Shooting for the Stars

by R. G. Belsky

“Most of the people I deal with are jerks.”

  “I know that feeling too.”

  “I like you, Gil Malloy. You seem like a stand up guy. Someone I can trust. I don’t have a lot of people in my life that I can trust right now.”

  She opened the door, gave me a big hug that lasted for a long time—and then finally turned around and went back into her office.

  The big security guard was still there. He glared at me with his arms folded impassively as I walked to the elevator. Dressed from head to toe in black, he reminded me a bit of Darth Vader in the Star Wars movies.

  “How ya doing?” I said.

  He didn’t move or say anything.

  “Catch any bad guys lately?” I asked.

  Still no response.

  “Hey, any possibility you could tell me where to get a cool The Prime Time Files T-shirt like that?”

  My elevator was here now, and I got on. The big security guard watched me intently. He folded his arms again and glared some more. The more I thought about it, he really did look a bit like Darth Vader.

  “May the force be with you,” I said.

  Then the elevator doors closed and I rode back down to the lobby. There was still plenty of heavy security down there too. I thought about it all: the gun in her pocket, the security, the mobster kid boyfriend. Of course, all of this had absolutely nothing to do with me. No connection whatsoever to the story I was supposed to be doing about her and the show.

  Nope, whatever was going on in Abbie Kincaid’s life, it was none of my business at all.

  Chapter 6

  THE closest police precinct to The Prime Time Files studios was the 19th, which is on 67th Street near Third Avenue. I took a cab up there to see if I could find a friendly face to talk to. What I found was Lt. Frank Wohlers. I wasn’t sure if he was friendly or not. I’d worked a lot with him a few years back when I was an ace reporter, breaking big crime stories on Page One all the time. Not so much anymore. But I still remembered the way I used to get information out of him.

  “I was just in the neighborhood,” I said. “I thought I’d drop by and bring you a sandwich to eat.”

  I handed him a bag of food. He opened it.

  “A corned beef sandwich,” he said.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “My favorite.”

  “Yum-yum,” I said.

  Wohlers was a large man, probably close to 250 pounds, and I knew that food meant more to him than life itself, as the saying goes.

  It was a few minutes later—and several bites into the corned beef—before he came up for air.

  “So what story are you looking for some information on?”

  “What makes you think I’m looking for information on a story?”

  “The corned beef cost eighteen dollars.”

  “You know, this is a pretty sad state of affairs,” I said, “when a person can’t bring another person something without being accused of having an ulterior motive. Whatever happened to friendship? Whatever happened to brotherhood? Whatever happened to simple acts of human kindness?”

  Wohlers took another bite of the sandwich and belched loudly.

  “Beats me,” he said.

  He looked at me across his desk.

  “Abbie Kincaid,” I told him.

  “The TV star?”

  “The one and only.”

  “What about her?”

  “I went to her studio this morning and they had more security there than in Times Square on New Year’s Eve. A personal security guard who’s with her all the time. And the lady keeps a loaded gun in her jacket pocket. Not exactly my idea of the glitzy, carefree life of a big TV star.”

  “So?”

  “I figured if this had anything to do with the police, you’d know about it. Do you?”

  Wohlers didn’t say anything for a few seconds. I wasn’t sure if he was going to or not. In the past, sometimes he told me things and sometimes he didn’t. It was hard to tell how much a corned beef sandwich was going to buy me now.

  “The Kincaid woman’s been getting some threats,” he said.

  “What kind of threats?”

  “Death threats.”

  “How do they come?”

  “Phone calls. Emails. A lot of them recently.”

  “Any reason the person making the threats says they want her dead?”

  “Not specifically. Some of the communications talk about stories she’s done or stories she’s working on. Some of it sounds personal, like she had some kind of relationship with the person in the past—real or imagined—who is sending the threats. And some of it just sounds like obsessive fan stuff, the crazy rants from the kind of star-struck people who get off on that crazy love-hate worship of a celebrity like Abbie Kincaid. Most of it is gibberish.”

  Wohlers reached into a drawer of his desk, pulled out a file folder, and slid a couple sheets of paper from it across his desk to me. They were printouts of emails. He said the Prime Time security people had sent some of them over as samples of the kind of messages Abbie was getting.

  The first one said: “From the world of darkness I will loose demons and devils in the form of scorpions to torment you.” Another was: “Death is the greatest form of love, Abbie. And I have chosen to love you.” Also: “Don’t try to make sense out of your imminent death, Abbie Kincaid. There is no sense to it. But no sense makes sense.” And one of the emails simply consisted of a single phrase: “Beware the Z.”

  “Like you said, they all sound pretty crazy,” I told Wohlers.

  “Some of them are actually stuff that was once said by Charles Manson. When he and his followers killed that actress Sharon Tate and a bunch of other people back in the ’60s. Real quotes from back then, or expanded versions of things he said that have been updated with references to things happening now.”

  “Isn’t Manson in jail for like a million years?”

  “Since 1969.”

  “So this is probably not him then.”

