Hard News

by Jeffery Deaver

  Rune said, "There's a story I want you to read. One in particular." She flipped through the pages. "Here."

  He looked at it. "Prometheus. Wasn't he the guy made the wings out of wax or something?"

  "Uh, nope. That was another dude."

  Boggs squinted. "Hey, lookit there."

  She followed his eyes to the old illustration. "Yeah," she said, laughing and sitting forward. Prometheus chained to a rock, a huge bird swooping down and tearing at his side. "Just like you--getting stabbed. Isn't that crazy wild?"

  He closed the book and picked a couple chips of spine off the thin blanket. "So tell me, miss, you a college girl?"

  "Me? Nope."

  "How come you know this kind of stuff?" He held up the book.

  She shrugged. "I just like to read."

  "I kind of regretted I never was smart enough to go."

  "Naw, I wouldn't feel that way if I was you," she said. "You go to college, get a real job, get married, what happens is you don't ever get a chance to play chicken with life. That's the fun part."

  He nodded. "Never could sit still long enough to go to school anyway." He looked at her for a moment, eyes roving up and down. "Tell me 'bout yourself."

  "Me?" She was suddenly embarrassed.

  "Sure. I told you 'bout me. Remind me what life's like on the Outside. Been a while."

  "I don't know...." She thought: So this is what the people I interview feel like.

  Boggs asked, "Where you live?"

  Houseboats take a lot of explaining. "In Manhattan," she said.

  "You can stand it there? It's a crazy place."

  "I can't stand it anyplace else."

  "Never spent much time there. Never could get a handle on it."

  "Why would you want to live somewhere you can get a handle on?" she asked.

  "Maybe you've got a point there. But you're talking to somebody who's a little prejudiced. I come to town and what happens? I get myself arrested for murder...." He smiled then looked at her closely. "So, you're a reporter. Is that what you want to do?"

  "I have this thing about films. I think I want to make documentaries. Right now I'm working for this TV station. I'll do it for as long as it excites me. The day I wake up and say I'd rather go have a picnic on the top of the Chrysler Building than go to work that's the day I quit and do something else."

  Boggs said, "You and me're kind of alike. I've done me a lot of different things too. I keep looking. Always been looking for that nest egg, just to get a leg up."

  "Hey, before this job, I spent six months at a bagel restaurant. And before that I was a store-window dresser. Most of my close friends are people I met at the Unemployment office."

  "Pretty girl like you I think'd be considering settling down. You have a boyfriend?"

  "He's not exactly the marrying kind."

  "You're young."

  "I'm not in any hurry. I think my mother's got this bridal shop in Shaker Heights on call. In case I tell her I'm engaged she'll be like the Pentagon--you know, Red Alert. But I have trouble seeing me married. Like some things you can imagine and some you can't. That's one that doesn't compute."

  "Where's Shaker Heights?"

  "Outside Cleveland."

  "You're from Ohio. I spent some time in Indiana." Then he laughed. "Maybe I shouldn't put it that way. Not like I was doing time. I lived about a year there, working. A real job. As real as day labor can be. Steel mills in Gary."

  "Miss," the guard said, "I let you stay a little longer than you should."

  She stood up and said to Boggs, "I'm working really, really hard on the story. I'm going to get you out of here."

  Boggs was running his finger along the edge of his book. "I'll keep this." He said this as if it was the best thing he could think of to say to thank her.

  As Rune and the guard walked back to the prison exit, the guard, without looking at her, said, "Miss, word been around about what you're trying to do."

  She looked up at him. Her eyes didn't get much past the huge biceps.

  "About you maybe getting him a new trial."

  "Yeah?"

  "I like Randy. He keeps to himself and doesn't give us any grief. But there're some people here don't like him much. I'm not supposed to be telling you this and I'm hoping it won't go any further than here...."

  "Sure."

  "But if you don't get him out soon he's not going to live to parole."

  "The people who did that?" She nodded back to the infirmary.

  "There's nothing we can do to stop them."

  They arrived at the gate and the guard stopped.

  "But what did Randy do?"

  "What did he do?" The guard didn't understand her.

  "I mean, why did somebody stab him?"

