Authors: Dale Wiley
I introduced the two and looked at Greer. “Will you help me
write the story?”
Greer reluctantly nodded. “Do you have the key handy?”
We unlocked him while keeping Helper chained up. He was
threatened with the ball—the one that Greer had just had in his mouth—and Greer
sat down at the computer and started composing
He asked lots of questions to all of us, but only Tabitha
and I responded. Helper probably felt like he had been ambushed, but I didn’t
really care. Greer warned us that this might be a long process and told us we
couldn’t have the TV on; that would break his concentration. He also told us
Trivial Pursuit would be too noisy. I tried to make a list of some of the main
points that I thought should be included in the article, and Tabitha read the
paper. Every moment seemed slow.
I walked over to Greer and stood over his shoulder. He was
just about to tell me to go sit down when he stopped. He put a finger to his
lips. There was some commotion outside, and I moved slowly toward the door to
see if I could see anything through the peephole.
But before I could get there, somebody pounded on our door.
Twenty-seven
I
looked through the peephole and, to
my great chagrin, saw the powerful and large face of Lon Stanky, United States
Senator from Rhode Island, waiting impatiently, flanked by the blond front desk
girl, who looked terribly upset, and a donut of a security guard.
“Who’s in theyah?” Stanky asked testily.
I turned around and whispered to everyone else that it was
Stanky. I ran to the closet, grabbed one of the security guards’ holsters, and
buckled it around my waist like a post-modern Wyatt Earp. I gave the other one
to Tabitha. She had already grabbed the handcuff keys and was uncuffing Helper.
She waited until he stood then cuffed him again.
Stanky rapped on the door again, this time louder. “Who’s in
theyah?”
The evidence folder was sitting near the computer, so I
picked it up and handed it to Greer, who was also packing up the notebook
computer, knowing he was going to have to finish up the story somewhere else.
Tabitha warily put the holster around her waist.
I thought for a second, then grabbed the bullwhip out of the
bondage kit, and handed it to her. “Maybe this is more your speed,” I said.
She smiled. I put a pair of handcuffs in my holster and
thought about how we should leave.
“I can heah you in theyah.” said Stanky. “I’ve got a
security guahd with me. Do we have to call the police?”
What a surprise he was in for.
I opened the door and pointed the gun right at the security
guard. “Pull your gun out slowly and drop it.”
It was clear that all three recognized me. Stanky looked
like he was under water.
The guard eased the gun to the floor. I asked Tabitha to
pick it up, but, as she was moving back to us, Stanky made a move toward her. She
fixed him with a stare and popped the whip to within inches of his groin. He
shrunk back like a puppy and made an apologetic sound, but he looked at her
admiringly, probably wanting her phone number. Then she bent down and handed
the security guard’s gun to me.
“Let’s go downstairs,” I said, letting the two of them lead
the way.
We took the stairs so we could avoid an ambush, each flight
taking an eternity, but we entered the lobby looking as conspicuous as nuns in
a strip club. I was the most notorious man in America, and I was wearing a
holster and pointing a gun at a very famous senator. We were followed by a man
in handcuffs and a woman with a bullwhip. I thought for half a second about
firing off a warning shot but didn’t want anything tragic to happen this late
in the game.
“All right! We’re getting out of here, and no one is going
to stop us,” I said. I pointed to Stanky with the gun. “Where’s your ride?” He
said nothing. I said it louder and stuck the gun at his temple. He grew pale
and glanced outside. I could see a stretch limo parked in front of the
entrance. We walked past a man who looked like he was going to have a heart
attack.
I winked at Tabitha, and she popped the whip. “Don’t try to
follow us,” I said, waving the gun to make sure everyone got at least one look
down the barrel.
The chauffeur was standing next to the limo, and I aimed at
him. He quickly threw himself into the bush in the driveway’s median, much more
dramatically than he needed to. I went around to the driver’s side and saw the
keys were still in the ignition. I made everyone else back away from the car
but had Stanky, Greer, Helper, and Tabitha get in.
