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Marty Perez wanted to go national with them.

Randy Houghton said, “I’m glad you brought up the column, babe.”

Babe. Back home, you saw little punks like this—
títeres
—looking at you with their attitudes from street corners, like they knew every goddamn thing. In New York they made them television producers.

“The column is one of the problems right now. The plan here, all along, not just with me but with the big bosses, was for you to just take your column and put it on the air. My Gahd”—Houghton still put on the rich-boy Harvard Yard accent sometimes, usually when he was bullshitting you—“nobody knows New York the way Marty Perez does.”

Marty just waited, cigar in his free hand, playing with it. Looking at his computer terminal, which only had
PEREZ COLUMN
at the top, and then a paragraph mark underneath that, and then an empty screen underneath that, which felt like it went all the way down to Forty-second Street, seven floors.

He was pretty sure what was coming.

“Frankly, no one here minded if the TV pieces were expanded versions of the column. Just to give our show that rich New York texture we’re shooting for.”

Madre de Dios
, Marty Perez thought.

Mother of freaking God.

“Texture,” he said. “Yeah, I’m full of it.”

Among other things.

Randy Houghton wasn’t even listening to him. “I’m not telling you anything you don’t know already, I’ve heard you say it yourself, but the column has gotten a little tired lately, babe. My Gahd”—again—“how many times do we have to read about another high school sophomore with a fucking automatic weapon? Do you understand what I’m trying to say here?”

Marty sighed. “I write off the news.”

“We know. We know. But we want more than that. We want you back
ahead
of the news, the way you used to be. We want Marty Perez’s name back up in lights. I’m not telling you anything you don’t know. You’re the king, babe. You’re Marty Perez. We want people to turn on
Chronicle
the way they used to pick up the
News.
To see what the hell you’re going to say next.”

“I need a story is what you’re saying.”

“It would be nice, Marty. I’m not going to lie to you, we know each other too well. I need to be able to sell the big boys here on the idea that you’re going to be able to bring in some numbers.”

Before Marty could say anything, Houghton said, “Look, there’s a call here I’ve got to take. We’ll talk again on Friday, see what you’re thinking about for next week.”

“I’m ready to make the move to television full-time,” Marty said. “I think if I didn’t have to work the column and the show, if I could just concentrate on
Chronicle
, the pieces would have the kind of juice you’re talking about.” Hating the sound of his own voice, begging this punk.

“I hear you, I really do,” Randy Houghton said. “Talk to you Friday.”

He put down the phone, softly, got his matches off the desk, and relit the cigar. If the little television punk knew it, if he could see what the column had turned into, then everybody knew, maybe even the spics uptown who’d always treated him like the real mayor of New York. The whole thing was getting away from him, in the last year of his contract with the
News
, with people getting laid off all around him in the city room. It was why he was begging for the television job. Marty Perez was still writing three columns a week, he was still a major character in town, with the column and
Chronicle
and the radio commentaries on WOR. But they had taken to running the Sunday column on the Op-Ed page.

In tabloids, that was where they laid you to fucking rest.

Hijo de puta.

All their mothers were whores.

It was three o’clock, he hadn’t written a word, and already he wanted a drink.

“Hijo de la gran puta,”
Marty Perez said out loud.

He was forty-two years old, and he should have been in the clear by now, thirty years in the States, twenty years in the newspaper business, a star for half of that. His father had made his money in the tourist boom that hit San Juan right at the start of the sixties, the one that happened after Cuba closed. His father: running the casino at the El San Juan, then moving across the island to Palmas, but
wanting his only son to get out, sending him up to New Rochelle to live with his aunt and uncle.

Martin Perez, Sr., never saying it, but sending his son to New Rochelle and the Horace Mann School because he wanted him to be something more than another spic on the make in New York.

And now, all this time later, that is what he still was. He sat there in his office, wanting to do anything but think about the empty screen, trying to figure out where it all started to get away from him.

