Private Lives (2000)

by Clancy, Tom - Net Force Explorers 09

  “I think any Net Force agent could. I certainly think the captain could. At the very least, he’d have to realize his appearance on that show painted a big ‘Motive’ sign on his forehead.”

  “So your theory boils down to this. If Winters killed this guy, he’d have done a smarter job of it,” Leif finally said.

  “Exactly,” Matt replied. When he realized what he’d said, he began rubbing his forehead. “But if I have to start convincing you…”

  “No, I see your point,” Leif interrupted. “And I agree with it.”

  “You’re about the only one.” Matt didn’t meet his friend’s eyes. “I couldn’t convince Agent Dork. And I got bad news from the Squirt. Mark says it feels as if someone died over at his house. His parents are both awfully upset, and they won’t talk about Captain Winters’s situation with him.”

  Leif nodded. “I’m sure Jay Gridley is getting enough of those sorts of discussions on the job,” he said. “Winters has always seemed to me to be very well-liked by his fellow agents. I have noticed lately that Gridley’s statements to the press have become progressively more careful.”

  “More cagey, you mean,” Matt spat the words. “Megan really called it this time. She said that as soon as the captain’s picture got spread all over the news, the case would become political. It must be getting really bad if Jay Gridley is picking his words.”

  He was silent for a moment, then looked at Leif. “Looks as if this will take a lot more than statements of support. Winters is in big trouble.”

  “Now I get it,” Leif said. “Things are getting out of hand, so you call in your pal the scamologist to see if he can’t come up with something—what? Clever? Devious? Certainly something that Captain Winters would never approve of—if he heard about it.”

  “Leif, we’ve got to do something,” Matt said in a small voice. “This whole trail of evidence…I’m convinced someone is trying to frame the captain.”

  “You may be right. I’ll see what I can do,” Leif replied gruffly. “Call you soon.”

  The holographic link broke, and Leif sent a twisted grin in the direction of the pickup. He didn’t want to tell Matt, in case things didn’t work out.

  But he already had something in the works.

  The smoky room vibrated in time to the bass beat of the band’s pounding rock rhythm.

  Leif took a deep breath—and coughed. The place was called Club Retro, and it was one of the hottest spots in New York City right now. He wasn’t sure why. Virtual reality had created a world where, just by plumping down on a computer-link couch, you could become anybody and go anywhere. So, of course, everybody who was anybody was going to this dingy basement in real life. It was cool. It was different.

  Actually, in Leif’s opinion, it was hot and kind of choking. The pile-driver thump of the bass hit Leif like a physical attack. Could this stuff knock my implant circuitry loose from my skull? he thought.

  Spotlights located on the ceilings flashed on and off, and some sort of lasers flickered over the crowd. It looked just like a holo of an old 1990s club. Of course, that was what Club Retro was built to look like. The unpredictable lighting flashed down on a swirling crowd of dancers, turning their flesh a sort of icy blue.

  It wasn’t going to be easy to find the person he was looking for here.

  But Leif was lucky. He found Alexis de Courcy at the foot of the improbable silver staircase that led to the dance floor. Alexis was Leif’s height. But he had a couple of years on Leif, not to mention dark, carefully styled hair and deeply tanned, perfect features. Alexis often talked about the great days of “Eurotrash” and “the Jet Set” and he always wore the most extreme fashions, drove the hottest cars…and pursued the wildest adventures. When he saw Leif, Alexis took a sip from a glass that seemed to be smoking, and grinned.

  “Mon ami,” the French boy began, “you owe me for this one.”

  “As long as my father doesn’t cut the credit cards,” Leif replied, “you’ve got it.”

  “You’ll pay in more ways than that,” Alexis said. “I found a perfect connection for you. But she’s—what’s the old phrase? Ah, yes. ‘High maintenance.’”

  “As long as she’s an intern at HoloNews,” Leif said.

  “Oh, the young woman is all that and more,” Alexis said. “You’re in for an interesting time.”

  “You didn’t lay it on too thick?” Leif asked, suddenly nervous as he followed Alexis through the club.

