The Knowland Retribution l-1

by Richard Greener

  “What the fuck are you talking about!” Stein exploded. “When you pay somebody to ‘take care of someone,’ you expect they’ll ‘take care of it.’ Am I wrong? These mystery men can’t find the bathroom without a flashlight, can they?”

  “Take it easy everyone,” Tom said. “We have topnotch people on this. But, frankly, they have to know who to go after. We can’t tell them that. This is not something these people usually do. Finding out who they’re looking for may be a little beyond their scope.”

  “Five hundred grand, and it’s ‘a little beyond their scope’?” Nathan’s voice was screeching with frustration, and Tom was certain anger had ignited the fires of Nathan’s uncontrollable fear.

  “Take care of them…?” Louise said. “Does that mean-”

  “Damn well better mean that,” Pitts said. He mumbled something foul.

  Tom delivered his next line to Louise. “Nathan is justifiably disappointed. I’m disappointed myself. The people I’ve hired have not been able to identify our man. Once we have him identified and know where he is, I’m sure they’ll do as expected. And that’s really why I’m a little late. Before I left the city I made a few phone calls.”

  All three were leaning forward now: Wesley hoping Tom had it locked at last; Louise feeling snug at the center of things; Nathan turning again to his only friend. Tom met each set of eyes and said, “I want to tell you about a guy. His name is Walter Sherman.”

  New York

  Isobel Gitlin had celebrity thrust upon her, and she did not like it a bit. At least, not at first. The Moose tried to counsel her. “Let them see you and get it over with,” he said. “These things have a shelf life of a day and a half. Go with it. Let it happen. Before you know it, it’s over.” She rejected his advice. She thought it was stupid that anyone would make her a part of the story of the E. coli disaster and the deaths that now seemed to follow. “It’s nonsense,” she told Gold. He followed her wishes. He held out for a while, demanding that the Times withhold her photographic image. That lasted a week, during which time the cable networks filled their empty afternoons with experts, some of whom actually claimed to know Isobel Gitlin, and they offered up details to which they considered the world entitled. Things changed when a former boyfriend sold an old but flattering photo to the New York Post. Murdoch’s New York newspaper front-paged her face with the headline, “What Does Isobel Have to Hide?”

  Isobel glumly watched a local TV report from a Manhattan perfume store she’d never heard of, where the girl at the counter described the fragrance advice she’d given Isobel just last week. A determined flock of paparazzi formed, not in the same league with the Jackie O/Princess Di eras, but large enough to frighten a normal person. The absurdity of it all amazed Isobel. Nevertheless, a friend procured a bag of discounted wigs from a Borough Park store for Hassidic women. Isobel wore a different one every day, and a blue jean jacket, and that was all it seemed to take.

  She thought it all ridiculous. But lest Isobel miss any subtleties, Mel explained the dynamics: her week of faceless celebrity had tantalized the marketplace, precipitating, once the picture was out, a near-hysterical gathering of “the birds of the air.” That’s how the Moose always referred to television “journalists.” The hook for the story was, of course, her investigative reporting: the link between the murders and the plague. That positioned endless replays of the desolation of the South by the mighty marauding E. coli bug. Television ran with it as if it were Sherman’s Second campaign. They disinterred the grief of those days like fresh meat and served it up all over again with Isobel Gitlin as gravy. Cable wouldn’t let it rest-not as long as the story pumped revenues. And the regular networks could not but follow. Thus was Isobel informed that she ought to go on TV. Management said she really ought to do it for the Times, for herself. She ought to do it. Period.

  Upon hearing that, the Moose advised: “Too late, kiddo. You might have smiled at the assholes and gotten rid of them in the beginning, but not anymore. You need a war or some particularly gruesome celebrity murder to get the dogs off your behind now. You’re the flavor of the month, and they all want a lick. You do it now and it won’t be pretty.”

  “How about tolerable?” she said. “Can I d-do that?”

