"Tell me exactly what happened," Sutton said. "Don't embellish, don't minimize, don't edit."
Rune explained about the fat man and Boggs and what happened on the houseboat.
"So Boggs did it, after all," Maisel said. "There was another killer but they were partners. Jesus."
"Sort of looks like it." Rune wasn't counting"likes," "sort-ofs " and"kind-ofs." "When I saw them there, kind of hugging each other, I totally freaked. I mean…" Her voice faded.
Sutton closed her eyes and shook her head slowly, then asked the gray-suited man, "What's the legal assessment, Tim?"
The lawyer said calmly, "I don't think we have any liability. We didn't fabricate evidence and the court decision was legitimate. I wish she" – not looking at Rune – "hadn't gotten him released without telling anybody here. That adds another dimension."
For the first time since she'd known him Maisel turned angry eyes on Rune. "Why didn't you tell me you were going to get Boggs sprung?"
"I was worried about him. I-"
Sutton couldn't keep cool any longer. "I've told you from the beginning that our job isn't to get people out of jail. It's to report the truth! That's theonly job."
"I just didn't think. I didn't think it would matter."
"Didn't… think." Sutton stretched the words out for a vast second.
"I'm really-"
Sutton turned to Maisel. "So, what's the next step?"
"Nighttime News."
The lawyer winced. "It's a New York story. Can't we justify keeping it local?"
Maisel said, "No way. Time andNewsweek'll cover it. You know what the other nets are going to do and forget about theTimes. They'll crucify us. It'll be understated but it'll still be a crucifixion."
"We'll have to preempt them," Sutton said. "Put it on theNews at Noon, then do a piece at five and have Eustice do it at seven. We tell all. We confess. Not a single word of excuse or backpedaling."
Krueger said, "God, that'll hurt."
Maisel sighed.
The lawyer asked Rune, "You have any idea where Boggs went?"
"All I know is like he came from the South. Atlanta was where he was born and he lived in Florida and North Carolina but other than that…" She ended in a shrug.
The lawyer said, "I'm going over to our law firm and brief the litigators, just in case." With a fast, curious glance at Rune he left the office. Sutton stared at theDaily News. Lee Maisel played with his pipe and sat in a slump. He was uncomfortable. Rune looked into his eyes, though his darted away quickly. What she saw hurt her more than the hatred she felt gushing from Sutton.
Oh, how could I do it?
He believed in me and I let him down.
Sutton looked at Rune. "Don't talk to the press about what happened. You've already blabbed your mouth off, I see." Waving her arm at the newspaper.
Rune said, "I didn't say anything. The police must've told the reporters."
"Well, all I'll say is, the Network is going to be in deep shit for this and heads are probably going to roll. If you make things worse for everybody because you can't keep your mouth shut, then you'll be opening yourself up to a big fat fucking lawsuit. You understand me?"
Rune nodded.
There was a long pause, broken by Sutton's saying. "Well, I guess that's it. You're out of here."
Rune stared at her, blinked. "Just like that? Today?"
"Sorry, Rune," Maisel said. "Today, yes. Now."
Sutton added, "And don't take any files or cassettes with you. That's our property."
"Do you mean I should go back to my job at the O amp;O?"
Sutton looked at her with a disbelieving smile.
Rune said, "You mean, I'm like totally fired."
Sutton said, "Like totally."
Sam Healy woke up at eight the next morning when Courtney emptied a box of Raisin Bran in their bed.
The noisy cascade didn't wake Rune up.
"Jesus Christ," Healy muttered and shook her arm. He rolled over. Rune opened her eyes, and said, "What's that noise? That crunching?"
Courtney stood in front of the bed and looked down at it, frowning.
Rune swung her feet over the side of the bed, her legs covered with cereal. "Courtney, what did you do?"
"I'm sorry," the little girl said. "Spilled."
Healy, who'd gotten home two hours before from duty watch, said, "I'm going into Adam's room." He vanished.
Rune scooped the cereal up and brushed it off her legs, then put it back into the box. "You know better than that. Come on."
"I know better."
"Don't look so damn cute when I'm yelling at you."
"Damn cute," Courtney said.
"Come on." Rune trudged into the kitchen. She poured juice and bowls of cereal, made coffee. "Can we go to the zoo?" Courtney asked.
"Tomorrow. I've got some errands to do first. You wanta come?"
"Yeah, I wanta come." She held up her hand. "Five-high."
Rune sighed then held up her hand. The little girl slapped it.
28
Ahalf hour later Rune and Courtney got off the E train at West Fourth and started walking up Christopher Street to the water. Rune paused at the West Side Highway, took a deep breath for courage then plunged around the corner to survey the damage to her late home.
The houseboat still floated but it looked like a load of charred wood had been dumped onto the deck; irregular, glistening slabs of fluted charcoal rose above it. A haze of smoke still hung around the pier and made everything – the houseboat, the debris, the trash cans, the chain-link – appear out of focus. The front of the pier was cordoned off with a yellow police tape, fifty feet in front of where the boat bobbed like a man-o'-war that had lost a sea battle. Rune remembered seeing the houseboat for the first time, riding in the Hudson, fifty miles north of here.
And now, a Viking burial.
She sighed, then waved to the patrolman in the front seat of a blue-and-white. He was a friend of Healy's from the Sixth Precinct, the station where the Bomb Squad was housed.
"Look at this," she called.
"Sorry about it, honey. Some of us'll drive by once in a while, check up on things, just till you get your stuff moved out."
"Yeah, if there's anything left."
There was, but the stink and smoke damage were so bad she didn't have the heart to go through it. Anyway, Courtney was restless and kept climbing on the pilings.
Rune took her by the hand and led her back up Christopher Street.
"What's that?" Courtney asked, pointing at a storefront sign encouraging safe sex. It showed a condom.
"Balloon," said Rune.
"I want one."
"When you're older," Rune answered. The words came automatically and she decided she was really getting into this kid bit. They continued down Christopher then along the tail end of Greenwich and finally onto Eighth Street. It had become a lot shabbier in the past year. More graffiti, more garbage, more obnoxious kids. But, God, the shoe stores – more places to buy cheap shoes than anywhere else in the world.
They walked down to University Place, past dozens of chic, black-clad NYU students. Rune made a detour. She stopped in front of an empty storefront. Above the door was a sign, Washington Square Video.
"I used to work there," she told Courtney. The little girl peered inside.
In the window was another sign, on yellow cardboard: For Rent Net Lease.
Just like my life, she thought. For rent net lease.
They walked to Washington Square Park and bought hot dogs then kept walking south through SoHo and into Chinatown.
"Hey," Rune said suddenly, "want to see something neat?"
"Yeah, neat."
"Let's go look at some octopuses."
"Yeah!"
Rune led her across the street to a huge outdoor fish market on Canal Street. "It's like the zoo, only the thing is the animals don't move so much."
Courtney didn't buy it, though. "Pukey," she said about the octopus then got yelled at by the owner of the stand when she poked a grouper.