Love had just been on with Harry about
Celebrity Closets
, and he got in a lot of questions about her personal life. You know, no steady boyfriend, no husband, doesn’t cook, lives with her four cockapoos type interview. It was great. We sliced and diced them and turned them to make fantastic shows. I think the numbers had
nothing
to do with Hailey Dean. They had
everything
to do with my producing,” she said icily.

She remained perfectly silent, motionless in fact, waiting for Noel to acknowledge her talent. That was what it was all about. No one in their right mind would imagine the success of
The
Harry Todd Show
had anything to do with the host.

“Enjoying the GNE jet? It’s nice, isn’t it?”

She was thrown off. Noel had completely failed to take the cue. He didn’t even bother to agree with her.

How rude.

“I wouldn’t know . . . You know Todd uses it. He
loves
it!” She strutted back across the carpeted room toward his desk and re-settled herself into her original perch.

“When I was on my way to Arizona for the sales meeting last week, the pilot happened to mention you used it to hop down to St. Martin.”

“Oh yes . . . that’s right . . . thank you for reminding me, Noel . . . I
did
take a little jaunt.” It had actually been a five-hour flight each way. “Harry is just so generous, as are you, Noel.” Damn the pilot to hell and back. Big mouth. Wasn’t there some sort of pilot-passenger confidentiality? Whatever happened to discretion?

The rest hit Sookie like a ton of bricks. Had the idiot pilot mentioned she’d taken a man along with her to St. Martin? Sookie made absolutely sure his name was never mentioned, not once on the flight, so certainly
that
didn’t leak. And she never had to show ID to take a private flight, just get on and take off. So . . . no written record. But there was also the corporate jet log . . . and Noel Fryer kept it. He could easily see how often she mooched the jet.

This was just what she didn’t need right now . . . a scandal with a married man at the very minute her divorce settlement was being hammered out.

She was taking Julian to the cleaners, come hell or high water!

And she wouldn’t let one long weekend with a married boyfriend ruin it all. Julian would reopen all the depositions and suggest she was having an affair during their marriage. She absolutely did not have an affair, but her behavior wasn’t the point. The point was that Julian had flaunted his girlfriends all over town, and that
did
matter very much.

How dare he make her look bad, after all she’d done for him? He had money all right, he was “in yachts” as a business, but she gave him credibility, standing. He didn’t know a salad fork from an olive tray before Sookie Downs got ahold of him. She got him into circles he’d never dreamed of before, largely due to her position on
The
Harry Todd Show.

She created Julian.
And they were
a couple.
They’d been featured in dozens of magazines and interviews together . . . you know . . . the
“it”
power couple. No way was a single weekend romp going to foul up this divorce settlement.

“Yeah, that plane is fantastic. It’s my own personal favorite. Its like you’re in your own private den, but you’re twenty thousand feet up in the sky.”

Noel Fryer’s voice jolted her back to the here and now. Sookie stood up and walked alone to the window again, slightly sitting on the sill, her legs angled toward Fryer.

Did he notice the red mock-croc mini? Did he think it clashed with her hair? She thought she caught him looking at her shins, but wasn’t sure.

“So, long story short . . . we want to renew both you and Harry. We’re so knocked out by the numbers, we want to re-up. What do you think about that, Sookie?”

She was thrilled. Beyond thrilled as a matter of fact. The ratings were published every day. Anybody could look them up, and Harry Todd was barely holding on by the skin of his teeth, resting on his laurels. But the recent numbers changed all that.

“I’ll relay the message to Harry. I’m sure he’ll be just as excited as I am.” She said it with a smile. Still working the mini, Sookie walked to the door.

“Oh . . . and one more thing,” Noel said.

“What?”

“Get Dean.”

Sookie nodded and closed the door gently as she backed out of the office. She managed to keep the same smile glued to her lips, and it would take a lot more than Hailey Dean or Noel Fryer to knock it off.

In her own mind, the mini had worked. Just an hour before, when Sookie was coming up the elevator, she’d actually been afraid Noel might initiate a conversation about ending Harry’s run at GNE, and symbiotically, her own.

She made it down the elevator and walked through the thick glass doors onto the sidewalk, passing Noel Fryer’s Vespa. If she hadn’t known for a fact that security cameras were trained on every square inch of cement surrounding GNE Headquarters, she would have kicked the damn thing over.

He looked like a damn fool on the little bike, with his butt hanging over either side of the seat cushion when he rode it . . . that damn scarf around his neck, the hand-stitched Italian leather riding gloves . . .
moron.