For the next half hour they reviewed the show’s segments, worked out where her cue cards would be. Each time she moved, pain seized her right side. Gretchen and the two cameramen repositioned flood lamps. They had set up a monitor next to her wheelchair, another visual. When Brenda stopped talking, the voiceover would cut in. The camera on her would zoom to the set and show tape beginning to roll.
But it was obvious there would be no live remote. All yesterday, Jerry had been obsessed with detail. He had looked at hours of file film, annoyed the techs by making them try weird floor-level camera angles and artsy shots. Instead of the usual gear for a live remote, he had the pool area rigged like a studio, with big cameras on tracks, halogen lamps. At one point, he had talked seriously about installing a lift chair on the staircase, to shoot Brenda riding it up from the lobby, holding the I.V. pole.
Now, he was almost bored. As they prepared to watch W-DIG’s eleven o’clock news, he went out on the sundeck and came back with a chaise. He opened it and stretched out in front of the monitor. Brenda was dying to switch over to one of the other affiliates, but she sat quietly next to him.
The opening graphics and music started. Her left kidney still ached, and she tried to find some comfortable posture in the chair as she waited.
“Two minutes.”
When the weather report ended, Brenda took off her sunglasses and looked at Jerry. “All right, it’s over,” she said.
“Hm?”
“It’s Friday night. There’s no reason to keep the crew here.”
“What’s up, darlin’?”
“This is bullshit,” she said. “There’s no live remote.”
He looked at his watch and back to the set. “Don’t worry, the whole special’s going to air,” he said. “Just like I promised. We taped it on both run-throughs yesterday. I put it together this morning. It’ll be great.”
She watched the three techs. They had stepped away from the cameras and were looking at Jerry. “Tell them why you’re wasting their time,” Brenda said. “They deserve to know. You can do it now, you’ve done your job.”
“Wasting whose time?” he said. “This is time-and-a-half.”
“Tell them.”
Jerry shook his head and turned to the techs. “Two hours before air time, Brenda here shows up at the studio with completely different material,” he said. “When she’s on camera, half the time I have no idea what’s coming. Okay, that’s the Lightning Rod, but this? We’re pre-empting the most successful late-night journalist in the world.”
“And pretending to do a live remote means I have to be here.”
“You should be flattered,” he said. “I know you have the balls to do something really off the wall. Betsy McIntosh says you’re obsessed with GENE 2. She says you have some conspiracy theory, she thinks it’s a post-trauma thing. It just seemed prudent to go ahead.”
“McIntosh gave you the idea, didn’t she?”
“Well, darlin’, you are here, aren’t you?”
One of the techs swore and began unplugging the cameras and halogen lamps. The room fell dark. Gretchen and the second tech started locking cameras.
“Is that it?” the second tech called.
“Don’t you want to stay and watch?” Jerry asked.
“We taped it. We saw it yesterday.”
“Please, ladies and gentlemen!” Sunning himself under the last flood lamp, Jerry opened both hands. “Where’s the problem? What’s wrong with time-and-a-half? We’re working here, this is a job. We’re helping someone we really care about avoid a huge mistake.”
The cameraman kneeling next to Gretchen finished with the power strip, stood and headed for the door. Jerry looked back at the monitor as Gretchen snapped a lens hood in place. She gave a discreet V sign behind his head. “Do you want this flood off?” she asked. She pulled the plug before he could answer, and left.
The room was now dark, lit only by the TV and subsurface pool lights. Jerry’s dapper striped shirt was cathode-ray blue from the monitor. Brenda looked to the screen. Lou Stock and the co-anchor were just finishing up, doing the regular snappy patter with the weatherman and sports reporter.
When they were done, the camera swung to Stock. The screen slowly filled with his famous scowl, and he leaned forward.
“That’s it for all of us, but make sure to stay tuned for ‘Heavy Weather,’ the harrowing story of W-DIG’s own Lightning Rod reporter, Brenda Contay.”
She pulled the plastic tubing from the robe’s sleeve and rolled the I.V. prop away from the wheelchair. “Show’s over, Jer,” she said and stood. “We’ve seen it.”
