She shrugged. “I’m not really surprised. But how’d you verify it? Oh, sorry-you said not to ask…”
She wasn’t as impressed as she should be.
I reached over to the chair next to me where my brown leather coat was draped. I got the black plastic box out of one pocket and showed it to her. “This is from his private library.”
She smiled one-sidedly, a little amazed. “You’re kidding!”
“No. Check out the spine.”
She looked at it. “‘Angela,’” she said. “Well, this isn’t me, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Hey, he’s got a camera pointing right at his bed. He’s got a shelf of over thirty tapes with the names of women on every one of them. There’s no reason to kid me.”
“Jack. Read my lips. This isn’t me. I never slept with Freed. Or did anything with him. Have you screened this?”
“No,” I said. “I don’t know where to find a machine that’ll play it. It won’t play in a home VCR-I need the kind they use at TV stations.”
“Three-quarter inch, not half-inch,” she said, nodding. “You know, I think I know where I can find us a screening room.”
We took her car. It was dark now, as we headed up Brady through its neon franchise canyon, gliding along by BEST BUY, heading on out past the shopping malls and even her own housing addition. Well past the city limits, as Iowa farmland began to kick in, a cluster of small buildings appeared at our left, a garden of big metal mushrooms- satellite dishes-along its one side.
We got out of the car and she looped her arm in mine, saying, “If Chuck still works here, and I think he does, we’ll be in business. I used to drop Preston Freed’s weekly ‘news’ show off to ’im.”
There were no lights on in the front, office part of the small building complex, but a few windows glowed toward the rear. The side door, marked “Cable Vision Employees Only,” just this side of the mesh fence that enclosed the satellite-dish garden, was unlocked. I followed her in and down a narrow hall.
An open door to the right revealed a small studio, lights unlit, cameras unattended; she knocked at the next door and, shortly, a shaggy-haired mustached guy in a dark green sweater and blue jeans answered, styrofoam coffee cup in hand. He was about thirty-five and sleepy-eyed; dope was in his past and maybe his present. Behind him was a small but elaborate control booth, video tape machines and monitors and banks of switches, with a big window looking out on that empty studio.
“Well! How ya doin’, beautiful,” he said, brightening at seeing her. “Don’t tell me you’re workin’ for the Great White Father again.”
She laughed. “No, I had enough of that windbag to last a lifetime. You’re still running on caffeine, I see.”
He sipped his coffee. “It’s legal. What’s the occasion?”
“Need a favor, Chuck.”
“Hey, anything for a pretty face. You still selling cars?”
“Yes, and that’s why I’m here. We had this hotshot advertising firm out of Cedar Rapids do some commercials for us, but when the tape arrived, it was on three-quarter. All we have at the
showroom is a VHS.”
“And you wanna screen the sucker. Well, no problem, babe. There’s a machine and a monitor in the office next door.” He pointed with his thumb to a door that said STATION MANAGER. “It’s not locked.”
“Thanks, Chuck.”
“No problem-o, babe. Gotta get back to work. Let me know when you’re leavin’…”
He toasted her with his coffee and shut himself back in his booth.
“They run a pretty tight ship around here,” I said.
“It’s a small operation,” she said, leading me into the station manager’s office, a cluttered cubbyhole with a desk and several files but also a stand on which sat a TV monitor and, under it, a big VCR. “They serve several small communities. And they’re making some dough uplinking Freed’s show for him every week.”
I handed her the tape and she inserted it in the machine and we stood and watched.
Watched, thanks to a sharply focused if stationary camera, Preston Freed in spirited action with a lovely blond girl of about twenty. I fast-forwarded it through several sexual positions and practices and some mutual coke use and, while it was hardly a testimonial to the conservative values Preston Freed extolled, the tape had nothing to do with Angela Jordan.
Almost immediately she said, “That’s Angela Huseby.”
“So it isn’t you.”
“No, of course not. See for yourself. I’m not the only Angela in the world.”
“Who is this girl?”
“She was only with the party for a few months. She’s dead.”
I looked at her sharply. “Dead?”
“She had a nervous breakdown. Suicide.”
“When was this?”
“At least two years ago.”
I shut the tape off. “I’m sorry. I should’ve believed you.”
She smiled at me, touched my arm. “You were trying to do me a favor, weren’t you? You saw the name on that tape, and assumed it was me, and took it. To give to me.”
“Yeah, or to destroy,” I said. Like I had already done with the other tape, the one that had the name “Becky” on the spine, co-starring me and my stun gun.
“You’re sweet,” she said. “But that tape isn’t me. It is, however, political dynamite. If you’re working for Freed, you’d better get rid of it.”
“Maybe I’m a blackmailer.”
She smiled wide. “I don’t think so. You’re just not the type. And I’m a pretty good judge of character.”
If she were a good judge of character, she wouldn’t be a divorcee twice over. But I didn’t point that out to her.
I tucked the tape back in my pocket and we exited the cubbyhole. Out in the silent hall, she stuck her head in the studio and waved at Chuck through the glass of his booth; he looked up from inserting a tape in a machine and smiled and waved. Soon we were on the road again, heading back to Davenport.
“Would you mind stopping by my house for a few minutes?” she asked. “We’ll be going right by. It’s getting late and I’d like to check and see if Mom and the girls are back yet.”
“That’s fine. I’d like to meet your family.”
But when she pulled into the driveway of the green split-level, next to a shiny white Pontiac Bonneville, she said “Damn! They’re not home…”
“Then whose car is that?”
She paused. Made a face. “Lonny’s.”
“I’ll handle the little jerk,” I said.
She touched my arm. “Don’t let things get out of hand.”
“I’ll just send him on his way.”
I got out of the car and opened her door for her and escorted her up the sidewalk. He was sitting up on the front stoop, the tip of his cigarette an amber eye in the darkness; he stood as we approached, still in his BEST BUY blue blazer, no topcoat.
She got between us. “Now, I don’t want any trouble…”
But I could already see from Lonny’s haunted expression that this was about something else. “Angela,” he said. “Please. We have to talk.”
“We can talk at work on Monday.”
He paused. “I’m afraid I have some bad news. It’s Bob.”
“What about Bob?”
“Bob…” He sighed. “He’s apparently drowned. Him and Jim Crawford both.”
She clutched my arm. “Oh, my God. How… how did it happen?”
“A boating accident,” he said.
“A boating accident?” she asked, incredulous.
“I know it sounds crazy, this time of year. But Bob and Jim Crawford were apparently takin’ a small cabin
