by Mike Lupica
Reaching for his belt buckle and telling him, “Right now …”
Blades finished the song and there was a click from the tape player as the thing began to rewind. Marty gave his head a little shake and looked at the front door of the Sports Shop. There was still a line, fathers and sons mostly, waiting to go in and get autographs, the little bastards in their Knicks sweatshirts and cheap blue-and-orange Knicks caps, the fathers looking bored, checking their watches. It probably seemed like a great outing, a way to kill off time with the kid, now they had to stand in this goddamn line. Good, Marty thought. Let them wait, too. He could sit here and listen to the music, try to figure out how he was going to approach this, get into it with him.
Marty smiled. They could call him a bullshitter all they wanted. Call him the king of the spic bullshitters. They were pendejos. All of them. Worthless shits. “¡Pendejos!” he said out loud, spitting it out. The reason he would be back on top, in television this time, bigger than ever, was because he was here on a Saturday morning, while the pendejo shits were still asleep.
It was Michael Cantor who gave him the idea. Marty knew he took Cantor for granted sometimes, forgot what a great newspaper editor he really was, a great idea man. But then Marty would be in the middle of something, not knowing where to go with it, and Cantor would do everything except take his cards and play his hand for him.
They were having lunch the day before, their usual Friday lunch, Chinese, Tommy’s Gold Coin, a couple of blocks up Second from the News building. They were walking back to the office when Cantor said, “Incidentally, I think we’ve gone as far as we can with Hannah’s side of it. At least for now.”
Incidentally. Cantor always used “incidentally” or “by the way” to shift gears. They had been talking about the Giants. Cantor’s family had tickets that went all the way back to the Polo Grounds. Sometimes he would get going on them, who the quarterback ought to be, what was wrong with the offense, and Marty would think about maybe putting something in his drink to get him to shut the fuck up.
Then out of the blue, Cantor hit him with this Hannah thing, catching Marty off guard. The editor was good at that. He had a lot of conversational moves, always acting like it was an accident when he made the point he wanted to make all along. Sometimes Cantor didn’t act like Marty’s editor at all but his therapist.
Or maybe his conscience.
Marty got defensive right away. He couldn’t help himself. He was a thin-skinned spic and always had been. He’d write the worst sort of shit about people and expect them to take it, then feel himself going to pieces himself at the hint of criticism.
“You want me off it,” he said to Cantor, “just say so.”
“No, no, no,” Cantor said. “Let me finish here. She’s given us a great run, we’ve been ahead of everybody else in town from the first day. The circulation guys were on the phone again this morning, begging for more. Squealing.”
They were waiting for the light at Forty-second.
Cantor said, “Take a look at this.” He reached into the pocket of the Brooks Brothers suit and pulled out a crumpled piece of graph paper. He held the paper out in front of him so they both could see it.
Cantor said, “We haven’t had a run like this since that judge went nuts and started sending rubbers to his old girlfriend instead of Hallmark cards. Remember that one? Anyway, Hannah gave us a two percent bump when we had her out front last Monday. Four percent on Friday. You don’t think that gave all the car advertisers hard-ons? And this past Sunday? They figure an extra thirty thousand copies.”
They went across Forty-second, Marty just taking it all in, chewing on his cigar.
“All I’m asking you,” Cantor said, “is that we see if there’s anything for us on the other side. Even if it’s for one day.”
“You want me to do it?” Marty asked.
“It’s not like you haven’t done it before. Keep coming at them the same way. Hammering away. Like a quarterback throwing short all day, the same pattern. Finally, the cornerback comes up and—badda bing!—the quarterback throws the bomb. It’s my opinion that you could give Collins and Adair a day and not lose her. You could finesse them. Cut a deal—”
“A deal?” Marty said incredulously. “We’d be offering them tipping money.”
“Not money. Offer them the wood.”
After all these years, Cantor was still in love with the lingo. Wood meant the front page, from when they used to use wood to set the type out there.
“Tell them it will be the wood in a good way this time,” Cantor said. “We’ll do it like Vanity Fair does. Shit, you see some celebrity out there, you know before you read the article it’s going to be a blow job. So bullshit these guys a little. Tell them you’ll turn the column over to them and they can write their own defense in the first person.”
“Bullshit being a specialty of mine, of course.”
Cantor smiled. “You can make a big show out of it. I’m Marty Perez, and I’m big enough to give everybody a chance. Look at me, I’m hammering the shit out of them and they’re still talking to me.”
They were in the lobby now, over by the gigantic globe. Cantor never walked in the entrance on Forty-second and Second, he always liked to walk past the globe.
Marty shook his head slowly. “These guys aren’t talking.”
“You’ll at least give it a try.”
It didn’t come out as a question from Cantor.
“I’ll think about it,” Marty said.
Cantor said, “I want to give you a big kiss.”
“Maricón,” Marty said.
Now here he was, back in Fulton, sitting in the parking lot, waiting for Richie Collins to finish his autograph signing inside.