“Kicking me out?”
“I’m going up.”
He swung off the chaise and turned off the monitor. People in the building would come down tomorrow to swim, or sunbathe on the deck. If they had watched “Heavy Weather,” they would see the props. It embarrassed her. She took the IV pole and balanced it between the chair’s back and footrest. As she rolled it toward the elevator, Jerry walked along the other side of the pool.
“No hard feelings?” His voice echoed. “Everybody does what he has to do, Brenda. ‘Be a stand-up guy, this is your call.’ That’s what you said, remember? So I called it.”
“Absotively, Jer. Posilutely you’re one helluva stand-up type guy.”
“You’re going to feel different when we talk contract.”
At the elevator, Brenda pushed the button and watched him get his jacket from the wardrobe rack. “Phone McIntosh,” she called. “You can tell her I was never out of your sight.”
The doors rumbled open. She pushed the chair in, facing forward as Jerry shrugged into his coat. The doors closed. After a second, she felt the bump underfoot. It was like a wave beneath the Nauro Maru, a single swell, soon to be followed by a second of weightlessness.
◆◆◆◆◆
It’s late. I’m watching a ball game.”
“Oh come on, humor me,” McIntosh said. “It’s been a very good day, I want to celebrate. I want company. You like wine, I have some Veuve Clicquot. You can watch the game up here.”
Lindbergh hung up. He was on the bed, watching the TV on the dresser. Extra innings, tied with one out, top of the eleventh, and now she wanted company. Tired of sitting in the Lincoln with her at Contay’s building, he had walked the half mile back to the hotel. He swung off, worked into his shoes and crossed to the door. In the morning he would fly to Seattle. After tonight, he could tell her to fuck off.
Her suite was on the twentieth floor. He rode up, moved down the hall and knocked. Almost immediately the door opened. She was smiling broadly, obviously expecting him to comment on her appearance. She had changed into a sleeveless black cocktail dress and done a job with makeup. Fancy earrings, cleavage, the works.
She cuffed at him to hurry and ran back inside. Lindbergh closed the door and followed her down the suite’s foyer. He found her standing before the big set in the living room, champagne flute in hand. On the screen was someone holding up a jar of insects.
“That’s Calvin Moser,” she said. “On Pohnpei. It really is quite well done.”
Lindbergh recognized him from the photos faxed earlier in the week. Parked behind McIntosh was a butler’s cart with a wine bucket next to stacked dishes from her dinner. She wouldn’t eat with him, but now she wanted to show off her tits. He stepped to the cart, got a glass and poured, wanting to get back to the game.
“We can handle this,” she said. “I’ve made notes. Everything he’s saying we can deny knowing about. Ehrlich got cold feet. He didn’t tell Moser or Soublik about the wasps or pre-treatment. We’ll say we think he waited for some reason, then learned about the two women with tumors. That’s why he never told Soublik or Moser. They didn’t know, we didn’t know they didn’t know. It’s a shame what happened, but let’s not forget what the test results indicate, etcetera.”
What tumors? Some people were so important to themselves they assumed everyone else knew what they were thinking. McIntos
h looked hypnotized, nodding at the screen, wagging her empty champagne flute.
“Without a doubt, this would have been very bad for us,” she said. “After Monday, there will be some fallout, but nothing we can’t deal with.” She turned to him, smiled, and looked back to the screen. “You’ll figure too, Chuck. All next year. Senate candidates need protection, people with your training. I’ll see to it you’re with Russ. You’ve done well here, we’ve worked well together. I take care of my friends.”
So now he was Chuck, and she was Miss Congeniality. She had never explained to him what her problem was, assuming he knew.
“That’s nice,” he said. “I want to watch the game.”
She waved toward the bedroom, eyes glued to Moser. Resting on the cart next to the wine bucket was a hospitality basket wrapped in cellophane. Lindbergh reached in, brought out a can of peanuts, and stepped into the moonlit bedroom. He turned on Channel 5.
A commercial break.
