Say You're Sorry Read online

  Naked to the World

  “So round up the usual suspects,” Sam said, her eyes still glued to her computer. “And can’t you read? The sign says Keep Out. I’m on deadline here, Jane.”

  “What the hell do you mean—usual? There’s nothing usual about somebody stealing all my clothes!”

  Sam Adams leaned back and gave Jane Wildwood, her protégé at the Constitution, a long look. When Jane was mad her scarlet hair seemed to take on an even brighter hue. This July 3rd morning it was flaming.

  “Later, kiddo. This piece on the creep who sold the sausages he made from his girlfriend’s ex to the Italian deli on Peachtree is already an hour overdue.”

  “I’m standing here naked to the world, and you’re telling me sausage is more important.”

  It was the kind of line that caused even the most jaded heads in the city room to swivel.

  Sam signed, punched SAVE on her keyboard. She thought for a long moment about reminding Jane that her being naked, not that she was, wasn’t exactly big news. When Sam had stumbled over her the previous year, Jane was a poet working part-time as a stripper in a sleaze club called Tight Squeeze.

  Sam had done a lot of counseling with Jane about defining her goals. She had some now. “I’m going to hunt down and kill the mothers who broke into my apartment last night and stole every stitch of my clothes.”

  “Except this, I presume.” Sam ran her eyes up and down Jane’s ensemble, which didn’t take much: one black cotton pullover, one hot pink elastic cinch belt, and one microscopic wisp of black Spandex which covered her panties, assuming she was wearing any, by an inch. “Well, at least the guy didn’t give himself a hernia.”

  Jane’s green eyes narrowed. “Which means what?”

  “That you have a wide and highly interesting variety of wearing apparel, sweet thing, but no single piece is bigger than an Ace bandage. Your whole closet must have weighed in at what—twelve pounds? About the same as Harpo?” Who was Sam’s Shih Tzu.

  “Very funny. Just because I don’t wear old lady clothes—”

  Sam, so crazed with work she didn’t even know what day it was, glanced down at her own red silk blouse and knee-grazing black skirt. “Forty does not an old lady make, and watch your mouth.”

  “So are you going to help me, or what?”

  Sam stared at her watch, back at the computer screen, then reached in her desk drawer and scooted out a credit card. “Go to Rich’s, buy some new threads.”

  “No, thank you.” Jane was halfway out the door. “You can’t be bothered, I’m sure Marcia can help me find the burglar. I can do the killing by myself. Adios.”

  Marcia, another reporter who was ten years Sam’s junior, already had a true crime book contract with a hefty advance and was breathing heavily down her neck. Sam heard herself saying, “Give me half an hour, and I’ll be right with you.”

  * * *

  They had their feet propped up on Sam’s desk and were sipping fresh cups of coffee.

  “Tell me again what the cop said.”

  “He was standing out on my balcony. You know how the back yard slopes there, so my place is really up three stories instead of two?”

  Sam pictured Jane’s apartment on Peachtree Circle in one of the few multi-residence buildings in the elegant old in-town Ansley Park neighborhood.

  “And he said, Damn tall burglar. There were no ladder marks in the grass. Though the door from the balcony to the living room was open like they’d come in that way. This was some time in between six—when I came home and changed, I left about six-thirty—and eleven, when I got home.”

  “And the lock on the front door?”

  “Ditto. Open.”

  “But not broken?”

  Jane shook her head.

  “So they had keys.”

  “That’s what the cop thought.”

  “Did he dust for prints?”

  “They sent this really cute guy over later. He printed me too.”

  “I bet he did. And?”

  “They said they’d get back to me. But they didn’t seem very hopeful.”

  “You said nothing else was missing. TV? Stereo? None of the usual fenceable loot?”

  “Only clothes. All of them. Plus shoes, underwear, garter belts and other recreational items, pantyhose. It was like they set out to do this one thing.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Yeah. The toilet seat was up.”

  “So we’re supposed to think it was a man who stopped mid-heist to take a leak. So noted. Okay, let’s make a list.” Sam flipped open a reporter’s notebook. “Who would want your clothes?”

  “A pervert.”

