Hostage (7 page)

Okay, so give Todd a great big gold star. What could she do about it anyway?

The intercom on her phone cracked, and a deep, gravelly voice commanded, “Cindy, get in here.”

She wasn’t ready for this, but she pressed down on the button anyway, and called back, “Sure, Roger.”

Her boss, Mr. Type A, the original prime candidate for a heart attack. That Todd had rejected Channel 7’s late and lame offer—presented to Todd only after the grapevine brought news of Channel 10’s offer—still infuriated Roger Locker. They’d had Todd, lost him once, then lost him a second time, for Mills’s agent had quite ceremoniously told Locker to go take a flying leap. And Cindy of course knew what was driving up Roger’s blood pressure this morning: the Clariton interview that Channel 7 was not conducting.

Cindy rolled her chair back, headed out of her office and down the narrow hall. She brushed aside a wisp of her blond hair, then smoothed her ivory-colored blouse, fussed with her gold bracelets. Of course she knew what this was going to be about. And of course she knew it wouldn’t be pretty.

Stepping into the doorway of his office, she put on a big smile, and said, “Hi, Roger.”

A heavyset, balding man, he looked up, a scowl on his face. “What the hell were you doing in Uptown all morning, sipping on a nice cafe latte or something?”

Roger specialized in intimidation, and Cindy fell for it every time. Even though she should have expected something like this, her face began to flush with embarrassed warmth.

She replied, “Ah… interviewing some of… of Mr. Clariton’s fans.”

“Well, that’s what I just saw on the tape. Imagine my surprise. And what did I tell you to do?”

“Roger, that was impossible.”

“Which is exactly what I expect you and everyone else here at WTCN to do—the goddamn impossible! I wanted our lead tonight to be the first interview with Johnny Clariton.”

“You don’t understand, there was no way he’d talk with me.”

“Why?”

“Roger, I couldn’t even get close to him.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s got this bossy aide as well as this incredible hulk for a bodyguard who wouldn’t let anyone near him. It was a book-signing, and a book-signing only.” Cindy shrugged. “Sorry, Roger, they wanted and encouraged me to film his fans, which is to say voters. That’s what they wanted to get across, not his book, not his politics, but his popularity—I mean, everyone knows he’s going to run for president.” She shrugged. “I did my best, but there was no way I could speak to him directly. Trust me, Roger, I got as much as I could, and besides, none of the other stations had a crew there, not even WLAK.”

“Well, all you got is drivel—just a bunch of gushy folks and one nut case—and drivel isn’t news. Our viewers are no dummies, and if we put that on the air everyone will know it’s because Clariton wouldn’t speak directly to us.” He shook his head. “Don’t you see what I was trying to do? Don’t you see that I just wanted to steal some of Channel Ten’s sizzle? That’s my job, to make you look good, to make Channel Seven look good.”

“I know, Roger, but—”

“But what, you don’t want to be the best?”

“Of course I do, you know that,” she fired back, at the same time thinking, If I were the best would I put up with this kind of crap?

“So this is what I want you to do… .” He spun his chair around and stared out the window. “Yeah, this’ll work.”

“Uh-oh.”

Roger’s main job, it seemed, was to sit around the station and, first, get mad and, second, concoct wild schemes. No one knew that better than Cindy, who had bought in to far too many of his plans, none of which actually had led to the big break Cindy was in search of.

“Cindy, I want you to get all dolled up.” He swiveled back, looked her up and down, really seeing her for the first time that morning. “Well, you look good already, but take a couple of minutes and just sort of fuss yourself up, put on some nice perfume.”

“Oh, come on, Roger,” she moaned, fully knowing where this was going.

“Just do it up, make yourself glamorous. Then I want you to grab a photographer—take anyone—and head down the street to Jerome’s.”

“Gee, let me guess—you want me to take another stab at him, so to speak?”

“Exactly.” Locker checked his watch. “Clariton’s roundtable is scheduled to start in only twenty minutes. Get your rear down there and see what you can turn up.”

