“Did I? Maybe after I kick your butt in crazy eights, we’ll get the tapes and give these two a private showing.”
He held up his bandaged hands. His fingers were exposed from the second knuckle down. He demonstrated button pushing and dial twisting abilities. “Ready, boss.”
“Finish the deal, Jen,” I told her.
“Eat-your-ownies round.”
Something changed in her face as she tossed cards at all of us. A shadow passed.
Finally, I’d done something right.
Uplink Telestar 2 10:59CST. 00:05:51 (“Suicide Vigilante” O’Hara/Prescott. Chicago West. Blurb: “Mystery of an Amish firefighter’s death.” No promo incl.)
WEDNESDAY
8:49:16 a.m.
“You been at it all night?” Mick popped his head through the door of edit bay one. He had a cup of coffee in one hand. With the other, he pat himself down for cigarettes and lighter.
The fresh light sliced through our privacy. It made me wince. The editing bay is a cave, no telling day or night, sun or rain, when you’re inside. Time is counted in hundredths of a second and passes without notice.
“Clock?” Ainsley asked.
“Almost nine-A,” Mick told us. “The troops are gathering. I’ve been on since midnight. Headed out. There’s a call for O’Hara on line three.”
Jenny. The fear hit me hard as I realized how completely I’d been sucked into the work. “Yeah?”
“‘Hello’ is the way the rest of the world starts a phone conversation, O’Hara.”
Curzon and relief didn’t normally combine in my head. At least five seconds of dead airtime passed while my nerves settled.
I cleared my throat with, “Ha. Thanks for the tip, Sheriff. I love a public servant who provides good service for my tax dollars.”
“How’s Jenny?”
“Better,” I said. “She’s getting out this morning. I’m headed to the hospital as soon as I send this feed.”
“And what will you be driving?”
“Holy shit! Quick, tell me. How’s my other girl?”
Curzon clucked. “Motorcycle like that is not a girl. That one is all woman. And every guy in this place has a hard-on for her, judging from the requests I’ve been getting.”
“Keep those animals away from Peg.”
“I might be able to work something out for you in that regard,” he agreed, his voice dripping the promise of slippery compromises. “With appropriate reciprocity.”
What was I doing with a guy like Curzon? Apparently, my hormonal coup had put a figurehead Maddy in charge. She appeared to be a bit of a hussy. I shifted back in my chair. Bounced out a little rhythm. Had one of those stomach-crunching after flashes that a good kiss will set off.
“Reciprocity, huh? What exactly are you looking for, Sheriff?”
“Seen any SUVs lately?”
Talk about the cold shower effect. “No. Not me.”
“What is it?” Ainsley whispered. His radar was up.
I clapped a hand over the mouth piece. “Curzon wants a report on the SUV driver. You told the guys at the fire, right?”
“I told them,” Ainsley mumbled. “For all the good it did.”
“O’Hara? You still with me?” Curzon asked.
“I’m here.” Too much at stake. Time to come clean. And the story was in the can. “You might be right, Sheriff. Maybe we should make out a report.”
“We?”
“Me and my college boy. There was another possible sighting last night, out at the Jost farm? Not sure it’s related, but my new motto is take no chances.” I filled the sheriff in on what Ainsley had seen. And told him my theory on Jenny’s shiny car as well. “If I’m paranoid, you’ve got only yourself to blame, Sheriff. You’re the one that keeps nagging me about SUVs.”
“Not paranoid enough I’d say,” Curzon said. “I’ll send a car to pick up your man Pat. See what he has to say. I still need you to come in and make a report.”
“Can you give me the forms in a handy takeout bag? I could make a quick stop on the way home from the hospital. Make sure my poor Peg isn’t subject to further harassment.”
“It ain’t harassment if she likes it. Tell you what? How about I run the paperwork out to your house later? I’ll bring a pizza and give you and Jenny a lift back to the station afterward to get the bike?”
The cold shower of disappointment did a quick reversal. If it was only work, why invite himself over?
“Sounds good,” I said. “We’ll handle the pizza though. Jenny may want to eat as soon as they spring her from the joint. Come after five.”
“You got it.” Mr. Phone Manners didn’t offer any goodbyes.
I shagged my fingers back through my hair, stretching and shaking off the work intoxication with the juice of Curzon’s interest.
Mick appeared at the door of the edit bay again. “You all done in here? I need to check a discrepancy.”
“We’re done.” I hit the rewind.
“Can I see it?”
I glanced at the clock. “There’s time before the feed. But I’ve got to run. Want to watch while we check the last dissolve?”
“Sure.” Mick settled against the dark egg-crate foam.
Ainsley rolled his chair away from the counter to stretch his legs straight out in front of him and hit Play.
The piece timed out at nine seconds under the six-minute mark. Good thing a picture’s worth a thousand words. How else could you tally the cost of isolated innocence against the price of emancipation in three hundred fifty-one seconds?
“Who wrote the copy on the voice-over?” Mick asked.
“I did.”
“Different, but it works. You done that before?”
“No. Seen it done here and there.”
Instead of the usual omniscient voice-over, I’d gone for a narrating voice that had an identity, an “I” voice-part Rod Steiger and part Laura Ingalls Wilder. Maddy O’Hara’s alter-ego.
On screen, the house melted in reverse from flame to smoke. I matched the gray-whites to a close up-zoom out we’d gathered of the Jost farm that first morning. Billowing sheets danced on a laundry line, the children weaving between. Magically, the house was restored.
Somehow the college boy had managed a racked-zoom centered on the old oak, with the children disappearing into the billowing laundry. It’s a tricky maneuver with the camera on a track-almost impossible freehand. The camera moves away from the subject at the same rate the zoom magnifies the subject closer. The picture looks as if the world behind the subject shifts, while the subject remains still.
“Nice rack.” Mick gave Ainsley a shot of praise, fist to top of the left biceps.
Ainsley mugged aw shucks and rubbed his arm with his bandaged hand.
The voice-over came in again.
“Tom Jost lost himself in that middle distance between good and evil, simple and worldly. His life served the fireman’s motto Prevent and Protect. His death did the same, a sign post at the middle distance, where some mystery always remains.”
As the children disappeared, the house and barn came into view, then the road and finally, the great old oak spreading its branches across the horizon line. Still standing.
“I didn’t think that last shot was gonna work,” Ainsley admitted. “Cutting back to the kids? But you were right. Sadder, but less depressing.”
“Yeah.” I punched the save button. “Send it.”
I tried to make it out of the building before anyone noticed me. No such luck. The wide-eyed kid from the mail room came running up behind me as I walked out the dock exit.
“Mr. Gatt wants to see you.”
“Tell him I left.”
“He said if I don’t bring you back he’ll fire me and-”
“-you’ll never work in this business again. Yeah, yeah.” I turned around. “You should take the deal, kid.”
When I passed Barbara’s desk on my way to Gatt’s inner office, she was typing ninety words a minute from dictation. Without turning her head, she pushed a folded napkin across the desk toward me. Four ibuprofen and a stack of soda crackers.