Hard News

by Jeffery Deaver

  And that was when the couple decided not to do what had crossed their Midwestern minds--ask the girls if they would like to stay with them in the camper that night--and figured it would probably be best if they pressed on to the alternate destination of Mystic, Connecticut, which came highly recommended in their guidebook.

  AT ELEVEN THAT NIGHT, JACK NESTOR SAID HE NEEDED A real drink and pulled off the highway at a motel somewhere in Virginia.

  "I could use some real food, too," Randy Boggs said. He wanted a steak burnt on the outside and red inside. He'd spent a lot of time thinking about steaks when he first went Inside. Then--as with most of the things he enjoyed--he forgot about good meat. Or it was more that those things became distant. Like facts in a history book. He understood them, he remembered them, but they had no meaning for him.

  Now, though, he was out and he wanted a steak. And the way Nestor had said real drink, Boggs was now thinking that he'd like his first shot of whisky in three years.

  They parked the car and went into the motel office. Nestor gave a fake name and car license then asked for a room in the back, explaining to the young night clerk that he didn't sleep well; highway noise bothered him. The young man nodded apathetically, took the cash and gave him the key. Boggs was impressed at how smoothly Nestor had handled things. Boggs himself would have been more careless, leaving the car in front. But Nestor was right. The girl had probably gotten free by now and might've turned them in. Or maybe someone in New York had seen the license plate. He was glad he was with somebody like Nestor, somebody who could teach him to think Outside again.

  Nestor lugged his duffel bag into the room and Boggs followed with the paper bag that was his suitcase. He was relieved to see there were two large beds. He hadn't wanted to spend his first night of freedom in bed with another man. Without commenting on the room, Nestor dropped his luggage onto the bed nearest the door and said, "Food."

  Boggs said, "Hold up. I want to wash." He disappeared into the bathroom, amused and feeling almost heartsick with joy at how clean it was. At all the sweet smells. At the soap and wrapped glasses and a john behind a door that closed and locked. He ran the water cold, then hot, then cold again, then hot and washed his face and hands as the steam rose up and filled the room.

  "I'm hungry," Nestor bellowed over the sound of the running water.

  "Minute," Boggs shouted back and dried himself with luxurious towels that seemed thick as down comforters.

  The bar-restaurant near the hotel was a local hangout, done up in prefab Tudor--dark beams, plastic windows mimicking stained glass, beige stucco walls. The place was half filled--mostly around the bar--with contractors and plumbers and truck drivers and their girlfriends. The men were in jeans and plaid shirts. A lot of beards. The women were in slacks, high heels and simple blouses. Almost everyone smoked. The Honeymooners was showing on a cockeyed TV above one end of the bar.

  Nestor and Boggs sat down at a rickety table. Boggs stared at his place mat, which was printed with puzzles and word games. He could figure out the visual ones-- "What's Wrong With This Picture?"--but he had trouble unscrambling letters to make words. He turned the place mat over and looked at the women at the bar.

  The waitress came by and told them the kitchen was closing in ten minutes. They ordered four Black Jacks, neat, Bud chasers, and steaks and fries.

  "That girl," Nestor said. "Too bad you didn't fuck her."

  "Who?"

  "The one sprung you."

  "Naw, I told you, we was mostly friends."

  Nestor asked, "So?"

  "Well, I only got out a few hours before you showed up."

  "It was me, the first thing I woulda done was get me some poontang."

  Boggs felt he was on the spot. He said, "Well, she had the baby there."

  The drinks arrived and they poured the shots down without saying anything because neither of them could think of a toast. Boggs wheezed and Nestor laughed. The big guy did his second shot right after.

  "Don't get any of that Inside, do you?" Nestor asked him.

  "There was stuff you could get, depending on what you were willing to do or how much money you had. It was shit, though. Me, I didn't get any care packages, so I had to settle. Sometimes I'd get me some watered vodka or a joint or two. Mostly I didn't get nothing."

  "When I was Inside we had it easy. Fucking country club. A lot of dealers from L.A. There was so much shit."

  Boggs, dizzy from the liquor, asked, "You did time?"

  "Fuck yeah, I was in. Did eighteen months in Obispo. Was fanfuckingtastic. You wanted blow, you got blow. You wanted sess, you got sess. You wanted fucking wine, you could get a good bottle of wine...."

