The Newsmakers (17 page)

“That this was a contract killing. Someone persuaded Yanez to poison Barrish. The persuasion probably came in the form of hundred-dollar bills. But once he had done his job, he had to go.”

“But would Yanez kill Kay Barrish, or anyone for that matter? He seemed like such a nice kid. I thought he was doing well.”

“Doing well? He was an unpaid intern at Recipe for Success. He
was an illegal, living on the edge, picking up day work, trying to survive. Desperate people do desperate things.” Takahashi blows out air and kicks at the sand again. “This is a tough one. I met Kay Barrish a couple of times, I saw her in action. She treated everybody from a senator to a cleaning woman with the same respect.”

Erica nods. Finding Barrish's killer transcends her journalistic instincts. It reaches right into her heart and soul. Erica believes deeply in democracy and, like Barrish, is profoundly troubled by ideologues who cast compromise as a bad thing. Compromise builds unity, and unity is strength. A house divided will not stand. We're all in this together. Barrish was America's best hope—and she died in Erica's arms.

“Can I get a statement from you?” she asks Takahashi.

“Keep it short. I've got work to do.”

Erica's pod only takes a couple of minutes to get ready. Lesli calls New York and Erica goes live. Takahashi sticks to the facts and so does she. The sun is starting to set and Erica—a small speck in the vast, unforgiving landscape—closes by stressing that the discovery of the body raises more questions than it answers.

CHAPTER 38

LESLI BOOKED THEM A FLIGHT
from Palm Springs to El Paso. As the plane begins its descent, Erica looks out the window at the glittering nighttime sprawl of El Paso and Juarez, Mexico—separated only by the shimmering black ribbon of the Rio Grande. The plane lands and they head to an airport hotel, where Erica falls into a deep sleep.

Lesli has arranged for a van and a Spanish-speaking driver to take them across into Mexico, and they set out early the next morning. The little bit of El Paso Erica sees looks poor and scruffy, but nothing prepares her for Juarez. As soon as they cross the border, any semblance of order disappears. The traffic is dizzying—cars, bicycles, and scooters dart in and out, cut each other off, fill the air with honks and curses. Shops seem to be exploding out of their storefronts, the sidewalks are filled with multicolor displays of everything from fruits to dresses to toys to electronics, music blares from tinny speakers. There are shaved-ice carts, tortilla stands, and stray dogs by the dozen.

They drive through town and soon they're in a vast slum that stretches as far as the eye can see. Thousands and thousands of shack-like houses jammed together, their walls leaning in ominous indecision, windowless, waterless. Wires carrying pirated electricity,
barefoot children, smoke from ten thousand cookstoves mixing with the dust and sand to haze the air and—coupled with the filth—assault the nostrils.

Children run alongside the van with their hands out, shouting for money. Adults stare warily as they pass. The driver turns down a narrow street, so tight it feels as if the van could knock against one of the houses and set off a domino reaction that would level half the slum. Then he stops. “This is it.”

Erica and the driver get out. The house they are in front of looks just a little bit nicer than its neighbors. The outside is freshly painted, there's a flowerpot beside the door, the curtains in the window look new. Erica knocks on the door, and an older teenage girl opens it. She looks smart and hard. The driver asks her name and she says, “Dolores.” Then he begins to explain in Spanish who they are and why they're there.

She cuts him off. “I speak English.” Then she turns to Erica. “And I know who you are. Arturo is my brother.”

“Do you know . . .?”

“That he's dead? Yes, of course I know. It's been all over television, all over the neighborhood. Thanks to
you
. What do you want? Why did you come here?”

Erica motions to the driver and he returns to the van. “I'm very sorry,” she says.

“No, you're not. People like you play games with people like us. You get famous, you get rich. We die.”

“I want to find out who killed your brother.”

“I told him not to go to the States. I told him!
Idiota! Estupido idiota! Estupido! Estupido Arturo!
” Dolores clenches her fists and for a moment Erica is afraid the girl will hit her—but then her shoulders slump and her mouth opens and tears pour from her eyes. “
Arturo, mi Arturo, mi hermano Arturo . . .
”

In that moment Erica hates her job, hates the voyeurism, the intrusion onto private sorrow.
Is Detective Takahashi right, are we all vultures?
She wants to put her arms around this girl, wants to bring her solace, wants to bring her brother back. But she can't bring him back. And she didn't kill Barrish or Yanez. In fact, she's trying to find out who did. She takes a deep breath. She has a job to do.

