Hard News

professional name.”
    “A professional name?” Maisel was fighting to keep down the smile.
    “Irene Dodd Simons.”
    “Is that your real name?” the anchorwoman asked.
    “Sort of.”
    Sutton said, “Sort of.” And shook her head then added, “At least it sounds like the name of somebody who knows what she’s doing.” She pulled her personal calendar out of her purse; the scents of perfume and suede followed it. “Okay, honey, first we’ll get together and do a script—”
    “A script?” Rune blinked. “But it’s all finished.” She nodded at the sheets in front of them.
    Sutton laughed. “No, babes, I mean a
real
script. We’ll meet at six-thirty tomorrow morning in the
Current Events
newsroom.”
    Rune’s first thought was: Shit, a baby-sitter. Where’m I going to get a sitter? She smiled and said, “Six, if you want.”
    “Six-thirty’ll be fine.”
    YOU DON’T HAVE A RIGHT TO TALK ON THE PHONE BUT they usually let you.
A privilege, not a right
. (One day, Boggs’d heard some prisoner yelling, “Gimme the phone! We got rights.” A guard had answered, pretty politely under the circumstances, “You got what we give you, asshole.”)
    But maybe because Boggs had been knifed or maybe because he wasn’t a punk or just maybe because it was a nice warm day, the guard in charge of the mail and telephone room sent somebody to find him so he could take the call.
    “Randy, how you feeling?” Rune asked.
    “That you, miss?”
    “You out of the infirmary?”
    “Kicked my butt out yesterday. No pain to speak of, unless I stretch. I read that story. In the book you give me. I like it. Don’t think I look much like him, though, and if I ever stole fire from the gods I sure don’t know a fence who’d handle it….” He paused and she laughed, like she knew she was supposed to, figuring he’d probably spent a good amount of time thinking up the joke. Which he had.
    “Guess what?” she asked.
    “Don’t know.”
    “I found a new witness.”
    “New witness?”
    “Sure did.”
    “Well, my, tell me about it.”
    She did, from start to finish, all about Bennett Frost, and Randy Boggs didn’t utter a single word the entire time she was speaking. In fact, not a single syllable or grunt or even a breath.
    When she was through there was silence for a long moment.
    “Well,” she said, “you’re not saying anything.”
    “I’m grinning, though, I’ll tell you that. Damn, I can’t believe it. You done yourself something, miss.”
    “What’s going to happen now is I’m going to try to get the program on the air next week. Megler said that if he gets his name and picture on the story he’ll do the motion for a new trial for free.”
    “Mr. Megler said that?”
    “It hurt him to. I could see the pain but he said he would. He said if the judge buys it, and grants the motion, you could be out right away.”
    “The judge might not grant it, though, I suppose.”
    “Fred said that having the program on
Current Events
would really help. The judge’d be like more inclined to release you, especially if he was up for reelection.”
    “Well, damn. Goddamn. What do I do now?”
    “You just take care of yourself for the next week. Don’t go getting knifed anymore.”
    “No, ma’am … One thing … What you did …?”
    Silence.
    “I guess I’m trying to say thank you.”
    “I guess you just did.”
    After they hung up, Randy Boggs, the grin still on his face, left the administration building to go find Severn Washington and tell him the news.
    AS BOGGS LEFT THE BUILDING, ANOTHER PRISONER , A short Colombian, followed, then overtook him. Prisoners like this were what used to be called trusties in the prisons of the forties and fifties and were now generally known as pricks or assholes or scum. He’d just had a short conversation with the guard he worked for, the guard who randomly monitored prisoners’ phone conversations. The prisoner smiled at Boggs, said,
“Buenas dias,”
and walked ahead, not hearing what Boggs said in reply. He didn’t particularly care what the response was. He was in a hurry. He wanted to get to Juan Ascipio as soon as he could.

    chapter 21    
     
    RUNE DECIDED SHE’D FOUND A GREAT NEW DRUG, ONE that was completely legal and cheap. It was called “awake,” and you didn’t even take it. All you did was not sleep for thirty hours straight and it sent you right on the most excellent psychedelic trip you could imagine.
    Gremlins climbed out