Hard News (13 page)

stocks of food. Tobacco from the endless supply of cigarettes. “Yo, man, you a stupid motherfucker.” No, Boggs thought in despair. Don’t cut me! Not the knife. Not that, please . . . As the blade went in, Boggs felt much less pain than he’d expected, but the sense of

horror was far worse than he’d thought. The knife retreated and returned into his body and he felt a terrifying loosening

inside him. Then there were other shouts, from a dozen yards away or a hundred. But Boggs didn’t pay any attention; they didn’t mean anything to him. All he was aware of was Ascipio’s face: the grinny-mean eyes that never flinched or narrowed and the smile, one that might please children. 14 She heard the news on another station. Not even a network O&O but one of the locals. The one that broadcast
M*A*S*H
reruns and whose best-seller was a talk show that did stories about sexual surrogates and discrimination against overweight women.

Rune’s own Network News hadn’t even thought Randy Boggs’s stabbing was worth mentioning.

Rune sweet-talked Healy into taking Courtney for a few hours. She figured this was a major abuse of the relationship, but he was so happy she’d gotten the girl back (she was a little vague about
how
exactly) that he didn’t complain at all.

A half hour later she was on the train to Harrison, wondering if maybe she should buy a monthly commutation pass.

The infirmary surprised her. She expected it to be totally grim. More Big House, more Edward G.

Robinson. But it was just a clean, well-lit hospital ward. A guard accompanied her, a large black man with a broad chest. His uniform didn’t fit well. The glossy blue collar buttons, one a D, one a C, for Department of Corrections, came just to the level of her eyes. He was silent.

Randy Boggs didn’t look good at all. He was shell-white, and the spray or cream that he used on his hair glued it out in all directions. The eyes were what bothered Rune most though. They were unfocused and still. God, they were eerie. Corpse eyes. “It’s you, miss.” He nodded. “You come all the way up to see me.” “You going to be all right?” “Got me a pretty nice-looking scar. But the knife missed all the important stuff.” “What happened?” “Don’t rightly know. I was in the yard and I get pulled over backwards and

somebody stuck me.” “You must have seen him.” “Nope. Not a glimpse.” “Was it daytime?” “Yep. This morning.” “How could somebody stab you and you not see it?” Boggs tried a smile but it didn’t take. “People get invisible here.” She said, “But-“ “Look . . .” His eyes came to life for a moment then faded back to lifeless. “... this is prison. Not the real world. We got ourselves a whole different set of rules.” He lifted his hand to his stomach and touched a large while pad under his tattered, overlaundered dressing gown. He leaned his head back into his pillows and pressed his thin, sinewy forearm over his eyes. “Damn,” he whispered.

She watched him in this still pose for a long minute, wishing she’d brought the camera. But then decided that, no, it was better to keep this private. He was the sort of man who’d never want to be seen crying. “I brought you something.” She opened her bag and removed an old book, flaky and scabbed. She held it out.

The pages were edged in gold. Boggs lowered his arm and looked at it uneasily as if no one had ever given him a

present before and he was wondering what would be expected in return. “It’s a book,” she said. “Figured that out.” He opened it. “Looks like an old one.” He flipped open to the copyright page. “Nineteen oh four. Yep, that goes back a

ways. Year my grandmother was born. How ‘bout that?” “It’s not like it’s worth a lot of money or anything.” “What is it, like fairy tales?” “Greek and Roman myths.”

At least his eyes were reviving. He even had a slight smile on his face as he turned the pages, glancing at the pictures, which were protected with tissue. The smile of somebody who receives a present he likes but doesn’t know what to do with.

Rune said, “There’s a story I want you to read. One in particular.” She flipped through the pages. “Here.”

He looked at it. “Prometheus. Wasn’t he the guy made the wings out of wax or something?” “Uh, nope. That was another dude.” Boggs squinted. “Hey, lookit there.” She followed his eyes to the old plate. “Yeah,” she said, laughing and sitting forward. Prometheus chained to a rock, a hug bird swooping down and tearing at his side. “Just like you- getting stabbed. Isn’t that crazy wild?”

