Hard News

10

Rune gave motherhood her best shot. She really did.

Courtney was probably three-fourths toilet-trained. The remaining quarter was tough to cope with but Rune managed as best she could.

She bought healthy food for the girl.

She bathed her twice a day.

She also leapt right in to improve the little girl's wardrobe.

Claire, who had super-crucial taste in her own fashion, had bought the poor kid mostly sweats blouses with bears or Disney cartoon characters on them and corduroy jeans (corduroy! In New York!). Rune took her straight down to SoHo, to a kids' store where Rune knew one of the salesclerks. She dropped some bucks on real clothes: A black Naugahyde miniskirt and a couple of black T-shirts. Yellow and lime-green tights.

A wad of lacy tooling for her hair. Jewelry was risky -you never knew what kids would swallow – but Rune found an outrageous studded belt and black cowboy boots (which were slightly too big but she figured there was only one way the girl's feet were going to grow and why not buy something that would last more than a month). The finishing touch was a plastic leopard-skin jacket.

Rune paid the two hundred twenty-seven dollars but decided the results were worth it. She said, "All right, dude, you're looking crazy good."

"Crazy," Courtney said.

But it wasn't long before problems developed.

They'd left the store, bought some ice cream and gone window-shopping. Then Rune wondered if you could take three-year-olds dancing. There was a super late-night club just opening up down on Hudson in the old building where the famous Area had been years before, a totally historical place. She hadn't seen too many children there. None, in fact. But she wondered if you could sneak one in early, say, just after work, about six or seven. It seemed a shame to have a kid who looked like a miniature Madonna and not expose her to some real New York life.

"You want to go dancing?"

"I want to go to the zoo!" the girl said fiercely.

"Well, the zoo's closed now, honey. We can go in a day or so."

"I wanta see the animals."

"In a day or two."

"No!" Courtney started to scream and ran into Comme de Garcon, where she threw the ice cream into a rack of eight-hundred-dollar suits.

The day-care center didn't work out either.

Rune did the math and figured out that if she dropped Courtney off at eight and picked her up at seven -the hours Piper Sutton suggested her crew work, at a minimum – and then got a night sitter twice a week, she would have one hundred and eight dollars a month left out of her paycheck.

So the little girl spent a half the week at day care, half at the Network.

And when Piper Sutton called Rune one night at what was, for the rest of the world, quitting time and demanded an update on the Boggs story ("Now, Rune. Now now now!"), Rune had to park the little girl with Bradford Simpson, who took up the task sportingly even though she could tell by the furtive phone call he made that he was breaking a date to help her out. It was clear that she'd soon run out of friends if she tried to enlist last-minute baby sitters very often.

But what finally did it was the honey.

Rune had spent all Thursday taking footage of the exteriors of the building where Lance Hopper had been killed and of the crime scene itself. She'd picked up Courtney just before the day-care center closed and had to spring for a cab to get fifty pounds of equipment and thirty pounds of child back to the houseboat.

Rune plopped her in front of the old Motorola console TV, cued upThe Wizard of Oz and took a shower.

Courtney, who didn't like the black-and-white Kansas portion of the film, wandered off to find something to play with. What she located was a jar of clover honey, sitting on the galley table. She climbed up on a chair and pulled it down carefully then sat on the floor 'and opened it.

Courtney loved honey. Not so much because of the taste, but because of the great way it poured so slowly down the stairs. Which was a lot of fun but what was even better was the way she could use it to paste together Rune's videotape cassettes. She made a wall out of them, and pretended it was the Wicked Witch's castle.

Then the water in the shower shut off and it occurred to Courtney that playing with the honey might be one of those things she shouldn't be doing. So she hid the rest of the evidence, pouring it into the Ikegami video camera case.

Courtney closed the door, then slipped the empty jar under the coffee table. At that point Dorothy arrived in full-color Oz and the little girl settled down to watch the film.

Rune surprised herself by actually screaming when she saw the camera. She was trying to shout that the camera had cost fifty thousand dollars but the words weren't even getting out of her mouth. Courtney looked down at the camera, bleeding honey, and started to cry.

