The Journalist

by G L Rockey

  “Right.”

  “Hey, Doug, thanks, see ya then, one-thirty.”

  “Right, but, ah, Russ, listen, I’m only interested in exclusive stuff. Other stations have it, I’m not your man.”

  “Oh, yessir, I know what you mean. I didn’t tell nobody else. You’re the first.”

  “See you at one-thirty.”

  Chapter Twelve

  1:45 p.m. EST

  In his cramped Channel 10 News Director’s office, Doug Hoffman inserted the SD card Russ Parker had handed him into the side of a large television monitor. The monitor dominated eight other smaller monitors that flickered with a glut of video offerings from local, cable and national sources. The cluttered office had cinder block walls painted beige, a green polyester sofa and Hoffman’s gray metal desk. Setting on top of the desk a computer-phone’s monitor pulsed in screen saver red-white-and-blue stars. Two orange upholstered chairs faced the desk.

  Standing with clicker in hand in right hand, after some glitches, the video Parker promised began to unfold. As they watched, Parker said, “Lotsa TV’s ya got here, Mr. Hoffman.”

  “Lots of news—information age, son.” Hoffman, not seeing much action so far on Parker’s video, sucked his front teeth. “This better get better—fast.”

  “It will, just watch.” Parker studied Hoffman scrutinizing the video playing on the TV.

  Hoffman did not resemble the photo Parker had been shown of him, and he didn’t look at all like the thin phone voice he had projected. Parker had imagined a tall, skinny pencil of a person. This guy was young, around twenty-five. Built like a shoe box with holes cut out for head, arms and legs, he thought. And those black bebop bifocal granny glasses are a bit much.

  Hoffman bit his puffy lower lip and stuck his left hand in a front pockets of his brown corduroy trousers. “No sound, huh?”

  “No, sir. Was inside, shot it through”

  “A camper window, you said that.” Hoffman shook his head, rubbed the side of his porous nose with his TV remote as he watched the dim video of a fat cop standing beside the driver’s side of a four-door white car on a deserted beach road. Another cop, a skinny one, stepped into the frame. In one quick movement, the fat cop jerked the driver’s door open and pulled an African-American female out of the car.

  Hoffman’s mind clicked off her features—tall, stacked, miniskirt, spike heels, nice ass.

  The fat cop slammed the female against her car.

  “What is this?” Hoffman said, casting Parker a beady look.

  “Bad, huh?”

  “Bad?” Hoffman continued to watch the video.

  The fat cop demonstrated that he wanted the female to extend her arms.

  She tried to comply but staggered forward.

  “Looks like a drunk hooker.” Hoffman tucked his arms over his chest.

  “Did ya ever.” Parker chuckled.

  “Ha.” Hoffman grunted.

  The fat cop drew a line in the sand and pointed to it. The female began walking the line, staggered, kicked her shoes off. The skinny cop pushed her against her car. The fat cop began to grope her body. The skinny cop joined in.

  “Wait a minute Hoffman pointed his remote, pressed replay then forward, watched again, said. “Come on, people, what is this?”

  The video tilted sideways for a moment then righted.

  “What happened?” Hoffman bit a fingernail.

  “I ran into the coffee table, shootin’ through the window.” Parker said.

  Hoffman smirked. “Sure you did.”

  The video blurred, cleared for a moment then blurred again.

  Hoffman tilted his head. “Don’t tell me—you don’t know where the focus is, either.”

  Parker chuckled. “Ah, Mr. Hoffman, you’re joshing me.”

  Hoffman shook his head. “Where’d you get this?”

  “Like I said, last nightwas out on Key Largo, I have a camper on my pickup, go out there a lot, crab at night. I heard these noises around three a.m., saw this patrol car and the white car there, cop’s red and blues flashing, so I thought, what the heck, started shootin’ video.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Hoffman watched.

  The fat cop spun the female around and cuffed her hands behind her back.

  Hoffman yawned. “Okay, so the chief’s boys play a little rough. They got a hooker, probably on drugs, drunk, whatever.”

  “But catch this.”

  Hoffman watched.

