Bite Me dh-3 Page 2

  I’ll take that as a no, I thought.

  “When would you like me to start?”

  “The sooner the better,” Thompson said, then looked at his watch.

  “It’s time I got into the sound booth,” Farrell said, gave a raspy cough and then followed it with a long drag on his cigarette that burned down to his nicotine stained fingers.

  “Does a nine forty-five start suit you?” Thompson asked.

  “I can do that, I’d better get going, I’ve got some schedules to shuffle around. I’ll see the two of you here, tomorrow, nine forty-five.”

  “You’re just what we need,” Thompson smiled, and held out his hand for another limp, dead fish shake.

  I followed Farrell out, heard the electric typewriter start up again as we walked past the plastic crates of obsolete equipment. Out in the front office, or whatever they called it, Farrell said, “Appreciate you taking our case on, Mister Haskin. We’ll all sleep a little better tonight knowing you’re on the job.”

  “Haskell, H-a-s-k-e-l-l,” I spelled it for him.

  “Right,” he half chuckled.

  “I’ll be here at nine forty-five tomorrow. Just keep a close eye out on your way home tonight and back in tomorrow. Let’s just have you guys keep a low profile, until we get things sorted out, okay.”

  “That won’t be a problem.”

  “See you tomorrow,” I said and left.

  Chapter Three

  I was buying another round at The Spot. I’d been buying all night. I was beyond the point of caring and was holding court on a bar stool dangerously close to two drunks throwing darts.

  “One of your deadbeat clients finally pay up?” Jimmy asked as he filled the glasses with the next round.

  “Even better, I got a job where I don’t have to work,” I laughed.

  “So what’s new ‘bout that.”

  “No, I mean, I just have to sit around. Someone pulled a joke on these clowns and they bought it. Hired me for protection,” I said, then washed that down with a healthy couple of swallows.

  “You for protection, that is a joke,” Jimmy laughed.

  “Yeah? Well, you ever hear of a radio station called craze?”

  “Craze, you mean like nuts, what is that some weird punk rock, kid thing?”

  “No, K-R-A-Z, supposed to be something right with American thing or, I don’t know, I’ll take another, Jimmy,” I said and drained my glass.

  “You driving?”

  “Yeah, but not all that far, so relax.”

  Over the course of the evening I asked around, no one in the bar had ever heard of KRAZ. The next thing I knew it was closing time, Jimmy locked the door, let me finish my beer, but wouldn’t give me another. I apparently made it home all right because I woke up on my couch at about six-thirty the following morning. I stumbled to the kitchen, put some coffee on and curled back up on the couch. When I next looked at the clock on my microwave it was nine twenty.

  I threw a semi clean shirt on, gobbled some mints, raced out the door and over to KRAZ.

  Farrell was sucking the last inch of life from his current cigarette when I bounced the office door off the front desk. I was still a little breathless and red in the face from rushing to make it modestly late.

  “You guys ought to move that thing,” I said, nodding at the front desk.

  He exhaled, sipped from his coffee mug, smiled, but didn’t say anything.

  I saw Thompson through the doorway. He was standing next to the stacks of red and blue crates. It was the first time I’d seen him standing, at least I think he was standing. I put him at about five foot three, on a good day.

  He glanced at his watch, raised an eyebrow then shook his head.

  “I believe our agreement was nine-forty-five,” he called.

  “It was, I got here early, strolled around the building and the parking lots checking some things, making myself familiar with the area. Nice to know what I’m dealing with, first line of defense is out there, not in here.” I had to admit that sounded so good even I half believed it.

  Farrell looked surprised. Thompson looked like he wasn’t sure. I seized the opportunity.

  “Anything seem out of the ordinary, another note, a phone call, someone following either of you?”

  They both shook their heads.

  “Okay, you’re on the air shortly?”

  “Twelve minutes,” Farrell said, then lit up another cigarette.

  “Mind if I watch?”

  “Be my guest,” he exhaled.

