Last shot

Chapter 42

Tim screeched his Explorer around overburdened gardener trucks clogging Wilshire's left lane. With a swipe of his hand, Bear pulled the loose skin of his face into a droop, no doubt shoring up his enduring argument that himself at the wheel was the better default setting.

Tim screwed his cell phone's earpiece in another half turn, as if transmission were the problem. "You gotta be kidding me."

Denley's voice hid an element of amusement. "She will only do it in exchange for an exclusive interview with you."

"No way."

"She promised us the B-roll."

"I don't even know what that is."

"Neither did I, but now I like saying it. It's the tape that has all the background stuff for the segment or 'package'"-Denley's rustling, Tim figured, was his squiggling air quotation marks-"anything that might be a story element. In other words, lots of footage that may have wound up on the cutting room floor. Connective clips of Tess, with the kid, the Vector guy. Pretty critical nexus, that segment. I don't know that we can afford to pass it up."

Ever since Ginny's murder and Tim's highly publicized ouster from-and then reentry to-the Service, KCOM's Melissa Yueh had been determined to interview him. At various significant periods during the past four and a half years, she'd left him messages, FedExed written requests, even stooped to dating the Service's public information officer in an attempt to bring bureaucratic pressure to bear.

"Give me her goddamned number." Tim wrote it down angrily at a stoplight, the pressure of his notepad against the horn causing it to honk. His call-waiting was going, so he signed off and clicked over.

Dray's voice asked, "How attached were you to that vase on the coffee table?"

"Not very attached?"

"Good answer. Ty knocked it over." A pause. "With the other vase."

"We need to declaw him."

"I'll get some quotes. What gives with the case?"

He gave her the rundown. When he got to Melissa Yueh's request, his vehemence even drew Bear's interest from the UCLA girls bobbing on elliptical trainers behind LA Fitness's comprehensive windows. Tim waited for Dray to express her disbelief-which he presumed would caption Bear's expression-but instead she said, "Not a bad idea."

"I'm sorry, is my wife there, please?"

"Listen, Timmy"-she only led with the hated nickname when she knew she was charging uphill-"think of this as an opportunity."

"Come again?"

"Yueh's a ratings slut like the rest of the meat puppets. She wants a scoop and she wants your ass in her guest chair-that's all. Now, Walker's a strategist, as you pointed out. Put yourself on the board. You've got more pawns at your disposal. And rooks. And horses."

"Knights."

"Them, too. Get Walker to contact you. You've got information he wants. Use Yueh's show to tease him with it. Put out a phone number. Go through the command-post switchboard and use some detailed questions about the escape to screen out the wannabes. Use yourself as bait."

In the background he heard Tyler say, "Fishie bait! Fishie bait!"

Tim said, "It scares me that our child spends his whole day alone with a mind like yours."

"Me, too."

"What about all the National Enquirer shit she's gonna dredge up?"

"Set boundaries with her. It'll only up the wattage of her crush on you."

"You think Melissa Yueh has a crush on me?"

"Jesus. While we're at it, maybe I should point out that Freed owns the complete boxed set of Will amp; Grace."

"Freed is gay?"

"Aren't people in your line of work supposed to be observant?"

"But Freed was married," Bear said, straightening Tim's collar as they sat on the plush maroon couches of KCOM's third-floor lobby. Having already called in the Vector party's guest list to the command post, Bear had toted along the Beacon-Kagan files to ensure that they were as useless as they appeared.

Plasma TVs hung on the walls like works of art, offering best-of eye bites, the weeks' news strained through KCOM's yellow filter and abbreviated by flash cuts. A basketball brawl took to the-. A columnist at the Gray Lady under inspection for falsifying-. Four adult-film stars tested positive for-. Each tale conveyed with wild-eyed drama, thundering moral indignation, bereft pauses. The Endgame of Western Values. The Demise of America as We Like to Believe We Knew It. And viewers, tuning in from households with grown children on deployment and dying parents and windows overlooking homeless people foraging in trash cans, shook their heads and tut-tutted at all that packaged heartbreak.

