Shoot (4 page)

“That’s the guy,” Amy admitted. “Half the country wants him dead for almost destroying the government and all of the Tea Party people consider him a traitor for
not
destroying the government. He has to appear in public for the Republican National Convention this week to accept their nomination for president.”

“Which, for some odd reason, is being held right here in Manhattan, at the new Knickerbocker Convention Center,” Jane added.

“Right,” Amy agreed. “We… I mean Shepherd and I… have a meeting with Chesterfield and his security team at eight tomorrow morning. We have to keep him alive and find out who is threatening to kill him.”

“Shouldn’t the FBI or the Secret Service be investigating this—at taxpayer expense?” Jane asked.

“Chesterfield is protected by an Executive Protection Service team as large as the president’s. The FBI is on the case but the client doesn’t trust them to do anything in a timely way,” Amy said. “He’s had experience with the Bureau before and he’s afraid he’ll be dead a year before they get off their asses.”

“Sounds like Chesterfield isn’t as dumb as he acts,” I observed. “But it also sounds like you’d have a lot of suspects.”

“Yeah, that’s a problem,” Amy admitted. “Forget the liberals. The worst thing they would do is send a strong letter to
The New York Times
. It’s the Tea Party psychos we need to worry about. Fifty thousand of them emailed Chesterfield threats—and every single one owns a gun.”

Skippy and I took a walk west, over to Fifth Avenue, and crossed when the downtown traffic was stopped by a light. We walked uptown, with the road on the right and Central Park to the left. The husky, nose in the air, scoping out every pedestrian, yanked on the leash, pulling me forward. At one point he dragged me into the park for a pit stop. I took careful note of how he positioned himself on a patch of dead grass. I pulled out my iPhone and hit the compass app, which informed me that Skippy was pointing more or less southwest. I produced a plastic bag from my backpack and threw Skippy’s leavings into a nearby trashcan. He was not pointing north–south, I noticed. But it was close. Hmm.

We returned to the street and headed back uptown. This was prime RWP territory, as the editors at the newspapers called it. Rich White People. I could see the stakeout in front of Senator Ron Hardstein’s home from a block away, a luxury condo building overlooking the park. Cop cars outside, blue wooden barricades on the sidewalk penning in the press reporters and photographers, parked TV news vans, their giraffe microwave masts telescoped vertically, poised to relay to their stations and the world any sudden breaking news about a powerful person’s penis. Boring.

“Foof!” Skippy said, as we crossed Fifth Avenue and joined the press corps in their sidewalk pen.

“I know, Skippy. I feel the same way,” I told him, as I waved to
Daily Press
cameraman Sparky Starke. He and the other photographers had their cameras up and ready. Next to Sparky was another
Daily Press
reporter. He shot me a dagger glance, obviously afraid I was there to steal his story.

“What’s up, Sparky?” I asked him.

“Hard-on should be here soon,” Sparky said, without looking away. “You on this one now?”

“No, I just wanted to tell you something but it can wait. I’m going on another job but it might involve pictures or video, if you’re interested?”

“Sure, we’ll talk later.”

Sparky’s three black bulky cameras with long telephoto lenses were hung from his neck. One he held up ready. He was dressed for the warm weather, in denim shorts and a black sleeveless Megadeth tank shirt. He worked as many as seven days a week for the
Daily Press
, but he was a freelancer on paper, without sick days, vacations, health insurance, life insurance or pension, because the paper saved a lot of money that way.

In less than a minute, a black limousine pulled up to the curb, as shouts of “Heads up!” rippled through the media mob. The vehicle sat there for several minutes, the occupants invisible behind tinted windows. A uniformed doorman walked out the front door of the residence and stood protectively by the rear door.

The car door opened and senior United States Senator Richard Hardstein, crisply clad in his usual dark Italian suit, emerged calmly from the limo and strode toward his building. The silver-haired politician walked leisurely, as if he had just won an election, the camera flashes sparkling in his blue eyes. The reporters all yelled at once, shouting each other down.

“Senator Hardstein, why do you call your penis ‘Fred’?”

“Senator, how many women did you send photos of your junk?”

“Senator Hard-on, did you also send pictures of your dick to your wife?”

“Is your mom proud of you?”

“How many women have you had sex with?”

