Heaven's Fire (37 page)

"No shit," Pat said. "But all Williams cares about is the TV audience. I have to go."

Typical Bryan.
He
wasn't going to be trapped with 500,000 angry people. He probably was watching the show from someplace cushy and climate-controlled, and with its own bathroom. Sort of like Jake. She looked through the windshield at the TV8 porta-potty. It was swaying in the wind.

She shook her head and flipped the switch on the radio. "Looks like we're a go for the fireworks, Gang. Two, Three, and Dave, you're going to be fogged in, but I want people shots from you. And Luis, we're going to go to you for crowd reaction after the show. They're bound to be upset." Or worse. "Waverly, I'll need a wide shot from you the whole time."

A chorus of "gotchas" answered, but not a single "roger." To Jake's surprise, she missed them. She'd give anything to have Luis back on the right side of the camera. She just wasn't sure which side that would be, given his history.

The van door opened and Jake turned, thinking Archie was back. "Did you--"

But it wasn't her technical director. It was Jenson. Mr. Jenson. Croc Jenson. Jake didn't even know his first name, and here he was in her production van.

"Are you alone?"

No, there are seven dwarfs in the back hiding, Jake thought. What she said, though, was, "What do you want?"

Jenson came in and closed the door behind him. "I'm sorry," he started, coming towards her.

Yikes. Jake was sorry, too, for just about anything the guy wanted her to be sorry for. She flicked the radio transmitter on. "Stay where you are. I'm calling for help."

"No, please, don't. I just want to talk to you."

Norman Bates wanted to talk, too. "You've been watching me all week, and now you want to talk?"

A salute sounded--the signal the show was just minutes away. If getting raped or slaughtered in the production van wasn't bad enough, she was about to miss her cue.

"I've been a little crazy..." Jenson started.

No kidding, Jake thought. Then there was a knock at the door.

Thank heaven, this
had
to be Archie. But of course, it wasn't Archie. Why would he knock? It was Angela. The genuine Angela Firenze. Jake knew that because she wasn't wearing battery-powered fireworks earrings. And, contrary to what Dianne Aamot had said, Simon wasn't attached to her.

"I'm sorry," Angela started.

Everyone's
sorry, Jake thought. But she was awfully glad to see Angela, even after what Dianne Aamot had told her.

Jenson turned red and backed out of the door Angela was still holding. "I'll catch up with you later," he said to Jake, and was gone.

Jake’s heart was still thumping as Angela crinkled her nose and clutched her Coach Hamptons Carryall to her chest. "That man was looking at my breasts," she said, glancing at Jake's chest and then away.

"I noticed that," Jake said, shaking her head. "Hang on a second, we‘re coming in from break."

Now Archie burst through the door. "Jake, are you okay? The radio--
"

"I am now, Archie, thanks. Can you get Angela over to the stage?"

"You bet," Archie said, surveying yet another treat for the eyes, fortuitously dropped in his lap. "We're out of here."

Angela stopped at the door. "Do you know how long the interview will be?" she asked.

"Just five minutes, though we'd love to have you stay for the entire display," Jake said, knowing the anchors would thank her for giving them something to say besides, "Wow! Look at that one!"

But Angela was apologizing. "I'm sorry, but I must be with Simon at the seawall at nine-fifty, and then with my brother at ten."

That would be one heck of a "quickie," if Jake were to believe Dianne Aamot. Ten minutes, not counting travel time. "Don't worry," she assured Angela, and then Archie eagerly whisked her off.

"Ready Camera One," Jake said, taking a deep breath to calm down. "Take Camera One. Ready Camera Six."

When nothing happened, she realized she would have to "take" Camera One herself, since she'd just sent her technical director off. Duh.

"Jake, it's Pete."

"Pete, aren't you in yet?" She took Camera One as she spoke.

"We just tied up at the old ferry dock, but you're not going to believe what we found."

"Hang on, Pete. Ready Camera Six." On second thought, switching cameras was pretty darn easy when you only had two of them. She could go to a crowd shot, but the view from Camera Three was looking mighty ugly right now. Miffed didn't even come close to what the fogged-in spectators would be feeling once the display started. Jake hoped her crew was all right down there. "Okay, now. What won't I believe?"

"A body," Pete shouted into the phone. "We found a body tangled up on the pilings of the dock. It looks like it's been in the water for awhile."

Jake froze.

"The Coast Guard isn't saying, but it has to be Ray Guida."

The name reverberated though the van, and Jake was reminded of Doug in the fire truck with the bell pealing overhead. Suddenly her head felt like the clanger inside that bell chamber. Thank God Angela had been out of here when Pete called.

Jake turned and looked at the preview monitor, where the widow was being miked.

*****

Neal:
  "
Despite that fog, the show is still a go in less than...let's see, two minutes now.
"

George:
"
I understand that the blue stars in the last shell of the night were actually made by your father.
"

Angela:
"
That's correct. Which is the reason my brother and my mother
and I wanted to use them. The '
last shell of t
he night,'
as you call it, will also be my father's final shell. His final work of art.
"

"We would not even be having this discussion if you were still 'Wendy Jacobs,' reporter, and not this 'Jake' person you've become," Martha shouted into her microphone.

Jake's voice filtered back through Martha's earpiece. She sounded uncharacteristically sarcastic. "That's right, Martha. I lost my breasts, but grew a conscience. Not a bad trade-off, maybe you should try it."

