"You have insurance?" the anchorwoman asked.
"Kinda weird but, yeah, I do. It was one of those adult things, you know, the sort that I don't usually get into. But my boyfriend at the time made me get some." She walked to the water and looked down at the charred wood. "The policy's in there someplace. Do I have to have it to collect?"
"I don't think so."
"I'm going to make some serious money there. I lost some really hyper stuff. Day-Glo posters, crystals, my entire Elvis collection…"
"You listen to Elvis Presley?"
"That'd be Costello," Rune explained. Then considered other losses. "My magic wand. A ton of incense… Oh God, my lava lamp."
"You have a lava lamp?"
"Had,"Rune corrected sadly.
"Where're you staying?"
"With Sam for a while. Then I'll get a new place. Someplace different. I was ready to move anyway. I lived here for over a year. That's too long to be in one place."
A tugboat went by. A horn blared. Rune waved. "I know them," she told Sutton, who twisted around to watch the low-riding boat muscle its way up the river.
"You know," Rune said, "I've got to tell you. I kind of thought you were the one behind the killings."
"Me?" Sutton wasn't laughing. "That's the stupidest crap I ever heard."
"I don't think it's so stupid. You tried to talk me out of doing the story then offered me that job in England- "
"Which was real," Sutton snapped. "And got filled by somebody else."
Rune continued, unfazed, "And the day of the broadcast, when you ad-libbed, the tapes were missing. Even the backup in my credenza. You were the only one knew they were there."
Sutton impatiently motioned with her hand, as if she were buying candy by the pound and wanted Rune to keep adding some to the scale. "Come on, think, think, think. I told you I was on my way to see Lee. He asked me if you'd made a dupe. I told him that you had and you'd put it in your credenza. He's the one who stole it."
"You also went through my desk after Boggs escaped. Danny saw you – the electrician."
"I didn't want any of that material floating around. You were really careless, by the way. You trust too many people. You…" She realized she was lecturing and reined herself in.
They watched the tugboat for a few minutes until it disappeared. Then Sutton said abruptly, "You want your job back, you can have it."
"I don't know," Rune said. "I don't think I'm a company person."
A brief laugh. "Of course you're not. You'll probably get fired again. But it's a peach job until you do."
"The local or the Network?"
"Current Events, I was thinking."
"Doing what? Like a script girl?"
"Assistant producer."
Rune paused then dropped a pair of scorched jeans into the trash pile. "I'd want to do the story. The whole thing. About the Hopper killing. And I'd have to include Lee this time."
Sutton turned back, away from the water, and stood up, looking over the huge panorama of the city. "That's a problem."
"What do you mean?"
"Current Eventswon't be running any segments about the Hopper killing. Or about Boggs."
Rune looked at her.
"Network News covered it," the woman said.
Rune said wryly, "Oh, that's right. I saw that story. It was about sixty seconds long, wasn't it? And it came after the story of the baby panda at the National Zoo."
"The powers-that-be – at the parent – decided the story should go away."
"That's bullshit."
"Can you blame them?"
"Yes," Rune said.
In her prototype Piper Sutton voice, Piper Sutton snapped, "It wasn't my decision to make."
"Wasn't it?"
Sutton took a breath to speak, then didn't. She shook her head slowly, avoiding Rune's eyes.
Rune repeated, "Wasn't it?" And surprised herself again by hearing how calm she sounded, how unshaken she now was in the presence of this woman – a woman who wore suede and silk and bright red suits, a woman richer and smarter than she'd ever be. A famous commentator, who now seemed abandoned by words. Rune said, "You'd rather the competition did the story? Prime Time Tonight orPulse of the Nation?"
Sutton stepped up on a creosoted railroad tie bolted into the pier as a car barrier. She looked in the water; her expression said she didn't like what she saw. Rune wondered if it was her reflection.
She said simply, "The story won't run onCurrent Events."
"What would happen if it did?"
"If you want to know I posed that exact question. And the answer was if it does the parent'll cancel the show." Then she added, "And I'll be out of work. You need a better reason than that?"
"I don't think I want my job back, no," Rune said. She'd found some of her old comic books; they'd miraculously survived both the fire and looters. She looked at the cover of a 1953 classic – "Sheena, Queen of the Jungle," who swung out of a tree toward a startled lion. The cat stared at her spear and radiant blonde hair and leopard-skin-clad hourglass figure – a physique that existed only in the luxurious imaginations of illustrators. "That's me." Rune held up the book. "Queen of the Jungle."
Sutton glanced at the picture.
Rune stacked the books in the small to-be-saved pile and asked, "Your conscience bothering you yet?"
"I've never had trouble sleeping at night. Not in forty-three years."
"You want my opinion?"
"Not really."
"You're caving, just to keep your paycheck."
Rune expected a tirade but what she got was a surprise – a small, hurt voice, saying, "I think you know it's not that."
And after a moment Rune nodded, understanding that Sutton was right. Sure, she'd bowed to the wishes of the executives. But the reasons were complex. She'd caved partly because she was hooked on the prestige and excitement that went with being a prime-time news anchor. Partly to keep a job that she'd fought hard for.
And partly – mostly – because Piper Sutton felt the world of journalism, and her ten million viewers, needed her.
Which of course they did. They needed the news handed to them by people like this, people they recognized, trusted, admired. An old boyfriend had once quoted somebody – a poet, she thought – who said that mankind can't bear too much reality well, it was the Piper Suttons of the world who cut reality into manageable little bites and set them out, pleasantly arranged, in front of her viewers.
"I put it in context." Sutton shrugged. "Boggs was innocent and you got him out. That's a good deed. But it's still a small story. There's a lot of news out there, a lot bigger news. Nobody says I've got to cover everything."
"I'll produce it independently." Rune sounded more threatening than she meant to.
Sutton laughed. "Bless you, babes, and more power to you. All I'm telling you is the story won't run on the Network. Not on my program."
Rune turned to face Sutton. "And if I do it, I'm going to mention the part about how they wouldn't do the story onCurrent Events."
Sutton smiled. "I'll send you the files and all backup, the stuff I saved from your desk. Give us your best shot. We can take it."
Rune returned to her pile of salvage. "It'll be a son of a bitch to do by myself."
Sutton agreed, "Sure will."
"You know, I could use a business partner. Somebody who was smart and knew the business. And was, like, abrasive."
"Likeabrasive."
"You wouldn't be interested, would you?"
"Wait – you mean quit my job and go to work with you?" Sutton laughed, genuinely amused.
"Sure! We'd be a great team."
"No way in hell." The anchorwoman walked over to the messy pile and began to help Rune pick through it. She'd hold up an object, and Rune would give her instructions: "Save." "Pitch." "Pitch." "Pitch." "Identity unknown pile." "Save." "Save."
They worked for a half hour until Sutton straightened up and looked at her smudged hands with a grimace. She found a rag and started wiping them clean. "What time you have?"
Rune glanced at her working watch. "Noon."