  By this time Thompson had returned to his lair.

  Eleven minutes later I was standing behind Farrell in a converted closet. We had to hunch over because of the shelf that ran across the top. There was a bare light bulb in the ceiling with a string attached to turn it off and on. Fortunately someone had the foresight to remove the pole and clothes hangers.

  Farrell wore a set of headphones. He was seated at a tiny desk at one end of the closet with a laptop in front of him. The dusty screen on the laptop displayed a digital readout ticking down the minutes before broadcast and then the last sixty seconds. The final ten seconds clicked past furiously in increments of a tenth of a second. With three seconds left Farrell slowly, deliberately raised his index finger and pushed the enter key on the laptop. Then he leaned back and listened for a moment before he removed his headphones.

  “There you go, we’re on the air,” he said and pushed back his chair.

  Still hunched over I had to back up to exit the closet. Farrell took a final drag then fired up a fresh cancer stick and backed out.

  “We record the word, as we like to call it, the night before. Then upload it and we’re set to go. We could set the download for any time, but I like to do the manual play, gets me into the groove if you know what I mean.”

  Actually I didn’t, somehow Farrell ‘in the groove’ didn’t seem to compute.

  “So that’s it until noon?”

  “Well, we stand by, answer the phones, sign up volunteers, get people organized, that sort of thing.”

  “Oh, so listeners call?”

  “Well they could, I mean that’s what we’re hoping will happen, sometime, anyway.”

  It didn’t happen.

  The routine was the same at noon, three and five-thirty, only even more boring. I walked around the building and the parking lot a few times just to stay awake. At six I drifted into Thompson’s office, he was pounding away on the future of America, his electric typewriter.

  “You feel comfortable with me leaving for the day?”

  He stopped hammering the typewriter keys, squeaked his chair around and nodded with a determined look across his face.

  “I’d say we sent out a pretty strong message today.”

  “Your broadcast?”

  “Broadcast? No, you, our protection. We won’t be silenced. Matter of fact it’s provided me inspiration, freedom of speech,” he said and patted the one inch stack of paper on the desk. Just like yesterday it was face down.

  “Tomorrow’s broadcast?” I asked.

  “Exactly.”

  “Farrell reads that for fifteen minutes and then you play it four times a day?”

  “We do.”

  “Ever think of maybe shortening it, I don’t know cutting it down to maybe fifteen or twenty seconds. Maybe play some music or something.”

  “We’ve done that from time to time, or a version. We’ve had ‘America The Beautiful’ as a background accompaniment once in a while, some Sousa marches.”

  “Yeah, I was thinking more like just music, maybe something popular, current, get your audience interested and…”

  “Some drug culture thing, that it? You’ve been in the gutter too long, Haskell. We’re not trying to be popular, if that’s what your angle is. We’re here to tell the truth, something that often times is unpopular.” He placed some added emphasis to the un in unpopular.

  “Well, I kind of like the gutter, to tell you the truth. But, I was thinking fifteen minutes is an
awfully long time to listen to someone going on and on.”

  “On and on, that’s what you think we do?”

  “You know what I mean, I just wonder if you aren’t missing your mark a bit by trying to tell them too many things. You know the KISS acronym, Keep It Simple Stupid.”

  “No, I guess I missed that one,” he said and squeaked around to face his typewriter, signaling the end of our conversation.

  “Well, I don’t want to piss you off, but whatever you ran as your message, your word today didn’t seem to cut it. You played the thing four separate times. Fifteen minutes a crack, that’s an hour and unless you got a call center tucked away somewhere, I never heard a phone ring all day long, ever. Not trying to tell you how to run your business Thompson, that’s just my opinion.”

  “That’s part of what’s gone wrong with this great nation, everything comes down to the ten second sound bite. Is that what freedom means to you, ten seconds?”

  I waited for a moment, a long moment, maybe ten seconds worth.

  “Nine forty-five tomorrow, right?”

