Details at Ten Read online

  Details

  at Ten

  ARDELLA

  GARLAND

  Simon & Schuster

  NEW YORK LONDON TORONTO SYDNEY SINGAPORE

  SIMON & SCHUSTER

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  New York, NY 10020

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2000 by Yolanda Joe

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  SIMON & SCHUSTER and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster Inc.

  ISBN 0-7432-1125-1

  Acknowledgments

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY - ONE

  TWENTY - TWO

  TWENTY - THREE

  TWENTY - FOUR

  TWENTY - FIVE

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to . . .

  My family and friends who love and encourage me.

  My dynamite agent and friend Victoria . . . I create and she makes it happen.

  My editor, Constance, for her keen sense of how to shape a story. . . . And Tracy too for being a tireless supporter of this project.

  And last, but not least, my writing peers, whose wonderful novels and poetry inspire me to push myself harder to create new and interesting work.

  for

  Karen E. Hodge,

  a friend and a fighter

  Details

  at Ten

  STORY SLUG: GANG MURDERS

  REPORTER: GEORGIA BARNETT

  10 PM SHOW AUGUST 16

  (***PACKAGE***)

  Natural sound cop shouting

  (“Get back, get back . . .”)

  (**REPORTER TRACK**)

  CRIME SCENE: COP/FLASHING LIGHTS/CROWD

  CHYRON LOCATION: SOUTH SIDE

  A CHICAGO COP TRIES TO CONTROL A SMALL CROWD LURED BY GUNSHOTS AND SIRENS TO WHAT TURNED OUT TO BE A GRISLY MURDER SCENE.

  PAN FACES IN CROWD/BULLET SHELLS ON GROUND

  THE PEOPLE, YOUNG AND OLD, PRESSED THEIR BODIES AGAINST THE YELLOW CRIME SCENE TAPE. THEY WATCHED AS POLICE LOADED TWO BODIES INTO A PADDY WAGON.

  BODY SHOT/PADDY WAGON

  AMBULANCE/FLASHING LIGHTS

  BOTH VICTIMS WERE BLACK MALE TEENAGERS. BOTH VICTIMS WERE SHOT FIVE TIMES. TWO AMBULANCES RUSHED TO FELLOWS PARK WHERE IT HAPPENED SHORTLY AFTER NINE P.M. BUT PARAMEDICS SAY WHEN THEY ARRIVED, THERE WAS NOTHING THEY COULD DO.

  (***STOP/SOT***)

  CHYRON NAME:

  LEWIS REYNOLDS/PARAMEDIC

  “When we got here the victims were over by the park bench near the baseball diamond. Blood was everywhere. I knew they were dead.”

  (**REPORTER TRACK CONT**)

  HIGH SCHOOL YEARBOOK PICTURES:

  THE VICTIMS HAVE BEEN IDENTIFIED AS SIXTEEN-YEAR-OLD BENJI ADAMS AND SEVENTEEN-YEAR-OLD LONNIE HEARD.

  BOTH WERE JUNIORS AT JAMES HOWELL HIGH SCHOOL.

  GRAFFITI ON SCHOOL WALL

  POLICE SAY BOTH TEENS WERE MEMBERS OF THE ROCK DISCIPLES STREET GANG.

  CHYRON NAME:

  OFC. ALICE WITSOME/CHICAGO PD

  (***STOP/SOT***)

  “The Rock Disciples and the Gangster Bandits are feuding over turf. We don’t know what set off this shooting. They just kill each other at the drop of a hat.”

  (**REPORTER TRACK CONT**)

  ROLLING WIDE SHOT OF PARK/PEOPLE WALKING & KIDS PLAYING

  RETALIATION IS LIKELY. RESIDENTS IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD SAY MORE POLICE PATROLS ARE NEEDED IN THE AREA. UNTIL THEN, THEY SAY, NO ONE IS SAFE.

  GEORGIA BARNETT, CHANNEL 8 NEWS.

  END OF PACKAGE/TIME: 1:30 SECS

  And no one was safe: including me, Georgia Barnett.

  That’s how it all started. It began when I was sent to cover a story about rival gangs and a double murder in Fellows Park in Englewood. Englewood is a poor and criminally ravaged community on the South Side of Chicago. It was once a strong, working class neighborhood full of people with an immense sense of pride. I should know, it’s the neighborhood I grew up in. Some good people live there now but unfortunately crime has gotten outrageous.

  That night after my story ran on the 10 P.M. show, I kept looking for angles. I’m a newshound. I love fighting for the lead story. I know that when you get a lead story, you better hold on to it. A lead story is hard to lock down. This is especially true for a black woman reporter. Very often we are underestimated, forced to work the fluff stories, pimped. I’m not having it. For me it’s a simple case of pride and prejudice—to show some pride, you work around the journalistic prejudice.

