A Scourge of Vipers Read online

  Reporters had staked out the front of my tenement building, so whenever we went on a pizza and beer run, we sneaked down the fire escape, jumped the back fence, and jogged to Joseph’s truck. Almost everywhere we went, a gray Honda Civic was lurking. I figured I was getting paranoid. I wasn’t an investigative reporter anymore. Except for the press, no one had a reason to tail me now—unless Mario or Marco Alfano still held a grudge. And the last I time I saw Alfano, he was driving a black SUV.

  Each night, I lay awake in bed and wondered about the same few things.

  Would Yolanda ever speak to me again?

  Was there life after journalism?

  Should I give it up and take a job with McCracken?

  Should I stick with it and go to work for Mason?

  Or should I go for the money and take over for Whoosh if the gambling bill failed?

  It was nearly a week before I stopped obsessing about myself and started wondering about more important things.

  Would McCracken or Parisi be able to trace the source of the e-mail?

  Would the cops find Mario before Marco Alfano put a bullet in his head?

  Did Mario kill Romeo Alfano and make off with the two hundred grand? Despite what Whoosh had told me, I still thought yes. But if Mario didn’t do it, who did?

  Then something else occurred to me. What the hell had been in that grocery bag the Providence cops had lugged out of my apartment?

  On Friday, McCracken called with one of the answers. The IP address belonged to a computer in the Providence Public Library reading room. After we hung up, I rang Parisi.

  “What now, lover boy?”

  “I hear the IP address is a dead end.”

  “No comment.”

  “The governor told you who snapped the photo of us at Hopes, right?”

  “So?”

  “Is that enough to make an arrest?”

  “For what? Last I checked, photography isn’t illegal.”

  “It ties Grandison to the audio file. They were both in the same e-mail.”

  A ten-second delay. And then, “It’s not probative.”

  “Why not?”

  “All it tells us is that she, or maybe somebody she gave the picture to, sent the e-mail. Doesn’t prove she planted the listening devices.”

  “Any leads on the money from Romeo Alfano’s briefcase?”

  “No comment.”

  “Why do you keep saying that? I’m not a reporter anymore.”

  “The answer to my prayers.”

  “I got a guy who swears Mario doesn’t have it.”

  Ten seconds this time. “That so?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What guy?”

  “I’m not saying.”

  Five seconds. “Seen Whoosh around lately?”

  “All the time.”

  Ten seconds. “Any idea who else could have the money?”

  “No.”

  “I’ve been wondering if maybe it’s you,” he said. And then he clicked off.

  * * *

  There was no reason to keep going to the Vipers’ tryouts. I wouldn’t be writing about that for The Dispatch anymore. But what the hell. I didn’t have anything better to do on Saturday.

  In the locker room, the players weren’t calling me “grandpa” anymore. Now it was “sexy grandpa”—and a few other things that were pornographic in nature. The ribbing was good-natured, so I took it in stride.

  As we staggered onto the court, Coach Martin pulled me aside.

  “I was worried you weren’t going to show this morning.”

  “Almost didn’t.”

  “When the news broke, management ordered me to cut you, but I talked them out of it.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “Because you’ve been doing a great job with Jefferson and Benton. I also talked them into giving you this,” he said, and handed me an envelope.

  I tore it open. Inside was a check for twelve hundred dollars.

  “What’s this for?”

  “Compensation as a temporary member of the coaching staff. It covers what you’ve done so far and for working with the guys today and next Saturday.”

  “That’s the last day?”

  “It is.”

  “Told Jefferson he’s made the team yet?”

  “Not yet.”

  “What about Benton?”

  “We’re still talking that over. With Cartwright on the shelf, we need a backup point guard, but the kid’s awful small.”

  “So’s Nate Robinson,” I said, “and he’s been in the NBA for years.”

  Before getting down to work, I slipped back into the locker room and folded the check into my wallet. It was more than enough to cover my next rent payment. That gave me a few weeks of breathing room to ponder what the hell I was going to do with the rest of my life.

  41

  Tuesday morning, Fiona and I huddled in her office. Just outside the door, the press assembled in the State Room, a spacious hall where Rhode Island governors conducted bill signings and addressed the public. It had been more than a week since the sex story broke. More than a week without a word from the governor. More than a week in which the scandal was allowed to swell to Clintonesque proportions.

  With nothing but the photo and video to sustain them, media outlets, both local and national, had kept the story alive with a frenzy of absurd interviews and speculation. Fox News assembled a panel of psychologists to discuss the supposed sex addiction that had caused the governor to throw away her promising political career. Providence TV reporters hunted down my ex-wife and former girlfriends and pestered them with questions about my sexual history. CNN padded its coverage with still pictures and video of other political sex scandals from JFK’s Mob moll to Anthony Weiner’s dick pix. Iggy Rock went on the air with a rumor that Fiona had presided over weekly orgies with hookers and lobbyists, and he dared the governor to come on the air and deny it. An “Impeach the Whore Governor” Facebook page swelled with followers. And Rush Limbaugh crowed that Attila the Nun was now Attila the Slut.