  Chapter Four

  It was more of the same the next day. The term boring wouldn’t begin to do it justice. Add to that the hot, humid weather and a nap had become one of my top priorities.

  Immediately after the dreadful afternoon broadcast Thompson and Farrell had me follow them out of the office to the stairway. As we trudged down the six flights of stairs they filled me in on their latest brain fart. Then Thompson said, “So we up and decided, let’s just advance in another direction.”

  “Do you think this is a good idea? I mean, wasn’t the plan that you were going to keep a low profile?” I asked.

  “Within reason, but one can never be timid when freedom is involved,” Thompson replied. He sounded breathless and he still had another flight to waddle down.

  “But a press conference in front of the building?” I said, “I don’t know, it…”

  “That’s right you don’t know we’re just in time to hit the Six O’clock news. Haskin, I’ll handle the PR, you handle protection,” Thompson wheezed and then he pushed the door open and we stepped outside.

  There were two cameramen and two people I guessed to be reporters standing there. They were chatting, waiting and looking very bored. One guy flicked a cigarette off to the side as the door closed behind us. I had news for them, it was about to get a lot worse. A woman I sort of recognized in a blonde way was on her cell phone with her back to us.

  “Ladies and gentlemen thank you for coming, I’m Thompson Barkwell, CEO of K-R-A-Z, craze radio, seven-forty on your dial. I’m sure you’re all familiar with our on air personality, Farrell J. Earley.”

  Farrell nodded, pushed his glasses back up on his nose and exhaled a blue cloud of smoke. Thompson continued, “We’re here today to discuss an extremely serious situation. Over the course of the past seventy-two hours we…”

  “Excuse me, please, please, excuse me, sir, Mister Barky is it?” the blonde on the cell phone.

  “Barkwell, Thompson Barkwell.”

  “Sure, Tiffany Kinny, from The Source. Would you mind starting over, sorry I was on the phone and by the way, do you have a hand out?”

  “A hand out, no I do not have a hand out. Maybe you could listen. I have some prepared remarks, and then I’ll take your questions.” Thompson suddenly produced a sheaf of papers that looked like a small phone book. He cleared his throat and began reading.

  “It is time that the concept of Freedom of Speech in this great nation is taken back by the people. The very patriots who, in 1776, refused to stand idly by while…”

  One of the camera men lowered his camera, shrugged and looked very bored. I’d say Tiffany what’s her face stopped writing, but then I was pretty sure she had never started. Thompson droned on, and on. Farrell had assumed a sort of military parade rest position and stared straight ahead wearing a more dazed look than usual. I tuned the whole thing out and watched a bus fifty yards away at the corner.

  By now Thompson was working his way through the Gettysburg address.

  “… It is for us the living rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work…”

  He lunged, or did he fall? I didn’t know, I was just coming back to reality when I heard the shot, and then another. I saw the car race down the street. Farrell was over Thompson, shielding him, I glanced down the street, couldn’t read the license plate. Hell, I couldn’t even tell if the plate was from Minnesota. A nondescript grey or silver something but I couldn’t catch the make of the car.

  One thing was for sure the cameras were suddenly rolling, focused on Thompson and Farrell. Thompson mumbled something to Farrell, they got up together, dusted themselves off.

  “Is everyone all right? Anyone hurt?”

  “Jesus Christ, did you get that shit?” Tiffany Kinny asked a cameraman from where she was crouched behind a trash can.

  “Anything Haskell?” Farrell asked.

  I shook my head, still staring down the street, the car was long gone.

  “Nothing, not a thing.”

  “Folks, who knew? They think they can silence the craze, K-R-A-Z, seven-forty on your dial. Seven-forty, get it, seven four, like July fourth. Seventh month, fourth day. Freedom, Freedom, we will not be silenced. We’ve hit a nerve, people. We’re speaking the truth and someone doesn’t like it. No sir, we will not be silenced.”

  The cameras continued to roll as Thompson spoke. Tiffany shook her hair left and right then lunged into camera range to get closer to Thompson.

