This series and all my work on it was all that stood between my staff and the unemployment line. But did they appreciate it? No. It was no good telling my staff how lucky they were to have me as a boss, that it could have been so much worse: They could have worked for Jerry Spurdle. Spurdle, my former boss in Special Reports, had once made me pose as his wife for an undercover report on shoddy sperm banks. I avoided further embarrassment on that story by saying unflattering things on camera about Jerry to a nurse, forcing Jerry to cut me out of the edited piece. Then there was the time he had me pose as a “hopeful customer” of a computerized dating service. In this case, I made myself as unattractive as possible, claiming I was thrice widowed with four kids and my hobbies were tournament whist, Court TV, and making my own muumuus. I was looking for “lucky husband number four” and my personal quote was: “You got any money?” Oddly, I got no takers.
The point is, I was a good boss, relatively speaking, and my staff didn’t appreciate me. Jerry would have made fun of all their tics and deformities and threatened them with his big drawer full of “résumés of all the people who want to replace you.”
I’d tried being the “friend-boss,” but that didn’t work, because I was so much older than my employees—in their eyes anyway. They were embarrassed to be in the unit, and they took it out on me most of the time. There was not a one of them I trusted, and I suspected someone in the office was responsible for certain rumors about me and Jack Jackson that showed up anonymously in the companywide, computerized rumor file, known as Radio Free Babylon and run by my old friend, producer Louis Levin.
“I’d like you to think again about letting me bring my Seeing Eye dog into work,” Liz said.
“Karim’s allergic, but I’ll talk to Human Resources about it.” Whenever possible, pass the buck. “Any calls?”
“Yeah, you got a call yesterday, just after you left, from some guy. He wanted to know where your dinner meeting was. You met up with him okay, right? Because I forgot to tell you about the call.”
“Yes. Benny Winter. We met up. Has he called this morning?”
“No, but Jack Jackson called,” said Liz, her voice laden with innuendo.
“Any other calls?”
“A guy named Jason called a couple of times already this morning.”
“Jason? Doesn’t ring a bell.”
“Wouldn’t leave a number.” She lowered her voice to parody Jason’s conspiratorial tone. “‘Phones might not be safe.’ Is he a loony?”
“Probably.”
“And a Dr. Karen Keyes called. She’s presenting at the women’s conference …”
“Not interested. We have two feminists for our series. If you count that file clip of Gloria Steinem, that’s plenty. I’m more interested in what men have to say about their future. Anything else?”
“Here’s your fan mail, all of it from that village in India.”
“Balandapur.” I didn’t get much fan mail anymore, and what I did get came mostly from this little village in south India, where villagers had been watching ANN by satellite in their teahouses. Most of my fan mail talked about my carrot-red hair, which was evidently a great topic of conversation in Balandapur. My fan base used to be comprised mainly of masochists who wanted me to hurt them, but the masochists had all deserted me for meaner and/or more powerful goddesses like Xena, Courtney Love, and, inexplicably, Kathie Lee Gifford.
First thing I did was call back Jack Jackson, Our Fearless Leader, aka Daddy Warbucks due to a more than passing resemblance. Jack was working on a speech he was to give at the end of the women’s conference and he was looking for “some feedback from some of my women.”
“What was the thing you told me the night we went barhopping about urinating standing up?” Jack asked.
“Oh, a trick I learned from an old Girl Scout named Julie,” I said. “That’s a thing feminists say a lot, the only thing a man can do that a woman can’t do is pee standing up. But a little technology—a simple funnel—and you’ve solved that problem.”
“A little technology,” Jack repeated. “And didn’t we discuss how many names men have for masturbation, while women have none?”
Christ, I must have been really drunk that night. I didn’t remember discussing masturbation with the Great Man.
“Possibly,” I said.
“What were some of the names men had for it? I’ve got spanking the monkey, polishing the pipe, stretching the leather, and there was something about Bubba.”
“Shucking Bubba,” I provided.
“Shucking Bubba. Haw haw.”
