Hard News Page 10

  Outside a harried woman employee of the Network stood on the sidewalk. Her husband--a young professional--walked up to her with their two young children in tow. It had apparently been his turn to pick up the kids tonight.

  The mother gave them perfunctory hugs and then started making weekend plans with her husband. Their daughter, a redhead about Courtney's age, tugged on her mother's Norma Kamali skirt. "Mommy ..."

  "Just a minute," the woman said sternly. "I'm speaking to your father." The little girl looked sullenly off.

  Rune gave the kid a smile but she didn't respond. The family walked off.

  Man, I'm beat, she thought.

  But as she walked south she felt the cool, electric-scented city night air waking her up and she saw from the clock on the MONY tower that it was early, only eight P.M. Early? Rune remembered when quitting time had been five. She continued down Broadway, past the pastel carnival of Lincoln Center--pausing, listening for music but not hearing any. Then she continued south, deciding to walk home, a couple miles, to get the blood back in her legs. Thinking of what she needed to do for the story. Getting her hands on the police report of the Hopper case was the number-one item.

  Then she'd have to talk to all the witnesses. Get Megler on tape. Maybe interview the judge. Find some jurors. She wondered if there was an old priest who knew Boggs. A Spencer Tracy sort of guy. Ah, well, now, sure I'd be knowing the boy Randy and I'll tell you, he helped out in soup kitchens and took care of his mother and left half his allowance in the collection plate every Sunday when he was an altar boy....

  A lot to do.

  She walked through Hell's Kitchen. Her head swiveled as she went down Ninth Avenue. Disappointed. The developers were doing a number on the area. Boxy high-rises and slick restaurants and co-ops. What she liked best about the neighborhood was that it had been the home of the Gophers, one of the toughest of the nineteenth-century gangs in New York. Rune had been reading about old gangs lately. Before she got waylaid by the Boggs story she'd been planning a documentary on them. The featured thugs were going to be the Gophers and their sister gang, the Battle Row Ladies' Social and Athletic Club (also known as the Lady Gophers). Not a single producer had been very interested in the subject. The Mafia and Colombians and Jamaicans with machine guns were still the current superstars of crime and there wasn't much demand for stories about people like One-Lung Curran and Sadie the Goat and Stumpy Malarky.

  Her feet were aching by the time she got to her neighborhood. She stopped outside the houseboat, looked at the dark windows for a moment. Behind her another family walked past, a mother and father and their child, a cute boy of about five or six. He was asking questions-- where does the Hudson River go, what kind of fish are in it--and together the mother and father were making up silly answers for the boy. All three of them were laughing hard. Rune felt an urge to join in but she resisted, realizing that she was an outsider. When they had passed she walked up the gangplank and inside the houseboat. She dropped her bag by the door and stood listening, her head cocked sideways. A car horn, a helicopter, a backfire. All the sounds were distant. None of what she heard was coming from inside the houseboat, nothing except her own heartbeat and the creak of boards beneath her feet.

  She reached for the lamp but slowly lowered her hand and instead felt her way to the couch and lay down on it, staring up at the ceiling, at the psychedelic swirls of lights reflecting off the turbulent surface of the Hudson. She lay that way for a long time.

  AN HOUR LATER RUNE WAS SITTING IN AN OVERHEATED subway car as it stammered along the tracks. She did an inventory of the tools of the trade in her bag--a claw hammer, a canister of military tear gas, two screwdrivers (Phillips head and straight), masking tape and rubber gloves. Her other accessories included a large bucket, a string mop and a plastic container of Windex.

  She was thinking about the law too and wondered if the crime was less if it wasn't breaking and entering. If you just entered and didn't break.

  It was the kind of question that Sam could've answered real fast but of course he was the last person in the world she would ask that particular question.

  She imagined, though, that it was a distinction somebody'd thought of already and just because you didn't jimmy any locks or crack any plate glass the punishment wasn't going to be a hell of a lot less severe. Maybe the judge would sentence her to one year instead of three.

  Or ten instead of twenty.

  The longer term probably. It wasn't going to help her case that it was government property she had her eyes on.

