Spygirl

by Amy Gray

  She was still glued to the glinting baubles in front of her, sitting on a piece of velvet the jeweler had rolled out for viewing, like a tiny red carpet. “I have to bring him back with me,” she said. “We live right in the neighborhood, actually.”

  “Really, where?” he asked, looking too interested.

  “At Sixty-second and Central Park,” she said. “Well, we're still building the place, we're joining two apartments, but we're moving in within the next few weeks. I think. If the contractors do their job. Which, you know, they never do.”

  The jeweler, shabbily genteel with a pink ascot, suddenly seemed to smell the stinking undercurrent of money oozing from her, and broke his haughty demeanor, chortling, “Isn't that the truth, honey!”

  By the time she hailed a cab and told the driver she was going to Brooklyn, I felt a huge relief. It was bad enough identifying with Garry, but my contempt for Alexis had turned into sadness. Who didn't understand wanting to be wanted? I swallowed hard and told George about my discoveries.

  “Nice work.” He was in an effusive mood that day. I was starving, having last had a boiled hot dog from a street vendor about eight hours prior. I indulged myself with a cab home that I couldn't afford. When Abdullah, my driver, turned onto the FDR Drive toward Brooklyn, I rolled the window down and tried to wash her out of my mind with the salty wind running off the East River through my hair.

  I had him drop me off at an ATM machine near my house, and I withdrew twenty dollars. I had forty-three dollars and twenty-two cents to last me through the next two weeks until I got paid again, although I would have to give all that money, minus ninety-five dollars, to my landlord. The rotary of my financial situation was driving me nuts. I was poor enough that an ad I'd read in Allure magazine at my dermatologist's soliciting “dreammakers” for the “true woman's gift of egg donation” gave me pause.

  At home, as I passed my only mirror, I noticed that my hair was windblown and snarled into tornado shapes on top of my head. I pulled a can of Spaghetti-O's out of my cupboard. My eating habits had become a great indicator of my psychic well-being and the status of my love life. Before Elliott and I broke up, I was having oatmeal for breakfast every morning and salads for lunch. I was ironing my sheets. I even flossed. Now I was eating macaroni with tomato-flavored sauce.

  The phone rang. It was Cassie.

  “Hey, I'm leaving the office now. Are you coming out?”

  “Yeah. Yeah.” My smoke alarm went off. The Boyardee sauce was burnt and bubbling on the sides of the pot, and a thick black smoke curled off its edges. I turned off the burner. With that I opted to get the hell out of my apartment and have a comforting night of free G&Ts and girl talk.

  Looking in from the Outside

  Niagara's clientele represent the fragile social ecosystem of the Lower East Side. We once spotted Matt Dillon, who was flanked by two Amazonian big-breasted lesbians. We'd also met a guy who was an uncanny dead ringer for Iggy Pop, although he took great offense at my characterization (“That dude's ugly—and old!” he protested); a guy who carried around a handheld DVD player showing a grisly film he's made for PETA about ferrets, and who also claimed to have invented the “morphing” software; and a freakish barfly Cassie and I liked to call the Spider Lady, who had tattooed her entire body—face included—with a web design that makes her look like an unusually buxom smallpox victim.

  When we're not trying to snag a seat or butter up the bar boys, our conversation typically concerns three central motifs: boys, guys, and men—although admittedly our actual experience is primarily with the first two.

  Truth be told, our adventures at Niagara keep me coming back, too, even if I don't have the same kind of stake in the place that Cass does. Maybe it's the hope that, by some miracle, I'll have a chance meeting with the boy of my dreams here, too. But probably not.

  I wanted to tell her about Garry Wilbur and my fear that I might be like him—even a little bit—but I couldn't. Not only was the case strictly confidential, but I didn't want her to think I was a total freak. I stuck to trashing Elliott. Pretty soon, two attractive guys with messy hair and Carharts approached us. They said they were record executives and named some bands they represented. The bands all sucked, but we feigned interest. The shorter one, Jake, seemed to really like Cassie, and the other one, Dino, out of de facto default, was talking to me.

