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I knew Dylan would do just that. But I also felt that Dylan would have such fun with this cool guy that he wouldn’t focus on it.
The door banged open. A bright canary-yellow flash whooshed through. Abby, breathless, clad in a brand-new suit looking like a car rental agent.
‘You’re never going to believe this. There’s another fucking Theresa Boudreaux tape!’
Wow. Maybe I had a shot at career redemption. ‘I knew this wasn’t over. I just knew it! Are you sure? How do you know?’
‘Charles.’
Charles appeared and leaned against the doorway. He eyed Peter, then me, reticent to talk business in front of yet another manny candidate.
Peter already had his hands on the armrests, ready to stand.
‘Peter, sorry. I’ve got a little situation here. There’s a chair right outside my office.’
He gave a little wave to Abby and Charles, then closed the door behind him.
Charles piped in, ‘That guy is a major piece of ass.’
‘Please. This is a professional environment.’
‘And it’s really professional to interview your mannies here.’
I ignored that. ‘So what do you hear?’
‘I hear these tapes blow the other ones out of the water.’ Charles clasped his hands together. ‘Plus whatever tapes she gave the Seebright people were crap anyway. You couldn’t really hear a thing and I hear these new tapes are the real deal.’
‘Doesn’t make sense. If you’re going to talk, just talk.’
‘Maybe she liked the publicity but held back. Maybe she had some kind of scruples that are now gone.’
‘Oh, c’mon. Scruples nothing.’
‘The point is that the story is snowballing. Maybe she wants to ride a bigger wave? Get a book deal, sell her life story to the movies!’
Charles sat on the edge of my couch. ‘You’re gonna come out on top of this one and blow by ABS’s doors. It’s your time to shine, baby!’
Erik and Goodman had barely spoken to me since Theresa went to the rival network, even if she hadn’t broken any new news.
‘Our affiliate in Jackson, Mississippi, is trying to get the new tapes; the local newspaper reporters are all over it,’ Charles continued. ‘No one’s got anything yet. The station manager called Goodman to see if he could use his big network muscle with Theresa Boudreaux. I guess they knew we were close to getting the interview, even though we didn’t. Or I guess you didn’t.’
‘Thanks for reminding me. What do you think is on these tapes? What could be on that woman’s mind …?’
Abby screamed at me, ‘Would you please just call Leon Rosenberg and stop asking dumb questions we don’t know the answer to?’
I dialled, remembering I had hung up on him during our last conversation. His impossible secretary answered once again.
‘It’s Jamie Whitfield from the NBS Evening News. I need to talk to Leon.’
‘Hello, Ms Whitfield. I will have to …’
‘Please don’t tell me you’re going to “see” if he’s in, Sunny. I know he’s in. That’s why I’m calling him. There’s a breaking story with Ms Boudreaux.’
‘We are aware there is a breaking story, but unfortunately about twenty reporters have called before you this morning. So I think it’s only fair …’
I tried to be polite while saying, ‘Would you please tell Leon Rosenberg I will personally throttle him if he doesn’t pick up this phone?’
‘No need to get overexcited once again, Ms Whitfield. I will put your name on his call sheet in the order …’
‘That’s just not going to do.’ I stood up and talked into the phone as coldly as I could. ‘Our anchorman Joe Goodman and a team of NBS lawyers are standing right in front of me and will destroy your entire law firm with a story we have on the shelf about your unethical practices. I will personally see to it that we mention you by name, Sunny Wilson.’
No response. Five seconds later: ‘Hello, Jamie.’ Rosenberg picked up. ‘No need to traumatize my secretary every time you call. She is doing exactly what I told her to do. You really doing a story on us?’
‘No.’ I had to laugh. ‘Of course not.’
‘Jesus, you scared even me this time.’
‘Sorry, Leon. And I really want to apologize for hanging up on you the last time we talked. That was very rude and uncalled for. How can I make it up to you? You know, everyone at NBS thinks you do a phenomenal job. And we know how hard you work to protect your clients.’
‘Cut the shit, Jamie. I know I owe you one. I always play fair, especially with the pretty ones like you.’
What a pig.
‘Of course it doesn’t hurt you’re Joe Goodman’s producer.’
I rolled my eyes. ‘OK. What have you got for me?’
No answer. Was he playing games? Did he have anything? Were there really more tapes?
‘And don’t forget the handsome shot I put of you in that Brioni suit walking your client out of her waffle house. The other networks just had the shot of her alone. But not NBS. NBS not only had twelve seconds of you in that suit but also mentioned you by name.’ I mimicked Goodman’s deep voice. ‘“Boudreaux shown here with her high-powered attorney Leon Rosenberg leaving her café in Pearl, Mississippi.” Goodman didn’t think we needed that in. I thought you might be pleased to see it. Of course I did think that would seal the deal for the interview with her.’
‘I get it. I already got it. I owe you.’
‘That’s convenient. I feel the same way.’
‘Why don’t you just get on your knees and start puckering up.’
I made a loud kissing noise. Charles put his finger down his throat in solidarity. Pause. No answer. ‘I’m still waiting, Leon.’
‘Are we alone on this line?’
‘I promise. Let me just put you on hold one sec.’
I looked at Abby and Charles and scrunched my eyes closed and crossed my fingers on both hands and then my legs. Charles turned around and picked up the extra receiver and pushed mute while keeping the phone on hold. Abby was so jittery she could have stuck to the ceiling like Spider-Man.
