The Last Manly Man (29 page)

“Speaking of chickens …” he said, and proceeded to relate the story of Mr. Chicken, our favorite peg-legged chicken martyr who died protecting his hens and chicks from stronger enemies.

“Mr. Chicken illustrates the pressure on men to provide for and protect their families, especially the women in their families. Sometimes, this protection crosses the line to control. Men are confused.

“But that Mr. Chicken story has lessons that go beyond male or female. It's a story about persevering despite handicaps, and a story about transcending a stereotype, because Mr. Chicken, whose breed is synonymous with cowardice, made of his little chicken life a testament to bravery. That's what we all have to do, transcend those stereotypes we impose on each other and ourselves, see each other not only as men and women—and vive la différence there, hubba hubba,” he said, and winked. The rascal. “But as whole human beings. That's my modest commitment to women, to see them as whole human beings, and I'd like women to see men that way too. Toward that end, I'd like to announce the formation of the Worldwide Women's Network, a cable and satellite network that will debut early next year, bringing intelligent, provocative, and, yes, entertaining programming to men and women all over Planet Earth. Solange Stevenson, stand up again, will you? Solange is going to be the president of this new network.”

Applause.

Then he said, “And I hope women have a lot of great sex in the future. Women not enjoying sex just causes more problems for men. I know men have some problems in that regard, but you could do a lot by loosening up a little, having some
fun
!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Only after the conference ended was I told the details about my “death” and subsequent hospitalization. A woman bearing a startling resemblance to me, with my NYPD press ID, was found following an explosion in an abandoned warehouse in Long Island City. The initial report that she was dead went out before paramedics were able to revive her. In the meantime, my death had been announced on television, and Robert Huddon's obit had run by mistake. It had been a banner day for Murphy's Law.

Miss Trix, covered in bandages, unconscious and then unable to talk because of smoke damage to her throat and painkillers for her first-degree burns, wasn't able to tell anyone who she was. Despite how lousy she was, what with the deafmute orphans she had employed in her drug operation, I probably would have felt a little bad for her under normal circumstances. But I just didn't have the time.

When I finally got home that day, Mike was waiting for me. What a sight for sore eyes he was, that complex, dark-witted, moody, and faithless Irishman.

“Thank God, you're okay,” he said. “Girl, I don't know how you do it.…”

“People who live in glass houses, Mike,” I said. “How did you know about the missing bonobos?”

“Well, when I heard you had died from Susan Brave and Claire, I immediately hopped on a plane and came out here. By the time I got here, you'd been upgraded from dead to critical condition, Girl. So I went to the hospital.”

He paused and bit his lip.

“In the waiting room I struck up a conversation with another guy there, who introduced himself as your boyfriend, Gus.”

Without revealing his own status, Mike managed to find out a little about what a hot number I was, as Lola.

I had my head to his chest and could feel him inhale deeply.

Gus had also related some of the “lies” I'd told about fist-fighting thugs, missing bonobo chimps, and animal rights nuts.

“I was at a loss, Girl, didn't know who to talk to, so I called Reb Ryan.”

Back in Mike's heyday as a cameraman for ANN, before he went out on his own, he'd been Reb Ryan's cameraman. They'd covered wars and had been kidnapped together in Beirut.

“Reb started putting the pieces together, and then he was contacted by some animal rights guy.”

That would be Blue Baker.

“How come you weren't with Reb at our liberation?”

“I have a daughter, Robin, remember? I no longer think it's fair to her if I put myself in dangerous positions on dangerous assignments. Reb seemed to have it under control.”

He held me for a while, quietly. He was troubled.

“What is it, Mike? Are you mad about Gus? I'm sorry you found out that way.…”

“Now probably isn't the time to talk about all this, Girl.”

“Oh hell, in my life, there may never be a good time,” I said. “Say it.”

“I'm getting older. I need to settle down,” he said.