  The guard's face snapped into a brief frown. "He ended up here, miss. That's what he did."

  THE PLACE WAS PRETTY EASY TO GET INTO.

  Like water through a sieve, Jack Nestor thought. Then laughed, thinking that probably wasn't the best word to describe a houseboat. The only problem had been there was a parking lot nearby and a booth with a security guard, who'd glance at the boat every so often like he was keeping an eye on it. But Nestor waited until the man made a phone call then walked past him and jogged up the yellow gangplank.

  Once he was inside he pulled on brown cotton gloves and started at the back. He took his time. He'd never been on a houseboat before and he was pretty curious about it. He'd done some charters and been on more party boats than he could count and of course he'd done time in military LSTs and landing craft. But this wasn't like anything else he'd ever seen.

  The decor sucked, for one thing. It looked like his nutzo stepmother's place. But he admired the pilothouse, if that's what you'd call it, which had beautiful brass fixtures and levers and grainy oak, all yellow with old varnish. Beautiful. All the controls except the wheel were frozen and he guessed the motor was kaput. He resisted a temptation to pull the horn rope.

  Downstairs he carefully went through the bookshelves and the cheap, sprung-fiberboard desk that was a sea of papers and pictures (mostly of dragons and knights and fairies, that sort of shit). There were a couple of dozen videocassettes. They were mostly that make-believe stuff too. Fairy stories, dragonslayers, the stuff he never watched. Some dirty films too. Lusty Cousins. And something called Epitaph for a Blue Movie Star.

  So, this chicky had a kinky side to her.

  Then he rummaged through the closets and drawers in the bedroom and in the little supply room that had another dresser in it. He went through the kitchen and the refrigerator, which was the first place that most people who thought they were clever hid things and which was the first place most professional thieves looked.

  After an hour he was convinced she didn't have anything here that interested--or worried--him.

  Which meant the files would be at her office and that was a pain in the ass.

  Nestor looked around and sat down on the couch. He had a decision to make. He could wait here until she came back and just waste her. Get it over with, make it look like a robbery. The cops would probably buy that. He was always surprised how people craved to accept the most obvious explanations. Easier all the way around. Robbery and murder.

  Or rape and murder.

  On the other hand, that might leave a lot of material floating around somewhere, material that shouldn't be floating around.

  Still ...

  A car door slammed. He was up fast, glancing out the window. He saw her--not a bad-looking girl if she didn't wear those stupid clothes, like the striped black-and-yellow tights and red miniskirt. It turned him off and made him resent her....

  Oh, he knew that emotion. The feeling that he'd get looking at a wiry brown-skinned man in a khaki uniform, looking at him through a telescopic sight, feeling the hatred, working up a wild, spiraling fury (maybe because Nestor was sweating like a steam pipe in the heat or because bugs were digging into his skin or because he had a glossy, star-shaped scar on his belly). R
esentment, hate. He needed those feelings--to help him pull the trigger or press the knife in as deeply as he could.

  Boots scraped on the asphalt outside.

  Nestor felt a low itching and rubbed his scar. He felt the weight of the Steyr automatic in his pocket.

  But he left it where it was and climbed out onto the deck.

  He watched her open the door, clumsy, tilting against the weight of a movie camera and cassettes and a leather belt of batteries or whatever, which looked like a bandolier of M16 clips. She stacked it all by the door and disappeared into the bedroom. He waited a few minutes to see if he'd get a glimpse of skin but when she came out in a boring work shirt and stretch pants he silently left the boat and disappeared into the West Village.

  chapter 15

  "A GENIUS, BUT ALWAYS CONTROVERSIAL..."

  Click.

  "A genius, but always controversial, Lance Hopper ..."

  Click.

  Rune hit the rewind button again. It was a good shot of him: Lance Hopper. Or a good shot of his mortal remains, at any rate--the gurney holding his body as it was wheeled out of the deadly courtyard three years before. She wished she could use the footage. Unfortunately, it had been filmed by another station.

