The Deviant

by Adam Sommers

  “Oh, God,” Eric groaned, “That’s horrible.”

  “Dispatch is to blame, but really, the whole thing falls in the fire commissioner’s lap. He won’t upgrade the radios. You can hardly understand what’s being said. He won’t allow the Ambulance Service to be part of the Fire Department. So there are two separate dispatch systems and they drop the ball half the time. Tobias and Marisol, they are not the only ones. Far from it. And I’m sick of it. And it’s time to start making some noise.”

  “Well,” Eric said clicking his pen and looking up with a slightly devious smile, “if you want noise, you’ve come to the right place.”

  “I can get you whatever you need. Or someone here can.” Looking around the room that had now gone deadly silent, Eric saw earnest faces and nodding heads. As far as sources go, he had hit the mother lode. And, more than that, if they were right, he was actually going to have a chance to do some good.

  “Let’s start with the commissioner. His name’s Cohles. Lucius Cohles. He’s got this little kingdom and he just will not hear any complaint about anything. He used to be a firefighter,” Ed Cay went on, “brown-nosed his way up to captain and when his pal Grissom Lester became mayor, guess who won the lottery.”

  There it is again, Eric winced. Grissom Lester.

  Two hours later, the bar lights came up and Eric and the rest got up to leave. Eric had two notebooks full of names and cases and sources that would take days to organize, decode, and contact. Way too excited to sleep, even at three in the morning, he started going through his notes deciding that he would tell no one about it—not Mitch, not Carrie, certainly not Zalinsky, not even Debbie Harrison or John Williams—until the time was right.

  He worked his shifts, pursued the leads on the mayor that led nowhere one at a time, and ran on the various assignments that came in. At night, when everyone was gone from the newsroom, he hit the phones, set up appointments and made the rounds to the homes of those who would talk to him.

  Within a week, he had tons of information, so much that he kept manila folders organized into several categories:

  Family Sources

  Fire Sources

  Ambulance Sources

  He carefully documented the status of each case.

  Contacted or interviewed

  Not Contacted

  Denied

  Follow up: With date/time

  In a separate notebook he kept the interviews he’d conducted. It was a lot of information and it kept growing exponentially as one case, one family led to another and another, and a whole army of grieving and angry relatives.

  But, at nine o’clock on Thursday, with all of it carefully laid out on his desk, he started to write the first draft of his first story. He was done by ten o’clock. Eric had always been fast. In front of him was a story of about two-thousand words that essentially accused the fire commissioner, Lucius Cohles, of murder. He carefully read over his story, double checked his notes and his facts, picked up the phone and dialed.

  Certainly, he could have waited until the morning but at that time John Williams would be distracted by a hundred other things and, as Eric’s story was not breaking news, it risked being shuffled to a back burner. The subplot was that he wanted John to know he was there working at that ridiculous hour and he wanted John to himself.

  “Hi John.” It was ten-thirty, but John Williams made it very clear to his reporters that unless he was in a coma he was available twenty-four/seven. If you felt the need to tell him about a story, about your love life, about what color tie to get, he would make the time.

  “What’s up?” answered his slightly high and nasally voice.

  In broad strokes Eric laid out the gist of his story. When he was done, all John Williams said was, “You’ve been a busy little boy, Mr. Berger.” He was impressed and, although he didn’t say so, ecstatic.

  “Well, I can’t wait around all day for the mayor to get into another crash, can I?” Eric quipped.

  “True, true. So, with all this, what would you like to do now?”

  Eric loved the way John Williams put him in the driver’s seat. He was the creator, John Williams a facilitator.

  “I’d like to nail him to the freaking wall.”

  “Okay. I’ll call Debbie and Jayne, and we’ll see how to go forward. Get some sleep. We’ll meet soon as we can.”

  “Great. Thanks, John.”

  Again, John Williams didn’t say so, but he was thinking. “Good God, Eric, no, thank you.”

  Chapter 22

  Sunday, a couple of days after the meeting, Eric was working late. They were planning on turning Eric’s notes into a four- or five-part series, and they were trying very hard to keep it quiet in the newsroom. So Eric stayed after school and tried to craft the pieces. John and Debbie took his drafts and divided them up in the early mornings before things got started, offering guidance, filling holes, tweaking Eric’s writing, which was good, but not nearly as good as his reporting.

  There were no people in the newsroom on a Sunday night, just the cleaning crew. Eric had snuck in a couple of beers to keep him company as he tried to forge the ax that would lop off the head of the fire department and at least partially avenge some tragedies.

  His phone rang and Eric jumped. He’d been deep in thought. Who the hell would be calling him on his phone in the office? Maybe one of the fire sources, he hoped. If it was this late on a Sunday, it might be pretty juicy. “Hello?”

  “Please come to my office.”

  Eric did not immediately recognize the female voice. It could be Mitch Lozatti playing a practical joke on him. He’d fallen for them several times already and didn’t want to do so again, so he hesitated.

  “Is there a problem?”

  OH! Now he knew who it was. Jayne Grayman, and his heart started banging in his chest. “No, of course not. I’ll be right there.”

