Kill The Story

by John Luciew

  Cameras were now panning between the two of us, recording both sides of our conversation. I kept stepping forward until I reached the first row of chairs.

  “That’s far enough,” Stanhope said. “I don’t want you trying anything stupid and ruining my photo-op.”

  “Take me,” I said again. “You’ll get your pictures. You’ll get your story.”

  Stanhope seemed to appraise me then, as if assessing a life-long nemesis and finding him wanting. I was a foe who had grown in his mind to epic proportions. Twenty-nine years ago, I represented evil incarnate to a young boy who had lost his father. I was the ruthless reporter who had driven his daddy to suicide. But not just any suicide. A bitter, blood-soaked ending committed in public and played out in front of the press for all the world to witness. But now, standing before him, I was merely a rumpled writer. A hack, past his prime.

  “We’ll see what you’re willing to do,” he said. “How far you’ll go.”

  Without ever taking his eyes from me or the gun off of Cassie, Stanhope backed toward his open briefcase and reached inside. “You’re the story today,” he said. “The final story.”

  He took something from the briefcase and tossed it to me. “Catch.”

  My eyes followed the dark-looking object as it made a lazy arch in the air. I watched it without recognizing what it was until it fell heavily into my hands. It was so heavy, I nearly fumbled it onto the carpeted floor. Instead, I juggled it but recovered.

  I glanced down to see the British Webley, looking compact but deadly in my sweaty palm. It was Clayton Stanhope’s gun, the one he had used to blow his head off. The one his son had used to kill a man. Now this antique instrument of death was resting heavily in my own hand.

  I raised my head slowly. Clayton Shaw Stanhope II was smiling. It was the proud, satisfied smile that comes after years of meticulous planning, months of exacting work and a lifetime of careful, thoughtful reading.

  “It’s time for your story,” he said.

  Chapter 56

  I felt the lights and the television cameras on me now. Sweat peppered my brow, and it was difficult to breathe. My eyes kept returning to the gun in my hand.

  “Grip the weapon properly,” Stanhope instructed.

  I looked at him. He was still holding the large gun on Cassie. I refocused on the weapon in my own hand. I wrapped my thumb and fingers around the butt of the gun and laced my index finger through the trigger hole.

  “Exceptional weapon, isn’t it?” Stanhope said. He was grinning again.

  I challenged him. “Don’t you think it’s taken enough lives? First your father, then the driver up in Buffalo?”

  “You forget the senator’s press secretary,” Stanhope added.

  I couldn’t mask my surprise.

  “Oh yes,” Stanhope assured. “You don’t realize how easy it is to affect the schedules of our country’s highest public officials in this age of terrorism. I simply phoned in a threat, and the senator predictably canceled today’s events. So convenient, really. Of course, I wanted to deliver news of the cancellation myself. I couldn’t very well have the senator’s mouthpiece coming here and ruining my press conference, could I?”

  “You’re father wouldn’t have wanted this,” I said. “When he took his life, he warned everyone to stay back. He didn’t want anyone else getting hurt. He was prepared to take his own life, but he could never think of harming anyone else. That’s the memory you should honor.”

  “Too bad my dad was never around to tell me those things,” Stanhope said. “It’s a shame he wasn’t around to raise his son. Too bad for you that you drove him to suicide. Funny how one event can have so many far-reaching ramifications. It’s like ripples spreading out on the surface of a pond.”

  “Nothing’s inevitable,” I pleaded.

  My heart was thumping in my chest and the sweat just pouring off of me. But Stanhope didn’t seem to be sweating a drop. He was relaxed. He was enjoying it.

  “There is no fate.” I said. “You can stop it. You can end it right here.”

  “Why would I do that? Why would I stop something I spent years planning? Why would I end something I spent a lifetime dreaming about?” Stanhope paused to consider his own question.

  “I’ll tell you what,” he finally announced. “I’ll let you stop it.”

  “What?”

  “Yes. Raise the gun.”

  I stared back at him.

  “Do it. Point it at me.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “If I’m gonna do this, you tell me how. Isn’t there a safety or something?”