  "... controversial, Lance Hopper was disliked by co-workers and competitors alike. Although under his leadership the seven P.M. national news program rose to number one in the ratings, he managed to embroil the network in several major scandals. Among them was an uproar caused by numerous firings of staff members, massive and--his critics said--arbitrary budgetary cutbacks and intense scrutiny of the network's news programs and their content.

  "Perhaps the incident that gave his network the blackest eye, however, was an Equal Employment Opportunity suit brought by five women employees who claimed that Hopper's hiring and promotion practices discriminated against them. Hopper denied the charges and the suit was settled out of court. Associates of the late executive, though, admitted that he preferred men in executive positions and felt that a woman had no business in the higher echelons of network news. His flamboyant personal life belied that reputed prejudice, however, and he was often seen in the company of attractive women from society and the entertainment industry. There were rumors of bisexual behavior and of his having had several young male models as companions. His penchant, however, was for tall blondes...."

  Click.

  Tall blondes. Why is it always tall blondes?

  Rune was at her desk, surrounded by piles of newspapers, magazines, computer printouts, videocassettes and the refuse from a dozen fast-food meals. It was four-thirty in the afternoon and everyone was gearing up for the news at seven. She felt that she was in the eye of a hurricane. Motion everywhere. Frantic, crazed motion.

  Rune had also learned that while Hopper's internship program had indeed launched many a career in journalism he himself was maybe a bit more interested in the young people themselves than he should have been. In the archives Rune found a confidential memo in which the network's ethics committee heard complaints from two interns, eighteen and nineteen, that he'd made improper advances toward them. The names weren't given and there seemed to be no follow-up references to the incidents.

  She asked Bradford about the reports but he said he knew nothing about them and didn't believe the stories for a minute. Powerful people, he explained, attract rumors. He obviously didn't want his idol to have feet of clay and Rune wondered if it had been purely an oversight that the young man had missed the memo about the investigation when he was digging through the archives for her in search of material on Hopper.

  Click.

  Rune watched the tape of Hopper's body rolling out into the spring night, the snakes of afterimage etched into the screen by the revolving lights on the EMS vans and police cars, the crowds--pale in the video camera's radiance of light. They looked curious and bored at the same time.

  "Rune." A calm voice, a woman's voice.

  "Oh, hi." It was Piper Sutton.

  Should've cleaned up my desk, she thought. Remembering how neat the anchorwoman's was. And seeing how neat she looked now, standing here in a dark red suit with black velvet tabs on the collar and a white, high-necked blouse and dark fleshy stockings disappearing into the slickest patent-leather shoes Rune'd ever seen. Shoes with high heels and one red stripe along the side.

  Shoes that'd put me on my ass, I tried to wear them.

  But, man, they looked cool.

  "You're busy." Sutton's eyes scanned the desk.

  "I was just working on the story."

  Rune casually picked up several of the closest paper bags--one Kentucky Fried and two Burger Kings--and dropped them into, well, onto an overflowing wastebasket.

  "You want to, like, sit down?"

  Sutton looked at the ketchup packets that rested on the one unoccupied chair. "No. I don't." She leaned forward and ejected the tape that was in the Sony player, then read the label. "Brand X," she said. "It's from a competitor. You can't use this footage, you know. I'm not putting a super in any of my news programs that says 'Courtesy of another network.' "She handed the tape back to Rune.

  "I know. I'm just using it for background."

  "Background." Sutton said the word softly. "I want to talk to you. But not here. Are you doing anything for dinner?"

  "I was just going to John's for pizza. They're, like, real generous with their anchovies."

  Sutton walked away. "No. You'll have dinner with me."

  "The thing is, there's this person. Can they come with us?"

  "I want to talk to you in private."

  "Anything you can say to me, you can say in front of her. She's, you know, discreet."

  Sutton shrugged, took one last look at the desk and didn't seem to like what she saw. "Whatever." Then she scanned Rune's pink T-shirt and miniskirt and fishnet stockings and ankle boots and she said, "You do have a dress, don't you?"

  Rune said defensively, "I've got two, as a matter of fact."

  She wondered what she was missing when Sutton laughed. The anchorwoman wrote out an address and handed it to Rune. "That's between Madison and Fifth. Be there at six-thirty We'll do the pretheater. Don't want to spend more than we need to, do we?"

