Bad News

by Linwood Barclay

  ‘Hey, stranger,’ I said. ‘I can’t remember the last time I saw you.’ She hugged me and I gave her a kiss on the cheek. ‘You here for dinner?’

  ‘What are we having?’

  I love this question, the one that says, Hey, there’s nothing like getting together with family, so long as you’re serving something decent.

  ‘Spaghetti,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t worry about me,’ Angie said. ‘I’ll grab something somewhere. I’ve got to go back downtown tonight for a lecture anyway.’

  She blew threw the kitchen like a twister, there one moment, up the stairs the next. I heard the front door open, a new storm system approaching.

  ‘Well, I hope you’re happy now,’ Paul said, forcing me out of the way as he reached into the fridge for a can of Coke.

  ‘Happy about what?’ I asked.

  ‘I got a job. Just like you and Mom wanted. I won’t have to be bugging you for money anymore.’

  ‘That’s fantastic!’ I said. ‘About the job, not the money thing. When did this happen?’

  ‘This afternoon. After school. I went by this place, they needed help, they had, like, this sign in the window, I applied, I got it. You want to hear how the interview went? I go, “I’d like to inquire about your job?” And they go, “You start tomorrow.”’ He scowled.

  ‘Where’s the job?’

  ‘That place over on Welk? Burger Crisp?’

  ‘Burger Crisp? What do they serve, burnt burgers?’

  ‘I know, it’s a fucking stupid name. The “Crisp” is supposed to refer to the fries, but I guess they didn’t want to call it Burger and Crispy Fries, so they called it Burger Crisp. These are the people I’m going to be working for, who can’t even come up with a non-sucking name for their establishment.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, putting on my positive face, ‘this is clearly a cause for celebration, then.’

  Paul rolled his eyes. ‘This is my new life, flipping burgers, scraping grease, and I have to wear a frickin’ paper hat over my hair that makes me look like some guy who couldn’t make it into the retard academy. And the woman who runs this place, she’s like Greek or Russian or Turkish or something and looks like if she stood in front of a moving tank she’d total it. And she’s got these two twin daughters who help her run the place, look like they could be playing for the NFL. If they fell over, they wouldn’t be any shorter.’

  ‘So,’ I said, struggling to maintain my cheerfulness, ‘when do you start?’

  ‘Tomorrow, after school,’ Paul said. ‘Unless I blow my brains out tonight.’ He shook his head, unable to believe something this horrible could happen to him. ‘When my grades start to go down, it’s not going to be my fault.’

  ‘Why don’t you go share your news with Angie,’ I said. ‘She just got home.’

  I figured, with so much joy in the house, why not spread it around?

  Paul trudged upstairs, his every step shaking the house right down to the foundation.

  The phone rang. ‘Hello?’ I said.

  ‘It’s all set up,’ Trixie said. ‘We’ve got a sit-down with Martin Benson to talk some sense into him. Tomorrow. One o’clock.’

  SIX

  Trixie told me the location – Pluto’s, an Oakwood diner that featured neither delisted planets nor Disney characters in its décor – before I could voice my objections. By the time I was able to get the words ‘Trixie, there’s no way’ out of my mouth, she’d hung up. I called back but she didn’t answer, so I left a message: ‘Trixie, I can’t meet you and this Benson guy. Maybe if you gave me some idea why this has freaked you out so, I could help you with some sort of alternative, but I can’t talk a fellow reporter out of – Oh fuck, just call me back.’

  Paul had come back downstairs and was in the kitchen, looking in the fridge for something to snack on. ‘I heard you saying to Mom the other day that we swear too much. Like, look in the mirror, Dad.’ He found a processed-cheese slice, peeled the cellophane wrapper off, folded it in half, downed it in two bites, walked out.

  Trixie did not call back. Not during dinner, not that entire evening. I left two more messages asking her to call.

  So I had to decide whether she’d gone out and wasn’t there to take my calls, or was ignoring me. She likely had caller ID, so I placed one call using Paul’s cell phone, which he’d left on the table by the front door, and still she didn’t answer, which convinced me that she wasn’t home. I only hoped Paul didn’t hit Redial and find himself connected with a dominatrix.