“Get out your gun and keep them covered,” I said. We both
climbed in the front seat, and I lowered the partition between the driver and
the back.
I hit the curb as I gunned the car out of the driveway, and
I simply said, “Explain” to Tabitha, and she understood. She told Stanky the
Cliff’s Notes version of the story as I wheeled and screeched onto
Constitution, heading toward the Capitol.
“Where are we headed?” asked Greer, who wasn’t impressed
with my driving skills. I looked down and saw I was doing 70 through the middle
of the city.
What was I going to do? They would run me down and kill me
if I drove too far. I needed somewhere I could tell my story before they caught
up with me. I was going to the Mecca of the American message. “We’re going to
CNN.”
“They won’t let us on,” he said.
“They will,” I said, gunning it to 75 to make it through a
red light. Plastered to the back of the seat and without my seatbelt on, I
whirred around cars, honking, wailing, and flashing.
By this time, I started seeing the lights, blue, red, white,
first in my rear view mirror and then to my side. They were coming. The traffic
lights were perfect, and I kept hitting greens, speeding up so they couldn’t
put anything in front of me. I was only a couple of blocks from my destination.
I started slowing down so I could put the gargantuan thing around the turn. I
turned on my blinker, which struck me as funny.
There it was. Just in front of me to the left. I honked to
let everyone know to get out of the way. The police were right behind like a
pack of Christmas tree hounds madly on my tail. They probably knew where I was
going. But I had one surprise for them. Just when I should have started slowing
down to turn into the lot, I accelerated. We flew over the curb, hurdling
toward glass and steel and …
Kerrang!
We were through the huge glass windows with cracks and
tinkles like the whole world was coming apart. The airbags detonated, and I
screeched to a halt just short of the receptionist’s desk. My shoulder had been
thrown into the steering wheel and now felt like someone had hit it with a
ball-peen hammer, but I popped out of the door and pointed my gun at the cops
who were now coming near. They froze and glared. Tabitha came out and pulled
the others out of the back seat toward the stairs, where we needed to go. I ran
behind her, positioning the Senator so they didn’t dare take a shot.
As I passed the receptionist’s desk, I saw a lighted sign
saying the newsroom was on the third floor. For my newly-conditioned body, this
was nothing. I took the stairs in twos and threes with Tabitha bringing up the
rear, her gun prodding the Senator.
I burst into the wings and ran straight for the producer’s
booth. Tabitha wasn’t far behind with her crew, and she bolted the door behind
her and then ran to the other wing and did the same there, moving chairs in
front of both to further obscure them. I pointed the gun at the producer and
smiled, saying, “I want to be on TV.”
“We’re in commercial,” he said, apologetically.
“Commercial’s over,” I said in a tone so eerie I almost
scared myself. He hit a button, and we were back on the air. Tabitha had walked
near the booth, and I told her to watch to make sure this was going out live. I
looked at Greer, who had already started heading for the anchor’s chair. He
realized this was, in some sense, his big chance too. The makeup-covered
anchors had already vacated their seats and cowered at the edge of the set,
mesmerized and terrified at what they were watching, wondering exactly what I
would to do.
“Don’t say she’s a hooker,” I whispered to Greer.
“What?” he asked, turning the corner behind the desk.
“Don’t mention that Tabitha’s a hooker. You don’t have to
say that.”
Greer probably knew the minute I had told him we were going
to CNN what I wanted to happen. He may well have known before, because he knew
better than anyone that since it was the media who had already convicted me,
they would also have to be the ones who set me free. He had probably been
putting a script together all the way over, stopping only to pray for his
mortal soul when I sent that limo through that window.
Greer sat down and put on his headset. I did the same,
careful to rest the gun under my leg so no one in TV Land could see it. “Ladies
and gentlemen, my name is Gerald Greer. I am a reporter for the
Washington
Post
. In the past few hours, under circumstances which I am about to relay
to you, I have come to believe Trent Norris is innocent of the crimes with
which members of the press—including myself—and law enforcement officials have
charged him.”
