by Nina Siegal
Jaime paid the driver and led me into the fortress. We climbed the stairs to the Page One conference room, so named because that’s where the editors elected The Paper’s most prized stories for A-1. I’d never gotten there yet, and so it seemed like a funny location for a beheading. I would’ve laughed then, but beheadings aren’t all that funny.
I was impressed by my own stature when I saw the witnesses assembled for my execution. It looked like the cast of It’s a Wonderful Life, without the wonderful part.
Metro editor Jane Battinger and her deputy, Aaron Sneed, flanked Buzz Phipps like a couple of crows on fresh stalk of corn. The Arts and Leisure editors, Liz Moore and Orland Lessey, dressed in black and red shirts, could’ve been a pair of mating cardinals. Metro columnist Clint Westwood warbled a few notes to them across the table and Tyler Prattle, also present, warbled back. Tracy Newton was balanced on the arm of a chair, chirping away at Curtis Wright. Richard Antigoni, the managing editor, was at the far end of the table, gazing up at the ceiling, using all ten fingers to massage his bald pate. With his long beak and his elbows bent out from his head, he gave the impression of a turkey buzzard.
It was more like Hitchcock’s The Birds. I hadn’t counted on a fatal pecking.
Jaime slid behind me into a seat against the wall. I stayed at the door of the aviary. I felt thirsty, but I didn’t dare reach for the pitcher of water, which sat in front of Mr. Antigoni, the most menacing of the flock.
My tongue roamed my mouth for stray gum, and came up with nothing. I thought about that pack in my purse and wondered if they’d let me have a final chew.
“Hello, Valerie,” Battinger said, when the door thumped closed behind me. The whole room rustled to a stop, and every beady eye landed on me. “We’re glad you could make it. I trust there was no trouble at the station house?” She looked from me to Jaime, who nodded. “Good,” said Battinger, pulling out a seat at the table. “Why don’t you sit right here next to me, Valerie?”
“Why don’t we all take a seat?” said Sneed.
I took my place at the table, suddenly conscious of the stench of the lockup on my clothes. My fingers and palms were grimy and my nails had been chewed to bloody. It must’ve been me who’d done that.
“You know my deputy, Aaron, and, of course, Buzz, and Clive, Tracy, and Curtis,” Battinger was squawking. “I don’t know if you’ve ever met Orland and Liz.” They each cheeped a little hello, and Curtis winked. “Mr. Antigoni also asked to join us,” she added, as the man at the end of the table nodded gravely. “He’s taken an interest in your tenure here.”
I did my best to smile. Lethal injection would’ve been so much more relaxing. I’d even prefer an old-fashioned hanging or perhaps the guillotine. At least that was French.
“I bet you’re wondering why we’re all here,” Battinger said. “I have asked everyone to join us because time is short and I wanted to make sure we were all on the same page.”
“Page one,” I said. That was about as close as I was going to get to a joke with this crowd, but it didn’t go over. All I heard was the sound of ruffled feathers. Tracy twittered. Lessey and Moore offered each other coffee and tea. Curtis shot me a look that said, Be careful, Val. Watch it.
Battinger croaked out a few words: “I blame myself for this.”
“We blame ourselves,” Sneed repeated, nodding.
I wasn’t sure if they were talking about my lousy sense of humor.
“You were afraid to come to me and so you went to Burton,” Battinger continued, nodding at Buzz, who nodded back. “You pitched him an idea about graffiti artists and something about stolen paintings and he said it wasn’t right for Style. Is that right?”
Buzz looked like a crow caught on a corn stalk. He met my gaze and then addressed Mr. Antigoni. “Miss Vane came upstairs yesterday to pitch me a story about graffiti artists connected to Darla Deitrick’s gallery. I didn’t understand that this piece might have these kinds of implications. The pitch wasn’t exactly clear to me, and I was in the midst of putting the section to bed, so I didn’t give her an adequate hearing.”
Antigoni’s beak was bobbing. Curtis was watching Antigoni, but he turned to me and gave me a warm smile that said, You’ve got a shot here. Hang in, Val, hang in.
“It wasn’t an appropriate pitch for Style,” I jumped in. “I didn’t know it would come to this; I just had a hunch. I should’ve gone to Jane instead.”
“That’s the point,” said Battinger.
“That’s exactly the point,” said Sneed.