  Boggs was feeling the liquor sting his lips. They must've gotten windburned from the drive. "When were you in Obispo?"

  "Four, five years ago about."

  "I didn't know you'd done time."

  Nestor looked at him, surprised. "Hey, there's probably a thing or two we don't know about each other. Like I don't know how long your dick is."

  Boggs said, "Long enough to keep a grin on her face for an hour or two." His eyes slipped to the bar, where a round-faced young woman, with two-tone hair--blonde returning to black--sat with her elbow on the bar and her hand up, a cigarette aimed at the ceiling like a sixth finger. In front of her was a no-nonsense martini. The way she stared vacantly at the TV he figured the drink was the descendant of a long line of the same.

  Nestor said, "You can have her. She don't have tits."

  "Sure she does. She's sitting hunched over."

  The food arrived and took both men's attention. Boggs was eating but he'd found his appetite was gone. Maybe the steak was too rich. Maybe the burgers had filled him up or the alcohol had burned out his taste buds. He thought about Rune, about the little girl. He ate mechanically. He looked at the woman, who caught his eye and held it for a minute before she looked back at the TV. He thought a bit more then decided to finish eating. Maybe food would sober him up.

  Boggs finished while Nestor was still halfway through.

  "Man," Boggs said, "that was a meal."

  Nestor looked at Boggs's thin stomach. "You eat that way, how come you ain't fat?"

  "Dunno. I just never gain any. Not my doing." Boggs's voice faded as he stared again at the girl at the bar. This time she gave him a bit of a smile.

  Nestor caught it. "Oh-oh." He smiled. "Prison-boy gonna get laid."

  Boggs finished his beer. "You mind if I take the room for about an hour?"

  "Shit, boy, it'll take you five minutes, unless you jerked off every night inside the slammer."

  "Well, gimme an hour anyway. Maybe we'll wanta do it twice."

  "Okeydokey," Nestor said. "But get her butt out by one. I'm tired and I need some sleep."

  Boggs stood up and walked slowly toward the bar, trying to remember how to be cool and slick, trying to remember how to talk to women, trying to remember a lot of things.

  chapter 27

  BOGGS AND THE GIRL HAD BEEN GONE A HALF HOUR when Jack Nestor finished the lousy apple pie and sucked the ice cream off his fork. He took the last swallow of coffee and called for the check.

  The bar was pretty empty now and, aside from the waitress, there was nobody who saw him stand and go out to the parking lot. He looked up and saw the light on in his and Boggs's room. He opened the trunk of the car and took out his pistol. He hid the gun under his jacket and climbed the stairs to the second floor then moved slowly along the open walkway to the room. He'd thought about getting another key from the desk but that would have given the clerk another look at him. He'd decided to just knock on the door and when Boggs opened it shoot him in the gut--his I-dunno-I-just-eat-and-don't-get-fat gut. Then do the girl if she was still there.

  He paused. What was the noise? The TV? They were fucking and the TV was on? Maybe she was a screamer and Boggs kept the sound up so other guests wouldn't hear. That was good. Maybe it was a cop show and there'd be gunshots, which would help cover up the sou
nd of the Steyr.

  Nestor walked closer to the door. He pulled the slide back on the gun. He saw something flashing.

  That putz ...

  Boggs was so horny he'd left the key in the door, which wasn't even fully closed. All Nestor had to do was push inside. He made sure the safety was off, slipped his finger into the trigger guard and swung into the room.

  Empty.

  The bedclothes weren't even turned down.

  The bathroom was dark but he walked inside anyway, thinking that maybe they were fucking in the tub. But no, that was empty too. The only motion in the room was the flicker of the TV screen, on which several Hill Street Blues cops were looking solemn. Nestor shut off the set.

  Then he noticed that Boggs's bag was gone. Shit.

  He picked up the note, which rested on the pillow.

  Shit.

  Jack, Lynda--that's her name--and me went back to her house. Seems she is going to Atlanta tomorrow, that's a coinsidence, huh, so we're going to be driving together for a spell, her and me, I mean. I will meet you at your place in Florida in a couple days. Sorry, but you don't have legs like her.

  Son of a bitch.