“You mean, before our turncoat friend, Todd, shows up.”

“You got it. I want you to sweet-talk your way into that lunch. Maybe you could sneak into the back of the room, listen in.” He reached into his coat pocket, pulled out his wallet. “Here. Here’s a hundred bucks.”

“A hundred? At five grand a plate that isn’t even going to buy me a carrot stick.”

“No, my dear, I want you to bribe the ma?tre d’ to let you in. Clariton’s going to make a speech or a toast or something, and I want you to be right there. Maybe you can take along a pocket recorder and tape it. And then when the lunch is over, just rush over and start talking. Get him to say something, anything, even if it’s just a few words, so that you can be the first Twin Cities reporter to talk with Clariton. And don’t forget to get some footage of you and Clariton together. If you snuggle up right next to him I’m sure he’ll wrap his arms around you. Make it look like he’s in love with you. Then we can edit in what you got this morning and you can do a voice-over.”

“Oh, I get it.” Well, pondered Cindy with a smile, it might work. “We piece it all together to make it look like we’ve got the most extensive coverage of Clariton’s entire day.”

“Right. Trust me, all you need to do is catch his eye and he’ll give you a few minutes. There’s no doubt in my mind that Mr. Clariton would rather talk to a gorgeous girl like you than… well, a gay guy like Todd.”

“But—”

“Don’t worry,” said Roger, reaching for the phone. “I’m going to make sure things go our way because, after all, this—”

“—ain’t no dress rehearsal.” Cindy shook her head and moaned, “Oh, brother, how did I ever end up working here?”

And with that, Cindy Wilson headed back down the hall. All she had to do was dab on some makeup, grab her black leather coat, get a photographer, and she’d be on her way—destined, she sensed, to stir up as much news as possible.

Matthew had not one
but both feet in the grave. And the realization of that made him deliriously happy.

He’d been a model, one with a super future. The crowning piece of his career—which had ended not quite two years ago when he was thirty-four—had been when his face and physique had graced Times Square in a Calvin Klein ad. A mere two years ago the sharp-cheeked face that was more striking than it was handsome, the dazzling teeth, the chiseled chest, and the straight, light-brown hair were poised to take him to the very top. But then in the space of a mere twenty-four hours everything had fallen apart. The day before he was to do a shoot for the cover of
GQ
a red bump erupted on his forehead. Even though they could have put makeup over the sore—which the modeling agency desperately encouraged Matthew to do because, after all, everyone got a pimple now and then—Matthew canceled, for he recognized the bump, knew immediately that it was no zit. He’d seen that type of cancer on at least four of his friends and now he was seeing it on himself, a fact that Matthew’s physician confirmed within a few days. Yes, that was Kaposi’s sarcoma and, yes, Matthew had been expecting some such crisis, for he’d tested HIV positive three years earlier.

Who would have thought, mused Matthew as he drove his light-blue van on 35W toward downtown Minneapolis, that this farm boy from central Minnesota would escape the family farm, rise literally to the heights of the fashion world, then tumble to his present situation? He’d always wanted to be famous and had always known that somehow, someway he would be. Thirteen years ago he’d come to Minneapolis, determined to be a play wright and hoping that one of his plays would bring him the national recognition he was expecting. When that failed to happen and he was completely destitute, a friend of his gave him two phone numbers: one for a temporary employment agency that had a filing gig for three months minimum, and the other for a small Twin Cities modeling agency. He dreaded the first so he called the second, and that in turn had lit the fuse that had nearly blasted him all the way to the stars. And although he didn’t quite make it out of the solar system that time, he knew this wondrous deed they were about to enact would make him a household name. It was odd, though, for he was only just realizing that his life hadn’t been headed all this time for glorious fame, but instead for infamy of a most calculated kind. Yes, by tonight his deed, if not his face, would be broadcast on every national evening news show.

Too bad he’d never looked worse. Too bad his illness had progressed with a speed that alarmed even his doctors. Too bad his immune system was too severely compromised for the new drugs to have anything but a temporary effect. In fact, he looked like shit, which was why he could no longer bear even a glance in the mirror.