He closed the book and picked a couple chips of spine off the thin blanket. “So tell me, miss, you a college girl?” “Me? Nope.” “How come you know this kind of stuff?” He held up the book. She shrugged. “I just like to read.” “I kind of regretted I never was smart enough to go-“ “Naw, I wouldn’t feel that way if I was you,” she said. “You go to college, get a real

job, get married, what happens is you don’t ever get a chance to play chicken with life. That’s the fun

part.” He nodded. “Never could sit still long enough to go to school anyway.” He looked at

her for a moment, eyes roving up and down. “Tell me ‘bout yourself.” “Me?” She was suddenly embarrassed. “Sure. I told you ‘bout me. Remind me what life’s like on the Outside. Been a

while.” “I don’t know . . .” She thought: So this is what the people I interview feel like. Boggs asked, “Where you live?” Houseboats took a lot of explaining. “In Manhattan,” she said. “You can stand it there? It’s a crazy place.” “I can’t stand it anyplace else.” “Never spent much time there. Never could get a handle on it.” “Why would you want to live somewhere you can get a handle on?” she asked. “Maybe you’ve got a point there. But you’re talking to somebody who’s a little prejudiced. I come to town and what happens? I get myself arrested for murder . . .” He smiled, then looked at her closely. “So, you’re a reporter. Is that what you want to do?”

“I have this thing about films. I think I want to make documentaries. Right now I’m working for this TV station. I’ll do it for as long as it excites me. The day I wake up and say I’d rather go have a picnic on the top of the Chrysler Building than go to work that’s the day I quit and do something else.”

Boggs said, “You and me’re kind of alike. I’ve done me a lot of different things too. I keep looking. Always been looking for that nest egg, just to get a leg up.”

“Hey, before this job, I spent six months at a bagel restaurant. And before that I was a store-window dresser. Most of my close friends are people I met at the Unemployment office.” “Pretty girl like you I think’d be considering settling down. You have a boyfriend?” “He’s not exactly the marrying kind.” “You’re young.” “I’m not in any hurry. I think my mother’s got this bridal shop in Shaker Heights on call. In case I tell her I’m engaged she’ll be like SAC - you know, Red Alert. But I have trouble seeing me married. Like some things you can imagine and some you can’t. That’s one that doesn’t compute.” “Where’s Shaker Heights?” “Outside Cleveland.” “You’re from Ohio. I spent some time in Indiana.” Then he laughed. “Maybe I shouldn’t put it that way. Not like I was
doing
time. I lived about a year there, working. A real job. As real as day labor can be. Steel mills in Gary.” “Miss,” the guard said, “I let you stay a little longer than you should.” She stood up and said to Boggs, “I’m working really, really hard on the story. I’m

going to get you out of here.” Boggs was running his finger along the edge of his book, touching it in awe, like it was solid gold. “I’ll keep this.” He said it as if that was the best thing he could think of to say to thank her.

As Rune and the guard walked back to the prison exit, the guard, without looking at her, said, “Miss, word been around about what you’re trying to do.” She looked up at him. Her eyes didn’t get much past the huge biceps. “About you maybe getting him a new trial.” “Yeah?” “I like Randy. He keeps to himself and doesn’t give us any grief. But there’re some

people here don’t like him much.” “Other prisoners?” He didn’t answer but said instead, “I’m not supposed to be telling you this and I’m

hoping it won’t go any further than here . . .” “Sure.” “But if you don’t get him out soon he’s not going to live to parole.” “The people who did that?” She nodded back to the infirmary. “There’s nothing we can do to stop them.” They arrived at the gate and the guard stopped. “But what did he do?” “What did he do?” The guard didn’t understand her. “I mean, why did somebody stab him?” The guard’s face snapped into a brief frown. “He ended up here, miss. That’s what

he did.” The place was pretty easy to get into. Like water through a sieve, Jack Nestor thought. Then laughed, thinking that probably wasn’t the best word to describe a houseboat. The only problem had been there was a parking lot nearby and a booth with a security guard, who’d glance at the boat every so often like he was keeping an eye on it. But Nestor waited until the man made a phone call then walked past him and jogged up the yellow gangplank.

Once he was inside he pulled on brown cotton gloves and started at the back. He took his time. He’d never been on a houseboat before and he was pretty curious about it. He’d done some charters and been on more party boats than he could count and of course he’d done time in military LSTs and landing craft. But this wasn’t like anything else he’d ever seen.

The decor sucked, for one thing. It looked like his nutzo stepmother’s place. But he admired the pilothouse, if that’s what you’d call it, which had beautiful brass fixtures and levers and grainy oak all yellow with old varnish. Beautiful. All the controls except the wheel were frozen and he guessed the motor was kaput. He resisted a temptation to pull the horn rope.

