"How old were you when you first stole money to get something to eat?" Letty was all over her now.
"For Christ's sakes, I gotta do what I think is best," Carey said. "You're fourteen."
Letty leaned into it: "I know how old I am. When it comes to trouble, I am twenty-eight. Try not to forget that the next time you turn me in."
Carey rolled her eyes: "I don't want to fight with you."
"I'm done," Letty said. "But I need a ride to St. Paul and I need a camera in the park. I talked to some street kids-not prostitutes, just skaters from St. Paul-who are going to skate in one of the marches. It'll make a good snip of film."
"I'm going over in fifteen minutes," Carey said, eager to make peace. "The cameras are already over there, so ' we'll hook you up."
Letty smiled: "I'm not really mad at you. Everybody thinks they're doing the right thing. You're not, but I appreciate it anyway."
Carey had her personal reporting rules that she'd been passing along to Letty. Like, before you go out on a job, always pee first. Even if you don't feel like you have to. A woman can never find a comfortable place to pee when she needs one. Check your makeup and your hair; there's never a place to do that when you need one- a little too much hairspray is better than too little.
Letty went out in the newsroom to chat with some of the producers, keeping one eye on Carey's office. When Carey came out and looked around, Letty waved at her, and Carey called, "I'll be right back," and she headed down toward the bathrooms. Letty ambled over to her office as she watched her go, and when she was sure that Carey was in the bathroom, she stepped into the office and pulled Carey's purse out from under her desk.
Carey never had any idea how much money she had or what she'd spent it on. She was one of those people who believed that if she had checks, she must have money. She made a good salary, and her husband was rich, so money, at least the kind you spend during the day, meant almost nothing to her: Letty popped the purse and took a peek into Carey's billfold. Must be a thousand dollars in fifties, Letty thought. She took two of them, decided that the thickness of the currency seemed not at all diminished and took two more. She put the billfold back in the purse, put the purse back as she'd found it, and ambled back out of the office and over to the people she'd been talking with earlier.
When Carey came back from the bathroom, she called, "Let's do it," and Letty went to join her.
The skaters were gathering in Mears Park in St. Paul's Lower-town, an area of older brick warehouses converted to lofts and condos and small, marginal businesses. Letty pointed them out and Carey looked them over, from the front seat of her SUV and then said, "You know, you do have a natural eye for this. I told your dad that last night."
"Maybe I'll be an economist," Letty said. "TV is starting to seem so superficial."
Carey made a rude noise and said, "Let's get a truck over here. You go get your friends lined up."
Carey called a Channel Three van, and let Letty out to talk to the skaters while she took her SUV to a parking garage up the block. Letty got her cell phone out and called Juliet Briar: "Where are you?"
"Still at home. Randy's sleeping," Briar said.
"Tell him that a guy called for a date, and that you'll walk down," Letty said. "I got some money."
After a moment's silence, Briar said, "Okay."
"Call me when you get out."
The leader of the skate gang was named Marv, a burly, cheerful busted-faced guy with a shaven head and jeans so old that they looked like paper. He was wearing a T-shirt that said, "Mathews Solocam, Catch Us If You Can," that was washed thinner than the jeans.
He held out a fist and they bumped knuckles and he said, "How are you, babe?"
"Don't call me babe," Letty said, but she said it with her happy face, and she asked, "So who's who?"
There were seven guys and one girl among the skaters, and all of them desperately wanted to be on television. As Marv introduced them, Letty kept looking at the girl, with her dry, underfed, feral face, thinking that she was the one; but she had to keep Marv and the others happy, too. A management problem.
After the introductions, she said, "Listen, we've got a van coming with a camera. I'll want to talk to Marv, and then to Jean, because she's a girl, and we don't have that many girl skaters, and then maybe whoever ' but I'd like to see some runs, if you got anything that's good."
One of the kids, a too-tall teenager with a bandaged hand, said, "We were jumping barrels…"
"That's terrific, that's great," Letty said. "Why don't you guys get set up with the barrels and we'll get shots of you skating, and then I'll do a couple of quick interviews."
Carey came back and Letty explained the situation to her, off to the side, and said, "Take a look at Jean's face. Isn't that a great face?"
Carey looked at her, then said, "You really are going to be good at this. That's acom' great comface."
The van showed, and the kids gathered around the cameraman, whose name was Mike, not really believing that it was going to happen. So the kids did their tricks and Mike even lay on the ground behind a trash barrel that they were jumping and had a kid jump over him, which got everybody laughing.
Briar called and said, "I'm out, I'm walking down the hill."
Letty: "I'm doing an interview in Mears Park. You know where that is?"
"Yeah. I can come there."
Letty did a quick stand-up with Marv and a longer one with Jean, then they all bumped knuckles and the skaters took off. Letty did a couple of shots alone, putting up some background, and then she saw Briar standing on the sidewalk, watching.
Off-camera, she walked over to Carey and said, "I've got somebody you need to meet."
"Who?"
"Come on," and she grabbed the older woman's elbow and pulled her over toward Briar.
They got hot dogs and talked for half an hour. Letty dug harder into Briar's passivity; to her way of thinking, if she could replace Randy Whitcomb as Briar's boss, she would be making progress.
Carey, on the other hand, was fascinated by Briar's story and her relationship with Whitcomb. "He can't possibly love you. He treats you like an animal," Carey said. "He loves himself, he doesn't love you. I mean, he doesn't, Juliet."
"You don't know him," Briar said defensively.
Letty pushed: "She's right. He doesn't love you. If you think he does-well, you're wrong."
Briar flinched, and put her head down, and said, "Okay," and Carey looked at Letty and said, "Get off her back, Letty. Jeez."
"I'm just backing you up," Letty said.
"I'm discussing," Carey said. "You're pushing her around."
"Letty's okay, she's a friend," Briar mumbled.
"Going home is out of the question?" Carey asked.
"As long as Don is around," Briar said. "He won't leave me alone, and Mom doesn't believe me when I tell her about him."
"You're sixteen?" Carey asked.
"Almost seventeen. Next month," Briar said.
"And Don's a mailman. So he's got to be quite a bit older."
"He's forty, I think," Briar said. "He's ' an asshole."
"I don't want to embarrass you," Carey said, "but I've got to ask. What does he do?"
"Well, you know, he grabs me, he feels me up, he comes in the bathroom when I'm taking a shower-he's got a nail thing that he can push in the doorknob, and open it even when it's locked. He gets naked and he comes out and grabs me, and rubs himself on me. He's come into my bedroom naked and gotten in bed, and when I tried to get out, he's, you know, held me…"
"Hasn't raped you?"
"No, but he will, if I go back," Briar said. "He came into my bedroom naked and got in bed with me, when I was asleep, and when I woke up, he was all over me. He was trying to push my head down by his cock, and I bit him right here"-she touched her hip bone-"and he bled all over and was screaming at me ' Mom pretended like she didn't hear."