“Mr. Rasmussen,” I say, smiling in pretend apology, and gesture to him to sit back down. “Forgive me, just a couple more quick questions. My producer told me to ask you, you know?” My trusty “just an employee” technique.
He puffs with noblesse oblige, deigning to give the girl a chance.
“So to clarify,” I say. “How would you answer criticism that pharmaceutical companies like yours are making an unsuitable profit on government contracts, all at taxpayer expense?”
I get the fifth-grader expression again. “Ms. McNally,” he says, “the pharmaceutical industry is one hundred percent focused on keeping America and the world as healthy as humanly possible….”
He continues, giving word for word the same answer he did the first time. I almost laugh out loud. Obviously, Rasmussen has a prepared statement, which he’s memorized and tried to make sound spontaneous. That doesn’t work so well when you give the exact same statement a second time.
“As you said before,” I acknowledge. “But what I’m asking is, does your company, in order to increase profits, charge excessively high prices for government contracts because taxpayers foot the bill?”
Rasmussen scowls, and I can see him assessing how to handle this. He’ll look guilty if he throws me out or cuts off the interview with the camera rolling.
“Ms. McNally,” he finally says, “the pharmaceutical industry is one hundred percent focused on…”
I interrupt. “Mr. Rasmussen, thanks so much, we have that.” Time to pitch him the biggie. “But what’s your specific answer to the allegation that your company is defrauding the government?”
“Uh, Charlie,” I hear from behind me. “Wait a second.” It’s Walt.
What the hell now?
I smile brightly at the increasingly uncomfortable CEO. “Technical difficulties, I think,” I say, acting as if this is nothing.
Walt’s moved away from the camera. “Camera battery’s dead,” he says. “Gotta get another one.”
“There’s one in your bag, correct?” I am going to kill him if there isn’t.
He shakes his head. “Gotta go to the car.”
As he saunters away, I realize a new battery is fifteen stories down, fifteen stories back up. If I can’t keep Rasmussen at his desk, the battery isn’t the only thing that’s dead. So’s this interview. And my career.
“Mr. Rasmussen,” I begin, life-support systems full throttle, “let me just give you my condolences for your employee Brad Foreman.”
Rasmussen leans back in his chair, props an ankle over a knee. “Well, thank you, yes. We were all very surprised, of course.”
“Did you know him well?” I continue. It’s a tacky question, but I’m a reporter and he certainly thinks we’re all tacky anyway.
Fifth-grader look again. Fifth-grader on the way to the principal’s office, if I read him correctly. He actually harrumphs.
“Not really,” he says brusquely. “One of my headhunters found him in a search for second-tier employees. Office wasn’t on this floor, of course.”
Rasmussen is obviously putting as much space as he can between them. But I’m thinking if he suspects Foreman is the whistle-blower, he’ll characterize him as some sort of know-nothing, someone with no access and no possible knowledge of pricing practices.
The CEO doesn’t disappoint me.
“Foreman wasn’t a decision maker by any means,” Rasmussen continues. He gives a patriarchal wave. “Just a number cruncher. But you know, there’s always room for worker bees. Sorry, of course, about what happened to him.”
He pauses, then his tone changes. Very cagey. “I understand police think it was suicide. Have you heard anything?”
Oh, right, Mr. CEO, you’re my best friend now. You’re pumping me, trying to find out what I know. That means there’s something to know. I just don’t know what it is. Yet.
“Oh, goodness, no, I don’t know anything about that.” Where the hell is Walt? I can’t really vamp much longer. “Anyway, let’s see…” I pretend to flip through my notes.
“Rolling,” I hear from behind me. The return of Walt. Saved.
“Anyway, Mr. Rasmussen, we’re taping again.” I gesture to him that we’re beginning. “Let me ask you about the lawsuits filed against Aztratech….”
His eyes go icy. He does not like this question. And that means it’s a very good question.
“Ms. McNally, I have no idea what you’re referring to.”
“The whistle-blower suit which charges—”
“If there were a lawsuit,” he interrupts, “I would not discuss it. Hear me now, I’m not saying there is a lawsuit. But if there were, I would say nothing about it. And if your colleague had been honest enough to tell me the real reason you wanted this interview, I would have certainly said no.”
He shakes his head in infinite disdain. “Television,” he says, sneering at me.
I can take it. “Well, let me show you this, Mr. Rasmussen.” I bring out a copy of the lawsuit, placing it in front of him. “In this complaint against your company, a whistle-blower claims to have invoices that prove—”
Rasmussen stands up, the microphone cord yanking down the lapel of his jacket. I love this. If he rips off the mike and storms out, it’ll be great TV.
Do it, Wes.
He doesn’t.