The lights were enough to bleach your skin, and I could only
make out shadows in the distance, but I thought I could see Tabitha moving away
from the producer. This was okay. He knew good TV when he saw it. She also
seemed to be watching Helper, the only person still handcuffed. Then I turned
back to Greer, who was starting to tell my story.
He had taken the evidence from the folder I had given him,
and he produced it. He was a star. The words were gliding out of his mouth, and
he was brilliant and convincing in his defense. I glanced down at the monitor.
I looked pale but so did Greer. He was talking about our ruse to talk to
Helper. Though I noticed he left out just exactly how we tricked him into
joining us, making it sound instead like it was his idea. I was hoping he would
have the good sense to leave the Senator’s name out of all of it, and he did.
He turned to me when he was finished and said, “Do you have anything to add,
Trent?”
I looked at the camera, breathed deeply, and took my shot.
“I want to tell my parents, and my family, and my friends that I’m all right
and all of the awful things they’ve been hearing over the past several days are
absolutely untrue.” I looked and saw several lawmen were standing in the
background waiting. I had no idea how they had gotten in. I was ready to end
all of this.
“I see some members of various law enforcement agencies are
waiting for me. And I know they will have many questions I haven’t had time to
answer, even for Mr. Greer. I expect this. And I’m going to ask that they come
handcuff me now while I’m on camera.” I did this so they wouldn’t beat the holy
hell out of me in the process, and also so they couldn’t say later on that I
resisted arrest. A lanky cop not much older than me came forward with
handcuffs. He put them on and led me off-camera.
It was over.
Twenty-eight
B
efore they took me away, I asked them
if I could quickly speak to the Senator. They patted me down and found the
other gun, but they agreed, since I was, after all, in handcuffs. Stanky and I
went in a corner, and I explained again what had happened and what I had done.
With all I knew about him and his proclivities, I guess he didn’t mind
confiding he was, indeed, on his way to yet another Watergate tryst when he
discovered someone was using his Watergate account. “I’m willing to help you
out if you can try to help me out,” I said, walking the fine line between
negotiation and extortion.
“Let me think about it,” he said, “but I imagine we can do
something. Especially if you’ll hold up your end of the deal.”
And I did. But trouble was, an ace reporter for the
National
Snoop
contacted the blond receptionist from the Watergate, gave her five
thousand dollars, and she sang like Carly Simon. So, in some ways, I got the
best of both worlds—I didn’t have to pay back Stanky the thousand or so bucks I
owed him, but I also got to include all this in my book.
The police took me downtown along with Tabitha and Helper,
and they talked to us separately. I gave Helper a look which told him I was
going to help him as much as I could, and he nodded, and, knowing the jig was up,
I guess he went in and spilled his guts, telling them he’d turn state’s witness
if they wanted. I told them that he really didn’t know about Timmons’s murder
until after the fact and basically did what I said I would do.
I was talking with an ex-Marine named Larry Love, who
probably hadn’t liked me since the moment he saw long-haired, goateed picture.
He reminded me of the crimes I could still be charged with, including
kidnapping, breaking and entering, destruction of property, reckless driving,
and a dozen more I didn’t even hear after my head started spinning. I told him
I knew this, but I think he understood that if the media was calling for my
vindication, there was only so much he could do. He probably just wanted to
scare me, anyway.
They talked to me for six hours. When I got out, Tabitha was
waiting. She said they had taken Helper to a cell, and she had only been
questioned for a short time. Love let me know there was still a good chance I
would be charged with many offenses, but he would let me go right now. I asked
Tabitha if she wanted to split a cab, and she said yes. It wasn’t terribly far
to my house, but Tabitha had time to scribble down her number on a scrap of
paper and told me to call her when I needed to talk. I nodded and thanked her and
then gave her a ten to cover my part of the cab ride as I got out amongst a sea
of reporters, trampling flower beds, standing in the alley, waiting for me.