Tim threw Bear's hands away. "Would you knock it off! And just because Dray says Freed's gay doesn't mean he's gay. Not that I care if he is gay."

"C'mon, Seinfeld. When's Dray been wrong about anything?"

In the dismayed pause that ensued, a voluptuous assistant with a clipboard and a radio entered and said, "Tim Rackley." At Tim's weak nod, she added, "Ready for makeup?"

"I don't need makeup."

"Freed," Bear said, "might beg to differ."

Tim followed the young woman's trail of perfume back through a tangle of cords and control rooms, heeding her silent example. She knocked briskly at an office door and stepped aside. Melissa Yueh glanced up from her call script, the ravenous touch of her eyes augmented by blush sharpening the rise of her cheeks. A paper collar stippled with foundation dust ringed her neck. Eye shadow picked up the hues of her plum-colored suit, and her sienna eyes reminded Tim, as always, of a cat's.

Her hand moved into her purse in her lap, and her shoulder tensed.

"Turn it off," Tim said. "Understand?"

Her arm flexed again, and a muffled click issued from the confines of her purse. "Understand." Without embarrassment she rose and breezed past him, smelling of hair spray. Her suit seemed impossibly pinched at the belt line. As he followed her, an entourage developed swiftly around them, underlings rotating forward to powder her face, proffer scripts for her perusal, hold mirrors for her approval. Not once did she slow her charge to the studio. At a break in the action, she cast a flirtatious glance over her shoulder. "I spoke with Tess Jameson three days before she died, you know."

"I didn't."

"I was in Baghdad. Did you see my coverage?"

"Missed it."

"I was embedded with the First Marine Division, saw some spectacular firefights."

"Spectacular," Tim repeated.

"Do you want to know what she wanted?" Yueh didn't bother to wait for a reply. "Well, I'd like to know what's going on with Vector and the murder at the Kagan estate. The unauthorized account."

"I'm not talking now."

"I'd like to help this woman if there's more to her suicide…?"

"I think she's past help, but your empathy is genuinely moving."

"Will you take care of me later? When you do talk?"

"That depends on how well you take care of me."

She half turned so he could catch the gleam of her smile. "She wanted to see me. She said she had something to show me."

Tim did his best to downplay his reaction, not wanting Yueh to home in on it. But they both knew the obvious implications of Tess's seeking out an appointment with a reporter a few days before her suicide-assisted or otherwise.

"I told her I'd meet with her on my return," Yueh continued, "but I got back the day after her death."

"Any idea what she had? Did it have to do with Vector?"

"Something she was too nervous to discuss over the phone. Granted, I was in Iraq and fairly rushed. The generator by my barracks made my sat phone blink in and out." She halted abruptly, and the minions around them bumped into one another. "If those Vector guys wind up being assholes, I'm gonna be furious. I was really pulling for them, this new technology. My goddaughter has cystic fibrosis."

"So that's a yes. Did you seek them out? For the interview?"

She resumed her pace, the crew lurching back into motion. "No, it came from the top down. Their daddy company books twenty million dollars of airtime with the network annually. I wasn't forced to do the story, certainly, but it was suggested." She added quickly, "And it was a strong story."

She strode across the set, cameramen and producers silencing like students when the teacher returns from a bathroom break. For interviews, Yueh forwent the anchor's desk for Charlie Rose seating at a wooden table, the background dressed with a few broad-leafed plants. They sat, and an audio tech threaded a mike through Tim's shirt.

"We'll be live, the lead story for the five o' clock. And we'll reair on prime time and for the morning shows." She practiced her on-air smile, her cheeks dimpling just so. "Ready to do this?"

"Remember our terms."

"Sometimes an interview takes its own shape, and past events become relevant-"

"We know how this is played. I give to get. Respect the balance. If you don't…"

Yueh cocked her head at an angle generally reserved for spaniels and Playmates, as if debating whether to call his bluff.

A producer shouted, "Live in four, three, two-"

Tim said, "I'll make sure all future exclusives from the Marshal's office go to Fox."

Yueh's expression of dismay clicked into a perfect mask of welcome. "Tim Rackley, known as the Troubleshooter due to his high-profile antics-"

Tim gave her a bland look.