Antigoni nodded. Clint looked up from his pad and down again.
“The point is, Valerie,” Battinger went on, “you went about this all wrong. If you had a story of this type, with this kind of angle, you should’ve come to me. But you know that now, so I won’t belabor the point.”
“I apologize,” I said. “Next time I’ll certainly come to you, Jane.”
Battinger shook her head. “That’s not all.”
“Not all,” said Sneed, softly.
“The problem here, Valerie, is that you have obligations to Jaime, and you should only be working on an enterprise story once you’ve completed all your work for Obits. If you get a tip on something big, there’s a protocol. You need to go to Jaime and then Jaime comes to me. And then Aaron and I figure out what to do with it. We can’t have you sneaking around trying to write stories on your own, without the desk’s say-so.”
“Say-so,” muttered Sneed.
“Is that clear?” Battinger said.
I nodded. That made sense. Help out someone like Rusty Markowitz, who already had two Pulitzers. I could’ve really used a little water. “Yes,” I said. “Very clear.”
Behind me, I heard Jaime shift in his seat.
“If we’d gotten the ball rolling right away, we’d have been ahead on this story. Tyler Prattle could’ve called down and asked a few questions and then when this happened, Ms. Deitrick would probably have called him first to give him an exclusive. We’d have something running even before the press conference, and we wouldn’t be playing catch-up, like we are now.”
I nodded and picked up a plastic cup; at least those were nearby. Curtis reached for the silver pitcher and passed it to me. I poured, slowly, but it wobbled, and I spilled a little on the table. Curtis handed me a napkin, and I mopped it up as I brought the cup to my lips. Tracy leaned over to Curtis and chirped into his ear. He kept an eye on me, faintly smiling.
“That’s the way we like to work around here,” Battinger said.
Antigoni nodded a few times from the other end of the table, his pate reflecting one of the track lights.
“But that’s why I say it’s my fault. I should’ve made it clear to you when you joined Obits that you were part of the Metro team. I hope you understand that now.”
“I appreciate your saying so,” I answered, my mouth less parched. “If I’d known I could pitch to you, Jane, I’d have brought it to your attention earlier.”
“You just let me talk here for a minute, Valerie,” Battinger crowed. “One: you don’t go behind our backs and rush out to cover a story you can bring home.” She enumerated my crimes on her fingers. “Two: you don’t go making trouble and get yourself arrested. Three: You don’t fail to communicate with the desk. Is that understood?”
“Absolutely,” I said. The beaks were piercing skin, but I could take it so far. Maybe they wouldn’t unleash the whole Hitch-cockian horror. I placed my palms together to suggest that I’d go in for an eleventh-hour conversion. There was more rustling. Lessey and Moore leaned in to confer with each other, two cardinals on a bough. Buzz extended his neck, ticked his head from side to side, and then dropped his chin.
“I don’t like what you did today,” Battinger continued. “But at the moment, we need this story, and you’re our best option for a lead reporter, so we’re going to use you. So, here’s what needs to happen,” she said, tapping her pen onto a notepad to call all the fowl to attention. “I want blanketed coverage.
Moore and Lessey are going to coordinate the arts side.” She pointed her pen in their direction. “I want a good think piece from Tyler for Sunday,” she pointed her pen at him. “Clint will work up a Metro column.” She pointed at him.
I nodded.
“I need you, Valerie, to take the lead on the main piece. I need it to be a feature, and I need it to be comprehensive: every thing we know and everything we find out. But you have to work with Curtis and Tracy. You and Curtis put out a nice LaShanniah story together last week. So let’s make it happen again. Tracy will be at your disposal if you need any backup. And you should read the piece she did today, of course. It’s very solid.”
Tracy fluttered her lashes. “Happy to help. I’ll bring you my notes.”
“I will coordinate,” concluded Battinger. “We’re aiming for page one.”
I couldn’t believe my luck. It was like a gubernatorial reprieve. Not only was I going to walk free, I would get another shot at A-1. It was practically a resurrection. “Thank you so much,” I said to Battinger. “Thank you so much.”
“I want to be perfectly clear, this is not a reward for your behavior,” Battinger added. “We’re doing this because you’re in the best position right now to get this story.”
“Not a reward at all,” said Sneed, looking stern.