“What does this have to do with feminism?”
“You’ll see, when I give my speech,” he said.
He hung up without saying good-bye, as usual, and I turned my attention back to the administrative crap I had to look after before I went to my first interview of the day. While doing an isometric butt-tightening exercise, I speed-wrote memos to maintenance and accounting; then I gulped down my coffee and ran to meet the crew for the first of our Man of the Future interviews.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Once again, I couldn’t have finished a book without the help and support of a lot of people.
To the following people, please bend over, I’m puckering up:
All the people I thanked in my second book, Nice Girls Finish Last; plus
My immediate family, who allow me to twist their truths into unrecognizable fictions and outright lies to serve my plots; my funny uncles, especially my Uncles Ron, Bob, and Don, who taught me that you catch more flies with bullshit (and you catch very nice women too, judging by Aunts Pat, Jewel, and Myrna); my aunts, especially Patti Bacon Smith, aka Signed the Undersigned, who was more like a really great big sister who never ratted me out and who took me along on her undercover garden-gnome-switching operations; and my Great-Aunt and Godmother Jessie Octavia Franklin Hayter, a great dame, who gave up her cosseted Southern Belle existence to run away to the Canadian Arctic with my Great-Uncle Harry, a bush pilot, in the 1920s;
Bill Dorman, as always, you are very “greetiful,” sahib; Commander Claus; Alex Dunne; Scott Griffin; Tim Moran, Paul Mougey and Roger Heaton, Matthew Poe, Harris Salat, Bruce Gillette;
My editor, Caroline White; my agent, Russell Galen; my publicist, Debbie Yautz;
Kathy Blumenstock, Carol Buckland, Nile Cmylo, Suzanne Epstein, Jean Geiger, Kyra Hicks, Big Mama Liz Hicks, Wendy Jewell, Teresa Loftin, Martha Rodriguez, Susan Rose;
The gangs on the Prodigy Books (Mystery Books, Constant Reader, and Feminist Reader), Canada, and Black Experience BBs, DorothyL, and AOL MFTY;
George Bastable, who allows me to abuse his fine family name to get a cheap laugh, and the divine Ms. Camper;
Jack Palmer for locating and sending me a complete collection of Dana Girls mysteries;
Marigail Mathis for dressing me, Robin, and other characters, among her many contributions;
Jeff, Miriam, Lisa, and Jack at The Source in Albany;
Sleuth of Baker Street in Toronto; Booked for Murder in Madison, Wisconsin; Rue Morgue in Boulder, Colorado; Borders in Albany, New York; Partners and Crime in New York, New York (especially Maggie Griffin for sending me all the funny stuff)—Please support your independent booksellers;
Authors Jeff Abbott, John Ash, Harlan Coben, Rebecca Forster, Herbert Huncke, Jon Katz, Marlys Millhiser, Katherine Neville, Steve O’Donnell, Walter Satterthwait, Justin Scott, Arnold Weinstein;
Stanley Bard, David Bard, Jerry Weinstein, and the entire staff of the Hotel Chelsea, without whom I would have been homeless;
All the fine-looking gentlemen at the Aristocrat Deli;
The late William J. Sloane, the late Boo Radley; the late Miranda, and Demetrius.
Honor and the code of my tribe require that I now say this: Ray Fowler got me. He got me good. Ray Fowler is the practical joke king.
Temporarily.
Heh-heh-heh.
About the Author
Sparkle Hayter has been a journalist for CNN and other news organizations, a stringer in Afghanistan, a producer in Bollywood, a stand-up comic in New York, a caretaker for an elderly parent in Canada, and a novelist of seven books. And some other things that are kind of a blur now. Her articles have been published in numerous newspapers and magazines, including the New York Times, the Nation, and New Woman. She currently lives in Canada with her rescued Nepali street dog, Alice, and is working on a new book.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1997 by Sparkle Hayter
Cover design by Jesse Hayes
ISBN: 978-1-4976-7833-0
This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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