The drapes were open. He stepped behind the easy chair in front of the set and stood before the floor-to-ceiling window facing the Detroit River. Across the water, the smaller Windsor skyline glimmered, the dark river dappled by the moonlight. Red and green running lights on small craft bobbed in the channel.
Windsor was a geographical oddity, the only place in Canada south of the American border. They had built a casino and it was doing very well, drawing thousands from Detroit. Envious of the huge revenues flowing into the smaller city, Detroit’s leaders had pushed for casinos of their own. Now they had them. Lindbergh looked down at the waterfront that would soon be crowded with schlock paddle wheelers loaded with slots, neon signs splashed with names of headliners, bonus giveaways.
The commercial ended. He sat in the easy chair and put his feet up. The Red Sox and the Yankees, at New York. It was almost midnight now. He set his glass on the lamp table, peeled off the lid from the peanuts and scooped a handful.
“It’s the same with Contay’s tape,” McIntosh called. “I watched her before you came up. When we explain about Ehrlich, she’ll look stupid. Even if they work together, it makes no difference. Not now. After Monday, she can do a docudrama on the whole damned thing. Russ will be briefed by then. He could even kick off his campaign talking about it, a nice issue for him. We’ll have him sounding like Ralph Nader before she ever opens her mouth.”
Yeah, you kick it off, Lindbergh thought munching peanuts. Derek Jeter, the Yankee shortstop, moved from the on-deck circle to the batter’s box. The phone rang and McIntosh answered it, Moser’s voice still droning in the living room. Lindbergh understood now what had pushed her button that morning—dumping groceries, smashing windows. Someone on the island had taped Moser and managed to get it to the mainland. If Contay found a way to show it before Monday, McIntosh would be through.
“What are you saying?!”
He looked to the open door, and back to the set. After a week of being around her, sitting next to her in cars and restaurants, he could tell when she was angry. Demanding answers, snapping commands over the phone.
The home plate umpire raised his arm and the camera followed the Red Sox manager as he jogged toward the pitching mound. Maybe they would walk Jeter.
McIntosh was smart, but she had no tact, and Lindbergh thought now it was like managing ball players. If you wanted people to do what you asked, you couldn’t forget they remembered. You had to be consistent. Reliable. It was the same thing with deadbeat gamblers. Too much leverage and they skipped, leaving you without what you came for. You had to think ahead. Weigh the ends against the means. McIntosh had never learned that, and it seemed funny to him, because she had come so far.
But if you shit on people, they remember, he thought. Payback’s just a matter of time. If a manager fucked with a ballplayer like Derek Jeter—forgot to be tactful, maybe trashed him in the press or locker room after a bad day—Jeter might sit on him. How could anyone prove it?
The Red Sox manager and his catcher were nodding to the pitcher, and Lindbergh focused on the Yankee shortstop. Say Jeter was pissed off tonight, out there taking cuts at bad pitches. Bobbling easy grounders, missing the throw to first or second. Say someone fucked with him one day, then came on like nothing happened the next.
Lindbergh tossed in more peanuts as the manager jogged back to the dugout. They were leaving the pitcher in. He thought about what McIntosh had said, about working together. It would never happen. Or if it did—if the director of Corporate Security insisted he dick around next year protecting Russ Minot—well, there would be lots of opportunity for payback.
As the pitcher leaned forward for the sign, the phone slammed down in the living room. Maybe the secretary had fucked up again.
McIntosh appeared in the doorway. The room was dark, but he saw she was breathing hard, staring at him. He looked back at the set as the pitcher nodded, checked the runner at second, and went into his windup. McIntosh crossed the room and stepped in front of the set.
“We have to act right now,” she said. “She gave it to others.”
He heard the distinctive click of bat hitting ball. The crowd erupted. Son of a bitch. When he bent to look past her, she turned, hit the power button and faced him.
“Contay,” she said again. “She gave it away.”
What’s she talking about now? he wondered. Lindbergh leaned back in the chair, set the can of nuts on the floor, and looked up at her, waiting.
