Lawrence Block - The Best American Mystery Stories 1999

“Hey, we were just—”

“I know what you were just, thank you very much. I’d appreciate it” — he gestured toward Jeff — “if you and the Boy Wonder here would get off your asses and start carrying supplies inside.” Russell reached for a couple of buckets, but Davies stopped him. “Not you, Ygor. You stay here with me for a second.” Mutt and Jeff stood staring as Ms. News Babe came jiggling up to Russell in all of her journalistic glory.

Davies glowered at the two boys and said, “Yes, her bazooba-wobblies are very big, and no, you can’t touch them. Now get moving before I become unpleasant.”

They became a blur of legs and mop buckets.

Russell said, “Mr. Davies, I’m sorry, but—”

“Hold that thought.”

Tanya and her cameraman were almost on top of them; a microphone came toward their faces like a projectile.

“Russell?” said Tanya. “Russell, hi. I’m Tanya Claymore, and—”

“A friend of mine once stepped on a Claymore,” said Davies. “Made his sphincter switch places with his eardrums. I was scraping his spleen off my face for a week. Please don’t bother any member of my crew, Ms. Claymore.”

The reporter’s startling green eyes widened. She made a small, quick gesture with her free hand, and her cameraman swung around to get Davies into the frame.

“We’d like to talk to both of you, Mr. Davies—”

“Go away.” Davies looked at Russell, and the two of them grabbed the remaining buckets and barrels and started toward the house.

Tanya Claymore sneered at Davies’s back, then turned around and waved to the driver of the news van. He looked over, and she mimed talking into a telephone receiver. The driver nodded his head and picked up the cellular phone. Tanya gave her mike to the cameraman and took off after Davies.

“Mr. Davies, please, could you — dammit, I’m in heels! Would you wait a second?”

“She wants me,” whispered Davies to Russell. Despite everything, Russell gave a little smile. He liked Jackson Davies a lot and was glad this man was his boss.

Tanya stumbled up the incline of the lawn and held out one of her hands for Davies to take hold of and help her.

“Are those fingernails real or press-ons?” asked Davies, not making a move.

Russell put down his supplies and gave her the help she needed. As soon as she reached level ground, she offered a sincere smile and squeezed his hand in thanks.

Davies said, “What’s it going to take to make you leave us alone?”

Her eyes hardened, but the smile remained. “All I want is to talk to the both of you about what you’re going to do.”

“It’s a little obvious, isn’t it?”

“Central Ohio would like to know.”

“Oh,” said Davies. “I see. You’re in constant touch with central Ohio? Champion of the common folk in your fake nails and designer dress and tinted contacts?”

“Does all that just come to you or do you write down ahead of time and memorize it?”

“You’re not being very nice.”

“Neither are you.”

They both fell silent and stood staring at each other.

Finally, Davies sighed and said, “Could we at least get our stuff inside and get started first? I could come out in a half hour and talk to you then.”

“What about Russell?”

Russell half raised his hand. “ Russell is right here. Please don’t talk about me in the third person.”

“Sorry,” said Tanya with a grin. “You haven’t talked to any reporters, Russell. I don’t know if you remember, but you’ve hung up on me twice.”

“I know. I was gonna send you a card to apologize. We always watch you at my house. My mom thinks you look like a nice girl, and my dad’s always had a thing for redheads.”

Tanya leaned a little closer to him and said, “What about you? Why do you like watching me?”

Russell was glad that it was so dark out, because he could feel himself blushing. “I, uh... I — look, Ms. Claymore, I don’t know what I could say to you about what happened that you don’t already know.”

The radio in the police cruiser squawked loudly, and the officer down by the vans leaned through the window to grab the mike.

“All right,” said Tanya, looking from Davies to Russell, then back to Davies again. “I won’t lie to either of you. The news director would really, really prefer that I come back tonight with some tape either of Russell or the inside of the house. I almost had to beg him to let me do this tonight. Don’t take this the wrong way — especially you, Russell — but I’m sick to death of being a talking head. Don’t ever repeat that to anyone. If—”

“Oh, allow me,” said Davies. “If you don’t come back tonight with a really boffo piece, you’ll be stuck reading Teleprompters and covering new mall openings for the rest of your career, right?”

Tanya said nothing.

Russell looked over at his boss. “Uh, look, Mr. Davies, if this is gonna be a problem, I can—”

“She’s lying, Russ. Her news director is all hot to trot for some shots of the inside of the house, and he’ll do anything for the exclusive pictures, won’t he? Up to and including having his most popular female anchor lay a sob story on us that sounds like it came out of some overbaked nineteen-forties melodrama. Nice try, though. Goddammit — it wouldn’t surprise me if you and your crew were the ones who tried to break in.”

Tanya looked startled. “What? Someone tried to break into the house?”

“Wrong reading, sister. Don’t call us, we’ll call you.”

The hardness in Tanya’s eyes now bled down into the rest of her face. “Fine, Mr. Davies. Have it your way.”

The officer in the cruiser walked up to his partner on the porch, and the two of them whispered for a moment, then came down toward Davies and Tanya.

“Mr. Davies,” said the officer who’d unlocked the door, “we just received orders that Ms. Claymore and her cameraman are to be allowed to photograph the inside of the house.”

Behind her back, Tanya gave a thumbs-up to the driver of the news van.

“What’d you do,” asked Davies, “have your boss call in a few favors, or did you just promise to fuck the mayor?”

“Mr Davies,” said one of the officers. The warning in his voice was quite clear. “Ms. Claymore can photograph only the foyer and one other room. You’ll all go in at the same time. I will personally escort Ms. Claymore and her cameraman into, through, and out of the house. She can only be inside for ten minutes, no more.” He turned toward Tanya. “I’m sorry, Ms. Claymore, those’re our orders. If you’re inside longer than ten minutes, we’re to consider it to be trespassing and are to act accordingly.”

“Well,” she said, straightening her jacket and brushing a thick strand of hair from her eye, “it’s nice to see that the First Amendment’s alive and well and being slowly choked to death in Cedar Hill.”

“You should attend one of our cross burnings sometime,” said Davies.

“You’re a jerk.”

“How would you know? You never come to the meetings.”

“That’s enough, boys and girls,” said Officer Lock and Key. “Could we move this along, please?”

“One thing,” said Tanya. “Would it be all right if we got some shots of the outside of the house first?”

“You’d better make it fast,” said Davies. “I feel a record-time cleaning streak coming on.”

“Or I could get them later.”

Russell had already walked away from the group and was setting his supplies on the porch. The front door was open and the overhead light in the foyer had been turned on, and he caught sight of a giant red-black spider clinging to the right-side wall—