The Journalist (18 page)

Reporters screamed off-camera:

“But, Chief, where

?”

“Manny, how do you

?”

“Are there any

?”

“Are you saying conclusively

?”

“What did you have for

?”

The chief slammed his door and backed
away.

Zack pressed the mute button, said to his
video camera, “You see that, folks?”

“Saw it,” Mary said.

“Yep-purr,” Ted said.

Zack clicked the channel. “Now, look at that.
Fox has something on

looks like

it is, Dr. Babs Lande. Let’s listen to Ms. Lande for a
minute. Put Fox on.”

Ted said, “I’m looking at all our
monitors.”

“Everybody’s switching to something with
Lande,” Mary said.

Zack pressed his volume up and watched. TV
video showed the White House Press Room crowded with reporters.
Lande, dressed in maroon blazer, open white shirt, walked to the
lectern.

Smiling, she began, “Good evening, or should
I say goodnight? Late, isn’t it? Let me first say the President is
sorry he can’t be with you in person. He sends his best wishes and
hopes to meet with you in a press conference very soon. As you all
know, he has had to relocate his office to Camp David due to the
reports we received of terrorist activities in the Washington DC
area.

“Nevertheless, he has a statement that he
wants to deliver to you and the American people, so we have
arranged a live satellite pick-up from Camp David.”

She turned and looked at a large screen above
and behind her that displayed the seal of the President. In a
moment the screen dissolved to a medium close-up of President
Armstrong. Armstrong, dressed in a Presidential blue flight jacket,
sitting behind a huge wooden desk, white shirt, not tie, smiled and
said: “May we have a moment of prayer?” He closed his eyes and
bowed his head.

“Benny, Benny, Benny,” Zack sighed.

After five seconds, Armstrong looked up and
began. “Good evening, good people of the press, and also to my
fellow citizen partners in America. I’m sorry for the lateness of
the hour but the times sometimes dictate our actions. And these are
truly the times that try men’s souls.”

Zack scratched his head. “What do you think,
Ted, he should at least give credit for that line?”

“Right.” Ted said. “Thomas Paine.
Crisis
Papers
, Chapter One, ‘The American Crisis,’ December 23,
177

”

“Shut up

” Mary
said.

The camera zoomed in to a close-up of
Armstrong. He continued. “And so, my fellow Americans, we, at a
crucial time in history, as I have been telling you for some time
now, elements, both foreign and domestic, would like to see our
beloved America brought to her knees. And as I’ve also been telling
you, that just ain’t going to happen.

“Recent events—our historic Old Ironsides
ship being destroyed, the chemical attack at Seattle International
and, yes, threats to our own beloved Washington DC—all have brought
this reality to where it is now a threat to our nation’s survival.
But let me assure you, you must not be alarmed. As one great
President said, we have nothing to fear but fear itself.

“So, we—you and I—citizens of the mightiest
fortress on the face of the earth, have come to the turning point.
We must forge a new world order, safe and secure for all Americans,
you and your family and all your loved ones, no matter where they
reside on this, our great space ship earth.”

“And there’s no way off this sucker,” Mary
said.

Zack sipped. Ted flossed his front teeth with
a piece of paper.

The President continued. “Let me just say, as
your Commander-in-Chief, I want to assure friend and foe alike that
we are prepared to protect the vital interests of America at home
and to the four corners of the universe.”

“I guess that includes us, guys,” Mary
said.

Armstrong: “With that said, I have issued the
following command to our armed forces

He
held up a document and read.

‘Any
harassment of U.S. interests anywhere in the world’—and I might add
that includes these United States—’any harassment of U.S.
interests, corporate, collective, or otherwise, is to be considered
an act of war and is to be dealt with swiftly and totally.’”

Laying the document on the desk he continued.
“Let the word go out. The freedom of all people is our concern and
I pledge the power and might of these United States to protect and
guarantee the world’s well-being.”

The camera started a zoom-out. Armstrong
smiled. “I will be talking to you again soon. Thank you,
goodnight

” He saluted. “

and God bless America.”

