American Outrage Read online

  The handle slowly turned. Jake’s eyes shot up to the chain, stretched taut between the frame and the door.

  When the door began to open, Jake yelled, “Hey! I’m in here!”

  The door stopped and Jake realized no light was coming in from the hall. He picked up the phone and dialed zero. It rang and rang.

  He stretched the cord so he could see the door.

  Something glinted in the opening. A coat hanger with a small hook at the end. Still no answer.

  “Hey!” Jake shouted.

  The hanger wavered and rattled against the door before it hooked one of the links in the security chain. Then it went wild, snapping this way and that, rattling the chain.

  Jake let the phone drop. He turned, threw the bolt, and yanked open the balcony door. The front door rattled and banged, and Jake stepped up onto the chair and balanced himself on the railing. The door inside burst open. Two dark shapes tumbled in. An orange tongue of flame flashed and something zipped past Jake’s ear.

  He jumped.

  14

  JAKE HIT THE MIDDLE of the pool cover and it gave way with a muted splash. He scrambled across the undulating surface with his arms extended for balance, hit the brick wall, and scaled its rough face before he could even think. He kept low and tight to the wall, running along its length until he reached the side of the hotel where he knew he couldn’t be seen from the balcony. He stopped there, breathing hard, and his knee began to throb. He realized that his feet were bare and that he must have scraped the skin off the tops of them on his way over the wall.

  It had all happened so fast, he had to reconstruct it in his mind to be certain that the two men really had tried to kill him, that the flash and the angry zip past his ear really had been a bullet. It took only a second to compute. He hobbled as fast as he could between the hotel and a parking garage until he came to the sidewalk. He looked both ways, then sprinted with a sidewinding motion across the street, where he ducked down between the parked cars.

  Even in the shadows of the cars, he felt naked just staring at the hotel entrance, so he positioned himself in such a way that he could look in one side of a car and out the other. Crouched down with only his eyes above the level of the car door, he felt safe enough to watch the hotel. In less than a minute, the two men walked out. They stood on the sidewalk for a minute, scanning the street, then rounded the corner, going back up the alley Jake had just come out of.

  Jake crept through the parking lot, bracing himself on car bumpers and half dragging his leg. He got to a spot where he could see down the alley, just as the dark shapes of the men disappeared out the far end. Jake stood and staggered back into the hotel lobby. Again, there was no one at the desk. He slammed his hand on the silver bell over and over, leaning over the desk and grabbing the phone.

  A young woman came out from the back, yawning and tugging at a tangle in her hair.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Calling the police,” Jake said.

  He glanced out at the street.

  “Are you a guest?” the woman asked.

  “Two men just walked into this hotel while you were”—Jake looked her over, then glanced out at the street again—“sleeping, and tried to kill me.”

  “Huh?”

  “I’m calling 911.”

  The dispatcher talked calmly to Jake and listened to his story. The girl behind the desk watched, wide-eyed and openmouthed.

  Soon the street outside began to flash red and white, and a black-and-white car bumped up over the curb and screeched to a stop. One uniformed cop jumped out, scanning the area with a hand on his gun. The other talked into the radio for a minute before putting on his hat and following. Together they walked into the small lobby, hands on guns, their heads swiveling from side to side.

  “This way,” Jake said, tugging one of the cops by the arm toward the door, “they went down the alley.”

  The cop shrugged him off and said, “Just calm down.”

  “They’re getting away.”

  “Who? What happened?” the cop asked, his eyes dropping to Jake’s bloody feet.

  “He just grabbed the phone,” the girl behind the desk said, crossing her arms with a frown.

  In tattered sentences, Jake introduced himself and then described the men he had seen in the bar, the door being opened, and his jumping from the balcony when they broke in and shot at him.

  “And you’re sure it was the same two men?” one cop asked.

  “I’m sure,” Jake said.

  “You saw them?”

  “I saw them in the bar. I saw two guys bust in my room, and I saw the same two guys come out after I jumped out the fucking window and ran around the building.”

  “Easy.”

  The other cop turned to the girl behind the desk and asked, “Did you hear the shot?”

  She shook her head.

  Jake snorted and said, “She was sleeping.”

  “Did anyone? Anyone call?” the other cop asked.

  “No,” she said, poking out her lower lip.

  “Let’s take a look at the room,” the cop said.

  “These guys are still out there,” Jake said, raising his voice and pointing at the entrance. “They’re looking for me. You could still get them.”

  The other cop raised his nose and leaned toward Jake.

  “Have you been drinking, sir?” he asked.

  “Are you kidding me?” Jake said. “That’s got nothing to do with it. They’re trying to kill me. I’m with American Outrage, the TV show.”

  He looked from one cop’s face to the other, but neither reacted.

  “I’m investigating a story about an international adoption agency that turned into a travel agency,” Jake said, losing his breath. “I’ve already been threatened on the phone. You can ask the DA’s office. They’ve been helping me. Call Steve Cambareri.”

  The cops looked at each other, then one said, “Look, whoever they were, they’re gone now. Let’s take a look at your room and go from there.”