“This is your last chance, Valerie Vane. And if you end up anywhere near a jail, there’s no bailing you out this time. And if you don’t get the story, it’s not going to be Obits, it’s going to be the exit. Am I clear?”
“Crystal,” I said. “Waterford,” I added.
“Very well then,” said Battinger. “Let’s get to work.”
“To work,” said Sneed.
Within seconds, Battinger and Sneed, Lessey and Moore, and Buzz and Tracy had all flown the coop. Curtis stood grinning at me from the glass doors of the aviary, his thumb and pinkie to his ear, mouthing, “Call me.”
I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Jaime’s. I turned to see his face for the first time since we’d entered the room. It looked much better, like his daughter only got caught making out under the bleachers.
“You knew they were going to do that?” I asked.
“Had no idea,” he said. He led me to the door and opened it for me. On the staircase down to three, Clint Westwood flew up beside me. “Listen, I was thinking I’d do a piece on these memorial walls. What do you think of that?”
“A nice idea,” I said. “I’d be happy to help with contacts.”
As we took the final steps down the stairwell, I felt like one of the newly exonerated, Dead Man Walking free. I didn’t get the ax. I didn’t even get a halfway house. I got off with a warning. My chest broadened. My shoulders felt lighter, and my back started to tingle. Maybe little wings were already budding.
I almost knocked over Mickey Rood with my hug when I got back to our Obits cube. Without his Darla tip, I’d still be on death faxes.
“Not content at the starter gate, I see,” said Mickey.
He could still be facing heat for filling me in on the morning’s call sheet. “Thanks Mickey, without you,” I started to say.
Rood shook his head. “If it weren’t for my wobbly knee, I’d have gone down and stolen your scoop myself. Battinger made a bad call there.”
“But how did you know I was already—” I started again.
Mickey tapped his temple. “I pay pretty good attention.” As if to add, and speaking of which, he pushed a file over to my side of the desk. “Some mail came for you,” he said. “From Oregon.”
I hadn’t heard from my mother in a few years. We’d never been very close and after my father died, she sort of disappeared. The other women on the commune did their best to take on the mothering responsibilities, and her mantra was, it takes a village, but the village was mostly taking care of itself. I was surprised to see her handwriting, but not surprised by the brevity of her note. It was on a yellow Post-it, in fact, attached to a short list typed on a piece of coarse card-stock. “The past is important,” it read. “I know you always wanted to know your father’s family. Now that you seem to be staying there, perhaps you can find them.” The list had only five names, none of them familiar, and none of them ended with Miller. Was it possible my father had used an alias too?
There was no way to act on the note. I already had a whale of a fish to fry. And whales aren’t even fish. I handed the list to Mickey. “Know any of these people?”
“Would I?”
“I don’t know. They might’ve been passed through the desk. Probably famous enough to get obits; moneyed enough, anyway, and they’re probably all gone by now.”
“Nothing slaps me in the face,” he said. “But if you want me to do a search, I will. People are my specialty.”
18
Deep Throat
My one shot: my last shot. It’s either page one or the exit. M. E. Smarte clears out for his annual Majorca holiday and Curtis invites me upstairs. Jaime agrees to let me go with a lift of his shoulders, as if to say, What the hell do I know?
I kiss Mickey Rood on the forehead and, whistling a phrase or two of “Con los pobres estoy, noble soy,” I hoist my cardboard box off my desk. Backing into the elevator for the one-floor ride to Culture, my blood races like the jockeys at Belmont. For the first time in months, I’m sanctioned to ride this pony up.
Curtis clicks shut the office door once I’m in. “Time to come clean. I need to know everything,” he says. “How deep are you into this thing?”
I unload my cardboard box of knickknacks and the truth as far as I know it. Recap montage. All the way back to the start: section geriatric, fresh blood, Pinsky, OB/DNP, too soon to tell, Randy Antillo, backspace through Word, fancy stationary, “V. Vane” invite, snake eyes wake, plum face, Blondie’s I love you! Darla’s brand of purity, Rx the cat, Stain’s huge face, Wicked Rick’s pitch, my failed return to Style, Rood’s call sheet call, and my visit back to pure—not so pure anymore. I talk for a good twenty minutes and then it’s all on the table, along with my notepads, my antique letter opener, my pens and nightlife guides. I show him the map I made of Wallace’s allies and enemies, and he tacks it to his wall.
