“I’ve found some inconsistencies in the police investigation and am missing a couple of key documents,” Ethan said earnestly. “But I’m not sure it means anything, so at the moment, I’m still planning to produce the same story we’ve been talking about.”
“Good. I knew you could do it if you put your mind to it,” Paul said sarcastically. “Now I have an update for you on the Feodor interview. The district attorney and the warden have both approved my request to bring cameras into Rikers Island.” He glanced smugly at Ethan. “So you see, I took care of it—just as I said I would at our first meeting. All you need to do is lock in a shooting date.”
“Well, I hate to burst your bubble, Paul,” Ethan said, unruffled. “But we still have a problem that could scuttle the interview.”
“What problem?” Paul said as he doodled nervously on the script. “I thought I just solved our last problem.”
“Not quite. When I met the public defender, Frankie O’Malley, he said in no uncertain terms that the interview isn’t a slam dunk, that Pavel Feodor wants a face-to-face meeting with me at Rikers Island before he fully commits. And if he likes me and the direction I’m taking the story, then and only then will he do the interview with us.”
“Are you telling me we might lose Pavel Feodor? Maybe to another network?” Paul said, alarmed.
“No. I’m not saying that, Paul,” Ethan said, trying to put a positive spin on the problem. “I’m just saying that I have to figure out a way to make sure he doesn’t back out at the last minute.”
“How’re you gonna do that?” Lenny said, concerned.
“I’m gonna use a little charm and grace and tell him honestly what I hope to report about the murder and his case.”
“And what if that doesn’t work?” Paul said.
“Then I may need to throw him a bone,” Ethan said cleverly. “What are you willing to offer him, Paul, to sweeten the deal?”
Paul tapped his fingers on the table, then looked up at Ethan. “I don’t wanna lose this interview. It’s way too important for the show. Tell Feodor we’ll give him a big block of airtime—the entire hour of programming—and that we’ll make his story a special edition of The Weekly Reporter.”
“That should work,” Ethan said, pleased.
“When are you meeting him?”
“This afternoon. That’s why I barged in here unannounced. I needed new marching orders before heading out to Rikers.”
Paul cracked a wry smile. “So now everything’s riding on your shoulders, just like you wanted, Ethan. So don’t fuck things up. Convince that little bastard to do the interview. The show’s depending on you, and, I’m afraid, so am I.”
• • • • •
Ethan sat next to Frankie O’Malley in his Porsche Carrera as it cruised through a warren of side streets in Astoria, Queens, searching for the Francis R. Buono Memorial Bridge that connected civilization to the Rikers Island jail complex. “If you don’t know where you’re going,” O’Malley said hauntingly, “there’s absolutely no way to find this stinking place. It’s as if the city wants to hide the refuse of society where they can lock the door and throw away the key.”
“That hardly applies to your client,” Ethan said, checking the directions on Google Maps. “Everybody knows who he is and what he did, and everybody’s waiting to see how the court’s gonna punish him. He’s undoubtedly the most infamous killer in the country.”
“And that’s one of the reasons you’re meeting him today,” the public defender said. “We’re hoping that once you talk to him, you’ll walk away with a different take on his crime so you can help us change his public image. Just wait and you’ll see. He’s not the monster the press and the prosecutor have made him out to be.”
Ethan smiled, remembering Feodor’s long rap sheet of violence. “Take a left at the next corner,” he said. “The bridge is just up ahead.”
O’Malley turned and approached the first security checkpoint. A large sign hung across the road warning the public it was entering the largest house of detention in the nation. Ethan stared at the ten buildings looming in the distance, dark and ominous, that housed more than fourteen thousand inmates on an island in the East River surrounded by a fifteen-foot-high chain-link fence topped with razor wire.
It looked like the set of a horror movie.
The last place Ethan wanted to go.
After being waved through by a police officer, they pulled onto the three-lane bridge behind a line of cars and inched their way to the main gate and a second security checkpoint where a tall, heavyset corrections officer sporting the body of a weightlifter walked up and peered into the driver’s-side window. “Identification, please.”
