The Deviant

by Adam Sommers

  “Can you talk?”

  “Uh, yes?”

  “I wanted to apologize.”

  “Oh.” Eric let his breath out, slowly. Apologize, not at all what he expected, but it was a good start. “Okay.”

  “I take medication for, well, a female problem, let’s put it that way. The doctor changed the prescription and there were…side effects.”

  “Oh.” What else was he supposed to say? “That’s weird.”

  She laughed a little laugh. “Yes, weird. So, I acted inappropriately and unprofessionally, and if I did anything to upset you, I’m terribly sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” he said, but what he was thinking is what about the other nine, or maybe ninety guys she assaulted, and what about Arnold McNeill and his nice house that was now a pile of ashes; and, oh by the way, just how much of this bullshit am I supposed to believe?

  But it is human nature to accept people’s apologies even when the person being apologized to knows it’s complete bullshit and, what’s more, the person who is doing the apologizing knows the person they are apologizing to knows it’s complete bullshit but they apologize anyway because that’s how society prevents complete chaos.

  “I’d like to make it up to you, if you’ll give me the chance.”

  “Uh…” In Eric’s mind he went to the bridge of the Starship Enterprise and gave the order “Shields up!”

  “I’m having a small party over here this weekend. The publisher will be there and some other local media people I know. I’d like to introduce you to the news director at Channel Seven, Tom Wiler. He’s a personal friend.

  “TV?”

  “Yes.”

  “Me?”

  “Don’t get ahead of yourself, but you know, things can happen. We have a relationship with the station. Some of our reporters do guest spots. It pays quite well.”

  For all his trepidation, Eric certainly liked the sound of that. “Well, why not?”

  “Great. I’ll have a car for you around seven Saturday.”

  “A car? I’m pretty sure I can find my way if you give me the address.”

  “It’s a token, Eric. A gesture.”

  “Ms. Grayman, really. If you say it’s the medicine, then it’s the medicine and it’s not your fault and that’s that. It’s over, understand? The rest of this really is not necessary. I’m perfectly happy to just go back to work and forget it all. On the other hand, if you were, I don’t know, trying to get over on me, somehow make me submit just because you could, then that’s something else and I would have to rethink my future.”

  Jayne Grayman was certainly not expecting to be so directly confronted by some little shit from New Jersey. She found herself annoyed yet impressed.

  “Eric, like I said, it was the medicine. I’m not that person. I’ve never done that sort of thing before.”

  That was the exact wrong thing to say. Now, Eric had found his footing. “Oh, really?” he said with such absolute conviction and derision that Jayne Grayman, for one of the few times in her life, felt herself backed into a corner. She instantly realized her mistake. Obviously Eric had talked to Arnold McNeill, clearly he knew of that case at the very least, and probably the sealed class-action suit as well. She concluded that there was no way to perpetuate the lie at this point, leaving her with the only alternative, which was to come clean.

  “No, actually, Eric, it’s not.” Her voice was softer, different. “It happens…from time to time.…I don’t have full control over it. The medication part is true. I take it to dull the temptations I have. It usually works, but it’s still something I deal with, have dealt with most of my life. Everyone has demons. This is mine.”

  It was Eric’s turn to be impressed. He didn’t know what to say, so he didn’t say anything. Her confession, if that’s what it was, could also be pure bull, but Eric didn’t read it that way. She came across as genuine.

  After an awkward moment, Jayne said, “The offer for the party is still good. The opportunities for you are still available. If you want them. It’s also partially selfish. It’s good for the paper. It’s good for me.”

  “You’re really going to put me on TV? Seriously? No bullshit?”

  “Yes, if you want it.”

  “I don’t know. It’s not something I’m really looking for. I never thought beyond the paper, maybe writing a book about some of these stories sometime.”