It was noon when Collins came out a side door, looking like one of the scraggly-assed kids who should have been in the line, wearing a Megadeth T-shirt, faded black jeans, and sneakers that looked so new Marty wondered if he’d bought a pair inside. Marty started to get out of the car, then had to wait because some girl had beaten him to Richie Collins.
Marty instinctively reached into the backseat for the camcorder he kept there. He had started carrying it when he started doing Chronicle. You never knew with celebrities. It made Marty feel like a peeper sometimes, one of those celebrity-page photographers hanging around outside the hot clubs, even places like Elaine’s, hoping to get some movie star acting like an asshole. Doing some asshole thing.
It was Houghton who had suggested Marty buy the thing and keep it in the car. And then one day Marty was on the side of the Plaza when a bellhop told him Michael Jackson was coming out. Long before the shit came down with Jackson and the kids. Marty had the tape rolling when Jackson came out with his entourage, carrying the seven-year-old. It seemed like nothing at the time.
Marty filed the tape anyway.
And had it for Chronicle the night the kid in California charged Jackson with molesting him.
Marty held the camera in his lap, shooting through the windshield, the lens just peeking over the top of the dashboard. He hit Record, making sure to keep himself and the camera still, watching the whole thing like it was some silent movie.
The girl was almost six feet tall and had long blond hair and wore black leotards with a long lemon-colored T-shirt that barely covered her ass. She was standing by a Jeep Cherokee that Marty assumed belonged to Collins.
Seventeen years old, Marty figured. Eighteen tops. He knew he was getting to be an old bastard. He’d watch the college games on television sometimes and the cheerleaders would look younger and younger to him. When he was a kid, did they ever look to him like someone’s daughter?
This one was sure a baby, though. Daddy’s big chula girl, sexy in her black tights, looking for trouble on Saturday morning.
Marty had heard that with Richie Collins, the younger the better. Art Berkowitz, a funny kid who covered the Knicks for the News, told Marty one time at the Gold Coin, “Richie spends more time in cars with high school girls than the dr
iver ed instructor.”
Collins ducked his head and smiled.
The girl was doing most of the talking.
Collins laughed a couple of times.
She made a slow move of brushing her hair out of her face.
Marty Perez thought to himself: I better get him now or he’ll be in the car with her and gone. And his pants are going to be around his ankles before he hits the first stoplight.
He hit Stop on the camcorder, which he placed on the floor in the backseat. Then he got out of the car and walked toward them, tossing his cigar away. “Hey, Richie. Richie Collins.”
Collins and the girl both turned around at the same time, a little startled, like Marty was a cop shining a flashlight into the backseat. Marty wasn’t paying any attention to the girl now, he was watching Collins.
Collins started shaking his head before Marty got up on him, very casual.
“You’ve got to be shitting me,” Collins told him.
“Okay, Richie?” the girl said in this pleading voice, ignoring Marty. “Is that okay?” She tugged on his arm. “Okay?” She seemed nervous at being seen, but she wasn’t leaving without an answer from Collins. Whatever the question was.
“Okay,” Collins snapped, yanking his arm away, still watching Marty. “I told you it was okay. You’ve still got the number? Call me in about an hour.”
“There’s no need to get mad, Richie,” she whined.
“I’m not mad.” He patted her big hair. “I just have some business I got to take care of all of a sudden. It won’t take me long. Now, good-bye!” He patted her on her ass, which seemed to make everything all right, as far as Marty could tell. She got into her car, a red Nissan, and drove away.
“Cute girl,” Marty said. “Your niece?”
“Just a kid from Fulton High with a runaway crush.”
“I noticed.”
“Hey, Perez, I’m loved by kids of all ages, what can I tell you.”
Marty said, “Tell me what age, give an old man a thrill.”
Collins said, “You got big balls, you know that?”
“Qué cojones,” Marty said. “As we say back home.”
“Where’s that, Miami?” Richie Collins said.
“Close enough.”
“I have nothing to say to you.” He reached into his pocket and got out his car keys. Still not moving, though.
Waiting for Marty to make his pitch.
“I think you do,” Marty said. “Have something to say. Even if you think I’m just another newspaper asshole who’s got the whole thing wrong. Even if you think Hannah Carey is just in for some kind of big score, and I’m looking to ride it. Even if you probably want to kick my fat Puerto Rican ass all the way back to the city. You and Ellis, you both probably think I sold you out and went with her because she’s the one who made a better story.”
Collins casually crossed his arms, leaned against the Jeep. Still not making any move to get in. “I told you I have nothing to say to you.”
“You’re here.”
“Only because I’m thinking to myself, Rich, could you kick his ass and get away with it? Maybe tell old Marty you’re going to give him a story, then take him somewhere private and beat the living shit out of him.”
“I’ll make you a deal,” Marty said.
Collins laughed. “You got nothing I want. You guys never do.”
“I got the power, babe. The power of the press.”
“You got shit.”
“Richie, listen to me one more minute, then you want to go, go. The News has been whacking you all over the place for two weeks. If they see your version in there now, maybe enough people slap their heads and think, Maybe we were wrong.”
“I don’t need you. I don’t need the fish-wrap News. I don’t need good ink. You want to know why? Because there’s no case. There’s no case, no charges, this thing is gonna get dropped, so see you later, good-bye.”
