Jeffery Deaver - Hard News

Courtney said, "I like dragons."

Sutton stared at them blankly. "Dragons?"

The little girl added, "I'm going to be a knight. But I wouldn't kill any dragons. I'd have them for pets. Rune's going to take me to the zoo and we're going to look at dragons."

Through teeth that never separated more than a quarter inch, Sutton said, "How wonderful."

Jacques returned with two bulky phone directories and set them on the third chair at the table. Courtney smiled as he lifted her up and set her on top.

He turned to Sutton. "This really cannot be, uh, habitue I, nonl"

"Jacques, have someone bring the little girl some…" She looked at Rune with a raised eyebrow.

"She loves pizza."

"We are a French restaurant, miss."

"She also likes pickles, clam chowder, smoked oysters, rice, anchovies-"

"Huitres,"Jacques said. "They are poached and served with pesto and beurre blanc."

Sutton said, "Fine. Just have somebody cut them up into little pieces. I don't want to watch her mauling food. And have the sommelier bring me a Puligny-Montrachet." She looked at Rune. "Do you drink wine?"

"I'm over twenty-one."

"I'm not asking for a driver's license. I want to know if an eighty-dollar bottle of wine will be wasted on you."

"Maybe a White Russian would be more my speed."

Sutton nodded to the maitre d' and said, "Find me a half bottle, Jacques. A Mersault if there's no Puligny."

"Oui, Miss Sutton."

Huge menus appeared. Sutton scanned hers. "I don't think we want anything too adventurous. We'll have scallops to start." She asked Rune, "Do you swell up or turn red when you eat seafood?"

"No, I get fish sticks all the time at this Korean deli. And-"

Sutton waved an abrupt hand. "And then the pigeon."

Rune's eyes went wide. Pigeon?

Jacques said,"Salades, after?"

"Please."

Rune's eyes danced around the room then settled on the arsenal of silverware and empty plates in front of her. The procedures here seemed as complicated as Catholic liturgy and the downside if you blew it seemed worse. Be cool, now, she told herself. This's your boss and she already thinks you're damaged.

Rune resisted the fierce impulse to scratch under her bra strap.

The first course arrived, along with the little girl's oysters.

"Gross dudes," Courtney said but she began to eat them eagerly. "Can we buy these for breakfast? I like them."

Rune was thankful Courtney was with them; the girl gave her something to do besides feeling uncomfortable. Picking spoons up off the floor, wiping oyster off her face, keeping the vase vertical.

Sutton watched them and for the first time since Rune had known her the anchorwoman's face softened. "So that's what it's like."

"What?" Rune asked.

"Kids."

"You don't have children?"

"I do. Only I call them ex-husbands. Three of them."

"I'm sorry."

Sutton blinked and stared at Rune for a minute. "Yes, I believe you are." She laughed. "But that's one thing I regret. Children. I-"

"It's not too late."

"No, I think it is. Maybe in my next life."

"That's the worst phrase ever made."

Sutton continued to study her with curiosity. "You just barge right through life, don't you?"

"Pretty much, I guess."

Sutton's eyes settled on Courtney. Then she reached forward and, with a napkin as big as the girl's dress, wiped her cheek. "Messy little things, aren't they?"

"Yeah, that part's kind of a drag. And she isn't really into being sloppy tonight – I told her to behave. For lunch the other day, okay? We're eating bananas and hamburger, all kind of mixed together and-"

Sutton's hand swept across the table. "Enough."

Two waiters brought the main courses. Rune blinked. Oh, God. Little birds.

Sutton saw her face and said, "Don't worry. They're not your kind of pigeons."

My kind?

"They're more like quail."

No, what they were like was little hostages with their hands tied behind their backs.

Courtney squealed happily. "Birdies, birdies!" A half-dozen diners turned.

Rune picked up a fork and the least-offensive knife and started in.

They ate in silence for a few moments. The birdies weren't too bad actually. The problem was that they still had the bones in them and using a knife as big as a sword meant there was a lot of meat you couldn't get to. Rune surveyed the room but didn't see a single person sucking on a drumstick.

There was a pause. Sutton looked at her and said, "Where are you with the story?"

Rune had figured this was on the agenda and she'd already planned what she was going to say. The words didn't come out quite as organized as she'd hoped but she kept the "likes" and the "sort-ofs" to a minimum. She told Sutton about the interviews with Megler and with Boggs and with the friends and family members and told her about getting all the background footage. "And," she said, "I've sort of put in a request to get the police file on the case."

Sutton laughed. "You'll never get a police file. No journalist can get a police file."

"It's like a special request."

But Sutton just shook her head. "Won't happen." Then she asked, "Have you found anything that proves he's innocent?"

"Not like real evidence but-"

"Have you or haven't you?"

"No."

"All right." Sutton sat back. Half her food was uneaten but when the busboy appeared she gave him a subtle nod of the head and the plate vanished. "Let me tell you why I asked you here. I need some help."

"From me?"

"Look." Sutton was frowning. "I'll be frank. You're not my first choice. But there just isn't anybody else."

"Like, what are you talking about?"

"I want to offer you a promotion."

Rune poked at a white square of vegetable – some kind she'd never run into before.

Sutton gazed off across the restaurant as she mused, "Sometimes we have to do things for the good of the news. We have to put our own interests aside. When I started out I was a crime reporter. They didn't want women in the newsroom. Food reporting, society, the arts – those were fine but hard news? Nope. Forget it. So the chief gave me the shit jobs." Sutton glanced at Courtney but the girl didn't notice the lapse into adult vocabulary. The ancherwoman continued, "I covered autopsies, I chased ambulances, I did arraignments, I walked through pools of blood at a mass shooting to get pictures when the photographer was kneeling behind the press car puking. I did all of that crap and it worked out for me. But at the time it was a sacrifice."

Something in the matter-of-fact tone of Sutton's voice was thrilling to Rune. This is just what she'd sound like when talking to another executive at the Network, an equal. Sutton and Dan Semple or Lee Maisel would talk this way – in low voices, surrounded by people wearing huge geometric shapes of jewelry, sitting over the tiny bones of hostage birds and drinking eighty-dollar-a-bottle wine.

"Like you want me to be a crime reporter? I don't-"

Sutton said, "Let me finish."

Rune sat back. Her plate was cleared away, and a young man in a white jacket cleaned the crumbs off the table with a little thing that looked like a miniature carpet sweeper. Most of the mess was on Rune's side.

"I like you, Rune. You've got street smarts and you're tough. That's something I don't see enough of in reporters nowadays. It's one or the other and usually more ego than either of them. Here's my problem: We've just lost the associate producer of the London bureau – he quit to work for Reuters – and they were in the midst of production on three programs. I need someone over there now."

Rune's skin bristled. As if a wave of painless flame had passed over her. "Associate producer?"

"No, you'd be an assistant, not associate. At first at least. The bureaus in London, Paris, Rome, Berlin and Moscow '11 feed you leads and you and the executive producer will make your decisions on what you want to go after."