Downstairs he carefully went through the bookshelves and the cheap, sprungfiberboard desk that was a sea of papers and pictures (mostly of dragons and knights and fairies, that sort of shit). There were a couple of dozen videocassettes. They were mostly that make-believe stuff too. Fairy stories, dragonslayers, the stuff he never watched. Some dirty films too.
Lusty Cousins.
And something called
Epitaph for a Blue Movie Star.
So, this chick had a kinky side to her. Then he rummaged through the closets and drawers in the bedroom and in the little supply room that had another dresser in it. He went through the kitchen and the refrigerator, which was the first place that most people who thought they were clever hid things and which was the first place most professional thieves looked.

After an hour he was convinced she didn’t have anything here that interested - or worried - him. Which meant the files would be at her office and that was a pain in the ass. Nestor looked around and sat down on the couch. He had a decision to make. He could wait here until she came back and just waste her. Get it over with, make it look like a robbery. The cops would probably buy that. He was always surprised how people craved to accept the most obvious explanations. Easier all the way around. Robbery and murder. Or rape and murder. On the other hand, that might leave a lot of material floating around somewhere,

material that shouldn’t be floating around. Still . . . A car door slammed. He was up fast, glancing out the window. He saw her - not a bad-looking girl, if she didn’t wear those stupid clothes, like the striped black-and-yellow tights and red miniskirt. It turned him off and made him resent her . . .

Oh, he knew that emotion. The feeling that he’d get looking at a wiry brown-skinned man in a khaki uniform, looking at him through a telescopic sight, feeling the hatred, working up a wild, spiraling fury (maybe because Nestor was sweating like a steam pipe in the heat or because bugs were digging into his skin or because he had a glossy, starshaped scar on his belly). Resentment, hate. He needed those feelings - to help him pull the trigger or press the knife in as deeply as he could. Boots scraped on the asphalt outside. Nestor felt a low itching and rubbed his scar. He felt the weight of the Steyr

automatic in his pocket. But he left it where it was and climbed out onto the deck. He watched her open the door, clumsy, tilting against the weight of a movie camera and cassettes and a leather belt of batteries or whatever, which looked like a bandolier of M16 clips. She stacked it all by the door and disappeared into the bedroom. He waited a few minutes to see if he’d get a glimpse of skin but when she came out in a boring work shirt and stretch pants he silently left the boat and disappeared into the West Village.

15
A genius, but always controversial
...” Click.
“A genius, but always controversial, Lance Hopper
...”

Rune hit the rewind button again. It was a good shot of him: Lance Hopper. Or a good shot of his mortal remains, at any rate - the gurney holding his body as it was wheeled out of the deadly courtyard three years before. She wished she could use the footage. Unfortunately, it had been filmed by another station. “...
controversial, Lance Hopper was disliked by coworkers and competitors alike. Although under his brief leadership the seven P.M. national news program rose to number one in the ratings, he managed to embroil the network in several major scandals. Among them was an uproar caused by numerous firings of staff members, massive and his critics said - arbitrary budgetary cutbacks and intense scrutiny of the network’s news programs and their content. “Perhaps the incident that gave his network the blackest eye, however, was an Equal Employment Opportunity suit brought by five women employees who claimed that Hopper’s hiring and promotion practices discriminated against them. Hopper denied the charges and the suit was settled out of court. Associates of the late executive, though, admitted that he preferred men in executive positions, and felt that a woman had no business in the higher echelons of network news. His flamboyant personal life belied that reputed prejudice, however, and he was often seen in the company of attractive women from society and the entertainment industry. There were rumors of bisexual behavior and of his having had several young male models as companions. His penchant, however, was for tall blondes
...”

Tall blondes. Why is it always tall blondes? Rune was at her desk, surrounded by piles of newspapers, magazines, computer printouts, videocassettes and the refuse from a dozen fast-food meals. It was four-thirty in the afternoon and everyone was gearing up for the news at seven. She felt that she was in the eye of a hurricane. Motion everywhere. Frantic, crazed motion. Rune had also learned that while Hopper’s internship program had indeed launched many a career in journalism he himself was maybe a bit more interested in the young people than he should have been. In the archives Rune found a confidential memo in which the network’s ethics committee heard complaints from two interns, eighteen and nineteen, that he’d made improper advances toward them. The names weren’t given and there seemed to be no follow-up references to the incidents. She asked Bradford about the reports but he said he knew nothing about them and didn’t believe the stories for a minute. Powerful people, he explained, attract rumors. He obviously didn’t want his idol to have feet of clay and Rune wondered if it had been purely an oversight that the young man had missed the memo about the investigation when he was digging through the archives in search of material on Hopper.