The Chelsea Girl Murders Read Online Free PDF Page A

happened to pick up. Evidently he had tried to call your apartment first and he got no answer. I think. It was very hard to understand him. He doesn’t speak English very well.”
    â€œOh. He called?” I said, very cool.
    â€œGod, you’re blushing! And what’s this?” He started pawing through a bunch of books and videotapes on my desk.
    â€œ Virgin Queens and Lusty Consorts: Feminism and Romantic Love ,” he said, reading the title off a book. He turned to the back flap and read, “‘Can the modern woman reconcile the conflict between being a feminist and being a heterosexual?’”
    â€œSomeone sent that to me. I haven’t even read it. Jesus. Don’t jump to conclusions,” I said. “Don’t make connections where there aren’t any. The man in Paris was a—”
    â€œFling,” he said.
    â€œA friend.” As casually as possible, I added, “Did he leave a message?”
    â€œYeah, either he’s going to his lib to work on an ex-parent, or he’s off to the lab for his experiment. I’m not really sure. He’s gone for a month. He’d try to E-mail when he had time.”
    â€œThank you,” I said.
    â€œLab? What’s this guy do?”
    â€œHe’s a physicist.”
    â€œYou’re blushing again.”
    â€œI’m tired and flushed,” I said. “Jesus.”
    â€œDon’t get me wrong. Nothing wrong with it. But why the secrecy? Is he married? Please tell me he isn’t married …”
    â€œNo, of course not. We’re just friends. No big deal. He’s a friend of Tamayo’s, actually. She told me to look him up while I was there and I did.”
    â€œWhat’s wrong with him?”
    â€œNothing’s wrong with him.”
    â€œOh. I get it. It’s unrequited. Your feelings aren’t being returned the way you want,” he said.
    â€œI don’t know.” Louis had almost worn me down. I almost said, Look, this is the deal, Louis. Pierre and I live on two different continents, he reads English but doesn’t speak it very well, and I have your basic bad-tourist French, which is amusing—for about a week. He’s a French genius with excellent table manners, from a proud Gallic family descended from minor nobility, and I’m a crude American chick. These things only work out in Fran Drescher movies.
    But though Louis is a good friend and an honorable colleague, he also runs the Jackson Broadcasting Rumor File, Radio Free Babylon, so I kept it to myself.
    â€œHe’s just a friend,” I said.
    â€œIf you say so,” Louis said. “But whatever he is, he’s made you soft. Jerry’s going to run roughshod over you in absentia while you’re on vacation. He thinks this is a trick, and he’s going to try a preemptive strike.…”
    â€œWhat can he do?”
    â€œDon’t underestimate him. He’s up to something. I’m just not sure what yet,” he said. “I’ll keep my ears to the pipes and keep you posted. You might try disarming him with a few bitchy comments, just to reassure him.”
    Before Louis left, he filled me in on the many other plots swirling about the office. The politics of a medieval court had nothing on those of WWN, or as Louis called it, The Holy Woman Empire. It took every bit of self-control to resist being drawn into the various intrigues.
    Being back in the office had been a challenge though. Every time I turned around, it seemed some plotting courtier was darting out of the shadows with a dram of poison about someone else. The executive producers were plotting against each other. The associate producers were plotting against each other. Even the interns were plotting against each other. Most of this plotting took place beneath a pleasant, pastel civility. This was the corporate culture Solange and Jerry had created. Before the day was through and I was freed,