"— is joining us. And tonight he'd like to deliver a message to the prison escapee who's been terrorizing the Los Angeles community."

In the darkness of a vacant office, with the bustle of ceaseless KCOM staff and equipment thumping past in the hall beyond the drawn blinds, Tim and Bear reviewed the spoils of Tim's encounter-the B-roll. They'd suffered through ten minutes of establishing shots of Tess's house and on-site pickups, Yueh jabbering between takes about lighting and flattering angles. A pewter Mercedes Gelaendewagen rolled up to the curb, seemingly impervious to the dust. Dolan stepped out and headed toward Yueh in greeting before the take ended. The next resumed with them waiting, now impatiently, at the curb. An assistant clicked a light meter around Yueh's face until she knocked it away.

"Where the hell is this woman?"

"We're twenty minutes early, Melissa," an off-screen producer said. "Keep your pantsuit on."

Bear leaned forward, excitedly jabbing a finger in the corner of the screen at what Tim had already noted: Chase Kagan. Leaning against the G-Wagen, he regarded the run-down neighborhood with something like delight. The aired segment had shown only Dolan at the house, but clearly Chase, as the more polished Vector mouthpiece, had accompanied his brother to oversee him. Chase's temporary amnesia when presented with Tess's name now seemed even more likely feigned.

The take ended. The next began with Yueh practicing her lead-ins, variations on a theme: "A young boy stricken with a disorder…" "A boy stricken with a disorder in his youth…" "A young boy courageously fighting a genetic disorder…"

In the background Chase sat on the tailgate of the G-Wagen, guitar across his seersucker shorts, playing "Dueling Banjos"-a joke no one registered.

A prolonged blackness. A shot of asphalt as someone adjusted the camera. Then Dolan's voice: "Here she is. Here she is."

"Finally."

A beat-up Mazda clattered up into the driveway, Sam waving from the backseat. When Tess climbed out and shook her blond hair loose from a pink Dodgers cap, Chase lowered his guitar. His gaze stayed fixed on her as she unbuckled Sam from the back.

"You guys got here early." Tess hefted a grocery bag from the trunk. "I wanted to have some things to welcome you."

"Let's get the crew set," Yueh said.

The next shot was in the kitchen. Tess had unpacked some clear plastic wineglasses from the bag and arranged them on the chipped kitchen table. Chase popped the bottom off one and held the top like a cup; Dolan's fell apart in his hand. She was setting up dip and generic-brand crackers when Chase said, in a surprisingly charitable tone, "You know what? Let's clear this. We don't want it to look like a celebration or anything."

Tess dipped her chin. "Okay, right." She tucked her hair behind her ear and smiled with a hint of embarrassment.

A few outtakes followed of Yueh teaching Sam some basics about being on air. She dealt with him sweetly; when he didn't smile on cue, she set her fists on her hips in mock anger to make him laugh. Tess looked on with beaming maternal pride, Chase at her side, taking in her profile.

"Don't worry, sweetie," Yueh said, "we'll shoot some footage of you, and you can watch it right here in this screen till you're comfortable. Okay?"

Some takes ensued-Sam hooking fingers into his mouth to pull his cheeks wide; Sam pretending to descend stairs, lowering his torso by increments from the lens's view; Sam hamming it up with a ballplayer's "hey momz."

Back to static, then an establishing shot as two PAs arranged pillows on the couch and the sound engineer fussed with a boom mike. To the side, only half in the frame, Tess finally turned and met Chase's stare.

Her voice, far from the mike, was barely audible. "Help you?"

Chase manufactured a blush. "Your husband must adore you."

"He kept the TV. I kept the ring."

The exchange was tough to make out over the foreground noise. Bear raised the volume in time to catch Chase's reply: "Why do you wear it?"

"It keeps jerks from bothering me."

"Am I bothering you?"

"Not yet."

Tim and Bear watched the rest of the B-roll for more of this daytime drama, but other than Yueh's further warming to Sam and Tess, it depicted little of value.

Bear popped the tape and thrust it into an immense jacket pocket. "You know who we gotta talk to now."