  The fat cop opened the rear door of the female’s car, forced her inside and climbed in on top of her.

  “What the fuck? Wait a minute” Hoffman’s mouth hung open. “What the fuck are those clowns doing?”

  He put his hands on his hips and leaned closer to the television set.

  The video zoomed in.

  Hoffman said, “Jesus Christ, he’she’she’s”

  The video glitched, and scrambled lines appeared on the screen.

  Hoffman threw his hands up. “What happened now?”

  “Ran out of battery, changed it, it’ll come back.”

  “Sure, sure, right, probably jerking off.” Hoffman continued to watch the video.

  The picture cleared as the fat cop backed out of the car and pulled his pants up. The lady began to emerge but the skinny cop shoved her back.

  Hoffman’s jaw dropped. “I can’t fucking believe this”

  The skinny cop climbed into the car with the lady. The camera zoomed out. The fat cop lit a cigarette and walked to the squad car that displayed Miami-Dade Police markings. After talking on the two-way radio, he retrieved a bottle from the under the front seat, took a gulp and, bottle in hand, returned to the stopped driver’s car.

  Hoffman pointed his remote to the TV screen. “This is fucking unbelievable.” He stepped back. “Un-fucking-believable.”

  “Sure is. That’s why I called ya.”

  “Awesome video.” He stroked a small pimple on his chin and continued to watch.

  The skinny cop emerged from the car, pulled the female out, forced her to her knees and shoved his penis in her mouth.

  Hoffman cupped his face with his right hand. “Oh, my Jesus GodIlook at that. He’sshe’sI can’t fucking believe this.” His eyes growing the size of cue balls, he continued to watch.

  After a minute the fat cop snapped his revolver from its holster and jammed the barrel to the woman’s head. She stood. He screamed something in her ear, uncuffed her and pushed her into the the car behind the steering wheel. His revolver’s barrel still pressed to her head, a second passed; then her head exploded in a showering mist.

  Hoffman froze. A morning news item jolted him. “Jesus Christ, he just blew her brains outthat’s the drug storythe body they found in a car”

  His mouth hanging open, he paused the video, stared at the screen for a few seconds, then pressed play. Both cops began scattering small white packets in the back and front seat of the victim’s car, shared the bottle of liquor, returned to the squad carand the TV screen went blank.

  Hoffman stood silent for several moments, pressed reverse on his remote, then turned to Parker. “Has anybody else seen this video?”

  “No, sir. Just me and you.”

  Hoffman said, “You see this morning’s news?”

  “No, sir”

  “That’s the body the Monroe Country sheriff’s deputy found this morning, out on Key Largo, same car everything, called it a drug-related incident.”

  “I didn’t know, I just”

  “Un-fucking-believable.” Hoffman took the tiny SD card from the TV and held it tightly in his hand. “What do you want for it?”

  “I don’t want nothing. I’m just doing it as a citizen.”

  Hoffman made a sour face. “Fuck youa citizen. Who you trying to flim-flam? I’m buying it exclusively, hundred bucks.”

  “Mr. Hoffman—”

  “Two hundred—here’s a voucher.” Hoffman scribbled his initials on a pink form. “Take this to the fr
ont desk, they’ll get you a check.” He handed Parker another form. “Also, sign this. It’s a release—put your name, phone number, all that stuff down.”

  He threw a page toward Parker. It landed on the floor. Parker picked it up and began to read.

  Watching him labor with the verbiage, Hoffman became impatient. “It just says I got exclusivity, nobody else will get the video, pictures, nothing, unless I approve.” Hoffman tapped the SD card with his left index finger. “This is the only copy of this, right?”

  “Yessir, only one, but I”

  “But what?”

  “I’d just as soon not be identified—I mean on TV and all, my name”

  “What’s a matter, you on the lam?”

  “No, well, child supportandMiami cops see this, they’ll be on my ass like white on rice.”

  “Not a problem, just sign, I’ll take care of it.”

  “How you do that?” Parker said.

  “You just became a confidential source,” Hoffman said.

  “That’s what I prefer, yes sir, confidential.”