  The building was only a few doors from the subway stop. She climbed out and paused. A cop walked past, his walkie-talkie sputtering with a hiss. She pressed her face against a lamp post, which was covered with layers and layers of paint, and wondered what color it had been in earlier years. Maybe some gang members from the Gophers or Hudson Dusters had paused under this very same post a hundred years ago, scoping out a heist.

  The street was empty and she strolled casually into the old government-issue building and up to the night guard, cover story and faked credentials all prepared.

  In twenty minutes she was out, having exchanged the mop and pail for the bulky manila folder that rested in her bag.

  She paused at a phone stand and pretended to make a call while she flipped through the file. She found the address she was looking for and walked quickly back to the subway. After a ten-minute wait she got on board an old Number Four train heading toward Brooklyn.

  Rune liked the outer boroughs, Brooklyn especially. She thought of it as caught in a time warp, a place where the Dodgers were always playing and muscular boys in T-shirts sipped egg creams and flirted with tough girls who snapped gum and answered them back in sexy, lazy drawls. Big immigrant families crammed into narrow shotgun tenements argued and made up and laughed and hugged with hearts full of love and loyalty.

  The neighborhood that she now slipped into, along with the crowd exiting the subway, was quiet and residential. She paused, getting her bearings.

  She had to walk only three blocks before she found the row house. Red brick with yellow trim, two-story, a narrow moat of anemic lawn. Bursts of red covered the front of the building: Geraniums grew everywhere--they escaped from flowerpots, from terra-cotta statues in the shape of donkeys and fat Mexican peasants, from green plastic window boxes, from milk containers. They bothered her, the flowers. Someone who'd appreciate flowers like this was probably a very nice person. This meant Rune would feel pretty guilty about what she was about to do.

  Which didn't stop her, however, from walking onto the front porch, dropping a paper bag on the concrete stoop and setting fire to it.

  She rang the doorbell and ran into the alley behind the house and listened to the voices.

  "Oh, hell ... What? ... Those punks again ... That's it! This time I call the cops.... Don't call the fire department. It's just ..."

  Rune raced up the back stairs and through the open kitchen door. She saw a man leaping forward fiercely and stomping on the burning bag, sparks flying, smoke pouring. A chubby woman held a long-spouted watering can, dousing his feet. Then Rune was past them, unnoticed, taking the carpeted stairs two at a time. Upstairs she found herself in a small hallway.

  First room, nobody.

  Second, nobody.

  Third, chaos. Six children were staring out the window at the excitement below them, squealing and dancing around.

  They all turned to the doorway as Rune walked into the room and flipped the light switch on.

  One of them cried, "Rune!"

  "Hi, honey," she said to Courtney. The little girl ran toward her.

  A chubby boy of about ten looked at her. "What'sis? Jailbreak?"

  "Shh, don't tell anybody."

  "Yeah, right, like I'm a snitch. Got a cigarette?"

  Rune gave him five dollars. "Forget you--"

  "--saw anything. Right. I know the drill."

  Rune said to Courtney, "Come on, let's go home."

  She pulled
the girl's jacket off a hook and slipped it on her.

  "Are we playing a game?" the little girl asked.

  "Yeah," Rune said, hustling her out into the corridor, "it's called kidnapping."

  THE PRISON YARD WAS SEGREGATED.

  Just like the city, Randy Boggs thought, hanging out there at nine the next morning. Just like life. Blacks one side, whites the other, except on the basketball half-court.

  The blacks were mostly young. A lot wore do-rags or stockings or they had cornrows. They stood together. Strong, big, sleek.

  Yo, homes, quit that noise.

  Wassup?

  Mah crib. I ever tell you 'bout mah crib?

  Hells yeah.

  The whites were older, crueler, humorless. They looked bad--it was the longer, unclean hair, the pale skin. They too stood together.

  Black, white. Just like the city.

  A lot of the men were exercising. There were weights here though the hierarchy didn't allow for democratic use among all prisoners. Still, there were always push-ups and sit-ups. Muscles develop in prison. But Boggs hadn't made a fetish of exercise. Doing that'd be an acknowledgment of where he was. If he didn't stand in line for the thirty-pound dumbbells then maybe he was somewhere else.

