Hard News

by Jeffery Deaver

  Rune began, "What did I--?"

  Then it hit her--oh, shit. The London assignment.

  "Nobody's forcing you to work for a network like ours." Now, the temper was once again on the move--the patented Sutton temper. It was rolling downhill, an avalanche, and Rune was about to get buried. "You have your choice. But if you're going to work here, goddammit, you've got to behave like an adult, or--"

  "I was going to tell you about the London job. I'm sorry."

  "--you can go pick up paychecks at some fucking restaurant!" The voice dropped threateningly. "I take you out to dinner, where you and that urchin of yours embarrass the hell out of me and I make you a proposition that no one your age has ever been offered before!" Now the screeching began. Rune blinked and sat back, her eyes wide. "And do you even give me the courtesy of an answer?"

  Heads perked up. Throughout the studio, no one dared look--and no one didn't listen.

  "I'm sorry."

  But Sutton cranked up a few more decibels. "Do you even show me the respect you'd show a cabdriver? Did you say, 'Thank you, but I've decided not to accept your offer'? Did you say, 'Piper, could you please give me a few days to think about it some more?' No, you goddamn well didn't. What you did was say ... zip. That's what you said. And then you went on your merry way."

  "I'm sorry." Rune heard herself whining and didn't like it. She cleared her throat. "I got caught up in the story. I was going to tell you--"

  Sutton waved her hand. "I hate apologies. It's a sign of weakness."

  Rune wanted to cry but sat hard on the tears.

  Sutton was speaking to the ceiling. "Everything about this story has been wrong. I knew it was a mistake. Stupid of me. Stupid, stupid."

  Rune swallowed. She touched the file. "Just let me explain, please. What happened was I talked to the witness."

  Sutton smiled coldly and shook her head, exaggerating her lack of comprehension. "What witness?"

  "The one who convicted Randy."

  "Oh, sure, that explains your behavior." Sutton's sarcasm was thick.

  "No. I can prove that she didn't see Randy Boggs."

  "How?"

  "She's a real, like, newshound."

  "A newshound? What the fuck is that?"

  "She watches all the news programs every day. She didn't give any description of Boggs until after she'd seen him arrested on TV. When the--"

  Sutton's hands raised like a martyr's. "What exactly are you getting at?"

  "Listen. When the police showed up to interview her she said, 'I saw who did it and it was Randy Boggs.'"

  Silence. Pin-resounding silence. Sutton gave a short bark of a laugh. "That's your proof?"

  "You can't see into the courtyard clearly from her place--it's too dark. Miss Breckman saw Randy on the news. She saw him arrested. That's where she got the description--from TV. Otherwise, how would she know his name? She didn't describe him first. She said, right off, 'It was Randy Boggs.'"

  Media circus...

  Sutton considered this with a splinter of interest. But then she laughed. "Keep at it, honey. You've got a long way to go."

  "But doesn't this prove that she's a bad witness?"

  "A piece in the puzzle. That's all it is. Keep digging."

  "I thought--"

  "That we'd go with it?"

  "I guess."

  A brittle nail leveled at Rune's face like a bright red dagger. "This is the big time. You keep forgetting that. We don't run a story until it's completely buttoned up." She walked stridently through the newsroom on her clattering heels while employees moved quickly but unobtrusively as far out of her way as they could.

  chapter 18

  DOWNSTAIRS, IN THE LOBBY, RUNE SURVEYED THE JOB AND didn't like what she saw.

  A directory of residents, containing over a hundred names.

  "Help you?" The doorman's accent seemed to be Russian. But then Rune decided she didn't know what a Russian accent sounded like; the man--wearing an old gray uniform shiny on the butt--might have been Czech or Romanian or Yugoslavian or even Greek or Argentine. Whatever his ethnic origin, he was big and snide and unfriendly.

  "I was just looking at the directory."

  "Who you wanna see?"

  "Nobody really. I was just--"

  He smiled slyly as if he'd just caught on that three-card monte games were rigged. "I know. They done that before."

  "I'm a student."

  "Yeah, student." He worked a spot on the inside of his mouth with his tongue.

  "How long you worked here?" she asked.