Marty Perez had been the boy wonder at first, covering the Yankees right out of Columbia, then moving into a sports column at the
Post
when he was Randy Houghton’s age. Then over to the
News
in sports, and finally out front. Pretty soon it was Marty Perez’s picture on the side of the
News
trucks, cigar in his hand. Tough guy. It was Marty Perez in the television commercials. Marty Perez as the first Latino to do the big crossover, win just about every award you could win except the Pulitzer, with everybody saying the Pulitzer was just a matter of time.

Pretty soon it was Marty Perez making more than anybody in newspapers in New York City.

They said he was the only one putting names and faces, giving voices, to the forgotten New York. Somebody had written that about him in the
Village Voice.
As if he ever cared about shit like that.

About being King of the Spics.

He just wanted to ride high, and if assholes like the
Voice
guy wrote about his style, that was just part of the deal. Style? It always made him laugh. He had stolen from everybody, from the best, Runyon and Cannon and Hamill and Breslin, especially Breslin, and somehow made it sound as if it all came out the side of his own mouth. Marty’s second wife, Madeline, told him he’d stolen everything from those other guys except their talent. That was right before Madeline sued him for divorce and skinned him clean. His first wife, Allie, daughter of one of the hotshots from Condé Nast, the one Marty had used to get into New York society, she hadn’t wanted any money, she just wanted out after she caught Marty cheating on her with Madeline.

Madeline, the soap opera actress. She used him the way he used Allie. And ended up with the apartment and most of the big newspaper
money, when that was still coming in, before they sold the paper and everybody had to take a cut to keep it alive, Marty Perez taking the biggest cut of all.

Now Madeline was remarried, and so Marty was off the hook with alimony, looking to get out of newspapers and make some real money again.

Looking for a story to get him
out.

The best part was when these television guys told him that one of the reasons they liked him was because he didn’t look like the other blow-dried guys you found all over the dial, that his face had character.

Marty Perez thought, at least his face still had character, right? He put his head back and closed his eyes. Jesus, he was tired.

His secretary, Ann-Marie, woke him up.

“Phone call for you, Mr. Peters.”

She always called him that when they were alone because she knew it pissed him off. Drunk one night, he had made the mistake of telling her that he had been Marty Peters on the school paper at Columbia. He had never legally changed his name, that was a pain in the ass, and besides Marty always liked to keep his options open. But Marty Peters had been the college byline. It wasn’t until his senior year that he realized Perez could work a lot better for him, more doors could open for him by being ethnic, especially in newspapers. It was funny, when he thought about it. He had spent most of his life trying to get as far away from Palmas as he could, and now all of a sudden, the last name was like a credit card. It helped him with the ballplayers, that was for sure. It seemed that every season, baseball was importing about one hundred more guys from the Dominican or some goddamn place. It was even better when he moved up to the front of the paper, not just the
Daily News
realizing that New York had become like some suburb of San Juan, but all the other papers, too.

Marty Peters was dead and buried, anyway, except with Ann-Marie, who had some Madeline in her. Pissing him off seemed like a hobby with her.

Now he sat up and said to her, “Phone call from who, it was worth waking me up?”

“Whom. A man. He wouldn’t tell me his name. But he said he had a quote scoop unquote.”

Perez said, “Stop it, you’re making me hot.”

“He sounded legitimate, the guy. You want me to tell him you’re still taking your nappie?”

She came around the desk and nodded at the empty screen. “Or I could tell him you’re writing.”

She walked out, shutting the door behind her. He jabbed at the blinking light on his phone.

“Perez.”

“I have a story for you, Mr. Perez.” Deep voice. He could have been reading radio copy. Or telling people which baggage carousel had their luggage. “A real big story.”

“My favorite.”

“I thought about giving it to one of the sports guys. But this is a story that will end up on the front page, anyway. So I figured, why waste time? I’ll call my old friend Marty Perez.”

“I know you?”

“We met in a bar one time.”

Shit, that narrowed it down.

“What’s your name?”

“Jimmy Carey. I’m an actor?”

Making it sound like a question.