  The Moose said, “Well, nothing lasts forever. They want their pound of flesh, and when they get it they’ll be done with you. Make a list of words you can manage. You know what I mean. Say them out loud a few times. Put together some sentences. Then, when you go on the air, repeat them a lot. Doesn’t matter what they ask. Just say the things you’ve practiced. That’s what everybody does. If it gets to be too much, just look at the camera,” he chuckled, “and say: ‘F-fuck you!’”

  “Thank you. Th-thank you very much,” she said in her best imitation of the King. The Moose had not offended her. She worked on her delivery in a studio owned by the paper. To her astonishment, the camera helped control her stutter. She planned to write a piece on that, perhaps with a neurologist.

  Her story, with her picture, made the cover of Newsweek and an inside, double-page feature in Time. Totally fabricated stories appeared in respected publications describing Isobel’s role in briefing the FBI, advising the mayor of Boston, consulting with Houston’s Commissioner of Police. There was gossip about a book deal, a movie, an HBO special. The info-tainment shows and one especially sleazy tabloid linked her with rock stars, actors, athletes, even an in-your-face lesbian poet.

  The paper had gone through tough times. Management saw in Isobel a chance to recoup intangible losses, the slippage in prestige that sloppy and fraudulent reporting will bring on. If Isobel Gitlin had made the Times the new leader in investigative reporting, they were happy to run with it. Her face and legend inspired an instantly devised subscription promotion theme: her image appeared on posters advertising the Times in subways and bus stops. Her salary increased commensurate with her new private office upstairs and an Administrative Assistant. She was told to consider herself “at-large,” and report to Gold for the moment. He had her continue to hunt up additional angles on the E. coli story-fly here and there, peer under rocks, and, above all, scour the Internet. In an industry that looked to generate heat, she was boiling. Her father warned her, “Boiling water evaporates, my dear.” And something told her to hold off on getting an agent.

  She invited the Moose upstairs for tea. She did not expect him to be impressed, or contemptuous, and he wasn’t. She did not expect him to hand her a lecture on what was bullshit and what was not, and he did not do that either. What surprised her was his certainty that she’d soon be back in the basement or on the street. He could not lay out a scenario, but reported this news from deep in his world-weary gut. Isobel did not doubt him for a moment. “Evaporate,” her father had said.

  Her descent began with the arraignment of Harlan Jennings for the murder of Floyd Ochs. Isobel felt the chilly winds blow the morning the first reports hit the AP. Macmillan and Gold were upstairs moments later. Her door slammed behind them. If Ochs was killed by a redneck named Harlan Jennings, a shit-kicking peckerwood unconnected to Hopman or MacNeal, or anyone sickened by meat-borne E. coli-all of which seemed to be the case-then Ochs’s murder could not be tied to Hopman’s or MacNeal’s. The three-by-one murder story was dead. As for Hopman and MacNeal, they had business dealings, yes. But those involved many diverse ventures, which implied a sprawling universe of potential satisfaction seekers. They could be anywhere. Maybe a vengeful or a chemically imbalanced ex-employee did in Hopman and/or MacNeal. Possibly it was someone-anyone-who had been let go, downsized by one of his or her takeovers. Somebody who, perhaps after losing his or her job, had to pull the kids out of private school or move to a lesser neighborhood; someone whose life went bankrupt in a very bad way. “Why not?” inquired the Moose. Hopman and MacNeal had those and other abuses in common. Without the E. coli angle the thing fell flat. The question facing them all right now-and facing their Olympian betters-was sadly and simply this: had Isobel Gitlin made th
e New York Times a laughing stock again?

  Macmillan, whom she expected to gloat, did not. He seemed to believe that he would get caught in the gears, and his frat-boy confidence never made an appearance. He was all about looking around the room and twisting his Cornell ring. Mel Gold, who did most of the talking, struggled to retain his sense of humor. Having said his piece, he encouraged her to “… continue looking under rocks, but do it a little faster.”

  She called Laticia Glover at the Memphis Commercial Appeal. She began to introduce herself, but Glover got the stutter, “Girl, you’re in a shit-storm now.”

  “Perceptive of you to point that out.” Her infrequent spasms of irritation, like the camera, helped limit her stammer.

