by Robert Inman
Morris punched the intercom button and put the receiver to his ear. “Gladys, I have something here…” he looked up at Will, held up the wrinkled piece of yellow paper, winked, waited.
Will felt suddenly drained, all the fight and anger gone out of him, even the coiled dread-snake in his belly gone to slumber. He remembered what some politician of the past had said: Your balls are always in somebody’s pocket. Well, his were in Spectrum Broadcasting’s pocket, and he might as well admit that and take their money and go on about his business. Bide his time. Serve in city government? Of course he could be elected. Just his name on yard signs… And then he might give Spectrum Broadcasting a little heartburn. Maybe a tax on television advertising. He shrugged, nodded.
“…something for you to get out to the news folk.”
While Gladys came to fetch the piece of paper, Morris launched into a story, rearing back in the chair and slinging his feet onto the desk again. He had been to Fayetteville the week before, had defended a businessman accused of laundering money for some nefarious people through the operation of a used car lot, had defended the man and lost. When the jury returned and the foreman read the guilty verdict, the judge asked the defendant (Morris pronounced the word dee-FEN-dant in the Southern country lawyer way) if he had anything to say. The dee-FEN-dant had risen and addressed the various court participants in turn. Morris mimicked him -- a perfect Fayetteville used car dealer dialect: “Your honor, I just want to say that I been given a shitty deal. Now I don’t blame you because you was just doing your job, and the same goes for the prosecutor. It’s just bidness with him. And my attorney here, Mister DEE-Lesseps, he ain’t worth a damn, but I guess he done the best he could under the circumstances. But I’ll tell you folks up there in the jury box, you have done ripped yo ass wit’ me.”
Morris chuckled heartily, enjoying himself, peering over the tops of the half-rim glasses and inviting Will to join him in comradely merriment. Will stared. “What’s the point?” he asked.
“Just a story,” Morris said happily, rising behind the desk, raising his arms toward the ceiling as if he held a finely crafted walnut-stock twelve-gauge. “Boom!” he got off a shot at an imaginary skeet rocketing somewhere up near the chandlier. “Just a story, boy.” He lowered his arms, then glanced at his wristwatch. “I ‘speck you better get moving, Wilbur. You got twenty minutes.”
“What?”
“The offer’s good until two o’clock. After that, to quote Mister Arthur Krupp, you can kiss their ass.”
*****
He didn’t notice the police car until he pulled into the parking lot at Channel Seven. It was perhaps a hundred yards behind him, blue lights flashing. He was out of his own car and heading toward the front door of the station when the squad car pulled up behind him and an officer scrambled out. “Hey,” he called to Will. “Hey!” Will stopped and turned back. “You just ran a red light.”
Will glanced at his watch. Two minutes before two. “I’ll be right back,” he said, and kept walking.
“Hey!” the officer called, more insistent this time. “Stop right there.”
Will spun. “Do you know me?”
“Yeah. You’re the guy that just ran a red light.”
Will pointed toward the second floor of the Channel Seven building. “Look, if I’m not up there in two minutes, I’m gonna lose fifty thousand dollars. You can wait in the lobby. I’ll be right back. I didn’t run a red light, but we’ll get it straightened out.”
Will was at the front door now, and as he opened it, he could see the reflection of the police officer in the glass, reaching for something on the dashboard of the squad car. He wondered fleetingly if the man was about to shotgun him in the back. Then he was through the door, crossing the lobby, glancing quickly at the desk where Dinkins usually sat. Empty. The whole station, open to terrorist attack.
He punched the button for the elevator, saw that it was holding on the second floor, then took the stairs two at a time. He burst into the upstairs hallway, breathing hard, and almost ran into Grace Hibbert, one of the secretaries in the sales department. Grace was a large woman -- massive hips and linebacker shoulders. She filled up the hallway, blocking his progress. “Will!” she cried, reaching for him. “Will, how awful!”
