She watched a moment of snow, then
herself Sandra Riley rapidfire edited images of her at scene after scene of the crime change of seasons noted by change of wardrobe her professional sympathetic concern always the same “This is Sandra Riley” crying families frustrated cops whirling red lights and yellowtape crime scene cordons “We’ll catch this worm” victim profiles black and white and color photos of young women who breathed no more “This is Sandra Riley” academic post-Freudian graybeard spouting psychological murderer’s profile then footage of older murders older crime scenes shootings knifings bludgeonings strangulations never connected never related because of wildly varying M.O.’s frightening cavalcade jumpcut montage “This is Sandra Riley” herself at weekend anchor desk “For ActioNews 8, this is Sandra Riley” same closing image on flashcut repeat Sandra Riley/Sandra Riley/Sandra Riley/Sandra Riley/Sandra Riley/Sandra Riley —
Snow, and white noise.
“What is this?” she managed to choke out.
“Don’t you get it?” He looked at her in earnest. “It’s my résumé.”
Sandra Riley, numb and blank. A media first.
“Don’t you see?” he asked. “I want to work with you.”
She staggered inside, trying to convince herself, This is not personal, this is nothing personal. Survival depended on divorcing personal from professional. Professionally she was unflappable. Last fall she’d done a live Special Olympics report while wearing a jersey. Of numerous airtime mandates there was but one unforgivable sin: Thou shalt not lose control on the air. She’d done ninety seconds of live feed with calm, warm, caring composure for these handicapped children. After handing it back to the studio she had astonished her crew by shrieking and twisting until she dislodged two squirming grasshoppers from inside her jersey.
“Work together,” she repeated, now steady. “How so?”
“There’s so much information I could feed you. So everyone could know me. They’ve barely scratched the surface. It’s like admiring the painting without knowing the artist.” He rose, grew more animated, gesturing with the knife. “I mean, look what I’ve done for your career already. Look what you’ve done for me.”
She met him eye to eye. “I’m not the only one, by any means. Everyone’s covered you.”
He dismissed the rest with an irritated flip of the blade. “Hacks, they’re all doing hackwork, assembly line journalism.” He lowered to one knee, imploring her as if proposing marriage. “You’re the best. I watch my coverage every night — every night — and you’re the only one who can take me back there. I watch you standing there where I’ve been and I can smell it, I can taste it, I can feel myself right back there … ‘cause you step right out and take me by the hand and pull me back through the screen with you.”
A moment’s flash: What have I created?
“You understand, I can see it in your eyes on the screen. You know what it takes to get noticed, you’ve got the formula down. I was too smart for my own good at first, I never killed quite the same way twice … and nobody thought to connect them. But then I wised up.” He tapped his temple. “I developed a trademark. And now the whole city knows me. Just like they know you.”
“So, this work arrangement.” Keep him talking, keep him on his own twisted agenda. “What’s in it for me?”
He wet his lips like a child at Christmas. “I can call you, tell you where I’ve just been. You’ll get the jump on everyone else. You understand, you know what it takes.”
She kept him talking about particulars: timetables she kept, ethics of cooperation, randomly touching on anything she could think of to make him believe he was being taken seriously. At last, when fantasies of lasting stardom had gotten the better of him, she sunk the vital hook:
“Why don’t we do a background piece. Right now.” Shaking inside her shell, Sandra pointed to her camcorder in a jumble of electronics beside the TV. “Tell me more about yourself.”
“Okay. Yeah. Good idea.” He grew rigid, as if scenting an ulterior motive. “But keep me in shadow. I can’t have anyone else knowing what I look like. You’ll have to backlight me. That’s how they do it on TV.”
She crossed the room and knelt beside her camcorder, went through the motions of loading a cartridge and checking the battery pack. She breathed a quick prayer, then stood and hurled the camera at the Tapeworm’s head. Plastic cracked, and he roared in surprise and rage.
She was running then, full-tilt toward the bedroom, thanking the gods of aching feet for her L.A. Gear shoes, then falling to the bedroom floor by the nightstand, opening the drawer and pulling out the .32-caliber Colt, aiming back down the hallway as he bled and raged a slashing path after her.
Aiming for his head…
Not believing herself when the professional shell refused to submit to the personal core. Kill him now and here’s where the story ends. Let him live, and the arrest, trial, sentencing, the publicity … these would go on and on. Play it right, parlay it into a weeknight anchor slot, then a ticket out of bush league local into a network correspondent’s position. She saw it all.
And aimed for his leg.
*
Sandra Riley and her crew and their peers hover around the Municipal Court for hours, like buzzards, until every last scrap is devoured and there’s nothing more to glean. Of Darryl Hiller there is no trace. The only reasonable theory — that somehow he got into the building ductwork from within the bathroom — is invalidated. Darryl Hiller has pulled a Houdini of stupefying proportions.
The day’s best footage is of a man who gives his name as Reggie Blaine — the stocky redheaded fellow who was assaulted in the bathroom after Hiller somehow freed himself and smashed his guard’s face into the porcelain sink. Blaine tells an upsetting tale of being forced to trade clothes with the madman, then submit to the indignity of his handcuffs inside a stall so he couldn’t see where Hiller went next.
That night, Sandra and her crew go for badly-craved drinks at a favored watering hole called Turnstiles. The mellow wood and brass are comforting, but tonight there is no quick wit and cynic’s banter. Tonight there’s only morose reflection.
“Why don’t you let us take you home tonight?” Kevin suggests. His dark face, usually amiable, is pinched with worry.
Sandra shakes her head. “Thanks. But that’s okay.”
“Supposing he shows up again at your place. Sand, you’ve got to be number one on his list.”
She steadies her hands around a margarita. “The police called me at the station this evening. I’ll be safe. They’ll have people all over my building.”
Kevin shrugs. “Still might need someone to talk to. Come on. You got a comfortable couch, I can last it a night there.”
She touches the back of his hand across the table. He’s probably the best friend she has in the world, and all she can professionally aspire to is to give him cause to watch her dust while she heads to New York. Sometimes she has to wonder who the true worm in all of this really is.
“He won’t be back,” she says with certainty. “He won’t.”
“How you know? Sick twistoid like that, you can never tell.”
“He won’t.” The margarita is cold, salty, anesthetizing. “I already gave him what he wanted all along. He got what he wanted.”
“What’s that, Sand?”
She bows her head with the shame of a fool duped by an elaborate con game of heart and soul and wallet. And she sighs.
“A public forum.”