  “Fine,” Jake said.

  He turned to the girl and asked for a key to 311. She looked at the cops and told them she needed Jake’s ID.

  “I was in bed,” Jake said. “I jumped off the balcony.”

  One of the cops stared at Jake for a moment, then said to the girl, “You can give us a key and we’ll check his ID when we get to the room.”

  When the elevator doors opened on the third floor, Jake was surprised to see that the lights in the hall were on. He hobbled off the elevator.

  “Are you all right, Mr. Carlson?”

  “Twisted my knee a little,” Jake said, “but I’m fine.”

  He led them to his room and one of the cops knelt down, examining the edge of the door.

  “They had a key,” Jake said.

  The cop glanced at him, then put the key into the door.

  “Maybe you should be careful touching the handle,” Jake said. “In case there’s fingerprints.”

  The cop pursed his lips and pushed down on the very end of the handle to open the door. They walked into the room. One cop flipped on the lights while the other examined the door and the chain.

  “I had that chain on,” Jake said, “and they worked it with a coat hanger.”

  The cop turned the chain over in his fingers, shrugged, and let it drop.

  “You say they took a shot at you from here?” he asked, bending down and running his hands over the carpet.

  “Yeah,” Jake said.

  The cop looked up at him. “No shell casings.”

  “But how hard is that to pick up?”

  They asked Jake to get his ID. He found his wallet and took out his driver’s license.

  “What happened to it?” the cop asked. “I can’t tell if this is you.”

  “I was trying to open a door,” Jake said, looking at the twisted corner of the card and his mangled picture. “I locked myself out of my house a few days ago. Here.”

  Jake handed over hi
s press ID. The cop put the two of them together and looked them over. Jake turned to the other cop. The curtains billowed in a small breeze while he examined the curtain and the glass. The other cop pushed past him and walked out onto the balcony, where he leaned out over the railing.

  “Pretty good jump,” he said, looking back at Jake.

  “That’s what happened to my knee,” Jake said, squeezing his lower thigh.

  “So where were you when they shot at you?” the other cop asked.

  “When I saw the coat hanger, I opened the door and went out. I thought I could make the jump. It was instincts. I wasn’t sure I was going to do it, really, but I saw the gun flash and heard the bullet go right by my ear and I just did it. I barely remember how I landed and got over the wall.”

  “Why do you think they shot at you?” the cop asked.

  “To kill me. They threatened me on the phone yesterday morning.”

  “No, how do you know they shot at you?”

  “I saw it,” Jake said, his voice rising. “I heard it.”

  “The gunshot?”

  “The bullet.”

  “But no gunshot?”

  “I don’t know. Yes. No. Maybe they—they must have had a silencer.”

  “And they took just one shot?”

  “I jumped and ran.”

  The cop looked out over the railing again, then back into the room.

  “It was dark,” he said. “You couldn’t really see who it was.”

  “I saw two men,” Jake said. “Jesus.”

  “Mr. Carlson,” the other cop said, taking out his card. “I’m going to suggest that you get some rest and come down to the station tomorrow afternoon and fill out a report.”

  “What are you, kidding me? You know who Steve Cambareri is?”

  “Sure.”

  “I’m working on something with him here. He’s a friend. He knows the deal. Call him if you think I’m crazy.”

  “We’ll let him know what you’re up to,” the other cop said, “but you get some sleep first. You’ve been drinking and this whole thing may look a lot different to you in the morning.”

  “I just jumped out a three-story fucking window.”

  “We know you did, Mr. Carlson. Get some rest.”

  The cops pushed past him and let themselves out the door, one of them muttering something about a code six. Jake stood there for a few minutes, then he locked the door, set the chain, and pushed the bureau lengthwise in front of it. He washed the blood and dirt from his feet and patted the tops of them dry with a towel, wincing.

  From the shadows of the curtain, he looked down into the courtyard. Nothing moved, and he had to stare hard at the rumpled pool cover to make out the impression from where he’d landed. He closed the door to the balcony and drew the curtain closed.

  When the lights were off, he lay down and stared up at the ceiling.

  15

  THE ALARM WOKE JAKE UP in another hotel. He had to remind himself about limping out of the place he was in and finding a new hotel near the university, where he paid in cash for a room. He showered and yanked a custom-tailored Zegna suit out of his bag, then put on a shirt with no tie and called down for his car. He gave the valet a ten, remembering what a crappy job that was from his days as a teenager working weddings. Instead of pulling away, he sat with his hands gripping the wheel, scanning the lobby to see if anyone followed him out.

  No one came, but when he pulled out onto the road, a black Ford F-350 with a shiny chrome grille pulled immediately away from the curb and rumbled up behind him at the next light. Jake signaled right, and so did the truck, but when the light changed, Jake took a left, stomping on the gas. He kept his eyes in the mirror. The truck turned the other way.

  Jake turned his attention back to the road just in time to see that he was running a red light. Car horns blared. Tires shrieked. Jake swerved and made it through, then gave it more gas.

  He climbed the ramp to the highway and eased up on the speed as he wove his way into the thick pattern of traffic. His phone rang and he answered it gruffly. It was Sam.

