of. ,Woman Rescued by Yeti!, How dare they make this into a joke."
"Take her into the conference room and get the whole story," said Billie. "I want your view on this from start to finish. I want the details the rest of the press has been all too happy to miss."
"I,ve been offered money for this interview," broke in Ms. Larson. "I turned it down to come to you."
"Just hold it here, Billie," said Reuben. He held Ms. Larson,s hand as warmly as he could. "I,m not the person to do this story and you know perfectly well why. It,s been two weeks since that disaster in Mendocino, and you,re expecting me to cover another animal attack - ."
"You,re damn right I am," said Billie. "Who else? Look, everybody,s been calling you, Reuben. The networks, the cable news - the New York Times, for heaven,s sakes! They want your comment. Is this the beast from Mendocino? And if you don,t think the people from Mendocino have been calling, well, you have another think coming. Now you,re telling me you won,t cover this for us."
" ,Us, should have a little loyalty here, Billie," Reuben shot back. "I,m not ready to - ."
"Mr. Golding, please, I,m asking you to listen to me," said the woman. "Don,t you understand what this is like? I was nearly killed last night. This thing saved me, and now I,m an international joke for describing what I saw."
Reuben went speechless. The blood was pounding in his face. Where the hell are Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen? He was saved by Billie,s phone. She listened attentively for fifteen seconds, grunted, and clicked it off. He heard the words too.
"Well, the coroner,s office has confirmed it was an animal, all right, canine or lupine, but an animal. That much is out of the way."
"What about hair or fur?" Reuben asked.
"It wasn,t an animal," the woman protested. She was almost screaming. "I,m telling you, it had a face, a human face, and it spoke to me. It spoke words! It tried to help me. It touched me. It was gentling me! Stop saying it was an animal."
Billie got up and beckoned for them to follow.
The conference room was windowless, sterile, with an oval mahogany table and several scattered Chippendale chairs. The two television monitors near the ceiling were flashing CNN and Fox silently with flowing captions.
Suddenly a lurid painting of a werewolf, comic-book style, filled up one screen.
Reuben flinched.
In a flash he saw that hallway in Marchent,s house, this time illuminated by his imagination, and the beast man there, descending on those two men who,d been trying to kill him.
He covered his eyes, and Billie grabbed at his wrist, "Wake up, Reuben," she said. She turned to the young woman. "Sit down here and tell Reuben everything you remember." She was hollering at her assistant, Althea, to bring some coffee.
The woman put her face in her hands and cried.
Reuben felt a rising panic. He moved in closer to the woman and put his arm around her. One of the monitors was running a clip from the Lon Chaney Jr. Wolf Man. And there suddenly was the first panoramic shot of Nideck Point that he,d ever seen on the television screen - his house with its peaked gables and diamond-pane windows.
"No, no," said the woman, "not like that. Can you make them turn that thing off? He didn,t look like Lon Chaney and he didn,t look like Michael J. Fox!"
"Althea," Billie shouted. "Turn that damn TV off."
Reuben had the urge to just walk out now. But that was out of the question.
"What about the kidnapping?" Reuben murmured.
"What about it? You,re off it. You,re on the wolf man full-time. Althea, get Reuben,s tape recorder."
"Don,t need it, Billie," said Reuben, "got my iPhone." He set the iPhone to record.
She slammed the door as she went out.
For the next half hour, he listened to the woman, his thumbs busy as he wrote his notes, his eyes returning again and again to the woman,s face.
But again and again, he faded out on her words. He couldn,t stop trying to picture "the beast" that had almost killed him.
Again and again, he nodded, he squeezed her hand, and at one point he took her in his arms. But he was not there.
Finally her husband showed up and insisted she leave, though the woman herself wanted very much to go on talking, and Reuben ended up walking them to the elevator doors.