by R. G. Belsky
“You just screwed yourself, Malloy,” he said finally.
“Wouldn’t be the first time.”
* * *
I’d gone there in hopes of getting another one-on-one meeting with Wylie. I wanted to get exclusive news about the Melissa Ross investigation, of course. But I was also ready to talk to him candidly—although not as candidly as I did with Hammacher—about my feelings on his job offer.
Instead Wylie called a press conference. I trooped into the press conference room with a herd of other reporters and listened to him answer questions about the murders of Walter Issacs and Rick Faris, his thoughts on the mayoral race, and pretty much everything else the press wanted to bring up.
The political stuff was pretty easy for him.
“The latest polls show you ahead of the mayor by a wide margin,” a reporter said. “What’s your reaction to that?”
“I haven’t had a lot of time to follow the polls. I’m pretty busy with the job I have now. But—to answer your question—the people of New York will decide the next mayor, not some political polls. I’m confident in their judgment.”
“Do you think you’d make a good mayor?” another reporter asked.
“I think you should look at my record as deputy mayor overseeing law enforcement—the drop in street crime, the rise in arrests and convictions, the safety people now feel when they walk the streets of New York City—and make your own decision about what kind of mayor I would be.”
“Is that a yes or no to my question?” the reporter laughed.
“My record speaks for itself.”
“What about the mayor’s record?”
“The mayor should answer that question. It’s his record, not mine.”
“Do you and the mayor get along these days?”
“He’s my boss.”
“Maybe he won’t be your boss after the next election,” the reporter said.
“Well, that decision is going to be up to the people of New York, isn’t it?” Wylie smiled.
The reporter from the Post sitting next to me leaned over and whispered: “He’s really good, isn’t he?”
“Damn good,” I muttered.
“How can anyone ever compete against someone with all of that charisma and charm?”
He was right. The current mayor was deadly dull, a sixty-five-year-old man who looked and acted like he was eighty. No, there was no way for him to compete against Wylie—no chance for him to win reelection—unless something happened to change the current political situation. Something to stop the Wylie steamroller that now seemed certain to put him in the mayor’s office.
But the wild card was still the Blonde Ice murders. If the police captured Melissa Ross and closed the case quickly, Wylie would be an even bigger hero to the people of New York. But if not . . . well, the tone of the questions changed dramatically when the press switched topics.
“Where is Melissa Ross?” a reporter asked.
“We don’t know,” Wylie said.
“Why is she killing these men she has no apparent connection with?”
“We don’t know that either.”
“Well, what do you know?”
For a second, it looked like the press conference might get out of control. But Wylie was too good to let that happen.
“I know this—we will catch Melissa Ross, and we’ll do it very soon,” Wylie said, pounding on the podium in front of him. It was a real nice dramatic flourish. “The people of New York City have my personal guarantee on that. I assure you we will apprehend this woman and make sure our city is safe.”
Wow, I thought to myself. He was really putting himself and his reputation on the line here. I kind of admired that. Wylie was all in now on the Blonde Ice case, whether he liked it or not.
On his way out of the room, I managed to intercept him briefly.
“How’s it going, Scoop?” he smiled.
“Well, we’ve got a helluva story here,” I smiled back. “A serial killer running wild. Plus, it’s a female serial killer. Even better. And you just making this dramatic guarantee to stop her before she kills again. I couldn’t ask for a better storyline than that. So—once you catch her—you’ll be a big hero in the media all over again.”
“Lucky for both of us, huh?” Wylie grinned.
He seemed to suddenly realize that might sound insensitive since people were dying, but I knew what he meant.
“That last remark is off the record, of course,” he said quickly.
“Of course.”
He relaxed again.
“I heard you had an interesting discussion with Tim Hammacher earlier,” Wylie said to me.
“Let’s just describe it as a full and frank exchange of views.”
“Tim is really a pretty good guy when you get to know him. I know he can be a bit overbearing at times. But he’s intelligent, hardworking, resolute, loyal—he’s a real model for other members of my office and my campaign team.”
“Yeah, he sure sounds swell. . . . When I grow up I want to be just like him.”
“I’d like for the two of you to get along,” Wylie said.
CHAPTER 16
SO why didn’t you take your ex-wife up on her offer to come back to your apartment and spend the night with you?” Dr. Barbara Landis asked me.
“Beats me.”
“You must have some idea.”
I shook my head no.
“That’s why I came to see you, Doc. So you can help me understand my subliminal feelings. Delve deep into my subconscious thoughts. Bare my soul and all that stuff. Isn’t that what you do for a living?”
Barbara Landis was a psychiatrist. I’d been seeing her off and on for a few years now. Mostly off. The Daily News sent me to her when I started having serious anxiety attacks after the Houston scandal first broke and nearly destroyed my career. The worst attack happened in the middle of the newsroom, when I lost consciousness and scared the hell out of everyone. Including me. Landis had helped me through that and a few other crises. I liked her. I trusted her—to a point anyway—and I don’t easily trust people. Plus, I couldn’t think of anyone else to turn to for help. So there was that too.
