Paul Levine - Night vision

"Normal?"

"Vacant."

"Vacant?"

He smiled an actor's smile. He was enjoying this a little too much for my taste. "As well as vapid, vacuous, and void. And several other 'V' words I cannot quite wrap my tongue around at the present time. Vampish. Vain. Vexatious, but need I add, neither virtuous nor virginal?"

"So why do it? Why waste your precious time?"

"You are being sarcastic, aren't you? Saying my time isn't precious at all. That I've neither parts to play nor plays to write. That I'm an old gasbag run out of gas. And you sit there, sturdy and handsome like some leading man, your contempt for me written across your unlined face."

"My contempt for you, as you put it, stems only from your treating this as a game."

"Life is a game, my friend. Or is it a cabaret?"

"Prince. You're getting on my nerves. Why did you waste your time with the computer game?"

"Oral sex."

"What?"

"Talking about it. Safer than a Second Avenue hooker, don't you think?"

"So you never intended to get together with TV Gal or Flying Bird?"

"I didn't say that. I'm sure that somewhere, deep in the bowels of my mind…Gracious, what a metaphor."

"Sort of makes you a shithead, doesn't it?"

He grimaced. "You're really no good at this, Mister…"

"Lassiter."

"Now, where was I? Yes, somewhere, deep in the recesses of my psyche, I must have believed that a beautiful, literate young woman would take me into her arms and crush me with her ample bosoms. 'I always think there's a band, kid.'"

"A band?"

"Professor Harold Hill in The Music Man. To the little boy, explaining his illusions of greatness. Do not underestimate the musical theater. Its homilies and visions of bucolic Americana are often quite revealing, but that, I'm afraid, is another course."

He downed his drink, his eyes a little hazier. "Are we done with the interrogation, counselor?"

"For now."

"Good. But let's do it again, shall we? You may sit in on my class anytime you wish. We're doing Death of a Salesman next week."

"I've already done Biff."

"No. An actor?"

"In college. When I wasn't tearing up my knee on the practice field, I studied drama. I was Big Jule in Guys and Dolls."

"Yes, yes. You've got the size for that. As well as a certain pleasant vagueness of demeanor. But Biff? Biff's a serious role, a difficult role. Willy Loman has to play off his reactions."

I thought about giving Gerald Prince some of his own medicine, hauling out Biff's big scene rejecting Willy, but I couldn't remember the lines. I wondered what it would be like to discover that your father, your hero, is a fake. "Maybe I'll drop by your class again."

"Yes, you simply must come back!"

I nodded and took one last stab at him. "'Catch me if you can, Mr. Lusk.'"

He seemed startled. "Mr. Lust?"

"Mr. Lusk."

"Oh, dear me. For a moment I thought you were making a pass at me. The theater's so full of-"

"You've never heard of Mr. Lusk?"

"A character from Dickens, perhaps?"

If he was a liar, he was a good one. Still, he was the only known link between the two women. "We'll talk again," I said.

"Of course we shall. We'll do a reading. I'll be Willy; you'll be Biff. We'll analyze it for them. The play as social commentary, Willy as the modern tragic character. You do remember the theme of the play?"

"As I recall," I said, "something about illusion versus reality."

I heard the clackety-clack of stiletto heels on courthouse tile before I saw her face. Or legs.

She wore a red leather mini with silver tights underneath. The legs were long and sleek and flashed like blades of giant scissors. The suntanned face was set in a screw-you mode. As she clacked closer along the corridor the waves of attorneys, clerks, and witnesses parted in front of her.

"Mr. Lassiter!"

It sounded like an indictment.

I turned to face her. "Mrs. Blinderman."

She stood close enough to give me a cold, but this time there was no friction of body parts. She cocked a hip and jabbed a finger at me. "How would you like to be sued for slander? Or would you prefer I just report you to the bar association?"

"Is there a third choice?" I asked. "Maybe a week in Philadelphia?"

She jammed the local section of the morning paper under my nose. "You read this bullshit?"

I allowed as how the Journal was part of my morning ritual, right along with fresh mangoes and one-arm push-ups. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Doc Riggs emerge from a courtroom. I had been waiting for him. Charlie was wearing his expert-witness suit and stopped a discreet distance away, tamping cherry-flavored tobacco into his briarwood pipe. The old geezer could barely suppress a grin as he studied the tall couple standing toe to toe.

Her voice was low and icy. "And I suppose you deny being the 'source close to the investigation'?"

"That's right. Wasn't me."

"Really. Well, isn't it a coincidence that when my lawyer called the paper to raise holy hell, they said to contact their lawyer. And who do you suppose that is?"

"A fellow of great charm and wit."

She didn't agree. "You think I'm just a dumb broad, don't you? Well, appearances are deceiving. I vamp because it's fun. I'm playing a game, but I'm not stupid. I've been to college, wise guy."

"Okay, okay, you're the homecoming queen."

"You wouldn't banter with me if I was a man, you macho pig."

"If you were a man, you wouldn't grind your thigh into my crotch, which, as I recall, was your greeting last time, Mrs. Blinderman. Now, make up your mind. Do you want to be treated like a piece of meat or the sweetheart of Sigma Chi?"

"You don't know me at all. I've walked up dark staircases in parts of town you wouldn't show your face. I know the streets, and I know a conspiracy when I see one. Compu-Mate has crippled the Journal's personal classifieds. We're doing a free bulletin board of dating personals, and your friends at the paper are pissed. You're their lawyer, and you get brownie points for leaking the story. This is a plot to put us out of business."

It's always that way. People on the wrong side of hard-edged news stories think the editors sit around all day devising ways to bust their balls. Maybe some do, but in my experience editors are so burdened by budgets and deadlines and cantankerous reporters that they conspire only against their own publishers. The pressure of putting out a new product three hundred sixty-five days a year leads to lots of mistakes, but few with malice aforethought. Shoddy reporting and haphazard editing, not willful character assassination, do most of the damage. And then, of course, there are the occasions- the majority, in fact-when the journalistic mugging is well deserved.

"That's crazy," I said. "The Journal couldn't care less about your business. No offense, but frankly, Compu-Mate is strictly penny-ante."

"That's your opinion. My lawyer's talking business defamation, injury to reputation, punitive damages."

"Yeah. Well, my lawyer can beat your lawyer. Wait a second, I'm my lawyer."

"You're not funny, Lassiter. And another thing. We're not a 'sex club.' Why the hell did it say that in the headline?"

People were starting to stare. "The same reason most headlines miss the point. Not enough time or room or ingenuity to get it right. Look, I'm as unhappy about the story as-"

She stomped her feet, clip-clop, like a flamenco dancer and tossed the newspaper at me. "You'll be even unhappier when I nail your pecker to the courthouse door."

It was hard to argue with that, so I didn't, and she stormed down the corridor, high heels echoing like rifle shots.

"Such language." Charlie Riggs sighed, lighting up in violation of county ordinance 87-1643A and moving next to me. "What was that all about?"