  "Six months. I just came over here. This country. Lived with my cousin for a while."

  "Who worked here before you?"

  He shrugged. "I dunno. How would I know? You make good money doing it? You know what I'm saying?"

  "What do you mean? I'm a student."

  "I've heard it all. You think I haven't heard it?"

  "I'm an art student. Architecture. I--?"

  "Yeah." The smile was staying put. The tongue foraged. "What you make?"

  "Make?" Rune asked.

  "How much you sell them for?"

  "What?"

  "The names." He nodded. "You sell them to companies send everybody that junk mail. No junk mail in my country. Here! It's everywhere."

  "What I'm doing is I'd like to talk to some people who live here. About the design of their apartments."

  A nod joined the smile.

  There was nothing worse than being accused of something you hadn't done--even if you were doing something you shouldn't've been doing.

  She rummaged for a minute in the dark recesses of her bag until she came up with a stiff bill. A twenty. Hot out of the ATM. She handed it to him.

  Zip. It vanished into his pocket.

  "How much you make?"

  Another twenty joined its friend.

  "Ah." He walked off, pressing his hand to the pocket that held the crisp, non-reimbursable bills and Rune turned back to her task.

  The smart thing would have been to find out which rows of apartments looked out over the courtyard where Lance Hopper had been shot but she didn't know how soon the Slavic-Ruskie South American capitalist would be back to suck up another bribe. So she started at the top left of the directory. From Myron Zuckerman in 1B she speed wrote straight down to Mr., or Ms., L. Peters in 8K.

  Twenty minutes later, the doorman returned, just as she finished.

  "Still studying?" he asked snidely.

  "I just finished."

  "So tell me, yeah, which company you with? One of the big ones? Am I right?"

  "It's a big one," Rune said.

  "Is in Jersey, right?"

  "How'd you guess?"

  "I've been around. I seen a lot. You can't fool me."

  "I wouldn't even try."

  SCORCHING PAIN ROAMED AROUND IN HER BACK. THE INside of her ear was sweating. Her voice had gone from low soprano to throaty alto and she'd have to clear her windpipe with a stinging snap every few minutes. Rune had been sitting in her cubicle at the studio, speaking into a phone, for nearly eight hours straight.

  Hello I'm a producer for Current Events the news program Mr. Zuckerman Norris Williams Roth Gelinker we're doing a segment about the Lance Hopper killing you probably remember the man killed in the courtyard of your building several years ago I'm hoping you can help me what I'm looking for is...

  It was late, after eight o'clock. Past bedtime for Courtney. The little girl sat at Rune's feet, tearing scheduling sheets into the shape of Easter bunnies.

  ... How long have you lived in apartment 3B, 3C, 3D, 3E, 3F ...?

  "Rune, bunny."

  Whispering, hand over mouthpiece: "Beautiful, honey. I'm on the phone. Make a momma Easter bunny now."

  "That is the mommy."

  "Then make a daddy."

  Rune's poll of the tenants so far:

  One was Miss Breckman. Eight had unlisted numbers. Twenty weren't home when she called. Thirty-three had moved into their apartments after Hopper's
death. Eighteen hadn't been home the night of the killing (or said they hadn't). Nineteen were home but didn't see anything related to the murder (or said they didn't).

  That left twelve on her list.

  A bad number. If there'd been only three she would've called them. Twenty, she'd have given up and gone home to sleep. But twelve ...

  Rune sighed and stretched, hearing some remote bone protest with a pop.

  Courtney yawned and tore a bunny in half with fidgety glee.

  Quitting time, Rune thought. I'm going home. Then she thought of Sutton's raspy, bitchy voice and fuming eyes and she picked up the phone.

  Which was fortunate because when she asked Mr. Frost, 6B, if he knew anything about the Lance Hopper killing he paused for only a moment then responded, "Actually ... I saw it happen."

  "YOU PUT THAT IN A BOTTLE AND YOU'VE GOT YOURSELF something," she said.

  Rune had walked into the apartment, right past the elderly man who'd opened the door, and stepped up to a glass case. Inside was an elaborate model of a ship--not a rigged clipper ship or man-of-war but a modern cargo ship. It was four feet long. She said, "Audacious."