“Is it because Susan is still married?” she asked me now.
“Maybe.”
“And that offended your moral principles on some level?”
“Sure. Why not?”
“Well, we’re living in a different age now. Moral principles and standards have changed dramatically from what they used to be. The marriage vows are not always sacrosanct; many people stray from their marriage vows and many men—in your situation—would not have been concerned about the right or wrong of such a sexual encounter. They would have simply chosen the sexual thrill.”
“I don’t want to be one of those guys,” I told her.
“Actually,” Landis said, “you are one of those guys.”
“What do you mean?”
“You told me in the past about how you cheated on your wife when you were married. That you’d slept around with some other women under less than virtuous circumstances. So why take the moral high ground now?”
“Maybe I don’t want to be one of those guys anymore,” I smiled.
Landis wrote that down in her notebook. She always wrote everything down in a notebook during our sessions. I was starting to get uncomfortable. I wondered if maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to come here and bare my soul to this woman, after all. Maybe I should just go home and talk to imaginary TV characters some more. The good thing about them is they never ask you a lot of tough questions.
“I’ve got a new joke,” I told Landis. “A guy walks into a psychiatrist’s office and tells the doctor he’s been having this bizarre fantasy that he’s a dog. The psychiatrist tells him to lie down on the couch so they can talk about it. ‘I can’t,’ the guy tells the psychiatrist. ‘I’m not allowed on the furniture.’ ”
Landis sighed.
“Mr. Malloy, we’ve talked in the past about your penchant for maki
ng jokes when you don’t want to discuss some of your issues. How you use humor to hide your true feelings and avoid confronting problems. This creates a serious obstacle in our patient-doctor relationship and negatively impacts the likelihood of a positive outcome to the treatment that I am providing you.”
“I’m not sure I understand exactly what you’re saying, Doc.”
“What I’m saying is that if you keep acting like a jerk, I can’t help you.”
“That is clearer,” I said.
She looked down at her notebook. I imagined she was reviewing some earlier notes she’d written about me. No iPads or modern technology for this woman. Just a spiral notebook and a big fountain pen. Old school all the way.
“Let me ask you the question again then,” she said. “Why do you think you rejected the sexual advances of your ex-wife?”
I looked around the office. There were lots of diplomas and degrees and awards from medical associations. Pretty impressive. This woman must really know what she’s doing. I mean they don’t just hand those diplomas and degrees out like candy, right? I took a deep breath and plunged ahead.
“Okay,” I said, “I know I wasn’t the greatest husband in the world. Not by a long shot. And yes, I did cheat on Susan at the end when we were going through a really crazy period with the Houston scandal and a lot of other stuff that happened. And then later, after we were divorced, I sometimes felt like she was cheating on me when she was with other men. Because I was convinced we would eventually get back together. But this time I’m not the cheater and I’m not the cheatee. I’m the third person in the mix. The one she’d be cheating on her current husband with. This is uncharted territory for me, Dr. Landis. I guess I’m just not sure how to handle the situation.”
Landis smiled. “Okay, that’s some progress. Now that wasn’t really so difficult to do, was it?”
“There’s more. I’ve been thinking a lot about the story I’m working on now. About the way Victoria Issacs’s seemingly perfect marriage fell apart because her husband was cheating on her with the same kind of woman that she used to be. About Karen Faris all alone in that empty house and blaming herself for her husband’s cheating ways. I guess maybe that’s why I decided I didn’t want to be that kind of guy—someone like Walter Issacs or Rick Faris—ever again. I suppose I’m just a romantic at heart. I want to believe that the perfect love, the perfect marriage—the whole live happily ever after thing—is really possible.”
Landis wrote that down too.
“And then there’s the Houston connection to all this, which also freaks me out. I mean that original Houston story I did—and screwed up on—changed my life in so many ways. That’s why I came here to see you in the first place, during all of the fallout from the Houston scandal. Now she’s somehow back in my life, and she appears to be a catalyst for all the new things that have happened. I don’t understand why. And truthfully, it scares me. I just feel that there is some kind of unseen force behind all this—some kind of fate or predestination or whatever—that is pushing Houston and me together again for a reason. And all the rest of it—the murders, the new revelations coming out about my past, even Susan’s marriage crisis—is a part of this. I know that sounds crazy. But I feel that somehow Houston is the reason for everything that’s going on in my life at the moment. Just like she was before.”
Dr. Landis closed her notebook. She looked at me with a concerned expression.
“Did I say something wrong?” I asked.
“No, you actually made a great deal of sense.”
“What’s wrong then?” I asked.
