Leather Maiden

29

At work the next day the office was abuzz, not only with the events of the day before, but with the way I had written my article on the murder and the kidnapping.

After plenty of compliments, reporters dropping by my desk, everyone but Timpson herself, Oswald came over. He stood by the edge of my desk with his hands in his pockets. He looked like he wanted to reach down my throat and turn me inside out.

“Nice article on the murder and kidnapping,” he said.

“Thanks.”

“I might have taken a slightly different approach.”

“No doubt.”

“Is that a smart remark, Cason?”

“What?”

“A smart remark. Like, I would have taken a different tack, but it wouldn’t have been any good.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“But you meant it.”

“What I meant is no doubt you would have gone after it differently. It is not a smart remark.”

“I do police reports here and the articles that come from them.”

“Not this time. You weren’t here, and Timpson assigned me to it.”

“I had a cold. I would have come in for something like this.”

“Talk to Timpson.”

“You could have told her to call me.”

“I suppose I could have, but that never occurred to me, and that’s not my job description. Call Oswald when a good article pops up and he’s sick. Nope, not on the list.”

Oswald took his hands out of his pockets. “Watch it, buster.”

I said, “You have highly overestimated your ability to intimidate, my friend.”

He glared at me for a moment.

“Why don’t you go sit down at your desk before I stand up and knock you down and we both lose our jobs,” I said.

“You couldn’t roll me over if I was dead, Cason.”

“You don’t want to get me stirred up, Oswald. I don’t mean that to sound like a threat or like I’m trying to be a tough guy, but I kid you not, you fuck with me, and I will knock you out of your shoes.”

Oswald considered the possibilities, decided he didn’t care for them much. “Look,” he said, “just call me next time.”

“I work here just like you. Timpson wants me to do different, and she’s not asking me to set my balls on fire or put a broken Coke bottle up my ass, I’ll do what she asks. Same as you will. I didn’t owe you a call. I don’t need to send you an e-mail or a note tied to a pigeon’s leg. No fucking flowers or a teddy bear wearing an I’M SORRY T-shirt. Got me?”

“That’s no way to be,” he said.

“Hey. Aren’t you the one who said not to bend over here because I might find something in my ass?”

Oswald nodded. “I guess I did.”

He went back to his desk and took his frustration out on a couple of ballpoint pens that he shoved around, a little notepad too. He twisted a couple of paper clips. That was showing me.

Belinda came over. When she spoke it was softly. “He’s pretty mad.”

“I seem to have that effect on people. I presume the rest of the office heard?”

“Hard not to. Both of you were speaking loudly. I was especially fond of the part about setting your balls on fire and shoving Coke bottles up your ass. Charming.”

“Sorry.”

“No apology necessary.”

I turned around and looked at the other reporters. Most of them had their heads down, pretending they were on a hot deadline. One, a fellow I had actually spoken to only once, and whose name I couldn’t remember, gave me a thumbs-up. I don’t know if it was because he was on my side or thought Oswald was an asshole. I’d settle for either.

“I got two things,” Belinda said. “First, the good news. I want to see you after work if possible. I have bought some very scanty panties and wanted to see if you are a real red-blooded male who will be overcome with passion when you see me in them.”

“That one you can count on. You can just wear your socks, and you’ll get the same results.”

“You like socks?”

“Actually, you could show up naked or wrapped in wool or wearing a beanie propeller and you would get my attention. But, hey, I’m not dismissing new panties. I’m all up for that, as we say when we’re having witty sexual repartee.”

“Not that witty.”

“What’s number two? Usually that means a bowel movement, but I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that’s not what you mean.”

“That’s the bad news. Timpson wants you in her office.”

“And me all out of dog treats.”

“That was nice work you did, especially since it looks to me you wrote it without a whole lot of information,” Timpson said. “Still, you found the good stuff.”

I was seated in the office chair, as before, and Timpson was in the chair behind her desk. She shifted it so that she was facing me head-on.

“I want you to stay on this assignment. You’ve started it, and your article was better than the colored boy’s would have been.”

“Oswald,” I said. “His name is Oswald. And unless he’s changed either his first or last name to Colored, I believe the term is black or African American. I don’t think he’s a boy either. Maybe you could have him drop his pants and we could see if his testicles have descended. That’s one way of telling. I am, however, sure he’s old enough to go on ahead and start picking cotton.”

Timpson watched me through watery eyes. “I ought to kick your ass out.”

I hadn’t meant to say that, but it had just popped out. I didn’t even like Oswald.

Timpson gave me a grin that almost caused her to lose her false teeth. It wasn’t a grin that said I like you, it was one that said, Okay, asshole, I’ll let that one pass. “All right then, you take the African American man’s place because his articles suck. How’s that? And, if he wants to come in here and drop his drawers and show me his balls, I’m on board. Now, be honest. His articles. Think about it.”

I sighed. “His articles do suck hind dry tit, and he seems to have graduated from the Winnie the Pooh School of Journalism. But I don’t want to be a police reporter. I like being a columnist. I’m not saying it isn’t fun, but I’m a columnist, and I don’t want to take Oswald’s job.”

“Yeah, well, you will be for a while. Follow up this murder-kidnapping thing. Does that work for you, Mr. Pulitzer Prize nominee?”

“It does.”

“Do what you need to do then. Get whatever help you need to get it done. Oswald if you have to. Talk to who you need to talk to. Go where you need to go. Write all the articles that pertain to this murder and kidnapping that you can. If nothing more is there, we’ll move on. But, if you can find out about the couple, their lives, research it. Later, you can do a column on the murders. Something like this happens, like that missing girl, shit, boy—It’s okay if I call you a boy, I suppose? Not that I want you to drop your pants.”

“You said you’d let Oswald, so that doesn’t seem fair.”

“I’ve heard the colored are better hung.” She scrunched up her mouth, and when she did, the bones in her face appeared to shift dramatically, like knobs and sticks under parchment. “If we’re all out of being cute, let’s get back to business. Bleed this crime for as many articles as you can. It’s going to sell a lot of papers.”

“Because of the murders, not the article.”

“The way you wrote it helped.”

“Is that a compliment?”

“Twice, already,” she said. “One was slightly veiled, this one is direct, and two times, that’s my quota. Or maybe it was three compliments. I can’t remember a goddamn thing anymore. Anyway, I’m short on any more shit from you. Push it, and I’ll write the goddamn columns and the articles myself and you can go home and pull your johnson while you read through the paper’s help-wanted section.”

“I hear you,” I said.

“I’m thinking of another thing, of putting you on an article about those preachers and the shit that’s going on between them. We’ve run a lot of stuff, but there’s a big shindig coming up with the colored preacher doing a talk at the university, and there’s all manner of bullshit coming down about a protest. I might want you to write that too. This thing has been going on for months, but with Judence’s big talk and rally coming up, I think we can get a really good story out of it. If anything goes down there, protests, what-have-you, we can play it until it runs out of air, then we’ll kick it around some more, see if it squeaks.”

“I really think you should consider Oswald for that one. He’d do better than me in the black community, and that’s who he’ll need information from, the community.”

“Even if his writing sucks hind dry tit?”

“Even if,” I said.

“You may have a point. People like to talk to their own kind.”

“That’s one way of seeing it,” I said. “Maybe not the way I would have chosen to express it, but—”

“Like I give a damn,” Timpson said.

I waited a moment. Nothing else was forthcoming. I stood up to go.

I went to the door, and she said, “Send the colored boy in, will you?”