Страница 25 из 59
Le
He grabbed a plastic milk crate behind a Publix in Pompano and used it to organize his files and maps on the passenger seat. He let the Herald, Sun-Sentinel and Post bird-dog his stories and then he’d swoop in with the newsmobile to add the profitable details. He soon found he didn’t need embellishment. The truth already stretched credibility. He covered the sheriff’s deputy who hid in the closet videotaping his prostitute wife with public officials; the federal agent who broke up an exotic animal smuggling ring by dressing in a gorilla suit; the man found floating off Miami Beach surrounded by twenty bobbing bales of coke-said his boat sank and then these bales just came floating by. The fisherman in Islamorada dragged from the shore and drowned because he refused to let go of the rod after hooking a large fish. The Miami supermarkets that fought shoplifting with cardboard cutouts of police officers, instructing employees to move them to different aisles every hour to create the impression they were patrolling. Le
Then he got too bold. He started staging events. He illegally fed wild gators in retention ponds and canals until they were sluggish. He flipped them on their backs, tied them up and threw them in the backseat of the newsmobile. Then he released them at shopping plazas and busy intersections, taking photos of the resulting mayhem and filing prewritten stories.
He got caught. The newsmobile was impounded, and he lost his fake press credentials.
Le
Le
One night Le
“I love Miami Vice,” she said.
“You do?” he said with a smile.
Le
He bought a loose white Italian suit and Gucci loafers. He took the newsmobile in for an off-the-books pink paint job. He turned it into a convertible with a demolition saw and glued strips of packing foam over the jagged metal along the top of the windshield and where the side window posts had been. He stuck pink and blue neon tubes under the chassis.
The Miami Vice convention started well enough until Angie broke down onstage. Out in the car, Le
T he fresh salt air stung Le
He turned around and watched Angie’s angry hips in red-leather hot pants as she walked barefoot away from him under the row of crime lights ru
Le
Le
Le
When he stood again, another head popped up simultaneously from the outside of the retaining wall. Le
The man pulled himself over the railing, turned around and reeled in a soaked black parachute trailing behind him. He wrung out the chute and bundled it in his arms.
“Don’t hurt me!” Le
“I’m not go
Le
“I’m the messenger,” said Serge. “The one you’ve been waiting for.”
Le
Serge climbed into the passenger side of the Cadillac and Le
Serge pointed down the pier, back toward land. “Step on it, toke-meister.”
And Le
O n the edge of the Hillsborough River, in a large open room on the second floor of the Tampa Tribune Building, the skeleton night crew tapped away at computer keyboards.
A young copy editor just out of college named Kirk Curtly worked the rim. He opened a computer file from the directory containing stories that needed headlines written. Kirk had been gently prodded by his supervisors to be more specific in his headlines. On the other hand, he was roundly praised for never having incurred a dreaded correction, which he achieved through inspired vagueness. Kirk tapped his chin with the Montblanc pen he’d gotten for a graduation gift and never used, since everything was done on computers. He typed the headline “Panel Studies Plan.” He looked at its structure and rhythm on the screen. He smiled with satisfaction and sent the story along to the typesetters. He called up another story and tapped his chin again. He typed “Official Mulls Options.” Curtly had a mental Rolodex of short, bureaucratic terms that were perfect for narrow headlines over one-column-wide stories, and he searched for such thin articles in the headline directory to show off his arsenal. It went this way for much of his shift. “Board Picks Member,” “Senate Takes Flak,” “Gov Eyes New Trend,” and his proudest effort: “Pols Nix Proxy Prexy Tap.”