  After dinner, while we were clearing the table, Sarah said, ‘So what, exactly, did Trixie want today? You said something at work about journalistic ethics?’

  I shrugged, like it was no big deal, doing my best to cover the fact that Trixie’s actions were very much on my mind. ‘Oh, there’s some reporter, for the Suburban, wants to do a story on her, and she was asking my advice.’

  ‘What kind of story? About what she does for a living?’

  ‘I guess. Kink in the burbs, that kind of thing.’

  ‘So what was she asking you? Whether to do it or not?’

  ‘Yeah, sort of. I think she’s a bit uncomfortable with it.’

  Sarah snorted. ‘Well, considering that what she does is, to the best of my knowledge, against the law, I can see that.’

  ‘Anyway,’ I said, wanting to move on, ‘it’s her decision. Whatever she wants to do, doesn’t matter to me.’

  Sarah gave me a look. ‘She’s not dragging you into some sort of trouble, is she?’

  ‘Trouble? Are you kidding? Do I look like someone who needs any more trouble? Haven’t I had enough trouble lately?’

  ‘You haven’t forgotten your promise, have you?’ Sarah said.

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘The one you made? Just a few days ago? When you got back from your dad’s place? That you weren’t going to get into any of these ridiculous messes again? Where you end up, Jesus Christ almighty, where you end up nearly getting yourself killed?’

  I finished drying off a dish and threw the dish towel over my shoulder and turned and held Sarah by the shoulders. ‘The last thing in the world I want to do is get into any more situations where I, or anyone in this family, is put at risk. If anyone understands how unsuited I am to that sort of thing, to taking on the frickin’ forces of evil, believe me, it’s me.’

  Sarah eyed me warily before slipping her arms around me. She rested her head on my chest. ‘Okay,’ she said. Then, more softly, ‘Okay.’

  I tried Trixie again in the morning, from my desk at the Metropolitan. She picked up.

  ‘I tried to get you last night,’ I said. ‘You weren’t answering.’

  ‘I was out. And besides, if I can’t risk clients coming to the house, what’s the point of answering the phone? Why? Everything okay?’

  ‘I can’t make it today. I can’t meet with you and Martin Benson.’

  ‘But Zack, it’s already set up. How’s it going to look if you’re a no-show? Isn’t that going to make him even more suspicious?’

  ‘You’ve told him I’m coming? That I, personally, am going to be there?’

  ‘I sort of hinted that there might be a surprise guest,’ Trixie said. I didn’t say anything for a moment, so Trixie continued, ‘Zack, I know I’m putting you in a bit of a bind here, no pun intended, but this is really important to me. Remember that night you came to me, with that ledger in hand, asking me to figure it out while those nutcases were hunting you down?’

  ‘I remember,’ I said.

  ‘So I’m calling in a favor. Just talk to the guy. Look, Zack, there’s more at stake here than you realize.’

  ‘I wish you’d tell me.’

  There was a pause on the other end of the line. ‘I wish I could. Maybe, sometime, I can. But for now, I’m asking you to take this on faith.’

  I swallowed. Shit. ‘I’ll be there,’ I said, and hung up.

  ‘You’ll be where?’

  I looked over my shoulder. Sarah. ‘What?’ I said.<
br />
  ‘You got something on the go? Because I was just going to give you something.’ She was standing there with a piece of paper in her hand.

  ‘Sure, what is it?’

  ‘But if you’ve got another story, I can hand this off to someone else.’

  ‘No, no, let me have it.’

  ‘Okay, well, it’s just some city hall budget thing. The bureau’s a bit short-staffed this week, so we’re helping out. It’s about the proposed Windsor Street bridge project over Mackenzie Creek. The way it is now, you have to go all the way down to Broad, or up to Milner, and the neighborhood has been asking for a bridge for years and every year when they prepare the budget the money gets put in but at the last minute gets taken out.’

  ‘Yeah sure, I can do that.’ I took the sheet from her that had some contact numbers on it and an earlier story someone at the city hall bureau had done.

  ‘What’s the other thing you got?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘Oh, just someone calling about a Star Trek convention. There’s going to be one here, next spring, they wanted to send me some stuff on it, because of my books. That guy, the one who played Picard’s nemesis, Q? That guy? I think he’s coming, they want to know if we’re going to want to interview him.’

