The Henderson Equation (33 page)

"It's been a blow, Myra," Nick whispered, as
Charlie turned his back. "He's not himself." I'm sorry, he wanted to
say.

"I don't know what his real self is anymore,
Nick," she said, her lips trembling.

He reached out his hand and touched her shoulder, feeling
the shudder in her body.

"It'll pass."

"Sure," she said, shaking her head in
contradiction.

In front of him the concrete circular monument of Fox-hall
loomed like the prow of a ship slipping through the fog. He wondered if Jennie
might be in his apartment after all and, suddenly hopeful, he increased his
speed.

"Good evening, Mr. Gold," the doorman said,
tipping his hat. The pleasantness of his greeting raised his optimism. Letting
himself into his apartment, he made deliberate noises with his key. The
apartment was still, its deadness nerve-racking to ears used to a world of
noise. He walked around the silent apartment, poking into each room as if
expecting to find her playfully hiding.

Opening a bedroom closet, he saw her clothes hanging
limply. He fell heavily on the bed, his shoes on the bedspread, ignoring a
compulsion for neatness taught by his mother. Lifting the bedside phone, he
punched Jennie's apartment number, letting the cold instrument lie against his
ear as it rang. The long series of rings gave him hope that she had returned.
But the harried voice of the answering service intruded. He let it inquire
repetitively, almost a welcome sound in the dead silence. Leaving the phone
beside him on the bed, he heard the click of the broken connection, then the
frenetic bleeps that the telephone company used to indicate a receiver off the
hook. He replaced the receiver and lay back on the bed again, staring at the
ceiling.

He had known from the beginning that Jennie had zeroed in
on him, a pinpointed target carefully reconnoitered, the attack preceded by a
barrage and culminating in a final assault. Perhaps he thought of it in that
way because her father had been a general. He had been moderately successful as
a logistics expert, which planted two stars on his epaulets. But his real
calling had been that of a social lion, a companion in demand, handsome, witty,
charming. He had been divorced early and Jennie had spent her childhood in a
series of girls' boarding schools, growing into attractive womanhood, a tall
thin high-cheekboned articulate woman, who moved with an exaggerated model's
grace, an air of cool self-possession.

By the time Jennie was ready to stake out her own
territory, General Lynn was an important social fixture in town, a gallant
dashing figure, living in the aura of past conquests, an old roué. He doted on
his daughter and, in retrospect, had manipulated his maze of Washington
connections in a burst of activity aimed at getting her on the staff of the
Chronicle
.

"You must meet my daughter," he had said to Nick
one evening at a dinner party at the Argentine Embassy. Later he realized that
the old man must have put the pressure on his friends to insist that he come.
As a single man, he had been placed next to Jennie at the dinner table. His
first brief assessment was that she was too thin, much too thin, far too
flat-chested to remotely tantalize his libido. She told him that she had
free-lanced articles for the two years she had been out of college.

"Your coverage of most Washington social events is a
dreadful bore," she said, smiling broadly under her polished cheekbones
and whipping her long eyelashes together. She spoke in an anachronistic, Noel
Coward cadence with a slight British accent. He recalled trying to frame an
answer, but before he could, she attacked again.

"You portray all of these people"--a thin arm
swept the assemblage in the ballroom of the embassy--"as pieces of
cardboard, razor thin, as if the mere mention of their names is enough to give
them character."

"We're newspaper people, not novelists," he had
protested, struggling to stick his spoon into an unripe melon.

"There is a lot of subtlety here. Your reporters
completely miss it."

"Oh," he had said politely, amused at her method
of gaining his attention.

"Absolutely," she insisted. "This is
actually a den of wolves. That old Senator there, for example, is an alcoholic
and has been having an affair with that woman there, the wife of our esteemed
Ambassador from Morocco, for years. That's why he's never been transferred. And
that lovely lady there is a professional freeloader. I'll bet you thought she
was loaded herself. And if your taste runs to sexual aberrations, Congressman
Geegaw there"--she actually pointed and smiled--"is a transvestite.
As for our host, he's big on little girls. And see that haughty grande dame in
the corner? She's a compulsive masturbator."

He gave up trying to negotiate his melon and, putting his
spoon down, turned to face the girl.

