“Post office? Really? I would have said email. At least he didn’t say ‘telegram,’“ Simon said.
“All right, all right, I’m sorry for making the unfounded accusation,” Pilate said. “But somebody took a shot at me, threatened me by phone and…” he gingerly removed the note from his pocket and placed it in front of Thurman. “I just got this note.”
Thurman read the note without touching it. “‘Good and ready,’ eh?” he snorted. “Amateur hour.”
“Okay, so it isn’t from you or your crew,” Pilate said. “Then who’d be doing it?”
“How the hell should I know?” he said. “And more importantly, why should I care?” Smiling, Thurman put his hand under his chin, resting his head on his elbow.
“You should care,” Pilate said, folding the note and returning it to his pocket. “Because if you don’t, my cop friends are going to hear me telling them that I think it’s you. I think it’s in your interests - your business interests - to help me figure this out.”
Hilmer Thurman said he would look into Pilate’s problem.
Then, nothing happened.
The next two months were uneventful. Pilate received no threats by phone, note or smoke signal as the summer heat came on full-bore and he watched Kate’s belly swell with a little life inside.
Pilate told himself that it had been one of Thurman’s goons threatening him, after all. Thurman had shut it down after their little chat. He felt reassured and proud of himself for muscling the crime boss into playing things his way.
Pilate and Kate went into Lincoln for an ultrasound.
“A son,” Pilate whispered, sitting next to Kate as she lay on the ultrasound bed.
“A boy,” she said, her eyes wet with tears.
“Nothing like a matched set—boy and a girl,” Simon offered.
“What are we going to call him?” Kate asked.
“Jet.”
“Jet? Are you kidding? Why would we call him Jet?”
“Well, Kate, if you were a boy wouldn’t you want to be called ‘Jet Pilate’?”
“You’re an idiot,” she said, laughing.
“I’m your idiot,” he said, taking her hand.
“Yes, yes you are.”
“Well, let’s get this goop off you and get out of here,” he said.
The technician helped Kate wipe the jelly off her belly where the ultrasound wand had probed.
In the elevator, Pilate looked at her. “Are you and my son and stepdaughter going to be okay while I’m gone?”
“Yes,” Kate said. “The baby’s not due until November. Your book tour will be over on October 9, right?”
“Right.”
“You leave September 1, so that’s only a few weeks. And you’re still coming back midway through for a couple of days. We’ll be fine.”
The elevator dinged and the doors opened. A white-coated doctor entered and pushed the button for the next floor.
“Right. I’ll stop in for a few days after my Chicago appearances and signings,” he said.
“I can’t believe how many places they want you to go,” she said.
“Well, it is pretty ambitious, but the publisher thinks this book might do for them what Grisham almost did for that small press with his first book. I think that publisher went out of business before they could enjoy any of the profits. But my publisher thinks they didn’t know what they had. They think if they can get me on the media rounds and amp up the tawdry drama in real life factors I’ll make ‘em millions.”
“Grisham’s book was a novel, not non-fiction. Tell me again how much you get if you make them millions?” Kate asked as the elevator opened.
“Thousands,” he said. “A very remote possibility of millions. But I’m not holding my breath.”
“We can dream,” she said. “What would we do with millions, anyway?”
Pilate opened the door leading to the parking lot. “Have more kids.”
“With who?” Kate said, her eyes crinkling.
“Nice.”
“Did you get the new tires put on the Volvo?” Kate said, reading a magazine in bed next to Pilate.
“Yes, Kate.”
“Thanks.”
Pilate stretched, then looked at the ceiling a moment.
“How about Pontius?”
“No,” Kate said, not looking up from her magazine.
“Instructor? That way when they read his last name first they will think he’s a Pilates instruct…”
“No.”
“Otto?”
“Otto Pilate? No.”
“Conan. Co for short. Then he can be—”
“Co Pilate,” she said, rolling her eyes. “No.”
“Fine,” Pilate said, climbing out of bed. “That’s all I have.”
“Where you going?”
“Downstairs. I want some milk. You want anything?”
“Yes, a baby name book so you’ll shut the hell up,” she said, her eyes back to her magazine, her mouth curled into a smirk.
“You have zero sense of humor, lady,” he said, walking quietly to the door.
“Married you, didn’t I?”
Pilate padded down the stairs to avoid disturbing Kara, who slept down the hall from the master bedroom. Each stair creaked under his feet.
I hate that. First thing I do with my millions is buy a new house.
“Where, John?” Simon asked.
Someplace warm and sunny.
“Key West is nice.”
Well, yes, it is. But probably not the best place to raise a kid.
“Especially since you poked a cop there and also got arrested…”
Yeah, yeah. Old news, Simon.
Pilate entered the dark kitchen and opened the door to the fridge. He picked up the carton of milk and turned to get a glass from the cabinet.
From the corner of his eye he saw something in the window. He shut the fridge door and stared at the window. He thought he saw the shape of a head duck under the sill.
Pilate put the milk on the counter and reached for a small handgun in a cabinet above the fridge. He turned off the safety and crept to the window. He looked out, seeing nothing but fireflies in the back yard.