  “It’s a revolver.” Stanhope spoke as if I were stupid. “Just cock the hammer.”

  “The what?”

  “The thing sticking up in back. Pull it back with your thumb.”

  I did as he instructed, the gun still pointed at the ground.

  “Now rest your finger on the trigger, but do it gently.”

  I did so. “How can I be sure there are bullets in the gun?”

  “It holds six shots. Three are left. Now raise the gun. Point it at me. This is your last chance.”

  The room was silent, except for the occasional snap of a shutter and the whirring sound of the television cameras recording it all on videotape.

  The gun felt incredibly heavy as I raised it and extended my arm, locking my elbow. I pointed it at Stanhope. Cassie was right next to him, partially in front. Stanhope still held her wrist behind her back and he still pointed his gun at her temple. She was so close to him. Too close. Cassie’s eyes focused on the gun -- my gun -- the one I was pointing toward her.

  “Telly, don’t do this,” she said in a paper-thin voice.

  Sweat was stinging my eyes. I wiped it away with the heel of my palm. My other arm was rigid, pointing at Stanhope.

  “All you have to do is pull the trigger,” he said. “I should warn you, however, that the Webley Mark I fires a particularly heavy bullet. The heavy slug fires at much slower velocities, and the gun isn’t all that accurate. You probably have as much chance of hitting me, as you do your pretty friend here, or one of the expensive paintings on the wall. But it’s your choice, your last chance. What’ll it be?”

  I looked down the length of my arm, trying to sight the gun on Stanhope. I closed an eye and squinted with the other. But I couldn’t keep the gun on Stanhope. My arm seemed to be swaying and my hand was shaking.

  “Well?” Stanhope prodded. “We’re all waiting.”

  I blinked away sweat and brought my other arm up to help steady the gun. But it was no good. My muscles were tiring and the tremor in my hand was growing more pronounced.

  “Seems you’ve got the shakes,” Stanhope observed. “Shoulda eased up on the booze a decade or so ago. Too late now. Maybe we need to find you an easier target.”

  Stanhope puzzled on this for a moment, but it was just theatrics. I knew what he was going to say.

  “How about you?”

  Then to the packed house of reporters, he added, “Keep rolling. This is gonna be good.”

  Chapter 57

  I allowed the gun to fall to my side in defeat. My arm felt like rubber, and there was a surreal quality to everything. As if it were all happening to someone else. As if I were just another viewer watching these events through the media filter.

  Then Stanhope instructed me to kill myself.

  “One of two people is going to die, right here, right now,” he said. “Either it’s going to be you, or Lois Lane here. You decide. You have five seconds.”

  I looked at Cassie. She closed her eyes, not wanting to witness either alternative.

  Stanhope watched me, seeming to know what I was thinking. “I will let her live,” he said. “She’s not part of this. And it’s like you said, she’s with the New York Times. I’ll want her to report my statement. I need her to be my messenger. You know what I say is true. You do believe me, don’t you?”

  “I believe you.” I glanced down at the gun, then raised it slowly to my
head. I pressed the barrel just in front of my right ear.

  “This won’t do,” Stanhope admonished me. “It just won’t do. You know how it has to be. Turn around. Turn to the cameras.”

  I pivoted to face the room full of reporters. Once, they were my colleagues. Now they were passive witnesses to my execution. But even they didn’t want to look at me. They didn’t want to stare into the face of a condemned man. When I looked at their faces, the reporters glanced down at notebooks, pretending to scribble a pertinent detail. Cameramen took refuge behind the black eyes of their lenses. They’d let their instruments do the looking, the staring.

  I found Wally Greenfield in the back of the room. He had a camera to his face. But when I stared into his lens, he lowered it. He took away the camera but still held something else. He had it close to his face, as if wanting me to see it. At first I thought it was a light meter or some other piece of photographic equipment. Then I recognized the green glow. Wally’s camera had been camouflage for what he’d been doing.

  My fingers adjusted on the gun’s grip, my index finger weighing on the trigger. Then Stanhope spoke.

