Hard News (15 page)

The door closed and Rune and Courtney were left looking at their mirrored images for the few seconds it took for the driver to get back inside and speed the limo away from the curb.

16 London was the problem. Ever since she’d read
Lord of the Rings
(the first of four times) Rune’d wanted to go to the United Kingdom! the country of pubs and hedgerows and shires and hobbits and dragons. Whoa, and Loch Ness too.

So Rune was a bit curious why she was dropping Courtney at one of her loyal,

expensive baby-sitters and then giving the cabdriver an address on the Upper East Side. He took her to an old apartment building, dark brick with lion bas-reliefs in dirty limestone trim. She walked into the immaculate lobby, hit the intercom and announced herself. The door opened. She took

the elevator to the fourteenth floor. When she stepped into a tiny corridor, she realized there were only four apartments on the whole floor.

Lee Maisel opened the door to one, waved and let her into a rambling, dark-paneled

apartment. He didn’t shake her hand; he was dripping wet. She followed, noticing an elephant’s foot in the corner; inside were a half-dozen umbrellas and canes. Several of them ended in carved faces: a lion, an old man (Rune thought he was a wizard), some kind of bird.

Maisel had been doing dishes. He was wearing a blue denim apron, water-stained with Rorschach patterns and taut over his belly.

“When I called . . . Well, I hope I didn’t interrupt anything.” “I’d have told you I didn’t want to be interrupted.” Maisel returned to the

cumulonimbus of suds. “The bar’s over there.” He nodded. “Food?” “Uhm, I just ate.” Maisel dove into the dishwater again. Surrounded by implements - scrapers, sponges, metallic scrubbers like tiny steel wigs. A typhoon crashed over the granite countertop. A pan surfaced and beached itself on the Rubbermaid, and he examined it carefully. His face was pure contentment. She envied him; cooking and cleaning were loves that Rune knew she would never cultivate. In the living room, a projection TV set was showing an old movie, the sound low. Bette Davis. Who was the dude? Tyrone Power maybe. What a name, what a face! Whoa, men looked good back then. She could watch him for hours. Finally Maisel wiped his hands and said, “Come on.” They walked into the living room. Rune paused, looking at a framed newspaper article on the wall. From the
Times.

The headline was: “TV Correspondent Wins Pulitzer.” “Excellent,” Rune said. “What was it for?” “A story in Beirut a few years ago.” She asked, “A
Current Events
segment?” “No. It was before we developed the show.” He looked at the article slowly. “What a beautiful city that used to be. That’s one of the crimes of the century, what happened there.” Rune skimmed the article. “It says you got an exclusive.” But he was troubled. “It was a mixed victory,” he said. “We did what journalists should do - we looked under the surface and reported the truth. But some people died because of that.”

Rune recalled the incident from the information Bradford had brought her. Remembered too that Lance Hopper had stood up to the criticism and defended his news team.

“Come here,” Maisel said, his face brightening. He led Rune down a long corridor,

lit by overhead spotlights. It was like an art gallery. “Hey, this is pretty cool.” There were dozens of framed maps, most of them antique. Maisel paused at each one, told her where he’d found it, how he’d dickered with the booksellers and vendors how he’d been taken by some and gypped others. She liked the New York maps best. Maisel pointed to a couple of them, describing what buildings were now on the spots that the maps showed as just fields or hills. Her favorite was a map of Greenwich Village in the 1700s. “That is fantastic. I love old New York. Doesn’t it just do something to you? Okay, you’re out on the street eating a Nedick’s with onions - I really love those pickled onions - and you suddenly think, Wow, maybe I’m standing right on the very spot where they rubbed out a gangster or where two hundred years ago there was an Indian war or something.”

