Fake News
Page 11
“Oh,” Zack said, “you took the course?”
Frustrated, she shook her head and held two fingers in the air. “Two cops raped and killed a womanJeesss.”
“What about the source?” Zack said.
Mary held up her right palm, traffic police-style. “Let me guess—Journalism 101, right?”
Ted said, “Confidential source.”
Zack pressed his Camel out in a tin ashtray and lit a MORE. “That’s what bothers me.”
Mary: “Oh, Boca, please don’t get off on one of those philosophical meanderings. This is on Channel 10 news, all the cable news guys, national networksthe whole freaking world is showing it.”
“I think he’s talking about the original source, Ms. O’Brien.” Ted did his tongue thing between his lips and front teeth.
Mary cast him a chilly stare. “I know what he means, Mr. Stallings.” She turned to Zack. “I can’t believe we’re having this discussion. I just can’t believe it.”
“What are you having the greatest difficulty with, my dear?” Zack asked.
“Nothing, never mind, forget it, I quit.” Mary dropped to the sofa.
Zack looked to Ted. “Anyway, Ted, since Mary is no longer with us, let me ask you once more, how many times have we been over this imagine thing?”
Ted pressed the bridge of his nose. “World War two, there was much debate about allowing the press to print pictures of dead soldiers, you know, floating, bloated, dead in the water. One I liked was of a guy’s leg blown off at the hip, could see the socket. Best was this redheaded guy with his guts draped around his ears, eyes shot out”
“Okay, okay.” Mary stood and hushed the air with her hands, “I got it. We’ll just write a genteel little featurettesomething like—and in other areas of interest, we thought we’d do this Labor Day specialthere seemed to have been some rowdiness the other night out on the beaches of Key Largo. Seems the heated-up libido of a couple of Miami’s finest resulted in a young lady’s ability to breath becoming permanently impaired, but The Boca thinks it was all just in fun.”
“I thought you quit,” Ted said.
“Bite me.”
“Mary, dear” Zack gave her his best professorial look. “there is an unconfirmed report from the boys and girls in television land that somebody—we don’t know who—captured video of two officers—we don’t know who—brutalizing a female motorist—we don’t know her identity—sometime last night; and it supposedly all took place out on Key Largo. What were two Miami cops doing way out there in Monroe Country, anyway. Why can’t the cops be identified?”
“They’re rogue cops, drug payoff went south, somebody happened to get video of them.” Mary fluffed her hair. “Lady was stiffing the cops.”
“I think it was the other way around,” Ted said.
“Ha, ha, ha,” Mary sneered.
Zack said, “The video is a reality. The scenes on the video are just that, video scenes.”
“But we got a dead body in the morgue. You did see the news this morning, didn’t you, Boca?” Mary said.
“Did you hear what he just said?” Ted yawned.
Bristling, Mary shot back, “Did you get what I just said, big boy?” She began pacing. “Zackary, that video is on CNN. Fox had it on a half-hour after Channel 10. It’s all over the world. The Associated Press broke the story two hours ago. The Herald will have it frame by frame, for Christ sake.”
Zack sipped some coffee. “Why is it nobody ever says for Buddha’s sake? Doesn’t have the same ring does it? For Buddha’s sake.” He shook his head and said to Joe. “I played plain 3-D chess one time with Joe Case, but never 3-D touch chess.”
“You think” Mary put her hands on Zackary’s desk. “you think not using the images is going to make it go away?”
Zack tilted his head. “I didn’t say that. I’m just”
“Boca, it’s out there. The real world is out there, whether you like it or not. It’s out there.” Mary turned her back to him and, giving a little wiggle, leaned her buttock on the edge of his desk.
“Mary, dear, be nice,” Zack said.
Sniffing the air, Ted pulled at his right earlobe and studied Zack’s face, “What are you thinking?”
“Just say something stinks in the woodpile.”
“What’s it smell like, barbecued monkey?” Mary shifted her buttock higher on the edge of his desk.
