Carl Hiaasen – Basket Case

“I’ll bet she did.”

“Honest. That’s all.”

“Then why didn’t you pop out and say hi?”

Juan says, “She asked me not to.”

That’s just like Emma, worrying that Juan’s presence as my friend and her potential sex partner would somehow undermine her primacy in the editor-reporter relationship.

“Hell,” I say, “I thought she had you lashed to the bed.”

“I wish.” Juan, smiling again. Sometimes he’s too charming for his own good.

“Did she tell you or not?”

“Why you stopped by? Sure, she told me.”

“And did she tell you what she said?”

Juan nods sympathetically. “It really blows.”

“That’s why I’m drinking.”

“Three beers is not drinking, Jack.” He has counted the bottles on the floor. “Three beers is sulking.”

“What should I do about Emma?” I rise out of a slouch. “Wait—why the hell’m I asking you?”

“Because I’m wise beyond my years?”

“Do me a favor,” I say. “If you’re screwing her, please don’t tell me. Just change the subject and I’ll get the message.”

“Deal,” says Juan with a decisive nod. “Hey, there’s a rumor Marino’s coming out of retirement!”

“Very smooth, asshole.”

“Jack, I’m not sleeping with Emma.”

“Excellent,” I say, “then you’re free to advise me. This woman intends to dump Jimmy Stoma on the Metro desk. My story, Juan, and this cold-blooded wench wants to give it away!”

“And I thought the Sports desk was a pit.”

I hear myself asking, “What can you possibly see in her?”

Juan hesitates. I know he’s at no loss for words because he is a fine writer, much better than I am, even in his second language.

“Emma’s different than the others, Jack.”

“So is a two-headed scorpion.”

“You want, I’ll talk to her.”

“No!”

“Just trying to help.”

“You don’t understand,” I say. “There’s a complicated dynamic between Emma and me.”

Juan’s right foot is tapping to the music; Jagger, singing of street-fighting men.

“It’s my story,” I grumble, “and she won’t let me do it.”

“I’m sorry, man.” Juan knows what happened to me, the whole odious business. He knows where I stand at the newspaper. He calls me “Obituary Boy” to keep things light, but he truly feels lousy about the situation. It can’t be helped. He’s a star and I’m a lump of jackal shit.

“Quit,” he says earnestly.

“That’s the best you can do?”

Juan has been advising me to resign ever since my demotion to the Death page. “That’s exactly what Emma wants—didn’t she tell you? It’s what they all want. So I’m not quitting, Juan, until the day they beg me to stay.”

He’s not up for one of my legendary rants. I can’t imagine why. “Tell me about Jimmy Stoma,” he says.

So I tell him everything I know.

“Okay,” he says after a moment’s thought, “let’s say there was no autopsy. What does that really prove? It’s the Bahamas, Jack. I’m guessing they know a drowned scuba diver when they see one.”

“But what if—”

“Anyway, who’d want to kill a has-been rock star?” Juan asks, not cruelly.

“Maybe nobody,” I admit, “but I won’t know for sure unless Emma cuts me free for a few days.”

Juan sits forward and rubs his chin. I trust his judgment. He would have made a terrific news reporter if he didn’t love baseball so much.

“I’ve got something to show you,” he says, bouncing to his feet, “but I left it in the car.”

He’s out the door and back in two minutes. He hands me a printout of the Jimmy Stoma obituary that will run in tomorrow’s New York Times. The header says: James Stomarti, 39, Rambunctious Rock Performer.

Although the story isn’t half as long as mine, I refuse to read it. The Times has the most elegant obituary writing in the world, and I’m in no mood to be humbled.

“Look at the damn story,” Juan insists.

“Later.”

“Yours was better.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Pitiful,” Juan says. “You’re a child.”

I peek at the first paragraph:

James Bradley Stomarti, once the hell-raising front man for the 1980s rock group Jimmy and the Slut Puppies, died last week on a laid-back boating excursion in the Bahamas.

I mutter to Juan, “The lead’s not bad.”