“I don’t eat hot dogs,” Maisel said absently and she caught him glancing at his watch. They walked into a lowlit den, filled with leather furniture and more maps and framed photos of Maisel on assignment. They sat. He asked, “So what’s up?” Rune said, “I got an offer for something and I don’t know what to do about it.” “Publishers Clearing House?” he asked wryly. “Better than that.” She told him what Piper Sutton had said. Maisel listened. She got almost all the way through before she realized that his face

was growing a frown. “So she offered
you
the Brit spot, huh?” “I was kind of surprised.” She could see in his face that he was surprised too. “Rune, I want to be honest. No reflection on you but it’s a tough assignment. I had a couple people more senior in mind. I’m not saying you couldn’t get up to speed but your experience is . . .” “Like pretty much not there.” Maisel didn’t agree or disagree. He said, “You’re a good cameraman and you’re learning a lot with the Hopper story. But producing involves a lot more than that.” He shrugged. “But I asked Piper to fill the spot. It’s her call. If she wants you in the job it’s yours.” He looked across the room. More antique maps. She wondered what country he was focusing on. “I’m pretty tempted,” she said. “Wonder why,” he said wryly. “Couldn’t be more than ten, fifteen thousand reporters in the country that’d kill to have that assignment.” Maisel stretched his feet out straight then curled one up under himself. He was wearing bright yellow socks.

“But,” he said, “you’re worried about the Boggs story.” She nodded.
“That’s
the problem.” “How’s it coming?” “Slow. I don’t really have any leads. Nothing solid.” “But you still think he’s innocent?” “Yeah, I guess I do. The story’d still get done. Piper said she’d assign someone local

to finish it.” “Did she?” “Yeah, she promised me.” Maisel nodded.

After a moment Rune said, “She doesn’t want me to do this story, does she?” “She’s afraid.” “Afraid? Piper Sutton?” “It’s not as funny as it seems. Her job is her whole life. She’s had three disastrous marriages. There’s nothing else she can do professionally; nothing she wants to do. If this story goes south she and I, and Dan Semple to some extent, will take the flak. You know how fickle audiences are. Dan and I are worried about news. Piper is too but she’s an anchor - she’s also got public image to sweat.” “I can’t imagine her being afraid of anything. I mean, I’m terrified of her.” “She’s not going to have you rubbed out if you tell her you’re going to stay and do

the story.” “But she’s my boss . . .” Maisel laughed. “You’re too young to know that bosses, like wives, aren’t necessarily matched to us in heaven.”

“Okay, but she
is
Piper Sutton.” “That’s a different issue and I don’t envy you having to call her up and tell her that

you’re declining her offer. But, so what? You’re an adult.” More or less Rune thought. She said, “I don’t know what to do, Lee. What’s your totally, totally honest opinion about my story?” Maisel was considering. A gold clock began pinging off the hours to ten P.M. When it hit eight he said, “I’m not going to do you any favors by being delicate. The Boggs story? You take it way too personally. And that’s unprofessional. I get the impression that you’re on some kind of holy quest. You-“ “But he’s innocent, and nobody else-“ “Rune,” he said harshly. “You asked my opinion. Let me finish.” “Sorry.” “You’re not looking at the whole picture. You’ve got to understand that journalism has a responsibility to be totally unbiased. You’re not. With Boggs you’re one of the most goddamn biased reporters I’ve ever worked with.” “True,” she said. “That makes for a noble person maybe but it’s not journalism.” “That’s sort of what Piper told me too.” “There’s government corruption and incompetence everywhere, there’re human

rights violations in America, Africa and China, there’s homelessness, there’s child abuse in day-care centers . . . There are so many important issues that media has to choose from and so few minutes to broadcast news or newspaper columns to talk about them in. What you’ve done is pick a very small story. It’s not a bad story; it’s just an insignificant one.”

She looked off, scanning Maisel’s wall absently. She wondered if she’d find an omen
- an old map of England, maybe. She didn’t. A minute passed. He said, “It’s got to be your decision. I think the best advice I can give you is, sleep

on it.” “You mean, stay up all night tossing and turning and stewing about it.” “That might work too.”

The Twentieth Precinct, on the Upper West Side, was considered a plum by a lot of

cops. The Hispanic gangs had been squeezed north, the Black Panthers were nothing more than a bit of nostalgia, and no-man’s-land - Central Park - had its very own precinct to take care of the muggings and drug dealers. What you had in the Twentieth mostly were domestic disputes, shopliftings, an occasional rape. The piles of auto glass, like tiny green-blue ice cubes, marked what was maybe the most common crime: stealing Blaupunkts or Panasonics from dashboards. Two yuppies who’d scrunched Honda Accord or BMW fenders might get into a shoving match in front of Zabar’s. An insider trader suicide or two occasionally. But things didn’t get much worse than that. There was a lot of traffic in and out of the low, 1960s decor brick-and-glass building. Community relations was a priority here and more people came through the doors of the Twentieth to attend meetings or just hang out with the cops than to report muggings. So the desk sergeant - a beefy, moustachioed blond cop - didn’t think twice about her, this young, mini-skirted mother, about twenty, who had a cute-as-a-button three-or four-year-old in tow on this warm afternoon. She walked right up to him and said she had a complaint about the quality of police protection in the neighborhood.