“Mary, dear, be nice,” Zack repeated.
She stood, turned to Zack, plugged her hands on her hips. “We’re missing our deadline, folks.”
“I didn’t know that.” Zack rubbed the top of his head. “Did you know that, Mr. Stallings?”
Pressing the bridge of his nose, Ted said, “Why, I almost forgot about that.”
“Up yours, Stallings.” Mary again turned her back to Zack and slugged her bottom hard against the edge of his desk.
“Careful you don’t hurt yourself,” Zack said.
“I’m just trying to do my job.”
“I know, long day, we all are a little bit frayed.”
Zack said, “Okay, another question, why did Benny jump on this story so fast?”
“You’re obsessed with Benny.” Mary paced in front of Zack’s desk. “It’s distorting your objectivity.”
Zack paused, thinking that she might be right but she didn’t need to say it like that, said, “I am not obsessed with Benny.”
Ted looked at his watch, stood and raised his arms in surrender. “We have to set the front page, folks.”
Mary jammed her right hand through her hair. “How about, headline—Video Nabs Chief’s Bad Boys?”
“C-minus,” Zack said.
“I quit.” Mary plopped on the sofa.
“Which time?” Ted said.
Zack said, “After what looked like a drug-related homicide a local Miami television station broke an interesting story that appears to implicate the Miami Police Department. This, that, etc. However, the police deny the validity of the video, right Ted?”
“What they said, drug-relateda set-upfoul playconspiracy, etcetera.”
“Too many etcetera loose ends. We’ll let Jimbo do a sidebar and go with what he gets from Manny. The other stuff, only report what we know for certain.”
Mary rolled her eyes. “Which is nothing.”
“You might have something there,” Ted said.
“Exciting stuff, nothing.” Mary shook her head.
“Why don’t we just write a one-act screenplay, Butchery on the Beach,” Zack said sarcastically.
“Might give our understaffed advertising department something to talk to clients about.” Mary stood and walked to the door.
Zack stood and smacked his desk with his fist. Papers flew. “F-minus, wrong, Ms. O’Brien, and you know it.”
Mary paused, “No need to get mad,” and flipped her hair.
“I’m not mad.”
“Oh, anyway, you seemed mad.”
Zack cooled off, the swishing of the ceiling fan played background accompaniment to the anemic hum of the air conditioner.
After a minute, Ted reached up and let the ceiling fan blades drag across the tips of his fingers. “I’ll call the printer, tell them we’ll be a tad bit late tonight.”
Mary smirked. “A tad bit late and a lot short.”
“Will you please knock it off, Ms. O’Brien.” Zack looked out the window.
Mary sat on the sofa with a thud. “I quit.”
“I lost track.” Ted looked down at her.
She looked up. “Keep it up, Stallings, and I’ll have to punch you out, big time.”
Zack walked back to his desk. “It’s all perception, folks. How does anybody know for sure that Pago Pago is really there? Ninety percent have never been there. They read about it, have seen it on TV. Perception. Reality. The elements. How they are put together is all in the head of Homo sapiens.” He paused. “That’s not original folks, it’s Dr. Barbara Landes’, her dissertation. But, much as I
hate to say it, she is correct.”
“You read her dissertation?” Mary asked wide-eyed.
Zack began pacing behind his desk. “It is the force of conviction that quickens brain electricity that stirs the soul, even as the smell of truth quickens hope. We live in an age of instant communication when the thoughts of a few become words and the words of a few become meaning and the meaning of a few becomes truth, handed down as myths; and the myths become deeds put down between people and the deeds end one reality and begin another toward the coming of the history of man.” Zack sat at his desk, “That’s mine. Storia di uomo.”
“Does that include women?” Mary said.
Ted laughed.
“Okay, okay, okay.” Mary raised her hands in surrender. “Whatever you men say. I surrender.”
