Bruce DeSilva - A Scourge of Vipers

“Has Parisi figured out who bugged your office yet?”

“No, but he bullied Channel 10 into giving him the IP address the audio file and photo were sent from, and he’s trying to trace it.”

“I’ve got McCracken working on that, too,” I said, “but we already know who’s behind this.”

“Yeah. The same person who took our photo at Hopes.”

“Cheryl Grandison,” I said. “She’s trying to destroy you so you won’t be able to get the gambling bill passed. The NCAA and the pro sports leagues will probably give her a bonus for this.”

“But as always, Mrs. Grandison, if you or any of your Stop Sports Gambling Now super PAC force should be caught or killed, the commissioners will disavow any knowledge of your actions.”

And we both laughed again.

“So what now?” I asked.

“I’m leaving for Trenton tomorrow.”

“Trenton? What for?”

“To confer with Governor Christie.”

“Why?”

“To see if we can come up with a joint strategy for derailing the opposition to our gambling bills. But mainly to duck reporters for a few days.”

“Duck them? Why? The move here is to tell them that the audio file is harmless kidding between friends and that your enemies obtained it by illegally bugging your office. You’ve got to act fast to change the narrative, Fiona. If you don’t, this thing is gonna get a lot worse.”

“That’s exactly what I want, Mulligan. Let the scandalmongers have their fun for a few more days.”

“Why?”

“Because this so-called scandal is going to guarantee my reelection.”

She shot me a sly smile.

“Okay, Fiona. What’s up your sleeve?”

When she laid it out, I had to admit it was worthy of her nickname. The plan was both brilliant and diabolical.

While Fiona was out of town, I spent my time ducking reporters, applying for unemployment insurance, listening to Iggy Rock rant about our slut governor and her disgraced boy-toy, following the news about the legislative hearings on the gambling bill, trying unsuccessfully to reach out to Yolanda, and getting drunk with Joseph. We turned the TV news into a drinking game. Every time somebody said “disgraced boy-toy,” we each chugged a ’Gansett.

Reporters had staked out the front of my tenement building, so whenever we went on a pizza and beer run, we sneaked down the fire escape, jumped the back fence, and jogged to Joseph’s truck. Almost everywhere we went, a gray Honda Civic was lurking. I figured I was getting paranoid. I wasn’t an investigative reporter anymore. Except for the press, no one had a reason to tail me now-unless Mario or Marco Alfano still held a grudge. And the last I time I saw Alfano, he was driving a black SUV.

Each night, I lay awake in bed and wondered about the same few things.

Would Yolanda ever speak to me again?

Was there life after journalism?

Should I give it up and take a job with McCracken?

Should I stick with it and go to work for Mason?

Or should I go for the money and take over for Whoosh if the gambling bill failed?

It was nearly a week before I stopped obsessing about myself and started wondering about more important things.

Would McCracken or Parisi be able to trace the source of the e-mail?

Would the cops find Mario before Marco Alfano put a bullet in his head?

Did Mario kill Romeo Alfano and make off with the two hundred grand? Despite what Whoosh had told me, I still thought yes. But if Mario didn’t do it, who did?

Then something else occurred to me. What the hell had been in that grocery bag the Providence cops had lugged out of my apartment?

On Friday, McCracken called with one of the answers. The IP address belonged to a computer in the Providence Public Library reading room. After we hung up, I rang Parisi.

“What now, lover boy?”

“I hear the IP address is a dead end.”

“No comment.”

“The governor told you who snapped the photo of us at Hopes, right?”

“So?”

“Is that enough to make an arrest?”

“For what? Last I checked, photography isn’t illegal.”

“It ties Grandison to the audio file. They were both in the same e-mail.”

A ten-second delay. And then, “It’s not probative.”

“Why not?”

“All it tells us is that she, or maybe somebody she gave the picture to, sent the e-mail. Doesn’t prove she planted the listening devices.”

“Any leads on the money from Romeo Alfano’s briefcase?”

“No comment.”

“Why do you keep saying that? I’m not a reporter anymore.”

“The answer to my prayers.”

“I got a guy who swears Mario doesn’t have it.”

Ten seconds this time. “That so?”

“Yeah.”

“What guy?”

“I’m not saying.”

Five seconds. “Seen Whoosh around lately?”

“All the time.”

Ten seconds. “Any idea who else could have the money?”

“No.”

“I’ve been wondering if maybe it’s you,” he said. And then he clicked off.

There was no reason to keep going to the Vipers’ tryouts. I wouldn’t be writing about that for The Dispatch anymore. But what the hell. I didn’t have anything better to do on Saturday.

In the locker room, the players weren’t calling me “grandpa” anymore. Now it was “sexy grandpa”-and a few other things that were pornographic in nature. The ribbing was good-natured, so I took it in stride.

As we staggered onto the court, Coach Martin pulled me aside.

“I was worried you weren’t going to show this morning.”

“Almost didn’t.”

“When the news broke, management ordered me to cut you, but I talked them out of it.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because you’ve been doing a great job with Jefferson and Benton. I also talked them into giving you this,” he said, and handed me an envelope.

I tore it open. Inside was a check for twelve hundred dollars.

“What’s this for?”

“Compensation as a temporary member of the coaching staff. It covers what you’ve done so far and for working with the guys today and next Saturday.”

“That’s the last day?”

“It is.”

“Told Jefferson he’s made the team yet?”

“Not yet.”

“What about Benton?”

“We’re still talking that over. With Cartwright on the shelf, we need a backup point guard, but the kid’s awful small.”

“So’s Nate Robinson,” I said, “and he’s been in the NBA for years.”

Before getting down to work, I slipped back into the locker room and folded the check into my wallet. It was more than enough to cover my next rent payment. That gave me a few weeks of breathing room to ponder what the hell I was going to do with the rest of my life.

Tuesday morning, Fiona and I huddled in her office. Just outside the door, the press assembled in the State Room, a spacious hall where Rhode Island governors conducted bill signings and addressed the public. It had been more than a week since the sex story broke. More than a week without a word from the governor. More than a week in which the scandal was allowed to swell to Clintonesque proportions.

With nothing but the photo and video to sustain them, media outlets, both local and national, had kept the story alive with a frenzy of absurd interviews and speculation. Fox News assembled a panel of psychologists to discuss the supposed sex addiction that had caused the governor to throw away her promising political career. Providence TV reporters hunted down my ex-wife and former girlfriends and pestered them with questions about my sexual history. CNN padded its coverage with still pictures and video of other political sex scandals from JFK’s Mob moll to Anthony Weiner’s dick pix. Iggy Rock went on the air with a rumor that Fiona had presided over weekly orgies with hookers and lobbyists, and he dared the governor to come on the air and deny it. An “Impeach the Whore Governor” Facebook page swelled with followers. And Rush Limbaugh crowed that Attila the Nun was now Attila the Slut.