Hard News

12

Come on, Sam. Please?" She'd tried charm, and now she was trying pleading.

But Sam Healy was a detective who disposed of bombs for a living; it was tough to talk someone like that into anything he didn't want to do.

They were sitting on the back deck of the boathouse, drinking beers and eating microwave popcorn.

"I just want to look at it. One little file."

"I can't get access to the files in the Twentieth Precinct. I'm Bomb Squad. Why would they even talk to me?"

Rune had spent a lot of time trying to decide if she was in love with this man. She thought she was in a way. But today wasn't like the old days -whenever they were – when you were either in love or you weren't. Love was a lot more complicated now. There were degrees, there werephases of love.

It kicked in and out like a compressor in an air conditioner. She and Healy could talk easily. And laugh. She liked the way he looked like a man in a Marlboro ad. She liked the way his eyes were completely calm and deeper than any man's eyes she'd ever seen. But what she missed was that gut-twist, that weight-losing obsession with the object of your desire that was Rune's favorite kind of love even though it was totally rare.

Also, Healy was married.

Which, oddly, didn't bother Rune that much. At least he was separated and had no problem being bluntly honest about the times he saw Cheryl. Rune looked at his marriage like an air bag in a car – a safety feature. Maybe when she got older, if they were still together, she'd force him to make a decision. But for now his marriage was his business. All she wanted was honesty and a boyfriend who kept you guessing. And no boyfriend kept you guessing like one on the New York City Bomb Squad.

Rune said, "They got the wrong man."

"I know your theory about Boggs."

"I don't need to prowl around the evidence room. I just want to read one file."

"I thought you wanted to be a reporter."

"Iam a reporter."

"Reporters don't cheat. It'd be unethical to use me to get information."

"Of course it wouldn't. You know about unnamed sources. Come on, you can be my Deep Throat."

"It's a murder investigation. I'd get suspended for leaking information."

"It's a murderconviction. It's a closed case."

"The transcript is public record. Why don't you-?"

"I've got the transcript. I need the police report. It's got the names of all the witnesses and the bullet angles and pictures of the exit wounds. All the good stuff. Come on, Sam." She kissed his neck.

"There's nothing I can do. Sorry."

"The man's innocent. He's serving time for something he didn't do. That's terrible."

"You can talk to the public information officer. They'll give you the department's side of the case."

"Bullshit is all he'll tell me."

"She"Healy said. "Not he." He stood up and walked into the galley. "You have anything substantial?"

"Well, first, everybody I've interviewed said that no way in the world could Randy Boggs kill anyone. Then-"

"I mean to eat."

"Oh." She squinted into the galley. "No."

"Don't mope."

"I'm not," she said quickly. "I just don't have anything substantial. Sorry. Maybe some Fruit 'N Fiber cereal."

"Rune…"

"A banana. It's pretty old."

"I can't get the report. I'm sorry."

"A can of tuna. That's a pretty icky combination, though, if you mix it with the cereal. Even with the high fiber."

Healy wasn't buying it. "No file. Give it up." He walked back with pretzels and cottage cheese. "So where's your little girl?"

She was hesitating. "I took her to Social Services."

"Oh." He was looking at her, his face blank. Not saying anything, eating the cottage cheese. He offered her a forkful she wasn't interested in.

She said defensively, "They were a really, really good bunch of people there. They were, you know, real professional."

"Uh-huh."

"What they'll do is keep her in a foster home for a while then they'll track down her mother…" She was avoiding his eyes, looking everywhere else. Studying his buttons, the stitching of his shirt seams, the trapezoid of floor between his shoes. "Well, it was a good idea, wasn't it?"

"I don't know. Was it?"

"I had to."

"When I was a portable, walking a beat, we found kids sometimes. There's any suspicion of neglect or abuse, you have to bring them in, or get a caseworker out to see them."

Rune said, "Those people are okay, aren't they?"

"I guess so."

She stood up and paced slowly. "What was I supposed to do? I can't take care of a baby."

"I'm not saying-," Healy began.

"Yes, you are. You're saying 'I guess so,' 'I don't know.'"

"You did what you thought was right."

Clench, loosen. Her short, unpolished nails dug into her palm, then relaxed. "You make it sound like I gave her away to the gypsies."

"I'm just a little surprised is all."

"What am I going to do? Keep her with me all the time? It cost five hundred dollars to fix the camera because of her. I had to reshoot eight hours of film. I can't afford a baby-sitter-"

"Rune-"

Volume and indignation rose. "You make it sound like I abandoned her. I'm not her mother. I don't even want her."

Healy smiled. "Don't be so paranoid about it. I'm sure they'll take fine care of her. Have some cottage cheese. What's in here?"

Rune looked. "Apple? Pear? Wait, I think it's a zucchini."

"Should it be that color?"

She said, "It's only until they find Claire."

Healy said, "Just a couple days probably."

Rune stood at the round porthole, looking out over the water, at the way the lights in Hoboken made lines in the waves like runway approach lights. With her eyes she traced them to the land and back again. She watched them for a few minutes, until they were shattered by a passing speedboat. When the colors began to regroup she turned to Healy and said, "I did the right thing, didn't I, Sam?"