  “So what do you do?” he asked me.

  I wanted to avoid inciting any conversation by mentioning my job. “I'm in research,” I said, looking distracted.

  “She's a PI!” Cassie interjected, leaning over from Jake. I groaned. Cass loved to expose this to strangers. It was a great conversation piece with people I wanted to talk to, or the worst kind of conversation snare with boring people.

  Dino launched into the usual wide-eyed interrogation. “That's such a sexy job.” Ugh. “Do you carry a gun?” No. “Do you ever fear for your life?” No, but I fear for yours. I found myself nodding, not listening to a word he was saying, gazing out the window of the bar with a dreamy smile on my face.

  Aside from the spittle from Dino's mouth occasionally hitting my left ear, I shivered from the warm sight of the ochre-lit trees of Tompkins Square and the streetlamps on Avenue A yearning out with their warm, carroty light. Still nodding, still smiling. My eyes landed on the window to the right. There stood a homeless man who had hovered outside the windows of Niagara since the first night I remembered visiting the bar, arranged between me and the park like a scarecrow talisman. He wore an elaborate headdress of tiny thornlike Christmas bulbs over his oil-slicked hair, and he had stuck five grimy pigeon feathers in them. He beat his arms, draped in what looked like a woman's sparkly blue gossamer dress ripped down the front and donned as a cape. Still nodding, still smiling. His arms thumped against the windows like the frantic flapping wings of a bloodied bird that had flown into a window. It was as if he desperately wanted to will himself to the other side of the divide, staring in the window at the elusive world beyond. I looked out at him with corresponding panic and envy, wondering what I was doing there. Wondering how I could get out.

  Then my cell phone rang, and I realized at once that Dino was looking at me like I was nuts, saying, “What's so funny about that? Why are you laughing? ” and I found myself saying, “Hold on one second … I just need to get this call,” as I groped around in my purse. I got it on the last ring.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, Amy?”

  “Yeah.” I was looking at Dino apologetically, but I was apoplectic. The homeless guy was receding from the window like a fallen angel.

  “It's Edward. I met you last week at Niagara …”

  Everything disappeared at that point, and I was drenched in the glory that he was actually calling. “Of course I remember you,” I said.

  “So, I was thinking of coming down to visit the city soon. I have a long weekend at school coming up next week.”

  “Oh, really? ” My hands were cold and wet, and I wanted to laugh so hard I could cry.

  “I'd love to see you. Actually, I'd love to stay with you, but that might be kind of weird, so—”

  I interrupted him. “No, I don't think so”— I caught myself. “Let's just see how it goes. We'll figure something out.” We agreed that we'd talk in a few days, when I wasn't in the middle of a noisy bar. At the end of our conversation he said he couldn't stop thinking about me. Without thinking about it I said, “I know,” and for the next three full seconds there was silence until I said, “Okay, so I'll call you tomorrow.” When I turned my attention back to my surroundings, I noticed Dino and the guy in the window had both quietly slipped away.

  ELEVEN

  The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.

  —ALBERT EINSTEIN

  Don't Shit in My Mouth and Call It a Sundae

  George and I stopped for apple fritters on the way uptown to meet Detective DeSanto. We sat in the Dunkin’ Donuts at Fifty-sixth and Second, munching away. He punctuated th
e quiet by telling me stories and asking me about my love life.

  “So, are you still all busted up about your boyfriend dumping you?” He smiled and dropped a last piece of fritter in his mouth.

  “He didn't dump me,” I protested. “I dumped him. It was sort of mutual. We outgrew each other.”

  “Uh-huh.” He was already looking dubious. On the way out, he started to tell me about a friend of his wife's who had gotten involved with a cardiac surgeon. I hadn't told him about Edward and was a bit freaked out by this.

  The woman, Karin, had always had shady taste in men, but she fell really hard for this guy and, as George said, “the fact that he was a fancy doctor really got her going.” Totally different from me and Edward, I thought to myself, although I didn't really know him well enough to know exactly what attracted me to him above and beyond his stunning good looks.

