The Bottom

by Howard Owen

  The mail carrier comes just before I leave for work. One of the cool things about the Prestwould is the mail. They drop it through a slot in the front door of my unit, like something out of a 1930s movie, which makes sense, seeing as how the place was built in 1929. My bounty consists of the cable bill, the electricity bill, and a small envelope without a return address.

  “Dear Asshole,” the note begins, so I’m already pretty sure it isn’t an invitation from some broker wanting to treat me to dinner in exchange for access to my vast savings, of which there aren’t any. “Are you stupid? What part of ‘you’ve got the wrong guy’ don’t you understand? Do I really have to send another Tweety Bird to the morgue to convince you? I’m getting a little hungry anyhow. How’s that lovely daughter of yours, by the way? She’s got a nice ass.”

  I resist the urge to crumple it up and throw it away. I’m still standing at the front door, so I punch it instead. It’s solid metal, so that makes me feel much better.

  I call Peggy’s and speak with Andi. I emphasize, without reading her the note, that she should definitely not leave the house unchaperoned.

  “You’re starting to scare me,” she says, and I tell her that that is my intention.

  Andi tells me that the inestimable Quip Blandford called last night, all remorse and good intentions. He says he wants to at least “be friends,” which is not a lot to offer, I guess, to the mother of your child. But I’m being unkind. Quip is apparently willing to do what we used to call the honorable thing, back when things were honorable.

  I ask, with trepidation, how things stand now between her and her baby daddy. She worries me when she says that she isn’t sure, but I understand. Maybe life with Thomas Jefferson Blandford V wouldn’t be heaven on earth, but I doubt if Andi would ever have to tend bar or wait tables again.

  I hang up and call L.D. Jones to tell him the third time is a charm. Now we have to go with the story. I can write this one, since it doesn’t have anything—at least, not for now—to do with Wat Chenault.

  “You can’t do that,” he says. “It’s going to bust this thing wide open.”

  I remind him that I’ve given him a head start, but I don’t see anybody behind bars yet.

  He sighs and asks me to read this one to him. When I finish, he says, “Jesus Christ. Do you want us to have somebody keep an eye on your mom’s place?”

  I tell him that maybe that would be a good idea. Maybe L.D. Jones has a heart after all. But I wonder if I shouldn’t just move Peggy, Andi and, yes, Awesome Dude in with Custalow and me. I hope Peggy knows how to use that damn pistol.

  Then, I call Marcus and let him and Kate know about Letter Number Three.

  “They’ve got to release that son of a bitch now,” Marcus says. I’m not so sure they have to do anything, but the heat’s on, for sure.

  IN THE NEWSROOM, it’s business as usual.

  Baer’s puff piece on Chenault is running tomorrow. Meanwhile, Sarah is working the traps still, looking for Leigh Adkins. And she’s been doing some digging on her own, so to speak. She’s found another worker down in the Bottom who’ll back up the story I planted in the Scimitar.

  “I think Wheelie’s going to let us run it,” she says. I’m starting to think that Wheelie really is becoming testicularly enhanced. No way he’s run this one past our new publisher first. With all the rumors of our impending sale, I guess we’re all kind of getting into what Enos Jackson calls NTL mode. Nothing To Lose.

  “We’re going to run good Wat, bad Wat, the same day?”

  “I don’t know, but that Baer piece has been ready for two days. Maybe Wheelie figures one will balance out the other.

  I, for one, don’t think there is a good Wat Chenault, but maybe this will lop a few hundred thousand off the damages.

  Wheelie’s in his office. I walk in and shut the door. I’ve never seen Wheelie drink hard liquor, but he has this red Solo cup in his hand, and I’m pretty sure the clear stuff inside isn’t water.

  I bring him up to date about the letters. Wheelie isn’t drunk, but he’s a little looser than usual. I’m thinking he should imbibe more often.

  “You got three of them?” he says. I explain, before he can ask, that I’ve been holding out to give the cops a chance to nab whomever it is.

  “Now, though, it’s time to write something.”

  “Are you going to mention your daughter?”

  I’ve thought about that.