O’Malley showed him their driver’s licenses, and the officer ran down their names on a computer printout. Then he circled the car, never taking his eyes off either one of them. “The warden’s waiting for you at the Visitor’s Center,” he said when he got back to O’Malley. “Drive through the gate and follow the road until you get to the red brick building on the right with all the windows.”
Five minutes later, they pushed through a revolving door and into a noisy vestibule jammed with dozens of people waiting to be admitted to the cellblocks. They were greeted by a painfully thin Hispanic woman with long, curly brown hair and a short, squat man who was balder than a cue ball. “Frankie, good to see you again. And you must be Ethan Benson,” the bald man said. “I’m Jose Morales, the warden here at Rikers Island, and this is Gloria Jimenez, my chief of public affairs.”
“It’s a pleasure,” Ethan said enthusiastically. “I’m glad you had time to see me today.”
“Oh, more than happy to oblige you,” Morales said, vigorously shaking Ethan’s hand. “Let’s go sit for a few minutes and chat about the dos and don’ts at the prison. Then I’ll send you down to the North Infirmary Command Building with Ms. Jimenez so you can meet Pavel Feodor.”
• • • • •
Pavel was sprawled on a dirty mattress in an eight-by-ten-foot cell, his eyes fixed on the peeling paint as he desperately tried to block out the screaming bouncing around the cinderblock walls of his cellblock. It was a loud, horrific wailing, followed by brutal moaning, and then chilling silence. Standing, he paced around his cell, wondering who’d been beaten and which gang was sending a message and to whom. He’d been imprisoned like a caged animal in the North Infirmary Command Building since his arrest—first in the hospital wing where addicts, psych patients, and victims of the daily violence were taken and pieced back together, and then on H Block, where sex perverts, rapists, and notorious killers waited for trial and then to be sentenced.
Daylight was filtering into his cell through a small window below the ceiling as he peered into a mirror. His face was drawn and gaunt, his once-powerful physique frail and razor thin. What’s happenin’ to me? he thought despondently. I’m wastin’ away. Slowly disappearin’. Soon I’ll be nothin’. He slipped into an orange prison jumpsuit and looked at his watch. I got less than an hour until my meeting with that producer from the television show. Should I cancel? Should I go through with it? Should I bail out of the interview? Torn with self-doubt, he worried he was signing his own death warrant at the hands of some unknown assassin if he talked to the press. Maybe I should wait and see what happens? he thought, continuing to pace around his cell. Maybe the judge will decide not to fry my sorry ass? Maybe he’ll just give me a long prison sentence? Maybe I’m worryin’ for no good reason? Shit. What the fuck should I do?
Lunch was sitting on a dirty tray—two pieces of burned toast, a thin, watery soup, a mystery meat, and cold coffee. The food was inedible, but he was hungry and needed to keep up his strength. So he picked up a piece of toast and realized for the first time in his miserable life that after spending a year and a half in this hellhole he was scared—really scared. Christ, they’re gonna do it. They’re gonna execute me and send me straight to hell. I know it, and I can’t let that happen. Can’t. Can’t. Can’t. Growing more
agitated, he hurled the toast against the wall, sat back down on his bed, and waited.
He didn’t wait long.
Three heavily armed prison guards pushed through the security door and onto H Block, rapping their nightsticks on the bars as they slowly made their way down the long corridor and over to his cell. One of the officers, a small, slightly built man named Jimmy Benito, pointed his nightstick at Pavel’s head and grinned a toothless grin. “Well, well, well, look at what we have here. Our most infamous inmate—our pint-sized punk—who murdered that sweet, tasty little girl just for the fun of it.”
“Fuck off, Benito. I’m not up for your bullshit today. Just cuff me and take me down to the visitors’ room. I don’t wanna be late for my meeting.”
Benito raked his nightstick back and forth across the bars, the yelling and screaming on the cellblock suddenly grinding to a halt as the other inmates waited to see what would happen next. “Oh, we’re the tough guy today,” he said unmercifully. “Maybe you won’t act like such a big shot when they dust off the needle and shoot you full of poison.”