  "That's okay. My friend likes to eat early."

  YOU COULDN'T CALL IT A TIP. IT WAS A BRIBE.

  Jacques, the maitre d', took the money Sutton offered him and slipped it into the pocket of his perfectly pressed black tuxedo. However much it was--Rune didn't see-- the cash might have bought them access to the dining room but it did nothing to cheer up the poor, sullen man. He sat them at a table off to the side of the main dining room then surveyed Courtney. He said, "Maybe a phone book."

  Rune said, "Yellow and White Pages."

  Jacques pursed his unhappy Gallic lips and went off in search of the best child-seating device New York Telephone could offer.

  Rune looked around the room. "This is like really, really amazing. I could get into it. Living this way, I mean."

  "Uhm."

  The theme of L'Escargot seemed to be flowers and-- probably as with the food--excess was in. The center of the room was dominated by a twisty vined centerpiece, sprouting orchids and roses and baby's breath. The walls held huge paintings of flowers. Rune liked them. They were what Monet would have done if he'd used electric-colored Crayolas instead of oil paint. Rune more or less matched the decor. She'd raced home to change into one of the two dresses, a purple-and-white Laura Ashley floral, which was her spring and summer dress. It was several years old but had very little mileage on it.

  On the table in front of them was a bird of paradise in a tall glass vase and some kinky-looking green thing like a pinecone, which, if you were to see it in National Geographic, you wouldn't be able to tell whether it was a plant or fish or huge insect. Rune pointed at the bird of paradise. "I love these dudes." She petted it. "I don't think it looks like a bird at all. I think it looks like a dragon."

  Courtney said, "I like dragons."

  Sutton
stared at them blankly. "Dragons?"

  The little girl added, "I'm going to be a knight. But I wouldn't kill any dragons. I'd have them for pets. Rune's going to take me to the zoo and we're going to look at dragons."

  Through teeth that never separated more than a quarter inch, Sutton said, "How wonderful."

  Jacques returned with two bulky phone directories and set them on the third chair at the table. Courtney smiled as he lifted her up and set her on top.

  He turned to Sutton. "This really cannot be, uh, habituel, non?"

  "Jacques, have someone bring the little girl some ..." She looked at Rune with a raised eyebrow.

  "She loves pizza."

  "We are a French restaurant, miss."

  "She also likes pickles, clam chowder, smoked oysters, rice, anchovies--"

  "Huitres," Jacques said. "They are poached and served with pesto and beurre blanc."

  Sutton said, "Fine. Just have somebody cut them up into little pieces. I don't want to watch her mauling food. And have the sommelier bring me a Puligny-Montrachet." She looked at Rune. "Do you drink wine?"

  "I'm over twenty-one."

  "I'm not asking for a driver's license. I want to know if an eighty-dollar bottle of wine will be wasted on you."

  "Maybe a White Russian would be more my speed."

  Sutton nodded to the maitre d' and said, "Find me a half bottle, Jacques. A Mersault if there's no Puligny."

  "Oui, Miss Sutton."

  Huge menus appeared. Sutton scanned hers. "I don't think we want anything too adventurous. We'll have scallops to start." She asked Rune, "Do you swell up or turn red when you eat seafood?"

  "No, I get fish sticks all the time at this Korean deli. And--"

  Sutton waved an abrupt hand. "And then the pigeon."

  Rune's eyes went wide. Pigeon?

  Jacques said, "Salades, after?"

  "Please."

  Rune's eyes danced around the room then settled on the arsenal of silverware and empty plates in front of her. The procedures here seemed as complicated as Catholic liturgy and the downside if you blew it seemed worse. Be cool, now, she told herself. This's your boss and she already thinks you're damaged. Rune resisted the fierce impulse to scratch under her bra strap.

  The first course arrived, along with the little girl's oysters.

  "Gross dudes," Courtney said but she began to eat them eagerly. "Can we buy these for breakfast? I like them."

  Rune was thankful Courtney was with them; the girl gave her something to do besides feel uncomfortable. Picking spoons up off the floor, wiping oyster off her face, keeping the vase vertical.