  "Thank you. I've never made ships in bottles. To tell you the truth, I don't like hobbies."

  She introduced herself.

  "Bennett Frost," he said. He was about seventy-five years old. He wore a cardigan sweater with a moth hole on the shoulder and cheap gray pants. He was balding and had dark moles on his face and head. He leaned forward, a vestigial bow, as he shook her hand. He held it for a moment longer than one normally would have and looked at her closely. The touch and the examination, though, were not sexual. He was appraising her. When he was done he released her hand and nodded at the glass case.

  "The Minnesota Princess. Odd name, don't you think, for a ship that spent most of her time in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic? My very first ship. No, I shouldn't say that. My very first profitable ship. Which is, I suppose, better than my first ship. I named her Minnesota because I was born there."

  He walked into the large apartment. Rune followed him. In the cluttered living room she noticed suitcases.

  "You going on a trip?"

  "I have a place in Bermuda. Haiti was my favorite. The Oloffson--what a hotel that was. Not true any longer, of course. I never used to go to British colonies but you know how things are elsewhere." He looked at her with slits of eyes, a shared secret. She nodded.

  His eyes fell on her camera.

  "You have a press pass or something?"

  She showed him her Network ID. He scanned her up and down again, a CAT scan of her soul. "You're young."

  "Younger than some. Older than others."

  He gave that a curly smile and said, "I was young when I got started in business."

  "What did you do?"

  He gazed at the model. "That was my contribution to the shipping industry and the aesthetics of the sea. She isn't beautiful; she isn't a stately ship."

  "I think she looks pretty nifty."

  Frost said, "'And the stately ships go on/To their haven under the hill/But O for the touch of a vanished hand/And the sound of a voice that is still.' Tennyson. Nobody knows poetry anymore."

  Rune knew some nursery rhymes and some Shakespeare but she remained silent.

  He continued, "But that ship made money hand over fist for a lot of people." He lifted a heavy decanter and started pouring two glasses of purple liquor, as he asked, "Would you like some port?"

  She accepted the glass and sipped. It was cloying as honey and tasted like cough medicine.

  "I started out as a ship's chandler. Do you know what that is?"

  "A candle maker?" Rune shrugged.

  "No, a provisioner. A supplier. Anything a captain wanted, from a ratchet to a side of beef, I would get it. I started when I was seventeen, rowing out to the ships as soon as they dropped anchor, even before the agents arrived or they'd started off-loading. I gave them cut prices, demanded half as a deposit, gave them fancy-looking receipts for the cash and always returned with what they wanted or a substitute that was better or cheaper."

  "I was wondering, sir--" she began.

  Frost held up a hand. "Listen. This is important. During the thirties I moved into the shipping side of the business."

  Rune didn't see what was important but she let him talk.

  And talk he did. Fifteen minutes later she'd learned about his growing fortune in the shipping business. He was talking about ship propellers he'd designed himself. "They called them Frost Efficiency Screws. I got such a kick out of that! Efficiency Screws! So my ships could make the run from the Strait of Hormuz around the horn to the Ambrose Light in thirty-three days. I had the fastest oil carriers in the world. Thirty-three days."

  Rune said, "If I could ask you a few questions. About the Hopper killing."

  "There's a point I'm trying to make."

  "Sorry."

  "I got out of shipping. I could see what would happen to oil. I could see the balance of trade shift. I didn't want to leave my ships; oh, that hurt me. But you have to think ahead. Did you hear about the buggy-whip manufacturers who went out of business when autos were developed? You know what their problem was? They didn't think of themselves as being in the accelerator business. Ha!" He loved the story, had probably told it a thousand times. "So what did I go into?"

  "Airlines?"

  Frost laughed derisively. "Public transportation? Regulations ad nauseam. I thought about it but I knew that it would take one Democrat, two at the most, to ruin the industry. No, I diversified--financial services, mining, manufacturing. And I became the fourth-richest man in the world ... You're skeptical. I can see that. You've never heard of me. Some old crackpot, you're thinking, who's lured me in here for who knows what nefarious prospects. But it's true. In the seventies I had three billion dollars." He paused. "And those were the days when a billion meant something."