Pavel stared into the guard’s face, wondering if he was about to be beaten. Then he cautiously backed away as Jimmy Benito unlocked the door, walked into his cell, and jammed the nightstick up against his throat.
Nobody moved.
Nobody said a word.
Then Benito viciously kicked the tray of food—the coffee splashing the walls, the mystery meat rolling under the bed, the soup splattering the floor. “Whoops, guess I got a bit careless, Pavel,” he said with a snigger. “You’ll have to clean up the mess when you get back. Now turn around and put your fucking hands behind your back. You know the drill.”
Pavel faced the wall, not moving a muscle, as Benito slapped on a set of manacles, chaining his hands and feet. “Okay, shithead, let’s go. We don’t want to keep your television producer waiting.” Grabbing his collar, he shoved Pavel out of the cell—tripping the locking mechanism and sliding the door shut. “Now you listen up real good, you little fuck face. As the commanding officer here on H Block, I’m gonna start paying special attention to you now that the big boys are ready to draw and quarter you. Then, hopefully, I’ll get to watch when they strap you onto that cold gurney, slip that needle into your skinny little arm, and put your stinking ass to death. Won’t that be fun?” he said as he clubbed Pavel across his back with his nightstick.
Pavel winced in pain.
“I get it, Mr. Prison Guard. You’re planning to take real good care of me, just like that guy they brought into the infirmary. Was it you or one of your goons who beat the living shit out of him?”
“I only wish,” Benito said gleefully. “The guy was shanked in a knife fight by a couple of drug dealers who said he was a snitch. The doctors tried to put him back together, but they just couldn’t stop all that blood gushing out of the gash that severed off half his face. Man, did my heart a world of good to see his life force drain out of his body and onto the floor.”
“The guy’s dead, isn’t he?” Pavel said, knowing the truth.
Benito smiled. “Yeah, he bled out. That’s one less asshole we have to worry about. Maybe next time it’ll be you.”
• • • • •
Ethan was sitting at a table in the visiting room between Frankie O’Malley and Gloria Jimenez when Pavel Feodor was dragged through the security door, his chains wound so tightly around his body he could barely put one foot in front of the next. They all stood as the prison guards pushed him into a chair bolted to the floor, secured a leather harness around his waist, and locked his hands and feet into steel restraints. “Jimmy, I want you to stay here in case our good friend decides to try something stupid,” Jimenez said, motioning for the other two officers to step out of the room. Then she turned and faced Feodor. “But that’s not gonna happen, is it, Pavel?”
Feodor glared back at her.
“I didn’t think so,” she said, smirking as she addressed Ethan. “This is unusual for us here at Rikers. We rarely let the press meet our inmates, and never in private. So you’re gonna have to live with the security and the extra ears listening to your conversation. You have an hour. I suggest you get started.”
Ethan nodded and stared at Feodor, unable to read the blank expression on his face. He hesitated, then carefully backed into his first question. “Thanks for seeing me today, Pavel. Your attorney says you want to hear about my story, so where would you like me to begin?”
“I got nothin’ specific to ask you, Mr. Producer. Just want to listen to you talk.” He smiled truculently and turned to O’Malley. “Light me a cigarette, Frankie. I’m bound so tight by these restraints, I can’t even scratch my ass.” O’Malley placed a Camel in his mouth and struck it with a match. “Now go ahead, Mr. Benson, talk to me,” Pavel said, inhaling a drag of smoke.
“All right,” Ethan said cautiously. “I’m producing a story about you, about Cynthia Jameson, and about the murder. It’ll include a lot of pictures of the crime scene, a lot of hard news coverage of the investigation and trial, and several interviews with key people involved in your case.”
“Are you interviewing my attorney?”
“Yes,” Ethan said steadily.
“What about that prosecutor bitch, Nancy McGregor? Are you interviewing her as well?”
“She’s a big part of my story.”
“And the deputy mayor?”