  “Ladies and gentlemen of the press, I give you my final statement and my greatest story,” he announced. “This is the corrupt reporter who falsely accused my father a quarter century ago. He drove my father to suicide in front of a judge and jury of journalists. But the verdict was wrong, and the time has come to correct the record. The media murders have visited old stories upon their authors, as if their news reports had been prophecies. It showed the world that the media is not immune from what it reports. The very act of reporting an event changes it. And it changes the reporter, as well. In life, there are no detached observers. There is no objectivity. And now it’s time for the final story. It’s something that should have happened a long time ago.”

  Just then, Cassie Jordan cried out. “Turn off your cameras. Everyone, please put them down. Put everything down. It won’t mean anything to him if there’s no one to report it. Don’t you see? You can stop him. If you stop reporting right now, he can’t win. He can’t get what he wants -- the story.”

  In that moment, I was as proud of Cassie as I’d ever been of anyone. But I knew she was putting herself in danger. And I knew she was asking the media to do something it could never do -- turn away from news.

  “It’s okay, Cassie,” I said. “It’ll be all right.”

  “She’s smart, this one,” Stanhope said. “But I think I know the media a little better. And so do you, Tellis.”

  I looked out at the pack. Not a single camera had stopped rolling.

  “It’s time to finish this,” Stanhope said. “You know how it has to be, Tellis. In the mouth.”

  I hesitated.

  “Put the gun in your mouth,” he shouted. Then softer, “It’s the only way to be sure.”

  I opened my mouth and inserted the barrel. It tasted of metal, gun powder and old smoke. I shut my eyes and fought the urge to retch. I opened them just in time to see movement behind the smoked glass doors leading to the boardroom.

  “Never keep the media waiting,” Stanhope prodded.

  Just then, helmeted officers wearing thick vests and riot gear burst through the glass doors. There were sounds of shattering glass, then a blinding flash and an ear-splitting bang, stunning everyone in the room.

  I spun around, leveling my gun at Stanhope. He looked momentarily confused, a movie director whose actors had changed the ending. Cassie broke away from him, and I fired. As soon as I did, Stanhope extended his own gun. There were more shots.

  I felt a blow from behind, and I went down hard. I lost the gun as I extended my hands to brace my fall.

  I crashed into something, a chair maybe, tearing open the flesh of my right hand on something sharp. Then, an oppressive weight plunged down on top of me, forcing every molecule of oxygen from my body.

  I realized it was one of the combat-ready officers. To him, I must have looked like a suspect with a gun in his hand. I couldn’t tell him I was one of the good guys. I had no air, no way to speak. And no way to expand my lungs with the officer’s full weight bearing down.

  I looked toward the front of the room. I saw Stanhope’s shoes sticking out from behind the podium. He was down, and another officer was creeping toward him from the side. I looked to my right. Cassie lay in a heap on the floor.

  I clawed my fingers into the carpet, trying desperately to go to her. But my wounded right hand was sore and sticky with blood, and my lungs were burning from the lack of air. I didn’t care about any of it. I had to get to Cassie.

  Just then, the cop shifted his weight as he reached for the antique gun that had fallen from my hand. The officer was attempting to secure the weapon.

  As the cop shifted his position, my chest heaved and my lungs expanded. I sucked in air like a newborn getting its first breath. I emitted an audible gasp, then grunted to my captor. “Get off me. I’m a reporter.”

  I squirmed, fighting for my freedom, then spoke again, this time with greater conviction afforded me by more air. “You’re hurting me. I think I’m having a heart attack.” I was lying, but the officer eased up just enough. I crawled toward Cassie.

  * * *

  She was unconscious and lay on her side. She looked as if she were sleeping, and I hesitated touching her.

  Her designer clothes hadn’t so much as a wrinkle. Her black blouse appeared unmarked. But it was all an illusion. The deepening red stain on the carpet beneath her chest was proof of that.

  The officer who’d been my captor watched over my shoulder as I rolled Cassie gently onto her back. I reached both hands to the neck of her blouse and ripped open her expensive shirt. The buttons popped one by one, exposing her bra-covered chest.