  Now if you want a hard news story that’s a bona fide lead, then, in the words of RuPaul, “Girlfriend, you gotta work!” And I mean work. You run twice as far and twice as fast to win the same prize. I had a hold of a darn good story, but more than that, in this case, I was trying to work my tail off to keep my mind off the fact that I’d just broken up with my boyfriend Max. My man Max.

  He is brilliant. Max thought a story and talked a story. He gave you fears and tears. Those are the two things that are guaranteed to keep the remote on Middle America’s coffee table. Don’t change that channel! Max . . . well . . . the boy is just bad!

  Now right this minute I’m going to tell the honest-to-Jesus truth. I lost Max to a hoochie mama I couldn’t compete with by the name of Emmy—as in the award. She was everything I’m not. A trophy he could handle.

  After winning the Emmy award, it was simply TV. TV theme song that is. As in: Next thing you know old Max is a star. Kinfolks said, Man, move away from there. Said, Network is where you oughta be. So the next thing you know he was movin’ to D.C. Global news that is. Overseas. Saddam. Satellites.

  So to forget about my breakup with Max, I focused on the double murder in Fellows Park. Who shot the two Rock Disciples? Members of the rival gang the Bandits, of course. Each day I hustled. I had my news groove on and I was determined to have the best reports on this top story.

  I scooped everyone when I found out that the Chicago PD had issued arrest warrants for three members of the Bandits street gang. They were the main suspects, believed to be the shooters. I was on this story like cheese on grits. When two of the Bandits were arrested and charged with murder, I was there and got exclusive pictures. I covered the story all day, fronting it live from the cop shop for the six o’clock and the ten o’clock news. Think that was the end of it? Think again.

  O N E

  My day seemed to be winding down innocently enough—“Georgia, may I see you for a minute?”

  —but it didn’t play out that way.

  I stepped into my boss’s office. Garbage was everywhere. Crushed tin cans. Stacks of old newspapers. A broken stress toy on the floor. Stress test flunked, okay.

  I thought of Junk Man, the urban prospector who used to cruise my old neighborhood with a grocery cart. Junk Man loved to sift through garbage. This office would be his treasure island.

  “Clear a space somewhere,” said my boss, Halo Bingington. “Please have
a seat.”

  Bing’s personality is half George Foreman and half Mike Tyson. That’s cool for two rock ’em, sock ’em boxers but not cool for one newsroom boss. So I knew that Bing’s nice-nice stuff could turn ugly quick and in a hurry.

  When your boss calls you into his office, you get that feeling. Like after the match ignites the fuse in a Mission Impossible rerun, I saw scenes flashing before my eyes. They were scenes from my last exclusive.

  It was late night and hotter outside than a hole-in-the-wall barbeque joint. The police cars were lined up in front of a frame house. I was on the journalistic down low. Me and my one-man crew crouched in the bushes, waiting for the arrests.

  Two Bandits were inside the house. Sammy Sosa could throw a baseball from the front porch and it would probably land near the pitcher’s mound in nearby Fellows Park. That’s where the bodies had been found, riddled with bullets.

  The two suspects were grabbed out of bed, but, true to thug life, they seemed unfazed by the police. Officers yanked them outside by the necks, pajama bottoms sagging, hands cuffed behind their backs with silver bracelets that jingled. It was the only sound in the night. Except cries. One of the suspects’ mothers leaned over the porch railing sobbing as she grabbed for her son, a man who had been out of reach for quite some time.

  I’d written the story with feelings and facts. I’d fronted it live from the scene. But now something was wrong. The competition couldn’t possibly have scooped me on some new development, could they? Did the suspects make bond and I didn’t know it? Did the cops find the murder weapon and I missed it?

  I watched my boss, Bing, as he made a quick call. He sat wide-legged, khaki pants high above his bare ankles. Scuffy, comfortable shoes fit loosely on his feet as he bounced his right leg up and down. Small freckled hands drummed on the desk, then Bing stopped and used his left hand to free several strands of dirty blond hair matted against the back of his neck by sweat. Bing finished his call and focused directly on me.

  In direct contrast to Bing’s warm and rich voice, suddenly his eyes turned cold with displeasure. Bing had started out as a commercial announcer, moved to radio news, then to TV. But he paid the cost to be the boss. Three decades in this business had lost Bing some of his hair, his waistline, his first and second wives, but not his drive to be number one.

  “Georgia, your on-camera look stunk. You didn’t fix your makeup and your hair was out of place! Channel 14’s reporter looked flawless.”

  I thought of the Generation X babe with Breck hair and poor writing skills. “But, Bing, the competition didn’t have the exclusive video of the arrests. They didn’t have the kid’s mother either. I was hustling like a popcorn vendor at the circus! I was worried about facts, not face.”

