by Carl Hiassen
Two years ago we lost a terrific reporter named Sarah Mills to Timemagazine, which was probably inevitable. Sarah had done outstanding work covering the charmingly crooked municipality of Palm River, and her stories had kept two grand juries occupied for a whole summer. Ultimately three city councilmen were marched off to jail, while the vice mayor fled to Barbados with the comptroller and $4,777.10 in stolen parking-meter receipts.
So we were all disappointed to see Sarah go, though we were glad for her success. Weeks passed, then months, and still no one was named to fill her job, leading to speculation that the job no longer existed. Sure enough, the reporter who covered Beckerville was asked to "temporarily" pick up the Palm River beat as well. Unfortunately, the city councils of both towns met every Tuesday night and, unable to be in two places at once, our harried correspondent was forced to alternate his attendance.
The politicians in Beckerville and Palm River aren't exceptionally astute, but they soon figured out that every other meeting was pretty much a freebie and composed their venal agendas accordingly. In short order both city councils raised property taxes, hiked garbage fees, rezoned residential neighborhoods to accommodate certain special interests (a tire dump in Beckerville; a warehouse park in Palm River), and then rewarded themselves with hefty pay raises. All of this was timed to occur when our overworked reporter was absent, covering the other town's meeting. He dutifully alerted his editor, who said nothing could be done. Maggad-Feist had imposed a hiring freeze at the Union-Register,and Sarah's position was to remain open indefinitely.
Eventually the Beckerville/Palm River reporter got so frazzled that he, too, left the paper. Both his beats were promptly heaped upon the reporter assigned to cover the Silver Beach city council, which, in a foul stroke of fate, also met on Tuesday nights. For the corrupt politicians in our circulation area, it was a dream come true. While Maggad-Feist was racking up a twenty-three percent profit, the unsuspecting citizens of three communities—loyal Union-Registerreaders whom MacArthur Polk had promised to crusade for—were being semi-regularly reamed and ripped off by their elected representatives, all because the newspaper could no longer afford to show up.
The priorities of young Race Maggad III became clear when out of the blue he announced that the headquarters of Maggad-Feist was moving from Milwaukee to San Diego. A corporate press release said the purpose of relocating was to capitalize on the dynamic, high-tech workforce in California. The truth was more banal: Race Maggad III wanted to live in a climate where he could drive his German sports cars all year round, far from the ravages of Wisconsin winters (the annual salt damage to his Carrera alone was rumored in the five figures). So Maggad-Feist picked up and moved its offices to San Diego at a cost to shareholders of approximately $12 million, or roughly the combined annual salary of two hundred and fifty editors and reporters.
The chain's methodical skeletonizing of its newsrooms affected even Emma's career trajectory. She was hired at the Union-Registeras a copy editor and swiftly promoted to assistant city editor, with the promise of more big things to come. Then the editor of the Death page unexpectedly dropped dead of a heart attack. This happened while he was on the phone with an irate funeral-home proprietor who was complaining about an ill-worded headline that had appeared above the obituary of a retired USO singer (Mabel Gertz,77, Performed Acts for Many GIs).The stricken editor expired silently and perpendicular, the telephone receiver wedged in the crook of his neck. Nobody noticed until an hour after deadline.
The next morning Emma was summoned to the city editor's cubicle and informed that, as the junior member on the desk, she'd been chosen to "fill in" on the Death page. Thanks to previous staff departures, her new duties would also include the Gardening and Automotive sections of the paper. I think young Emma truly believed the city editor when he told her it was "a golden opportunity." She also believed him when he said it was only a temporary move, and that she'd soon be back on the news desk, editing significant stories. Time passed but Emma didn't make a fuss because she was a trouper, not a troublemaker. That's changing, though, and I'm considering taking some of the credit.
"Abkazion didn't want to pay for your plane ticket," she's telling me, "but I straightened him out."
I'm impressed; Abkazion is a tough customer.