“Getting a little jumpy, John?” Simon said.
Maybe.
He put the gun back and poured the glass of milk in the dark. He stood still in the kitchen for five minutes, drinking the milk slowly and watching the windows.
CHAPTER SEVEN
As August waned, Pilate received his media and book signing tour schedule from his agent and their publicity firm.
The media tour was arranged in three chunks. The first two weeks found him on the east coast. In New York, he was to be interviewed by Dateline NBC, though that could change after they got a look at the 60 Minutes interview he’d taped a few months ago. It was set for broadcast the Sunday before he left for the tour.
“Not a bad way to get the buzz going!” said his publicist, Monique Fraley, in an email. He also had interviews set for the Today Show, NPR and two dozen or so local radio, TV and print media outlets up and down the coast, all the way to Florida. This meant a daily grind of interviews, talking about the same things, answering the same questions over and over again and trying very hard to act excited and interested in a part of his life he wanted to forget.
This would repeat for a week in the Midwest, though with less intensity, followed by a few days back home, then the tour would wrap up on the west coast. Then he could go home for the winter. Midway through the tour he would know whether or not the book was a bestseller or an also-ran.
Pilate was irritated by the whole thing, and not just after seeing his grueling promotional schedule.
“Angie,” he said to his hyperactive agent on the phone. “This is a terrible title. You told me they were going with mine, not this crappy sensationalist dreck.” Pilate turned the book cover mockup over in his hands. It featured red lettering that dripped blood down a photo of the Cross College seal, spelling out Mur
der 101: The Cross College Conspiracy. “This is like a bad Lifetime Television movie.”
“Well, don’t get on your high horse about that, sassy pants,” she said. “For your information, Lifetime has inquired about the broadcast rights for a TV movie.”
“Oh sweet Jesus,” Pilate said. “No, Angie. Please.”
“Lifetime. Television for Women Who Hate Men,” Simon cooed.
“Look, if they have the moolah, we have the rights,” she said, smacking gum in his ear. “They may be able to get Chad Lowe to play you. What’s wrong with you? Do you want to sell this book or not?”
“Yes,” he sighed. “I just don’t want to sell out.”
“Oh please, John,” she said. “Get real.”
“Yes, John. Get real,” Simon said.
“Okay, okay,” he said. “I just want to get through this so I can get home to my family,” he said.
“Yes, your growing brood,” Angie said. “Just keep your eye on the prize. The tour ends, you come home and a few weeks after that you have a new baby and a fat royalty check by Christmas. Or maybe after Christmas. Maybe more like next spring, but coming all the same. I mean the royalty check. Not the baby.”
“Great.”
“And we field movie offers,” she said. “Don’t worry about Lifetime. They’re not our first choice, but we can use them as leverage with the big boys.”
“Whatever, Angie. It’s going to become dog shit after a studio gets hold of it anyway, so I’ll just cash my check and move on.”
Angie paused a moment. “John?”
“Yes?”
“Have you given any thought to what you’ll do next?”
“Yes,” he said.
Another pause.
“May I ask what?”
“I just said I’ve given it some thought. Not that I’ve made any decisions.”
“Well,” she said. “Just put this in your hat and think about it. If we do sell movie rights, I could make sure you get first crack at the screenplay.”
“Screenplay? I’ve never written a screenplay.”
“You’d never written a book before, either, but you managed that. Screenplays are easier - there’s software that will help you. Besides, we’re talking about another payday. You sell the rights and you get paid to turn in a screenplay draft. It’s also a chance to make sure the story is told the way you want it. If they take your screenplay and change it, then so be it, but you get paid. If they pass on your screenplay and hire another writer, you still get paid. Think about it.”
“She makes a good point, John,” Simon said.
“I’ll think about it,” he said. “I have to go now. The blood on this book cover is dripping on my floor.”
“Ha. Ha. I think the graphics are great. A good book cover is important. Crucial even. And what about that hunky cover photo of you on the back?”
“Angie, they airbrushed out the buckshot scars on my face!”
“Well, they had to make you look your best,” she said.
“But me getting shot is a crucial part of the…”
“Did you get your teeth whitened, by the way?”
“What? No.”
“I wish you had. Your teeth are kind of yellow. Cuts your hotness factor a bit. Oh shitskies, my other line is ringing. I’ll see you when you get to NYC, dear!” She hung up.
“Even with yellow teeth, you look five years younger with the airbrushing,” Simon said.
This tour will erase that pretty quickly, I’m sure.
The tick, tick, tick of the stopwatch on 60 Minutes made Pilate’s stomach turn over as the show’s “teaser” opening showed scenes from his interview with Byron Pitts: Pilate and Pitts walking through a snowy field on Bartley’s Farm; Pilate standing beside the river at Patterson Point, indicating where the old Chevy had lay submerged for decades.
“And you knew it was a conspiracy the whole time?” Pitts asked.
“Not at all,” Pilate said, his facial injuries still very apparent, as the interview was taped only a few weeks after his release from the hospital. “I had no idea what I had stumbled into.”
“Yay, that’s my Daddy!” Kara squealed on the living room rug.