Will sidestepped, trying to edge by. “Hello, Grace. I’m just…”
She grabbed him in a smothering hug, mashing him to her busom. He smelled lilac water, the stale after-breath of cigarette smoke. Grace was one of what the staff referred to as the “Marlboro Irregulars,” the small, defiant band of smokers who huddled periodically through the day in the station’s rear loading dock and puffed away, banished from the interior premises by Old Man Simpson’s edict. “Grace, I’ve gotta…” he mumbled into her nubby weave jacket.
She thrust him suddenly at arm’s length, holding vise-like to his elbows. “What are we gonna DO?”
“Just stand there,” Will cried. Grace’s eyes widened. “I mean…” he pointed down the hallway toward Old Man Simpson’s office, “I’ve gotta see Old Man…” he glanced at his watch, the second-hand sweeping toward two o’clock, twenty seconds away. “Shit!” he blurted and broke free from Grace’s grasp. “Wait right there, Grace. I’ll be back in a second. I love you, Grace.”
He sprinted down the hallway, planted his right foot and made a hard left into the alcove in front of Old Man Simpson’s door, felt his knee give way with a searing blast of pain. “Aaaaaghhhhh!” He went down in an undignified heap in front of the door, rolled once, looked up frantically at the doorknob a couple of feet above him. He clawed for it, struggling to balance himself on his left knee, grasped the doorknob, pushed mightily, and sprawled into Old Man Simpson’s outer office with a thump. Gretchen peered over the edge of her desk at him. “Hello, Will,” she said pleasantly.
“Gretchen.”
“Looking for this?” she held up an envelope just as the door to Old Man Simpson’s inner office opened and Arthur Krupp stepped out. Krupp glanced at his watch, took a long, quick stride toward the desk, reaching for the envelope.
“That’s mine!” Will yelped.
Gretchen stood quickly and started around the desk toward Will. “He’s right,” she said to Krupp.
“Late,” Krupp said stonily, hand still outstretched. “Give me that.”
Gretchen stopped in her tracks and fixed Krupp with an icy stare. “Mister Baggett got here first,” she said primly. “He wins.” She leaned over and handed Will the envelope.
“Thank you, Gretchen,” he said weakly.
“My pleasure,” she smiled -- first at Will, then at Krupp, who turned on his heel and marched back through the door to the inner office.
“Krupp you,” Will said softly as the door slammed shut.
“He’s not a very nice person,” Gretchen said. “In fact, Will, he is one hard-assed sonofabitch.” She turned from Will, opened a closet behind her desk, and took out her jacket, scarf and pocketbook. She took her time putting on the jacket while Will struggled to his feet, leaning against her desk for support. His knee screamed at him.
“Where are you going, Gretchen?” he gasped through the pain.
“Home. Or maybe to Alaska with Mister Dinkins. Are you all right?”
“I hurt my knee. I don’t think I can walk.”
“Shall I call an ambulance?”
“Yes,” Will said with a grimace, tucking the envelope into the inside pocket of his coat, “I think that’s just what I need right now. An ambulance.”
*****
There was a good-sized crowd at the front entrance of Channel Seven by the time the paramedics carried Will down the stairs on a stretcher. At least half the station staff were there, crowding into the lobby and onto the sidewalk outside. Applause broke out. Some of the young people from the newsroom were crying. Will smiled, waved, gripped outstretched hands. “It’s okay,” he said. “It’s okay. God bless you all.”
Then he saw the gaggle of police officers waiting just outside. Ther
e were several squad cars now, pulled up at odd angles behind the first, lights flashing, radios crackling. “Good God,” Will said softly as the paramedics wheeled him through the glass double doors and into the afternoon light.
One of the officers wore captain’s bars on his shirt collar. He stepped from the group, blocking the path -- a big, sturdy man with arms crossed over his chest and a grim expression. The paramedics stopped. “Mr. Baggett, I’m Captain Simmons. Raleigh Police Department. We’ve got a problem.”
“What’s that, Captain?”
“Officer Pettibone here says you ran a red light…”
Will shook his head. “No I didn’t.”
“…ran a red light and then refused to stop when he tried to question you about it here in the parking lot.”
“Well, I can explain that, Captain. I was about to miss a crucial appointment, so I asked the officer to wait. And,” he indicated his prone form on the stretcher, “here I am. As good as my word. I would have been here sooner except for this problem with my knee. But I say again, I don’t believe I ran a red light.”