“You think you can settle down with Veronkya, that crazy trapeze girl,” I said, lightly snorting her name.

“Veronkya? She's eighteen and makes you look like a paragon of sanity. God, no. The truth is, Girl, I hadn't had another woman in over a month … that's what I wanted to tell you.”

“That's your big confession?”

“There's more. I got tired of unfamiliar women, of crazy, unfamiliar women and all the nutty consequences and scenes. Seemed easier just to masturbate to porn in my hotel room. And I missed you. I was going to ask you if you maybe wanted to try monogamy.”

“Mike, I've been down that road with you, and with other guys like you, and that pathology never changes for too long.…”

“I know all your logic, Robin,” he said. “You might be right. And I know my history of other women would make it hard for you to trust me. All the same, I want to try. But not with you. The Gus thing, it hurt me. I know you were hurt by the other women in my life too. I don't know if we could ever really trust each other.”

“So what are you telling me?”

“I'm going back to my ex-wife.”

“Felicia?”

“Through all the stuff with Samantha, and through the reports of your death, the time I spent at the hospital waiting for you to recover, Felicia was there for me, and I've been there for her. It's as if all the bad things between her and me have fallen away and the love we had can come through. And we have a daughter.…”

“You're breaking up with me to go back to your ex? Oh damn,” I said.

“Yes. I'm here for you today though,” he said. “I care about you, Girl.…”

“No, don't say any more. I'm too tired to fight. I think I'll take a pill and hit the hay. Let's talk next week.”

“Hey, I didn't let on to your friend Gus about you and me. Figured I owed you that. He seems like a nice guy.”

We kissed, chastely, and Mike walked out of my life, temporarily at least.

Mike, who needs you, I thought. But as soon as the door closed, I felt the absence of his warmth and started missing him. I still had some of those cheesy Mecca souvenirs he collects, each one with a story about the pal who gave it to him. There, on the wall above my computer was the Enfield rifle he had given me, with another story attached. There were the news clippings about stories we did together, the photographs of vacations we took. Oh damn.

Surely it wouldn't take Mike long to realize that he couldn't settle down, I thought, even with Felicia. Every few months, he had to hit the road and go off to shoot a war, a circus, an expedition through the rain forest or some damn thing. When lusty people are apart for long periods and lonely, things happen, like affairs. Maybe he and Felicia would work out, maybe they wouldn't. If they didn't, maybe I'd still be here. Maybe not. In a way, I hoped it would work out for him and Felicia, if only because I didn't think Samantha could handle her parents reuniting and then splitting up again.

There was a game when I was a kid, by Parker Brothers, called Careers. You wagered at the beginning on how much love, money, and fame points you would get in your life. Then you went around the board, trying to match those numbers, and the person closest to his wager wins the game. Something like that. When I played, I'd always go for one thing, put all my eggs in one basket, usually for fame, but sometimes love, sometimes money, because it increased my chances of winning—in one area of my life at least. What hubris to think now that I could have it all.

Damn damn damn. But I couldn't deal with this right now, because if I started thinking about it I might get all sentimental and blue. What was it the Roman poet Ovid said about love? If you're looking for a way out of it, be busy. Love yields to business. Something like that.

After the frenzy of the subsequent few days died down, Jack and I had dinner at his men's club.

“Why didn't you tell me what was going on?” Jack asked.

“One, I was sworn to confidence. Two, after you gave me your support on the Man of the Future series, I didn't want you to know I was chasing another story, and maybe on a wild-goose chase.”

“Well, it all worked out,” he said. “We got a helluva lot of free publicity out of it. That don't hurt none.”

“It hurt a little,” I said.

“Yeah, you've been through a lot. You're quite a gal. You know, I actually asked you here to fill you in on a few things,” he said, changing the subject.

“Shoot.”

“First, it was no accident I came down to Keggers that night and spoke with you, the night we went barhopping. Bob McGravy told me I should talk to you.”

