The Journalist (20 page)

“Maybe the hole-in-one.”

“Maybe. Meantime, what’s going on otherwise,
with our darling Channel 10 news video and Manny’s office and all
that other sweetness from the Capital of DC where resides Benny and
his house guest, God?”

“Wanna look at TV?” Ted reached for the
remote control. “Or did you want to kick a hole in it?”

“Don’t turn it on. I want to think for a
minute.” Zack nodded at the empty Mr. Coffee carafe. “We need some
water.”

Ted frowned.

Zack tilted his head. “Please. You need to
comb your hair anyway.”

“I could use a shower, too.” Ted took the
pot. “So could you.” He left.

“Thanks.” Zack studied
The New York
Times
headline: PRESIDENT GUARANTEES LAW AND ORDER. He looked
at
The Boca
’s headline for the tenth time: CHIEF DENIES
IT

He scanned Jimbo’s column that Mary had
read to him last night:

questions remain unanswered regarding the
already infamous Channel 10 video


“They sure do,” Zack mumbled and read on:

The incident allegedly took place this past
Thursday evening on Key Largo. WSUN-TV, Channel 10, was the first
TV station to broadcast the video of the homicide


“Woopee

” Zack said
and continued:

Deputy Police Chief Glenda Bruno staunchly
denies that any Miami police were involved in any way

she held firm to her story that none of her patrol
cars were anywhere near Key Largo the night of the
incident

If Glenda and the chief are
accurate, the million-dollar question looms big as a Mack truck:
who were the alleged officers on the tape? One thing is certain: an
African-American woman was murdered

Her
identity remains a mystery.

Zack looked up, “Are You seeing all
this?”

Chapter Thirty

10:45 a.m.
EST

Having returned to Zack’s office, Ted began
preparing the Mr. Coffee for brewing.

“Something stinks,” Zack said.

“I think it’s us.”

Zack strained to observe Ted’s coffee
preparation. “You okay on that?”

“Yep-purr.”

“Seven scoops.”

“How could anyone forget?”

“Heaping.”

“Why not eight?”

“I tried eight. Seven, heaping, is best.”
Zack held
The Boca
up and pointed to the headline. “I like
our headline, Ted.”

“I knew you would.” Finished with the coffee,
Mr. Coffee trickling, Ted took the clicker and turned the TV
on.

“Thought we weren’t going to turn that on,”
Zack said.

“Habit-forming.” Ted clicked to FOX. “There’s
that distinguished Channel 10 video again.”

“At least.”

Ted clicked to ABC and recognized Tony
Nastase, local black advocate of street people and general
rabble-rouser.

“Well, now, look here. Tony Nastase is being
interviewed,” Ted said.

“Turn that up.” Zack said.

Ted increased the volume, threw the remote on
Zack’s desk and sat on the sofa.

A fair-haired female reporter holding a
Channel 6 microphone asked, “But, Mr. Nastase, how can you say you
call for freedom and justice when you condone this violence? Does
that mean freedom to riot?”

Tall and skinny, dressed in black cloth,
Nastase held a large white sign with RAGE printed in dripping red.
He ranted: “You call it riot. We choose to call it freedom of
expression. How else can the people speak? We are being oppressed.
Not only the street’s people but all people: white peoples, red
peoples, black peoples. They don’t get a chance at the big pie in
the sky. It sucks.”

Reporter: “Do you think perhaps you may be
contributing, that possibly this thing may blow out of proportion
soon?”

Nastase: “What proportion? Your rich-man
proportion? What is proportion? A sister has been raped

Murdered

And now official
Miami is denying it. Rage on, I tell you, rage on

”

Chants in the background: “Rage on, rage,
rage

”

Zack turned the volume down and rubbed his
chin. “Ted, maybe our ‘denying it’ headline wasn’t such a good idea
after all.”

“Like Mary said, could have second-guessed
the thing all night.”

Zack walked to the coffee maker, replaced the
glass pot with his stein, watched the stein fill, replaced the
glass pot, took a taste and frowned. “Did you heap the scoops?”

“Yes.”

“Doesn’t taste right.”