She stood up and paced around the room. Arms folded, lost in thought, without answering right away. As she walked, I couldn’t help noticing that she was actually a very nice-looking woman. Not that I was going to ever act on that impulse. She was in her midfifties, married with a family. She even told me once that she was a grandmother now. Plus, there was the pesky ethical issue that she was my psychiatrist. I was pretty sure there were rules that prevented psychiatrists from jumping onto the couch with their patients. I didn’t want to get into trouble with the American Medical Association or anything.
“Why exactly did you come to see me?” Dr. Landis asked.
“Uh, because I’m a patient and you’re a doctor and you’re supposed to cure me.”
“You haven’t been here in months, Mr. Malloy. And then suddenly today you show up at my door.”
“I guess I didn’t have any problems bad enough to bring me here until now.”
“Did you attempt to discuss these problems with any of your friends?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
I shrugged.
“Do you have friends, Mr. Malloy?”
“Sure, I have lots of friends.”
“Then why didn’t you go to one of them to talk about these things that are bothering you?”
“I don’t talk to my friends about stuff like that.”
“Doesn’t sound like they’re very good friends then.”
She sat down again.
“You’re a very likeable guy. Funny. Personable. Entertaining. I’m sure you do have a lot of friends. But mostly people you work with or know from business dealings, right? Other reporters. Some cops. A few government sources maybe. But they’re all about your job. I’m not sure they’re real friends beyond that. Anyone to talk to when you really have problems like you’re having now. So you don’t have to hold imaginary conversations with characters on TV shows.”
I had told her about that at one point, I guess. I sort of wished I hadn’t now.
“In many ways, you act very . . . well, I guess the word I’m looking for is ‘immature.’ You need to establish a more mature lifestyle for yourself.”
“Mature,” I said.
“Mature, Mr. Malloy. You need to confront the real problems in your life. You need to talk to someone that you’re not afraid to reveal some of your secrets to—in the same way you’ve done with me. Do you have anyone in your life like that, Mr. Malloy? Anyone besides me that you feel you can totally trust?”
I thought about it.
“Just one person,” I said.
“Who?” she asked, even though she already knew the answer.
“Susan.”
“But now you can’t go to her with your problem because she is the problem. You’re not able to deal with that. Hence, you return to my office for this session.”
“That’s a pretty good assessment of my situation at the moment, Doc,” I had to admit.
“So what are you going to do about Susan?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then maybe you should talk about it with her.”
CHAPTER 17
DO you think I’m mature?” I said to Zeena when I got back to the office.
“Who?”
“Me.”
“Is this the beginning of a joke or something?”
“Not a joke, Zeena. Do you think I’m mature? Yes or no?”
“No.”
“Now, why would you say something like that?”
“Well, let’s see . . . you’re always getting into trouble around here, you screwed up your marriage and pretty much every other relationship in your life, and you move like every five minutes from one apartment to another. Not the acts of a particularly mature person.”
“Anything else?”
“Yeah, you always have this childish compulsion to get the final word in with everyone.”
“Hey, you’re not exactly a bastion of maturity yourself, Zeena.”
“See what I mean.”
I sighed.
“Nope, you’re definitely not a mature person, Malloy.”
“Am too,” I said.
Then I stuck my tongue out at her.
* * *
The Houston revelation was definitely going to be tricky. Talking about it with Dr. Landis had really made me realize that.
On the one hand, it was vindication for my journalistic repu
tation—proof that the legendary hooker I’d written about really did exist. On the other hand, I was fudging—okay, I was lying—about some of the facts on how I’d finally found her. A lesser man might have had some moral qualms about all this. I was just hoping I could pull it off without getting caught.
The plan was to break the story over a multimedia platform—as Stacy put it—to maximize the saturation of our target audience. Or something like that. I’d announce it on an episode of Live from New York, taking everyone through the Houston connection with the Blonde Ice story and my own background with her. Then I’d open it up to questions, tweets, emails, or whatever else from the audience, which I’d address as candidly and fully as possible. Meanwhile, I’d also write an article about all of it that would first go up on the website and then appear in the print edition of the next day’s Daily News.
On the night before this was to happen, I sat in my apartment and went through all the stories and articles I’d kept about me and the Houston scandal years earlier. No matter how many times I read them, I still couldn’t believe I’d screwed up so badly. It was almost as if all the stuff was about someone else. Another reporter named Gil Malloy, not me.
First, there was the adulation I got for my series about prostitution in New York and my “compelling, heartbreaking, and eloquently written” profile of the legendary hooker named Houston. That was what the Daily News said when they submitted it for a Pulitzer. I was riding pretty high when that happened.
Then came the questions about Houston. Did I really talk to her? Did she even exist? I finally confessed that my “interview” with her was really a series of secondhand quotes I’d put together from other sources who claimed they knew Houston. But I had never found her.
The dominoes fell pretty quickly after that.
The Daily News withdrew my story from Pulitzer consideration. I almost lost my job. My marriage to Susan fell apart—partly, but not wholly, because of the Houston mess. And I wound up being so stressed I started having anxiety attacks and had to get medical help.
Yep, Houston had really screwed up my life.