  Laticia laid it out. Harlan Jennings had been an assistant plant manager for Knowland amp; Sons in Lucas. When Floyd was promoted, Jennings was one of several assistant managers suddenly deposed. Two guys went back to working on the line. One got a job in a lumber yard and had no hard feelings. According to Laticia, Jennings punched the executive who told him Ochs had the manager’s job. That got him fired on the spot. Some weeks later, drunk as a coot, Jennings went after Ochs in a bowling ally. Threats were made and a lot of people heard them. Maybe, some thought, Jennings would eventually calm down. He never did.

  The Tennessee authorities worked slowly and methodically. When the cops talked with Harlan Jennings he was drunk and uncooperative. He tried to hit an officer and went to jail for that. Four shotguns were found in his basement, two recently fired, all seized. Awaiting his assault trial, Jennings was charged with the first-degree murder of Floyd Ochs.

  “They got this guy cold,” Laticia said. “They have witnesses saying one time he was shooting shotguns and laughing and saying he wished he was shooting Floyd.”

  “What was he doing shooting shotguns?”

  “Yeah, hold on.” Isobel heard pages turning. “I got it here somewhere. He was out at The Canyon.”

  “The what?”

  “A shooting place. A firing range. We’ve got a lot of them here.”

  No response.

  The Memphis reporter stifled a chuckle, catching the question in Isobel’s silence. “That’s what they do down here. They go out and shoot their guns.”

  “You mean a canyon outdoors, where people shoot at targets?”

  “A special building. Like in New York. You all go out and play racquetball. We got shooting ranges.” She laughed again. “Too bad about this Jennings thing. You were ‘in the house’ for a while. But where does it leave you now?”

  “F-fuck you, Laticia,” Isobel said, as cheerfully as she could.

  “Always happy to help the Times.”

  “Did Jennings confess?”

  “Hell, no. He says he’s innocent. Claims he’s being railroaded.” Now she let out a full, deep chuckle.

  “Why’s that funny?”

  “Poster boy for Tennessee crackers kicking and screaming he’s going down for a crime he didn’t commit. Tulia, Texas upside down. Gets my funny bone is all.”

  “Is there anything tending to exculpate?”

  “Nothing I’ve heard about. They got motive and opportunity. They got the murder weapon. Hard case to beat, Isobel.”

  “Hard case to beat.” The phrase echoed after the call. Macmillan said something like that when she tried to sell her story. He told her it was a hard case to make.

  As soon as Macmillan figured out that he was in the clear, that Mel Gold would catch whatever came down, and probably take more than his share, Macmillan’s other side would surface. He’d be dancing soon enough.

  As she expected, Jennings’s arrest played big. This was no routine murder. This was a counter story; a harpoon in the side of a helium whale. Her own paper ran an article casting doubt on Isobel’s earlier work, without mentioning her name. But that would not take long. She expected a mea culpa on the editorial page. That would be the fat lady’s song. Once-eager new pals were already steering clear. Her private office became a no-go zone from the minute Macmillan and Gold walked out. Next day, the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times suggested that the New York Times had once again been suckered by a youngster with an imagination.

  The New York Post ran a full-page headline: “Times Tainted.” This time the photo of Isobel showed her ducking paparazzi. “Fuck you,” she said, throwing a copy of that paper in her wastebasket. Other papers across the country ran stories stating as fact that Harlan Jennings’s capture disproved the three-by-one theory. Many suggested that Isobel Gitlin invented the connection, developed it like a piece of fiction, sold it to her editors (and what kind of editors were they?), and thereby hoodwinked the national press, the cable stations, the networks, and, yes, the American people.

  The talking heads asked each other when would they learn? They berated themselves as too damned trusting. They wondered what would become of us all if things like this continued to sap America’s faith in its media. And who, after all, was this Isobel Gitlin? No friend of theirs, to be sure. None of them knew her.

  Isobel still had her salary and her office, and Mel Gold was there to do what he could. Nevertheless, she saw herself near the end of a very short branch. That was when Walter Sherman called.