"You sound as if you spent a great deal of time at
keyholes." Assuming that she had engaged his interest, she proceeded to
press her advantage.

"And that fellow next to you is a necrophiliac."

"Good God!"

"Common knowledge."

"I won't ask you how you know that."

"Not unless you have a strong stomach."

"Are you for real?" he said finally. She patted
his hand.

"I'm just trying to illustrate how second-rate your
coverage is. You need someone to crawl beneath the surface."

"Like who?" Nick asked.

She stretched her hands outward, palms up, and bowed her
head.

"We'd burn out a hundred blue pencils a night."

"Not if you're subtle enough. You could be cleverly
euphemistic, like the Li'l Abner strip, dirty as hell. But then you'd have
something. The real people would know."

"How would you work in that necrophiliac
business?"

She thought for a moment, then laughed.

"I'd describe what he put on his buffet plate in
lascivious terms."

"And the masturbator?"

"She'd be playing with her earring."

"And the freeloader."

"Second helpings."

Despite himself, he had become intrigued.

"It would all seem very civilized," she had said.

He had danced with her, but had not asked to take her home.
That was his womanizer period and, since she was not to his sexual taste, he
hadn't been inspired to make any moves.

When he began to receive letters from prominent figures,
urging him to hire her, extolling her talents, he knew that there was a
campaign afoot and he was determined to resist. It was Myra who revealed how
far the campaign had progressed.

"You know our social stuff is getting to be a
bore," she told him.

"So they've got to you, too."

"Who?" she asked innocently in her usual oblique
way. "I met the kid at a dinner party. A charming girl."

"Did she point out the necrophiliac?"

"And more. Lots more. She's actually quite
amusing."

"If she had her way, she'd turn us into a gossip
rag."

"Maybe we need some of that," Myra said. They had
been over this ground before. "You now we have been getting a lot of flack
from the women's movement to change the concept of our so-called social pages.
They've got a good point, Nick."

"Are you saying that I'm a male chauvinist pig?"

"Yes, as a matter of fact." She smiled. What had
evolved was their Lifestyle section. He had invited some of the top guns in the
women's movement to lunch and they had convinced that his present coverage was
an anachronism. It was one time he welcomed the pressure, convinced that they
were right, and one day they simply changed the masthead of the section.
Margaret was, of course, ecstatic when he announced his decision to her over
drinks in Myra's office.

"Finally," she said, her eyes misting. "As
the cigarette ads say, 'We've come a long way, baby.'"

"It'll mean a restaffing," Nick said. "We're
going to need to put some bite into it."

"I'll do my best."

"You were always pretty good when it came to
bite," Nick said. It had been meant only as a wisecrack, but the
remembered pain of their marriage rushed back.

"She'll do a great job," Myra said, kissing
Margaret lightly on the cheek.

After the first week of the new Lifestyle, he got a call
from Jennie, preceded, of course, by additional letters of recommendation.

"See, I was right," she said, her voice crisp and
seductive.

"I never said you weren't."

"So hire me."

Perhaps it was her voice, her method of articulation, with
its beautifully pitched snottiness and carefully timed little shocks that began
to attract him. He asked her to lunch with him at the Sans Souci. She was
waiting for him at a table against the wall, champagne glass raised to her
lips. Paul, the maître d', moved the table to enable him to get beside her,
pouring champagne into his waiting glass. He could see she was determined to
make a final assault. Despite his previous impression, he found himself
expectant. She seemed beautiful suddenly. Even her flat chest in her tight
bodice appeared mysteriously attractive. And she was deliciously young.

"I've been sitting here composing a story in my head
about all the people in this place." She clinked her glass with his and
sipped champagne.

"A potpourri of aberrations."

"You see that man in the corner..."

"Enough," Nick said.

"You don't want to hear about his proclivities?"

"Not at all."

"Then how about mine?" She reached for his hand
under the table, enmeshing her fingers, squeezing his.

"I'm sure it would be interesting," he said,
warmed by the champagne, feeling her sexuality emerging. She held his hand
until their lunch arrived, releasing it, finally, to slice her veal.

"You really should hire me," she said, lighting a
cigarette, lifting her coffee cup. "I've got all the requirements, a
powerful sense of observation, great contacts. I know everybody. At least my
father does. I'm not bad-looking, although I am missing a bit in some
departments." She dropped her eyes to her chest. "But then I have
compensating characteristics. You, Mr. Big Shot Editor, actually need me."

