Authors: Hank Phillippi Ryan
So here she was, once again a victim of her own damn ethics. Here she was, at the TV station that used to be her biggest competitor, discussing her third reporting job in five years. Not the most reliable-sounding résumé for a thirty-four-year-old, even in the nomadic climb-the-ladder world of journalism.
The intercom buzzed, and Tyson’s cell phone
ping
ed with a text.
“Sorry, Jane.” The news director tapped on his keyboard with one hand, used the other to grab his phone, tucking it under his chin. “Gotta take this.”
At least this time she wasn’t a supplicant. Marshall Tyson had called
her,
using a “heard you’re no longer with the paper” opening ploy in his voice mail, followed by “come chat if you’re interested in getting back on the air, if you’re not too busy.”
Busy? Jane had rolled her eyes as she listened to his message. Oh, she was busy. Busy being unemployed again. Busy facing her younger sister’s wedding this coming weekend. Busy entertaining bride-to-be Lissa, arriving in Boston this afternoon. Busy prepping to meet her sister’s fiancé, “Dan the man of mystery,” Jane privately called him, who’d arrive whenever Daniel Fasullo’s corporate jet landed from whatever exotic overseas location. Busy preparing for a trip home to the Chicago suburbs to play maid of honor.
The good news: Jake had promised to come with her to Chicago. This weekend.
Now that she was unemployed, and therefore no longer encumbered by the reporter/source prohibition against dating, she and Jake had been experimenting with going public with their … whatever it was. Relationship. Still being careful. But not always hiding.
Tyson was still deep in his phone conversation, looking out into the newsroom as he spoke. Jane followed his gaze, saw three young women at the assignment desk with two phones each plastered to their ears. Something was going on.
“When?” Tyson glanced at her, rolling his eyes in apology. She waved him off. She understood news came first. Anyway, it gave her time to think.
If Channel 2 offered her a job, did she want to go back to TV? Her bank account could certainly use the paycheck. And if the good guys quit, who’d be left? Maybe she could make a deal with Tyson to do only in-depth stories, groundbreaking investigative stuff.
Yes or no? Saying yes would mean she and Jake would have to return to the shadows. Right now, in this news director’s office, she had to decide: Love or money? Seemed like she was doomed not to have both.
But wait.
She could simply say maybe. Consider it, talk to Jake. If Channel 2 wanted her, they would wait. She mentally acknowledged her own wisdom, patted herself on the emotional back. She had control of her life. She needed to remember that.
Tyson raised a palm to her, pantomiming
sorry, one moment,
as he stood. His door opened. The newcomer, horn-rims and oxford shirt, clipboard, looked at Jane, assessing.
“Sorry to interrupt, Marsh, but—”
“We got anyone who can go over there?” the news director asked. He’d hung up the phone without saying good-bye. “Jane, this is Derek Estabrooks, our assignment guy. Derek? Anyone?”
“Negative, that’s the thing. Hey, Jane.” He acknowledged her with a quick up and down. “We got the morning crews doing outta-town live shots for the noon, and the next shift is the two thirty people, so we’re kinda screw—”
“You ever do freelance, Jane?” The news director, interrupting, pointed a forefinger at her. “We’ve got a big story we can send you on. Right now. You up for it? But we gotta have an answer. Right now. Yes or no?”
He’d gotten the shot. Totally what happened—well, not exactly totally, maybe. Bobby hadn’t been at Curley Park from the exact moment one. But how cool was it that the bus was late, and he’d been running behind for class anyway, and he always had his camera ready just in case. And blam, he’d clicked off, like, twenty shots in a row.
Had he gotten a good one of the stabbing? Of the person running away? He thought so, even just the back of him. Or her. He couldn’t wait to see, but he couldn’t take the time to check yet. If he had? This’d be big.
Bobby Riaz tried to look small and inconspicuous, his
RED SUX
T-shirt, with, like, the same typeface as Red Sox, so people sometimes didn’t get it,
morons,
was pretty much covered by his work shirt. Plus, nobody was looking at him right now. They were all looking at the dead guy under the Curley statue.
Television had that “Send it to 2” thing, where they’d show your photos or video or whatever. All he wanted was to be part of it. Get discovered. Move to LA and hit the big time. Photographer to the stars.