Ted shrugged. “I tried.”

“Could have used more heaps in your scoops.”
Zack returned to his desk and sat. “Did you get the message to
Jimbo, our meeting this morning?”

“Mary said she would.” Ted went to the
finished brewing coffeepot and filled a cup.

Zack punched Jim’s number into his video
phone. “Let’s see if hotshot is up.”

Ted sat on the sofa.

After five rings Jim answered to a blank
video screen. “Roberts.”

Zack leaned into his phone’s camera. “Turn
your camera on.”

“Zackary

just a
minute.”

Waiting, Zack sniffed his coffee and thought
he should have measured the coffee himself. Then he thought how
good coffee tasted on board
Veracity
, five miles out in the
Atlantic

air clean, sky pristine blue. “The
red snapper will be biting good today, Ted.”

“Yep-purr.”

Zack’s phone displayed a picture of Jim
snugging his bathrobe belt. He sat in front of his phone’s
camera.

“Zackary, what’s going on?”

“Nice bathrobe.”

“Thanks. Renato Balestra, devóre silk, gift.
What’s going on?”

“From Renato?”

“Renato is the designer, a lady friend bought
it. What’s going on?”

“Say good morning to Ted.” Zack sipped.

“Morning, Ted

I can’t
see you.”

“Hearing me is enough. Morning,” Ted
said.

Zack said, “I read your story. Short but
good, Mr. Roberts.”

“Thank you, Bwana.”

“What did Chief Manny say?”

“Thought you said you read my story.”

“I did. I wanted to hear it from the pony’s
mouth.”

“I didn’t talk to Manny

talked to his deputy, Glenda.”

“Why?” Zack said.

“Manny won’t talk to me

think he likes to talk to O’Brien, has a crush on
her.”

“Yep-purr.” Ted picked a tooth.

Zack paused then said, “And Glenda is denying
everything.”

Jim said, “Yep. They have no record of or
reason for any of their people being out in Monroe County, no
written reports, no two-way radio reports—nothing. And they record
everything. One thing Glenda said, though, off the record, is
puzzling.”

After a few seconds, Zack said, “Is this like
we’re supposed to stump the host, part two, or what?”

“Tire tracks in the sand

around the crime scene

three
or four different sets. One set was from a heavy vehicle, like a
small truck, dual wheels. And—get this—there were five different
sets of footprints.”

“So?”

“There were only three people on the
video.”

Zack said, “It’s a beach road, so what?”

“That’s what I asked Glenda. She said that it
looked peculiar. The area was remote, and there were no other
tracks in the vicinity—forensics is checking it out. The white car,
a late model Lincoln and the cop car tracks looked like they had
pulled in, turned around several times. And the five sets of
footprints, like I said, is puzzling.”

Zack, nursing his coffee, felt it there
again—Joe Case’s presence. He walked to the office window and
looked out. Black smoke rose in the turquoise morning sky. He
thought about
Veracity
, and a small piece of him longed to
be away from it all, out on the water with the wind and the silence
and the invisible shoreline. But he couldn’t just yet. He still had
things to do.

He nodded out the window, said, “Ted, take a
gawk.”

Jim’s voice echoed across the room, “You
know, I can’t see either of you now. You do know how these phones
work, don’t you? There’s a camera you get in front of, look
into.”

Zack raised his voice toward the phone. “Can
you hear?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Words will do.”

Ted stepped to the window and looked past
Zack. “Yep-purr.”

After thirty seconds, Jim said, “Still can’t
see you guys.”

“And seeing is believing, right?” Zack
stepped to his desk and looked at the image of Jim.

Jim held a saucer and drank from a coffee
cup.

“Where’d that come from?” Zack said

“What?”

“In your hands?”

Zack noticed a slender hand with long,
red-varnished fingernails, reach to pour, from a small silver
pitcher, cream in Jim’s coffee.

Jim smiled. “Café Aromatisé, hazelnut and
cream.”

“Sleep good?” Zack said.

Jim smiled again.

Zack said, “Meantime, what are you going to
do for an encore, Mr. Roberts?”

“An encore

I just
got to bed a few hours ago.”

