Monday, October 14

     Melody Marven groaned as the clock radio snapped on at precisely 5:45.  She felt like she barely had slept.  Yesterday was supposed to be her day off, and she'd spent hours of it talking on the phone to other reporters, many of whom she knew, a few she actually could stand.  All day they'd been calling, wanting to know more about this Zorro character.  Really, she had only seen him for a few seconds.  And she resented being asked how it felt to have been "rescued" by the vigilante.
     Now she pulled herself out of bed and lit the last Vantage from a pack on the nightstand.  Well, she thought, she'd better enjoy the notoriety while it lasted; her Q rating needed help.  Soon it would be back to the Oddball Beat, where she'd been for 10 weeks now, since a certain piece of E-mail she'd written had found its way to the newspapers.  In it, she'd confided to a colleague at another station that her co-anchor had "the worst toupee since Arthur Godfrey" and smelled "like a mule."
      In the same note she'd called her station manager an idiot and speculated that he "sits down to pee."  Her colleague's supervisor had come across the E-mail and given the item to the Post gossip column, which had agreed to quote him anonymously.  The note had caused a sensation in the cutthroat little world of New York broadcasting.  Her stigmatized, ill-coiffed co-anchor had taken a job in Denver, and she had been demoted to fill-in status at the anchor desk and sent back on the street with a camera crew.  Station management had termed it a "lateral reassignment to specialty reporting."  She doubted her contract, due to expire in three weeks, would be renewed, and the station had kept her so busy she'd had little time to look for another job.
     So after today's election detail — spending the day with the mayor, an assignment made before her fall — she would be back on the fringe, unless this Zorro character popped up again, which she doubted.  Besides the abuse she'd seen him take, reportedly he'd had the living daylights beaten out of him in the later incident.  And he was wanted for horse theft.  No, the story would die down in a week, and it would be back to toilet trout.  She walked into the small living room of her $1,250-per-month apartment and looked out the window, down onto E. 71st Street.  The newsstand was just opening; good, she needed cigarets.  She peered over at D'Onofrio's Bakery, wishing it were open already.  The big banner was still hanging across the front: "Happy Columbus Day."
     She blinked, now remembering what the vigilante had said when he'd run up to her: "Happy Columbus Day, miss!"  Now, what did that mean?
     She frowned and took another drag.  It meant he was a polite mental case.  Big deal.  Turning back into the room, she tucked the information away.  Maybe it would mean something later.  Maybe not.  She did know one thing: She had seen him somewhere before.
     She showered and had just finished dressing when the intercom buzzed.  She let her cameraman up and unlatched the door, then returned to the bedroom. In a moment Lopez entered with two containers of coffee.
     "Shake a leg, Mel.  Let's not keep the mayor waiting."
     "Fuck the mayor," came the reply.  "Where's Gideon?"
     "He's gonna meet us there."
     "How much time we got?"
     "We're s'posed to be there at 6:30.  We got 10 minutes."
     "Shit!"  Melody appeared in the hallway, elegant in a tailored cream suit and forest green turtleneck.    "What the fuck is the mayor doing at 6:30 that we have to document?  She's probably douching, for chrissakes."
     "Hey," said Lopez.  "Do you eat with that garbage mouth?
     "Oh, fuck you too," she said.  "And  I need cigarets."
     "Got ‘em already.  Let's roll."
     She pulled on her tan trenchcoat and looked in the hallway mirror.  "Look at my hair!  I look like shit!"
     "Look like shit in the van.  Let's go!"
     Lopez made for the elevator; Melody ran into the bedroom to grab her hairbrush.  On the clock radio, the traffic reporter was taking abuse from the disc jockey.  Melody flicked it off and dashed for the door, on the way banging her shin on the bed frame.  "Ah, fuck!" she yelled, hopping into the hall.  "I hate the fuckin' mayor!  I didn't even vote for her!"
     Lopez was holding the elevator.  "You didn't vote, sunshine.  Let's go."