  "Amazing grace, how sweet thou art...."

  An a cappella black gospel group was practicing in the yard. They were really good. Boggs, when he first heard them, wanted to cry. Now he just listened. The group wouldn't be together much longer. They'd walk in two months, four months and thirteen months respectively.

  "I once was lost but now I'm found...."

  The singers started a second verse and someone nearby yelled, "Yo, shut the fuck up."

  He smelled fireplace wood smoke. He tried not to think of the last time he'd sat in front of a fireplace. Thought about that girl from New York. The little girl with the big camera.

  He sat quietly. He smoked some though since he'd been inside he'd lost his taste for smoking. He'd lost his taste for a lot of things. He sat for five minutes thinking about the girl, about the story, about prison, about the sky before he realized that the prisoners he'd been sitting with were no longer next to him.

  Boggs knew why they'd moved and he felt his skin crackle with fear.

  Severn Washington was sick. Got the flu bad, was puking all night, and was in the infirmary. If Boggs knew it everybody knew it.

  He looked around the yard and saw the man immediately. Juan Ascipio was back.

  He wore a red headband and a fatigue jacket over his jumpsuit. Two other prisoners walked beside him. Ascipio was a newcomer, a dealer who'd been convicted of the assassination of two rivals. He wasn't a big man and he had a face that when it smiled might make children comfortable. A kind face, the sort you want to please. But the eyes, Boggs had noticed, were grinny-mean and chill.

  The three of them stopped about fifteen feet from where Boggs sat, next to a tall wall of red brick. Ascipio said, "Yo, man. Here. Now."

  Boggs looked at him but didn't get up.

  Ascipio pointed to a small shaded area out of sight of the towers. The prisoners called it Lovers' Lane.

  Ascipio stepped into the nook and unzipped his fly "Yo, man, I'm talking to you. You deaf, or what?"

  His friend said, "Yo, man, on your fucking knees. Gonna turn you out, man, turn you out. You do that an' you'll live. Big nigger ain' here to save your pretty cheeks."

  The other: "Come on, man. Now!"

  Boggs looked back at them. He said, "Don't believe I will." He measured the distance to the nearest guard. It was a long, long way. The other inmates were all studying very important things in the opposite direction from Boggs.

  This's going to be bad.

  Ascipio spit out, "Don't believe you will? Motherfucker say he don't believe he will?"

  Then Boggs's eyes lowered to his own right hand, which rested on his knee. He glanced down at it. Ascipio followed his gaze.

  A long fingernail.

  It kept growing. One inch, two, three, four, six. Boggs looked back into their eyes. One by one, his head swiveling.

  Severn Washington had given it to him last night, this piece of double-strength glass, a clear stiletto honed on one side so sharp it would shave hair. The handle was taped. Metal-detector-proof. The fingernail could do the most damage glass could ever do. (Boggs had said, "Would Allah, you know, approve of this?" And Washington had reassured him, "Allah say it's okay to fuck up assholes who try to move on you. I heard Him say that personally")

  Ascipio laughed. "Put that 'way man. Get you pretty white mouth over here, man."

  They'd get him on his knees then the other two would hold him and Ascipio would beat him to death and then they'd find the body in the laundry room, where the official word would be he'd died by falling down the stairs.

  Boggs shook his head.

  Ascipio said, "Three of us, man. More, I want. That"--he nodded at the knife--"that do you shit."

  "Man," one of the others growled at the insubordination.

  Boggs didn't move. The blade blasted light off its point.

  Ascipio walked close. Slowly. And he looked into Boggs's eyes. He stopped. He stood for a long moment as they stared at each other. Finally the Latino smiled and shook his head. "Okay, man. You know, you got balls. I like that."

  Boggs didn't move.

  "You okay, my friend," Ascipio said, admiration in his voice. "Nobody else ever try that shit with me. You fuckin' all right."

  He extended his hand.

  Boggs looked down at it.

  A bird swooping in.