  “Right. But how many of those do you know?”

  “Hey, I was a stripper, remember? Thousands.”

  “Thousands you gave keys to?”

  “Nope.”

  Sam thought for a minute. “Who would want to make you this mad? Harass you? Pull this kind of stunt as some kind of message? Punishment?”

  “Like an old boyfriend?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Bobby LaRue.”

  Sam shuddered at the name. Morotcycle-riding Bobby of the black leather and chains was one of her least favorites of Jane’s beaus. “But you got your keys back from him, right?”

  Jane shrugged.

  “Why not?”

  “Seemed like a lot of trouble. Besides, his brother’s a safe cracker, what difference would it make?”

  Sam stuck out the tip of her tongue as she wrote. “Number one. Bobby. Do they get any worse?”

  “Sure. I’ve dated Attila the Hun, Sly Stallone, and Pete Rose, but none of them got keys.”

  “So who did? I have a set but I’m not mad at you, and I swear I didn’t take your pantyhose. What about your neighbor next door?”

  “Craig!” Jane smacked herself in the forehead. “That’s right, I did give Craig keys. But I don’t think he’s my size and we’ve got no beef.”

  “Also from what you’ve said he’s the world’s leading preppie. Isn’t he the one who married his wife because they liked the same designers?”

  “Patti. There you go. But I’m not exactly your Polo queen, so I don’t think either of them was lusting after my wardrobe. Besides, he’s an up and coming at MegaCard. Junior execs for credit card companies don’t steal, do they?”

  “Don’t be so sure. So, did you talk to them? Ask if they heard anything last night?”

  “I didn’t get a chance to. I’ll call them today.”

  “Okay, now, who else has keys? Friends?”

  “Sally.”

  “Sally’s not your friend, she’s your penance for past sins. Has she slit her wrists this week?”

  “You can be very insulting, you know that? I don’t talk about your friends like that.”

  “I don’t have any friends like that.”

  “That’s because they’ve all gone to the old folks home.”

  Ignoring that, Sam was suddenly struck by a terrible thought. “You didn’t roll over for Hoke, did you?”

  The paper’s managing editor, whose assistant Jane was, fancied himself in competition with Carl Bernstein for the title of journalism’s chief ladykiller. And his wife Lois was famous for her reprisals.

  “Mix business and bed? You think I’m stupid?”

  “That’s a relief. Keys, keys, so who else’s got keys?”

  “Finito. Except—”

  “Who?”

  Jane looked around as if the walls had ears. Then mouthed the words Dick Loudermilk.

  “Trick! No, please, not Trick.”

  Jane shrugged. Who was she to resist the advances of Georgia’s junior senator who had plowed the fields of Atlanta’s fairest flowers—each of whom thought she was going to be the one on his arm when he ascended to the White House. Except Jane, of course. Jane was too smart to confuse sex and politics. She said, “But he is a great dancer and he’s burning hell in bed.”

  “So maybe you could go on TV with that test
imonial during his next campaign. Anybody else? Do I need a fresh piece of paper?”

  “None rush to mind.”

  “Okay. How about you’ll talk with Craig and Patti, Bobby LaRue. I’ll take Sally and the good senator.

  “And do what?”

  “Start calling, visiting.”

  “I dial these people up and say tell me who did it and/or bring back my clothes. This is what you call finding the burglar?”

  “Investigating is talking, Jane. Talking and listening. Listening more than talking. It’ll be a novel experience for you.”

  *

  I can’t help you if you’ve exceeded your limit,” said Craig, Jane’s next-door neighbor, on the phone. “I’m not in that division.”

  “I don’t even have a MegaCard,” said Jane.

  “You don’t! MegaCard is the South’s answer to American Express. We plow the profits back into Dixie. Screw the Eastern establishment.” He paused, lowered his voice. “Are you some kind of Communist, Jane?”

  “No, I’m a vegetarian. And I’m sorry to bother you at work. Why are you there on a holiday weekend anyway? Nevermind. Somebody ripped off my apartment last night, and—”

  “No!”

  “Did you hear anything? See anything? It had to happen sometime between six-thirty and eleven.”