“Let’s just turn off the camera, shall we?” he asks, sitting back down.
Here we go again. Clearly I’m hexed by some sort of journalism jinx.
I turn to Walt and slash my neck with a finger. “Cut,” I mouth the word silently.
“Good.” Rasmussen regains his composure, leans back in his chair. “Now, Ms. McNally, this is one hundred percent off the record. But let me assure you it’s for your own good.”
He steeples his fingers in what he probably imagines is a power gesture. “These so-called whistle-blowers,” he says, “are simply con artists. Blowing whistles? I say they’re blowing smoke.” He smiles, at his own clever wordplay, I guess.
“Allow me to give you some advice, Ms. McNally,” he says conspiratorially. “I admire your work, and I don’t like to see you wasting your time, let alone being misled by some crackpot lawsuit. Anyone can pay some lawyer to file a stack of papers in court, but if some number cruncher says we’re in any way involved in improper pricing procedures, well, hear me now, he’s wrong. Dead wrong.”
Rasmussen unclips the mike from his lapel and puts it on his desk. Smart guy. He knows Walt’s camera is still off. This time he stands up and stays up. “We’re done here, Ms. McNally.”
T
Numbers on the digital counter fly by in reverse as the videotape rolls back. At zero-zero-zero, I push Play.
“Wait a minute.” I squint as an unexpected scene pops into view. “I didn’t know Walt shot this. Must have been when I was hanging up my coat.”
The camera pans Rasmussen’s entire office, the glass door, the monolith of a desk, the sleek paneled walls. We see the piercing blue light illuminating the glass-encased sailboat. As the boat comes center screen, the camera movement stops.
“Shit. Son of a bitch.”
Franklin and I look at each other. The room on tape is empty. And neither of us has said a word. Then it hits us simultaneously and we burst into laughter.
“It’s Walt,” I say, still giggling. “He forgot the camera audio was recording.”
“Son of a bitch,” we hear again. Walt’s behind the camera, of course, so we don’t see him. Then we hear something unzip, some bumping noises, then a zip again. “Well,” the voice says, “she’ll just have to talk fast. I’m sure as hell not going to go all the way back down there to get another battery.”
“I can’t stand it,” I moan. “He knew, he knew all along he didn’t have another battery.”
The video continues, but I push Pause. “Look right there,” I say. “Hard to see, but there’s a closet hidden in the wall. Rasmussen hit a button on his desk, and it opened right up.”
“Neat.” Franklin takes off his glasses to look closer, then pushes Play again.
The camera continues around the room, and lands on the sailboat again.
The camera goes infuriatingly out of focus.
“Even with the rotten video,” he says, “you can tell that boat’s a beauty. Expensive, too. You know, I’ve seen some articles about this—social-climbing corporate execs buying elaborate boats. Apparently yacht racing is the new polo.”
“You think it belongs to Rasmussen?” I ask, an idea slowly coalescing. “If it does, where’d he get the money to buy it? Or listen, what if he’s actually the whistle-blower himself?”
“That’d be a cool twist,” Franklin agrees. “Great story, too.”
“Okay, look,” I say. “It’s easy enough for us to run down the ownership trail of this beauty, right? And then who knows? Is the name of the boat visible?”
Franklin puts his nose up to the screen, then pulls away. “It’s just too fuzzy. But you’re right—if we could track down who owns it, that could be a gold mine.”
“Hey, yo.” I hear a voice behind me as the doors to Special Projects click open.
Teddy Sheehan, Red Sox cap turned backward on his head and wearing his usual coffee-stained khakis, lumbers toward us. He’s the morning producer, but Franklin thinks he never goes home. I think he may be so in love with TV news, he’d rather live at the station. I’ve never been here when he isn’t.
Teddy sets down the black plastic box of videocassettes he’s returning to our archive shelf, and steps closer to the screen. “Cool,” he says. “The
Miranda.
Video sucks, though,” he assesses. “Don’t bring that junk into the edit booth, dudes.”
“The—are you saying you recognize this boat?” I ask.
“Hell, yeah. The
Miranda.
Sleek and fast as hell. Cost millions. She almost won the America’s Cup last go-round. Got beat in a close heat by the Australians.”
“You sure?” Franklin persists.
“Watched start to finish on ESPN,” Teddy assures us. “What else can I do you for?”
Franklin and I exchange glances. We’ve gotten an answer, I guess. Not that we know what it means.
“Well, you’re certainly a full-service producer,” I say, giving Teddy a thumbs-up.
He turns his cap around, putting the bill in the front, and then tips it at us. “No prob,” he says. “TV is my life.”
As he picks up his batch of file tapes and heads to the library shelf, I pop our yellow cassette from the viewer and hand it to Franklin.
