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experience.
    â€œWhat about that blind tap-dance troupe? I could shoot an interview with them tomorrow. Or the deaf bass player … ,” I offered.
    â€œRobin, all bass players are deaf, eventually.”
    â€œWell, the matchbook might not come directly from Anya’s. Those sex clubs and phone-sex lines advertise on matchbooks given out in delis and stuff. It could come from …”
    â€œAnya’s matches are only available at Anya’s. I called and asked.”
    I’d been debating whether to tell Jerry that I’d seen Dr. Kanengiser, as I didn’t want to inspire any jokes or summon up any images of my genitalia in his mind. But he’d left me no choice. I had to play that card.
    â€œI might not be the best reporter for this piece,” I said. “I had an appointment with him last night. I didn’t keep it, but I did see him once.”
    â€œAnd so? You knew him well or something?”
    â€œI didn’t know the guy at all. He never examined me. But it still makes me uncomfor—”
    â€œAnd you’re not a suspect?”
    â€œOf course not.”
    â€œGood, wouldn’t want any more of that Griff trouble we had. So he didn’t examine you and you’re not a suspect. Nice try, Robin, but you can’t get out of this on some ethical loophole. The word around here is, he was a busy boy up there on the twenty-seventh floor. Not all the women who came to visit him were patients.”
    â€œBut rumors don’t—”
    â€œRobin, he’s just a really grabby example of someone who may have been involved in the S&M lifestyle. We don’t need a lot on him.”
    â€œI don’t mean to be impertinent … ,” I began.
    Jerry pulled out the lower left drawer of his desk. The drawer stuck slightly, causing his coffee mug, which reads CHIEF MELON INSPECTOR — WTNA TV & RADIO , and the ACE award for the vigilantism series—the series I did despite the fact that the trophy bore Jerry’s name only—to rattle.
    â€œSee these?” he said, motioning to a drawer full of papers. “These are the résumés of all the reporters who want to replace you. You don’t seem to get that what’s good for Special Reports is good for all of us. I’ve carried you a long time in this unit, Robin. You know I have.”
    â€œBut Jerry, just hear me out—”
    â€œRobin, it seems whenever I listen to you we get into trouble. Do I have to remind you that, because of you, the cryogenics people are suing us …”
    â€œThat wasn’t my fault!” I said. “Besides, the heads were saved.”
    This referred to an incident at the Cryogenics East center, where the heads of some thirty-five people were kept frozen in hopes of being brought back to life some day with bionic bodies. While we were shooting, on an unseasonably muggy day I might add, there was a power failure compounded by the breakdown of the backup generator. Meltdown. The place exploded in panic as the proprietor tried to get LILCO and an emergency electrician on the line and his assistants ran out to the gas station next door to get ice to keep the frozen heads frozen.
    It turns out our lighting equipment shorted out the system, which was the fault of our new cameraman, Mike. He wasn’t used to operating with American voltage. In any event, as I said, the heads were saved, thus saving my conscience from the added burden of thirty-five rotting human heads.
    â€œYour fault or not, these things always seem to happen when you’re around. And I still don’t know what you said to offend Max Guffy,” Jerry continued.
    â€œYou know how touchy morticians are …”
    â€œThe point is, I think you know what side your bread is buttered on, Robin.”
    Just for emphasis, he opened that big drawer full of résumés again.
    What an asshole, I thought, even as I smiled at him. Try as I might to be like Atticus