  He sat forward and Rune sensed he was getting to his long-awaited point.

  "But what could I do with money like that? Provide for my wife and children. Buy comfortable shoes, a good set of golf clubs, a warm coat, an apartment where the plumbing worked. I don't smoke; rich food makes me ill. Mistresses? I was contentedly married for forty-one years. I put my children through school, set up trust funds for the grandchildren, though not very fat ones, and ..." He smiled, significantly. "... I gave most of the rest away. Hence, you."

  "Me? What exactly does all that have to do with the Lance Hopper killing?"

  Frost considered this for a moment. "I'm confessing."

  She blinked.

  "But," he said, "you have to understand. It didn't make any difference, you know."

  "Uh, like, how exactly do you mean?"

  "They had the other witness. You can't blame me really."

  "Could you explain please."

  "At the time, when he was killed, I had my fortune. I was giving money away. I had people who worked for me who depended on me for their livelihood. Their families ... You people in the media--a man never has any privacy around you." He pronounced it with a short i, privacy. Like "privileged."

  He continued. "I was simply scared back them. I was afraid to tell the police that I'd seen Hopper killed. I'd be on news programs. I'd be in court. There'd be stories about my wealth. Kidnappers might come after my family or me. Do-gooders would start hounding me for money for their causes. I felt guilty at first but then I heard that that Breckman woman downstairs saw the whole thing and told the police about the killer. It took the pressure off me."

  "But now you don't mind telling me what you saw? What's different now?"

  Frost walked to the window and looked into the gloomy courtyard. "I have a different attitude toward life."

  Oh, please, Rune was praying, do it now. Tell me what you saw. And, please, make it good. "May I?" She gestured toward the camera.

  A pause. Then he nodded.

  The lights clicked on. The camera hummed. She aimed it at Frost's long face.

&n
bsp; "It's odd," he said wistfully, "what giving away your fortune does. It's a marvelous thing. I don't know why it hasn't caught on." He looked at her seriously. "Let me ask you, you know anybody else giving away a billion dollars?"

  "None of my friends," Rune said. "Unfortunately."

  chapter 19

  RUNE AND PIPER SUTTON SAT IN FRONT OF THE ANCHORwoman's desk, watching the monitor. Out of it came two tinny voices.

  "Mr. Frost, did you see the shooting?"

  "Plain as the nose on my face. Or your face--however that expression goes. It was horrible. I saw this man come up to Mr. Hopper and pull out this little gun and shoot him, just push the pistol at him. It reminded me of the pictures of Ruby, you know, Jack Ruby, when he shot Oswald. Mr. Hopper held his hands out like he was trying to catch the bullet...."

  Sutton stirred but didn't say anything.

  "Could you describe him?"

  "He was a fat man. Not fat all over but with a beer belly. Like a timpani."

  "A what?"

  "A drum. Dark blondish hair. A moustache ... What's that? Sure, I'm positive about the moustache. And sideburns. A light jacket. Powder-blue."

  Rune said to Sutton, "That's Jimmy. The man who picked up Randy and drove him to New York."

  Sutton frowned and waved her silent.

  "Why didn't you go to the police?"

  "I told you."

  "If you could tell me again. Please."

  "I was afraid--of retaliation. Of publicity. I was very wealthy. I was scared for me and my family. Anyway the killer was caught and identified. That woman downstairs identified the man, and I read that the police caught him practically red-handed. Why would they need me?"

  "I'm going to show you a picture of someone.... Could you tell me if this is the man you saw in the courtyard?"

  "Who? This skinny fellow? No, that wasn't him at all."

  "You'd swear to it?"

  "Sure I would."

  Click.

  Rune kept staring at the monitor, a proud schoolkid waiting for the teacher's praise.

  But Sutton's only comment was a breathy "Damn."

  Rune tried not to smile with pleasure and unadulterated pride.

  Sutton looked at her watch, then added, "I'm late for a meeting with Lee. Did you make a dupe of that tape?"

  "Sure," Rune said. "I always make dupes. It's locked in my credenza."