Pete Hamill - Tabloid City

He pulls on socks, the gray trousers, thinking coldly now, becoming the newspaperman again, the craft that always protects him. Murder at a good address always leads the paper. Then remembers his breakfast meeting with the F.P. Eight-thirty in the morning. Very important. I’ll bet. Yeah. Briscoe knots his tie. He is filled with a sudden rush of things ending. Cynthia Harding is dead. Along with Mary Lou Watson.

Oh.

Going cold again. Displacing the human. Displacing the enduring privacy of his life, and hers.

Cynthia Harding has been murdered.

He shoves some files in his leather bag, grabs a fedora and trench coat, and goes down to the street. He finds a cab on Sixth Avenue. He and the driver travel uptown in silence. The man doesn’t play the radio as he moves north through the emptiness. Briscoe loops the chain of his press card around the collar of the coat. He gets off at Barnes & Noble on the corner of 8th Street, overtips, hurries toward the aura of bright white police lights and red domes. He sees the group of curious citizens, the cops, the firemen, the huddle of reporters. A few nod. He nods back. Fonseca is there too, and Briscoe motions him aside.

— How bad is it?

— Pretty bad, Fonseca says, looking at a notebook. Both women stabbed to death, Mr. Briscoe. Kitchen knife, maybe. There’s one missing from one of those racks. The cops are searching sewers. It looks like the Watson woman got it first, in the hall outside the bedroom door. Then the Harding woman opened the door, they figure. And she got it. She was naked under a bathrobe. The Watson woman was fully clothed. There’s blood all over.

— God…

Briscoe inhales the wet ashy air, lets it out slowly.

— Watson’s husband is a cop, Fonseca says. Ali Watson. Ray Kelly was here and took him away somewhere, I guess to comfort him. Wouldn’t let him in the house, for obvious reasons. I got a picture of Kelly and Watson on my cell phone, sent it already.

— Ali Watson’s a member of the Joint Terrorism Task Force, Briscoe says. Tell Helen, but tell her I said she shouldn’t put that in the paper. I’ll tell Matt to keep Ali’s face out of the paper too. Who knows what he’s working on. Do they have any suspects?

He hears his own voice. Cold and flat, with a slight tremble.

— I don’t know, Fonseca says. They’re not saying much at all. The women were killed, then whoever did it used some kind of an accelerant to cover himself. Maybe from some kind of old-fashioned oil lamp. If it’s a him. The firemen kept the damage to one room, top floor. Mostly scorching.

The bedroom, Briscoe thinks. Up past the paintings by Kuniyoshi and Lew Forrest.

— Who’s running this? he says.

— A lieutenant named Brennan.

— He’s a good cop. Tell him you know there was a party here last night, a fund-raiser for the library. Ask him if he has a guest list. If he lets you, then write down the names and we’ll call each one of them. Don’t do any of this in front of the other reporters.

— Right.

— Also ask if he’s got the name of the caterer. And the waiters. Cynthia Harding always used a caterer for these things. They’d be the last to leave. Or one of them maybe stayed. If Brennan won’t tell you shit, then do a sidebar right here, while you’re waiting. Neighbors, everything. On the scene itself.

— Someone said that E. E. Cummings lived here. And John Reed.

— And a bunch of other people, including Anaïs Nin. I’ll edit your piece and fill in any blanks.

— Great.

— See ya, Briscoe says, and slips away, walks to Greenwich and hails a cab.

2:33 a.m. Bobby Fonseca. Patchin Place.

He watches Briscoe go, then searches the corner crowd for Victoria Collins. No sign of her. His heart sank when the cell phone found him in the taxi. Matt Logan. Double murder in the Village. Go. He thought Victoria would be furious. Instead, she was excited.

— I want to go with you, she said.

— You got a press card? Fonseca said.

— An old one, a student I.D. from Columbia. Laminated. And—

— You probably can’t get very close, he said. The cops—

— Come on, Fonseca. Let me try. I can work the neighborhood. Talk to people who might have known the victims. Whatever. I’m a good reporter. And I got this little recorder too. I can feed you my notes. Please.

The “please” got him. He leaned forward and told the taxi driver to take them to Sixth Avenue and 8th Street instead, and she squeezed his hand. At the scene, he got past the police line and she didn’t, but he saw her talking to people beyond the line, knowing she held the tiny recorder in her hand shielded by a small notebook. Hands bare. Scribbling notes. As he was soon doing. Fonseca thought: She is a reporter, for Chrissakes. Why didn’t someone hire her? Why’d they hire me?

The details came fast. From a uniformed cop. From a lieutenant. The air grainy from the fire, which was out. He called in notes as he got them, unloading to Helen Loomis. He went over to the edge of the gathering crowd, found Victoria Collins, took her notes, thanked her, pecked her cheek like a colleague. A Times guy showed up. Somebody from AP. Then Fonseca was back at the gates. Not feeling the cold. Full of the rush. A big one.

Then he saw Mr. Briscoe. Wondered why he was here. The boss. Fonseca saw pain in his face. Gave him a fill. Heard his directions. Saw him walk off. Thinking: Who the fuck am I to feel sorry for Briscoe? But I do. And I don’t know why.

Victoria. Hey, there she is.

2:36 a.m. Sam Briscoe. A taxi.

His head throbs. Two dead. Stabbed and sliced. Fresh blood on the floor. Eyes wide in shock, for sure. Oh: my Cynthia.

And turns the switch in his head. Thinking. What’s the wood? Think about wood. VILLAGE HORROR. No. Maybe. VILLAGE SLAUGHTER. Too many letters in “slaughter.” Think about wood. Page 1, page 1… BLOODBATH, with a subhead, Socialite, Cop’s Wife Killed in Village. And the press run. Gotta tell Billygoat at the plant. A hundred thou more. Maybe two, if we replate completely for another edition. A head shot of Cynthia Harding. And Mary Lou Watson. Side by side. Back page, the kid’s photo of Ray Kelly and Ali Watson. Maybe the kid shot them from the rear. Ray with his arm across Ali’s back. The wet street. Cynthia smiling.

Then thinks: Stop, you asshole.

Stop.

You loved this woman for three decades…

The cab pulls up at the newspaper. West Street now busy with groaning early-morning trucks. He pays, rushes through the one unlocked door, is waved to the elevator by the black security guard. Into the city room. Almost running. Right to Logan.

— How much time we got?

Logan glances at the old clock.

— Maybe forty-five minutes.

Briscoe pulls off his hat, coat, and jacket, throws them on a desk. He waves at Helen Loomis. She is smoking. Flourishing the cigarette, nodding thanks.

— The kid got the guest list, Logan says.

— Great.

— Guess who’s on it?

— Tell me.

— Our brave publisher.

Briscoe makes a percussive sound with his mouth. Pah!

— You’re kidding me.

— I’m afraid not.

— Give me some time. I’ll call him and get details. What’s the wood?

— Maybe THE LAST DINNER PARTY. No gore, except in the subhead.

— You’re a fucking genius, Matt.

Briscoe walks away and stops at the desk of Helen Loomis. She looks up, a smile on her face. She’s using a coffee container for an ashtray.

— Matt tell you about the party list? he says.

— Yeah, I’m calling them now.

— I’ll call the publisher, Briscoe says.

— That’s what I figured.