  Only the wiser heads at The Daily Show and The Colbert Report exercised restraint, directing their mockery at the journalism feeding frenzy.

  To stir the pot, Fiona directed an underling to phone Channel 10’s Logan Bedford with a not-for-attribution tip that I’d gotten her pregnant and that she had sneaked off to Trenton for a secret abortion. The reliably unreliable Bedford went right on the air with it. Laura Ingraham, the syndicated talk-radio shrew, and Reverend Crenson, a Republican gubernatorial candidate, promptly denounced Fiona as a baby killer. Devereaux, the GOP front-runner, declined to comment, preferring to let the press do the dirty work for her.

  According to a new Providence Dispatch/URI opinion poll, the governor’s previously record-high approval rating had plummeted to a record-low 22 percent.

  Shortly before ten A.M., the governor’s administrative assistant stuck her head in the door to tell us that the stage was set. Reporters for The Providence Dispatch, The Pawtucket Times, the local Associated Press office, and eight Rhode Island radio stations were present. Others from The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Time, Newsweek, The Huffington Post, and The Drudge Report had shown up from out of town. And CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, and the four local network TV affiliates would be broadcasting the press conference live.

  “Ready for the show?” Fiona asked.

  “You bet.”

  I took her arm, pushed the door open, and escorted her toward a lectern that had been placed in front of the State Room’s dominant feature, a life-size Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington. TV lights clicked on. The lectern bristled with microphones. We walked slowly through the room, giving the reporters ample time to shout their questions:

  “Do you admit the affair?”

  “Is it true that you had an abortion?”

  “Are you going to resign?”

  “What’s your boy-toy doing here?”

  And a cacophony of others I co
uldn’t make out.

  Fiona took her place behind the lectern with me at her side. She didn’t speak, letting the questions wash over her. And then she beamed, looking at once chic and businesslike in a forest-green tailored suit. After a minute or so, she finally bent to the microphones and said, “Shhhhhhhh.”

  The shouts gradually subsided.

  “Thank you all for coming,” she said. “It’s especially gratifying to see so many members of the national press here this morning. We don’t often get this much attention in Little Rhody.

  “What’s not gratifying is that none of you are asking the important questions. You ought to be asking when the legislature is finally going to pass my gambling bill, which is essential to restoring the financial stability of our state government. You ought to be asking who illegally bugged the governor’s office and distributed the infamous audio file to the media.

  “But it is apparent that you have something else on your minds.” She smiled slyly and paused for dramatic effect. “So, since you asked—and because you are plainly obsessed with the subject—let’s talk about sex.

  “I can’t tell you how much I’ve enjoyed your salacious news reports over the last five days. They’ve been more entertaining than an entire season of my favorite TV show—Scandal. The saga of Olivia Pope’s affair with the president of the United States is riveting fiction, and the show deserves its huge following. But lately, the fiction about my affair with a newspaper reporter has been giving it a run for its money, driving up both newspaper circulation and TV news-show ratings. I’ve always been a strong supporter of a vigorous press, so I’m sorry to be the one to spoil your fun, but perhaps you are ready to hear the truth.”

  Another pause.

  “Liam Mulligan and I have been close friends since high school, and we’re both big kidders. What you heard on the audio file was me joshing him about his choice of underwear, which, frankly, I find mystifying. I understand why a guy would wear a Red Sox cap or Bruins jersey, but darned if I get why he’d wear his favorite teams’ colors where only that special someone gets to see them. After all, nobody who gets that close is thinking about baseball or hockey, so what’s the point?

  “Mulligan? Would you care to explain?”

  I bent to the microphones and delivered my line: “I’ve been supporting my teams for years, Governor. Seems to me it was time they gave me some support where I need it most.”

  That drew some laughs. It also prompted an indignant shout from Iggy Rock.

  “Do you think this is a joke, Governor?”

  “I do,” she said. “Just not as big a joke as you are, Iggy.”

  With that, reporters started shouting questions again. Again the governor shushed them.

  “Mr. Mulligan I and do not have, never have had, and never will have a sexual relationship.”

  “Never will?” I said, ad-libbing a line and pouting in mock disappointment.

  “Sorry, darling, but I am immune to your boyish charms.”

  I gasped, my feigned shock drawing more chuckles.

  “For the record,” the governor continued, “Mr. Mulligan did not get me pregnant, and I did not recently have, and have never had, an abortion. Any more questions?”

  More shouts.

  “One at a time, please. Mr. Bedford?”

  “We’ve all seen the photo and heard the audio. Why should we believe your denial?”

  Fiona paused again for dramatic effect.

  “Because I’m gay,” she said.

  That stunned the room into silence.

  “At the conclusion of this press conference,” Fiona said, “my administrative assistant will distribute notarized copies of a medical examination that was conducted yesterday afternoon by Dr. Martin Philbin, the chief of staff at Rhode Island Hospital. It will confirm that I have never been pregnant. And to satisfy your impertinent, prurient, and entirely inappropriate obsession with my private life, it will also confirm that my hymen is intact.

  “I trust that when you report this earth-shattering news, your stories will be accompanied by the appropriate apologies to me and to Mr. Mulligan. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to turn to some matters of actual importance.