  “No, I’m just going to say that he has made threats against a specific individual, who is getting police protection.”

  “It’s gonna make the cops look kind of silly.”

  I tell him that isn’t my intention, but I’ve given them all the leeway an honest journalist can afford to give a police department. Time to get out the ink and newsprint and let the populace know why they usually have the trial before the hanging.

  As I leave to write my story, I feel obliged to ask him if he’s really going to run another Wat Chenault story tomorrow.

  “Bet your ass,” he says. “We’re going to get sued, we might as well go for the big bucks.”

  Wheelie’s laugh isn’t as grating as Ronnie Sax’s. It’s actually kind of pleasant. It is the laugh of someone who has crossed that line beyond which you’re going to do what ought to be done, and you don’t really give a shit what happens next.

  It is a line with which I am familiar. I perhaps should tell Wheelie that virtue, while it feels as good as a shot of quality vodka, can give you an awful hangover.

  “You really ought to let your editors know, once in a while, what the hell you’re doing,” Wheelie says as I shut the door. He’s right, but sometimes it just muddies things up if everybody knows everything. I’m more of a need-to-know kind of guy.

  So tomorrow’s paper might be worth seventy-five cents after all.

  We’re going to have a story on A1 that says a certain reporter has gotten three notes in the last week from an unincarcerated individual who claims that he, not Ronnie Sax, is the Tweety Bird Killer.

  We’re going to have another story on A1, a fluffy, feel-good feature by Mark Baer on Wat Chenault.

  And the icing on top, we’re going to run Sarah’s story on B1 offering more evidence that the minions of the upstanding Mr. Chenault have been covering up, literally, the remains of long-dead slaves because they’re getting in the way of his real-estate scheme.

  People with enough attention span to remember Baer’s puff piece while they’re reading Sarah’s story might think there’s some kind of disconnect here.

  Me, I’m just trying to connect all the dots.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  X

  Thursday

  Sally Velez phones, waking me up to tell me that Ronnie Sax is now, at least for the time being, a free man.

  She got a call from someone she knows down at police headquarters. I wonder if it’s Peachy Love and feel a twinge of jealousy. Is Peachy cheating on me, spreading some of that good information to somebody else? I doubt it. Peachy’s pretty careful. She knows being the source for even one journalist is tricky enough. She’s not the promiscuous type.

  “He’s already out?”

  “That’s what I hear. Somebody came and picked him up this morning. I think his lawyer posted bail.”

  Thanks, Marcus, for telling me. And thanks to you, too, Kate, my landlord and ex-wife. Oh, well. I neglected to tell them that the story about the letters was running today. Tit for tat.

  The piece I did for this morning’s paper was, against my will, posted at eleven last night, a truly dumbass move. One of the TV stations was, for once, alert enough to check our website and get it in at the tail end of their late news. And, of course, there are the Internet insomniacs who can’t wait until the next morning to read our paper set on newsprint. Maybe Marcus Green was one of them, although I can’t quite envision that. We do make the online freeloaders pay a pittance now for the privilege, but if you had to staff a newsroom on what it costs to breach our tissue-paper firew
all, you’d be down to about six reporters and editors. It is unlikely I would be one of them.

  It did light a fire under some people, though. There were more than 200 responses online. Their reactions were, as usual, reasoned and considerate of others. If only. Most of our online readers seem sure about everything and equally sure that anyone who disagrees with them is an idiot.

  Thus there were the ones who are positive that those letters from outside Ronnie Sax’s cell were proof not only that he is innocent but that the entire police department should be rounded up and shot for (a) arresting and scarring for life the wrong man and (b) letting a deranged killer continue to wander our streets.

  And there were the ones who, having had a good look at Ronnie Sax and a passing knowledge of his relationship with girls and young women, want to see him executed just because they’ve decided they don’t like the son of a bitch. They also want those who disagree to eat shit and die.

  I call Marcus. He posted bail for Sax, who is still on the hook for charges related to pornography. Marcus, who makes no apologies for not giving me a heads-up, says he thinks anything Sax might have done is going to amount to nothing more than a very light sentence and a good talking-to, seeing as how he has innocently languished in jail lo these many days and soon will be suing the pants off the police department.