  “Actually, I told a surprising amount of the truth,” Alexis replied. “Your father is rich, and he is Swedish. Just a few small details are off. She thinks you’re Swedish, too, in the big city for a hot time. She thinks your name is Leif Magnuson—I thought that was rather clever. More or less true, as well. And, of course, she thinks you’re somewhat older than you actually are. The young lady wouldn’t be caught dead with ‘some high-school guy.’”

  The flat accent Alexis adopted made Leif suspect his friend was actually mimicking tonight’s target.

  Alexis nodded. “There she is.”

  The girl was short and curvy, dressed in the present fashion uniform for the trendy young woman; something called the preppy bad-girl look. A low cut, oversized sweater nearly hid the tiny pleated skirt she wore. The girl’s wild mane of red curls grew even wilder as she whipped her head around as she danced.

  When the music stopped, Alexis beckoned her over. “Bodie, this is the friend I was talking about. Leif Magnuson, Bodie Fuhrman.”

  Leif took her very warm hand. “A pleasure,” he said, putting on his European manners and a slight Swedish accent. “Did I hear correctly? Bodie?”

  “Short for Boadicea, the ancient queen who almost threw the Romans out of Britain.” Bodie Fuhrman had obviously made this explanation many times before. “Mom decided to name all her daughters after great women in history. On the luck scale, I sort of fall between my big sister Nefertiti and the kid of my family, Marie Curie Fuhrman.”

  “Charming,” Leif assured her.

  “Yeah, Bodie the Body, that’s me.” The girl wiggled in time to the next tune. The implication was clear. She wasn’t exactly the shyest of young women.

  “I am afraid my family is much more conservative,” Leif said. “I have been allowed to take a year away from the university to travel and learn about my father’s business.”

  “Wish I could do that,” Bodie said. “I’m busting my buns at Columbia and holding down an internship at HoloNews.”

  “It sounds like interesting work.” Leif wasn’t sure whether he should press for more details or spend a little more time charming the girl.

  “That’s what I thought when I started out,” Bodie shrugged. “But for all its sources, HoloNews apparently hasn’t heard the news about the slaves being freed. And I work for the worst slave driver of them all, the news goddess—Tori Rush.”

  6

  Leif danced with Bodie Fuhrman, enjoying her moves. She was an energetic, almost reckless dancer, a young woman who moved the way she wanted to move. Several times Leif found himself having to duck if he wanted to avoid a flailing arm or a bumping hip.

  By the time the music ended, Bodie had a faint sheen on her face and a twinkle in her emerald-green eyes. “‘Wild and crazy,’ that’s what everybody says about me.” She giggled.

  “It just gives me something to keep up with,” Leif replied with a smile.

  After a couple more wild dances, Bodie decided she needed a drink. Leif bought a simple soda. Bodie asked for one of those foaming, smoking concoctions that Alexis had been drinking.

  Time to make my move, Leif thought. “So you work for the famous Tori Rush,” he said.

  “I don’t know how famous she is in Sweden,” Bodie said, breathing out a puff of smoke. “But she’s a pretty big cheese over here. Just ask her! If you listen to her tell it, she’s a regular news diva.” Bodie’s eyes hardened as she looked sharply over her glass. “You’re not one of those low-wattage types who think she’s hot?”

  �
�I don’t like blondes,” Leif lied. “For myself, I prefer a woman who looks like a woman.” He smiled. “Preferably with red hair.” He gestured at his own head. “Less chance to clash, you know.”

  Bodie’s eyebrows rose in her round, expressive face. “Oddly enough, I’ve got a thing for redheads, too. We’ll have to see what we can do about that.”

  “Ah,” Leif said. This was interesting, but not what he’d come here looking for. Time to prod a little. “Forgive me, but I don’t think you like Ms. Rush.”

  “You could say that,” Bodie said. “One semester of being her personal servant has just about killed my desire to go into the news business.”

  “As bad as that?”