“Me, too.” Zack stood and looked out the window again. “I think I’m going to take a ride.”
“I’ll go with you.” Mary stood.
Zack looked at his watch. “Eight forty-five, Jimbo went over to the police department, what, five hours ago?”
“He’s slow as molasses in January.” Mary flipped her hair again.
“You should know,” Ted said.
“Ha, ha, ha,” Mary sneered.
“Maybe we should page him?” Zack said.
Mary clucked her tongue, “Fat chance. He never wears his pager—too confining, he says. Anyway, I called over there for James. Wasn’t there.”
“Who’d you talk to?” Zack said.
“Desk sergeant.”
“What’d he say?”
She rolled her eyes. “The he was a she.”
“Oh, what did she say?”
“Jim was there, but had left.”
“You ask about the Channel 10 video?”
“Denied it, no one from their office was ever near Key Largo Thursday night. Don’t recognize the officers on the video, nothing. What do you expect?”
Zack glanced at Ted. “Same line you got.”
“Yep-purr.”
“What else did she say?”
Mary said, “Looks like one of their cars, but that’s Monroe County Sheriff’s area.”
“Looks like one of their cars?” Zack asked.
“I know, Miami police lettering all over it, but that’s what she said—they were not there, period.”
Zack tapped the end of a fresh Camel on his desk top then lit it.
Mary looked at his ashtray, “You have one lit,”
“That’s a MORE.”
“Oh.”
Zack stamped the MORE out and looked at his watch again, “Eight-fifty,” then addressed Mary, “All you have to do is write up everything we’ve been talking about. Plenty of time.” He looked at Ted. “Like you said, call the printers.”
“Yep-purr.” Ted paused in the doorway. “You better start keying on your little keyboard, Ms. Mary, dear. I’ll set the page format.”
“Oh, go set your face,” Mary said.
Ted yawned.
“I’ll call you later, after my little ride.” Zack said.
Ted started to leave then turned back. “O’Brien, you want a pizza?”
“No anchovies.” Mary searched Zack’s face.
“Yep-purr.” Ted left.
Mary stepped to the side of Zack’s desk. “Boca, I didn’t mean that about the advertising”
“Forget it. We need the distance, anyway.”
Disheartened: “What is that supposed to mean?”
He ignored her question.
“Well, Ms. O’Brien, I think I’ll take a drive through our lovely city, see what is happening first hand.”
“I wouldn’t do that,” Mary said.
“What’s the matter, watching too much TV?”
“Don’t change the subject.”
“Say a prayer for me.”
“I say a prayer for you every night.”
“Are you getting through?”
“Not yet, but I keep at it.”
“Don’t waste a lifetime.”
“You ever say one for me?” Mary said.
“I’m working on it.”
“Want me to write one for you?” She lowered her eyes.
Zack drained his coffee stein and parked it back on his desk, “Don’t you have some typing to do?”
Full of him, her eyes saying to his, you know what my prayer is.
He looked away.
“Zack, when do I get that boat ride you’ve been forever promising me?”
“Talk to me later.”
She smacked the desk. “Don’t say that! You always say that.”
Zack jammed a half-pack of Camels into his front pocket. “I’ll call you from the car if I see anything.”
“D-minus.”
“Thanks.” He walked to the door and stopped. “Keep in touch. You might want to call around, see what some other officials are saying, find out what happened to Jimbo. Leave him an email, text, phone message, something original.”
Mary tilted her head and began sending silent messages. Oh, Boca, if it was just we two, we could go away on your boat, to an island then somehow the thoughts escaped into the air. “And I’d dance for you, peel grapes for you”
“What?”
“Thinking about a boat ride.”
“Mary, forget about that, it just is not going to happen.”
“Wanna bet?”
“Find a nice young man and settle down.”
“There aren’t any nice young men.”
“Who said?”
“Who said what?”
“Who said it looked like one of their cars?”
“Oh, for” She kicked the sofa. “Ouch, damn it. See what you made me do.”