  “Who is this gentleman?” she asked Thompson, indicating me with a movement of her head.

  “Security, it’s the sad state of affairs in our great nation that we have to hire protection in order to speak the truth. The silent majority can not continue to sit idly by while…”

  I was wondering where the rounds hit. They should have hit the building, or the steps or someone. Nothing. I heard a distant siren that seemed to be getting closer.

  Chapter Five

  We were back up on the sixth floor in KRAZ National Headquarters. We had gathered in Thompson’s dingy little office. Thompson, Farrell, me, two patrol officers and Detective Norris Manning, from Homicide.

  “Well, I would hope certain people will take that death threat from the other day a little more seriously, now,” Thompson said, enthroned behind his electric typewriter, looking from me to Manning and then back to me.

  Manning’s blue eyes looked exceptionally bright. He nodded his pink, bald head, attacked his chewing gum with his front teeth and didn’t say anything.

  Thompson kept his attention on me.

  “I thought we hired you for protection. That certainly doesn’t seem to be happening, does it? Do you have anything to say in your defense?”

  “In my defense? Look, with all due respect, you told me about your news conference literally fifteen seconds before you stepped out the door and in front of the cameras. I barely had time to tell you it was a stupid idea. I believe you told me at some point you were going to handle the PR. Isn’t that right?”

  Thompson sighed then attempted to level a withering gaze at Manning, I don’t think it worked.

  “And do you have any leads? Any idea what organization is trying to stifle the truth? Who’s trying to eliminate our right to freedom of expression? It seems to me, one of the things you should be doing is to…”

  “One of the things I should be doing is getting a list from you of exactly who knew about your news conference, for starters,” Manning interrupted.

  “I think we can safely assume it wasn’t one of our contacts in the media,” Thompson said.

  “Really, who else knew about the press conference? Unless maybe someone just driving past suddenly developed the urge to take a shot at you?”

  Thompson went beet red, I didn’t think Manning’s question seemed so far-fetched.

  “Allow me to be blunt, Detective, I find nothing funny about this vicious attempt on our lives,” Thompson replied.
>
  “Nor do I,” Manning glared.

  “Tommy, it’s almost five thirty, give me a hand getting the broadcast uploaded. Is that all right Detective? Shouldn’t take us more than five minutes, give us all a moment to collect our thoughts,” Farrell said rising to his feet, stretching, and waiting for Manning’s answer.

  “Yeah sure, we’ve got someone at the door. You’re not leaving the office, are you?”

  “No sir, just our broadcast booth down the hall.”

  That closet, I thought.

  “Please be my guest, gentlemen,” Manning said, then turned his gaze toward me.

  Farrell wandered out. Thompson waddled after him, still flushed in the face.

  “Little twerp,” Manning said, shaking his head.

  “What do you think?” I asked.

  “I think you’re doing a particularly lousy job on protection detail. How did you find these guys anyway? Don’t tell me you’re a fan?”

  “No, nothing like that, actually they contacted me. Someone gave them a referral and they called.”

  “Gave a referral on you? Jesus, they must have been nuts.”

  I couldn’t see anything that would be gained by answering.

  “What’s with this joint?” Manning asked. He was examining a number of dust balls from the back of the couch with his fingertips.

  “It’s a conservative radio show or station, I guess. They broadcast a fifteen minute radio message, four times a day.”

  “That’s it?”

  I nodded. “I think the rule of thumb is you have to hear something four times in a twenty-four hour period to make it stick.”

  Manning stared at me, wide eyed. “Something’s God damned goofy around here. And they got you through a referral? This ain’t your usual cheating spouse with the babysitter routine. What the hell do you do here, anyway?”

  Well, to tell you the truth not very much…”

  “There’s a surprise,” Manning scoffed.

  “I check out the building and parking lot a few times. Sit around up here. They usually never leave. Well, except for today, but I wasn’t kidding, I didn’t find out about that press conference thing until just before we stepped outside and in front of the cameras.”