Marty said, “Till she sues.”
“She sues? So what she fucking sues?” Richie’s voice got louder. “She loses that one, too. Then she’s gone and you’re back to being a nobody. Fresh and me, we lay low for a while, then we just keep on keepin’ on. It’s why we don’t have to talk to anybody. Not the cops, and especially not you.”
Now Richie Collins reached for the door handle.
Marty said, “Let me ask you one more question. Off the record.”
“One question. I gotta get some sleep. We got in late, game in fucking Milwaukee last night.”
“Marty said, Did it happen the way she says it happened?”
Richie Collins smiled, a broad shit-eating smile, then looked up at the sky. “No.”
“Did either one of you fuck her—with or without her consent?”
“You said one question. I answered it. Now I’m out of here.” He jerked his head in the direction the girl had gone in her hot little red car. “It’s my day off, I’ve got plans.”
“You go ahead,” Marty said. “You keep telling yourself you can ride this out. You want to know where you’re going to ride it out? In Sacramento. Or whatever shit team they can deal you to when this thing is all over. You think the Garden brought in DiMaggio to help you, Richie? You seem like a smart guy. If they believe you’re innocent, why bring in a hotshot like DiMaggio?”
Collins tried to look bored, but Marty kept going. “I’ll tell you why. Because the big boys think you did it, Richie. They want you to be the one that did it. Nobody else is going to tell you this, so I’ll tell you. If DiMaggio comes up with anything, you’re out of here first chance they get.”
“Bullshit.”
Marty thought: I don’t need an editor to play my hand for me, I can play it myself.
Play the trump card.
“You shouldn’t have gone to see her the other day, Richie. Dumb play for a smart guy like yourself.”
Richie Collins, rigid, said, “Who—”
“You mean, who would tell a nobody like me something? She told her brother and her brother told me and now I’m telling you. You got everything going your way and you go and harass the victim?”
Collins, defensive now, said, “I wanted to ask her why she’s making this shit up.”
Marty said, “Tell that to the Fulton cops. Or the state’s attorney over in Norwalk.”
“You’re going to put it in the paper?”
“I haven’t decided.”
Collins said, “What are you looking for here, exactly?”
“You don’t want to give me a play-by-play on the whole night, don’t. You want that we didn’t even have this conversation, we didn’t have it. I just want something that could cast some doubt on her version of things. Maybe get people thinking she is making some of this up, like you say she is.”
“The stuff you’ve been printing like it’s gospel?”
“Work with me, Rich, is all I’m saying. It helps me, it helps you.”
Collins smiled. He nodded his head like, yeah, now all of a sudden this makes sense. “You’re telling me you’re willing to give her up?”
“A man’s got to eat, Richie,” Marty said, smiling right back.
Richie said, “Follow me.”
18
DiMaggio loved it when they would big-guy him.
“Big guy, you better be sitting down when you read the Daily News,” Ted Salter had said, sounding pretty chipper for seven-thirty in the morning. He sounded like he’d been up since five. He was the type. Guys like Salter wanted to jam up every day, already planning for the day when they got fired. Or had a stroke. Or dropped dead. Didn’t anybody in New York sleep late anymore?
“You’re awake?” he added almost as an afterthought.
DiMaggio said, “I’m awake. And I’ve seen the paper.” He’d just finished reading the News. The front page had the story about how Hannah used to date A. J. Fine and all the details of her first time with him, including the other woman. The front-page headline was SHE’S SO FINE.
Marty Perez wrote it, but not
as one of his columns, with his picture. They ran a little box with it that said “News Analysis,” whatever that meant.
Salter said, “You think it’s true?”
DiMaggio said, “Yes.”
“What does it do to the investigation?”
“Nothing,” DiMaggio said. “Maybe in court if they ever get to court. But what she did with Fine has nothing to do with what happened with Adair and Collins. It doesn’t mean she deserved to get raped.”
“If she did get raped.”
“If she did.”
“What does it do to you?” Salter said.
“I’m where I’ve been since I got here,” DiMaggio said. “Hyland—he’s the Fulton cop, good guy, by the way—he keeps saying he’s got no case. Maybe he’s right. But I talked to him last night, and he told me the state’s attorney over in Norwalk wants to be attorney general next time. I forget when next time is. Next year or the year after. He thinks this can be a big score. So he’s turned up the heat on Hyland. He wants to make formal charges against your boys. And he wants to make them now. So if I’m going to come up with something to make this go away for you, I better do it.”
“From your lips to God’s ears,” Salter said. “Are you coming up with something for old Uncle Ted?”
“I’ve been working the bars up there, looking for somebody who remembers seeing anything. Her story is that she was having a drink at this place Gates, then went over to another place, Mulligan’s. But no one can remember her, they just generally see players in those places. They also can’t place which night of the week it was. It’s a year, remember. There were always women around these guys. Hannah’s a good-looking blonde, it doesn’t exactly narrow things down.”
“Listen,” Salter said, “I wasn’t calling to bust your balls. I’m calling because she’s going to be at the Garden today.”