  “Okay, I have to run this past our general managerget your money at the front desk.” He stopped at the door. “Parker, we got a deal now, no reneging, no interviews, no newspapers, no nothing unless I give the okay. If you do, I’ll put your name all over the air. This is mine. Understand?”

  “Yessir, I understand.” Parker stepped to the door.

  Hoffman turned and ran down the hall. “Talk to you later, Pal. That way out.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  2:15 p.m. EST

  “Lucy, baby, buckle your seatbelt” Hoffman bulldozed into the office of TV 10’s Executive Vice President and General Manager, Lucy Lockman. “Lucy, you’re not going to believe this one”

  Slouched behind her slick glass-and-chrome desk, Lucy, like a bored Persian cat, moved her aqua eyes up from the latest issue of Variety. She had many things on her mind. The most important right now—keeping her job. Hoffman’s enthusiasm induced thoughts of a good vomit. She forced a response.

  “Hoffman, don’t you ever fucking knock?”

  “Lucy, you have to see this video This is our ticket home, baby. We’re gonna bury those pricks at Channel 6 with this one.” He rushed across twenty feet of thick white carpet to Lucy’s six-monitor, high definition TV video center. “Wait till you see this. Un-fucking-believable”

  “It better be.” Lucy leaned back in her maroon executive chair and stroked the yellow-and-red polka dot tie that hung between her lemon-sized breasts. She wasn’t in the mood for another of Hoffman’s unbelievable news stories. Jerk is a looser, she thought. She caressed her pointed chin while she scrutinized him playing with her video center. This dick head and his news department are the reason I’m in hot water, she thought.

  As she watched him configure a TV to play the video, the shrew’s voice of her broadcast division boss played back in her mind like a recurring punk rock commercial.

  “Revenue is down for the quarter, Lucydown for the quarter. You know, Lucy, your news ratings sucknews ratings sucknews ratings suck. Lucy, your operating expenses are way out of lineway out of line. Lucy, your news ratings are totally unacceptableunacceptable. Ms. Lockman, you have six months to turn it aroundturn it around”

  Lucy looked at Hoffman and thought, This jerk will be history, too.

  She tossed the Variety to one side and remembered she had to call that West Coast headhunter she had talked to last week. Has to be something better back home in L.A. She massaged her left earlobe. Miami sucks. Everything is better on the West Coast: men, women, dicks, everything.

  “Lucy, you’re not going to believe this video. Wait till you see this.” Hoffman pressed start on a remote he held.

  “This better be good.” Lucy moistened her purple lip-gloss with the tip of her diamond-studded tongue and watched the dim video unfold on the sixty-inch screen. “Great, just great. What asshole shot this?” She sneered. “Night guard at Pinkerton security? You can’t even see the damn video”

  “I know, I know, it gets better, just watch the action.”

  She yawned at yet another police cruiser then became more interested as an African-American female was jerked from her car.

  “What is this, another cop story?” Lucy leaned forward then moved from behind her desk, whisking her slender, unpolished fingernails along the textured wall that dripped with autographed pictures of network television stars she had, in her words, “broken bread with.”

  “Who shot this?” She stepped next to Hoffman, hands jabbed in the front pockets of her loose-fitting Bill Blass designer slacks.

  “Some redneck.”

  She watched. “He said what? What is this?” She jammed her hands through her short ink-black hair, took the remote from Hoffman. “Where did you say you got this?”

  “Some redneck shot it, last night, on Key Largo—he crabs, fishes out there.”

  “What is that idiot cop doing?” Lucy put her hands on her thin Body-by-Jake hips.

  “Guess.” Hoffman pinched his lower lip.

  Watching, Lucy said, “I can’t believe this What? No No” She stared. “I can’t believe this.”

  “That’s what I said.”

  Lucy, hating it when anybody said that’s what I said, scowled.

  The video glitched.

  “What happened?” Lucy said.

  “Redneck ran out of battery. It’ll come back.”

  “Sure, probably jerking off.”

  “That’s what I said.”

  Lucy daggered a glance at Hoffman then folded her arms and addressed the video. “Now what the fuck is that cop doing?” she said.