“My officer says you did.” He pointed. “Up here at the corner of Wade and St. Mary’s. Went right through the light and near about tee-boned his squad car.”
One of the paramedics spoke up. “Captain, you gonna arrest the dude right here, or can we take him on to the emergency room?”
“Arrest?” Will yelped. “Look, I don’t have any recollection of a red light or a squad car. This is just a misunderstanding, Captain.”
The crowd pressed in around them now, buzzing and chattering. There was a commotion to Will’s left and Grace Hibbert, the sales department secretary, pushed her way through the crush. “Hey, that’s Will Baggett!” she cried. “You can’t arrest Will Baggett!”
Captain Simmons ignored her. He ticked off the charges on his fingers. “Running a red light, driving too fast for conditions, failure to yield, failure to obey an officer…"
Will felt a rush of panic. “That’s nuts!” he cried. “Why don’t you just add drunk and disorderly.”
“Would you like to take a breathalyzer test?” the Captain asked mildly.
“Of course not.”
“How about it, Captain?” the paramedic insisted.
“You can’t arrest Will Baggett!” Grace Hibbert bellowed again.
Captain Simmons spun on her. “You wanna join him, lady?”
Grace shrank. “No sir,” she said in a small voice. But then others in the crowd took up the cry. Will looked about wildly. The noise level rose several decibels and some of it was sounding nasty.
Will raised his arms. “It’s okay!” he cried. “It’s just a misunderstanding! I’ll take care of it! Let the police do their job!”
Captain Simmons jerked a thumb toward the ambulance. “Take him to the emergency room. I’ll be right behind you.” He stepped aside and the paramedics grabbed the stretcher again, front and rear, and started hustling toward the yawning rear doors of the ambulance. The crowd surged behind them.
Will heard a rapid click-whirr and looked up to see a photographer he knew from the News and Observer bearing down on him, firing off shots . “Somebody call my lawyer!” he yelled. “Morris deLesseps!” And then there were more photographers pressing in on them, toting television news cameras with station logos on the sides. Channel Seven. Channel Four. Channel Thirty-two. A couple of people with home video cameras. Will instinctively put his hands up, shielding himself.
Then he was up, into the ambulance, one of the paramedics scrambling in behind him, the doors slamming shut. The paramedic leaned over him, buckling the stretcher to the floor, strapping him in. Pandemonium outside -- shouts, police radios, a siren off somewhere in the distance. Somebody pounded on the side of the ambulance. The other paramedic leaped into the driver’s seat and threw it into gear. Will felt his breath coming in ragged gasps, blood pounding in his temples. His knee throbbed.
He motioned to the paramedic, who was buckling himself into a seat next to the stretcher. The man leaned closer. “Why me?” Will croaked between clenched teeth.
* * * *
Will awoke from a sedative-induced fog to find himself in his own bed, pajama-clad, his right leg encased in a plastic-and-canvas cast held tight with velcro. The door was closed, dim daylight seeping in around the drawn curtains. The clock on the bedside table told him it was nearly eleven.
The rest of the world filtered in slowly: traffic on the street outside, the whine of a leaf blower in the Durkins’ yard next door, the faint ringing of the telephone and murmur of the answering machine downstairs, the sound of saws and hammers and crowbars -- the Christians, still happily demolishing the rear of his home. He pushed himself gingerly to a sitting position and winced as his knee protested with a stab of pain.
On the bedside table were a folded newspaper, a plastic urinal, a small brown plastic bottle of pain pills, a glass of water, a note from Clarice: SHOWING HOUSE IN CARY. BACK EARLY AFTERNOON. TAKE PILL AT TEN. P.S. CALL MORRIS.
He eased his legs over the side of the bed, peed in the urinal, took a pill, settled himself again. He felt wretched -- mouth rancid, knee aching, rough stubble of beard on his face.