  “Books?” Jayne Grayman perked up. “I can also definitely help with books, if it comes to it. Look, I’m trying to make amends, here. If it seems like I’m trying to buy you off, you can think of it that way if you want. And there’s nothing wrong with being bought off. And if you wanted to file any complaint against me it would be an effort in futility. I won’t try to stop you but I have friends everywhere in this city. It would be years before anything even was heard, never mind resolved. And even then, it would be resolved in my favor.”

  Eric was dumbfounded. She not only was reading his mind, she was already laying the groundwork for anything he did to disappear in a bureaucratic black hole, and was at least two steps ahead of him.

  “So we all have our cards on the table?”

  “I suppose so,” Eric allowed quietly.

  “And the offer to come to dinner, to talk to these people, to see if TV is a possibility is still genuine. It’s the only real way I can think of to apologize other than directly giving you a lot of money.”

  “That never hurts.”

  She laughed at that. “The only trouble is, it’s a crime. It’s called bribery and extortion and, unlike a dinner party and conversation, it can be traced.”

  So direct, so blunt, so apparently honest. If she was up to something, Eric could not detect what it was. Ironically, she’d given him so much ammunition with which he could attack her that he felt completely disarmed.

  “Even if you don’t want to come to dinner, I still want you to stay at the paper. If that’s not tolerable, I understand.”

  “That’s all I really needed, Ms. Grayman. I don’t need the car service and the dinner party.”

  “Oh, come anyway, Eric. It’ll be the best meal you’ve had in months. My chef is amazing.”

  He didn’t particularly like it, but Eric heard himself saying, “Yeah, why not?”

  “Excellent,” she sounded pleasantly surprised. “The others will be thrilled you’re coming.”

  “I’m a nobody.”

  “Not true. You’ve already been on TV. See you at seven.”

  Knowing how much money Jayne Grayman had, Eric was mildly surprised at the home he pulled his clunking old Honda Accord up to. He expected a mansion. What he got was a big stone house, to be sure, but not nearly the scale he anticipated. In his mind he saw something like Wayne Manor from the old “Batman” series. This was a boxy two-story on a large piece of property. The cost, Eric would have learned if he’d done any digging at all, came primarily from the ZIP code. In certain circles, those five digits spelled status many rich people could only dream about.

  So the home was somewhat modest, and the cars parked out front were as well. There were no Bentleys and Ferraris, but rather a Buick, two Volvos and a BMW that was at least a few years old, and Jayne’s Mercedes.

  The door opened even before he got to it. Likely there was some sort of security camera, Eric figured, that had spotted him and the butler, or man-servant, or whatever Jayne called him, was watching.

  Jayne had understood from the start that Eric would feel like a fish out of water among her set. She did not want him to be led into her lavish living room where everyone else was already gathered, have him be introduced and then all the monied heads turn to look at the young pauper in rags who showed up, happy to have the charity. Instead, she had instructed her guests to make a big deal of his arrival, treat him like a guest of honor.

  It worked perfectly. When the butler opened the
door, rather than awkwardly standing there for their examination, he was essentially mobbed by Jayne and her friends. “Hey, there he is. I told you he was coming,” boomed Jayne. “This is my new phenom, Eric Berger. Four exclusives in three months. It’s unheard of!”

  Eric blushed deeply, but he didn’t mind the accolades. Following Jayne’s lead, the others warmly greeted Eric, putting him at his ease. First was Millicent Deen of The Post. THE POST! Really? Aren’t you guys enemies?

  Yes, but only for public consumption, he was told. The Post was four times the size of The Standard and was not really threatened by its underdog rival. Millicent and Jayne had been friends for years and didn’t give a hoot who had bigger circulation. “That’s off the record,” Millicent Deen laughed.

  Eric just nodded and smiled a confused smile.

  Tom Wiler was there, with is wife, Beverly Cumber-Something-Something that Eric didn’t catch and was too embarrassed to ask for a repeat. Tom Wiler was the head of ABC News. He was as round as a beachball and nearly as bouncy. The wife, Cumber-Something-Something said she worked in nuclear medicine and Eric’s eyes instantly glazed over.