Bob McGravy was an executive vice-president at ANN and one of my far-flung mentors.

“Bob said that I should talk to you informally, give you a few belts of vodka, loosen you up.”

Someone else would have found a wee sexist element in this—you know, getting the girl drunk to loosen her up. Except Jack got guys drunk too.

“It loosened me up all right,” I said, ruefully.

“Don't be sorry about it. It's good to do that once in a while. My lawyers tell me I shouldn't … but lawyers, sometimes they just interfere with human communication,” he said.

“Why did Bob think you should talk to me?”

“We were discussing women and feminism. Some of our biggest stockholders are prominent suffragettes and feminists, but I always felt a little uncomfortable around them. So I called up some feminists to find out what was going on with them these days, somehow rubbed them the wrong way. Got me thinking. And Bob, he says, there are a lot of different feminists. I asked him for a name, and he gave me yours. Said you called yourself a feminist, but you didn't have a stick up your ass about it, and you'd know the right people to talk to.”

“That was good of Bob.”

“I like your ideas. Not all of them, but a lot of them. People have to think globally now, Robin, beyond the group.”

His eyes were bright and the pupils had shrunk to dots.

“The thing is this: Big things are happening with women all over the planet. Even women who stay home these days aren't like women who stayed home in my day.”

“Now they're soccer moms with power.”

“Right. And, hell, there's money in women. Look at all the corporate sponsorship that lined up for that conference, and the coverage. So I figure, this new network will have an audience, if we do it right.”

“And Solange will be the president.”

“What do you think of her?” Jack asked.

Solange Stevenson is a passive-aggressive asshole who, under the guise of sympathy, probes for people's weaknesses and then delivers a toxin-dipped stiletto to those vulnerable points. But as I get more, you know, mature, I play my cards closer to my chest and say the polite, politic thing when I absolutely have to.

“I respect her a lot,” I said. “She had to kick down the doors to break into broadcasting. That made it easier for the rest of us to come through.”

Jack smiled. “Good answer. The truth is, she's a manipulative bitch sometimes, but we need some of that at the top.”

“I'm a bitch too,” I said.

“Not enough of one sometimes,” he said. “But enough of one to stand up to Solange Stevenson.”

He smiled slyly, and I realized then that he had seen what was really going on between Solange and me at his cocktail party.

“And you got ideas. What I'd like you to do is be in charge of programming for the new network. It's a lot of work, a lot of travel, a lot of risk. But somehow, I think you'll do okay. You'll be number three in the network. That's a big leap up for you.”

“Who's number two?”

“Your old boss in Special Reports. Jerry Spurdle. Solange will be president, he'll be vice president, and you'll be the programming executive,” Jack said.

Jerry Spurdle was my old archnemesis, who had been running the Berlin bureau into the ground for the last couple of years. He believes women are just vehicles for the transport of their breasts.

“Jerry is number two all right,” I said.

“The guy knows how to handle advertisers. You'll be a good team. So what do you say?”

Life. Man, the choices sometimes. Here, have a great job, working for two people you can't stand. But come to think of it, I've had a fair bit of experience with that situation in the past. It was a good gig, no doubt about it. A chance to make up my own programming and maybe foment a little rebellion out there in the wider world.

“I'll take it,” I said.

“Good,” he said. “Boy, I can't get over it. Morton and Mandervan, conspiring together. I always thought they were nuts, but I thought they were nuts like me. You know, nuts in a good way.”

“Jack, the world has too many insane people in it, and too many of them have money,” I said.

“Power can corrupt,” Jack said. “You can start thinking you're a demigod, that you know better than other people what is good for them, and what the future holds. You watch out for that, Robin, now that you have a little power.”

“Yeah, hubris. But I've got a curse on my head. Whenever I start thinking I'm hot shit, a man leaves me, or I fart in a private pre-interview with a handsome actor and there are only two of us in the room, so he knows it's me, or a dead body turns up in my life.…”