“The tape,” McIntosh said. “Both tapes. Jerry says she gave them to the affiliates. They didn’t use them, but they’re calling her station. They must be calling the Neff switchboard. She made copies, she got them distributed all over. There may be dozens, not just here but New York, the papers.”
“You said it didn’t matter.”
“Monday!” she snapped. “This is Friday, don’t you understand? The rally is Monday! It can’t be cancelled, this cannot happen now, it’s impossible, she has two whole days. Do you see what she’s done? She threw away everything, our arrangement, her career, she—”
“Contay doesn’t give a shit about her job.”
She stared down at him as if he were crazy.
“She doesn’t care,” he said. “Go read Freddy Song’s report. When she went to dinner at the professor’s, she was embarrassed talking about what she did. She was making fun of herself. Why do you think she didn’t go to Rio?”
“She sensed a major story, she decided—”
“Nah, she didn’t know anything. She went out there because she felt like it. Same thing here, she doesn’t like losing. You thought you could scare her, but she didn’t blink.”
McIntosh’s cleavage swelled and sank in the strapless dress. “You never said any of this before. Never. None of it.”
“Why would I? This is your operation. I ask what’s wrong, you tell me, what you need to know you know. Fine. I collect information, drive you around, run errands. This is the arrangement you want, so this is how it is.”
She turned away and walked to the end of the bedroom, came back, pivoted. Jeter had done something with a runner on second. Lindbergh wanted to snap on the set, but McIntosh stopped again in front of him.
“Contay has to confirm,” she said. “They have her tape and Moser’s, but if one of the sources can’t verify, they’ll wait. They’ll decide it’s some tabloid hoax she’s cooked up. With just one of them, it means nothing. Not for several days. People know her. She specializes in crack addicts, fanatics—see? It fits. She seduces Moser, talks him into helping her manufacture a piece of trash. She has an accident. Something happens, and she can’t confirm any of it.”
Lindbergh crossed his legs on the ottoman and waited.
“You see what I’m saying.”
“Yeah, I see.”
“If she’s gone, the timeline gets dragged out. We have breathing space. We can get the lawyers involved, it could take a week or more before anyone’s willing to run the story.”
“Yeah.”
“What did you call it? You ca
lled it something.”
“Special ops.”
“Special ops, exactly.”
“You want me to kill her,” he said. McIntosh closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I want to hear you say it.”
“Yes.” She looked at him.
“Yes what?”
“Kill her! I want you to make her disappear. She cannot be alive tomorrow, she cannot be here to confirm this story. GENE 2’s been sold. Neff board members have resigned, the buyout plan—” She turned away, walked to the far side of the room and yanked open the bathroom door. He watched her splash water on her face.
“Special ops,” she said, looking into the mirror. She took a towel and wiped her hands, patted her cheeks. “That’s it. A ripple that lasts a few days, maybe longer. No, longer. She’s newsworthy and it’s too coincidental. The press will definitely speculate and raise questions. But all of that comes later. If she has an accident, that’s all they’ve got. A dead tabloid journalist who had bad luck.”
She came out and turned on the overhead light. “Thank God you came here on this,” she said, flushed, smiling. “I think I must have known something would happen with her. That’s why you’re here.”
“Come again?”
“A coffee maker, toaster—whatever you decide. You’re the expert.”
“What about it?”
“Whatever you think best, Chuck. You’re the pro.”
“Corporate Security.”
She nodded. “Exactly. That’s what you are, your division. You’re going to secure the future, Chuck. He’ll never know the details, but Russ Minot will learn a new hire deserves special consideration. He’s new but he’s already made great contributions, he—”
“Hold it right there, time out.” Lindbergh reached down, found the can of nuts and grabbed a handful. “You want someone for special ops, I’ll make some calls,” he said. He popped in nuts and chewed.
“What do you mean? What calls?”
“I’ll get you someone to do Contay,” he said. “It’ll take a day or two.”
“Chuck, you don’t understand. There’s no time. This is on our watch, it has to happen now. We have to act immediately.”
The Anything Goes Girl (A Brenda Contay Novel Of Suspense Book 1) Page 28