Skippy barked until I told him to stop. The rest of the smarmy questions, as the dignified target ran the gauntlet, merged into one loud, lewd bellow. For some reason, it made me think of dusty pigeons shitting on a bronze statue of a hero. Every day, the
Daily Press
and the
New York Mail
featured front page, dueling dick puns in bold headlines. Just when I was getting to like the newspaper business, I realized I was working for junior high school dorks.

There was no angry response from the senator, only cool detachment. It was as if the sex scandal, in which he was caught in dozens of affairs with willing women he met online, was about another Senator Richard Hardstein.

Up the block another limo had stopped at the curb while we were all focused on the senator’s limo. The sound of a closing door had made me turn. Two young women in bright pastel miniskirts had emerged from that car and were hot-footing it down the sidewalk. It was tough to do quietly in stiletto heels but they were good at it—toward an alley marked
SERVICE
, like they knew their way around the place.

I smiled and waved. The black girl waved and smiled back but the Latina girl snapped at her and they ducked into the service entrance. I turned back to my colleagues. Not a single one had noticed the ladies’ stealthy arrival.

Before the besieged senator could enter his domicile, I saw a bright flash of red curls. I moved closer and, sure enough, Ginny Mac was blocking the politician’s path, her large breasts on display in a revealing halter dress she had thrust against Hardstein’s chest. It almost worked. The honorable gentleman eyed his constituent’s cleavage and genuinely smiled as Ginny gave a spiel I couldn’t hear—no doubt a plea for an exclusive.

“Sorry, I have another pressing appointment,” Hardstein told Ginny, one eyebrow arching upwards.

He was saved by the doorman, who thrust his gold-braided shoulder between them and hustled Hardstein inside. Everybody got the shot of Ginny and her boobs pressed up against him. Ginny was ecstatic. For her, scamming a story was foreplay, an exclusive better than sex. She was laughing, her job done for the day. Her photographer was showing Ginny his frames on the digital camera screen— Senator Hard-on ogling her goodies. It would be on the
Mail
website within the hour and on the front page in the morning. Ginny would be famous.

“Ginny, these are great!” her camerawoman gushed. “They will fucking love this. Look at his eyes—they’re right on your tits.”

“I’ve got a headline,” Ginny announced. “How about this? ‘MY EYES ARE UP HERE, SENATOR.’”

They started laughing and shouting competing headlines.

“MAKE A CLEAN BREAST OF IT, SENATOR!”

“DON’T BE A BOOB, HARD-ON!”

“YES, TWO SCOOPS, PLEASE!”

But my fellow reporter from the
Daily Press
, rookie Orlando Rodriguez, was not amused. A tabloid newspaper couldn’t put a reporter from the competing rag on the front page. Orlando’s cellphone rang. He looked at the screen in horror.

“Oh, shit, it’s Mel,” Orlando whined.

“Dude, the TV people went live with it,” Sparky pointed out, scratching Skippy on the head. “The bosses saw the whole thing on the tube.”

Orlando had to take the call. Mel was already shouting loudly—so loud, we could hear him without speakerphone. There was a lot of profanity and threats.

“Mel, how was I supposed to stop her? I should have done it first? How could I… I don’t have boobs! You’re kidding. What? Seriously? Wait, Mel, I…”

The shouting and threats stopped and Orlando was staring at his silent phone.

“Oh, shit. They’re sending some new reporter with big boobs. I have to interview Ginny Mac,” Orlando moaned, clearly humiliated. “Now. For the online edition.”

“For real?” Sparky asked.

“Mel said if I was a good reporter, I would have propositioned Hard-On before Ginny did. Right now, he says The Wood is ‘BETWEEN A SLUT AND A HARD-ON.’” The Wood was a newspaper term for the big bold front-page headline. He reached for a notebook and pen and turned toward the jubilant Ginny.

“Mel says I have to ask her why she is an unethical, anti-feminist slut.”

“I wouldn’t do that, man,” Sparky warned. “That will
really
piss her off.”

While Orlando was interviewing Ginny Mac, I told Sparky about the two pastel ladies. He became very
sparky
.

“Calm down,” I warned him. “Don’t draw any attention.”

“Sorry,” Sparky said, gulping a pill and washing it down with Evian water.

As he drank, some new freelance shooter, a young skinny kid with a backwards baseball cap, was backing up without looking and banged into Sparky—who spilled water down his t-shirt.