  “Worse,” she assured him. “I had this completely idealistic conception of what journalism was like. You know, the whole Fourth Estate thing.”

  Leif must have looked puzzled, because she said, “You know, the press as the ‘Fourth Estate.’ Being European, you must know about the Three Estates of the Realm, right? The Three Estates were the basis of feudal society—the Lords Spiritual, or the Church; the Lords Temporal, or the nobility; and the bourgeoisie, or the common folk.”

  Actually, Leif had learned about that in his history class. He’d forgotten it as soon as it was convenient, as he did much of the information that he learned in school and considered extraneous. Who’d have guessed he’d have a need for that little tidbit? But now he nodded. He remembered enough to get by.

  “Well, a couple of hundred years ago, as the press came to have more of an influence on society, journalism was jokingly referred to as a new political force—the Fourth Estate. Then it turned out not to be a joke. By the late twentieth century, newspapers and television had actually helped to unseat one sitting president, and got fairly close to unseating another. Even today, when they get really stuffy and serious, media people like to talk about their responsibility to the public. ‘The news sets the agenda,’ they say, as if that were a good thing.”

  “But you began to have your doubts,” Leif said.

  “To put it mildly,” Bodie retorted. “I didn’t see anybody in HoloNews carrying the sacred flame. The place is a for-profit business, worse than most of the offices you see in the holos, with all the nastiest parts of Hollywood thrown in.”

  She shook her head. “I’ve seen serious stories, mine and everyone else’s, pushed aside to make room for coverage of some stupid actor getting caught with his pants down. Other stories I broke got spiked—ignored—because they didn’t suit the great Tori Rush’s personal agenda. And even when I did get my hands on a hot story, something that was ripe for the headlines, I was just a grunt, the lowest level of employee. I’d do all the work to develop a story, only to see the news diva get the credit. Nobody at the station was ever told how Tori got her hands on the information.”

  Her full lips twisted. “It was enough to make me sick. Sure knocked all my high ideals about a free press defending democracy right out of my head. A guy named A. J. Liebling had it right: ‘A free press is guaranteed only to those who own one.’”

  “Tori Rush is that bad?” Leif asked, hoping for some dirt.

  “She’d stab you in the back just to get a convenient opening in which to view the time of day,” Bodie said. “I’m an intern. I know what goes into the job. I could live with her stealing the credit for all the work I did, and giving me all her work to do on top of it, but then she’d send me out to deal with her dirty laundry and her shopping and her lunches and her bills.”

  “But if you were handling most of her work and her personal responsibilities, what was she doing?”

  Bodie glanced around, then her voice became conspiratorial. She wasn’t exactly whispering—who could, with that wailing music in the background? But she lowered her voice and moved her lips closer to Leif’s ears. “She’s working on setting up her own show.”

  Leif looked surprised. “But she’s the ‘fresh new face’ on Once Around the Clock. She’s only been there a couple of years. Is she really such a star that the network would let her do that?”

  “She thinks she’s got the demographics,” Bodie said. “There was a time when even the best newsmen—or -women—needed a decade at the top before they’d get a shot at their own interview show. They had to stand out from the rest of the team on the magazine shows just to get a slot hosting those early-morning extravaganzas that start at six A.M. On Sundays they had to come up with probing questions for newsmakers on those panel-interview shows. But Tori-baby isn’t interested in actual work, just the perks that come with the job. She figures she can push her status as America’s Sweetheart to get what she wants—money and fame—right now.”

  Bodie looked truly disgusted. “She spends more time on the phone with her agent, crafting the latest ultimatum to the network, than she does checking sources for her stories, even the stuff she’s purloined. Have you noticed that all the news she’s broken lately has been big scandals? Accusations that make headlines, even if they don’t stick? That’s ’cause they’re easy for her to do. She’s got a source even the network doesn’t know about. And those stories give her a high profile while she does development deals for her show. You ready for this? She wants to call it The Rush Hour.”

  Leif shrugged. “Aim high,” he said.

  “But to get there, she’s willing to go really low.” Bodie hesitated for a moment, then shrugged. “I shouldn’t really say this—”

  Leif leaned a little closer, but she clammed up again.

