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

iron awning to wait
for the next trick. I couldn’t even make her out in the darkness;
she blended so well into the shadow, no doubt a useful skill in her
dangerous profession. But then there was a bright flash of a
lighter, which quickly died out. A few minutes later the lighter
flashed again, first a yellow flash and then a quick blue-white
flash. The lady was a crackhead.
    At this point, satisfied that they had
demonstrated their power over my social destiny, the bouncers
abruptly unfastened the cordon and waved me out of reality and into
surreality.
    Inside, the bar was lit by blue-white halogen
lights that shone vertically in cylinders from the floor, like some
kind of force field. The place was busy for a weekday, and the
beautiful people were three deep around the pale, glowing blue bar.
Despite Vogue’s admonition that black was boring, almost everyone
wore black as a base, accessorizing with bolder colors.
    “Can I get you something?” the bartender, a
tall Oriental woman, asked. She had an English accent.
    “Vodka martini, dry, made with lemon Stoly,
no garnish, on the rocks, lightly stirred,” I said. I love ordering
that. Name’s Bond, James Bond. However, the pretension was lost on
the bartender, who dutifully and absentmindedly stirred it up and
handed it to me in a Lucite glass with a cockroach cleverly
embedded in its base.
    Down at the end of the bar Claire’s usual
gang of friends were hanging out but Claire was nowhere to be seen.
One of them, an actress named Tassy something-or-other, waved at me
absently, like she knew me from somewhere but couldn’t remember if
she liked me or not. I waved back and turned away to spare her
having to make the judgment.
    Claire was late, which was unusual. It was a
quarter after nine before she finally got to Kafka’s. Although the
crowd was thick, it parted easily for her as she made her way
through the blue-white force field to the bar. Right away, I knew
something was wrong.
    Claire, who was always perfectly put
together, had failed to accessorize.
    “Sorry I’m late,” she said breathlessly. “But
I just had a call from one of your sources. The police are looking
for you. They want you to turn yourself in.”
    “Turn myself in? Why? What is . . .”
    “I stopped back at ANN to pick up a tape I
wanted to watch later and while I was there this woman called,”
Claire said. “Desirée.”
    That was Nora, a police department flack who
used to work at ANN and was a very reluctant source. “Desirée was
her nom de fink. I privately referred to her as Sore Throat.
    “They found this guy dead—killed—at the
Marfeles Palace. You were seen with him or something. Desirée was
vague on details, but it sounds like you’re a suspect, Robin.”
    “Oh, sweet mother of . . .”
    Words were flashing at me like neon signs:
ME. A SUSPECT. FOR MURDER. ME. For once, I was speechless.
Speechless and paralyzed.
    Claire ordered herself a double Dewar’s neat,
which she emptied in one large swallow. She rarely drank.
    “I’ve got a taxi waiting outside. Do you want
to call a lawyer and have him meet us at the cop shop?” She slid
her hand over mine and gave it a squeeze. “Or do you want to sit a
while and get your bearings on this?”
    “No,” I said. “Let’s go.”
    When we were in the taxi, I thought of this
story I read about Vaclav Havel, then president of Czechoslovakia,
shortly after the Communists fell and he and other dissidents came
to power. A year earlier, Havel had been in jail, as had many of
his colleagues. Now they were running the country, making decisions
on everything from freeing the press to how to distribute a
shipment of East German brassieres. During cabinet meetings, when
the absurdity of the situation became too great, Havel would stop
the meeting and say, “Let’s all laugh for a moment.”
    I love that. I love the idea of a world
leader taking a moment away from history for a hearty guffaw. I
think it’s good, all-purpose advice. I