Rune then dropped to her knees and surveyed the ruined tapes. She cradled the camera like a hurt pet. "Oh, God, oh, no…"

"Oh-oh," Courtney said.

"I can't take it," Rune gasped.

Only two phone calls.

She was surprised to find that when it came to children, you could cut through city bureaucracy pretty fast. The administrator she was speaking to told her that a protective diagnostic caseworker could be on her way in half hour. Rune said not to bother, she'd come totheir offices tomorrow. The woman gave Rune the address.

The next morning she packed up the girl's few possessions and they walked to the subway. After transferring three times they got off at the Bleecker Street stop and climbed to the sidewalk.

"Where're we going?" Courtney asked.

"To see some nice people."

"Oh. Where? At the zoo?"

"I'm sure they'll take you to the zoo."

"Good."

The building looked like one of those massive, grimy factories in ten shades of gray – a set from a 1930s movie about a tough, slick-haired industrialist who learns that life with floozy blondes and martinis can be pretty unsatisfying.

But when Rune considered it again she decided that the building on LaGuardia Place looked more like a prison. She almost turned around. But then she free-associated: prison, Randy Boggs… And she realized that she had a responsibility to do her story and save him. And that having Courtney in her life was going to make that impossible. She shifted the girl's fingers, still slightly sticky from the honey, into her left hand and led her toward the squat, dark building.

Rune glanced at the graniteslab above the front door to the building, which would have been a good place to carve the words, Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter.

Instead of: New York Child Welfare Administration,

Rune and Courtney walked slowly toward the main office, through green corridors, over green linoleum. Through fluorescent light that started life white but turned green when it hit the skin. It reminded her of the shade of lawyer Megler' s office. A guard pointed to a thin black woman in a red linen suit, sitting behind a desk covered with recycled files and empty cardboard coffee cups.

"May I help you?" the woman asked.

"You're Ms Johnson?"

The woman smiled and they shook hands. "Sit down. You're…?"

"Rune."

"Right. You called last night." Paper appeared and civil servant Johnson uncapped a Bic pen. "What's your address?"

" West Village."

Johnson paused. "Could you be more specific than that?"

"Not really. It's hard to explain."

"Phone number?"

Rune said, "No."

"Beg pardon?"

"I don't have a phone."

"Oh." So far she hadn't written anything. "Is this Courtney?"

"That's right."

"We're going to the zoo," the little girl said.

"What it is is this: I have a roommate I mean, had a roommate – her mother – and I don't know her last name and she left me with Courtney. She just took off – can you believe it? I mean, I woke up and she was gone."

Johnson was frowning painfully, more mom than civil servant for the moment.

"Anyway, she went to Boston and what she did, she…" Rune's voice fell. "… ditched you know who. And I'm like, what am I going to do? See, I wouldn't mind if I wasn't working, which is usually what I'm doing – not working, I mean – only now I-"

Johnson had stopped writing. "Apparent abandonment. Happens more often than you'd think."

Courtney said, "Rune, I'm hungry."

Rune dug into her shoulder bag and pulled out a can of sardines. Johnson watched her. A can opener appeared and Rune began cranking. "I liked it better when they had that little key on them."

Courtney watched the process hungrily.

Rune looked at a bewildered Ms Johnson. "You know, the key. On the cans? Like in the cartoons you always see."

"Cartoons?" Johnson asked. Then: "You think those are good for her?"

"Water-packed. I wouldn't give her oil." She held up the can.

Rune tucked a napkin into Courtney's collar then handed her a plastic fork. "Anyway, her mother's gone and I don't know how to find her."

"You don't have any idea? No last name?"

"Nope. Just know she's in Boston."

"Bawden."

Johnson said, "Usually what happens in cases like these is the police get involved. They'll contact the Boston Police and do a standard missing person search. First name, C-L-A-I-R-E?"

"Right. I just don't have any leads. Claire took everything with her. Except this too-disgusting old poster and some underwear. You could fingerprint it, maybe. But they probably wouldn't beher fingerprints on it."

"Who's Courtney's father?"

Rune frowned and shook her head.

Johnson asked, "Unknown?"

"Highly."

"Describe her mother to me."