Zack muted his TV, drained his glass, poured
another shot and studied Mary and Ted’s images squeezed into his
phone’s video display. “How about them little green apples, boys
and girls. The sonofabitch is insane.”

Ted said, “If he can guarantee well-being,
can he unguarantee it, too?”

“A-plus,” Zack said. “Anyway, we have to get
downloaded to the printers. You’re staying there tonight, right,
Ted?”

“Yep-purr, your office couch.”

Mary said, “I guess I’ll be going home to my
little apartment.”

“Try to get a few winks. I’ll see you both in
the morning. Get the word to Jimbo, Mary, meeting, eleven. I’ll try
to call him, too.”

“Lots of luck,” Mary said.

“Meanwhile, as always, stay calm and call me
anytime,” Zack said.

“Sweet dreams, sleep tight and watch the
bedbugs don’t bite.” Mary waved.

“Yep-purr.” Ted sucked his teeth.

“Goodnight.” Zack snapped the phone off and,
surfing his TV, stopped at a medium close-up of ABC’s famous news
anchor emeritus, Chip Walker. He pressed the sound up a notch.

Walker was in the middle of something.
“

so let us just hope reason will prevail.
I call for reason and forgiveness in this time of national tragedy.
Even in the face of a great injustice, I plead with those with calm
heads and compassionate hearts to let justice do its work. Let calm
prevail for the sake of us all.

“As to terrorism, we support the President in
what he has to do to preserve and protect this great land of our
common heritage.

He wiped a tear from his
eye.

We’ll be right back with more, right
after these commercial messages.”

Zack clicked the set off. “Nominate Mr.
Walker for an Emmy or Espy or Sippy or whatever they’re giving out
in wacko-land now.”

He stepped to the gallery and prepped a
seven-scoop pot of coffee for tomorrow morning. As he put the
seventh scoop in, a thought struck him.

“Benny sure got to Camp David in a
hurry—costume change, makeup, the whole nine yards.”

Chapter Twenty Five

11:30 p.m.
EST

Sleep on hold, sitting at his bar nursing his
fourth, or was it fifth, Glenlivet, playing around with that never
ending editorial, Zack glanced over draft notes scrawled on a
yellow pad:
How far society has come in four thousand years. And
before that who blocked the entrance to the cave? And what will you
say when they ask you why you did nothing, said nothing? Excuse me,
I didn’t know? So sorry.

He burped. “Zorry this, zorry that—zo-orry is
what you say when you don’ give a damn.”

He put his pencil down and thought about
recent events, and then he swore he smelled cigar smoke. Joe Case’s
presence strong, Zack remembered his own previous Jesuit life and
many convoluted thoughts_a higher calling, the human species, God,
Christ’s teachings, affairs of individuals, do unto others,
Capitalism is an innocent driven by obscene greed masters, an ideal
gutted by more, driven by cruel me-me masters with sharp teeth and
a peculiar smell, profit has no home, men kill, women weep,
children die.

That’s not news
, he thought.
It’s
ancient history, and besides, you could stay stuck in that
philosophical cow patty from now until the bulls come home. Never
get out.

He recalled all-night dormitory struggles,
half-drunk (“What is half-drunk,” he wondered aloud) with fellow
seminarian Hank Bostick over Aquinas’s
Summa Theologica
:
An Deus sit
?

He sipped and talked to
Veracity
.
“Does God exist? Good question. Many questions, many answers, many
words, little listening. Depends who’s talking

rinktum ditty.”

He remembered, while consuming a case of
beer, he and Hank would slur through Aquinas’s five
Summa
answers. He went over them now with the clarity of a Glenlivet
load:

“
Una
: motion—whatever is put in motion
has to be put in motion by another. That is, a ball on a flat floor
doesn’t start moving by itself. Something starts it—a person, an
earthquake, the wind

Mary O’Brien.”

Zack sipped, and Hank seemed present. “Hey,
Hank, last I heard you were a parish priest. St. Joseph’s in
Stuebenville.”