  Right before Karin was due to marry the vet, George did a little research on the guy, just by calling up his medical school and checking on his degree. It turned out he didn't have one. He was a physician's assistant for eleven years, and had completed two years of a master's degree in nursing. He also had a $200,000 lien on his house, which was barely worth more, and two ex-wives he forgot to mention to Karin. George went to his wife, who gave the 411 to her friend, who then broke off the engagement.

  “The first time I met that guy, I knew he was a fucking prick. The thing is, the next guy she met was a piece of work, too. He took out a four-hundred-thousand-dollar life insurance policy on her and tried to have her thrown off a powerboat.”

  “Are you serious?” I was sickened.

  “Yeah, but the guy pussied out and went to the cops. Meanwhile, she let him cosign on all her bank accounts and credit lines, so he's got his grubby fucking hands on most of her assets now. The people that are attracted to these losers never change. If I out one of these guys, she'll find another. She's a loser magnet. I mean, don't shit in my mouth and call it a sundae.”

  This was definitely an unappetizing commentary. I thought about all the women in the world who found themselves repeatedly and inexplicably hooked up with con men, polygamists, sociopaths, felons, petty thieves, pathological liars. They distorted these men through the lens of their overwhelming desire to be loved. I hoped I wasn't one of them.

  When we got to Lou DeSanto's office, Goldie was already there, and the two of them had made fast friends. She was sitting on his desk, leaning back and laughing, saying, “Lou, yawr a caaard!” He was laughing loudly enough that we'd heard him from the other end of the tiled hall as we were escorted down to meet them. He had a neat mustache and a round belly, and looked like a guy who had been around.

  “Miz Gray, Mizster Neilan, have a seat.” He waved us into two ancient Naugahyde-upholstered chairs in front of the desk.

  “You toow would not believe …” Goldie drew in a breath. “Lou and I know a lot of the same people.” They smiled at each other. It felt like we'd stumbled into their first date. Lou cleared his throat, “So tell me what's going on here.” George talked, and asked me for backup sometimes, and I'd explain what the parole terms were for Wilbur's conviction in Texas or whatever. Lou shook his head a lot and interrupted us to take a few calls. At one point, he got a message on the intercom telling him he had a call from Frank Marispone. “Frankie!” Goldie squealed. “From security at the Plaza?”

  “Holy crap,” Lou said, “do you know him too?” When the call buzzed over, Goldie grabbed it and said, “Frankie, do you know who this is? I'll give you three guesses. No. No. Okay two— yeah, yeah, it's Goldie. I'm in his office right now!” After Goldie and Lou had chatted with Frankie and squared away their connections, George resumed pitching the case. When he was finished, Lou put an unlit cigar in his mouth and started chewing on it.

  “I don't see a crime here—yet—except for some possible check fraud, unless Goldie had a written contract with him that he's violated by not paying her.” She didn't, so Lou's idea was to try to work with the people over at the St. Regis to snare him, probably by getting him to sign a contract and then pass a bad check. Our only other hope, he said, was that Garry might be violating his probation. When we left the office, we agreed that I'd draw up a report of everything we knew about Garry for Lou that night and get it to him the next day. He'd see what he could do, he said, adding, “But without a crime our hands are tied.” Even if there was a crime, if it was just a misdemeanor or if it didn't violate the probation, it was too small for the police to get involved. “This is New York, ya know, we've got bigger fish to fry.” At this, Goldie made a pouty face, and Lou added, “But honey, I'll do everything I can.”

  George and I went out for a celebratory beer after the meeting. Over a few frothy Guinnesses, we talked about his kids. He had a cherubic, tow-headed three-year-old son, and a brand-new baby. The older one, Stuart, seemed to be totally unlike his tough-guy dad. When he came into the office, he held his dad's leg and shielded his face, sometimes bursting into tears and crying into his dad's pant leg, squealing, “I want mommy!” Stuart was the same age as Sol's son and at least three inches shorter, and his blond locks fell softly around his head, making him look more like a pretty little girl, with tiny, pinched, pouting lips.