  “Georgia, this is TV news. The viewers care about how you look. You kicked tail on the story but you didn’t polish it off. Ratings are about how our reporters look just as much as they are about our news coverage.”

  Bing continued to bawl me out. I listened halfheartedly, then shrugged before heading back out into the newsroom.

  “Georgia, Georgia on my mind!” Nancy Haverstein yelled out at me. She’s the producer for the ten o’clock news.

  “Yeah, Nancy.” I smiled. She was actually one of the reasonable ones at my tripped-out television station, WJIV Channel 8 in Chicago. I’ve been a TV general assignment reporter in four other markets, all in Ohio, before finally getting a break. Then I was able to get-down-boogie-oogie-oogie back home to Chi-town.

  My coworkers seem to think that “Georgia, Georgia” is an original joke. The best joke occurred when my twin sister and I were born.

  At first my mother named me Georgia and my sister Georgina.

  But my grandmother, who in her heyday did musical comedy on the chitlin circuit, went to find the hospital nurse. Grandma told her to change Georgina’s name to Peaches. Mama threw a fit. Grandma said then, and still says now, that Mama is always raising saying over nothing.

  Mama changed my sister’s name back to Georgina but as far as my family was concerned it was far too late. You know how black folks hate to let go of a nickname. Poor Georgina’s nickname was stuck to her like paint on a brush. I have to admit, though, I loved going to Savannah and hearing my grandmother call us in from playing: “Georgia, Peaches! Where are my sweet Georgia, Peaches?!”

  I walked over to Nancy. She’s good people—kind, even-tempered, considerate, and gently honest. Nancy’s fronting on fifty but not looking nearly that age. She has a naturally slender build and bright, taut skin; raven black hair falls three inches below the big hoop earrings she loves to wear. Nancy’s eyes are the singed brown color of cigar smoke. She blinks them constantly, too. It’s a nervous habit she shoplifted after working in various television newsrooms across the country.

  Nancy pointed to the show rundown, which lists the stories included in the newscast. “Take a look, Georgia. I don’t have a strong lead. What about a hot-weather story—can you write something cute?”

  “Ughh!” I groaned. Don’t go there! I would have to stand outside somewhere on Michigan Avenue or along the lakefront and talk about how hot it was—and my hair was surely going to go berserk! Heat and humidity on a black woman’s hair? Goodness.

  “Georgia, what do you think about doing a weather crawl?”

  “A weather crawl? Girl, do a hair advisory! Nancy, if you send me outside to do a heat story in this weather, my hair is going to look like I’m a backup singer with Sly and the Family Stone. And you know Bing wears two hats—newsroom boss and chief of the cosmetic police. Dude wants glamour. Bing doesn’t care if it’s humid or windy or wet. He wants face and hair from his female reporters. But Bing doesn’t say a word to the guys! They can look any kind of way. Give me a pass, huh, Nancy?”

  Before she could answer, an intern yelled, “Got a breaker! Caller says there’s been a drive-by shooting. Five people shot.”

  “New lead!” Nancy announced to the newsroom. “Hit it, Georgia!”

  I hustled to get started on the breaking story. But I got delayed at the front door, waiting for one of our crew trucks to pick me up. I flipped a glance up to the sky, then sighed. The raindrops were steamed by the sun until they became a mist that clung to everyone who stepped out into The Sauna, a Chicago synonym for midday in August.

  I put on my thinking brim as I waited for my crew. A drive-by at Fiftieth and Hedge. It was in Englewood, my old neighborhood. A curious feeling came over me—a double-dip emotion of warmth and apprehension. It’s hard covering stories in Englewood. The neighborhood has changed so much from the way it was when I was a little kid.

  I had already covered the double murder in Fellows Park last week, a park where my twin and I used to play double Dutch and where we sang our first “concert” under the monkey bars, come one come all, for a nickel apiece.

  Once again I tried to give myself the proper distance for peace of mind to do my job. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of a Channel 8 truck turning the corner. When I saw who the cameraman was, my heart went yeah! and help me, Lord! at the same time. It was Zeke Rouster.

  Zeke shoots great pictures but he drives like Al Unser on crack. Zeke has long bony legs, a jelly stomach, pale green eyes, and stone white hair. He holds the record among cameramen for the most moving violations. It’s not a Channel 8 record, it’s the record for the entire city. And Zeke has no shame in his game about it either.

  A country boy raised outside of Birmingham, Zeke says his hot-rod days began at twelve years old when he jumped into a beat-up flatbed truck one day and set out driving. His goal was to travel as far as he could, as fast as he could, without knocking down anything that breathed. Zeke is an underachiever; he hasn’t killed anything yet and his goal hasn’t changed in thirty years.