  “So,” Marcus says, “the cops have still got a psychopath out there. I’d hate to be L.D. Jones right now.”

  He’s right. I’ve got my ideas about who ought to be replacing Ronnie Sax down at the lockup, but the whole thing is so crazy that I don’t even want to broach the subject with the chief just yet. I mean, who the hell is going to believe that Wat Chenault is a deranged psychopath? He might have had an itch for young girls once upon a time, but if he’s ever been arrested for anything bigger than a speeding ticket, it’s been expunged from his record. I know. I’ve looked.

  My private detective is on the case, and Sarah Goodnight’s still out there beating the bushes for Leigh Adkins. A guy who cares enough to take me for a little ride with his goons, and implies a longer, less pleasant ride is in the offing if I don’t butt out of his business, just makes me want to butt harder.

  THERE’S PLENTY TO write about today. First, though, I make a run by Ronnie Sax’s apartment. There are two TV camera crews there already. Mr. Sax, it appears, has left the building. When I call Marcus, Kate answers the phone and says they don’t know where he is, either, but she’s sure he’s around somewhere. After all, why would he jump bail? Since the bail was posted by Marcus, I’m sure at least one person in Richmond is hoping Sax is just hiding out from the news media and not making a dash for the border.

  I recognize one of the women I spoke with earlier about Ronnie. She says nobody’s seen him.

  “Nobody wants to see him, either,” she says. I don’t see any welcome-home cards or flowers at the recently sprung Mr. Sax’s digs. Instead, somebody painted “Leave, asshole” on the door.

  Back at the office, I call L.D. Jones for a comment. His aide says he will hold a press conference at eleven.

  THE CHIEF DOESN’T look happy. The mayor hasn’t joined him for this one. The mayor only shows up for happy news. L.D. frowns when he sees me, although Peggy says a very conspicuous cop car has been cruising by the house on a regular basis, for which I am grateful. I feel for L.D., but it’s become pretty obvious that somebody other than Ronnie Sax is on the prowl, and people need to know, whether it makes the cops look like assholes or not. L.D. prefers to make the arrest before the press conference, but this time it can’t be that way.

  He says Sax is still a “person of interest,” but that the police are going “in new directions” and will have a suspect in custody “in the near future.” He says this is based on new evidence that has recently come to light. Right. “Come to light” because you couldn’t keep us in the dark any longer. Asked to be a little more specific about who the suspect might be and how far in the future we might have to wait for him to be apprehended, the chief says he can’t talk anymore about any “ongoing investigation.” I don’t even bother raising my hand.

  He does surprise me, though, by asking me to drop by after the grilling is over.

  In his office, L.D. looks haggard.

  “Three o-damn-clock,” he says. “That’s when I got the call from one of my lieutenants. Said they were hearing from everybody out there on the street. Been up since three o-damn-clock. Thanks to you.”

  I ask L.D. if he really wants to let some stone killer wander around loose out there.

  “We were on the trail,” he says, but I know he’s bullshitting. When I ask him whose trail, he says he can’t tell me. “Now we might scare the SOB off.”

  I note that a person who sends repeated notes telling you you’ve got the wrong man and threatening more mayhem isn’t too likely to be scared off.

  “That’s what I wanted to ask you about,” he says, stifling a yawn. “If you get anything else from this guy, you’re going to tell us, aren’t you?”

  I run the numbers over in my mind, trying to come up with a decent compromise. L.D. wants me to tell him everything. I’m sure Wheelie wants me to tell the cops nothing. Somewhere between everything and nothing, there’s got to be a number that will piss everybody off just a little.

  “You can have a twenty-four-hour head start,” I tell the chief. “If I get another note at ten in the morning, I won’t put it online until ten the next morning.”

  The chief tries to get that up to thirty-six, and then thirty hours, but I’m firm with twenty-four.

  “You ain’t giving me much time,” he says.

  You already know somebody else is out there, I remind him. You’re already beating down every door in town.