  Boggs half turned as the fist of a fourth man, who'd come up behind him silently, caught him under the ear. A loud thwock as knuckles bounced off bone and he felt Ascipio's hand grabbing his right wrist.

  The knife fell to the ground and Boggs saw it tumble, appearing and disappearing as it fell.

  "No!" The word didn't come out as a shout, though. It was muffled by the meaty forearm of the man who'd hit him.

  There were no guards, there were no Aryan Brotherhood protectors, no Severn Washington, there was no one in Lovers' Lane except the five men.

  Five men and a glass knife.

  Ascipio leaned forward. Boggs smelled garlic on his breath--garlic from his private stocks of food. Tobacco from the endless supply of cigarettes.

  "Yo, man, you a stupid motherfucker."

  No, Boggs thought in despair. Don't cut me! Not the knife. Not that, please....

  As the blade went in, Boggs felt much less pain than he'd expected, but the sense of horror was far worse than he'd thought.

  The knife retreated and returned into his body and he felt a terrifying loosening inside him.

  Then there were other shouts, from a dozen yards away or a hundred. But Boggs didn't pay any attention; they didn't mean anything to him. All he was aware of was Ascipio's face: the grinny-mean eyes that never flinched or narrowed and the smile, one that might please children.

  chapter 14

  SHE HEARD THE NEWS ON ANOTHER STATION. NOT EVEN a network O&O but one of the locals. The one that broadcast M*A*S*H reruns and whose best-seller was a talk show that did stories about sexual surrogates and discrimination against overweight women.

  Rune's own Network News hadn't even thought Randy Boggs's stabbing was worth mentioning.

  Rune sweet-talked Healy into taking Courtney for a few hours. She figured this was a major abuse of the relationship, but he was so happy she'd gotten the girl back (she was a little vague about how exactly) that he didn't complain at all.

  A half hour later she was on the train to Harrison, wondering if maybe she should buy a monthly commutation pass.

  The prison infirmary surprised her. She expected it to be totally grim. More Big House, more Edward G. Robinson. But it was just a clean, well-lit hospital ward. A guard accompanied her, a large black man with a broad chest. His uniform didn't fit well. The glossy blue collar buttons, one stamped with a D, one a C, for Department of Corrections, came just to the level o
f her eyes. He was silent.

  Randy Boggs didn't look good at all. He was shell-white and the spray or cream that he used on his hair glued it out in all directions. The eyes were what bothered Rune most though. They were unfocused and still. God, they were eerie. Corpse eyes.

  "It's you, miss." He nodded. "You come all the way up to see me."

  "You going to be all right?"

  "Got me a pretty nice-looking scar. But the knife missed all the important stuff."

  "What happened?"

  "Don't rightly know. I was in the yard and I get pulled over backwards and somebody stuck me."

  "You must have seen him."

  "Nope. Not a glimpse."

  "Was it daytime?"

  "Yep. This morning."

  "How could somebody stab you and you not see it?"

  Boggs tried a smile but it didn't take. "People get invisible here."

  She said, "But--"

  "Look ..." His eyes came to life for a moment then faded back to lifeless. "... this is prison. Not the real world. We got ourselves a whole different set of rules." He lifted his hand to his stomach and touched his belly. He leaned his head back into his pillows and pressed his thin, sinewy forearm over his eyes. "Damn," he whispered.

  She watched him in this still pose for a long minute, wishing she'd brought the camera. But then decided that, no, it was better to keep this private. He was the sort of man who'd never want to be seen crying.

  "I brought you something."

  She opened her bag and removed an old book, flaky and scabbed. She held it out. The pages were edged in gold.

  Boggs lowered his arm and looked at it uneasily as if no one had ever given him a present before and he was wondering what would be expected in return.

  "It's a book," she said.

  "Figured that out." He opened it. "Looks like an old one."

  He flipped open to the copyright page. "Nineteen oh four. Yep, that goes back a ways. Year my grandmother was born. How 'bout that?"

  "It's not like it's worth a lot of money or anything."

  "What is it, like fairy tales?"

  "Greek and Roman myths."

  At least his eyes were reviving. He even had a slight smile on his face as he turned the pages, glancing at the pictures, which were protected with tissue.