"Claire's about my height. Her hair's dark now but we're talking it started life pretty light. Kind of dirty brownish." Rune thought for a minute. "She's got a narrow face. She isn't pretty. I'd say more cute-"

"I'm really more interested in a general description that'll help the police locate her."

"Okay, sure. Five-three, jet-black hair. About a hundred and ten. Wears black mostly."

"Grandparents or other relations?"

"I can't even find her mother – how'm I going to know the aunts and uncles?"

Johnson said, "She's really adorable. Does she have any health problems? Is there any medicine she takes?"

"No, she's pretty healthy. All she takes is vitamins in the shape of animals. She likes the bears best but I think that's only because they're cherry-flavored. You like bears, don't you, honey?"

Courtney had finished the sardines. She nodded.

"Okay, well, let me tell you a little about the procedure from here on out. This's the Child Welfare Administration, which is part of the city's Human Resources Administration. We've got a network of emergency foster homes where she'll be placed for a week or so until we can get her into a permanent foster home. Hopefully, by then we'll have found the mother."

Rune's stomach thudded. "Foster home?"

"That's right."

"Uhm, you know what you hear on the news…"

"About the foster homes?" Johnson asked. "It's the press that made up most of those stories." Her voice was crisp and Rune had a flash of a different Ms Johnson. Beneath the ruby lipstick and pseudo Ann Taylor did not beat a delicate heart. She probably had a tattoo of a gang's trademark on the slope of her left breast.

The woman continued. "We spend weeks investigating foster parents. If you think about it, who scrutinizes natural parents?"

Good point, Rune thought. "Can I visit her?"

The answer was no – Rune could see that – but Johnson said, "Probably."

"What happens now?"

"We have a diagnostic caseworker on call. She'll take Courtney to the emergency home tonight."

"I don't have to do anything else?"

"That will be the end of your involvement."

Rune hated civil-servant language. As if they took the words and quick-froze them.

She turned to Courtney and said, "Will you miss me?"

The girl said, "No."

No?

Johnson said to her, "Honey, would you like to go stay with a nice mommy and daddy? They have some children just like you and they'd love for you to visit."

"Yeah."

Rune said to her, "You'll be happy there."

Why isn't she sobbing?

Johnson said, "I'll take her now. You have her things?"

Rune handed over the bag containing the ratty stuffed animals and her new clothes. Johnson looked at Rune's face and said, "I know how you feel, but believe me, you did the right thing. There wasn't any choice."

Rune squatted down and hugged the girl. "I'll come visit you."

It was then that Courtney sized up what was happening. "Rune?" she asked uncertainly.

Johnson took her by the hand and led her down the corridor.

Courtney started to cry.

Rune started to cry.

Johnson remained dry-eyed. "Come on, honey."

Courtney looked back once and called, "Zoo!"

"We'll go to the zoo, I promise."

Rune left the ugly slab of a building, feeling an intense freedom.

And feeling too the weight of a guilt that matched her own 102 pounds ounce for ounce. But that was okay. She had a story to do.

Spring in prison is like spring in the city. Weak, almost unnoticeable. You only sense it because of the air. You smell it, you taste it, you feel an extra portion of warmth. It flirts with you once or twice, then that's it. Back to work, or back to the prison yard. Crocuses can't break through concrete.

Randy Boggs was waiting for Severn Washington in the prison gym when the smell of spring hit him. And, damn, it made him feel bad. He'd never been to college. School for him meant high school and this battered prison gym reminded him a lot of the one at Washington Irving High where, twenty years earlier, he'd have been working out on the parallel bars or struggling to do an iron cross on the rings, and, bang, there would be that smell in the air that meant they'd soon be out of school and he'd have a summer ahead of him – along with a couple of weeks' pure freedom before the job at the Kresge warehouse or.

Damn, what a smell spring has…

He thought about a dozen memories released by that smell. Girls' small boobs and hot grass and the chain-saw rumble of a 350 Chevy engine. And beer. Man, he loved beer. Now as much as then, though he knew there was no taste like the taste of beer when you were a teenager.

Randy Boggs squinted across the gym and could see the loping figure of Severn Washington, two hundred thirty pounds' worth, a broad face in between a scalp of tight cornrows and a neck thick as Boggs's thigh.