"I'm very happy with my new implants, you little bitch," Martha screamed, and then realized that the entire crew could hear their conversation.

"Now you listen to me," she said, lowering her voice.
"This is what we're going to do. Pete is getting tape right now, and I'm going over to get ready to do a stand-up. You are
not
going to report this to your friend at the ATF--or anybody else, for that matter--until we break the story on the air. You are going to tell George and Neal and then have them turn it over to me. Do you hear me? Jake?"

But all Martha heard was static.

****

Jake was fuming. She was beyond fuming.

In order to keep her job, she needed to tell George or Neal in his earpiece about Ray's body, with Angela still there for a reaction. That smacked of Jerry Springer to Jake.

If she could just hold off another sixty-five seconds, Angela would be gone. And in the meantime, Jake could call Simon. She picked up her cell phone, still watching the monitor.

"I know we're very close to the start of the show now," Angela was saying, "and I must go to help my brother." She pulled her handbag up onto the table, where it clunked loudly on the audio. The clunk reminded Jake of something and she hesitated, setting down the phone.

"But first," Angela continued, "I'd like to give you something."

As Callie widened the shot, Jake saw that Angela was pulling a bottle from the handbag.

"Champagne?" Neal asked. "To celebrate your father's life?"

"Almost," Angela smiled at him, and Jake could see how Simon could have been smitten. "This is the white wine I make from the grapes that we grow at home. It is my father's favorite wine. And this," she pointed to a scroll of paper attached with a curly ribbon, "this is a tribute to my father that I've written. I'd very much like it, if you would toast him and read the tribute as we fire his final shell."

Jake had the cell again and was punching up Simon's number. First she'd tell him, then--

"Jake!" The voice was Martha's. "Tell George and Neal about the body or patch me through and I will. Now."

Nuts. Either way, one of the anchors would have to be told, and Jake knew which one of them she could trust to exercise some restraint.

"George," Jake said softly into his earpiece, simultaneously pushing "send" on her cell phone. "Pete just called in. A body has been found at the dock. We need to go live to Martha."

As Jake listened to Simon's cell phone ring, she watched George's face go blank. Neal was continuing to talk with Angela, and while they spoke, Jake saw George's expression change from indecision to resolve.

"Excuse me, Neal," George calmly cut in, "but we have breaking news. Apparently, a body has been recovered from Lake Michigan."

The camera was focused on George's face alone now, but the sound of a chair being pushed back on the plywood stage could be heard.
             

"Callie, go wide," Jake said, feeling badly for Angela, but at the same time needing to look, like when you pass a car wreck on the highway. Funny, having been a car wreck herself, Jake thought she was above that kind of thing.

The monitor showed a white-faced Angela, pulling off the lapel mic and backing away from the anchor desk. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry..." she was saying as she stood up, still clutching the green bottle of wine. Then she disappeared from the shot, leaving her handbag behind.

And that's when Jake put it all together.

She knew how Simon's place had been fire-bombed and by whom.

And maybe even why.

Simon's phone continued to ring.

*****

Simon was walking back from the firing area, toward the seawall, where he was to meet Angela.

His radio wasn't working again, and he was moving fast to get past what he was starting to think of as "The Twilight Zone." Nothing like not being able to communicate in the age of communication, to make a man uneasy.

Except maybe certain women.

Angela was walking toward him. She was early, which figured.

Their affair had been a huge mistake on his part.

Simon could try to minimize it by pointing out it had lasted less than a week. He could even try to justify it by saying that he and Dianne were already separated at the time, physically if not legally...though that sure wasn't the way Dianne had acted when she'd come by the house to pick up some things, and found Angela there.

But Simon's marital status aside, Angela
was
married and Simon was on the job. He should have known better. He
did
know better.

Now, according to Angela, "Ray knows." Presumably about the affair. Which might explain why he had burned down Simon's house--an overreaction if there ever was one--in order to get back the Firenzes' financial records. Maybe it was Ray's way of making sure that Simon and Ray's "widow" didn't live happily ever after when he vanished.

No chance of that.

Angela was perfect, Simon thought as she came toward him, nearly running, with a bottle in her hand. That seemed dangerous, but maybe if your family handles explosives, you don't sweat the lesser hazards, like running with scissors or glass containers.

Overhead, the fireworks display was in full swing. The shells were passing up through the fog bank before breaking, so the crowd in the park below could see nothing but intense flashes of light reflecting on the fog above, like something out of CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND. Angela was close enough now for Simon to see her face during those flashes.

Yes, Angela was perfect. As exquisite in her darkly exotic good looks as Dianne was in her own porcelain-skinned way.

But Simon had learned not to trust perfection.

Dianne had left him—first in heart and in mind, and then in body. And Angela?

Angela, Simon had found, was a bit of a psycho.

If the meatballs a woman put in her soup had to be flawless, what did she require of the man in her life? Simon had pitied Ray after one rendezvous, but he'd also been fascinated by those eyes, by that body.

It had been worth it for that one week, to put up with her scrunching up her nose when she picked up the smell of smoke that always seemed to cling to him. Or her bringing him Italian cologne to cover the scent. But when she'd been critical of his house and suggested he put Irish outside anytime she was there...well, that was the beginning of the end. The confrontation with Dianne had just hastened it. Along with Angela's distaste for his soft-porn collection.

"Oh, Simon!" Angela said, throwing her arms around him when she reached him and, in the process, thunking him in the back with the bottle in her hand. "Please, please tell me that you still love me. That you will always love me, not matter what."