Emma says, "I reminded him what happened at Robbie's going-away party, when he got bombed and pulled me into a broom closet."
Robbie Mickelson was our environmental writer. He left the paper after it was decided the environment was no longer in danger, and his beat was eliminated.
"The broom closet? That's pretty cheesy," I say.
"I nailed him in the testicles with a bottle of Liquid-Plumr. He couldn't have been more contrite."
"You're definitely getting the hang of middle management."
We're eating breakfast at an IHOP, of all places. The sight of Emma demolishing a tower of buttermilk pancakes has left me unaccountably enchanted. Everything she does, in fact, is downright fascinating. The way she folds one corner of the napkin, for example, before dabbing maple syrup from her lips ...
"Jack, get a grip," she says.
But it's too late for that. I'm already in the barrel, and the barrel's going over the falls. God help me, I've got a crush on my editor—the woman whom I vowed to outwit, demoralize and drive out of the newspaper business. My mission has been derailed by raw straightforward lust, and I couldn't be happier.
Emma says, "It's the story, Jack. You're just jazzed about the story."
"Jazzed."
"High," she says.
"I know what it means, and you're wrong. If the story goes bust tomorrow, I'll still—"
"Don't say that. The story's good."
"Emma, what do you think is happening here?"
Pensively she taps her fork on the empty pancake platter. "I wish I weren't your boss," she says.
"And I wish you weren't so elliptical."
"There's no mystery, Jack. I just don't know what to do."
"Here's a modest proposal: We see as much as possible of each other, and screw ourselves delirious at least once a night."
Emma groans. "Obviously you've given this a lot of thought."
"Call me an incurable romantic."
"Try to be serious for a minute."
"Seriously? Let's go to Paris," I say.
She smiles, which is vastly encouraging, but then says: "Jack, you were twenty years old when I was born."
"Nineteen," I shoot back. "What's your point? And where are you going?"
"To work." She comes around the table and kisses the top of my head, one of those sweet but contemplative pecks that makes you wonder if you've just been dumped.
"How can you leave me here?"
"Finish your sticky bun, old man," Emma says. "You're gonna need your strength." Then she gives me a naughty double wink that knocks me off my pins. Life is pretty good, for the moment.
From the pancake house I drive directly to the county morgue. The contrast in ambience is not especially striking. Upon entering Pete's office I find myself briefly alone with Karen, who gamely engages me in superficial conversation. Our lack of chemistry is so enervating that it's hard to believe we once had a sexual relationship, much less an athletic one. It's remarkable what two uninterested people can do in bed with each other when they set their minds to it. Turns out both Karen and I are doing well, staying busy, looking forward to some cooler weather, etc. We're on the brink of boring each other comatose when I spot Pete at the end of the hall, and excuse myself none too smoothly. He leads me into a lab and closes the door.
"You get my message?" he asks.
"No, I didn't." Sometimes I go for days without checking my voice mail at the newspaper. In my defense, however, the phone doesn't ring all that much. Obituary writers aren't exactly swamped with hot tips.
Pete says, "Well, you were right."
"The samples matched?"
"Yup."
The blood on Janet's carpet was hers. Cursin
g, I kick my heel into the door half a dozen times. Pete patiently steps back and waits for me to settle down.
"Jack, you know I've got to ask—" "Please don't."
"I can get in all kinds of trouble," he says. "If this blood is evidence, there's a serious chain-of-custody problem ... "
"Throw it away," I tell him. "Now hold on—"
"Throw it away, Pete. There's plenty more where that came from."
25
After a rough day of kickin' down doors and chasin' after scumbag criminals, all I wanna do is have a cool drink, peel outta this hot gear and get comfortable.
If you wanna get comfy with me, then have your modem call my modem at 900-555-SWAT. Or, if you register now on this site, the first ten minutes of chat time are absolutely free. I accept Visa, MasterCard or Discover ...
