The Killing Room (Richard Montanari) - By Richard Montanari Page 0,70
wallet. He liked to think it was for emergencies – which it was – but he wanted to think the urgent situation would come in the form of a midnight tryst with a beautiful woman, and he needed it to pay cash for a bottle of champagne.
‘Hey,’ Shane said. ‘What’s up?’
The kid looked away, around, back. ‘You that guy on TV?’
Shane felt a cold wave of relief. ‘Yeah. Shane Adams.’
The kid nodded. ‘Yeah, yeah,’ he said. He chucked a thumb at the apartment complex. ‘I saw what happened.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I was there.’
Shane had to play along, like he knew all the details. ‘You saw that, huh?’
‘Yeah.’
He wasn’t being mugged after all. ‘You saw all of it?’
The kid nodded again. ‘Saw po-po beating on DeRon.’
Shane had to take a shot here. ‘You mean DeRon Jefferson?’
The kid rolled his eyes. ‘DeRon Wilson.’
‘Oh, yeah. Right, right.’
‘I got it all. All of it.’
Shane’s pulse began to spike. Got all of it. Was he hearing what he thought he was hearing? ‘So, are you saying you have video of what happened?’
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I got it.’
‘Can I see it?’
The kid recoiled. ‘I’ll sell it to you.’
‘Well, I have to see it first. If it’s something I think I might be able to use, we’ll talk.’
The kid sized him up again. After a few long seconds he reached into his baggy jeans, fished out a cell phone. He opened it, scrolled down. Before starting the video he looked up. ‘How much could I get?’
‘That all depends on the footage.’
The kid made a face. He had no idea what footage was. Cell phone video wasn’t measured in feet.
‘The video,’ Shane said. ‘It all depends on what you have on the video.’
Another face. ‘I said, I got it all, man.’
Shane glanced at the kid’s phone. It wasn’t an iPhone 4, or any of the higher end Android smart phones, so the footage wasn’t going to be that good, quality-wise. No 720p here. Still, in the past few years, stations had broadcast absolutely terrible quality video, if the subject matter was compelling. Many times when it was not. If it came down to broadcasting sub-VHS quality video or getting scooped, there was no argument at all. Visuals were everything.
The kid moved slowly. Shane wanted to say something, but he realized he was in the kid’s world, not his own. He couldn’t visualize Anderson Cooper in some back alley in Tikrit rushing some Iraqi kid with cell-phone footage. He waited.
Finally the kid held up the phone and pressed the button.
At first the video was just a blurry image, moving along dirty carpeting. Then there was shouting. The words were unintelligible, but that could be cleaned up. Shane instinctively glanced at his watch. Plenty of time. He looked back at the camera phone, and now saw the image of a long, sparsely lit hallway. A few of the doors were open. People stepped out of them. The camera moved down the hall, shaky as hell, but that just added to the immediacy.
Then he saw Kevin Byrne brace a man against the drywall so hard that the drywall cracked. Shane found he was holding his breath.
‘That’s DeRon, right?’
‘Um-hmm,’ the kid replied.
Shane then saw Byrne pull out a gun and put it to the man’s forehead. Shane did his very best not to make a sound. At that instant he thought about his acting classes, and what this moment called for. It called for an action, and that action was indifference. Hardest thing he had ever done.
When the video cut to black Shane took a deep, yoga breath, said, ‘I don’t know man. The lighting’s pretty bad.’
Shane didn’t expect the kid to discuss lumens, but he did expect a response. The kid didn’t say anything.
‘Ain’t exactly hi-def, you know what I mean?’ Shane added.
Cold silence from the kid.
‘Tell you what. I’ll give you twenty for it.’
The kid snorted. It seemed Shane’s offer was beneath contempt. Which, of course, it was. Shane, on the other hand, expected a counter offer. The kid turned to leave.
‘Hang on.’
The kid stopped, but still kept his bike headed in the other direction.
‘I could maybe go fifty,’ Shane said, and immediately realized that he had only the hundred-dollar bill in his wallet, and maybe six singles in his pocket. Did he expect the kid to have change? He looked down the street, saw an all-night deli. Maybe he could crack the C-note there. ‘But that’s coming out of my pocket. My station doesn’t pay for this shit. Ever.’