“Yes, whole thing has got me upset, too. I’m going. Keep in touch. If you find anything new, whatever, call me.”
Zack burrowed his gaze into her and an invisible energy moved. “Truth moves like that sometime. Epiphany. Remember as much as you can. Better yet, write it down.”
“Oh, Zackary, can we stop the lecture and go take the final.”
He paused outside the doorway. “And be nice to Ted, he likes you.”
“Okay, but dinner tomorrow?”
“No.”
“Boca, I’m going to insist on that boat ride.”
“Bye.”
Chapter Twenty
9:00 p.m. EST
That evening, at his White House office desk, Professor Novak spoke with General MacCallister on a secured line:
“So Mac, where are we?”
“Everything is proceeding as scheduled, like shootin’ gooks in a barrel.”
Pleased, Novak advised the general that Dr. Lande was with the President in the White House pressroom, preparing him for phase two. Novak then informed Mac that the decision on Lande would be made later that night.
Chapter Twenty One
9:15 p.m. EST
The last rays of twilight streaking his windshield, Zack exited The Boca’s parking lot and made a hard left, south on Route 1. He snapped the radio on and punched to the all-news station WAME-AM.
A radio announcer was speaking. “and that’s our national news summary. On the world scene, sources report heightened tensions over an alleged secret nuclear pact among several nations. According to a statement released by the White House, citizens of major American cities should prepare for impending terrorist activities. The White House statement reports that the President is unshaken by the threats of violence and confirmed his trust in divine guidance. Here is part of what the President said this morning:
“This selling, trading of nuclear weapons to terrorists is shameless. The nations doing this, and we know who you are, cannot be allowed to get away with it. The world must be made a safe place for all people. It is my destiny to assure that this be accomplished.
“Fellow partners, if we do not act now, we risk our children’s common home’s destruction for the views of a few. That is intolerable. The United States of America, the mightiest nation
on the planet, must make earth a safe place for all peoples. And I, as leader of this great nation, and with God’s guidance, I shall protect our vital interests by seeking out and destroying the true beasts of our time that are blinded by false gods, living in darkness, unable to see the light of a free market that we enjoy.
“Make no mistake about it. Wherever you may be, I will seek out and destroy you infidels with whatever means is at my disposal.”
Radio announcer: “And in other local news, there is growing racial tension here in the Miami area over the assault and murder last night of an African-American female, apparently by two Anglo Miami police officers. A video of the incident began airing on local television station WSUN, Channel 10, just after four this afternoon. The exclusive video, in the words of WSUN News Director Douglas Hoffman, came from ‘a reliable source.’”
Zack snapped the radio off. “Now it’s a ‘reliable source.’”
Mulling Armstrong remarks just broadcast, he recalled Joe Case’s sentiment. “Who made Benny capo di capo tutti of the world?”
He added his own thoughts. “And another thing, Benny, this ‘I this, I that, I will’ you keep using is beginning to bore the rice out of me.”
He recalled Armstrong’s speech just the previous week to the National Press Club where Benny rambled I all over the planet, “I propose, I believe, I am, I will, I love, I promise, I, I, I. Hollywood Benny strutting his stuff, can’t shut the tofu up. I, my gluteus maximus.”
Which brought to mind Armstrong’s rambling narcissistic autobiography God’s Way, My Way, The Only Way.
Thinking about God’s way, brought to mind Armstrong’s victory in the 2020 three-way-race for the U.S. Presidency.
“And now he’s Commander-in-Chief of the United States of America,” he mumbled then added, “Your way?”
Zack wiped his chin. “Then Benny really went to work—Executive Order creating a media relations department headed by Dr. Barbara Lande. Lande creates the White House News Corps. A second Executive Order creating his Elite Inner Circle to deal with everything from his Jack Daniels shipments, the global economy, to international terrorists. A National Reconnaissance Office unit never funded by Congress but designated by yet another Executive Order.”