Hank said, “That’s correct.”

“You still eat a loaf of Town Talk bread with
grape jelly and peanut butter, wash it down with beer?”

There was no answer, so he went on with
an
Deus sit
? “Anyway,
dua
: efficient cause—in the world of
senses there is no cause of a thing which is the cause of itself.
In other words, Hank, Skippy didn’t cause Planter’s
Peanuts

”

Zack freshened his scotch and stroked the
mahogany bar. “With us so far,
Veracity
, dear?”

Nursing his drink, he continued.
“
Tria
: possibility and necessity. That is, in nature things
are possible-to-be and possible not-to-be. But if everything is
possible-not-to-be then at one time there could have been nothing
in existence, which is not possible.”

He sucked his teeth. “If possibly everything
wasn’t, that is, nothing existed, why are we here? I mean, here I
stand with a Scotch in my hand talking to
Veracity
. Hello.”
He saluted the TV. “Benny would be proud.”

Pacing the cabin: “Where were we? Yes, number
four,
quattuor
: graduation to be found in things. You see,
some things are more good and some less good. As a thing that’s hot
resembles that which is hottest so there’s something that is
truest, noblest

blah, blah,
blah

and so on. Ergo, there must be
something which is alike to beings and the cause of their
being.”

He sipped. “Always had trouble with that one.
What makes the sun hot? Who the tofu knows? Who the tofu
cares?”

He slurped. “Last but not least,
quinque
: governance of the world. Things which lack
intelligence, such as natural bodies, act for an end evident from
their acting. Moon going around the earth

whatever. Something lacks intelligence cannot move
toward an end unless it be directed by some being endowed with
knowledge and intelligence.”

Smiling, he held his glass high. “That
explains Benny

Epiphany

”

He sat on the sofa, depressed. “Like I said,
you could stay in this cow patty until the bulls come home, never
get out and then where are you when the cows come home?”

His phone rang. He got up, maneuvered to the
bar and switched it on.

Mary, in a close-up, smiled.
Looks like
Botticelli’s
Venus, he thought and, leaning over the bar, said,
“What are you doing?”

“How’s the ear?”

“The ear is wonderful.”

“Finishing up here, printers got
everything.”

“Jim’s, too?”

“Yes.”

“How was it?”

“Want me to read it?”

“Go ahead.”

She picked up a piece of copy. “Ready?”

“Ready.”

She read: “Chief Denies It

” She flared her eyes for him, “I like that.”

“Go ahead,”

“‘By James S. Roberts. Recalling a famous
historical TV commercial, ‘Is it live or is it Memorex,’ questions
remain unanswered regarding the already infamous Channel 10 video
of two Miami police officers murdering a female motorist.

“‘The incident allegedly took place this past
Thursday evening on Key Largo. WSUN-TV, Channel 10, was the first
station to broadcast the video of the homicide. Deputy Police Chief
Glenda Bruno staunchly denies that any Miami police were involved
in any way. In an exclusive interview, she held firm to her story
that none of her patrol cars were anywhere near Key Largo the night
of the incident. Speaking for the chief, they challenged anyone to
produce evidence the officers on the tape were their people.

“‘If Glenda and the chief are accurate, the
million-dollar question looms big as a Mack truck: who were the
alleged officers on the tape?

“‘One thing is certain—an African-American
woman was murdered. Monroe Country Sheriff’s deputies discovered
her body early Friday morning. Her identity remains a mystery.”

Mary looked into the camera. “Not bad,
huh?”

“Hits the nail onna head.”

“Are you drinking?”

“You tell Jim ‘bout the meeting ‘morrow?”

“Are you drinking?”

“No, pr-aying.”

“Liar, you’re drinking. What are you doing up
this late?”

“You ‘wakened me.”

“Baloney, what are you doing?”

“Thinking.”

“Me, too.”

“‘Bout what?”

“If I had gone into the sisterhood, I’d be a
Mother Superior by now.”

“D-minus” He sucked his ice cubes.

“So what are we going to do?”