“First thing tomorrow, we’re doing
Miranda
research,” I say. “But now, I vote we head out. I’ve got a date with some leftover Chinese food.”
Not again.
Even though I’m pretty sure it’s a false alarm, my heart flutters in fear as I arrive home. There’s a lineup of fire trucks, scurrying firefighters, swirling red lights. They’re in front of my building on the flat of Beacon Hill, a graceful but quirky brownstone tucked behind the old fire station where they filmed the old
Spenser: For Hire
TV show.
I scan for smoke. Flames. Nothing.
I hurry to join the cluster of my evacuated fellow condo dwellers gathered behind the fire trucks converged on Mt. Vernon Square. Most are focused on the building, others are trying to keep their kids off the gleaming yellow ladder truck, one teenager struggling to control a squirming puppy.
No firefighters are running. Good sign.
Still, this is when it would pay to know your neighbors by name. My mental Miss Manners jabs me with a reproving elbow as I approach—I think it’s the woman in 2B, Mrs. Milavec?
“’Scuse me,” I say. “I just got home. Please tell me it’s the—”
“Yeah,” she replies, looking annoyed. “Again.”
I can’t take it. Every time our astonishingly oversensitive smoke alarm blares the building into panic, I frantically grab all that’s precious—Botox, my photo albums (including the one existing snapshot of my wedding, which I can’t bring myself to destroy), Gramma’s jewelry box and Cinnamon, my battered little stuffed pony, faithful friend since age three and crucial good luck charm. If they don’t fix this thing, I’m going to store all my valuables in a box by my front door.
“All clear, folks.” A white-helmeted deputy signals we
can go back inside, as the firefighters clamber onto their trucks and the engines rumble away up Charles Street.
I join the muttering crowd trudging into our building and hear the slamming of doors closing each of us back into our separate lives.
Finally.
Once inside, I scoop up the latest pile of bills and junk from the floor, and make today’s contribution to the expanding mountain of mail and
New Yorker
s on my dining room table. As I toss my coat over a dining room chair, I wonder again why I spent so much money on furniture that I now only use as a spare closet and junk-mail storage.
My living room’s gorgeous, too.
Deep-cushioned navy leather couch. Cozy. Sexy. Voluptuously upholstered wing chairs. Casually elegant glass coffee table placed perfectly in front of the fireplace. All artfully arranged to create the perfect backdrop for a woman-about-town. That’s what Decorator Don told me, at least. And it’s even possible that someday, that’ll all be true. Botox loves the chairs, at least.
I pad back to where I really live—my combination study and bedroom. Double rows of books crammed onto the shelves, more stacks of magazines, an array of framed photographs covering one wall—Dad when he was a cub reporter, Mom’s sorority, Gramma and Grampa’s Gatsby-looking wedding, a few Baby Charlies, a chubby adolescent gap-toothed me with a pony and grown-up me with a couple of movie stars, a general and two presidents.
I stop to examine me with the general, calculating it was taken, what? Five years ago? I analyze my jawline, my waistline, the lines in my face. Why didn’t I realize I looked fine back then? I always thought I could look better tomorrow. Now it’s tomorrow, and I forgot to be happy yes
terday. Today, I’m realizing, there’s apparently some sort of “use-by” date stamped on me. One that seems to be rapidly approaching.
I punch my code into the speakerphone on my desk as I peel off my sweater and toss it in the dry-cleaner pile. Messages.
“Beep. Message received Tuesday at 7:45 p.m.”
I click my skirt onto its hanger, but before I can put it back into the closet, I stop, midhang, focused on a voice I instantly recognize.
“Hey, Charlie, it’s Josh Gelston. Just checking in about Thursday. Hope we’re still on. You can meet me at Bexter Auditorium, as we planned, and you can sit backstage. There’s a cast party after. See you around seven.”
The machine begins its whir toward the next message, but my mind, swirling with memories, is rewinding to this afternoon. And then forward, to Thursday around seven.
And then, back to reality.
“Beep. Message received Tuesday at 8:02 p.m.”
“Charlie, Angela. The promotion department tells me you haven’t submitted your sweeps schedule. We’re up against a deadline, you know. We’ll continue this tomorrow.”
I sit up and punch the speaker off. I’m home. There’s no fire. I have a date with a real possibility. With a flutter of memory, I dig in my bag for the “Gold-Bug” program Josh gave me, smoothing the cover, then scanning for his name.
Professor Joshua Ives Gelston,
I read.
Producer and Drama coach—Board Member, Bexter Academy.
I feel myself smiling. Maybe we can produce some interesting drama together. Wonder what Maysie will think.
With a flourish, I delete the last phone message. Angela can wait.