  “Two weeks ago, a routine, monthly sweep of my office by statehouse police uncovered several listening devices. These devices illegally intercepted the infamous conversation that was subsequently edited to remove its innocent context and then e-mailed to dozens of news outlets. The Rhode Island State Police traced the IP address and discovered that the e-mail was sent from a computer in the reading room of the Providence Public Library. The state police then examined video from a surveillance camera mounted beside the library entrance and observed Cheryl Grandison, vice president of the Stop Sports Gambling Now super PAC, entering the library just ten minutes before the e-mail was sent. That alone would not be sufficient evidence of guilt. However, the state police also interviewed two witnesses who observed Mrs. Grandison using the computer in question and five witnesses, including me and Mr. Mulligan, who saw her take the photograph that was included in the same e-mail.

  “At six o’clock this morning, Mrs. Grandison was arrested at her room in the Omni Hotel. She has been formally charged with violating Chapter 11, Section 35-21, of the Rhode Island General Laws, which prohibits both the willful electronic interception of oral communications and the disclosure of the contents of such communications to third parties. The crime is punishable by five years in the state prison, where the accommodations, I assure you, are not up to the Omni’s standards. Mrs. Grandison was arraigned in Providence District Court and released after posting a thirty-thousand-dollar bond.

  “According to press reports, the super PAC Mrs. Grandison represents is funded by the National Collegiate Athletic Association and the five major professional sports leagues, which vigorously oppose all forms of legalized sports gambling. We believe her intention was to create a scandal that would derail the gambling bill by forcing my resignation. The five sports organizations have disavowed any knowledge of her actions.

  “One last point,” the governor said. “State law also prohibits anyone from willfully disseminating the contents of an intercepted conversation if they know, or have reason to believe, that it was illegally obtained. Since it was apparent on its face that my playful conversation with Mr. Mulligan was illegally intercepted, every news organization represented in this room could face criminal charges, and the reporters and editors directly responsible could spend the next half decade behind bars.”

  More shouted questions.

  “One at a time, please. Mr. Hardcastle of The Dispatch?”

  “Are you are seriously considering prosecuting news outlets?”

  “That’s up to the attorney general.”

  More shouts.

  “Mr. Rock?”

  “Are you currently in a lesbian relationship, and if so, can you tell us the name of the lucky girl?”

  “None of your fucking business. Thanks for coming, and have a nice day.”

  42

  “How do you think it went?” Fiona asked.

  “Are you kidding? You slayed ’em.”

  We were sitting on the couch of infamy again, a chilled bottle of Dom Pérignon White Gold, two Waterford crystal goblets, and a corkscrew laid out for us on the coffee table.

  “Pop the cork,” she said.

  So I did, filling the goblets and handing her one. We clinked glasses and drank.

  “One thing, though,” I said. “Could coming out hurt your reelection chances?”

  “If anything, it’ll help,” Fiona said.

  The population of Rhode Island was 44 percent Catholic, the Bishop of Providence was fervently anti-gay, and the state had lagged behind the rest of New England on the gay marriage issue. But here, like elsewhere in the country, there had been a stunning change of heart. Two years ago, the state legislature had finally legalized gay marriage. The vote wasn’t close. Fifty-six to fifteen in the Senate. Twenty-six to twelve in the House. Ac
cording to the opinion polls, the new law had overwhelming support among every demographic group except thugs named Mario.

  “I was surprised you called on Iggy,” I said.

  “It was part of the plan,” she said. “I was fishing for that final question, and I figured he’d have the bad taste to ask it.”

  “Did you mean to say ‘fucking,’ or did you just blurt it out?”

  “I was hoping to work the f-word in at the end.”

  “Why?”

  “Remember what David Ortiz said when he addressed the crowd at Fenway Park a few days after the Boston Marathon bombing?”

  “Yeah. He said, ‘This is our fucking city.’”

  “He struck just the right note of determination and defiance,” she said. “The crowd loved him for it. After what I’ve been through the last few days, I think the public will love me for it, too.”

  And so they did.

  Two days later, a new Dispatch/URI poll put the governor’s favorability rating at 73 percent and showed her surging to a twenty-five-point lead over Devereaux and a forty-point lead over Crenson.

  By week’s end, the hottest item at the Providence Place Mall was a sweatshirt emblazoned with the words “None of Your F**king Business.”

  43

  Saturday morning, there was no more locker-room ribbing about sexy grandpa. Instead, the guys laughingly offered to hook me up with their maiden aunts and older sisters.

  Coach Martin assigned me to work with Jefferson and Benton again while he and his assistants ran the rest of the players through some perfunctory drills at the other end of the court. When that was done, we chose up teams for a final five-on-five. The play was sloppy, the players tight, knowing this was their last chance to impress.

  About twenty minutes in, Krueger took a bounce pass in the post, drew the defense with an up-fake, and fed a wide-open Sears at the top of the circle. As the shot went up, Jefferson and I crashed the boards. The ball hit the rim and bounced out. We both leaped for it. Jefferson leaped higher and came down with the basketball. I came down on the back of his right heel.