John Gilstrap - Nathan’s Run

Enrique’s job was to find a trace of sanity among a group of listeners who seemed to exhibit that trait only rarely. Once found, he then had to convince them to hang on the line while Denise spoke to each of them in turn. What most callers didn’t realize was that the talk radio business was not first come, first served. Once they made it past Enrique, he entered their names, cities of origin, and a brief description of what they wanted to talk about into a computer terminal on his side of the window, which simultaneously displayed the information on a screen on Denise’s side., She then made the decision, sometimes arbitrarily, as to which callers would be spoken to first. He’d make suggestions, but she’d listen to him only about half the time. It was not unusual for a caller to remain on hold for the entire four hours of the show, only to be told thanks but no thanks. That job, of course, also fell on Enrique.

Enrique had met The Bitch when she was still a program assistant, and even thought for a brief while that he was in love with her. She’d just broken up with her husband, and Enrique had had exceptionally strong shoulders to cry on. As Denise’s career blossomed and she healed emotionally, he tried dozens of times to summon the courage to ask her out, but he could never make the words form in his throat. They were “just friends”—intensely dear friends. Like brother and sister.

As Denise rose to stardom, Enrique followed closely behind in producerdom, each day engineering the opportunities for his boss to sound great on the air. The Bitch was a hit in syndication for two reasons: First, because Denise was the most talented on-air personality that he had ever seen, and second, because he was the best producer in the business. It wasn’t bragging if it was true.

But even the best in the business couldn’t keep up with this volume of calls. On his side of the window, there was total bedlam; on hers, total silence, pierced only by the sound of her own voice. People often asked Enrique if he got jealous, him doing all the work and Denise getting all the credit. His answer was always the same, and completely honest. There was no room for jealousy on a team. And in a business measured by individual achievement, theirs was the only real team around.

A tap on his shoulder startled Enrique. He turned to see one of the summer interns standing next to him, holding a pink telephone message slip. Annoyed at the interruption, Enrique pulled one earphone away from his head. “What is it, Tim? We’re in the middle of a show here.”

“Uh, it’s, uh, Tom, sir.”

Enrique’s reply was a silent look that eloquently stated how little he cared what the hell Tom’s name was. NewsTalk 990 worked their summer interns like slaves, allowing them to hang around the station for no pay, in return for the privilege of working twelve to eighteen hours per day. The station did it because it was free labor. The students did it because they knew there was a line a hundred deep just waiting to take the places of people who were stupid enough to put sleep or a social life ahead of their dreams of broadcast stardom.

“It’s, uh, the police, sir,” Tom stammered. “They want to talk to you on the hotline. They say it’s very important.”

“Quit calling me sir, you moron. This isn’t a ship. Tell them we’re in the middle of a show. I’ll call them back when we’re done.” He moved to replace the earphone, but Tom’s body language told him there was more. “What’s wrong?”

Tom shifted his feet uneasily. “Well, I already tried that, and they said something about obstruction of justice charges.”

Enrique looked as though he’d just been slapped. “Obstruction of—Shit! That’s exactly what I need right now,” he said through clenched jaws. “Okay, fine. I’ll take it in here.” Dismissing Tom by turning his back on him, Enrique angrily snatched the phone from its hook.

“This is Enrique Zamora, can I help you?” His tone sounded anything but helpful.

Patrolman II Harold Thompkins of the Braddock County Police Department was determined to be noticed. After five years of rotating shifts, traffic stops and every conceivable piece of grunt work, he was ready to try some real police work. Even as a little kid, watching Columbo and MacMillan and Wife, Harry knew that he’d be a detective one day. He was willing to pay his dues, work his way through the ranks. So far, he’d punched all the right tickets, getting his Associate’s degree in Criminology before applying to the Academy, and busting his balls to graduate at the top of his class.

He took the detective’s exam at his first opportunity, just two weeks after his fifth anniversary with the department, and, true to form, finished in the top three percentiles. Problem was, he was a healthy white Christian of European ancestry who was too young to have gone to Vietnam, and at this particular time in his department’s history, that put him at a significant disadvantage.

What he needed was an opportunity to shine on the job, not just in the classroom. He needed the big success. He needed to find just the right piece of evidence or uncover just the right lead to break a big case. He’d studied the rise of other officers in his situation, and it was clear as crystal that the most reliable road to a gold badge was to get a tenured member of the club to carry your flag. For the last six months, Harry had volunteered for all the right cases, attended all the right meetings, and engineered the right introductions to get himself known in the network. But he was still missing the big kill.

When Sergeant Hackner came to him that morning with the task of tracking down Nathan Bailey’s location through the telephone records, he knew this was the opportunity he’d been waiting for. Hackner was a good guy, and a known flag carrier. The fact that he was best buddies with Lieutenant Michaels made it all the better. For Harry, the mission was clear. He’d do his job quickly and efficiently, making Hackner look good to his boss, and at the same time have a pivotal role in what was turning out to be a high-profile case.

Utilizing what he’d learned at the Academy, he’d started his quest with the obvious—a call to the phone company. After being handed off a half-dozen times from one bureaucrat to another, Harry was finally connected with the Vice President of Customer Service, who broke the news that absent a court order, he could not authorize the dissemination of telephone records without the customer’s permission. Invasion of privacy and all that, don’t you know. Harry asked if he understood that this could be the key to corralling a murderer, in response to which the vice president said something about a call waiting on another line.

Court orders took forever, and they were well outside of Harry’s power to obtain. Legal briefs would have to be filed, and arguments would have to be heard. Even on an expedited basis, obtaining a court order could easily take more time than the Bailey kid figured to take holing up somewhere. If they waited, they could lose their prisoner. And even if they caught him, it would be the Commonwealth’s Attorney who would get the credit, not him.

No, Harry needed to go to the source. He needed to talk the owners of those telephone records—The Bitch and her production staff—into releasing the records to his custody. He just had to be persuasive. He briefly considered a soft-pedaled, altruistic approach, but rejected it as too wimpy. Instead, he settled on the forceful approach. Those radio people didn’t know squat about the real world. If he leaned on them hard enough and played the obstruction of justice card just right, they’d cave in. After all, what did The Bitch have to lose? Helping to solve a murder case was the kind of publicity anyone would welcome.