"Can you write?"

She puffed deeply on her cigarette, a first sign of some
agitation.

"I'm workmanlike," she said, as if it were an
admission. "I'm no Anaïs Nin, but then again, I'll have you."

"Me?"

"You're an editor, aren't you?"

He wasn't interested in being a Pygmalion, he told himself.
Later when she excused herself to go to the ladies', he watched her cross the
room. Observing her tight, rounded rear, he remembered her reference to
compensating characteristics. Somehow it seemed tied to the decision to give
her a free-lance assignment. What the hell, he thought, he was not above
trading his position for flesh. It was, after all, one of the fringe benefits
of influence. Was it really a form of rape? He snickered at the reference. I am
a male chauvinist pig, he thought.

For obvious reasons, Henry Landau was the go-between with
Margaret, who immediately saw through the ploy.

"I thought I was going to pick my own staff," she
had complained to Nick. "Henry has ordered me, literally ordered me, to
give this kid an assignment."

"I'll check," he said innocently, calling her
back later.

"She might be exactly what you're looking for. You
make your own judgment after you see her copy." He chuckled over the
conspiracy.

"I wasn't born yesterday," Margaret fumed.

"You're a goddamned whoremonger," Henry had also
observed, smiling.

"She's really not my speed," he had responded, flushing.

Her assignment was to cover a Kennedy Center event, a
social, artsy affair, in connection with the opening night of a British play
starring Rex Harrison.

Arranging to meet her for breakfast in his apartment the
next morning, he had prepared an elaborate seduction breakfast: orange juice
and champagne, scrambled eggs, croissants, and coffee all laid out on a table
near the terrace with a single yellow flower as a centerpiece. He felt giddy
with his foolishness, silly. He also put on a velvet smoking jacket which he
had found hanging in the closet and topped it off with an ascot.

"You look like Little Lord Fauntleroy," she said,
breezing into the apartment, taking in the scene knowingly. "You little
devil."

But under the patina of chic sophistication, she was
nervous, her fingers wrinkling the copy paper as she pulled it out of her
pocketbook.

"The moment of truth," she said. "I was up
all night, trying to get it right. As you'll see, Nick, I talk a good
game."

He opened the copy, thankful for the opportunity for
professionalism, and began to read. Without a pencil at the ready, he felt
frustrated. She must have sensed it, since she pulled a ballpoint pen out of
her bag.

"It stinks, right?" she said.

"It's not all that bad," he lied. "It needs
a little work." He walked to a desk in the corner and began to re-fashion
it with the pen, while she stood over him, sipping the champagne and orange
juice. He worked swiftly, carefully, jabbing the pen as he sliced and rewrote,
fitting together the pieces with swirls and curlicues. Feeling her breath near
his ear, he spurred himself on to re-fashion the story with special care,
showing off. He was, after all, doing his thing.

"Shorten your sentences. Use the omnipotent point of
view. Take a position as superior observer. You should write the way you
talk."

"Believe me, Nick, I try."

He turned his face upward to her, watching her coolness
evaporate as she read the changes in her copy.

"You must think I'm full of shit," she said.

"Just young. You can learn it, Jennie." He stood
up, watching her, sensing the vulnerability beneath the coolness.

"I want to learn," she said, putting her
champagne glass on the desk and leaning her body against his. He kissed her
deeply, his hands roaming to her hard, curved buttocks, pressing her pelvis
toward his already erected organ. She reached down and felt it.

"I want that," she said, leading him to the couch
in the corner, kneeling between his legs, unzipping his pants with a feathery
experienced touch.

"I'm told I do this beautifully, far better than I
write," she said, lightly moving her tongue up and down the shaft of his
erected penis, moaning lightly. He reached out, curious about her breasts,
which were tiny mounds. He unbuttoned the back of her dress, feeling her
boniness. He noted from the beginning that she was sexually aggressive, a
challenge he felt, at least on that first morning, that he could meet, and did,
as he held back waiting for the moment when he would tell her to stop so that
he could plunge himself into her. But she would not desist, increasing her oral
activity, caressing him with marvelous experience, goading until he could not
find the will to move, feeling his body explode, his semen pouring into her
mouth.