For starters all that straight, silky, luxuriant hair was completely gone. All of it. What the chemotherapy hadn’t zapped Matthew had shaved, a nick here, a nick there. His skin looked like hell too, a brownish blob of a lesion here, another lesion there, particularly on his back, where he was nearly as spotted as a leopard. Of course, the fact that he’d lost almost thirty pounds from his already lean frame didn’t help, especially since his cheekbones stuck way out and his cheeks themselves had fallen in, giving him
the look,
that kind of death-camp visage.

What the fuck, at least he was going to live long enough to do one important thing with his life. And this was important. You bet, he thought as he steered the van up the ramp into downtown. This wasn’t about getting mad or getting even. Hell no. It was about taking action. Doing something. Taking a stand. And fighting back. Too bad Curt couldn’t be here to witness this, but at least he’d gone toes up before he’d ruined the whole goddamn thing, which was what Matthew had been so worried about. Worried that in his delirium Curt would blab. But now that Curt was dead—shit, would Matthew ever stop feeling guilty?—their secret was safe, or so it seemed. And while it was obviously too late not only for Curt but for Matthew as well—the average life span for a person with KS was eighteen months after the appearance of the first lesion, so he was already pushing it—at least their little plan might speed things up and save a few others. It would have an effect, he was sure, unlike those guys in Italy, the big ninnies, the three men with AIDS who had robbed those banks. What exactly were they trying to prove? That queers could be tough guys? Or that in Italy criminals with AIDS should have a right to be imprisoned instead of being forced to go free? Jesus Christ, the world was nuts, fucking nuts.

Ignoring a sharp pain in his forehead—he prayed this wasn’t the start of another bout of cryptococcal meningitis, like the godawful one he’d had last year—Matthew turned left and proceeded into the heart of the city, eventually crossing Marquette Avenue and Nicollet Mall. How this place had changed, turned into a big city of sorts. He remembered his family—his parents and two younger sisters—driving all the way from the farm each Christmas, getting rooms at the Leamington, gawking at Dayton’s Christmas windows, scarfing mountains of chow mein at the Nankin, then seeing two, three, four, and five movies. Life had seemed so simple. Of course then puberty had struck, and the day his father found him in the barn half-naked with another boy had changed the rest of his life. For starters, everyone stopped expecting that one day he’d take over the farm, and Matthew started plotting his escape to the big city. It took years, but he made it.

Shrugging off the memories, Matthew turned right, glanced at his watch, and saw he was perfectly on time. Bravo. Practice makes perfect, and the three of them had gone over and over this, getting the times and approaches just right. And as planned he pulled into the rear of the building, drove to the service door, leaned out the window, and punched in the security code. In the blink of a second the huge garage door started lifting up, and Matthew drove into a large loading area. He pulled to one side, then reversed the van to the loading dock. Not wasting a moment, he grabbed a broom from the back of the van, jumped out, then ran across the platform, reached up, and with a single swipe of the broom aimed the security camera away from the dock and at the garage door. The guards checked the monitors only once every thirty minutes, so there shouldn’t be a problem, he thought as he hit the CLOSE button and watched the garage door rumble shut. Next he rushed back to the van, climbed in the back, and stared at the large laundry basket on wheels. Of course everything was in there, the guns and the gas masks buried beneath the pile of white sheets. Matthew had been over it and over it, checked and rechecked. Not to worry. Everything was going to go great.

Suddenly there was a
rap-tap-tap
on the rear door and a voice calling, “Are you a friend of Dorothy’s?”

Excellent, thought Matthew with a grin. He flipped open the back door and there they were: Elliot in his tam and plaid wool coat, Tina with her blond hair and black wool jacket and now wearing a jeans skirt and heavy wool sweater vest.

“Hey, Matthew,” called Elliot. “Everything’s groovy on this end.”

“It’s all right on schedule,” Tina said with a nervous smile.