And now the show had traveled to my backyard, courtesy of, well, me, though not really. I was an incidental, if somewhat pivotal player, an unintentional conduit between a murderer and the city that he seemed to be killing off one woman at a time. As I stepped out of the Navigator, I hoped my colleagues from the national press corps could and would leave me the hell alone. I really did. Many reporters — hell, most reporters — would bask in the limelight created by the Phantom Fiend. I didn’t need it. I didn’t want it, not least because I really do have a face made for newspaper work. I would only put up with the publicity if it furthered the cause of me breaking more news.
The sidewalk along Tremont Street outside the glassy headquarters was a sideshow in that aforementioned carnival. One man with hair like Johnny Damon’s, which also meant he had hair like Jesus, was handing out prayer cards and chanting, “God save our city.” A middle-aged woman sold T-shirts that read THE PHANTOM IS A YANKEES FAN. Another young vendor plied shirts that simply said THE PHANTOM SUCKS. A twentysomething guy with dreadlocks sold those cheap plastic bracelets — these were black — that charities are always using now for fund-raising.
“Who benefits from these?” I asked him.
He looked at me carefully for a long moment, shrugged, and said, “I do.”
Good answer. I bought one for two dollars and stuck it in my pocket, yet another contribution to the American Dream.
Speaking of which, by the time I hit the revolving front door, any dream I had of being anonymous in this unfolding story was quickly broken. There were, I don’t know, maybe twenty, probably closer to thirty, reporters and assorted crew members waiting for me in the front lobby, most of them thrusting microphones in my face as they screamed an indecipherable stew of undoubtedly inane questions. I swear I heard someone yell, “Who was your favorite seventies rock band?” That caused me to wonder for a moment when it was that Air Supply hit it really big, but I think that was the eighties.
I kid, for godsakes. I kid.
But not about the two dozen reporters and various cameramen and sound people with the boom mikes so strong they could pick up the rapid beating of my famously oversize heart and beam it clear as day to any fans out there on the moon. The reporters, some of whom I recognized either as old friends or Washington colleagues from my time in the capitol, or from watching TV, quickly surrounded me.
“Have you met the Phantom?” one perfectly coiffed man yelled above the din.
Let’s think about that for a second, perhaps on his behalf, because he obviously had not. Had I met the Phantom Fiend, wouldn’t I have gotten around to reporting that fact in the pages of my beloved Boston Record? Wouldn’t I have let people know on my own? Does he really believe I would have held back on my own employer and readers to first bestow such knowledge on the dozens of daytime viewers of FOX News?
Everyone fell completely silent and stared at me in hopeful expectation of a brilliant or newsworthy answer.
“I have not,” I said, sorry to disappoint, though not really.
“Why not?” a woman shouted.
Okay, so the questions were going to grow increasingly stupid.
“Because he hasn’t chosen to make himself available to me,” I replied, trying not to be terse. “I think he has a pretty good idea that I’m always available to meet with him.”
I started wondering if this was really what I did for a living, what these people were doing to me now, and I took instant pity on anyone I’d ever covered on the wrong side of the microphone and notepad. The necessary patience with the news media alone should qualify every public official for sainthood. Though maybe not.
One sweating cameraman was all but pressing up against me with the tools of his trade, so close that I thought he was going to bang my head on his camera. Another bespectacled scribe, obviously a print reporter, was carefully sizing me up from head to foot as he jotted notes on a legal pad. When I glanced upside down at his writing, I thought I saw the word pecs, but maybe not.
There were more shouted questions — how many times have I heard from him, have I been fully cooperative with police, why do I think he picked me. To that last one I replied, “Because I’m the best reporter I know.” I said this laughing. No one else in this circle jerk even cracked a smile. I made a mental note not to watch what would undoubtedly be the painful coverage on the midday news.
So I added, “I’m kidding. Guys, I’m not the story here, obviously. You know that already. I’m in this by happenstance. Could as easily be any one of you. And everything I know, you’ve already read in the Record. Anything I learn, you’ll read that there as well.” Not a bad little plug for my paper, I thought.
That’s when one second-tier network reporter, a woman with skin so tight and tucked she could have been a spokeswoman for Saran Wrap, said above the noise, “Jack, the police are complaining in this morning’s Traveler that they believe the Record is encouraging the Phantom to work through them, rather than directly with authorities. And by doing this you’re stymieing the investigation. Do you have any comment?”
I hadn’t read that, mostly because I hadn’t read the Traveler yet, which was no great loss lately, given how much they were slashing the budget of that paper. They’d been left so far behind on this story, which should have been right in their wheelhouse, that they were rendered irrelevant. Still, I could feel my face flush, partly in anger that Hal Harrison or Mac Foley would level such a stupid accusation, and partly in embarrassment over my foolish negotiating antics with the Phantom himself, or at least with someone I thought was the Phantom. I reminded myself that the cops wouldn’t have any idea of my attempts at negotiation. They were just trying to get me off the story, dead or alive, it seemed.
I said, “I haven’t seen that, but it sounds exquisitely ridiculous.” After I said this, I wondered, nearly aloud, why it was that I always have to throw in an extra adjective. Or is exquisitely an adverb? Either way, not the point. I continued, “Look, I’m just doing what you guys would all do, and that’s report news. If someone sends you something in the mail or has a message delivered identifying where a murder victim might be, you contact authorities and you report this in your newspaper or on your network. Maybe you try to get a look yourself, to make sure the investigation is proceeding as it should. That’s exactly what the Record has done in all three instances. I’m not sure why the police would have a problem with that.”
A door to an auditorium behind the scrum opened, and a uniformed police officer announced, “Commissioner at the podium in two minutes.” The reporters surged as one toward the opening, pushing their way inside, leaving me alone in the hallway. When they were all inside, I went in as well, notebook in hand, ready to do what I do best, which is report news rather than make it.
What a business, what a life, what a world.
Commissioner Hal Harrison, the man who would be mayor, strode to the podium as if he was about to attack it. He was in the hushed, carpeted media center, the place awash in the soft color blue — royal blue carpet, pale blue walls, men and women in navy blue uniforms, aging newspaper reporters in the frayed blue blazers that count as couture in the realm of words and news.
The gathered media had followed the universal, perhaps natural order of things. The better-dressed television reporters — the women in expensive suits, the men in Brooks Brothers and ties — dominated the front of the room, with the occasional newspaper reporter who hadn’t yet learned of his or her proper — or as is more often the case, improper — place. Behind them, the bulk of the disheveled print reporters in open collars or jean skirts sat with noticeably less practiced postures. Behind them still were the unshaven men in unintentionally low-riding jeans peering through the lenses of a couple of dozen television cameras, often flanked by similar-looking men wielding the aforementioned boom mikes. And behind them were the photographers, known in campaign parlance as the stills. The commissioner’s many police advisers and campaign strategists sat in chairs along the two side walls of the room, their shoes as shiny as the bathroom mirrors at a Holiday Inn.