Hard News

the conviction, probably. But the judge might go for a new trial. I’m not saying yes, I’m not saying no. There’s new evidence, then there’s new
evidence
. What you’re telling me, this was evidence that could have been discovered at the time of the trial.”
    “I was sort of wondering about that. How come
you
didn’t find Frost?”
    “Hey, I was making minimum wage on that case. I don’t have an expense account like you newspeople do. I don’t sit around at five o’clock drinking manhattans in the Algonquin.”
    “What’s a manhattan?”
    “A drink. You know, rye and vermouth and bitters. Look, the Boggs trial, I did what I could. I had limited resources. That was his problem. He didn’t have any money.”
    The tail of the last hot dog disappeared. Rune had an image of a big fish eating a small fish.
    “Doesn’t sound like justice to me.”
    “Justice?” Megler asked. “You want to know what justice is?”
    Rune sure did and as she pressed the record button on the little JVC camcorder hidden from his view in her leopard-skin bag, Megler—who could probably have cited all kinds of laws on being taped surreptitiously—was polite enough to finish chewing and to take on a reflective expression before he spoke again. “Justice in this country is luck and fate and circumstances and expedience. And as long as that’s true, people like Randy Boggs’re going to serve time they shouldn’t.”
    “Will you handle the case?”
    “We had a conversation about my fee….”
    “Come on. He’s innocent. Don’t you want to help him out?”
    “Not particularly. I don’t give money to homeless people. Why should I be more generous with my time?”
    “I don’t believe you.” Rune’s voice went high. “You—”
    “Would your network pay my bill?”
    Something sounded wrong about it. She said, “I don’t think that’d be ethical.”
    “What, ethical? I wouldn’t get into hot water for that.”
    “I meant journalists’ ethics.”
    “Oh,
your
ethics.” He swilled the last of the Pepsi, glanced down and noticed a spot on his navy-blue tie. He took a pen from his pocket and scribbled back and forth on the tie until the smudge was obscured. “Well, that’s the net-net. I work, I get paid. That’s carved in stone. But you got some options. There’s Legal Aid. Or ACLU—those dips get orgasmic, they get a case like this. One of those three-piece do-gooders from Yale or Columbia or Hahvahd might get wind of it and pick up the case. So you run your story—I’ll guarantee you, some scrawny little NYU graduate’ll be banging on your door begging to get Boggs’s phone number.”
    “But that could take months. He’s got to get out now. His life’s in danger.”
    “Look, I’ve got to walk back to that hellhole in twenty minutes and stand next to a man who—it is alleged—machine-gunned three rival gang members while he told Po-lack jokes to one of his mistresses. I have to stand there and listen to the judge explain to him that he’s going to spend at least fifteen years in a ten-by-twenty cell. When he came to me he said, ‘Fred, I hear good things ‘boutchu. You get me off. You do that? You get me off.’”
    He laughed and slapped his chest. “Hey, I
didn’t
get him off. He’s not happy and he and his friends are killers. What I’m saying is, Boggs’s in danger,
I’m
in danger. Think about it. You’re in danger too.
You’re
the one saying the cops, the prosecutor and your own Network’re a bunch of dickheads.
Life
is dangerous. What can I say?”
    Megler looked at his watch. “Time to do my bit to beautify America and get some more garbage off the street.”
    “I’ve got an offer,” Rune said.
    The lawyer looked over his shoulder. “Make it fast. You don’t keep drug lords waiting.”
    She said, “You know how many people watch
Current Events?”
    “No and I don’t know the average annual rainfall in the Amazon either. Do I care?” He started up the stairs.
    “Depends on whether or not you want ten million people to see your name and face and hear what kind of incredible work you do.”
    Fred Megler stopped.
    Rune repeated, “Ten million.”
    Megler glanced at the courthouse door. He muttered something to himself and walked back down the steps.
    ME, OKAY. I WAS BORN IN ATLANTA, AND WE LIVED THERE for ten years before our daddy decided he was going to the land of greater opportunity which was the way he put it, and I can still remember him saying