“The deputy mayor and his wife, too. I can’t leave them out. My audience is gonna want to know how they’re feeling, how they’re getting on with their lives now that you’ve murdered their daughter.” Ethan abruptly stopped, seeing the disdain on Pavel’s face. Was he getting angry? Was he losing him? Was he about to check out of the interview?
“Go on, Mr. Benson. I wanna hear more. Why do you wanna interview me? That’s my biggest question.”
Ethan didn’t hesitate. “Because I’m a reporter, Pavel, and I tell all sides of a story, including yours. I want to hear about the heroin deal and the shootout and why you murdered Cynthia Jameson. And I want to hear it from you and not just from other people who think they know what happened.” He paused, letting his words sink in. “And because, Pavel, this is your one and only chance to set the record straight.”
Feodor glanced at his attorney and then back at Ethan. “You’re pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you, Mr. Benson? But how do I know you’re gonna give me a fair shake? How do I know I can trust you?”
“Well, I can’t tell you exactly what I’m gonna say, because I don’t know all the facts yet. I’m still doing research and talking to a lot of people,” Ethan said with conviction. “But I can promise you, I don’t have an agenda or any preconceived notions, and am only looking for the truth. And the only way I can do that is if I hear from you. That’s why I need your interview.”
Feodor took another long drag on his cigarette. “Frankie, take the butt out of my mouth and light me another one.” He turned his attention back to Ethan. “That doesn’t answer my question, Mr. Benson. I don’t give a shit what you say in your story. I only care what you say about me. How do I know you won’t be like all those other fucking reporters who’ve been writing one lie after another about me? How can I be sure you won’t say I’m some kind of sociopath—some kind of crazed killer—and make things worse?”
Ethan hesitated again, trying to decide how to proceed, then rolled the dice. “Look, I can’t guarantee you what I’m gonna discover as I keep digging into your case, but I can promise you I’ll be fair and accurate and balanced, and the best way to ensure that is for you to sit down with Peter Sampson. My boss thinks it’s so important, he’s willing to give you the full hour of programming.”
“He’ll commit the entire show to me and my interview?”
“That’s what he told me this morning.”
Feodor turned to his attorney. “What do you think, Frankie? Should I trust this guy?”
“I’m not so sure, Pavel.” He glared stonily at Ethan. “I need a written contract guarante
eing that you’ll give my client all that airtime and that you won’t smear his name. That you’ll report exactly what he says and not edit anything in his interview. Are you willing to put that down on paper, Mr. Benson?”
“I can’t make those kinds of promises,” Ethan said honestly. “You know that, Frankie.”
“Well, then I can’t agree to your interview. Either accept our ground rules or we’re pulling out.”
Ethan stared at the public defender, then pushed back his chair and stood up. “Guess I’m finished here,” he said coldly. “Thanks for your time. There’s nothing more to discuss.”
“Hold on. Don’t be so hasty,” Feodor said haltingly. “I’m not sure I agree with my attorney. I like you, Benson. I think you have balls.” He shifted his eyes to O’Malley. “Frankie, I’m runnin’ the show here. Not you. So shut the fuck up and don’t say another word.” He gazed back at Ethan. “I’m gonna do your interview, Mr. Benson. I think you’re gonna cut me a fair shake. So when do you wanna bring in your cameras?”
“Do you have a date in mind, Gloria?” Ethan said, relieved.
“The warden and I have discussed it,” she said. “Next Friday at eleven o’clock. That gives us ten days to beef up security and get the jail ready for your crew. Does that give you enough time, Mr. Benson?”
“Won’t be a problem for me, and what about you, Frankie?”
“If it’s okay with Pavel, I guess it’s okay with me,” he said apprehensively.
“So we’re all set,” Ethan said, already worrying about how he was going to break the news to Peter Sampson.
“Then I think we’re done here,” Jimenez said, motioning to Jimmy Benito, who was standing in the back of the room listening to every word. “Get the other guards and take Pavel back to his cell.”
• • • • •
Frankie O’Malley climbed into his Porsche, grabbed his cell phone, and punched in a number. “Nikolai, it’s me.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m still at Rikers Island—in my car in the visitors’ parking lot.”
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