  “I got it,” Sam said.

  “What?”

  “Well, the county clerk was open at seven-thirty, but they didn’t have a DBA by that name. The Delaware office opened at eight and that’s where it is, Tarum Jakul International.”

  “That’s great,” Jake said, trying to pump some enthusiasm into his voice the way his high school wrestling coach had done before they faced a team everyone knew would slaughter them.

  “Only problem is they wouldn’t tell me anything more about it,” Sam said. “I ordered the certificate of incorporation, that’s what they called it. It won’t give us much, just the date it started and shares or something, but they said it’d have the address in Delaware on it. I ordered a fax and they said I might get it by this afternoon. So, we can go from there, right?”

  “We’ll see,” Jake said. “Hey, everything’s okay around the house, right?”

  “Like what?”

  “Nothing. Louie’s good? You guys remember to put the alarm on when I’m gone, right?”

  “The alarm? Yeah. Juliet does. I always hear it beeping.”

  “Good.”

  “Dad?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You okay?”

  “Of course.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Why?”

  “You just sound weird.”

  “I’m fine. Good job on the Delaware stuff. Keep me posted.”

  Jake hung up and followed the directions from the e-mail on his BlackBerry. The bunker man had lived east of the city. Jake stopped only once to fuel the car and buy a thirty-two-ounce cup of coffee. No one followed him in.

  The crew’s van and two rental cars were jammed into the rutted driveway of the dingy little saltbox house. Flecks of faded red paint had peeled to reveal the rot of gray wood. Small square windows with dirty glass suggested something closer to a fort than a home. Scrubby lines of stunted trees and brush separated the next-closest houses, a shit-brown ranch with dark green shutters and cardboard in one window on one side and a sagging pale blue trailer home on cinderblocks on the other. Out on the road, a sheriff’s car rested on the shoulder. Jake pulled up behind it.

  The crew had the cameras and lights set up to the side of the house where the new grass showed the bulge of the bunker below. Jake automatically checked his face in the mirror. He’d forgotten makeup. Even with ten minutes to spare on his watch, he had to hurry. He removed the small emergency makeup kit from his briefcase and quickly covered over the circles under his red eyes and the perpetual raspberry on his left jaw line.

  As he walked up to the set, the PA whose car Jake now drove handed him a script. Jake took out a pen and went through it, making small changes, then handed it back. Muldoon slouched in a canvas chair, busy examining the shot in a monitor. He wore a faded blue denim smock with a red bandanna tied around his fat neck and he didn’t bother to look up. Jake said hello to the crew and got on his starting mark to run through the script. Halfway through it, out of the corner of his eye, Jake saw Muldoon get up from his chair and move toward the camera.

  When Jake finished his rehearsal, Muldoon said, “How’d it go last night?”

  “How’d what go?” Jake said, glaring.

  “Your project,” Muldoon said. The beginnings of a smile were on his lips.

  “Fine.”

  “Well, you look like shit. What happened?”

  “How did you know something happened?” Jake asked.

  “What did?” Muldoon said. “I didn’t know, you just don’t look good. Your eyes are all red. You look sick.”

  “Shitty night,” Jake said. “You want to shoot this, or not?”

  “Are you limping?” Muldoon asked. “I was going to have you do a walk.”

  “I can walk.”

  “I think it’ll help hide the red in your eyes if you’re moving. You got a crease right through the center of that jacket.”


  Jake looked down and tugged at the expensive suit coat to no avail and said, “So shoot it tight.”

  As they worked, Jake kept an eye on Muldoon. They got the shots he wanted of the grassy bulge created by the underground bunker, then went into the house, where Jake did a stream-of-consciousness as they moved through, a handheld camera following him and zooming in over his shoulder on things like an empty birdcage bearded in mold and a refrigerator with a hole punched in its face. The floor was filthy. Empty cans, old newspapers, and dirty dishes covered the shelves and tabletops. The furniture was torn, sagging, and broken. At regular intervals, peeling paper hung limp from the walls. Triple lines of police tape kept them from going inside the bunker or even down the basement stairs, but the feeling of depravity and filth was powerful enough even upstairs to make Jake sick to his stomach.

  Just as they finished, Muldoon’s cell phone rang. He spoke heatedly into it, then snapped it shut and cursed.

  “Well,” he said, eyeing Jake. “Time for you to work your magic.”

  “Meaning what?” Jake said.

  “That was that Catherine Anastacia’s mom,” Muldoon said. “She’s canceling on us.”

  “Until when?”

  “Until never.”

  “She’s the reason we’re here,” Jake said.

  Muldoon looked at his BlackBerry as if he weren’t all that concerned and said, “Well, good thing we got a backup story for sweeps.”

  “What’s that?”

  Muldoon looked up and with a straight face said, “Jessica Simpson’s bodyguard is writing a book.”

  “What kind of shit is that?”

  “He said she caused emotional distress from her singing.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Like I said, time for your magic. If you got any left.”

  16

  JESUS,” MULDOON SAID, looking at his watch. “Two hours and you’re still at it?”