  “Nothing. We weren’t home. We were at a financial planning seminar. The market. Commodities. It was great. There are new sessions starting all the time. You should come.”

  “About my apartment, Craig.”

  “Right. No, we didn’t get home till after eleven. But, wait, I did hear someone talking outside after that. I was just about to listen to my motivation tapes—I fall asleep to them every night, and—”

  “After eleven it was me. And the cops.”

  “Cops! Gosh! What did they take? TV? VCR? Microwave? CDs?”

  Jane thought she ought to start taking notes on what people said when she told them the burglar took only her clothes.

  *

  “Sam! Darlin’, come on in. It’s wonderful to see you again.” Then Senator Loudermilk dropped his voice a full octave, one of his favorite tricks. “You look fabulous. But then you always do.”

  Sam smiled. Wasn’t it nice that some things never changed? Like Dick Loudermilk’s flirtatiousness. On the other hand, while she was holding her own, due to good genes, long legs, and hard sweaty walks, she was hardly the girl she was when she and Dick were in school.

  Now the senator loped around the side of his massive mahogany desk, enveloping her in a well-tailored hug that smelled of expensive aftershave.

  “Looking good yourself, Dick,” she said. And he was. Richard P. Loudermilk was of the clean-limbed great big old boy school. With lots of white teeth and an athlete’s grace. Could he scale a balcony in one leap?

  “To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?” Now he was pouring her a glass of iced tea from a crystal pitcher. Holding small silver tongs above a dish of sugar cubes. “One or two?”

  She held up two fingers. “Just a social call.”

  “Bullshit. We haven’t had a social engagement since you shoved me out of a boat in the middle of Lake Lanier for trying to get my hand down your swimsuit. That must have been—” and then he winked—“well, we don’t know how to count that high, slow-witted Southerners, do we?”

  “You home for the Fourth, Dick? You all are still in session, aren’t you?”

  “Oh yeah. Making the world safe for democracy. Couple of days here, wave the flag, shake some hands, eat some pig, had a little brushfire I had to attend to.” He gave her a big wink.

  “Really? Anyone I know?”

  “Nawh. Nawh.” The ice in his glass tinkled. “Not what you think. Bid’nis. Utilities bid’nis. Your innuendo, guess that means you haven’t heard my big news.”

  “You’re getting married.”

  His blue eyes, which after all the years of horsetrading he could still make guileless, opened wide. “Then you do know!?”

  “You are getting married?”

  “Yep.” Dick stuck a soon-to-be-elder-statesman pose. “To Mandy Overhiser.”

  “As in Senator Overhiser’s daughter?” Overhiser being the most powerful, not to mention most conservative, Democrat in the Senate. And from the West. “That’s not a marriage, that’s a geographical and philosophical merger.”

  “Wow, Sam. Such cynicism is not becoming to a lady.”

  “I’m no lady, and neither is my friend Jane Wildwood.”

  At that, Dick blanched.

  Ah-ha, thought Sam, for it was a major hit when the wily poker face even moved.

  “Now, Sam, Jane is a wonderful girl, and you know, we all have our little indiscretions we’d just as soon forget. As I remember you used to keep company with that Dr. Talbot who’s now the state’s chief medical—.”

  “Forget it, Dick. All I want to know is did you steal all Jane Wildwood’s clothes?”

  “Did I—do you th—did I wha—?”

  Dick Loudermilk’s laugh was one of the best things about him. Now it bounced off the walls of his office, ricocheting so long and loud that when the good senator’s secretary peeked in to see if they were alright, both Sam and Dick were both wiping their tears, limp on the sofa.

  *

  “You go first.”

  So Jane did, filling Sam in on what Craig said.

  “So zilch. Nada. He didn’t hear or see a thing. He said Patti had dropped home to pick up something about six, before they went to their meeting, and she didn’t see anyone either—except Miss Bitsie, the landlady, who dropped by to deliver in person, can you believe it, a rent increase for them. I bet I’m next. I saw her too, but she just waved at me with her big fake smile as I was going out. Craig was so pissed. After all, they are moving. Have put in a bid on a house.”