So far he’d been on “Send it” once, last winter, when that truck jackknifed off the Longfellow Bridge, and he’d gotten that photo from underneath, some kind of hot liquid sizzling down into the snow from however the engine worked, and those two huge tires hanging off the edge into nowhere. They’d put his actual name on the screen,
photo credit Bobby R,
for about five seconds, maybe more, but then they’d put it on the website, too. So it was almost like having a published photo, right? All except for the money. And he bet he could get big money for today’s. From someone. He just had to figure out who.
Luckily it wasn’t as hot as it had been, even though the sun was a bitch today. He twisted his camo cap around so the bill was shading his eyes, then turned it the cool way again. Life was all about the image. The sun was making weird glares on everything, and the trees, totally leafy and totally in the way, didn’t help. But he’d gotten something, he was sure. He had the eye. Even his mom said so.
His mom also said he’d get in trouble someday with his picture taking, but she was wrong, what did she know? The paparazzi were all over television, got big bucks and hung out with rock stars. Well, not exactly hung out, since they were always suing them and shit, but he was gonna be different. He figured that if you were nice to people, let them know you understood their fame, they’d let you take their pix.
And this moment, this very moment, might be the time his future would begin. But who would he be when that happened? He had to plan.
Who he was now? Bobby Riaz. What a sucky name. His mom’s name was Jones, even suckier. Maybe he’d be Rob Something, maybe. Rob Avedon? Which was totally made up and didn’t have anything to do with who he really was, but Avedon was a famous photographer, he’d learned that in class, and maybe people would think he was related. Who’d know? The guy was dead. Maybe he could be Bobby Arbus, after Diane. She was totally cool, and dead, too.
Kodak, that was too weird. Bobby Polaroid? He burst out laughing, then choked it back when some lady beside him took her eyes off the dead guy long enough to frown at him. Right, laughing at a murder, not cool. He coughed to cover it up. Pretended to talk into his Bluetooth earpiece. “Oh, so funny,” he said to no one. “But can’t talk now.”
Oh.
He had it! Bobby Land. Like Polaroid-Land, which he’d learned in class, too, a guy no one even knew about anymore. No one could argue about Bobby Land. He’d just let people think he was from a famous—and rich—family. Couldn’t hurt, and might even help.
Bobby Land the famous photographer. What was the Boston thing? One if by Land? He laughed again and got another glare from the stupid woman. He clicked off a shot of her when she wasn’t looking. Take that, sweetheart. There’s one by Land.
* * *
I’ll help you,
Tenley’s mother had told her.
Get your foot in the door,
her father had told her. “You already love computers, honey,” her mom had persisted, trying to brush her only daughter’s bangs out of her eyes. “You’ll love this, too.”
But here she was. Far from loving it.
Dying.
Tenley Siskel’s eyes were glazing over. Completely dying.
There was no way she could do this for much longer, none, let alone for the whole summer. She’d been literally
imprisoned
here in the City Hall traffic surveillance room a full solid three weeks now. She almost hadn’t managed to drag herself in here this Monday morning. All she could think about was lunch, and then how forever it was until four thirty.
The clock was literally not even moving.
Tenley eyed the others in the monitoring center. Losers. Eyes on their screens. So intent on making sure not one little thing in their assigned sectors of Boston escaped their scrutiny. If she had a choice, she’d never set one foot in this place again.
Maybe, after she quit, she’d stand down there on the sidewalk and wave up at the surveillance cameras. She pictured it, could almost see it, her giving the finger to loser city. On video. That’d be hilarious. They didn’t even save the digital fields, so they couldn’t prove she’d ever done it. Hilarious.
She understood Mom thought she was doing a good thing by finagling this three-month job for her. You needed about zero brain level to do it, and she was only a fill-in while the zeros who worked here took turns having their pitiful summer vacations. And not too deep down, Tenley felt bad about complaining. Mom—and Dad, too—had enough to think about.
The green digital numbers on her monitor proved it had been one minute since she’d last looked. Her ears felt weirdly light, because her mother warned her City Hall “frowned on piercings.” She adjusted her cardigan, buttoned carefully over her white T-shirt. As long as no one could see what was printed on it, they couldn’t “frown” on that. She’d roll up the waistband of her skirt the second she got out of here. But this was, like, her disguise. She wore it during the part of her life she simply had to endure.