“C-minus. Want to try again?”

“You read my piece. Nobody knows
nothing.”

Zack cut him off. “You need to get answers,
massa. Like who is the dead lady, as in victim? If those
two-in-blue weren’t Miami cops, who were they? And why aren’t the
local city hall elected elite out on the courthouse steps bugling
vote-getting sound bites for the TV boobs?” He sipped. “Benny sure
as hell is.”

Jim said, “A beleaguered police chief is
simply trying to cover his derriere.”

“At least we know what point of view Mr.
Roberts is coming from,” Zack said.

Ted returned to the sofa and sat. “You know,
it’s been—what?—about eighteen hours ago that Channel 10 video hit
the airwaves. Why haven’t they arrested those two cops?”

Jim waved. “Hello, Mr. I.Q., did we miss
something? They can’t arrest anybody if they got nobody around that
resembles the guys on the tape. No record of the stop

”

“Maybe this is all a promotion campaign, hype
to boost Channel 10’s news ratings,” Ted said.

Jim said, “Kill a person for that? You’re
sick, Stallings.”

Zack leaned back. “We’re not doing our job,
gentlemen. We have got to do more digging.”

“Like what?” Jim said.

Zack sat up. “Like what?—from the ace
journalist in Miami? Like, where the hell did that now famous video
come from?”

Jim said, “I called around several news
networks this morning, before I got to sleep.”

“Was there a mint on your pillow?” Zack
said.

“News producers, all, said they are claiming
Channel 10 as the source and running the video.”

“You see, you see how nutty this thing can
get

” Zack kicked his desk. “We have to get
back to Channel 10, demand to know that video’s source.”

“Demand sources? You kidding?” Jim said.

Ted began, “Persons connected with or
employed by a newspaper, magazine, periodical, television, radio,
broadcast property, press association, wire service, cannot be
adjudged in contempt by a judicial, legislative

”

Zack held his hand up. “Ted, I know what the
shield law is

”

“ administrative body or any other body
having the power to issue subpoenas, for refusing to disclose any
unpublished information obtained or prepared in gathering,
receiving or processing of information for communication to the
public and includes, but is not limited to, notes, out takes,
photographs, tapes or other

”

“Okay, okay, I got it

” Zack said. “But I’m still going to demand to know
where Channel 10 got that video.”

“Come on, Zackary. Demand sources—who are you
kidding?” Jim said.

“Roundaboutly, Ted just said that.”

“We don’t divulge sources, nobody
does—can’t,” Jim said.

Zack raised a hand over his head and smashed
his desk with a tightened fist. Papers flew everywhere. “That’s
what I’m goddamned talking about

”

“Didn’t you refuse to divulge a source once,
and you went to jail?” Ted tilted his head.

Ignoring him, Zack persisted. “Experts say,
doctors report, scientists divulge, Julius Caesar decreed—doesn’t
anybody ask questions anymore? I don’t understand.” He paused at
Ted’s smirk. “I wouldn’t divulge a source to a local judge and went
to jail for three days. Big deal. That was a protected right.”

“What is this?” Jim asked.

Zack stood and began pacing behind his desk.
“That is the dilemma, Mr. Roberts. Divulging a reliable source,
faking a source and having no source gets balled up with something
called professional ethics. I know that’s an exotic expression
bantered around in cloistered halls of attorney privilege nowadays,
but it’s a serious problem. And it gets tangled up with the First
Amendment

blah, blah, blah.”

There was a pause, then Jim spoke. “Okay, so,
what’s next?”

Absorbed in his previous thought, Zack
continued, “If you need a source, make one up then use that one as
the reliable source. If you need another, say you got it from your
Uncle Freddy or Aunt Ida.” He kicked his desk. “You see? You see
how nuts this makes me? Anybody with a cause can dummy up a source
like little ravioli coming out of some dapper dan’s latest pasta
machine.”

Zack stroked the hair on top of his head and
sat behind his desk.

Jim reasoned, “You know

remember six months ago, Tina Taylor, Deputy Chief,
fired by Manny—she claimed, because she wouldn’t give him
a

”