  ‘Okay,’ Sarah said. ‘You just better check with Entertainment. They find out you’re interviewing some TV star, they’re going to have a shit fit.’ She glanced up at one of the many wall clocks, all set at different times depending on the world locale they were supposed to represent. It was midafternoon in London. It would be nice to be there, hanging out in some pub, right about now. ‘I’ve got to go to the morning meeting. You know how Magnuson is when you show up late at these things.’

  ‘How’s the foreign editor thing going?’

  ‘Interview’s in a couple of days,’ Sarah said. ‘Tonight you can drill me on the difference between Shiites and Sunnis. I don’t think I understand it any better than Bush does.’

  ‘Sure,’ I said, forcing a smile. I wasn’t a particularly good liar, and I was afraid she wouldn’t buy the Star Trek thing. But it helped that she had a lot on her mind.

  I could make some calls on the bridge story, get the interviews done, I figured, before heading out to Oakwood.

  A couple of hours later, I slipped out of the office, got in our Virtue, a hybrid car that I’d bought in a police auction a couple of years ago, and did the twenty-minute drive out of downtown to the suburbs of Oakwood. I headed south off the highway, towards the lake, and found a parking spot along the main street, just down from Pluto’s.

  Pluto’s, while ignoring the solar system and animated characters, is done up with enough fifties-style kitsch on the walls that you’re supposed to think the place has been around the last forty years. The only problem with that is, in a suburban community like Oakwood, nothing’s that old. So you plaster the walls with Elvis movie posters, put in a jukebox that doesn’t actually work, and line the window ledges with antique Grape Nehi, and no one’s the wiser.

  But I seemed to recall that they made a pretty decent breakfast of eggs and sausages, and a respectable turkey club at lunchtime, and by the time I arrived I was ready for something to eat.

  The place wasn’t that busy, and I quickly scanned the tables. I didn’t see any sign of Trixie, but there was a guy sitting in a booth by the window who looked remotely like the logo shot that went with Martin Benson’s column in the Suburban, so I tentatively approached. He was probably in his early forties, balding, thirty or forty pounds overweight, wearing a sports jacket that was just slightly too small for him.

  When I hesitated by his table, he looked at me, his face apprehensive, almost fearful.

  ‘Martin Benson?’ I said.

  He nodded, attempted to stand, but he was caught under the table and could only manage to get halfway up. ‘Yeah,’ he said, extending a hand. I shook it. It was damp.

  ‘Zack Walker,’ I said, letting go of his hand and sliding in across from him.

  ‘Why does that name ring a bell?’ he asked cautiously, settling back into the booth.

  I smiled. ‘I, uh, I’ve written a few sci-fi books. And my byline runs occasionally in the Metropolitan. I write features, stuff like that, but not a column. I don’t get a head shot in the paper like you do.’

  Benson nodded. ‘That’s where I’ve seen the name. In the paper. I don’t read science fiction. Mostly I read literary fiction.’

  I just smiled.

  ‘So,’ he said. ‘Where’s Ms Snelling?’

  ‘I guess she’ll be here any time now,’ I said. ‘Why don’t we get some coffee while we wait.’ I signaled the waitress, asked for two coffees. ‘Have you had the turkey club here? It’s good, lots of real, roasted turkey, not that processed stuff.’

  Benson nodded again. ‘I was worried you might be some sort of tough guy. You know, scare me into backing off my story.’

  I laughed nervously. ‘If there’s anything I’m not, it’s a tough guy.’

  ‘But you do want me to back off the story, right?’ He leaned a little closer across the table. ‘That’s why you’re here.’

  ‘No, no,’ I protested as two porcelain mugs of coffee were placed in front of us. ‘Of course not.’ I looked around, checking the front door of Pluto’s. ‘Where the hell is she?’ I glanced at my watch. Trixie was seven minutes late. Why was she seven minutes late to her own meeting?

  ‘So what’s your connection to Ms Snelling, then?’ Benson asked. ‘You a relative? She a friend? Or,’ and he paused a moment here, ‘are you a client?’

  I nearly spat out a mouthful of coffee. ‘No, gosh no, we’re just, we used to be, this was a couple of years ago, we were neighbors. We – that’s me and the family – lived a couple of doors down, but we’ve moved back downtown since then. You might have heard about what happened, there was a bit of a kerfuffle.’