“Hey! Fuckin’ watch where you’re going, newbie!” Sparky snapped at the guy.

The inexperienced photographer snarled an automatic “fuck you” at Sparky over his shoulder.

Uh-oh.

Then the skinny kid looked around. He saw Sparky’s arm muscles, tattoos and the look in his eyes. Sparky’s face began squirming. The twitching spread to his neck, his chest. The new guy froze. He may have guessed from his appearance that Sparky was a bodybuilder and martial arts competitor but maybe not that he suffered from Tourette’s syndrome.

“What did you say to me, dick shit-bird motherfucker?” Sparky demanded, his whole scalp and his black, spiky moussed hair now twitching threateningly like a cranky cockatoo. “You wanna fuck with me, mouse balls?”

“Uh… no… sorry, man, I didn’t see you,” the freelancer mumbled, edging away. “Sorry.”

The meds Sparky took to suppress the effects of the condition worked but he tried to keep the dosage low because they came with a cost—bad side effects.

We turned at the sound of Ginny Mac cursing Orlando out. Ginny was aroused by exclusives but her temper was also legendary. She bribed sources, slashed tires, had competitors beaten up, and the rumor was she once rammed a TV truck with her Honda. Orlando retreated. Ginny followed him back to us, shouting so everyone could hear.

“Hey, Orlando, get off your ass and get your own story. Why don’t you ask Shepherd there to get one for you? What is he—retired?”

“No, I’m not retired, Ginny,” I replied. “But I don’t like this story, so I’m not on it.”

“Afraid to compete with me?” she taunted. “I don’t blame you.”

“That’s it, Ginny. I’m afraid of you.”

“Is this what you’re afraid of?”

She pressed up against me, exactly as she had with the senator. He had a hard time ignoring her and so did I. She grabbed my hips and pulled us close. Damn. I fought to keep my eyes away from her chest. She was hard to resist and I wondered if she felt the same way. I tried not to remember our time alone together. At least we weren’t being filmed. A flash went off. Ginny’s photographer caught us.

“No, Ginny, I’m not afraid of your boobs. Don’t you remember? We had sex a few weeks ago—when it was me you wanted information from.”

“Oooooo” our colleagues cooed in an ooh-la-la tone from grade school.

They were all watching and listening. More cameras came up.

Ginny’s eyes hardened but for some reason she disengaged.

“I think I’ll send a copy to your new girlfriend,” Ginny threatened. “She might like to see what you do at work.”

“Please do,” I said. “She thinks I have it easy.”

“Oh snap!” Sparky giggled, his mood improving.

Ginny moved away, steam coming off her pink cheeks.

“You’re F.X. Shepherd?” the new guy cut in. “The pet columnist at the
New York Mail
who caught the Hacker?”

“Yeah. Right. Now I’m with the
Daily Press
. I also do my pet column there now.”

He pumped my hand and told me his name and how amazing I was. I agreed with him until he coasted to a stop. It was easier that way. I was going to be thirty in a few days and probably had less experience than he did but I didn’t interrupt my fan.

“He’s not the fucking hero, I’m the hero of that story,” Ginny McElhone broke in. “I saved his ass.”

Actually, that was almost true. That was the problem with Ginny. Her stories were always
almost
true. And she would do anything for a story. Anything. She was a good reporter but if she didn’t have the story, she would create, beg, borrow or steal it. As usual, she was dressed to kill, in a flouncy turquoise halter dress thing that only came to mid-thigh, the top open to distract every man in sight— including the senator. In fact, I suspected she was dressing for him these days but, so far, he had declined to be lured to further doom. From what I saw of the two young ladies who slipped into the trade entrance, Ginny was way too uptown for Hardstein’s downtown tastes.

“So, Shepherd, how’s your veterinarian?” Ginny asked in a flirty voice, petting Skippy, who annoyed me by enjoying it.

“Jane is fine, thanks. Why did you jump to the
Mail
—just when we were on the same side?”

“We’ll never be on the same side,” Ginny said, confirming my suspicion that she changed papers because she was more comfortable competing with me than playing second fiddle at the same paper. Even when we were both at the
Daily Press
, Ginny spied on me, followed me and stabbed me in the back. If you’re going to do that anyway, I guess it looks better if you’re on opposite sides of the “newspaper war” in New York.