  “Ah,” he said, “this is—what do you call it?—the teaser?”

  Stung, she swallowed the rest of her drink and glared at him. “Unlike some sources, I come through. The story will be out soon enough, and I’m quoted in it. Tori, the great news diva, has hired her own private eyes to dig up dirt for her. How’s that for investigative reporting?”

  “Detectives?” Leif said in disbelief.

  “No shinola, Sherlock. After her agent, the people Tori-babe called most were her professional peepers at I-on Investigations. They were supposed to give her ‘background reports.’”

  Bodie’s lips curled in disgust. “But her highness just prettied them up into news scripts, didn’t even bother checking the facts or verifying the stories with multiple sources. I should know. She had me writing up the scripts while she took credit for her ‘investigative journalism.’”

  “It sounds…irresponsible,” Leif said, hoping to get more.

  “That’s the name of the game when you’re playing muckraker. Tori wanted and needed a good scandal to make points with the bigwigs. That story about the world-champion pitcher with three wives and three families? That was done based on an I-on report and my scriptwriting. Same thing with that report on the corporate president accused of looting his company’s assets.”

  Leif remembered that one. His father complained that the story had been an unpleasant sandwich—a little bit of truth stuck loosely between thick slices of baloney. The actual dealings the corporate head had approved were perfectly reasonable and legal—but had been cast in an evil light by hysterical reporting, with the usual damaging results for the corporate head. By the time he’d managed to prove his innocence, nobody was listening and the damage to his career and the company had been done.

  “Right now Tori’s convinced she’s latched on to something really good with this story about the Net Force guy killing that gangster,” Bodie interrupted Leif’s thoughts. “It’s got everything—dead innocents, Mafia kingpins, and a great unlikely villain. She’s been on the line with her connection at I-on for most of this week, screaming for more dirt.”

  “And if there is no dirt?” Leif asked.

  “Don’t be naive,” Bodie told him. “Nobody is such a saint that they haven’t done something. That Winters guy is history. By the time Tori gets done with the facts, people will be screaming to hang the poor guy.”

  “Too bad that can’t be done to Ms. Rush.” Leif had to fight to keep his tone light.

  “Oh, she
’ll get hers,” Bodie assured him. “I’m out of the HoloNews internship program as of this morning. You could call this a celebration. I already took care of payback. With a little luck The Rush Hour is going to get stuck in traffic, thanks to a long talk I had with Arthur Wellman this afternoon.”

  “Arthur Wellman?” Leif frowned. “Who’s that?”

  “Just the founder and chief editor of Wellman’s Fifth Estate,” Bodie told him. “He’s great. If I stick with this journalism thing, that’s where I want to go to work.”

  “I know about the Three Estates, and you explained the Fourth Estate,” Leif said. “But what is this Fifth Estate?”

  Bodie grinned. “Professor Wellman taught journalistic ethics for years at Georgetown University. For years he watched the media become more powerful. You must know the old saying—‘Power corrupts.’”

  Leif nodded. “The Duke of Wellington said it. ‘Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.’”

  “The big media outlets—places like HoloNews—come pretty close to absolute power. And they tend to screw around with it. People used to complain that network news was slanted to fit the political views of the reporters. But now you’ve got lots of big outfits—like the Wolfe Network—where the owner tailors the news to fit his personal agenda or the agendas of his major sponsors. There are news organizations who won’t admit that their coverage might have ruined innocent people unless the victims sue successfully. And how many people can afford a long court case? If anybody complains about these abuses, the media giants wrap themselves in the flag and yell about freedom of the press.”

  Leif nodded. “But I understand there are journalism reviews that discuss such mistakes—”

  “Come on, Leif,” Bodie said. “Those things are put out by journalism schools. How far are journalism students going to go attacking the companies they hope will hire them? And even then, those things are only read by superbrain researchers. They’re like law reviews or medical journals. The only time people hear about anything from those scholarly publications is when their stories are picked up by the popular media.”