  “Miss Gitlin,” he said. “We have not met, but I know that you’re right. I’d like to talk it over.”

  “What do you mean you know I’m right? Right about what?”

  “Hopman, MacNeal, and Ochs. I know things that you don’t. I know things that you should know. Where would you like to meet?”

  “Who are you?”

  “My name is Walter Sherman. Meet me in the restaurant of the Mayflower Hotel. Six o’clock. I’ll be sitting at a table next to the window facing Central Park West. I’ll be wearing a camel-hair blazer. You’ll be relieved when you see me. I’m old enough to be your father, and harmless as a pup. I know what you look like. I’ll see you come in. I’ll be dining and I hope you’ll join me… if you have any appetite nowadays.”

  “Mr. Sherman,” she said. “I will have a gun in my purse. If you are f-fucking around I will shoot off your b-b-balls.”

  The tables by the window are actually in the bar. The first entrance from the lobby brings you there. A single line of tables sits against the plate glass, inches from the street. The bar’s a step up. In between the tables and stools, a row of planters is filled with large, leafy triffids that keep the rooms apart. Walter watched Isobel walk past him outside, wearing a green summer dress and yellow sweater, chin on her chest, stepping quickly, hands clutching a green, beaded purse. He stood up, smiled, and waved as she moved inside.

  “It’s a pleasure. I’m Walter. May I call you Isobel? Please have a seat. And please leave the gun in your purse.”

  She shook his outstretched hand, sat, and felt an awkward silence roll in. He liked awkward silences. They sometimes offered a window into the subject’s state of mind. The quality of the smile, or frown, the posture, the steadiness of the gaze-there were things you could often tell from signs like that.

  Walter Sherman’s own manner had nothing much to offer. He seemed relaxed but purposeful, self-assured but diffident. What he said next suggested telepathy:

  “See? Old enough to be your dad.”

  “I’m older than I look,” she said. “You could be younger.”

  Now his pale-blue eyes showed her something nice: he was at least a little impressed. “Drink?” he said, flicking a finger. A smiling waiter leapt forward. She ordered a vodka martini. He asked for a Diet Coke.

  “Is that quite fair?” she asked him.

  Walter said, “I’ll have wine with dinner. We can talk about sports until then.”

  Isobel could hold five martinis long before she left London.

  “You know about me. Everyone does. It’s ugly.” She was stammering only moderately, and felt unexpectedly at ease. Now she saw a curious light in Walter’s bright blue eyes. She tried a telepathic turn of her own:

  “I spoke English and very goo
d French at home. As a child I spoke Hindustani every day, and Bauan as well. I still can. My parents tried to keep my speech white, European. I rebelled against that, which could have produced my stammer. They say I pronounce my English like a little black village girl. That may help to explain the inflection you hear. I cultivate it because I like it. Do you?”

  The surprise in his smile seemed to confirm that she had, in fact, read his mind. Then came the martini. She felt its first effect before the alcohol hit her blood. Coffee worked the same way. She got her first rush from the smell. She became aware that this was becoming a “jolly bash,” as her suave, determined father might have said. And a jolly bash was not what she had in mind.

  “Now let’s hear about you,” she said matter-of-factly. “What do you do besides advertise your antiquity?”

  “I find missing people,” he said.

  No question: he’d said the same thing hundreds of times before. He could certainly have lied; anything else would have sounded more likely. She got the sense that he liked going straight to the point. Did he really find that practical? When did circumstances permit that kind of candor? How would it work for a catcher of people? Or was it a nifty affectation?

  “Why do you do it?” Isobel asked, all pretty eyes and ears.

  “People pay me to do it.”

  “Why don’t they call the police?”

  “Most do, but some are embarrassed, and some are afraid of ridicule, the risk of humiliation. Sometimes they need a private way to find whoever’s lost.”

  “First you said ‘missing.’ Then you said ‘lost.’ Which is it?”

  “Sometimes there’s no difference. Some people want to be missing. They are not lost. Once in a while they don’t know where they are. Then they are lost.”