  “Looks like a double dip.”

  “Ha, ha, ha.” She scrutinized the video. “This some kind of joke?Now where’s limp-dick going?”

  “Back to the squad car. Watch this.”

  “What the? That’s a bottle of booze”

  “Sure is. Look at this.”

  “What is that?” Lucy shrieked.

  “Just watch.”

  “Oh, my God.” She smacked her forehead. “Look at that. He’sshe’sa blow job I cannot fucking believe this.”

  “That’s exactly what I—” Hoffman caught his mistaken remark and stole a mousy glance at Lucy.

  Lucy dropped her hands to her sides, turned and put a long, cold stare between his beady eyes.

  He went back to the video. After a long moment, Lucy turned to watch the final scene.

  “Jesus Christ He just blew her brains—this is crazy” Lucy pressed pause and shook her head. “This is not real, is it? Some kind of stunt—you’re screwing around with me?” She glared at Hoffman. “I’m not in the mood for games, Hoffman.”

  “Lucy, did you see the news this morning? This explains it. Monroe County Sheriff found the body, homicide, white Lincoln, cocaine in the carfits the whole thing. One caveat—it ain’t no drug deal, it was the Miami cops.”

  Lucy pressed replay for a second look.

  Again they watched.

  “Un-fucking-unbelievable,” Lucy said.

  “That’s what I said.”

  “That’s it” Lucy jabbed stop with her fist and turned to Hoffman. “Quit your goddamn saying ‘That’s what I said’ You never, on your best-ever Sunday school dick-head day ever thought what I thought.”

  “Sorry.”

  She stroked her hair, jabbed start and watched, uninterrupted, the video again. When it finished, she pitched Hoffman the remote, shoved her hands into the pockets of her slacks, said, “Un-fucking-unbelievable.” She yanked her hands from her pockets, crammed her fingers through her hair, squeezed her scalp and turned to Hoffman. “So, what are you going to do with it?”

  He flashed her a smug smile.

  “Don’t just stand there with that shit-eating grin on your face. Say something.” She darted behind her desk and began drumming her fingers on the glass. “I’m waiting
.”

  Beaming with pride, Hoffman took the SD card from the TV. Holding it in the air: “I’m going to blow the top off the Nielsen ratings in this town, that’s what I’m going to do”

  She stared at her desktop, thinking You lucky bitch you, Lucy, then said, “Where did you say you got that video?”

  “I told you, some redneck, called this morning—”

  “He sign a release?”

  “Yes.”

  “Un-fucking-believable. That the only copy?”

  “Yes, it’s ours, exclusive.”

  “Did you check it out?”

  “What’s to check out? Here’s the video.” He held up the SD card. “Seeing is believing.”

  “What’s to check out?” She slapped her forehead. “The news director asks the general manager what’s to check out. How about Chief Manny’s office, for starters? Did you try to contact him?”

  “Contact him, with this? Are you kidding me? They kill the messenger in this town.”

  “We have to at least offer to show him the fucking thing.”

  “Lucy, baby, this is not something for a local two-bit police chief to approve. Besides, even if I showed it to him, what’s he gonna say? ‘Oh, sure, that’s us okay, sure is, we did it.’” He pressed the bridge of his glasses. “Come on, Lucy, they acknowledge this, they’re dead meat.”

  Lucy noodleing, “That’s one of their squad cars, alright”

  “Sure is, and it’s them, but if we wait around getting approval while they get a story together, somebody else is going to get wind of it, break it, and we get a royal screwing.”

  Lucy rubbed her chin. “Did you make a backup copy?”

  “Ah, no, I wanted to let you see it first.”

  “Dumb dick head What if that SD cardJesus Christ, Hoffman.”

  “Okay, okay.” He let her cool for a minute then leaned over her desk. “Lucy, I want to break it—now. This is stuff you dream of. And we got it, exclusive. Jesus H. Christ I can’t believe it”

  “Talk to me. Talk to me.” Lucy lit a yellow Eve cigarette.

  “This is the kind of story that can bust a market wide open, turn the ratings on their head” he snapped his fingers. “just like that.”