“Jimmy Carey the
actor
,” Marty said. “I do remember you, as a matter of fact. Where the hell were we? Elaine’s?” Taking a shot. “I was shit-faced, right?”

“We both were. It was Kennedy’s.”

Marty waited. They always had to do this at their own pace, the way they’d rehearsed it. Jimmy Carey the actor was just getting to it, by way of Kennedy’s.

“Are you there?”

“Present.”

“You’re not saying anything.”

“No, you’re not saying anything. You didn’t call to talk about old times.”

Jimmy Carey finally said, “I called to tell you about a rape.”

“I’m waiting.”

“You’re the first person in the media to hear what I’m about to tell you.”

“I’m still waiting.”

“I’m serious. A rape was reported this morning in Fulton, Connecticut. Do you know where that is?”

“Up near Westport. The Knicks train there, right?”

“The Knicks train there.”

Perez said, “Is this about the Knicks?”

“Yes.”

He reached into a side drawer of his desk, grabbed one of those long reporter’s notebooks, took a pen out of his pocket.

“Which Knick?”

“The cops won’t release the names, you know.”

“Names,” Perez said. “There’s more than one?”

“Two.”

“But you will.”

“What?”

“You’re going to give me the names.”

“Yes.”

“How do you know?”

“I know the victim.”

“Who are they?”

“Richie Collins.” The guy paused, for effect, and Marty Perez knew.

Marty said, “Richie Collins and Ellis Adair.”

His door opened and Michael Cantor, the editor of the
News
, poked his head in. Marty waved him all the way in. Now he said into the phone, “You’re telling me that Ellis Adair and this other guy have been charged with rape?”

Cantor went back and shut the door. Then he sat down on the little sofa next to the door, picked up Marty’s other extension, and hit some numbers.

“Not charged. Accused.”

“Right,” Marty said. “You want to give me the woman’s name?” He wrote that down, and kept writing. He could hear Cantor talking
to Burke, who did the front pages, telling him to forget about some subway train crashing into the station at Eighty-sixth Street, he wanted to see him in Perez’s office right away.

Marty heard Cantor say, “Why? Because I got myself a story all of a sudden that is going to singe your friggin’ eyeballs, that’s why.”

It was seven-fifteen when Cantor came back.

Cantor, looking happy, said, “You close?”

“Five minutes.”

“What’d the cops say?”

“I talked to some guy named Hyland. No comment, no names, no nothing.”

“But you said you got a confirmation?”

Marty stared at his screen. He deleted something, typed something in its place. Casual, not looking up at Cantor, but nodding.

“A guy I know at the Garden. The Japs brought him in when they bought the place.”

“Who?”

“You know I can’t tell you that.”

“What did he say?”

Marty Perez shrugged. “What could he say? The greatest basketball player in the world, who works for them, might end up indicted in a rape case. Let’s just say the Japs aren’t breaking out the fucking champagne.”

“It’s Adair and Collins?”

“Yes.”

“The guy on the phone, he’s really her brother?”

“He’s the victim’s brother.”

“
Alleged
victim.”

Marty shrugged again. “He gave me his home number and his agent’s number. They both check out.”

“Agent?”

“He’s a struggling actor type. Says I met him one time at Kennedy’s, over on Second.”

Cantor said, “It’s a helluva good story.”

“A clean fucking hit.” Marty tapped the Send button.

Cantor slapped him on the shoulder, walked out the door, leaving it open, and back through the city room to his own office. Marty could hear him whistling.

He waited until Cantor disappeared, called the number at the Garden again. The secretary said, “I know it’s important, Mr. Perez, you’ve made that quite clear. I’ve been trying to reach him since the first time you called. His plane must have been delayed.”

Marty gave her all his numbers again, hung up the phone. He would’ve liked to have had the confirmation. But the guy was her brother. Somebody’s going to make up one like this about his own sister? Fuck that. It wasn’t just a good story, he was sure of it. It was a
big
story. If he waited a day, the whole world was going to have it. And he needed it. Needed it to show the whole world, to show the Harvard punk at WCBS. Needed it to show he was still Marty Perez.