30
Bradford Simpson was uneasy. "The word is Piper wants you drawn andeighthed. Quartered isn't good enough."
"Look, I just need to get into the newsroom."
"If I were you I wouldn't be in the samecity as Piper Sutton," the young preppy said. "The samebuilding is a very, very bad idea. Very bad."
They were at Kelly's, a bar on the southern end of Columbus Avenue, around the corner from the Network. The shabby place couldn't make up its mind whether it wanted to be the home base for yuppies who traded insider information or for IRA sympathizers who argued politics.
Rune ordered Bradford another martini, a reporter's drink. And one calculated to make him agreeable. She asked him again to get her inside the Network and appended a heartfelt "Please."
"What for? Tell me what for."
"I can't. It's just really, really important."
"Give me a clue." He speared the olive expertly. Connecticutians are good with martinis.
"You know, that might not be the best question to ask. I don't think you really want to know."
"Now that's an honest response. I don't like it but it's an honest response."
"What's the worst that could happen?" she asked.
"I could get fired, arrested and sent to jail on Rikers Island."
"If anybody asks I'll tell them I snuck in. I promise. I wouldn't jeopardize your career. I know what it means to you. Please, help me out. Just this once."
"You're very persuasive," he said.
"I haven't even started trying yet."
He looked at his watch. "What am I supposed to do?"
"Nothing serious."
"Just distract the guard while you slip in?"
"No, it's a lot easier than that. All you've got to do is deactivate the alarm on the fire door downstairs, open it up and let me in. Piece of cake."
"Oh, Christ." The young man looked heartsick at this assignment. He poured down the last slug of martini.
"And look at it this way," Rune said. "If you do get arrested and sent to Rikers Island you'll be able to do a great expose on what life's like in prison. What an opportunity."
It didn't go quite the way she'd planned it.
She got in okay, thanks to Bradford. She even managed to get to her old desk unseen.
The problem was that someone had beat her there.
Everything about Boggs was gone.
Rune went through every drawer, every shelf of her credenza, every wadded-up Lamston's and Macy's bag under the desk. But there was zip about Randy Boggs. All the files, the background tapes, the notes – gone.
Who'd done it? she wondered.
Rune sat at the desk until sixp.m., when the first live Network newscast began. Everyone's attention was on the far side of the studio and not a soul noticed Rune walk up to a gaffer, a heavyset man in jeans and a white striped shirt. He wore a Mets cap. He was sipping coffee from a cardboard cup, watching the attractive Asian anchor-woman deliver a story about the mayor's press conference.
"Hey, Rune," he said, then looked back to the set. "Welcome back."
"Danny, I need some help," she said.
"Help?" he asked.
"You're on set here every day, right?"
"Yep. Working overtime to buy my boat."
"Somebody went through my desk recently. You see who it was, by any chance?"
He sipped more coffee, avoiding her eyes. "I'm off shift."
"Danny."
"Thought you were fired."
"I am. But I need your help. Please."
He stared at the newscaster, whose short-cut hair shone under the lights like a blue-black jewel. He sighed. "I saw."
"Who was it?"
"Oh, brother…"
Randy Boggs hadn't been on an airplane in years but he was surprised to find that they hadn't changed much. Seemed there were more men flight attendants and it seemed the food was better (though maybe that was just because of what he'd been eating off metal trays for the past thirty-three months, fifteen days).
He remembered what the United Airlines clerk who'd sold him this ticket had said about no one ever dying from getting asked out and he kept up that attitude on the plane, practicing a bit of flirting with the flight attendants.
He'd dozed and had had a dream that he couldn't remember now and then the weather got rough and the seat belt sign came on. He didn't mind flying but he hated the insides of airplanes. For one thing, the dry, close air bothered him. But they also cheated you. Here you were moving at five hundred miles an hour! But what did the airlines do but try their best to fool you into thinking you were in a restaurant and movie theater. Randy Boggs wanted the planes to have picture windows. Man, seeing the clouds go past like they were trees on the interstate!
Thinking too about his hundred ten thousand dollars. His nest egg. What his father called a "stake" (Randy used to think the old man meant "steak"). And now that he had one he was going to do something with it. Something real smart.
Boggs wondered if he should invest the money in a clothing store in Hawaii. He'd really enjoyed going into that place in Atlanta. He liked the smell – he figured it was aftershave – and he liked the even rows of clothes on the chrome racks. He liked the way the men who worked there stood with their arms folded in front of the shiny counters. If it was slow you could wander outside into the forever warm weather and have a cigarette while you paced the sidewalk under palm trees. He wondered how much it would cost to open a clothing store in Hawaii.
Buying a store. That would be the kind of investment he'd be proud of. Not like those other dumb-ass ideas: like lobster farming and selling amazing water filters and no-money-down real estate and computerized sign painting, all of which he'd tried.
But then again, maybe instead of a store he should invest the money in the stock market. He felt exhilarated, thinking of himself being driven to work, wearing his tan suit and alligator-skin loafers, riding in an elevator up to some penthouse office on Wall Street.
The pilot announced they were landing and he looked out the window again.
Hearing his father's words:
You listen to me, young man, you paying attention? If you're not I'll tan your hide. Come here, son, come here. You remember this: Don't work for any other man. Don't lien the house. Get paid in cash, not in promises…
Though the real advice from his father could be summarized much more easily. It was this: Don't be me.
Just then the plane banked sharply and the engines slowed to a growl. Randy Boggs shut out the overhead light and plastered his face against the window, looking into the night. In the distance he believed he saw a shoreline, he believed he saw water. He definitely saw the runway rising to meet him as if the land were rushing forward to greet him like a lover and welcome him to his new life.
The break-in took only five minutes.
The Network's personnel department was empty. Rune used a letter opener and fire hose nozzle to break the locks off two file cabinets. Inside, she found the bulky file she'd been looking for, examined it briefly then trotted out with it under her arm.
At an all-night coffee shop up the street she ordered take-out: a Greek salad – extra anchovies – and a large apple juice. (Which reminded her of Courtney and made her feel lonely. She canceled the juice and got coffee – the caffeine was a better idea anyway, she decided.) She sat at the counter, opened the stolen file and began reading. Her appetite faded by the time she was halfway through the salad. But she drank all the coffee. Then she looked up, squinting, walked to the phone and got Lee Maisel's number from Directory Assistance. She punched the numbers in, noticing only then that it was midnight.
Wondering if she was going to wake him up. She did.
The producer's voice cracked. "Yes, hello?" "Lee, it's Rune. I've got to talk to you. It's an emergency."
"Emergency? What d'you mean? What time is it?" "I've got to talk to you." "You're okay?"
"I'm all right. I found out something about Lance Hopper's killing. It wasn't an accident. Randy and Jack were hired to kill him."