Courtney squealed happily. "Birdies, birdies!" A half-dozen diners turned.
Rune picked up a fork and the least-offensive knife and started in.
They ate in silence for a few moments. The birdies weren't too bad actually. The problem was that they still had the bones in them and using a knife as big as a sword meant there was a lot of meat you couldn't get to. Rune surveyed the room but didn't see a single person sucking on a drumstick.
There was a pause. Sutton looked at her and said, "Where are you with the story?"
Rune had figured this was on the agenda and she'd already planned what she was going to say. The words didn't come out quite as organized as she'd hoped but she kept the "likes" and the "sort-ofs" to a minimum. She told Sutton about the interviews with Megler and with Boggs and with the friends and family members and told her about getting all the background footage. "And," she said, "I've sort of put in a request to get the police file on the case."
Sutton laughed. "You'll never get a police file. No journalist can get a police file."
"It's like a special request."
But Sutton just shook her head. "Won't happen." Then she asked, "Have you found anything that proves he's innocent?"
"Not like real evidence but-"
"Have you or haven't you?"
"No."
"All right." Sutton sat back. Half her food was uneaten but when the busboy appeared she gave him a subtle nod of the head and the plate vanished. "Let me tell you why I asked you here. I need some help."
"From me?"
"Look." Sutton was frowning. "I'll be frank. You're not my first choice. But there just isn't anybody else."
"Like, what are you talking about?"
"I want to offer you a promotion."
Rune poked at a white square of vegetable – some kind she'd never run into before.
Sutton gazed off across the restaurant as she mused, "Sometimes we have to do things for the good of the news. We have to put our own interests aside. When I started out I was a crime reporter. They didn't want women in the newsroom. Food reporting, society, the arts – those were fine but hard news? Nope. Forget it. So the chief gave me the shit jobs." Sutton glanced at Courtney but the girl didn't notice the lapse into adult vocabulary. The ancherwoman continued, "I covered autopsies, I chased ambulances, I did arraignments, I walked through pools of blood at a mass shooting to get pictures when the photographer was kneeling behind the press car puking. I did all of that crap and it worked out for me. But at the time it was a sacrifice."
Something in the matter-of-fact tone of Sutton's voice was thrilling to Rune. This is just what she'd sound like when talking to another executive at the Network, an equal. Sutton and Dan Semple or Lee Maisel would talk this way – in low voices, surrounded by people wearing huge geometric shapes of jewelry, sitting over the tiny bones of hostage birds and drinking eighty-dollar-a-bottle wine.
"Like you want me to be a crime reporter? I don't-"
Sutton said, "Let me finish."
Rune sat back. Her plate was cleared away, and a young man in a white jacket cleaned the crumbs off the table with a little thing that looked like a miniature carpet sweeper. Most of the mess was on Rune's side.
"I like you, Rune. You've got street smarts and you're tough. That's something I don't see enough of in reporters nowadays. It's one or the other and usually more ego than either of them. Here's my problem: We've just lost the associate producer of the London bureau – he quit to work for Reuters – and they were in the midst of production on three programs. I need someone over there now."
Rune's skin bristled. As if a wave of painless flame had passed over her. "Associate producer?"
"No, you'd be an assistant, not associate. At first at least. The bureaus in London, Paris, Rome, Berlin and Moscow '11 feed you leads and you and the executive producer will make your decisions on what you want to go after."
"What does Lee think?"
"He's given me the job of filling the spot. I haven't mentioned you to him but he'll go with whoever I recommend."
"This is pretty wild. I mean, I never thought that's what you were going to say. How long would I be over there?"
"A year minimum. If you like it, something more permanent might be arranged. That would be up to
Lee. But usually we like to shift people around. It could be Paris or Rome after that. You'd have to learn the language."
"Oh, I took French in high school.'Voulez-vous couchez…'"
Sutton said, "I get the idea."
Rune asked a passing waiter for a glass of milk for Courtney. "And a straw? The kind with the bend in them." He didn't grasp the concept and Rune let it drop. She said to Sutton, "I don't want you to think… I mean, I'm grateful and all – but what about Randy Boggs?"
"You said yourself you don't have any evidence."
"I still know he's innocent."
No emotion in Sutton's face.
Rune said, "Somebody tried to kill him in prison. They stabbed him. If we don't get him out they'll try again."
Sutton shrugged. "I'll assign a local reporter to pick up for you."
"You would?"
"Uh-huh. So how 'bout it?"
"Uh, would you mind if I thought about it?"
Sutton blinked and seemed about to ask, What the fuck is there to think about? But she just nodded and said, "It's a big decision. Maybe you should sleep on it. I won't ask the other people I'm considering until tomorrow."
"Thanks."
Sutton motioned for the last of her wine. A young waiter scurried over and, with alternate glances at her freckled chest and the crystal glass in front of her, emptied the bottle. She looked at her watch. She said, "And the check, please."
Outside the restaurant the three of them paused.
"That is one amazing car," Rune said as a glossy midnight-blue stretch Lincoln Town Car turned the corner and slowed. "Don't you wonder who rides in those things?"
Sutton didn't answer.
The car eased to a stop in front of them. The driver hopped out and ran to the door, opened it for Piper Sutton.
Oh.
Sutton said, "You'll give me your answer tomorrow?"
"Sure."
"Piper, we're late," a man's voice called from the limo.
"Good night," the anchorwoman said briskly to Rune and started toward the Lincoln.
A man leaned forward to help her in. It was Dan Semple himself, in a beautiful gray double-breasted suit. He glanced at Rune, then kissed Sutton on the cheek. They disappeared into the blackness of the car.
"Thanks-"
The door closed and Rune and Courtney were left looking at their mirrored images for the few seconds it took for the driver to get back inside and speed the limo away from the curb.
"-for dinner."
16
London was the problem. Ever since she'd readLord of the Rings (the first of four times) Rune'd wanted to go to the United Kingdom! the country of pubs and hedgerows and shires and hobbits and dragons. Whoa, and Loch Ness too.
She'd thought about it for a couple hours and decided that any sane person in the world would accept Piper Sutton's offer in ten seconds flat.
So Rune was a bit curious why she was dropping Courtney at one of her loyal, expensive baby-sitters and then giving the cabdriver an address on the Upper East Side.
He took her to an old apartment building, dark brick with lion bas-reliefs in dirty limestone trim. She walked into the immaculate lobby, hit the intercom and announced herself. The door opened. She took
the elevator to the fourteenth floor. When she stepped into a tiny corridor, she realized there were only four apartments on the whole floor.
Lee Maisel opened the door to one, waved and let her into a rambling, dark-paneled apartment. He didn't shake her hand; he was dripping wet.