The cop didn’t really care, of course. He liked concerned citizens about as much as he liked his hemorrhoids and he almost felt sorry for the petty street dealers and hangersout and drunks who got pushed around by these wild-eyed, lecturing, upstanding, taxpaying citizens the women being the worst. But he’d studied community relations at the Police Academy and so now, though he couldn’t bring himself to smile pleasantly at this short woman, he nodded as if he were interested in what she had to say.

“You guys aren’t doing a good job patrolling. My little girl and I were out on the street, just taking a walk-“ “Yes, miss. Did someone hassle you?” She gave him a glare for the interruption. “We were taking a walk and do you know

what we found on the street?” “Nade,” the little girl said. The cop infinitely preferred to talk to the little girl. He may have hated intense, short, concerned citizens but he loved kids. He leaned forward, grinning like a department-store Santa the first day on the job. “Honey, is that your name?” “Nade.” “Uh-huh, that’s a pretty name.” Oh, she was so goddamn cute, he couldn’t believe it. The way she was digging in her own little patent-leather purse, trying to look grown up. He didn’t like the lime-green miniskirt she was wearing and he was thinking maybe the sunglasses around the girl’s neck, on that yellow strap, might be dangerous. Her mother oughtn’t to be dressing her in that crap. Little girls should be wearing that frilly stuff like his wife bought for their nieces. The good-citizen mother said, “Show him what we found, baby.”

The cop talked the singsongy language that adults think children respond to. “My

brother’s little girl has a purse like that. What do you have in there, honey? Your dolly?” It wasn’t. It was a U.S. Army-issue fragmentation hand grenade. “Nade,” the girl

said and held it out in both hands. “Holy Mary,” the cop gasped. The mother said, “There. Look at that, just lying on the street. We-“ He hit the fire alarm and grabbed the phone, calling NYPD Central and reporting a 10-33 IED - an improvised explosive device - and a 10-59. Then it occurred to him that the fire alarm wasn’t such a good idea because the forty or fifty officers in the building could get out only one of three ways - a back exit, a side exit and the front door, and most were choosing the front door, not eight feet from a child with a pound of TNT in her hands.

What happened next was kind of a blur. A couple of detectives got the thing away from the girl and onto the floor in the far corner of the lobby. But then nobody knew exactly what to do. Six cops stood gawking at it. But the pin hadn’t been pulled and they got to talking about whether there was a hole drilled in the bottom of the grenade and how if there was that meant it was a dummy like they sold at Army-Navy stores and in ads in the back of
Field and Stream.
But whoever had put the thing in the corner had left it so that you couldn’t see the butt end and, since the Bomb Squad got paid extra money to do that sort of thing, they decided just to wait.

But then somebody noticed it was in the sun and they thought that maybe that might set it off. They got into an argument because one of the cops had been in Nam, where it was a hundred and ten degrees in the sun and their grenades never went off but, yeah, this might be an old one and unstable . . .

And if it did go they’d lose all their windows and the trophy case and somebody was bound to get fragged. Finally, the desk sergeant had the idea to cover the thing with a half-dozen Kevlar bulletproof vests. And they made a great project out of dancing up and carefully dropping vests on the grenade one by one, each cop making a run, not knowing whether to cover his eyes or ears or balls with his free hand.

It was about then that the concerned mother and the little girl, who nobody had noticed walk past the desk sergeant and into the file room of the deserted precinct house, slipped outside through the back door, the mother shoving some papers into her ugly leopard-skin shoulder bag. Holding her daughter’s hand, she walked through the small parking lot full of blueand-whites and past the cop car gas pump then turned toward Columbus Avenue. A few cops and passersby glanced at them, but no one paid her much attention. There was still way too much excitement going on at the station house itself.