Washington had laughed and told Boggs not long after they met that he'd never had a white friend in all of his forty-three years. He'd missed Nam because of his eyesight and always stayed pretty close to home, which in his family's case had been a Hundred and Thirty-seventh Street, where there were not many whites at all, let alone any that he'd befriend.

That's why Washington had been uncomfortable when, one day in the yard, Boggs began talking to him, just bullshitting in that soft, shy voice he had. At first, Washington later told him, he thought Boggs wanted to be his maytag, his loverboy, then Washington had decided Boggs was just another white-ass crazy, maybe method or angel-dusted out. But when Boggs kept it up, talking away, funny, making more sense than most people Inside, Washington and Boggs became friends.

Boggs told him that he'd been through Raleigh and Durham a bunch of times and learned that Washington 's family had come from North Carolina, though he'd never been there. Washington wanted to hear all about the state and Boggs was glad to tell him. From there, they talked about Sylvia's, Harlem, Dizzy Gillespie, Dexter Gordon, Eddie Murphy, Denzel Washington (no relation), Class D felonies, beer, traveling around, hitchhiking…

But there was another foundation for the friendship between the two.

One day Washington had sought Boggs out in the yard and said, "Know why you come up and talked to me?"

"Nope, Severn, I sure don't. Why was that?"

"Allah."

"What's that again?" Boggs asked.

The huge man explained that Allah had come to Washington in a dream and told him it was his job to befriend Boggs and eventually convert him.

He told all this to Boggs, who felt himself blushing and said, "Damn, if that's not the craziest thing I ever heard."

"No, man, that's the way it is. Your ass's safe. Me and Allah gonna watch out for you." Which Boggs thought was even crazier, the Allah part at least, but perfectly fine with him.

From the start, though Washington 's job wasn't easy. Boggs was animal feed in Harrison prison. Scrawny, shy, quiet, a loner. He didn't deal, he didn't fuck, he didn't side. Instantly unpopular. The sort that ends up "accidentally" dead – like not paying attention and driving a 3/4-inch drill press bit through his neck then bleeding to death before somebody notices the blood.

Or the sort that does it himself. They may take your belt away from you but if you want to get dead in prison you can get yourself dead, no problem.

But Severn Washington did his job. And when it became clear that Boggs was under the wing of one of the most devout Muslims in all of Harrison (who also happened to be one of the largest, when that news made the rounds of the cell blocks, Randy Boggs was left pretty much alone.

"Pretty much," however, didn't mean "completely."

Washington, disposing of the fast Muslim greeting, "Marhaba, sardeek," now frowned as he whispered, "Yo, man, you got trouble."

"What?" Boggs asked, feeling his heart sink.

"Word up they gonna move on you again. Serious, this time. I axed a moneygrip o' mine from the home block and he say he heard it for fucking certain."

Randy Boggs frowned. "Why, man? That's what I don't get. You hear anything?"

Washington shrugged. "Make no sense to me."

"Okay." Boggs's face twisted a little. "Shit."

"I'm putting out some inquiries," Washington said, emphasizing the second syllable of the word. "We'll find ourselves out what the fuck's going on."

Boggs considered this. He didn't go out of his way to look for trouble. He didn't give steely killer eyes to blacks, he didn't eye anybody's dick in the shower, he didn't get cartons of Marlboros from the guards, didn't look sideways at the Aryan Brotherhood. There was no reason he could think of that somebody'd want to move on him.

"I don't know what I did. I don't think-"

"Hey, be cool, man." Washington grinned. "Hey, you walk in what? Twenty-four months. Shouldn't be too hard to keep yo ass intact that long."

"This place, man, I hate it so much…"

Severn Washington laughed the way he always did when somebody expressed the obvious. "Got the antidote. Less play us some ball."

And Randy Boggs said, "Sure." Thinking, as he saw his reflection in a chicken-wire-laced window, that what he was looking at with the red-socketed eyes wasn't his living body at all, but something else – something horrible, lying cold and dead, as his blood fled from the flesh.

Thinking that, despite this huge man's reassurance, the only hope he now had was that slip of girl with the ponytail and the big camera.