  L.D. shakes his head.

  “I was sure,” he says. “I was sure we had the right one. This guy has guilt written all over his ass.”

  “You never know,” is all I can think to say.

  On the way out, he stops me.

  “If you’ve got any hunches about this, you’ll tell me, right?”

  I assure him he’ll be the first to know. He doesn’t look like he believes me.

  THE STORY PRETTY much writes itself. Sax had a comment, released through Marcus to us and every other news outlet, that he was glad justice had been done at last. I hope he’s right.

  Sarah comes by and says she’s pretty much tapped out on the Leigh Adkins front. If Ms. Adkins is in the land of the living, her whereabouts is beyond our meager talents. If she’s in some unmarked grave or scattered in pieces across the countryside, it’s not showing up on our radar screens.

  “I don’t know, Willie,” Sarah says. “It’s like she just vanished. And Wheelie’s got two other stories I have to get cracking on.”

  That’s what happens these days. The staff gets cut, and you don’t have the luxury of turning a reporter loose on a story until the damn thing is wrestled to the ground. We get a story in a chokehold and then we have to let it escape while we go chase something else.

  I check my e-mail. There are seven messages from readers wanting to rip me a new one for helping to clear a mass murderer. Two of them are more than vaguely threatening. Nobody’s e-mailing to compliment me on my good work. The voice mail is similarly bile-heavy.

  Meanwhile Wheelie’s up to his ass in alligators over the story Sarah did this morning that will further cripple Wat Chenault’s chances of ever seeing Top of the Bottom come to fruition. Neither he nor his lawyers were in the least appeased by the nice little blowjob piece Baer wrote, Wheelie says.

  “One of our readers called in and wanted to know whether we were for him or agin’ him,” Wheelie says, failing miserably at trying to sound Southern.

  “Our publisher was not amused,” he adds. The red Solo cup on his desk looks about half full of ice and something the color of water. “She wants to take it out on Sarah. I told her this just fell into Sarah’s lap, and if she wanted to blame somebody, she could blame me.”

 
This truly is a new Wheelie I’m seeing, whether fortified by Dutch courage or just the knowledge that all our days around here could be numbered, so WTF. Mallory Wheelwright is young enough and has enough connections in other towns that he might be able to tell Rita Dominick to go pound sand.

  So far, he adds, she hasn’t chosen to take him up on his offer of shouldering the blame, but the day is young.

  I’VE GOTTEN CHUCK Apple to fill in for me for a couple of hours tonight. I’ve got a hot date.

  Cindy is giving me another chance after our last little get-together was curtailed by circumstances beyond my control. If somebody tries to abduct me tonight, he’d better have a big gun or a lot of friends.

  We meet at Lemaire. I owe her something a little more high-end than Spaghetti Albert at Joe’s after standing her up three days ago. Plus, Lemaire is one of those places where you can actually have a conversation with the person on the other side of the table, something my fifty-something ears appreciate.

  She’s waiting in the lobby when I get there. It’s only five blocks from the paper, so I walk down, avoiding the urge to smoke the Camel that’s calling my name. There is an outside chance I’ll get to kiss Ms. Peroni, who is a bigot when it comes to cigarette breath.

  She looks lovely. Her brown hair hangs down over those adorable ears I’m yearning to kiss. She has the same bright, mischief-promising eyes, the same mouth whose default position is a smile, those same dimples that made me fall for her when she came back into my life—Andy Peroni’s kid sister all grown up—more than a year ago. Did I mention that she has a nice ass, too?

  She affords me a chaste lip-kiss, making me glad I passed on the Camel. I’ve been more or less good with the drinking of late. It’s been awhile since I was unable to account for my whereabouts the night before. The smoking, though, that’s a bitch. It is a little easier when I don’t drink, as those particular vices have a tendency to do a tag team on me, sometimes joined by that third vice, the one that has cost me three marriages so far, two of which were pretty good when Little Willie was under control. Still, cigarettes are the hardest to kick. Awesome says he knows a guy, living alfresco down by the river when the weather affords it, who has kicked heroin but still can’t stop smoking.