  Last in line was Brian Swaboda, not a media person, per se, but the owner of Parkman Communications. Every successful politician in Washington had an account at Parkman and a dedicated team of handlers. This was not an outfit that wrote clever and compelling press releases. They were professional opinion manipulators, experts in turning an unknown, or better yet, tainted candidate into a winner. Brian Swaboda liked to brag that if Richard Nixon could rise from the grave, he’d find a way to get him into office. Swaboda’s wife was there, too. “My oh, my, aren’t you cute!” she gushed and took his hand in hers, holding it firmly but not shaking it. “You’re barely older than my boys. Harland, Reggie, come say hello.”

  Two kids Eric had not noticed before because they were sitting on the floor engrossed in some game got up and came over. “Hey,” said Reggie, broader and darker than his brother Harland.

  Eric nodded back, then shook Reggie’s hand too. “Jesus,” said Reggie Swaboda. ‘“You’re like what?”

  “Twenty-six,” Eric said.

  “Cool.”

  “Reggie’s going to William, and Harland’s finishing at Caldonia Prep.”

  Eric didn’t know what those places were and didn’t pretend as if he did.

  “Hey,” said Harland. “I saw your face in the paper. You wrote that ambulance story.”

  “Yes.”

  “That shit was fucked up, man.”

  “Harland!”

  “Sorry, Dad. But it was. That kid died, right?”

  “Yes. Lots of others too. At least six.”

  “No shit. Waiting for a damn ambulance.”

  Eric nodded assent, deciding that at least Harland was cool.

  “Hey, you get high?”

  “Harland! I warned you,” his dad scolded.

  “Come on, Dad. Be cool. Eric’s cool, right. We’re all friends.”

  Brian Swaboda might have been embarrassed by his son, but Eric could have kissed him for lightening up the room.

  For the next couple of hours, the Deens, Wilers and Swabodas, and occasionally Jayne Grayman, regaled each other with tales of their travels, their food, their shopping. Eric’s role was only to listen and smile and oooh and ahh. He understood Jayne was shopping him. Whether or not he wanted to be bought was a question he still had to answer in his own mind.

  They were polite. They asked about his job, his interests, New Jersey. To Eric’s surprise, and perhaps because he’d finished off two glasses of wine with the hors d’oeuvres, he found himself actually enjoying the evening rather than just suffering through it as he expected.

  For dinner there was a kind of fish, and then red meat presented on a long wooden skewer, making it both difficult and fun to eat. Eric, already buzzed, declined the wines that were brought out to match each food, but the others heartily engaged and applauded Jayne for her selections.

  After dessert they went back into the living room. Some glasses of brandy were brought around on a silver tray. Eric accepted the glass from Jayne and took a few sips to be polite, but he did not want to drink much because he’d soon have to drive home and did not need a DWI on his insurance. The chatter continued and Eric excused himself to use the restroom. When he came back, he found that the Swabodas and their kids were gone. That’s weird, Eric thought, they didn’t even say goodbye. And where were the Wilers? Probably in the kitchen or more likely the library, Eric guessed.

  He sat down and turned to say something to Millicent Deen of The Post. He wanted to tell her that he felt bad showing up her old cop reporter, but she was not there at the end of the couch where she had been. She too was gone. A second later, the room spun around to the right and the floor lifted up at a crazy angle like an amusement ride. Eric had a vague sensation of hitting the big marble sushi table with his elbow as he fell to the floor and of his head bouncing on something soft and fuzzy before everything went black.

  He dreamed he was on a ship, and that he’d then been pushed over the side of a slippery guardrail and there was a weight attached to his ankle with fishing line. He liked to fish and went a few times every summer on party boats to see if he could catch bluefish or stripers with his college buddies. The weight attached to his ankle was something he would have kept in his tackle box, just six ounces, but it was enough to make it difficult for him to get to the surface. He came up, got a breath of air, and then was back down. This repeated a few times until he felt like he was running out of energy and didn’t know how long he’d be able to last if someone didn’t help him. He couldn’t get the line off, and he did not have anything to cut it with.