“Okay, calm down, sweetheart,” Kate said.
The interview featured Pilate, Kate, Trevathan, Grif Nathaniel and a few townspeople, along with law enforcement officers. It was a good piece, though he hated that Kara saw that her grandfather Grif was interviewed in the prison library.
“She’s seen him there often, and in person, John. It’s all right,” Kate said.
The story made Pilate out to be quite the hero. Trevathan even said so on camera.
“I thought he was a squirrel when I met him,” he laughed. “But he has character. And guts. He saved our lives.”
Pilate couldn’t believe his ears. He blushed and felt the hair on his arms stand up.
Kate nudged him in the ribs, smiling.
There was praise for Kate and Trevathan as well. Law enforcement officials from the state attorney general’s office on down to the usually taciturn Deputy Lenny commented that they were quite the crime fighters. Pilate nudged Kate in her arm, beaming.
A few townspeople interviewed said things just short of “Pilate should have minded his own business,” but Pitts couldn’t get much else out of them. Scovill had apparently declined an interview; his portion of the story showed him in an orange jumpsuit, handcuffed and standing before a judge.
The last part of the segment featured Pitts sitting on a stool in front of the story’s “magazine cover.”
“John Pilate’s book about the Cross College affair will be released this week. Since we filmed this story, alleged criminal mastermind and former Cross College President Jack Lindstrom skipped bail and took his own life. John Pilate has since married Kate Nathaniel and the pair have a child due in November.”
Pilate turned off the TV and said, “Kara, I’m going outside to fire up the grill, you want to help me cook?”
“Too hot out there,” she said. “I’ll help Mom.”
Pilate started the grill, drinking a glass of wine and looking out over the soybean fields they rented out to sharecroppers behind the house. Kate brought out a plate of raw burgers and hot dogs.
“Your folks called. Very excited about the interview. I told them you’d call back. Oh, then Trevathan called,” she said. “He said he was misquoted about you being a hero.”
“Ha. Misquoted on film, huh?”
She laughed. “He’s a funny old coot. He said he looked old, too. Didn’t sound very good on the phone. Voice all raspy.”
“Yeah, he’s had that for a while now,” Pilate said. “You looked good, though.”
“Well, I wasn’t the Goodyear blimp back then,” she said.
He hugged her around her ample middle and kissed her cheek. “I think blimps are sexy.” His voice was unintentionally distant.
“Gee, thanks,” she said. “You okay?”
He nodded.
“Just brought it all back. Reminded me that I have to spend the next few weeks yakking about it.”
“Well, the book is happening and you need to make the most of it,” she said. “Here, take this. I’m over the nausea but holding this plate of raw meat is testing my gag reflex.”
“Sorry,” he said, taking the plate.
“Just see where this takes us,” she said. “If it’s a bestseller it can mean some financial freedom.”
“Can we leave Cross, then?”
Kate looked out over the fields, which rippled with the wind. “Money isn’t what’s keeping us here,” she said. “Let’s get Grif out of prison and see how he’s doing, then we can decide on next moves.”
He nodded, swatting a mosquito. “I know. But I want to get out of here next year, okay?”
“Okay,” she said, walking back to the back door. “For now, let’s get through this year, okay?”
Pilate put the burgers on the grill; they sizzled and spat. “Okay.”
; “When’s your flight?” she called from the behind the screen door.
“Ten-thirty I think,” he said.
“That means you’ll need to leave by six-thirty or so to get to the airport and through security,” she said.
“Yeah.”
“Then let’s get through dinner soon so we can have some time with Kara before we put her to bed,” she said.
He nodded.
She opened the screen door and leaned out. “‘Cause after that you’re going to have some sexy time with the Goodyear blimp.”
The screen door slammed shut behind her.
Pilate smiled and flipped the burgers.
Pilate’s plane landed at LaGuardia around lunchtime. He ambled through the gate amidst hundreds of fliers, wandering past the usual fast food outlets and newsstands, heading for baggage claim.
His publicist, Monique Fraley, would meet him. He had wondered if his television appearance the night before would create instant celebrity, but nobody seemed to take particular notice of the Famous John Pilate except for one old man with a Van Dyke beard and bifocals who did a double take, pointed a chubby finger and said “60 Minutes?”
Pilate nodded, then smiled weakly. He didn’t know what to say.
The old man nudged his companion, a woman of approximately the same age. “Helen, look, that’s the guy from 60 Minutes last night.”
“Oh my word, he is,” she said. “Very brave man.” The pair turned back to the baggage carousel, picked up two large red suitcases and tottered off.
Pilate watched for his black suitcase. Kate had tied a red, white and blue ribbon to the handle so it would be easily recognizable.
He thought of her as the baggage carousel turned. Last night’s lovemaking had been physically awkward - pregnancy presents new challenges for finding comfortable positions – but emotionally intimate. He felt closer to her than he had in weeks. He realized as they were intertwined that he didn’t want to leave her, not even for a little while. He felt this trip was unnecessary, and told her so.
“Don’t be silly,” she said, as they lay together afterward, naked and sweaty. “You’ll be back before you know it. You’ll be a new you. A bestselling author.”
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