Dolores slowly pulls herself together—clearly this isn't her young life's first sorrow. She reaches into her jeans and takes out a tissue, blots her eyes and blows her nose. “Do you want to know why my brother is dead?” she asks in a remarkably matter-of-fact voice.

Erica nods. Dolores leads her into the house. It's just two small rooms, with a curtain over the doorway that leads to the back room. The front room has a rudimentary kitchen, several daybeds, and a flat-screen TV.

Dolores pulls back the curtain. A woman who is probably forty-five but looks ninety is on the bed, skeletal, unconscious, near death. “This is our mother. Cancer is eating her alive. It is over. But a month ago she was still getting up, still eating. We had hope. Stupid us. There is a doctor who says he can cure cancer, but he wants twenty thousand dollars. Arturo sent ten thousand and said the other half would be coming soon. The doctor took the ten thousand and gave Mama some stupid blood treatment. But Arturo was so proud. He thought he bought Mama life.” She laughs bitterly. “But he bought himself death.”

“Did he say where he got the money?”

“He told me he won it gambling, but Arturo could never lie to me.” Dolores walks over to the bed and strokes her mother's forehead.

“So that's all he said, he gave no hint of who paid him?”

Dolores shakes her head.

“We'll find out who is behind all this. I
promise
.”

Dolores sits on the side of the bed, takes her mother's hand and kisses it, holds it to her cheek. “No matter what you do, it won't bring Mama back. Or Arturo.”

Erica heads out to the van and her flight back to New York. As she
sits in her window seat looking down at the endless brown expanse of southern Texas, she feels frustrated but determined—the trip to Juarez didn't bring her any closer to knowing who hired Yanez, but she'll get there, yes she will.

CHAPTER 39

THE FIRST THING ERICA DOES
the next morning is call Dirk.

“Hi, Erica,” he says, antipathy dripping off the two words. He would never come out and admit it, but he's jealous of her success. Erica knows she has to tread lightly.

“I wanted to talk to you about Jenny's birthday.”

“We're taking her on a whale watch tour. That's what she wants.”

“Our daughter, the marine biologist.” No response. “That sounds wonderful. Do you think she would enjoy coming down to New York and seeing where I work?”

Dirk sighs. “It would be difficult logistically. I'm not just going to put her on a train by herself.”

“Of course not. I'll send a car and driver to come up and get her.”

“ ‘Send a car and driver'? Honestly, Erica, success is ruining you.”

Former husbands can be such a-holes.

“I guess I flourished in failure.” As soon as the words are out of her mouth, she knows they're a mistake.

“I can live without your sarcasm. And I don't think it's in Jenny's best interests to go down there. She's finally settling down in school.

Linda is a steadying influence. Being exposed to all that New York razzle-dazzle could easily throw her off.”

“
Linda is a steadying influence.
” Which means one thing: Erica is an unsteadying influence. Here comes that mocking voice in her head:
bad mother, bad mother, bad mother.
Yes, she
has
been a bad mother, but that's in the past. Today is today.

“It's just one day, Dirk, and the party is going to be small and low-key.”

He sighs again, but this one sounds like surrender. Then there's a long pause before, “Erica, I can't provide for Jenny the way you can. She'll come home and see me as a disappointment.”

Erica appreciates his honesty. Dirk is a high school history teacher. He's basically a well-meaning guy. When they first met, Erica was attracted to his passion for history and his idealism about teaching. These days he's in mid-burnout and he takes out his frustrations on Erica.