He sat for a moment, mind blank. Then he remembered the emergency room. Blinding light, babble of voices, intercom and police walkie-talkie. Clarice there, bending over him, her hand cool on his cheek. Morris deLesseps rushing in. “Damn, son, I told you to get the money, not start a ruckus.” The pain in his knee was excruciating. A sprain, the doctor said after the x-rays. No surgery needed. Couple of weeks of rest, then some light rehab. But quite painful in the meantime. “God sure did a sloppy job when he designed knees,” the doctor said jocularly. A hale fellow who asked Will about the weather forecast.
They gave him a shot. The rest was a blur. Night. Home in the car. Bed. He dreamed of violent weather.
He turned on the table lamp, reached for the newspaper and spread it open across his lap. “Oh God.”
The photograph was a good deal larger than the one that had appeared in the paper the day before -- Will on the stretcher, half-rising, arms out-thrust, hands splayed, a wild look in his eyes, Captain Simmons and several other police officers flanking the stretcher and clearing a way through the crowd. Will thought he looked like an earthquake refugee, blinded by sunlight as rescuers bore him from days beneath rubble, his clothing and skin somehow miraculously unsullied by the ordeal. But there was also a hint of white collar criminality here -- perhaps, say, a crazed stockbroker captured after a gunbattle with officers of the Securities and Exchange Commission who had come to arrest him for manipulating the accounts of little old ladies. The caption on the photograph read: CHARGES PENDING.
The story that accompanied the photo spoke of an “altercation” at the Channel Seven studios and reminded readers that weathercaster Will Baggett had been relieved of his duties twenty-four hours previous. It left the impression that there had been some kind of confrontation between Will and the new owners of the station and that police officers had been summoned. There was also a traffic violation involved, though details of that were not clear. None of the principals -- police, Channel Seven, Baggett, lawyers -- were commenting.
Will read the story twice with a growing sense of horror. He had made of himself a public spectacle, a complete and utter fool. In the space of forty-eight hours, he had gone from revered celebrity to criminal laughing-stock, at least in the eyes of the Raleigh public. He had lost his dignity, had taken a giant gimp-legged leap into rank foolishness.
The humiliation of it was bad enough, but there was worse. He had handed Spectrum Broadcasting his head on a platter. They had fired him and he had acted like an ass about it, at least that’s what the newspaper made it look like. No amount of explaining would change the stark black and white image of a slightly-crazed man on a stretcher, surrounded by police. And as for any interest Raleigh’s other television stations might have in him – or politics, or just about anything else -- well, this su
re as hell put a crimp in that, didn’t it.
His bowels lurched. Nausea coursed up his throat. He fought the urge to throw up. He dropped the newspaper weakly over the side of the bed and reclined. After a few minutes the pain pill did its job and he drifted mercifully off to sleep again.
*****
He was aware of pressure on the other side of the bed. After awhile, Clarice said, “It’s almost five. Don’t you want to wake up?”
“No,” he said. “I really don’t.” He reached a hand to her. She was prone on top of the covers, fully clothed. He felt silk, bone of hip, firm flesh of thigh. “You’ll wrinkle your suit,” he said. She didn’t answer.
He opened his eyes. The house was quiet now, the Christians apparently gone for the day. Then he heard the downstairs phone. It rang for a long time and then fell silent. He imagined that it had filled up with calls and then stopped taking any more.
“How do you feel?” Clarice asked.
“Screwed.”
She didn’t say anything for a moment. Then: “Morris told me all about it. The paper got that part of the story wrong, didn’t they. Morris called it a comedy of errors.”
“I appreciate his sense of humor.” Another silence. “Did you sell the house in Cary?”
“Yes.”
“I’m glad.”
“Will, it’s not as bad as you imagine. Morris has talked to the District Attorney about dropping the charges. Mr. Simpson gave out a statement saying it’s all an unfortunate misunderstanding, there was no trouble with the Spectrum people.”
Old Man Simpson. At home waiting to die, glad not to be around to see what hideous thing Spectrum Broadcasting would make of his television station, his life’s work. Arthur Krupp should have released a statement to the press about Will’s dilemma, but he didn’t. So Old Man Simpson did. Still taking care of Will Baggett. Will felt the hot sting of tears. He vowed to call. To go by the Simpson home. No hard feelings, at least none serious enough to make it impossible to do the right, the decent thing.