It took an hour but I've found Janet's Web page, complete with a streaming-video promotion. In it she's wearing night-vision goggles, a lacy black bra, matching panties and military-style boots. In the background I recognize the furniture in her living room. The quality of the video is typically dim and herky-jerky, but the sound of Janet's tomboy voice fills me with unexpected sadness. I click over to her list of FAQs, frequently asked questions, and immediately get a laugh.
Q. Are you really a cop?
A. Yes, I'm a lieutenant with a major South Florida police department.
Q. Have you ever shot anybody?
A. Not fatally.
Q. What's your favorite color?
A. Pearl.
I click back to the host page, activating a brief loop of Janet dancing. It's high-spirited though not especially erotic. Touchingly, the accompaniment is a recording of "Derelict Sea," sung by her late brother.
"Is that porn?" Horny young Evan, peeking over my shoulder.
"Does it look like porn?"
"But she's stripping."
"Not really. It's just a goof."
"Wow, Jack. You know her, like, personally? Check out the freaky shades."
"They're sniper goggles, and don't bother calling."
"What?"
Evan has been busy memorizing Janet's 900 number; I heard him repeat it under his breath. "You're wasting your time," I tell him. "She's not there."
"Come on. What's her name?"
"Forget about it," I said. "She's Jimmy Stoma's sister."
"Oh wow."
"Evan, don't you have some work to do?"
Be sure to check out my live chat schedule for when I'm available, but don't pitch a hissy if some nights I don't answer. You never know when they're gonna call the SWAT team out on a hostage crisis or a drug raid or some other 'mergency. I do take online appointments—but not from hard-cores and pervs. Remember, being a police officer I got automatic worldwide call tracing. Anybody starts in with that gross sicko talk and I promise there'll be cops at your door before you can hang up the damn phone!
So let's keep our private chats cool and sexy and nice, and I promise you a super good time, every time ...
Clicking over to Janet's chat schedule, I notice she's got a regular two-hour block on Thursday mornings. It couldn't hurt to try. Maybe she left a message for her regulars, or possibly she bought a new PC and is back in business somewhere else. On my keyboard I tap in the number of her Web-cam line. On the other end it rings and rings, and keeps on ringing.
Who am I kidding. Janet's gone.
"How do you know this?" Rick Tarkington asks.
"The blood matches. Trust me."
"I don't doubt it, Jack, but how would youknow? See my point?"
Tarkington is a major-crimes prosecutor for the State Attorney's Office. I'm obligated to admire him because he's a lifer. He could be making a million bucks a year as a private defense lawyer in Miami or Lauderdale, but he can't stomach the thought of representing killers, rapists and nineteen-year-old drug lords. Instead he has a fine old time sending them to prison and sometimes Death Row. Tarkington is an old-fashioned hardhead who believes that certain feloniously bent individuals cannot be rehabilitated, reborn or redeemed. He believes that some are purely evil and others are just hopeless fuckups, but that all of them should be dealt with unambiguously. He also believes that the American penal system functions essentially as a social septic tank, and that nothing more lofty should be expected of it.
"I could probably sell tickets," he's saying, "for the day they put you on the witness stand. 'Mr. Tagger, would you mind telling the court why you broke into the victim's house and stole a tampon?'"
Rick Tarkington is my age but he looks ten years younger. The irony is glaring and nettlesome. Here's a fellow immersed full-time in the ghastliest details of human malefaction, yet he shows no trace of being haunted by cosmic questions or mortal fears. He is cynical to the core, yet happy as a clam.
In the last thirty minutes I've told Tarkington almost everything about the Jimmy Stoma story, spilling it as breathlessly as I did to Emma. I even brought a small boom box and played "Shipwrecked Heart," which Tarkington said reminded him of early Buffett. I had hoped it would work in my favor that the prosecutor is a rock 'n' roller. On the wall behind his desk is a photo of the Rolling Stones taken backstage at the Orange Bowl. The picture is signed: "To R.T., Thanks for not searching my dressing room. Keith."