  Motherfucker!

  Nestor kicked the bed furiously. The mattress bounced off the springs and came to rest at an angle. He slammed the door shut violently, which brought a sleepy protesting pounding from the next room over. Nestor hoped the guest would come over because he had an incredible desire to beat the living hell out of someone.

  He sat down on the bed, picturing Boggs balling the scrawny bitch while the passbook sat in a crumpled paper bag probably five feet away from them. The anger seeped away slowly, as he decided what to do.

  Well, it wasn't the end of the world. It was a change of plans was all. He had to kill the girl anyway--the one on the houseboat. He might as well do that now then get down to Atlanta or Florida and take care of Boggs. It didn't really matter who he did first.

  Six of one, half a dozen of another.

  THE WAY PIPER SUTTON FOUND OUT WAS THE POST HEAD-line: "TV Scoop Becomes Oops." Which she wouldn't have paid any attention to, except that on the front page was a picture of Rune talking to a couple of men in suits. They didn't look happy. Rune didn't either, and now Piper Sutton joined the club.

  Standing on the street corner near her apartment, she stared at the story. She'd bought the Post and then a Daily News and a Times. Ripping open each furiously, skirt and hair tousled by the wind as she stared at the smudged type. Thank God for a big assault in Central America that buried the Daily News story inside. The Times had simply reported, "Houseboat Burns in Hudson," with a reference to a possible convict's escape.

  But the Times would be on the story today. How the Fit-to-Print paper loved to take potshots at the competition, especially TV.

  Sutton flagged down a cab, giving up her usual mile walk to the office, and sat with the newspapers on her lap, staring out the window at people on their way to work. But not seeing a single one of them.

  At her office Sutton found her secretary juggling two calls.

  "Oh, Ms. Sutton, Mr. Semple has called several times, there're calls from all the local TV stations, and somebody from the Village Voice."

  The fucking Voice?

  "And a Mr. Miller, with the Attorney General's Office, then--"

  "Hold all the calls," Sutton hissed. "Ask Lee Maisel to come over. "Get me the legal department. I want Tim Krueger here in fifteen minutes. If any other reporters call tell them we'll have a statement by noon. If any of them say they have an earlier deadline take his or her name and let me know immediately." Sutton pulled her coat off. "And I want her. Now."

  "Who, Miss Sutton?"

  "You know who," Sutton replied in a whisper. "Now."

  RUNE HAD BEEN FIRED WORSE BUT THE SAD THING WAS that the other times she didn't really care.

  She'd screwed up often in the past, sure, but there's a big difference between getting fired from a video store or restaurant and getting fired from a real job, one you cared about.

  Usually she'd say, "Eh, happens," or "Them's the breaks."

  This was different.

  She'd wanted to do this story. Badly. She'd lived for this story. She'd breathed it and tasted it. And now not only was she getting axed but she was getting fired because the whole thing had been a complete lie. The very core, the most very basic fact was false. The worst. It was like reading a fairy tale and then the writer telling you, Oh, yeah, by the way, I was just kidding. There's no such thing as a demon.

  Although she had proof there was such a thing. And his name was Randy Boggs.

  Rune now stood in front of Piper Sutton's desk. Also in the room was a tall, thin, middle-aged man in a gray suit and white shirt. His name was Krueger. Lee Maisel leaned against the wall behind Sutton, reading the Post account. "Jesus Christ," he muttered. He looked at Rune with dark, impenetrable eyes and went back to the paper.

  "Tell me exactly what happened," Sutton said. "Don't embellish, don't minimize, don't edit."

  Rune explained about the fat man and Boggs and what happened on the houseboat. She added what Sam Healy had found out--that the police could find no leads to a Jack Nestor.

  "So Boggs did it, after all," Maisel said. "There was another killer but they were partners. Jesus."

  "Sort of looks like it." Rune wasn't counting "likes," "sort-ofs" and "kind-ofs." "When I saw them there, kind of hugging each other, I totally freaked. I mean ..." Her voice faded.

  Sutton closed her eyes and shook her head slowly, then asked the gray-suited man, "What's the legal assessment, Tim?"

