Free What's a Girl Gotta Do by Sparkle Hayter Page B

I was
waiting, great looks and a great bod could tide me over nicely. But
Spurdle was not Spencer Tracy and I’d be hard-pressed to find any
Hollywood counterpart for Jerry that walked on two legs and had
opposable thumbs.
    Later, as I rode home from Tatiana’s in a
creaky taxicab with bad shocks, I thought about how I’d married the
wrong man, which meant maybe the right man was still out there
somewhere.
    So was the killer.
    When I got home, I turned ANN on to keep me
company while I brushed Louise Bryant. The Greg Browner Show was
on—the Hawaii version, a taped repeat of the evening show that
played during prime time in Hawaii. It made good white noise.
    “Topeka, Kansas, on the line. What’s your
question for Jack Kemp, Topeka?” Greg said in his warm way.
    “Greg, my husband and I think you should run
for office in ninety-six.” Browner got several calls like this
every night. Some of the Perotist carpetbaggers, who had wandered
in the wilderness for many months since their man’s defeat in ’92,
had tried to get Browner to pick up the Independence banner. But
Browner refused to run, elevating himself above the fray and giving
his show-ender commentaries greater credibility.
    But for every call of support he got, he got
one like his next call.
    “Yeah, Greg, this is Barry from Union City,
New Jersey. I want to know if Jack Kemp would support a national
holiday to honor Howard Stern’s penis?”
    Live television. You gotta love it.

Chapter Five
     
    THE MAN WHO SOLD newspapers on Avenue B
greeted me with a strange look and kept his eyes on me while I
scanned the dailies. When I got to the News-Journal, I saw him
grin.
    P.I. DEAD IN BAD-LUCK HOTEL FOUND
BLUDGEONED—ROOM 13D Inset was my picture, coming out of the police
station, with the caption, “Reporter questioned in murder.”
    The Post was more succinct. “JINX!” it
screamed in large black letters. “PRIVATE EYE DEAD IN MARFELES ROOM
13D.” Then, in smaller letters along the bottom of the page: “ANN
Reporter a Suspect? Page 3.”
    “Shit, I said. I took a copy of the tabloids,
along with the Times, and paid the guy. I opened the News-Journal
and read it as I walked to the subway. It was unbelievable.
    “Renegade reporter Robin Hudson, who is
perhaps best known for belching loudly on live television, was
questioned by police for nearly two hours last night in the murder
of Lawrence M. Griff, 38, of Ozone Park, Queens. Griff, a licensed
P.I., was found in a pool of blood in his room, Room 13D, at the
Marfeles Palace . . . Detective Joe Tewfik of homicide said, “Ms.
Hudson was questioned as a witness in this case and is not a
suspect at this point, although we haven’t ruled anyone out
yet.”
    What bullshit, I thought. He knew I didn’t do
it.
    “But neighbors and colleagues say Ms. Hudson
appeared agitated on New Year’s Eve, when the murder is thought to
have occurred, and threatened an elderly woman with a tire iron.
Later, she was seen talking with the victim at ANN’s New Year’s Eve
party at the Marfeles.”
    There was more, but I won’t bore you with the
details. It’s amazing how one disaster can distort the truth of
one’s life so quickly and so completely. I had held up my tire
iron—pare of my costume—in the street to ward off Mrs. Ramirez’s
cane, and the News-Journal made it sound like I was some sort of
maniac on a wilding spree that started with a tire iron and an old
lady and ended with a man dead in a classy midtown hotel room.
Unnamed “colleagues” and “neighbors” supported this tale of my orgy
of violence with telling anecdotes of past bad temper. Most people
don’t like to get involved, especially with any legal authority,
but some people are so eager to please reporters they’ll gladly
corroborate anything you want with a little factoid or two. I’d
seen it plenty of times.
    This was bad. If the News-Journal kept this
up and the police didn’t arrest me, the villagers would soon come
for me in a