Hard News

all.
    She’d kill them herself.

    chapter 30    
     
    BRADFORD SIMPSON WAS UNEASY.
    “The word is Piper wants you drawn and
eighthed
. Quartered isn’t good enough.”
    “Look, I just need to get into the newsroom.”
    “If I were you I wouldn’t be in the same
city
as Piper Sutton,” the young preppy said. “The same
building
is a very, very bad idea. Very bad.”
    They were at Kelly’s, a bar on the southern end of Columbus Avenue, around the corner from the Network. The shabby place couldn’t make up its mind whether it wanted to be the home base for yuppies who traded insider information or for IRA sympathizers who argued politics.
    Rune ordered Bradford another martini, a reporter’s drink. And one calculated to make him agreeable. She asked him again to get her inside the Network and appended a heartfelt “Please.”
    “What for? Tell me what for.”
    “I can’t. It’s just really, really important.”
    “Give me a clue.” He speared the olive expertly. Connecticutians are good with martinis.
    “You know, that might not be the best question to ask. I don’t think you really want to know.”
    “Now that’s an honest response. I don’t like it but it’s an honest response.”
    “What’s the worst that could happen?” she asked.
    “I could get fired, arrested and sent to jail on Rikers Island.”
    “If anybody asks I’ll tell them I snuck in. I promise. I wouldn’t jeopardize your career. I know what it means to you. Please, help me out. Just this once.”
    “You’re very persuasive,” he said.
    “I haven’t even started trying yet.”
    He looked at his watch. “What am I supposed to do?”
    “Nothing serious.”
    “Just distract the guard while you slip in?”
    “No, it’s a lot easier than that. All you’ve got to do is deactivate the alarm on the fire door downstairs, open it up and let me in. Piece of cake.”
    “Oh, Christ.” The young man looked worried sick at this assignment. He poured down the last slug of martini. “And look at it this way,” Rune said. “If you
do
get arrested and sent to Rikers Island you’ll be able to do a great exposé on what life’s like in prison. What an opportunity.”
    IT DIDN’T GO QUITE THE WAY SHE’D PLANNED IT.
    She got in okay, thanks to Bradford. She even managed to get to her old desk unseen.
    The problem was that someone had beat her there.
    Everything about Boggs was gone.
    Rune went through every drawer, every shelf of her credenza, every wadded-up Lamston’s and Macy’s bag under the desk. But there was zip about Randy Boggs. All the files, the background tapes, the notes—gone.
    Who’d done it? she wondered.
    Rune sat at the desk until six P.M., when the first live Network newscast began. Everyone’s attention was on the far side of the studio and not a soul noticed Rune walk up to a gaffer, a heavyset man in jeans and a white striped shirt. He wore a Mets cap. He was sipping coffee from a cardboard cup, watching the attractive Asian anchor-woman deliver a story about the mayor’s press conference.
    “Hey, Rune,” he said, then looked back to the set. “Welcome back.”
    “Danny, I need some help,” she said.
    “Help?” he asked.
    “You’re on set here every day, right?”
    “Yep. Working overtime to buy my boat.”
    “Somebody went through my desk recently. You see who it was, by any chance?”
    He sipped more coffee, avoiding her eyes. “I’m off shift.”
    “Danny.”
    “Thought you were fired.”
    “I am. But I need your help. Please.”
    He stared at the newscaster, whose short-cut hair shone under the lights like a blue-black jewel. He sighed. “I saw.”
    “Who was it?”
    “Oh, brother …”
    RANDY BOGGS HADN’T BEEN ON AN AIRPLANE IN YEARS but he was surprised to find that they hadn’t changed much. Seemed there were more men flight attendants and it seemed the food was better (though maybe that was just because of what he’d been eating off metal trays for the past thirty-three months, fifteen days).
    He remembered what the United Airlines clerk who’d sold him this ticket had said about no one ever dying from getting asked out and he kept up that attitude on the plane, practicing a bit of flirting with the female flight attendants.
    He’d dozed and had had a dream that he couldn’t remember now and then the weather got rough and the seat belt sign came on. He didn’t mind flying but he hated the insides of airplanes. For one thing, the dry, close air bothered