  The lawyer said calmly, "I don't think we have any liability. We didn't fabricate evidence and the court decision was legitimate. I wish she"--not looking at Rune-- "hadn't gotten him released without telling anybody here. That adds another dimension."

  For the first time since she'd known him Maisel turned angry eyes on Rune. "Why didn't you tell me you were going to get Boggs sprung?"

  "I was worried about him. I--"

  Sutton couldn't keep cool any longer. "I've told you from the beginning that our job isn't to get people out of jail. It's to report the truth! That's the only job."

  "I just didn't think. I didn't think it would matter."

  "Didn't ... think." Sutton stretched the words out for a vast second.

  "I'm really--"

  Sutton turned to Maisel. "So, what's the next step?"

  "Nighttime News."

  The lawyer winced. "It's a New York story. Can't we justify keeping it local?"

  Maisel said, "No way. Time and Newsweek'll cover it. You know what the other nets are going to do and forget about the Times. They'll crucify us. It'll be understated but it'll still be a crucifixion."

  "We'll have to preempt them," Sutton said. "Put it on the News at Noon, then do a piece at five and have Eustice do it at seven. We tell all. We confess. Not a single word of excuse or backpedaling."

  Krueger said, "God, that'll hurt."

  Maisel sighed.

  The lawyer asked Rune, "You have any idea where Boggs went?"

  "All I know is like he came from the South. Atlanta was where he was born and he lived in Florida and North Carolina but other than that ..." She ended in a shrug.

  The lawyer said, "I'm going over to our law firm and brief the litigators, just in case." With a fast, curious glance at Rune he left the office. Sutton stared at the Daily News. Lee Maisel played with his pipe and sat in a slump. He was uncomfortable. Rune looked into his eyes, though his darted away quickly The disappointment she saw hurt her more than the hatred she felt gushing from Sutton.

  Oh, how could I do it?

  He believed in me and I let him down.

  Sutton looked at Rune. "Don't talk to the press about what happened. You've already blabbed your mouth off, I see." Waving her arm at the newspaper.

  Rune said, "I didn't say anything. The police must've told the reporters."

  "Well, all I'll say is, the Network is going to be in d
eep shit for this and heads are probably going to roll. If you make things worse for everybody because you can't keep your mouth shut, then you'll be opening yourself up to a big fat fucking lawsuit. You understand me?"

  Rune nodded.

  There was a long pause, broken by Sutton's saying, "Well, I guess that's it. You're out of here."

  Rune stared at her, blinked. "Just like that? Today?"

  "Sorry, Rune," Maisel said. "Today, yes. Now."

  Sutton added, "And don't take any files or cassettes with you. That's our property."

  "Do you mean I should go back to my job at the O&O?"

  Sutton looked at her with a disbelieving smile.

  Rune said, "You mean, I'm like totally fired."

  Sutton said, "Like totally."

  SAM HEALY WOKE UP AT EIGHT THE NEXT MORNING when Courtney emptied a box of Raisin Bran in their bed.

  The noisy cascade didn't wake Rune up.

  "Jesus Christ," Healy muttered and shook her arm. He rolled over. Rune opened her eyes and said, "What's that noise? That crunching?"

  Courtney stood in front of the bed and looked down at the flakes, frowning.

  Rune swung her feet over the side of the bed, her legs covered with cereal. "Courtney, what did you do?"

  "I'm sorry," the little girl said. "Spilled."

  Healy, who'd gotten home two hours before from duty watch, said, "I'm going into Adam's room." He vanished.

  Rune scooped the cereal up and brushed it off her legs, then put it back into the box. "You know better than that. Come on."

  "I know better."

  "Don't look so damn cute when I'm yelling at you."

  "Damn cute," Courtney said.

  "Come on." Rune trudged into the kitchen. She poured juice and bowls of cereal, made coffee. "Can we go to the zoo?" Courtney asked.

  "Tomorrow. I've got some errands to do first. You wanta come?"

  "Yeah, I wanta come." She held up her hand. "Five-high."

  Rune sighed then held up her hand. The little girl slapped it.

  chapter 28

  A HALF HOUR LATER RUNE AND COURTNEY GOT OFF THE E train at West Fourth and started walking down Christopher Street to the water. Rune paused at the West Side Highway, took a deep breath for courage then plunged around the corner to survey the damage to her late home.