I’ve given him all I have. Everything except Cabeza. I keep him out of the story. Just for now, I tell myself. Because that part’s a little sticky.
“Okay,” Curtis says. “So what do you figure? You think Darla was involved?”
I tell him what I think I’ve got. It takes a while, and when I get to the end I’m less convinced than ever that I’ve got anything. “I bet there’s some way to paint by these numbers. Darla seems to think I know something about it, otherwise she wouldn’t have been so eager to get me locked up. So it’s possible I do know something.”
“Okay, it sounds like we’ve got a lot of leads here, and you’ve done great work already, Valerie,” says Curtis. “We need to start with Bigs Cru. They could easily be our perps. There are other people who could’ve known about it too, though, right? If she had all those paintings, there were other graffiti artists involved. Anyone could’ve been pissed that she sold those paintings if they belonged to someone else.”
“Yep,” I say. “Wallace was the Golden Gadfly. You said it yourself. He could’ve told any graffiti writer in New York. Maybe one or two in Philly. Maybe he told you about it and you let it buzz in your ear. In that case, you’re a suspect too.”
Curtis pulls his chair up next to mine. “Okay, let’s start at the beginning again and jot down every possible angle. We may not be able to solve your murder. The best we can do, if we can do it, is figure out who tagged up Darla’s. All we need is motive and opportunity. You lead the way. And we haven’t got much time, because Battinger wants it pronto. So get ready for a good long whiff of the grindstone.”
We go over it again. And again. We drill it. What we know. What we don’t know. What we need to know to make it fly. We make lists. Concise, pointed, nothing wasted. We’ve got to get well oiled. We’ve got three days and so far w
e’ve got nothing. But we’re going to nail it. We’re ready. We’re set.
I grab a cap off Curtis’s hat rack and stick a business card in the brim. It doesn’t say “Press,” like in the old days, but anyone can read “The Paper” if they get close. I slip off my heels. No more stilettos for this gumshoe. It’s time to get serious in my flats.
This time around, I’m a unicycle rider: all legwork.
My first stop is Diaz Pizzeria on 207th Street and the mural of Stain’s mile-wide grin. They’re done. The wall is complete. Gravestones echo to eternity. The words read: “Malcolm. In Memoriam. You were our inspiration.” Votive candles burn on the sidewalk. Bottles of unopened rum. A young girl is there, silently leaving a bouquet of blue carnations. No sign of the Cru. I go inside the pizzeria, where Frankie Diaz is behind the counter throwing dough. He tells me Clu and Wicked Rick are at the shop. Rx left for Jamaica this morning. He suggests I give the office a ring.
“I heard about that gallery job. But no way it’s any of my boys. They’ve got a serious rep to maintain. Otherwise they don’t get commissions,” Diaz says. “Boys did a job for Glenfiddich up near the mall in the spring. First thing Rx did when he got paid was buy a ticket to Montego Bay.”
I ask Diaz for Rx’s address anyway. He hands it over along with a number for Bigs Cru. “I’m telling you, it’s not these boys. But go ahead and check for yourself.” I do. I bang on Rx’s door on Fordham Road for a while. I don’t get anyone home. I knock on nearby doors, cold calling.
“Have you ever heard of a man named Malcolm Wallace?…How about someone who goes by Stain?…Do you know your neighbor, a guy who goes by Rx? Ever see him do vandalism? Ever see him break in anywhere?…Who was close enough to Wallace to avenge his death?…Did you ever hear about a fire at an art warehouse downtown, in Manhattan?…What’s your number for follow-up, if you don’t mind my…”
Just when my wrist cramps up my phone rings. It’s Wicked Rick. He tells me to meet him on the boulevard at a swanky joint called Jimmy’s Bronx Café. He’s there when I get there. He’s ordered me an iced tea. He lays it all out: Rx has flown but his alibi is airtight. Clu’s wife gave birth on the night of the break-in and they all met up at the hospital to smoke cigars. Rx finished off the Ron del Barrilito at Clu’s place before passing out on the sofa. He stayed there until Rick drove him directly to JFK at 6:00 a.m. It’s an alibi, sure, but I need to check it. He says, “This is the work of young kids who don’t have a lot of experience. We call them toys. We’re in our forties, Ms. Vane, we don’t have the energy for those kinds of stunts. Not that we ever really did.”