  “You just hope when your kids grow up they have the equipment to handle this world,” he said, “because it's full of ugly things.” And with that we left OHara's Tavern and headed our separate ways.

  I went back to the office and worked up my report for Lou. I transcribed the whole tape I'd recorded in the field with Alexis.

  Jesus was the First Jewish Carpenter

  When I got back to the office, Evan seemed curious about my case. He asked me if I was enjoying playing cops and robbers. “Nailing these guys is better than sex,” he observed.

  “I couldn't say, I've never had it.” I said dismissively “Besides, I thought you liked girls.” Cries of “Ahhh, busteeed!” escaped from Assman and Nestor's direction.

  “Amy, I have a surprise for you.” Linus came out of the conference room with a cat that Nestor's girlfriend had donated to us. A big, cuddly, mostly red-haired tabby. “Ohooooooooo, hi sweetie, hi, little one,” I coooed. I love cats, and I'd had to give the one I had with Ben back to him as part of the division of assets. “What's her name?”

  “Kitty,” Linus said.

  “I think I love her.” Kitty was purring aggressively on my lap. Then I noticed Sol. He had started wearing enormous hands-free headphones around the office so he could do his wheeling and dealing and walk around, too. With his headset and his ungainly posture, he looked like an operator at a spina bifida telethon. He thought he looked cool. He walked over to me as he was hands-free schmoozing with a client. “Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I think we should do the searches in California and Colorado because the ex-wives are there and his credit may have been under their names. Right. So it's another G. Think about it and call me back.” He left the black monster on his head.

  “So, Miss Marple, you're back,” he said to me.

  “I'm just curious,” I said. “Do you get direct TV with that portable satellite dish on your head? ”

  He was never one to take a compliment lying down. “I get Yiddivision—all Jews, all the time. But you wouldn't know anything about that, Miss Amy-make-like-she-came-off-the-Mayflower-Gray”

  I hadn't been given this much shit for being a bad Jew since my cabinmates at summer camp freaked out because I didn't know what a mezuzah was.

  Sol seemed ready to burst in anticipation of asking me, “Okay A. Gray who's the most famous Jew in the world?”

  I hesitated. “Kid Rosenthal!”

  “Nice. And Jesus was the first Jewish carpenter.” Sol was cracking himself up. His headset hung around his neck like a stethoscope, and he was hysterical, slapping desks, the upper tones in his cackle bouncing off the back walls of the office.

  My report started thus: “Although the evidence contained herein is not conclusive, our research indicates that Ms. Whitcomb is unawa
re of her fiancé's illegal activity. Her comments indicate that she believed Mr. Wilbur is thirty-eight years old. As you'll see in Exhibit F of this report, identification sources show Garry Wilbur was born on November 6, 1947.” It continued in this parched language for ten pages. I sent it to George by e-mail around nine-thirty and he sent it back with a few changes soon after. I made a copy of the audiotape, included it as Exhibit H, and had it messengered over to the Sixteenth Precinct. It was almost ten. I was the only one in the office, except for the occasional sounds of rats scurrying along the walls, but I didn't even look up. From the strain of staring at my computer screen, it felt like two holes had been bored into my eyes with blowtorches. I rubbed them and tears of exhaustion rolled out from the corners and smudged my face.

  Being the only one in the office when the phone rang, I was sure it was for me. I straightened my face and answered it. “Amy Gray speaking.”

  “Amy, it's Lou DeSanto.”

  My spine pricked up. “Lou, how are you?”

  “Great. Great. Listen, that report you sent was excellent.” Nice to know I'm not the only one working late.

  “Oh, good.”

  “It was a very professional job. Very professional. I just wanted you to know that I talked to my friend Eddie, who's the head of security at the Waldorf, and it looked like Wilbur sent a kited check over there, which we can use to nail him for a parole violation.”

  “Great.”

  “We have a meeting set up tonight with him at the hotel, and some agents will be there to take him into custody. I can't guarantee anything, but at the very least we can try to extradite him to Texas.”