  ‘No,’ said Benson. ‘I only got to the Suburban a year ago. Came here from Buffalo.’

  ‘Oh yeah, wings,’ I said. ‘Love those wings.’

  Martin Benson stared, thrilled that his former home was reduced to an appetizer.

  He said, ‘You do know what she does for a living.’

  I hesitated. ‘What is it you think she does for a living?’

  ‘I think she runs a sex business. I think she’s a hooker, a very high-end hooker that caters to very specific tastes.’

  ‘I certainly wouldn’t know anything about that.’

  ‘Then why did you nearly choke on your coffee when I asked whether you were one of her clients?’

  ‘Look, I, I’m pretty sure Ms Snelling – where the hell is she, anyway? – is not a prostitute. She does not have sexual relations with her customers.’

  ‘Where have I heard that phrase before?’ Benson asked. ‘When I asked whether you were a relative or a friend or a client, I forgot one. Are you her pimp?’

  I guess my jaw dropped, and I stared at him in openmouthed astonishment for a moment, before I had the sense to close it. Twice I started to say something, and each time, a chuckle got in the way. ‘You have no idea,’ I said, ‘how totally ridiculous that comment is.’

  ‘Is it? Then you tell me, why are you here?’

  ‘First of all, let’s go back to this hooker thing. Far as I know, Trixie – Ms Snelling – does not offer sexual services. But you know what, you’d be better asking her about that yourself once she gets here.’

  The waitress had reappeared, notepad at the ready. ‘You gentlemen ready to order?’ she asked.

  ‘We’re still waiting for someone,’ I said. She nodded and withdrew.

  Now Benson was looking at his own watch. ‘Pretty late.’

  ‘I’m sure she’ll be along any—’ The cell phone in my jacket pocket rang and vibrated. ‘Hang on,’ I said, taking out the phone and flipping it open. ‘Hello?’

  ‘How’s it going?’ Trixie asked.

  ‘Where the hell are you?’ I said. Benson’s eyebrows went up. ‘We’re here, in Pluto’s, waiting
.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. I watched you go in. I’m parked up the street, reading your newspaper.’

  I couldn’t stop myself from looking out the window, which, of course, tipped Benson off to do the same.

  ‘How long have you been there?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t know, half hour maybe. Have you steered him off this thing yet?’

  ‘Trixie, we were sort of waiting for you.’

  ‘I won’t be able to make it,’ she said. ‘You know what that fat fucker will do, soon as I walk in or sit down, he’s going to take my picture. Why do you think he showed up? He wants a nice shot to run with his story.’

  I slid out of the booth, held up an index finger to Benson to indicate I’d be back in one minute, and moved a few booths away before I continued my conversation.

  ‘He thinks I’m your fucking pimp,’ I said.

  Trixie laughed. ‘Now that’s rich.’

  ‘Look, I came out here for a meeting, a meeting that I thought you were going to attend. You don’t show. Trixie, you’re my friend, but you’re fucking me around.’

  ‘Okay, go back and tell him I’ll come in if he gives you his camera phone.’

  ‘Jesus, what if he says he hasn’t got it on him? Do you want me to frisk him?’ Trixie was quiet. Finally, I said, ‘I’ll see what I can do. Call me back in five.’

  I slid back into the booth. ‘That was Ms Snelling,’ I said. ‘She’s, she’s afraid that if she comes in here, you’re going to take her picture.’

  Benson said nothing.

  ‘So. I think she’d be willing to come in if you let me hold on to your camera phone while she joins us.’

  Benson ran his tongue over his lips. ‘So let me see if I understand this. You, a reporter for the Metropolitan, want to take from me, a reporter for the Suburban, my camera phone, in case I want to use it to do my job. Is that what’s going on?’

  I had to admit that it sounded bad when he put it that way.

  ‘You know what?’ Benson said. ‘You fucking reporters, you work for these big fucking dailies, you have no respect for what a guy like me does for a smaller paper like the Suburban. You think we’re some kind of joke, don’t you? That we just exist to wrap around a bunch of advertising flyers, that we don’t care about journalism, that we don’t care about what we do.’