"I came here," I say to Tarkington, "because I need direction."
"That you do." He's reclining at a precarious cant, the worn heels of his boots propped on his desk. Tarkington is from Lafayette County, where it's still possible to step in cowshit.
"Jimmy Stoma. I'll be damned," he says, clicking his tongue. "After I saw the obit I went and dug out my old eight-track of A Painful Burning Sensation.It kicked butt." Tarkington swings his feet off the desk and hunches forward, looking serious. "But, Jack, I don't know what the hell you expect me to do."
We've been over this twice already, and he's shot holes in every idea I've floated. "There's a woman missing," I say wearily, "and bloodstains in her house. Can we not assume she's hurt and possibly even dead?"
"I need a warrant to search the place, and where's my probable cause? You tell me nobody phoned in a disturbance. Nobody's reported her gone," Tarkington says. "However, if you'd care to sign an affidavit stating you entered the premises and observed what appeared to be a crime scene—"
"You know damn well I can't." That would make me a witness and put me at the center of the story—and then I couldn't be the one to write it. Another reporter would be given the assignment; the newspaper's lawyers would see to that.
"What about Jay Burns?" I ask.
"By all means. The genius who got smushed by the mullet truck." Tarkington raises his arms beseechingly. "He's drunk, stoned and now his head looks like a fucking Domino's deluxe. And you want me to prove it's homicide."
"Look, I know there's problems—"
"Problems? Old buddy, you've already given me enough to pinch you right now for trespass, b-and-e, tampering and obstruction," says Tarkington. "But that's assuming you and I are having this conversation, which we're not."
The Springsteen tickets—I'd almost forgotten. Sometimes it pays to be a shameless suck-up.
"Killer show," Tarkington says, warming at the memory. "Floor seats, fifth-row center. I owe you for life, Jack. But I can't do much with this one. I'm good, buddy, but I'm not a magician."
"And if Jimmy's sister turns up murdered ... ?"
"I'll be there like a gator on a poodle," he says, "and I'll not hesitate to subpoena your scrawny, white, First Amendment-quoting ass. Now, before you go, play me that song again."
Given the setting, it's a strangely mellow interlude—Tarkington listening with his eyes closed, his chin on his knuckles and his elbows braced on four fat brown file folders: two murders, a DUI manslaughter and the sexual battery of an eleven-year-old child. People think the media is full of bleeding-heart liberals, but most reporters I know root for the Rick Tarkingtons of the world.
"That's nice," he says of Jimmy's singing. "You can tell he was into
the island groove."
I switch off the boom box. "So where we at, counselor?"
"Well"—Tarkington, the prideful cracker, pronounces it like "whale"—"we've got an ambitious young widow who may or may not have bumped off her rock-star hubby. What we don't have are human remains to examine, as the decedent has been inconveniently incinerated. However, we do have the corpse—more or less—of a keyboard player with questionable lifestyle habits. We also have assorted sloppy burglaries of a fishing vessel, an obituary writer's apartment and the dwelling of the dead rock singer's sister, who may or may not have been abducted."
"Don't forget Tito Negraponte," I mutter.
"Not for a moment! Our bass player, plugged in the bupkis by a couple of beaners supposedly recruited by the aforementioned ambitious young widow. Unfortunately, we have no suspects, no supporting witnesses and damn little evidence, circumstantial or otherwise. Which brings us to our pretty little love song, the alleged motive behind all this mayhem—"
"Hey, I just figured out what you can do for me."
"Wait, Jack. I'm not finished—"
"Just give me a quote. That's all I want."
Tarkington snorts. "Are you deaf on top of everything else? Let me repeat this: You're not here. I'm not here. We're not having this chat."
"One crummy quote," I nag him. "Not for publication now, but later."
"The only thing I've got to say to you is be very careful, Slick. Don't be a nitwit and get yourself whacked. And that's strictly off the record."