Yesterday's News

decided not to compliment him.
    He said, “Why can’t you leave well enough alone?”
    “It doesn’t look so well to me.”
    “Can’t you see—”
    “Aren’t you going to ask me about my leg?”
    “Your leg?”
    “Yeah, I’m limping. Didn’t you notice?”
    “I don’t give a rat’s ass about your leg.”
    “You might be missing a story. Somebody tried to run me down this morning.”
    “Sounds like a good idea to me.”
    “It’d be a lot easier if you’d just let me hang around here, ask some questions and look at some files.”
    “Get out.” He banged a button on his phone panel. “Jeannette, if you don’t see this guy Cuddy go by you and out within sixty seconds, call the police.”
    The receptionist’s voice came over the speaker box. “And tell them what?”
    “Tell them to come get Mr. Cuddy the fuck out of here!”
    “Okay, okay.”
    Arbuckle banged the button again and glared at me. I said, “I hope my knee’ll hold up under the strain.” Going through the building’s front door, I saw Liz Rendall race up in a little American car with nasharbor beacon on the driver’s side door and a CB radio antenna stuck on the roof. She got out and said, “What’s wrong with your leg?”
    “Hurt it this morning, jogging. Can I speak with you for a minute?”
    “Yes, but I’m running late. Wait in your car. I’ll be right out.”
    I went to the Prelude and waited. Two minutes later, she hurried through the door of the Beacon and into a different car, an Alfa Romeo convertible. Expensive transportation for a reporter. She started up and drove by, beckoning for me to follow.

    Including Rendall, the aerobics class had seven members, all female. The instructor was a muscular woman with short black hair moussed into a spiky brush cut. The tempo was fast, and Liz was the only one in the loft who really could keep up with Spike. The ceiling vibrated with Aerosmith and Whitney Houston while the floor quaked from the cadence of the routines.
    Liz wore a yellow leotard outfit with the false socks, in navy blue, that I think are called leg warmers. Slim and sinewy, she moved well, and she knew it. The instructor treated the music as an opponent to conquer. Rendall welcomed the music as a partner to the dance, allowing its excesses to show off her capacity to be both energetic and sensual. I wondered if any of it was for my benefit. I caught myself hoping just a little that it was, which surprised me. Liz looked uncannily like Beth, but she wasn’t like Beth at all. Liz was more like Nancy , though maybe a little more aggressive.
    The tape stopped after forty-five minutes. Rendall grabbed a towel and came over to me. The perspiration scent rolled in front of her, that sweet musk some women exude after hard physical work.
    Smiling, she shook her head, the ringlets of hair curling and recurling damply as she rubbed the towel from ear to ear. “You ever try aerobics?”
    “No.”
    “Too sissy for you?”
    “Maybe it reminds me too much of another time.”
    “What other time?”
    “When we all wore green and the leader had stripes.”
    “Then I can’t blame you.” She passed the towel down her chest, the nipples underneath the stretch material doing their level best to pop out. “What’d you think?”
    “I thought you looked great.”
    Rendall shook her head again, this time negatively. “I don’t make myself look good to come here. I make myself come here to look good.”
    “That’s how I meant it.”
    “Then I’m glad I dragged you along.” She grasped my wrist, turning it so she could read my watch. There was a perfectly functioning clock on the wall, but she held tight, as though she were just learning to tell time. “I’m going to have to get out of here. You have a run-in with Arbuckle?”
    “Sort of.”
    “After I came back from lunch with you on Tuesday, he told me he never wanted to see you again. I tried to call you, but all I got was...” Liz scrunched her features and dropped her voice two octaves. “‘You know, I run a motel here, lady, not some goddam message center.’ ”
    I laughed. “You do a good Emil Jones. How’s your Gary Cooper?”
    “I’d rather you see my Julia Child. I’ve got copies of Jane’s new articles and my notes on the old ones at home. We can talk over dinner tonight.”
    “I don’t think so.”
    Her bubbly air subsided. “Look, I don’t... I have the funeral tomorrow, Jane’s, I mean, and I’m kind of down. This,” she waved