  He forced himself up and was suddenly awake, but still dying for air. It was dark; something soft was under him, not a bed, more like a gym mat. Suddenly, he could breathe again. In an instant he couldn’t. There was flesh on top of him. On top of his face. Wet flesh. It was there and then it wasn’t. Gasp. It was there. Then it wasn’t. Gasp. Then it was. Then it wasn’t. Gasp. He had the thought to sit up and push the flesh off of him, but his arms would not obey.

  “Uh uh huh.” There, and then not there. “Uh…uhhhh…uhhhhhh.” Slightly faster. Then, “Ahhh. aaaaah. Uhhhhh…mmmm. Oh, I see you’re awake. Mmmm, just in time.”

  And then the flesh of Jayne Grayman was off him. She took her hand and wiped his face, and moved her hand down to her groin. But Eric still could not move.

  “That was the best one yet,” she giggled. “Go back to sleep. Your clothes are in the chair over there. You can see yourself out.”

  And she left. She was gone. A few minutes later, Eric vaguely heard a garage door open and a car rip out of the driveway.

  Chapter 40

  In less than fifteen minutes, she swung the car up to the curb of her nanny’s house a couple of towns over. It was only just after sunup and the heat of the day was just starting to build. Her little girl, Brielle, was out front in her car seat, with the nanny standing by waiting, just as she had been instructed.

  “Get her in the car, Hester.” The nanny clipped the seat in, and Jayne sped off. Once she got to the expressway she flew past everything on the highway, not at all worried about a police officer giving her a ticket, or crashing. Ten minutes later, she turned the car into Rock Creek Park and found a spot by the playground. Warren Zalinsky was already there, looking pissed off. Fuck him, she thought. I have a life.

  “You’re late.”

  “And?”

  “And it violates our agreement.”

  “Call the lawyer if you want.”

  Warren did not and would not, and she knew that.

  She sat down on the bench and put the car seat with the little girl between them.

  “How’s she doing?” Warren asked, softening.

  “She’s good.” For an instant Jayne Grayman also
lost a fraction of her anger. Warren pulled the girl from the seat. “How’s my big girl?” The one-year-old looked down frightened, but smiling. Warren jiggled her back and forth. She liked that. Then he put her on his shoulder and bounced her a bit.

  “She said something like ‘potato,’ ” I think, Jayne said. “Sounded like “ato.”

  Warren smiled. He took Jayne’s hand in his. “She’s got your looks.”

  “If you say so,” she said. “I don’t really see it.”

  “Trust me, you will.”

  There was quiet for a moment. Jayne watched as her hand reached out, as if it had a mind of its own, and caressed the butter-soft cheek of her daughter. Warren saw the hardness in Jayne’s eyes disappear for a few seconds. But Jayne did not reach out to hold the child, only to touch its face with two or three strokes as Warren cuddled the girl in the crook of his arm. “Has she eaten?”

  “I guess so. I got her at the nanny’s.”

  “You could show a little more interest,” Warren said, then added because he was annoyed, “She did come out of you, remember?”

  “Yeah. Not really my idea. Remember?” she fired back.

  That was true. Jayne would have gotten an abortion, but the doctor discovered a problem with the anatomy of her uterus, which would put not only the life of the baby but her life as well at risk. So instead of an abortion, she had a baby.

  “Do you ever think about us?” he asked.

  “Stop it, will you, please? Every time it’s the same song. There isn’t any us.”

  “Of course there is. We’re here, aren’t we? We are an us and we are a family. Even if you don’t want us to be.”

  “Well, biologically.”

  “And past that, you don’t feel a thing? You never think about me?”

  “Yes, Warren, I think about you. When I need you. That’s when I think about you.”

  Warren nodded. This he knew, but he kept trying. “You never think, you know, we could actually have some sort of a life? Be normal?”

  “No.”