Jeffery Deaver - Hard News

Sutton looked at Rune. "Don't talk to the press about what happened. You've already blabbed your mouth off, I see." Waving her arm at the newspaper.

Rune said, "I didn't say anything. The police must've told the reporters."

"Well, all I'll say is, the Network is going to be in deep shit for this and heads are probably going to roll. If you make things worse for everybody because you can't keep your mouth shut, then you'll be opening yourself up to a big fat fucking lawsuit. You understand me?"

Rune nodded.

There was a long pause, broken by Sutton's saying. "Well, I guess that's it. You're out of here."

Rune stared at her, blinked. "Just like that? Today?"

"Sorry, Rune," Maisel said. "Today, yes. Now."

Sutton added, "And don't take any files or cassettes with you. That's our property."

"Do you mean I should go back to my job at the O amp;O?"

Sutton looked at her with a disbelieving smile.

Rune said, "You mean, I'm like totally fired."

Sutton said, "Like totally."

Sam Healy woke up at eight the next morning when Courtney emptied a box of Raisin Bran in their bed.

The noisy cascade didn't wake Rune up.

"Jesus Christ," Healy muttered and shook her arm. He rolled over. Rune opened her eyes, and said, "What's that noise? That crunching?"

Courtney stood in front of the bed and looked down at it, frowning.

Rune swung her feet over the side of the bed, her legs covered with cereal. "Courtney, what did you do?"

"I'm sorry," the little girl said. "Spilled."

Healy, who'd gotten home two hours before from duty watch, said, "I'm going into Adam's room." He vanished.

Rune scooped the cereal up and brushed it off her legs, then put it back into the box. "You know better than that. Come on."

"I know better."

"Don't look so damn cute when I'm yelling at you."

"Damn cute," Courtney said.

"Come on." Rune trudged into the kitchen. She poured juice and bowls of cereal, made coffee. "Can we go to the zoo?" Courtney asked.

"Tomorrow. I've got some errands to do first. You wanta come?"

"Yeah, I wanta come." She held up her hand. "Five-high."

Rune sighed then held up her hand. The little girl slapped it.

Ahalf hour later Rune and Courtney got off the E train at West Fourth and started walking up Christopher Street to the water. Rune paused at the West Side Highway, took a deep breath for courage then plunged around the corner to survey the damage to her late home.

The houseboat still floated but it looked like a load of charred wood had been dumped onto the deck; irregular, glistening slabs of fluted charcoal rose above it. A haze of smoke still hung around the pier and made everything – the houseboat, the debris, the trash cans, the chain-link – appear out of focus. The front of the pier was cordoned off with a yellow police tape, fifty feet in front of where the boat bobbed like a man-o'-war that had lost a sea battle. Rune remembered seeing the houseboat for the first time, riding in the Hudson, fifty miles north of here.

And now, a Viking burial.

She sighed, then waved to the patrolman in the front seat of a blue-and-white. He was a friend of Healy's from the Sixth Precinct, the station where the Bomb Squad was housed.

"Look at this," she called.

"Sorry about it, honey. Some of us'll drive by once in a while, check up on things, just till you get your stuff moved out."

"Yeah, if there's anything left."

There was, but the stink and smoke damage were so bad she didn't have the heart to go through it. Anyway, Courtney was restless and kept climbing on the pilings.

Rune took her by the hand and led her back up Christopher Street.

"What's that?" Courtney asked, pointing at a storefront sign encouraging safe sex. It showed a condom.

"Balloon," said Rune.

"I want one."

"When you're older," Rune answered. The words came automatically and she decided she was really getting into this kid bit. They continued down Christopher then along the tail end of Greenwich and finally onto Eighth Street. It had become a lot shabbier in the past year. More graffiti, more garbage, more obnoxious kids. But, God, the shoe stores – more places to buy cheap shoes than anywhere else in the world.

They walked down to University Place, past dozens of chic, black-clad NYU students. Rune made a detour. She stopped in front of an empty storefront. Above the door was a sign, Washington Square Video.

"I used to work there," she told Courtney. The little girl peered inside.

In the window was another sign, on yellow cardboard: For Rent Net Lease.

Just like my life, she thought. For rent net lease.

They walked to Washington Square Park and bought hot dogs then kept walking south through SoHo and into Chinatown.

"Hey," Rune said suddenly, "want to see something neat?"

"Yeah, neat."

"Let's go look at some octopuses."

"Yeah!"

Rune led her across the street to a huge outdoor fish market on Canal Street. "It's like the zoo, only the thing is the animals don't move so much."

Courtney didn't buy it, though. "Pukey," she said about the octopus then got yelled at by the owner of the stand when she poked a grouper.

Rune looked around and said, "Oh, hey, I know where we are. Come on – I'll show you something totally excellent. I'll teach you some history and when you start school you can blow everybody away with how much you already know."

"Yeah. I like history."

They walked down Centre Street past the black Family Court Building. (Rune glancing across the square at the Criminal Courts Building and thinking of Randy Boggs. She felt the anger sear her and looked away quickly.) In a few minutes they were in front of the New York Supreme Court at 60 Centre.

"This is it," Rune announced.

"Yeah." Courtney looked around.

"This used to be called Five Points. A hundred years ago it was the worst area in all of Manhattan. This is where the Whyos hung out."

"What's a Whyo?"

"A gang, the worst gang that ever was. I'll read you a bedtime story about them some night."

"Yeah!"

Rune remembered, though, that her present copy ofNew York Gangs was now just a cinder and wondered where she could get a new one. She said, "The Whyos were really tough. You couldn't join them unless you were a murderer. They even printed up a price list -you know, like a menu, for how much it cost to stab somebody or shoot him in the leg or kill him."

"Yuck," said Courtney.

"You hear all about Al Capone and Dutch Schultz, right?"

Courtney said agreeably, "Uh-huh."

"But they weren't anything compared with the Whyos. Danny Driscoll was the leader. There's this great story about him. He was in love with a girl named Beezy Garrity – isn't that a great name? I'd like to be named Beezy."

"Beezy."

"And this rival gang dude, Johnny somebody or another, fell in love with her too. Danny and him had this duel in a dance hall up the street. They pulled out guns and blasted away." Rune fired a couple shots with her finger. "Blam, blam! And guess who got shot?"

"Beezy."

Rune was impressed. "You got it." Then she frowned. "Danny was pretty bummed by that, I'd guess, but it got worse because they hangedhim for killing his girlfriend. Right over there," Rune pointed. "That's where the tombs were. The old criminal building. Hanged him right up."

Well, now she'd have plenty of time to do her documentary about old-time gangs. She wished she'd done that story in the first place. They wouldn't have lied to her. Nope, Slops Connolly would no way have betrayed her. They were creeps and scum but, she bet, back then thugs were honorable.

"Come on, honey," Rune said, starting toward Mulberry Street. "I'll show you where English Charley started the last big fight the Whyos were ever in. You want to see?"