“What did you hear, exactly?”
“Dead at the scene,” he says.
Try as I do, there’s some psychic staggering here. There’s no hesitation in his responses. Even Eli Walker would have a hard time confusing the manifest line between life and death.
“An accident?” I ask.
He shakes his head.
“Heart attack?”
Walker slaps his glass on the bar, a satisfied grin on his face. He finally has my undivided attention.
It’s clear, Walker’s not talking until he has another drink. I call the bartender. Having humored me with scotch, Walker now orders a double bourbon. I ask for the tab and pass the bartender two twenties.
“Gunshot,” he says. “His office.”
Shock and disbelief are registered by the fire I feel all the way to the tips of my ears. He reads disbelief in my eyes.
“It’s true,” he says. “I swear.” He holds up a loose victory sign, like a confused Boy Scout.
“What happened?” I ask.
He shrugs his shoulders. “They don’t give out news bulletins over the police bands.”
This is Eli’s idea of dogged journalism. Hustling drinks at a bar with tidbits of information. I wonder what part of the police transmission he didn’t hear or failed to interpret.
“Do you have a press pass?” I ask.
“Sure.”
“Let’s go.”
“Where we goin’? Our drinks haven’t come yet.”
My hand grips his elbow like a vise, pushing him along ahead of me.
“Haven’t you heard, Eli? Alcohol keeps.”
All the way mere, Walker’s making like an echo in the seat next to me as I drive. He’s babbling some nonsense about having to meet a source back at the bar.
“Sure, Eli, what’s the guy’s name? Johnnie Walker?”
“No, really, I’ve got a meeting back there.”
“I’m sure he’ll wait for you. I’ll take you back later. Just relax. All you have to do is get me past the police lines.” Assuming there are any.
Hope finds refuge in the improbable crackling transmissions of a police-band radio as interpreted by Eli Walker. But my expectations sag as I pull to the curb on the mall in front of the Emerald Tower.
Minicam crews from channel five and eight are already assembled outside the entrance, jockeying for film advantage. The vans, sprouting microwave dishes and me small spiraled antennae of cellular telephones, are parked at the curb like prodigious wheeled insects in search of carrion on which to feast. Two patrol cars have driven to the fountain on the cobblestone plaza in front of the building. The driver’s door on one is still open, and the light-bars of the units flash amber, red, and blue, the reflections glinting off the emerald glass of the structure in a surreal symphonic light show. The cops are stringing yellow tape across the building’s entrance.
There’s a third vehicle-navy blue in color and lower than the minicam vans-nesded between the two bigger vans. Its flashing emergency lights flicker against the dark azure of a Spielberg sky. On the side the words COUNTY CORONER are printed in bold white letters. I begin to have a new respect for Eli Walker.
We scurry up the broad cement concourse toward the towering green glass edifice. I’m pushing Walker all the way. This is a reporter who’s never been to a fire. The only heat he’s ever felt is booze in the belly.
“Give me your pass, Eli.”
He fumbles with his wallet and drops it on the concrete. I pick it up and riffle through it and quickly find the pass. I look at the laminated plastic card. There’s no picture. I’m in luck.
“I’ll do the talking. Just keep quiet.”
We reach the door and a uniformed cop, young, part of the traffic division I’m sure, challenges us. I lay on a flurry of the working press in a hurry, flashing the press card under his nose. He waves us through. Television crews are assembled here in the building’s lobby. Another cop is stationed at the entrance to the elevators. I’ve run out my string with Walker’s press pass.
Walker and I huddle.
“Know any of these guys?” I nod toward the media moguls wandering about the lobby.
He takes a quick glance around, then shakes his head. Walker’s well connected.
“Stay here.”
I walk over and cozy up to one of the cameramen, who’s checking out the jungle of tropical plants near the indoor fountain.
“What happened?”
The guy’s chewing gum, a huge wad. He looks at me.
“Ugh du no.” This erudite response is accompanied by a shrug of his shoulders as the gum snaps in his mouth. He nods toward a better-dressed colleague standing a few feet away.
“What’s up?”
“Some guy bought it,” he says.
“Who?”
“Beats me. Cops won’t give us anything.”
“How did you find out?”
He looks at me like I’m crazy, then touches the pager strapped to his belt. “How do I find out about anything?”
I’m back to Walker. He’s getting bored. Wants to leave. I’m hearing more about his meeting back at The Broiler.
There’s the single tone of a bell, one of the elevator cars reaching the lobby. Klieg lights zero in on the elevator door like antiaircraft in me London blitz. The doors slide open. A solitary figure stands in the center of the elevator car blinded by the lights and inundated by a stream of concurrent, incoherent questions.
Elbows go up to shade the light. “You’ll have to get mat from me police. I’ve got nothing to say.” The cop at me elevator eases several of the cameras back away from the door. “Get mat damn light out of my eyes.” In a grudging sequence, the lights go dim and me crowd at the elevator begins to dissipate, wandering back to the corners of the lobby.
He’s halfway across me lobby headed for me door when he sees me. George Cooper’s eyes are still adjusting from me media bombardment. He carries a small black satchel containing the instruments of his dark calling.
“Coop.” My voice echoes just a little in me cavernous lobby.
There are rings of unrequited sleep under his eyes, and an almost bemused smile under a salt-and-pepper mustache.
“Paul.” There’s a momentary hesitation, men me apocalyptic question. “How did you find out?”
Coop’s words beat like a drum in my brain. It is the confirmation that I dreaded. Ben Potter is dead. I struggle to absorb me finality of it-my first real attempt to assess the personal dimensions of this loss.
Cooper is standing next to me now, waiting for an answer.
“Eli told me,” I say.
There’s a clumsy introduction. Walker educates Coop on me benefits of scanning the police bands.
“Ahh,” says Coop.
“What happened?” I say.
The guy with me pager is eyeing me with renewed interest. He’s grabbed the gumhead, and me two of them are moving toward us.
“Let’s walk and talk?” says Coop. “They’ll be comin’ down with me body in a minute. Got to get the van ready.”
We head toward the door. Coop and I are arm to arm, Walker trailing along behind.
“Too early to know much. If I had to guess,” he says, his voice dropping an octave and several decibels in volume as he eyes an approaching camera crew wearily, “maybe suicide.”
I’m silent but shake my head. Coop knows what I’m saying. I don’t believe it.
“Single blast, twelve-gauge shotgun in the mouth.” No sugar coating from George Cooper. “Janitor found him about an hour ago. Can’t be sure of anything “til forensics is done goin’ over the place.” As we walk outside, Coop’s Southern accent is thick on the night air.
For the first time since Walker broke this nightmare to me, there is confidence in my voice, for there is one thing of which I am certain. “Potter wouldn’t commit suicide.”
“Nobody’s immune to depression.”
Coming from Coop, this is a truism.
“I knew him,” I say. “Trust me. He wouldn’t kill himself. He had too much to live for.”
“Maybe you didn’t know him as well as you think,” says Coop. “People like that project an image bigger than life itself. Sometimes they have a hard time living up to their own advance billing.” He’s picking up the pace. The guy with the pager and his cameraman are behind us, matching us stride for stride.