Hard News

fantastic.”
    “Maybe. And maybe not,” Maisel said. “Let’s see how you feel about it after you’ve interviewed a hundred people and been up all night—”
    “I stay up late all the time.”
    “Editing tape?”
    Rune conceded, “Dancing usually.”
    Maisel said, “Dancing.” He seemed amused. He said, “Okay, here’s the situation. Normally we assign a staff producer but, for some reason, Piper wants you to work directly with me. Nobody else. I don’t have anybody to spare for camera work so you’re on your own there. But you know how the hardware works—”
    “I’m saving up to buy my own Betacam.”
    “Wonderful,” he said with a bored sigh, then selected a pipe and took a leather pouch of tobacco from his desk.
    A secretary’s spun-haired head appeared. She said that Maisel’s eleven o’clock appointment had arrived. His phone started ringing. His attention was elsewhere now. “One thing,” he said to Rune.
    “What?”
    “I’ll support you a hundred percent if you stick to the rules, wherever the story takes you. But you fuck with the facts, you try to
create
a story when there isn’t one there, you speculate, you lie to me, Piper or the audience, and I’ll cut you loose in a second and you’ll never work in journalism in this city again. Got that?”
    “Yes sir.”
    “So. Get to work.”
    Rune blinked. “That’s it? I thought you were going to, like, tell me what to do or something.”
    As he turned to the phone Maisel said abruptly, “Okay, I’ll tell you what to do: You think there’s a story out there? Well, go get it.”
    “ THIS AIN’ YOU.”
    “Sure it is. Only what I did with my hair was I used henna and this kind of purple stuff then I’d use mousse to get it spiky….”
    The security guard at the New York State Department of Correctional Services’ Manhattan office looked at Rune’s laminated press pass from the Network, dangling a chrome chain tail. It showed a picture of her with a wood-peckery, glossy hairdo and wearing round, tinted John Lennon glasses.
    “This ain’ you.”
    “No, really.” She dug the glasses out of her purse and put them on then grabbed her hair and pulled it straight up. “See?”
    The guard looked back and forth for a moment from the ID to the person, then nodded and handed the pass back to her. “You want my opinion, keep that stuff outta yo hair. That ain’ healthy for nobody”
    Rune put the chain necklace over her head. She walked into the main office, looking at the bulletin boards, the government-issue desks, the battered water fountains. It seemed like a place where people in charge of prisons should work: claustrophobic, colorless, quiet.
    She thought about poor Randy Boggs, serving three years in his tiny cell.
    The first thing you think is Hell, I’m still here
….
    A tall man in a rumpled cream-colored suit walked past her, glancing down at her pass. He paused. “You’re press?”
    Rune didn’t understand him at first. “Oh, press. Yeah. I’m a reporter.
Current Events
. You know, the news—”
    He laughed. “Everybody knows
Current Events.”
He stuck his hand out. “I’m Bill Swenson. Head of press relations here.”
    She shook his hand and introduced herself. Then she said, “I guess I’m looking for you. I have to talk to somebody about interviewing a prisoner.”
    “Is this for a story?”
    Rune said, “Uh-huh.”
    “Not a problem. But you don’t have to go through us. You can contact the warden’s office directly for permission and then the prisoner himself to arrange a time to meet if the warden agrees.”
    “That’s all?”
    “Yes,” Swenson said. “What facility?”
    “Harrison.”
    “Doing hard time, huh?”
    “Yeah, I guess it would be.”
    “Who’s the prisoner?”
    She was hesitating. “Well …”
    Swenson said, “We’ve got to know. Don’t worry— I won’t leak it. I didn’t get where I am by screwing journalists.”
    She said, “Okay, it’s Randy Boggs. He was convicted of killing Lance Hopper.”
    Swenson nodded. “Oh, sure, I remember that case. Three years ago. Hopper worked for your company, right? Wait, he was
head
of the Network.”
    “That’s right. Only the thing is, I think Boggs is innocent.”
    “Innocent, really?”
    Rune nodded. “And I’m going to try to get the case reopened and get him released. Or a new trial.”
    “That’s going to make one hell of a story.” Swenson glanced up and down the halls. “Off the record?”
    “Sure.”