  “Good for them, Jane, but let’s stick to what’s important. The other tenants?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You questioned all the other tenants in the building?”

  “You didn’t say to do that. You just said to talk to Craig because he has keys.”

  “Jane, Jane.”

  “Don’t Jane, Jane me. You sound like my mother. You’re off visiting with Dick Loudermilk, doing God knows what, and now it occurs to you I should talk with everybody in my building?”

  “Well, sweetie, they’re your clothes.”

  *

  Jane stomped into her apartment. Slammed the door. Switched on the A/C. Threw herself down on the sofa.

  She was pooped. And hot. And sweaty.

  It had been a hard day of ringing doorbells, punching in numbers on phones.

  And what’d she have?

  Not a damned thing. Only eight apartments in the building, but most of the tenants were out of town for the holiday, had left yesterday, which meant they couldn’t have seen anything, and even if they had, wouldn’t be back till day after tomorrow.

  Old Mrs. Pettigrew in the front said she thought she’d seen the gas man, but that may have been the day before. Besides, Mrs. Pettigrew sometimes saw General Sherman riding down Piedmont on his horse.

  Bobby LaRue was in jail. He and his brother had bit off a job bigger than they could chew. So Bobby hadn’t bothered to say goodbye, but then there was no real reason to. The last time they had spoken, Jane made it clear she’d have a pot of boiling Crisco ready to pour on his head if he stormed her battlements again. He actually had come over her balcony once. Pole-vaulted. Just showing off. At the time, she’d thought it was kind of cute.

  Anyway, scratch Bobby.

  What she needed right now was a glass of ice water.

  But first she needed to get out of these stinky clothes. Why the hell hadn’t she taken Sam up on her offer, the Rich’s credit card? She was getting pretty ripe in the good old Atlanta summertime. She stripped, threw her duds in a pile on the floor. She’d rinse them out later. Started naked into the kitchen, when suddenly her eye caught a pile of magazines and catalogu
es on the floor. A Victoria’s Secret catalogue on top. They belonged in a wicker wastebasket.

  Jane froze.

  Somebody had been here. Could be here now. All of a sudden everything seemed to be outlined in halos. There was something funny in the air. The faint odor of cigar smoke.

  Jane’s heart pounded. “Hello?” she called. “Hello?”

  * * *

  Sam knew she could just as easily talk with Jane’s weird friend Sally on the phone, but this was a chance to see her apartment. Sam never got enough of seeing how people lived. And once inside, she couldn’t stay out of their medicine cabinets.

  Staring now into Sally’s, she found among the deodorant, depilatories, and toothpaste twelve fresh packs of single-edged razor blades, six vials of prescription sleeping pills, and a Colt .38 Super. Given Sally’s history as a girl who attempted suicide with the regularity that most people floss their teeth, there were no surprises. Except for the gun.

  From her living room, Sally, a tiny peroxide blonde, was talking around a wad of chewing gum almost bigger than she was.

  “It’s funny you should call. I was just thinking about you.”

  “Oh, really? Thanks for the use of your john.” Sam came out of the bathroom fluffing up her dark curls. She looked around the living room, which was strewn with half-filled cardboard boxes and suitcases. Somehow she didn’t have the feeling it had been any neater before Sally started packing. “Why would you be thinking of me?”

  “Well, you know that story you wrote about the men who were killed by that crazy woman who met them through personal ads?”

  “Right.” Sam nodded at Sally while trying to sneak a peek at the clothes tumbling out of the boxes. None of those looked like Jane’s. But then, who could be sure? Sally had a thing for spandex too. Though whereas Jane pretty much stuck to basic black, Sally’s taste covered the rainbow. A model/actress/exercise instructor, this was her professional wardrobe. “So, you liked the story, or you answered a personal ad?”

  “Yeah, that’s why I’m moving.”

  Sally was moving. Craig and Patti were moving. Dick was in town for a minute, then out again. Was there a trend here?

  “To be with your new fellow?”

  “Right.” Sally’s little blonde head bobbed up and down. “That’s right. I’m going to be near him. To wait for him.” Coming from Sally’s mouth the words sounded like pop lyrics.