Tenley started her video scan again, beginning in the upper left, like her supervisor had shown her the first day. Ward Dahlstrom had explained, in his “boss” voice, that she had sector one, the perimeter of City Hall. Like that was some huge whoop. If her mother was such a big shot around here, why couldn’t she get Tenley a more interesting job? But at least here she didn’t have to talk to anyone. Sometimes she hated to actually speak to people. You had to face them, watch them looking at you. You’d know what they were thinking, all critical and worried and smothery. And curious. Just dying to ask you a question.
Camera one, pointed northwest, the pedestrians on Cambridge Street, going to lunch, which of course
she
couldn’t do for another twenty-seven minutes, since Dahlstrom had given her the last lunch on the schedule, jerk that he was. She stared at the screen, at the boxy green “camera one” symbol blinking in the upper right corner, at the video pixels degrading around the edges, fluttering with its attempt to keep up with reality. But—nothing. The camera’s eye saw nothing she was supposed to watch for, no traffic jams, no disabled cars, not even a jaywalker. A world where nothing happened. Like a metaphor for her life. These days, at least.
Surveillance fatigue, she’d read about it, and she could totally see how it happened. She was already sick of watching these screens, cars and traffic lights, buses and motorcycles. People on camera were mostly blurs. If the light was exactly right, a face might come into focus, but only for a fraction of a second, just long enough to be annoying.
Her stomach grumbled, the last of the morning’s double-toasted-cut-in-half-and-then-half-again-the-other-way-with-extra-cream-cheese sesame bagel having long worn off. She could not believe she couldn’t bring coffee to her computer console. How was she supposed to live without coffee? Dahlstrom had said all liquids were verboten, a fireable offense. She’d looked up “verboten.” Fired over forbidden coffee. Might be worth it.
Camera two. She had to focus. Southwest, the brick expanse of City Hall Plaza, little makeshift stands selling cupcakes and bunches of flowers and home-grown vegetables. Blah blah blah. What if, like in one of her games, a huge flame-spewing dragon stomped its way across the—
She blew out a breath, willed herself not to look at the clock. Camera three. Nothing happening. Changed the screen.
Camera four, the monolith of the JFK Federal Building. Fuzzy pedestrians, nothing
ever
happened here. Why’d they have a camera? Worried some terrorists would rob the ancient basement coffee shop? Make off with a stash of expired candy bars? Ticktock, change the screen.
Camera five, northeast, she could actually see the Dunkin’ Donuts,
thanks, universe
for once again pointing out what she couldn’t have. A limousine sailed by, and Tenley imagined who might be inside, all leather and champagne.
Sometimes, just for grins, she looked for celebrities. Last Wednesday, she saw a guy who, for a second, she really thought was her fave singer Lachlan Zane, very underground and totally alt, and she’d considered maybe rocking a screen save, and maybe even selling it to one of the places that put cool or embarrassing stuff on TV, like that guy in the elevator, or that star who always destroyed hotel rooms.
It seemed like kind of a terrific idea until she’d realized how easy it would be to trace, and she’d be in deep trouble. Who knew what would have happened then, not to mention the level of grief she’d have to take from her parents.
Camera six. All fuzz. Pigeons nested in the little place above the screen and fritzed the heck out of it, pecking at the lens and perching on the connection. She’d report it. Soon.
Camera seven. Aimed at North Street and Faneuil Hall—Fan-You-Will, she called it, instead of Fan-yool, just to drive her mother crazy. She leaned forward, narrowing her eyes at the monitor.
Weird.
The shot was from high up, through the leafy trees, so it was like she was looking down from three stories onto the street. A row of touristy bars. The University Inn. The little alley by the wine store. The cameras were supposed to watch traffic and pedestrians on the streets, but—
weird.
Funny that there were so many people in this shot and so few in cameras four and five.
Tenley clicked the silver mouse to bring in a closer shot. She’d been in Curley Park a million times, it was right across from her bus stop. She couldn’t see much except trees, and tops of heads, and shadows. But there was sure an ambulance there.