  “Yeah, we deduced that answer even without your help, Malloy. But thanks anyway for the keen insight.”

  “Could be one of his followers.”

  “Most of them are dead or in jail or very old by now.”

  “What does ‘Beware the Z’ mean?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Might be a clue,” I pointed out.

  Wohlers shrugged. “There’s a lot of nuts out there.”

  I handed the printouts back to him.

  “Were there any references to Laura Marlowe, the dead movie actress, in the other stuff you got?”

  “Why do you ask that?”

  “Because Abbie is working on a big exclusive about Laura Marlowe’s murder for her TV show. Plus, the Charles Manson references and the fact that Manson’s most famous victim was Sharon Tate, another big Hollywood actress. It just seems likely there might be some kind of crazy connection in the mind of whoever is making these threats.”

  Wohlers nodded. “There’s a bunch of references to Laura Marlowe. Some of them warned the Kincaid woman not to do the Marlowe story. Others say she’ll wind up dead the same way. But that still doesn’t take us anywhere. We have no idea who’s behind all this.”

  “Can’t you track the phone calls or emails some way?”

  “Not in this age of social media and disposable cell phones. Everyone’s anonymous if they want to be.”

  “So what are you doing?”

  “Not much we can do in this kind of case. Not unless somebody actually does something besides write anonymous threats. Most of the time, that never happens . . . the threats are all bullshit, not real. Besides, as you say, they’ve got lots of security of their own around her over there.”

  “Did you meet her personal security guard?”

  “The big guy with the ponytail?”

 
“Yes.”

  “His name is Vincent D’Nolfo.”

  “What’s his story?”

  “Ex-prizefighter. Ex–Army Ranger. Was in both Iraq and ­Afghanistan, they tell me.”

  “D’Nolfo sounds like a tough guy.”

  “I sure wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of him.”

  “Good advice, albeit a bit too late.”

  “The two of you didn’t get along?”

  “I don’t think he likes me.”

  “How could anyone not like you?”

  “I made some mild criticisms of his wardrobe, people skills, and overall job demeanor.”

  Wohlers sighed and finished off the corned beef sandwich. There was something else I wanted to ask him.

  “Do you know much about Tommy Rizzo?” I asked.

  “Thomas Rizzo’s kid.”

  “I met him this afternoon.”

  “Lucky you. What did you think?”

  “He seemed like a troubled young man.”

  “His father is a thug, a drug pusher, he traffics in human flesh, he extorts money and—oh, yes—he kills people.”

  “Maybe that’s why his son is so troubled,” I suggested.

  “Where did you see the kid?”

  “At Abbie Kincaid’s office.”

  “What the hell was the Rizzo kid doing there?”

  “They had some kind of romantic relationship for a while.”

  “Well, there’s no law against a woman making a mess out of her life by falling in love with the wrong man.”

  “I certainly hope not,” I agreed.

  Wohlers belched loudly. I wasn’t sure of the exact etiquette on how to respond in a situation like this. Should I assume it to be a thank you for my sandwich and tell him you’re welcome? Did I say God bless you like you did when someone sneezed? Did I suggest to him delicately that belching at the meal table was frowned on by Emily Post, Miss Manners, and pretty much everybody in civilized society? Or did I just ignore it and pretend I never heard the belch? I opted for ignoring it.

  “C’mon, Malloy, you did alright for yourself,” he said. “More than alright. You married that hotshot lady from the DA’s office. I’ve seen her a few times in court. Beauty, brains—she’s got everything. How did you ever manage to pull that off?”

  “Actually, we got divorced.”

  “God, that sucks. I’m sorry to hear it.”

  “Imagine how I felt,” I told him.

  “Well, these things happen, I guess.”

  “Yeah, the truth is the marriage has been over for a while now.”

  “So you’re okay about it?”

  “Fine.”

  “You’re sure.”

  “Absolutely.

  “Glad to hear it.”

  “Like you said, these things happen.”

  “I guess time does have a way of healing this kind of thing, huh?”

  “I’ve moved on with my life,” I said.

  Chapter 7

  I WAS living in a new apartment on the West Side of Manhattan. In Chelsea, not far from the Hudson River. I’d moved there from the Upper East Side after I read an article in the New York Times real estate section about all the hip, cool, trendy people moving to Chelsea. I wanted to be hip, cool, and trendy too.

  When I was married, my wife, Susan, and I lived on East 18th Street, near Gramercy Park. After she moved out, I stayed there for a while, but the memories were too much for me to handle. I moved to a pre-war building in the East 90s. It was okay. But it was really old and falling apart, and I got serenaded to sleep at night by the sound of cars down on Third Avenue.

  My new place was a two bedroom in a brand-new high-rise with a view of the Hudson. Well, that’s what the ad for it had said anyway. And it was true, I suppose. If you looked out a far window in one of the bedrooms, stood on a chair, and craned your neck in just the right way, you could catch a glimpse of the water.