I motioned 3-2-1 with Charles so that he could surreptitiously hear the conversation. It wasn’t the first time I needed him to listen on a call – we’d done this a hundred times. Leon finally spoke in a low voice. ‘There are more tapes.’
‘More tapes? Between Theresa Boudreaux and Huey Hartley?’
‘Hmm-mmm.’
I gave the thumbs-up sign to Abby. Charles’s eyebrows danced up and down like Groucho Marx’s.
Leon continued. ‘And no one’s heard them but me.’
Abby passed me one of her index cards. ASK HIM TO CONFIRM HOW GOOD THEY ARE.
‘How good?’
‘Makes the ones that aired on Seebright’s show sound like the Teletubbies having a tea party.’
Another card. ASK HIM EXACTLY WHAT IS ON THE TAPES.
‘I need details, Leon. This is a serious news organization. I can’t go to Goodman with innuendo.’
‘OK. But you’re not a serious news organization if you care so much about Theresa Boudreaux. Get over yourself, cutie-pie.’
‘I’m waiting, Leon.’
Still nothing.
‘Leon?’
He answered, ‘How about the fact that Congressman Hartley likes to go in the back door?’
‘The back door of the waffle house?’ I asked. Charles shook his head and put one hand over his forehead and then lay down on the sofa.
Abby kept mouthing, ‘What? What?’
‘Maybe I didn’t give you the original tapes because you are so very dumb, like all those pretty girls. Maybe you should do the weather instead of producing? Ever think of that?’
‘The back door of her house?’ I didn’t get what he was referring to. Charles sat up and started waving his arms in the air, shaking his head wildly NO!
Leon answered slowly. ‘No. Doggie style. From behind. Literally behind, if you get my meaning here.’
‘Doggie style,’ I repeated, in a surprisingly businesslike manner. I had to pace around in little circles to help myself take this in.
Abby bulged her eyes open, the tension and electricity visible in the clenched veins in her neck.
‘Leon, give me a few seconds.’ I looked at Charles. He nodded his head and motioned for me to remain calm. On one of my trips to visit with Theresa, I had gone to a prayer breakfast attended by Huey Hartley. I remembered how he always spoke like a preacher delivering an outdoor sermon in a thunderstorm. Fornicators will no longer be put on a pedestal by the elites of this country. God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve! While the liberal media focuses on securing the rights of homosexuals to marry, while they make their assault on families, unborn children, the Ten Commandments and even Christmas nativity scenes, I, and you, the good people of Mississippi, are going to change the conversation of this great nation of ours!
I recovered my equilibrium. ‘Mr Married former minister. Former owner of the PBTG Christian television network. Current red state US House of Representatives Congressman Huey Hartley with four children says on a tape to his waitress girlfriend that he prefers the doggie-style position?’
I looked up at Abby, who was no longer in her chair. I assumed she was now prostrate on the floor. I leaned over the front of my desk. I had assumed correctly.
‘Jamie. Not just doggie style. Hold on to your hat while I illustrate what we have here a bit more graphically for the mentally impaired folks like yourself. The poor son-of-a-bitch literally says on tape that he likes it up the behind. Preferably up Theresa’s sweet Southern little behind. He talks about the next time she’ll take it up the behind. He talks about how much he loved it the last time she took it up the behind.’
‘Leon, you can’t be serious.’
‘Yep.’
‘You’re screwing with me, right? Literally he says, “up her behind”?’
Abby moaned orgasmically from the floor.
‘Yep.’
I scratched my head. ‘Hartley is the leader of the movement to get the anti-sodomy laws on the ballot for the 2008 presidential …’
‘You got that right.’
‘And he’s a sodomizer?’
Leon chuckled. ‘Yep. I’m with you.’
‘And he’s such a family man, always with his blonde wife in the fifties bouffant and his four kids …’
‘Yep.’
‘What a sanctimonious blow-hard. Remember when he was on that show on his network, with all the proselytizing about family this and that?’
‘Yep.’
‘Some family man.’
‘Yep.’
‘And Boudreaux is ready to discuss all this? I mean the nasty sex?’
‘Yep.’
I shook my head. ‘OK, Leon.’ I had to laugh. ‘I take your point about my serious news network. I tried, but I can’t keep a straight face and tell you you’re mistaken.’
Leon laughed. ‘And it goes on and on and on. It’s the real thing. She’s ready to sing on the record. About this. In detail. And it’s all Goodman’s.’
I put the receiver down, fell to my knees and closed my eyes in silent prayer because I, Jamie Whitfield, had just landed a story that was going to bring in serious super-bowl ratings. And maybe it was going to be the most salacious crap ever broadcast on a mainstream network, but, boy, was it beautiful.
About five minutes after Charles and Abby left, there was a knock on my door.
Peter.
He put his head in. ‘Are you, uh, done with whatever you needed to do?’
‘I am so sorry!’ I ran around my desk and shepherded him back into my office. ‘I am so appalled by my bad manners. I just got totally preoccupied with the most unbelievable story.’
He seemed to get I was kind of out of my mind at that moment. ‘Sounds like a good one, whatever it is.’
‘I don’t know if good is exactly the right word. More like I said: literally unbelievable. If you heard it, you’d maybe excuse my rudeness.’