  What the hell?! Who even knew she was here? Why was she here? What does she want from me? I’ve screwed up somehow. I’m about to be fired. All these wild thoughts screamed through his brain as he tried to figure out how to even get to Jayne Grayman’s office. He’d never been upstairs on the mezzanine level where the editor-in-chief, her top deputies and all the business people had their offices. They could walk around the elevated walkway like generals on the parapet of a fort looking down at the worker bees. The workers could, in turn, look up, as if to Olympus, at the newspaper gods. How do I get there? Who are these people who control my fate?

  Frantically, Eric hurried into the lobby where he vaguely remembered seeing a set of stairs. The helpful security guard pointed him in the right direction and Eric was soon in uncharted territory.

  “It’s open. Come in,” Jayne Grayman said sharply, and Eric dutifully obeyed.

  The office was not at all what Eric had expected. From what he’d heard and seen of the editor-in-chief, he half-expected a single steel desk, with a computer, phone, and little Nazi flag on the corner. Maybe a sign on the wall that said, “Work Makes You Free.”

  What he got was the opposite. It was all indirect lighting, soft-colored walls that were hard to label. Beige? Taupe? Caramel? She had a big U-shaped desk that had several computer monitors, two phones and a large purple vase with a riot of fresh-cut flowers.

  Some piano music was playing in the background. He might be in huge trouble, or about to be fired, but Eric couldn’t help himself. “Nice place ya got here.”

  Jayne Grayman surprised Eric with a big smile and hearty laugh. “Thanks.”

  In the middle of the room was a circular table big enough to accommodate four or five people comfortably. Hanging over it was a large lamp divided into three sections. The whole setup reminded Eric of an operating room, but the bulbs in the lamp were frosted and shaped like some sort of exotic flower.

  Under his feet, there was carpeting rather than industrial tile as on the new
sroom floor. Someone, somewhere in this place has a shitload of money, Eric thought. Behind him, along the wall was a sofa made of animal skin. In front of the sofa was an irregularly shaped coffee table polished and dark.

  “I’m impressed,” said Jayne Grayman.

  The remark confused Eric Berger, who spouted the first thing that came to mind. “Impressed by what?”

  She laughed again. It wasn’t that bad of a laugh, and when her mouth opened she showed regular teeth, not the fangs of a jackal.

  “Your reporting, Eric.”

  He didn’t know what to say as he continued to stand awkwardly in the middle of the room just in front of the operating table.

  “Have a seat.” She indicated the sofa. “Do you drink wine?”

  He didn’t, but the word “yes” came out of his mouth.

  Jayne Grayman stood up and turned to a panel in the wall behind her desk. It slid open revealing a small refrigerator and a shelf with several glasses on it, including four wine glasses. She poured two glasses and walked to the round table in the middle of the room. She gave Eric his glass and took the chair closest to her, turned it around and sat in it facing him.

  The office, the wine, the lighting, even her laugh was kind of nice. But Eric was still on high alert. He felt uncomfortable and wished she’d get to the point. He’d give her a couple of minutes then excuse himself and go home.

  “What’s going on with you?” her chopped-off-looking square nose and dark eyes peered at him intently.

  What kind of question is that? thought Eric. “Going on?” he asked.

  “Yes, what exactly are you after? What do you want?”

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Grayman, I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Jayne, please. In private everyone calls me Jayne. Out there it has to be Ms. Grayman, or ma’am. In here, Jayne is just fine. We’re friends.”

  “Friends?”

  “Look, Eric, you’re not a kid and I’m certainly not a kid. We’ve both been doing this long enough to know that everyone wants something. Everyone is after something, otherwise they’d be doing nothing but watching TV and eating Cheetos. Here you are, new to the city, and in a few short weeks you’ve already gotten three or four exclusives with national pickup, and I don’t know a thing about you, where you are from, what drives you. I read the roughs of your EMS stories. They are good, very good.”

  Wow, was all Eric could think.

  “What are you seeking? What’s your ultimate goal?”

  “You’re serious?”

  “I’m serious.”

  “Well, for me, it’s pretty simple. I’ve never been after a lot of money or material things. I’ve just wanted to tell stories. The most compelling stories are those that have really bad, bad guys. And all I want to do is expose them. I started out thinking I’d be a cop or an FBI agent, but violence is not really my thing, so now I just want to be the next Bob Woodward. Hang the president’s scalp on my belt, if he’s dirty.”

  “You’re kidding,” she laughed, which irritated Eric. “You want to save the world?”

  “No, yeah. No. It’s not like that. I don’t really care about the world. The world is the world. You can’t really fix it. I just think it’s fun to catch people in the act of being scumbags.”

  She took a sip of wine. “You’d like the mayor’s beat, I’m guessing?” Her black eyes radiated intensity Eric hadn’t felt before.

  “Well, he’s certainly a scumbag. I’d like to keep after him.”

  “It won’t do you any good. He’s impenetrable.”

  “No, Ms. Grayman, he’s not.” And Eric resented the implication that he could not eventually nail Grissom Lester. “It only looks that way.”

  “Huh,” Jayne Grayman said thoughtfully. “What do you think you can do differently that the last five years of reporters haven’t been able to do?”