  There was a small dime-sized hole on her left side, leaking blood, the brightest red I’d ever seen. The blood was mixed with tiny, frothy air bubbles. She’d been shot in the lung.

  I did the only thing I could think of. I pressed my hands to the wound, trying to apply pressure and staunch the flow. Then I called out for help.

  “It’s a chest wound,” I shouted. “I think her lung’s collapsed. She needs a paramedic.”

  I lowered my face to Cassie’s ear. “Hold on,” I whispered, as my tears dripped onto her young, perfect face. “You hold on now, you hear? You have a story to write. Page One. So you just hold on, ‘cause there’s no deadline. Not today.”

  What else would you tell a reporter like Cassie?

  Chapter 58

  I insisted upon riding with Cassie in the ambulance. I could tell by the quiet, frantic way the paramedics worked on her that it was serious. I didn’t say anything, just stayed out of the way. When one of the EMTs saw that my hand was bleeding, she tossed me a piece of gauze to hold against the wound.

  At the hospital, they wheeled Cassie away in a furious rush. She had a mask over her face and one of EMTs was squeezing a bag to force air into her body. Another held up an IV bag that fed fluid directly into her veins. Cassie disappeared down the hall and into one of the trauma rooms. Doctors and nurses rushed in after her. It all looked like barely controlled chaos.

  I stood dazed near the ambulance entrance to the emergency room until a young nurse guided me to a bed behind a curtain. She told me to sit on the bed and wait for someone to look at my hand. She left before I could ask about Cassie.

  I tried listening to the many voices just outside my shrouded space. I tried to understand what they were saying, but their vocabulary was thick with medical terms and archaic abbreviations. I peeked from behind the curtain and looked down the hall. People were coming and going from Cassie’s trauma room at a rapid clip. Then I turned toward the emergency room lobby, where a crowd of media was beginning to assemble. Several hospital security guards were holding back the pack. I could have ended up out there with them, starved for information and barking at anyone in authority. But I wouldn’t have been clamoring for a story. I would have been worried about a friend.

 
Just then, the pack broke into a chorus of shouts. TV cameramen flicked on their lights and pivoted with their equipment to focus on a subject. Flashes fired and shutters snapped until Det. Dave Langhorne emerged from the commotion. He flashed his badge and the security guards let him pass. The motorized glass doors swept aside for Langhorne as the media shouted after him. He checked in at a desk, and an attendant pointed him toward the trauma rooms. He was headed that way when I stepped out from the curtain.

  “Is she all right, Dave?” I asked, holding my bleeding hand. Langhorne swiveled his head, absorbing his surroundings.

  “Not here,” he said, nodding toward the curtain area. We walked there together, and the detective pulled the screen closed behind us.

  “What happened?” he asked as I sat down on the examination table.

  Reflexively, I brought my hand toward my forehead, as I often did when trying to summon details. But my hand was injured and bloody, and I stopped myself.

  “The guy, Stanhope. He just showed up,” I said. “He showed up at the press conference, Hollister’s press conference. He said something about calling in a threat and killing Hollister’s press secretary.”

  Longhorn dipped his head in confirmation. “We just found Jerry Kerr, shot dead in a parking garage. He must have been on his way to cancel the press conference, but he never made it out of the garage.”

  “Enough about that,” I said. “How’s Cassie?”

  “Serious, according to the front desk. But they list everyone serious when they come in as a trauma. She’ll need surgery.”

  I dropped my head. My eyes felt wet. “I fired the gun. What if I hit her? What if it was me?”

  “What gun?”

  “Stanhope’s. The old Webley. Stanhope wanted me to kill myself, just like his father did. That was the story. That was going to be his final story. I should’ve just pulled the trigger. Then he wouldn’t have hurt Cassie.”

  Langhorne grabbed my shoulders. “Who knows what he would have done when those SWAT boys crashed his party?” he said. “You gave yourself a chance, and you gave her a chance. Let’s just see what happens.”