Don Winslow - A Long Walk Up the Waterslide

“Fuck you,” Jack said.

He wiped the sweat off his face and walked out of the studio.

“Wow,” Karen said over strains of “They call him Flipper, Flipper, faster than lightning.”

“We’re hosed,” Neal said. Jack’s virtuoso performance had just taken Polly’s cards out of her hands.

“Why did he do that?” Polly asked.

“They’ll get instant polls,” Neal said, “and see how it went over. If the public bought it, they can rebuild FCN without dealing with you.”

You, who basically told Carmine Bascaglia to stick it up his ass.

“So?”

Neal didn’t want to tell her the whole truth. It wouldn’t do her any good. He knew that it might not happen right away, but it would happen. Sometime after Polly faded from the headlines, sometime after she tried to rebuild a life, someone would come and snuff it out.

“And you know Flipper, Flipper lives in a world full of wonder…”

He picked up the ringing phone.

“He was great, wasn’t he?” Ed gloated.

“He was terrific,” Neal admitted.

Ed said, “Listen, the client decided to enter an agreement with Mr. Landis, and he doesn’t think he can go forward with Ms. Paget in good faith.”

“Good faith, Ed?” Neal scoffed. “Are you reading from a card or something?”

“If Ms. Paget decides to pursue her litigation, of course that is her right,” Ed continued. “But it would be a conflict of interest for our attorneys to represent her.”

Now it’s a conflict of interest?

“So Friends’ role is finished,” Ed said. “Mr. Kitteredge asked me to thank you for your good work, apologize for any inconveniences, and instruct you to stand down.”

“That’s an oxymoron,” Neal observed. “Stand down.”

“You’re not hearing me, Neal. The job is over. Go home.”

“Let me make sure I have this straight,” Neal said. “We pick Polly up because we think she’s useful, then when she’s served our purposes, we throw her to the sharks. Is that it?”

“She shouldn’t have gotten greedy,” Ed answered.

“Yeah, wanting the truth.”

“Do you think we could protect her if we wanted to?” Ed asked. “When are you going to grow up?”

“I’ve grown up,” Neal said. “I’m packing. We’re out of here. The job’s over, like you said.”

He hung up and looked back at the three women who were staring at him.

“Hey.” He shrugged. “You gotta do what you gotta do.”

So we might as well do it right now.

By the evening news, Jack had become a figure of sympathy, and Polly got the wrong end of the media’s magic wand as she slid from sexy victim on the run to love-crazed psycho female in a single afternoon.

The radio talk shows led it off. Calls started at about four to three for Jack and then jumped to two to one in his favor when the men got to their car phones at rush hour.

The afternoon papers rushed WHERE IS CANDY? sidebars onto the JACK CONFESSES headline stories, and the evening news commentators opened with, “ ‘I have betrayed you,’ said restaurant and media magnate Jack Landis today as he admitted an affair with a vengeful Polly Paget. Landis firmly denied, however, allegations of rape” before cutting to footage of Jack’s tearful television address.

By nighttime, “Jack’s Confession” parties had broken out on college campuses all over the country. Students who habitually set their VCRs for “The Jack and Candy Family Hour” invited friends, made popcorn, consumed massive quantities of beer, and howled uncontrollably as they reran the “I have betrayed you” segment, until hysterical exhaustion forced an end to the festivities.

By the late news, polls came in that were strongly in Jack’s favor on the alleged rape, feature reporters dug up men who had been “exactly in Jack Landis’s shoes” at one time, and “woman in the street” interviews gave the strong impression that America’s women thought Candy should give Jack another chance.

On one late-night talk show, the host delivered a deliberately lame joke in his monologue, paused, and blubbered, “I have betrayed you,” to thunderous applause, while on another network, a serious news show offered psychologists’ views on “recovering from adultery,” two friends of Candy who thought that she and Jack-with time and prayer-would rebuild their marriage, and a gentleman from the Men’s Liberation Front who warned about vengeful women and rape charges.

On a late-late talk show, two actresses dressed as Polly and Candy identified themselves in the studio audience, then slugged it out in the aisle, and each subsequent guest desperately tried to give his or her new movie or book a “Jack hook.”

By the time this show aired on the West Coast, Polly was firmly entrenched as the other woman, the vengeful other woman, whose mendacity was proven by the very fact that she would not-as Jack had done-come out and tell the truth. She was, in the public opinion, afraid to show her face. “At least,” said one woman caller on a late-night radio show, “she has some sense of shame.”

By that time, Joey Foglio’s “Jack’s Confession” party was winding down in a hotel bedroom with three young ladies.

By that time, Candy had reached Jack at home, telling him she loved him and forgave him and that’s she’d be coming home tomorrow to start working out their problems.

By that time, Walter Withers was unconscious and therefore missed the camera crew that came as quietly as it could to the room across the hall.

The television woke Withers up.

His eyes popped open when he heard, “exclusive interview with Polly Paget.” He sat bolt upright on the floor and remembered within minutes exactly where he was.

A dozen or so miniature booze bottles lying empty on the floor provided the first clue. By the time he vomited the contents of those bottles into the john, he had it all pieced together.

Oh dear, Withers thought, I have succumbed.

But at least I have my toothbrush, he thought brightly, proceeding to scrub the previous evening from his cottony mouth until he remembered “exclusive interview with Polly Paget” and rushed to the television.

A sincere-looking young woman with a vaguely famous face was speaking softly but urgently to the camera. “Last night, I flew in great secrecy to a location I promised not to disclose for the purpose of interviewing Polly Paget. When ‘Morning’ returns, you will see that interview in its entirety.”

Withers watched a commercial extolling the benefits of fiber while he tried to work this out.

Who had called the media?

Didn’t I threaten to call the media?

Good God, did I?

He looked under the bed. The money was still there, so he decided that it couldn’t have been him.

The phone jangled.

“Are you watching this?” Scarpelli asked. Withers thought he detected a nasty edge to his voice.

“Ms. Paget is being interviewed on television,” Withers said.

“No kidding,” Scarpelli said. “I thought you were supposed to be watching their door.”

“I just didn’t think it was the time to make a move,” he answered. Because I was unconscious.

“Well, it better be time to make a move now,” Scarpelli said. “I want Polly Paget-right now-or my goddamn money back, or you’re in more trouble than you know about. You understand?”

“Yes, I think I do.”

“I don’t like being scammed.”

“No, of course you don’t.”

“I got friends in this town, you know what I mean?”

Withers had difficulty imagining Scarpelli having friends anywhere, never mind gangster friends in Vegas, but he kept it to himself.

“I’ll get you Polly Paget,” he said.