  “I have no idea. Maybe nothing. All I know is that I can try. If the president of the United States isn’t impenetrable, then certainly neither is this two-bit bully.”

  “How’s it going with you and Zalinsky?”

  “Honestly, it’s great. He’s got sources I could never reach and he’s no glory hound. He wants what I want.” Eric didn’t say so, but even though he found Warren Zalinsky easy to work with and a genuinely nice person, the newsroom stud had not brought much to the table as far as getting dirt on Grissom Lester.

  “And yet, despite his sources, you have the big stories, don’t you?”

  Eric shrugged, impressed that she echoed his thoughts.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I don’t know, Ms. Grayman. I guess I’m just nosy. Annoying.”

  “Oh, look at you, all modest. That’s cute.”

  Eric blushed.

  Jayne inhaled deeply, as if she’d thought of something or come to a conclusion in her mind. She did not say anything for a few beats, letting the carrot dangle there to see if Eric would nibble. When he didn’t leap at the chance to cut the legs out from under Warren Zalinsky, Jayne finally said, “We’ll put that aside for a bit. Let’s talk about your EMS story. Do you have your notebooks?”

  “Yes,” he pulled out two notebooks from the pocket of his sports coat. Jayne Grayman moved to the couch, sat next to Eric and aggressively took the notebooks from his hands, putting her glass of wine on the coffee table next to his. She smelled like a mixture of alcohol and some sort of perfume that sent ripples through Eric’s body.

  “Where does it start?”

  He looked over her shoulder and flipped a couple of pages to his most recent notes, confused as to why she was interested in them because no one but him could make sense of his scribble.

  “That’s the mom of the teenager who was shot three weeks ago,” he explained. “I was there last night. It says, ‘blame the fc’ (that’s fire commissioner) for vcs (that’s victim’s) death. I’ll sue as soon as I find L (that’s lawyer).”

  “Your shorthand?”

  “Yes. Ugly, but effective.”

  She turned a page. “I can’t read any of this.”

  “The kid’s brother came in. DaReese. It says, ‘My brother dealt dope, but that don’t mean he need to be dead.’ ”

  As he talked, Jayne Grayman’s hand moved to his leg. At first Eric thought it was an accident, she was maybe reaching for her glass. But it continued as he read.

  “Ms. Grayman?”

  “Jayne.”

  “Jayne, can I ask what you are doing?”

  “I’m reviewing your notes, Eric.”

  “I don’t think that’s all you’re doing.”

  She laughed. “Let’s keep going and see what comes up.”

  “I really don’t think that’s a great idea.” Despite himself, Eric found that he was aroused.

  “Don’t be so shy. You want something, and I want something.”

  “This is not what I want,” Eric said. Her hand had not left his leg. In fact, she had begun to squeeze his thigh.

  “Don’t you want to cover the mayor’s office? Maybe Capitol Hill at some point? I’m the person who can make that happen. I’m the one who can give that to you. You know Christian Thild? ABC’s Christian Thild? He started here in the Capitol Hill bureau.”

  She moved her hand up his leg and pressed it against his penis. “Oh, it looks like you want something besides a good beat.”

  “No!” It came out more forcefully than Eric wanted it to and he stood up suddenly.

  “Sit down,” she said in a voice equal parts soothing and commanding.

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Grayman. This is not me.”

  “Sit,” she said in the same way you would talk to a dog.

  Eric, to his surprise, did sit, even though he was planning to bolt in the next instant.

  She came around in front of him and put one hand on his shoulder, l
ooking directly into his eyes, and used her other hand to unzip his pants and pull them part way down with a quick, practiced motion.

  He grabbed her wrist, but she was a big woman and strong, and she was standing as he was sitting so Eric struggled to get her hand off of him. He finally twisted his hips and shoulders to the left, holding her left wrist in his right hand and pushing it a little further from his groin all the time. When he had her to the side, he was able to stand up and grab her other wrist, her right one, in his left hand.

  There they stood, facing each other, Eric holding both her wrists as she tried to manipulate him back onto the couch. “What the hell is wrong with you?” he sputtered.

  “Sit back down or I’ll say you attacked me.” She pushed but was unable to move Eric.

  “Say whatever you want.” He turned his body to the left making her hips move to her right. Her leg came in contact with the couch causing her to lose her balance and fall awkwardly on the cushions.

  Eric took advantage of the moment to dash out the door, still erect and still with his pants open to his thighs. He found the stairs and put himself together on the way down. In a minute he was in his car and racing out of the parking lot.

  Chapter 23

  Arnold McNeill had friends over once every few weeks, entertaining small gatherings on Friday or Saturday nights. He was a low-key kind of guy, did not like to go out to bars, to pick up women or get drunk. He spent a lot of time reading and listening to a wide range of music from the Beatles to Mozart, and he was involved in a couple of charities only because it gave him something to do. Officially, he was permanently disabled. He got a check from the government every month and income from investments. It was enough to support his nice house in the Virginia suburbs, where he felt safe. The permanent disability was not physical. It was mental, or, more precisely, emotional.