“On the other hand, Dirk, she may spend one day here and say, ‘No thanks to that stress fest.' ”

Dirk chuckles. It's a nice sound. Erica flashes back on a weekend camping trip they took in Vermont's Green Mountains early in their courtship. Erica had never been camping but wanted to be a good sport. The first day out—after a dinner of slimy, lukewarm ramen noodles—they spent an unromantic night shivering on lumpy ground in a flimsy tent surrounded by animal noises that to Erica sounded like hungry bears licking their chops. She learned a valuable life lesson that night: man invented houses for a good reason. In the morning Erica pleaded with Dirk to head back to civilization. He chuckled—that sweet, indulgent chuckle of his—and packed up the tent.

“Erica, are you on the beam with the drinking?” he asks, suddenly deadly serious.

She wants to say,
Do you really think I could function at this level
and
drink?
But she holds her tongue. It's a legitimate question. “I am, yes.”

“All right then. Jenny can come. But just for the day.”

Erica hangs up. So Jenny is coming down to see her next Monday. A birthday visit. How wonderful! Erica takes out her cards and deals a hand of solitaire, trying to convince herself that the visit doesn't fill her with anxiety and dread.

CHAPTER 40

ERICA DUCKS INTO BETH ISRAEL
Hospital. It's a week since Mark was mugged, and she's arranged to meet Dr. Kaminer in Mark's room to discuss his progress. She's wearing jeans, flats, and a cashmere pullover, and is hiding behind sunglasses and a scarf.

She walks into Mark's room. Chuck and Marie Benton are sitting at the foot of the bed, looking as if they haven't moved in the week since he was attacked.

“How's my friend doing?” Erica asks.

Marie gives her a wan smile. Erica can see why: Mark's facial swelling has gone down but he still looks badly bruised, his right eye is still swollen shut, he's still hooked up to the tubes and machines. He's still in a coma. Erica goes over to the bed and strokes his arm. “Hi, Mark, it's Erica. You look better, buddy. You're doing great. We're all here for you, all rooting for you. Hang in there and keep fighting.” She gently touches his cheek, wills him to get better.

“You're a good friend,” Chuck says.

Erica can't tell them about the guilt that is burning up her insides. About the aborted meeting at Starbucks. About the fact that Mark may have uncovered something about the cause of the ferry crash that
has national security implications. Instead she asks, “How are you two holding up?”

“The hotel is lovely, but we're moving into a short-term rental tomorrow,” Marie says. “We're going to be coming back and forth from Ohio, and we wanted our own place, with a kitchen.”

Dr. Kaminer walks in. Marie Benton instinctively stands up and moves beside her son.

“How's it looking?” Erica asks.

“I'm getting cautiously optimistic,” Kaminer says. “It's hard to tell from looking at Mark, but we're seeing progress every day. His vitals are strong. The swelling in his brain is down to the point where we hope to reattach the piece of skull we removed in the next two to three days. Now we just have to hope he comes out of this coma.”

“And if he does?” Erica asks.

“It's going to be a tough journey back. We're looking at months of intensive rehab. Will there be permanent brain damage? Hard to say. I've seen remarkable recoveries from brain trauma.”

Chuck Benton joins his wife beside Mark and takes his hand. “Do you hear that, Mark? It's time for you to come out of this stupid coma. You better listen to your dad or there'll be hell to pay.” Then he leans down and kisses Mark's forehead, leaving his lips there for a moment as if he's willing strength and life into his son.

Chuck straightens up. Mark's left eye blinks three or four times. Then it stays open—and he turns his head toward his father.

CHAPTER 41

THE EMERGING FACTS ABOUT KAY
Barrish's murder keep it the country's top story, and Erica is on the air so often—repeating what is essentially the same information about Barrish and Yanez—that she begins to feel like a mechanical doll. She's learning a new craft: how to make news interesting the tenth time she's reporting it. The keys are to not let her energy flag (or her boredom show), to switch up the opening so she introduces the story from a slightly different angle each time, and to continuously search for some new piece of information that adds interest (if not import) to the story.

It's midafternoon and Erica is in her office. She's become increasingly guarded and uneasy at GNN. She's also taken a step back with Greg. She's been consumed with the Kay Barrish story and with concern for Mark and burning curiosity about what he uncovered before his beating. There's just no room on her plate. Greg understands, he's also crazy busy. They're both being pros, although sometimes when their eyes meet, Erica feels an urge to rush into his arms.