  It was definitely an upgrade for me though. I had a doorman. I had a concierge. I even had a health club and swimming pool in the building. Plus, I was on the thirty-sixth floor, which meant the sounds of the street were no longer a problem. It cost a lot more for me in rent. But I was determined to change my life for the better. This apartment . . . well, it was a start.

  I pushed open the door now and went in.

  “Hi, honey, I’m home,” I said.

  There was no answer, of course. No loving wife waiting for me after a hard day at work with a martini and a pair of slippers. No kids running into my arms. Not even a dog or a cat to lick my face. It had taken me a while to get used to living alone after my breakup with Susan. But I had almost come to grips with it now. Almost.

  The truth is that when I’d taken the apartment my goal was to one day win Susan back, get her to move back in and marry me again. Well, that’s still my long-term goal. The short-term goal is just to get her to take my phone calls and speak to me again. Baby steps. You have to crawl before you can walk.

  You see, there’d been an unfortunate incident between us recently.

  I was feeling lonely late one night and I called Susan. I told her how much I missed her. How much I needed her. And how much I loved her. I believe I proposed to her over the phone that night. In fact, I proposed to her several times during that ill-fated conversation, as I recall.

  Then, from somewhere in the background, I heard the sound of a man’s voice.

  “Susan, honey, are you coming back to bed?” the male voice said.

  “I’ll be right there,” she told him.

  She came back on the line to me.

  “Who is he?” I asked.

  “That’s none of your business, Gil.”

  “Sure it is.”

  “I don’t quiz you about the women in your life, Gil.”

  “I don’t have any women in my life except you.”

  “Look, you have no right to . . .”

  “I’m your husband, goddammit.”

  “Ex-husband.”

  “You and I both know we’re going to wind up together again. It’s just a matter of time until that happens.”

  “Why do you keep saying that?”

  “Because it’s true.”

  “I gotta go . . .”

  “I love you, Susan,” I blurted out.

  She didn’t say anything.

  “The appropriate response is to say, ‘I love you too,’ ” I told her.

  “Let’s not do this anymore, Gil.”

  “Just tell me you love me. I want to hear it. I don’t care if that asshole you’re with hears it too.”

  Things went rapidly downhill from there. After she refused to give me the “I love you” return, I erupted into a tirade of jealous and righteous anger over what I described as her betrayal of me. I said a number of things during that conversation that I wished later I could take back. I had done that in the past when I was afraid I was losing her to someone else, and I had promised myself I would never let it happen again. But the thought of her being in bed with that other man made me so crazy that I just couldn’t control myself.

  “Please don’t call here again,” she said when I was finished.

  Then she hung up.

  Since then, she had remained incommunicado to me no matter how many times I reached out to try to repair the damage I’d done.

  I walked into the kitchen, took a bottle of beer from the refrigerator, and brought it back to the living room. I picked up the remote and clicked on the TV. There was a Gilligan’s Island marathon on one of the cable channels. Gilligan and the Skipper and the Professor were trying to build a ship out of coconuts or something to get off the island. As you can tell, it was a pretty sophisticated plot, so I did my best to concentrate and keep up with it.

  Which was good because it stopped me from thinking abou
t all the things I didn’t want to think about. Like my ex-wife. My career. My future and my life in general. When I think too much about this stuff I get tense and agitated and feel like the walls of my apartment are closing in on me.

  This anxiety had caused me to have a series of what they called “panic attacks.” I got shortness of breath, I felt dizzy and became disoriented—I even passed out once in the middle of the newsroom. I’ve got medicine for it. I’ve had counseling too. And I tell people I don’t have the panic attacks anymore.

  But the truth is I do. Not a lot, but they still happen from time to time. Mostly when I’m alone in my apartment, like now.

  The health problems had started for me the first time I’d screwed up at the News with the fictional Houston interview. All the fallout and disgrace over the revelation about what I’d done led to the onset of the panic attacks. The anxiety and the attacks and these moments of nearly paralyzing panic continued off and on after that, usually in conjunction with the ups and downs of my career at the paper.

  I used to see a woman shrink who told me the problem was I measured my worth as Gil Malloy the reporter—not the person. When I was breaking big exclusives on Page One, I was good with myself. But when I wasn’t doing big stories, I couldn’t handle the down periods of my career. “You use your job, you use being a reporter, as a defense mechanism,” the shrink said. “No matter how noble you try to make it—and it is a noble profession—being a reporter allows you to shut out emotion and avoid dealing with what’s really inside you. Hence, the panic attacks.”

  She said the solution was I had to learn to live my life each day without clinging to my reporter persona to shield me from the real issues and emotions I needed to confront. “You have to build a life that’s about something more than just being an ace reporter,” the shrink told me. “Being a reporter can’t be your entire life.”

  It was good advice, I guess.

  But pretty hard for me to follow that advice the way I was feeling right now.

  I mean I was working on a story—the Laura Marlowe murder—that wasn’t even my story.

  I had a twenty-six-year-old boss who cared more about page views and demographics than she did about journalism.

  And my wife—okay, my ex-wife—was screwing some friggin’ other guy.