Hard News

through the closets and drawers in the bedroom and in the little supply room that had another dresser in it. He went through the kitchen and the refrigerator, which was the first place that most people who thought they were clever hid things and which was the first place most professional thieves looked.
    After an hour he was convinced she didn’t have anything here that interested—or worried—him.
    Which meant the files would be at her office and that was a pain in the ass.
    Nestor looked around and sat down on the couch. He had a decision to make. He could wait here until she came back and just waste her. Get it over with, make it look like a robbery. The cops would probably buy that. He was always surprised how people craved to accept the most obvious explanations. Easier all the way around. Robbery and murder.
    Or rape and murder.
    On the other hand, that might leave a lot of material floating around somewhere, material that shouldn’t be floating around.
    Still …
    A car door slammed. He was up fast, glancing out the window. He saw her—not a bad-looking girl if she didn’t wear those stupid clothes, like the striped black-and-yellow tights and red miniskirt. It turned him off and made him resent her….
    Oh, he knew that emotion. The feeling that he’d get looking at a wiry brown-skinned man in a khaki uniform, looking at him through a telescopic sight, feeling the hatred, working up a wild, spiraling fury (maybe because Nestor was sweating like a steam pipe in the heat or because bugs were digging into his skin or because he had a glossy, star-shaped scar on his belly). Resentment, hate. He needed those feelings—to help him pull the trigger or press the knife in as deeply as he could.
    Boots scraped on the asphalt outside.
    Nestor felt a low itching and rubbed his scar. He felt the weight of the Steyr automatic in his pocket.
    But he left it where it was and climbed out onto the deck.
    He watched her open the door, clumsy, tilting against the weight of a movie camera and cassettes and a leather belt of batteries or whatever, which looked like a bandolier of M16 clips. She stacked it all by the door and disappeared into the bedroom. He waited a few minutes to see if he’d get a glimpse of skin but when she came out in a boring work shirt and stretch pants he silently left the boat and disappeared into the West Village.

    chapter 15    
     
    “ A GENIUS, BUT ALWAYS CONTROVERSIAL…”
    Click.
    “A genius, but always controversial, Lance Hopper …”
    Click.
    Rune hit the rewind button again. It was a good shot of him: Lance Hopper. Or a good shot of his mortal remains, at any rate—the gurney holding his body as it was wheeled out of the deadly courtyard three years before. She wished she could use the footage. Unfortunately, it had been filmed by another station.
    “…
controversial, Lance Hopper was disliked by co-workers and competitors alike. Although under his leadership the seven P.M. national news program rose to number one in the ratings, he managed to embroil the network in several major scandals. Among them was an uproar caused by numerous firings of staff members, massive and—his critics said—arbitrary budgetary cutbacks and intense scrutiny of the network’s news programs and their content
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    “Perhaps the incident that gave his network the blackest eye, however, was an Equal Employment Opportunity suit brought by five women employees who claimed that Hopper’s hiring and promotion practices discriminated against them. Hopper denied the charges and the suit was settled out of court. Associates of the late executive, though, admitted that he preferred men in executive positions and felt that a woman had no business in the higher echelons of network news. His flamboyant personal life belied that reputed prejudice
,
however, and he was often seen in the company of attractive women from society and the entertainment industry. There were rumors of bisexual behavior and of his having had several young male models as companions. His penchant, however, was for tall blondes….”
    Click.
    Tall blondes. Why is it always tall blondes?
    Rune was at her desk, surrounded by piles of newspapers, magazines, computer printouts, videocassettes and the refuse from a dozen fast-food meals. It was four-thirty in the afternoon and everyone was gearing up for the news at seven. She felt that she was in the eye of a hurricane. Motion everywhere. Frantic, crazed motion.
    Rune had also