"Sure you did." He capped the cottage cheese. "Let's go get something to eat."

Piper Sutton sensed the power she had over him and it made her uncomfortable because it was purely the power of sex.

And therefore a power she couldn't exercise. Or, rather, wouldn'tlet herself exercise.

As she looked at the man across the desk from her, she crossed her legs, and her cream-colored stockings whispered in a reminder of that power. She was sitting in an office exactly two floors above hers -the penthouse of the parent company's monolith.

"We'll have coffee," the man said.

"No thank you."

"Then I will." Dan Semple was a trim forty-four, compact, with short salt-and-pepper hair curling over his forehead in bangs. He was not – like Piper Sutton or Lee Maisel or his predecessor Lance Hopper – a newsman. He'd sold advertising time for local stations, then for the Network, and eventually he had moved into entertainment and then news programming. The lack of reporting experience was irrelevant. Semple's talent was for money – making it and saving it. No one in the television business was naive enough to believe that high-quality journalism alone was enough to make a network a success. And, with a few exceptions, no one was surprised when Semple was given Hopper's job as director of Network News. The similarities were obvious: Hopper had been a great newsman in the incarnation of a son of a bitch; Dan Semple was a great businessman in the body of a cruel megalomaniac.

Although one thing he wasn't the least bit cold about was Piper Sutton.

She had had affairs with various Network executives in the past – only those men, however, who were on a corporate level equal to hers and only those men whom she desired physically or because she truly enjoyed their company. Sutton didn't give a shit about rumors and gossip but one of her few rules of ethics was that she wouldn't use her body to advance her career; there were plenty of other ways to fuck those you worked for.

The affair with Semple had lasted one year, when they were both on the ascendancy in the Network. But that had been four years ago. Then came Hopper's death, one consequence of which was what Sutton had predicted would happen: Semple was named Hopper's replacement. The day after the board announced the appointment she walked into his office to say how happy she was for him and how she'd known how much he'd wanted the job. Sutton had then taken Semple's hand, kissed his cheek and ended the affair.

Since then Semple'd waged an almost adolescent campaign to win her back. Although they saw each other often and dined together and attended benefits and formal functions she'd decided that their intimate days were over. He didn't believe her when she said it was a hard decision for her as well, though it was. She was attracted to him physically and she was attracted to him for his strength and brilliance and decisiveness. Sutton had settled for weak men in the past and had learned her lesson; she had a number of exes to prove it.

This romantic tension was an undercurrent in every conversation she and Semple had. It troubled her that, although Semple respected her immensely for her ability, hedesired her only on the lowest level. The power she had over him was the power of a courtier, not a reigning queen, and that infuriated her – at the same time her continual refusal to resume the affair stung him.

"How was Paris?" she asked.

"Comme ci, comme fa. How is it always? The same. Paris never changes."

The coffee arrived. The executive vice presidents had their own dining room, which delivered their requests for food or beverages on Villeroy amp; Bosch china, carried on parent-company-logoed lacquer trays. Semple poured a cup and sipped it.

"Tell me about this story."

Sutton did, quickly, without emotion.

"Her name is Rune? First or last?"

"Some kind of stage name bullshit. She a cameraman with the O amp;O here in Manhattan."

"What does Lee think?" Semple asked.

"Slightly more in favor of doing the story than I am. But not much."

"Why are we doing it, then?" he asked coolly. Semple's dark eyes scanned Sutton's blouse. She was glad she'd worn the wool suit jacket over the white silk. But only a part of his eyes was seeing her body. What the other part was considering, and what was happening in the brain behind those eyes, was a complete mystery to her. It was one of his most magnetic qualities – that she hadn't been able to fathom him. It was also one of his more frightening.

She answered, "The girl said, in effect, that if she didn't produce it forCurrent Events she'd do it independently and sell it elsewhere."

"Blackmail," he snapped.

"Closer to youthful fervor."

"I don't like it," Semple said. "There's no point to the story." He sipped more coffee. Sutton remembered that he liked to sit naked in bed in the morning, a tray resting on his lap, the cup and saucer directly over his penis. Did he like the warmth? she used to wonder.

He asked, "What does she have so far? Anything?"

"Nope. Nothing substantial. Lots of background footage. That's all."

"So you think there's a chance it'll just go away?"

Sutton avoided his eyes. "She's young. I'm keeping a close eye on her. I'm hoping she gets tired of the whole thing."

Semple had the power to make this story go away forever, leaving behind fewer traces than a couple of pixels on a TV monitor. He glanced at Sutton and said, "Keep me informed on what she finds."

"Okay."

"I mean daily." Semple looked out the window for moment. "I dined at a wonderful restaurant. It was off St Germain."

"Really?"

"I wish you'd been there with me."

"It sounds nice."

"Michelin was wrong. I have to write and urge them to give it another star." And he uncapped a fountain pen and wrote a note on his calendar reminding himself to do just that.