"You can take the elevator over there down," the guard said, pointing in the direction of the center column. "But you were right about the west side."
"Yeah, well, I guess I'm not all stupid this morning," Redman said and started walking. "Thanks."
The young guard just nodded. "Yes, sir. Have a good day."
Redman took the elevator to the ground floor, convinced that his meeting with Mullins was clear. Nick looked at his watch-10:08-but he did not move from his spot. A lesson from years of street reporting: Don't leave the scene until you've got everything you can get or your deadline is screaming in your face. At this point in the morning there was plenty of time to write, and knowing that Deirdre was waiting with a harsh SEE ME! was motivation to stay away as long as possible.
He looked out onto the river, the water a dark impenetrable brown color. He recalled a description of the same spot, recorded by Fort Lauderdale pioneer Ivy Stranahan in the late 1890s, of a river so clear you could watch the fish swimming below. Growth of the area killed that vision, as it did her husband, Frank, who committed suicide by strapping weights to his body and throwing himself into the river in a spot not fifty yards away from where Nick now stood. Nick was thinking about ghosts when he picked up on the rustle of branches off to his left and saw a man coming through the sea grape hedge.
Michael Redman did not suddenly appear like some stealthy ninja warrior. He even stumbled a bit extricating himself from the brush. At first Nick thought the man might just be a fisherman, but he was carrying nothing but a dark jacket. He was dressed peculiarly, like some gas station attendant. There were no furtive glances to see if they were alone, the man simply walked over with a confident stride and when their eyes met, any doubt was immediately dissolved.
"Mr. Mullins," Redman said and it was not a question. He stopped just within handshaking distance, but did not offer his hand.
"Michael Redman," Nick replied. He was studying the man's face, older than he remembered, cut with deep crow's-feet and lines across the forehead, sallow skin that accented the dark pouches that hung under his eyes. Not a man who slept well, Nick caught himself thinking.
"I've read your stories, Mr. Mullins," Redman said in a clear, conversational tone. "You've always impressed me with your knowledge of certain events and people."
Nick wasn't sure how to react. But being cavalier, considering the circumstances, was out.
"I believe you've made some of those stories, Mike. Especially some of the recent ones."
Nick wasn't sure that the familiar use of Redman's first name was appropriate. Redman only nodded his head, a noncommittal bob.
"I believe the now-silent subjects of those stories created those situations on their own," Redman said.
Nick didn't reply. He was assessing the man: clean clothes and freshly shaven, not living on the streets. Eyes clear of any obvious drug tinge. The man's forearms were big for his otherwise thin frame, cabled with muscle that rolled in an almost dangerous way at the slightest turn of his big-knuckled hands.
"Yeah, sometimes," Nick finally said and believed it. "Can I ask where you've been the last few years, Mike? The last time I remember seeing you was after that crazy shoot-out at the Days Inn."
The look in Redman's eyes slipped to memory and he let just the slightest twitch raise one corner of his mouth-a suppressed smile?
"Wasn't anything crazy about it," he said, extinguishing the look. "It was by the book, just like you showed in your story. Too bad your editorial board doesn't talk to you."
"Is that why you left?" Nick said, thinking instinctively about the reporter's notepad in his back pocket, but then dismissing it.
"No. Hell, I understand a little about the politics of offices like yours, and like the ones I used to work for," Redman said. "No, I stayed for a while after that and then went to hell."
Nick hesitated. Man goes to hell. What does that mean? He gave it a second thought, but he rarely pulled punches at interviews and wasn't going to start now.
"What? Alcoholism? Rehab?" he asked.
Redman laughed, outright and pure, and the softness it suddenly gave his face nearly made Nick smile.
"No, man. Though there was plenty of that over there and plenty of rehab is coming down the road for the guys that will come back," Redman said. "No, Mr. Mullins. Iraq. I went to Iraq."
He lost the laughter quickly.
"There is no hell like war," he said.
"General Sherman," Nick said quickly, a lesson from a Civil War history class jumping into his head.
" 'It's glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have never fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell,' " Redman quoted. "Ol William Tecumseh, he got that one right, didn't he?"
Nick let the silence take hold. Sometimes it was the best way to keep them talking, just say nothing, let them tell it on their own. He was watching Redman's eyes as they went out onto the river. Post-traumatic stress? Just plain nuts? The quiet held too long.
"Is that what it is you're doing, Mike, waging war?"
"No, Mr. Mullins. That's not it. I did that for a lot of years with the Sheriff's Office, warred against the criminals. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. Sometimes you were second-guessed, as you know. But those editorial writers were the ones who never fired a shot or heard the groans, right?"
Nick did not disagree.
"No, this is just a list, my friend. One that's got to be cleaned out before I go."
"What list might that be?" Nick asked and he could hear the anxiety in his own voice, thinking about his byline list, the Secret Service list, the cross-reference list of both.
"My list," Redman said, turning back to again look straight into Nick's face when he spoke. "Just mine. That simple."
"But what does your list have to do with me, Mike? I'm not a soldier. I'm not in a war. I haven't fired a shot or heard the groans."
Redman would not move his eyes and they burned with some internal heat.
"Yeah, you have, Nick. You've heard the worst groans, the ones that ripped your guts, man. You took the heaviest losses. You're owed."
Nick's mind was racing, but illogically, he was trying to second-guess the words without just asking the question, every reporter's downfall. Find the guts to just ask the question.
"Is it me? Am I on your list?"
The question seemed to break Redman's intensity. The three lines that creased his forehead deepened and then he grinned.
"Well, hell, no, Mr. Mullins. You're not on the list. You're the architect of the list, man. You're the spotter," Redman said. "And I just wanted to meet you, properly, before we finish."
Redman then reached out his hand in such a formal and courteous way that Nick's muddled reaction was to take it. It was Redman's muscled forearm that gripped and raised the handshake one time and then let it fall. When he turned to go, Nick found his voice.
"Wait. Wait a second, Mike. What do you mean, finish? You mean you're going to kill someone else?"
Redman kept walking and Nick didn't follow. It was against his years of work and instinct to chase after an interviewee, even this one. He stood and called out instead:
"Mike, come on. What are you doing? Why? How many more on your list?"
Redman turned before he disappeared back into the sea grape.
"One more, Mr. Mullins," he called back. "Like I said, you're owed." Nick stared after the bushes, dumbstruck. What the hell did that mean? I'm owed? I don't do anything but write the stories. Then he pulled the notebook out of his back pocket and knelt right there, next to the seawall, and wrote down everything he could remember of the conversation, the exact words.
The now-silent subjects of those stories created those situations on their own. Yeah, alright, Nick thought.