The Blues & Billie Armstrong 52
TRIANGULATION
Previously in The Blues & Billie Armstrong…
“Today I’m just a delivery person.” She reached into her bag and Monihan said, “Oh, perfect—it’s a subpoena isn’t it? King, I think you’re about to get served.”
Perhaps Valentine Jones came to the Sentinel with that very moment scripted in her head—and the fact that Monihan was present to witness her performance must’ve made it all the more satisfying to her.
She was clearly playing for dramatic effect, but she couldn’t possibly have planned the next few minutes of the scene. The name Billie Armstrong meant nothing to Tom Monihan at that point, but the glass door to my office had quietly opened behind him, and Daniel Lockhart had leaned into the room just as the name tumbled past Valentine’s lips—causing Lockhart’s mouth to spring open like a cash drawer ringing up a sale.
“Billie Armstrong? The fugitive Billie Armstrong? Is that who you were mumbling about in that ridiculous video? That Billie Armstrong?”
Valentine couldn’t have known that Lockhart would show up at that moment, ready to berate and possibly fire me over the YouTube video and the Cadillac account. And nobody in the room could’ve known he would recognize the name Billie Armstrong.
Lockhart had been Publisher of the Sentinel for all of three months, during which he’d never set foot or head in my office until that moment. He’d given me a fat-fingered handshake and a plaque that night at the Fairmont. He’d called me Archie—and I hate that. The office gossips had him pegged as a hatchet man for the profit wolves at Westland Media, with a mission to slash payroll and sell the paper—or wring it dry of every last dollar before parting it out. But with the mention of Billie Armstrong he’d suddenly morphed into some true-crime nerd whose DVR was probably crammed with old episodes of America’s Most Wanted.
He stepped the rest of the way into the room, clicked the door shut and peered at me and Monihan. “If either of you is in contact with, or has knowledge of the whereabouts of Barbara AKA Billie Armstrong, I need to know about it. Now.”
He said it exactly like that: “Barbara AKA Billie Armstrong,” as if it was all one flowing name, as if he’d heard it that way a hundred times. Then finally he looked at Valentine. “And who are you?”
She offered her hand. “Valentine Jones, attorney for Ms. Armstrong.”
Lockhart accepted her offer the way many men shake hands with a woman—light and loose with his palm turned up slightly, a lady-shake. “Daniel Lockhart,” he said. “I’m the publisher here. Now, what’s this about a message?”
Valentine played it cool as a TV poker shark, tapping her phone a few times while aiming a prim, in-charge smile at Lockhart, who held his hand out, expecting the phone but cast his eyes toward Monihan. “This could be a huge story, Tommy. She’s one of the last of the Sixties radicals still on the loose. No one’s heard from her in decades.”
“Oh, she’s not that big of a story anymore,” I said, a feeble attempt to dampen Lockhart’s gathering enthusiasm.
“The message is for Mr. King,” Valentine said and held the phone toward me.
Lockhart frowned, pocketed his disappointed hand. I took the phone, searching Valentine’s eyes, and I thought I saw a dew of sympathy there, but with a hard undercolor of brinksmanship. She’d caught on that Lockhart’s excitement meant extra leverage, and she was happy to press her advantage.
The message app was open to a short exchange between Valentine and a person identified only as Mom.
Will he come?
Heading to his office, will ask again.
Tell him to be at Molly’s pier at sunset tonight.
Molly’s pier??
He’ll know.
I read the messages twice through, Valentine watching in silence with questions—and demands—in those eyes. A child’s hope, a woman’s warning.
Something in me gave way then. A wave of fatigue broke over my body, and I slumped into the Aeron chair, my head lolling back. I stared upwards at the dozens of gnats trapped in the fluorescent light fixture, all corpses except one desperate scurrier who had temporarily forestalled his inevitable reckoning.
Lockhart lifted his chest and crossed his arms across his pale blue Oxford shirt and the Jerry Garcia tie he thought would ingratiate himself to San Franciscans. “Well?”
“She wants a meeting.” I said.
This opened up new calculations behind Lockhart’s eyes. “An interview? Perfect, we’ll get someone assigned right away.”
“My client wants a chance to tell her own story.” Valentine said.
“Your client is a fugitive, wanted for the murder of an American soldier. The Sentinel won’t play soapbox for some wild-eyed manifesto.”
“No manifesto, Mr. Lockhart. She’s planning to turn herself in—“
Lockhart cut her off, “That’s huge,” he said. “It’s front page—a jailhouse confessional with anecdotes showing the hardships of life on the run… this is gold. Gold with legs.”
“No confession. She’s ready to stand trial if need be, but she’d like the public to hear the truth before the courts and the…uh, less scrupulous press.” She had stared straight at me on the word truth.
Lockhart was getting the drift and was not entertained. “King, how in the hell are you involved in this anyway?”
I shrugged and sucked in a deep breath, stalling.
“My client is aware of Mr. King’s reputation for unflinching honesty,” Valentine said. “I’m authorized to offer him, and only him, an exclusive interview.” She was one sharp kid, running interference for me while deflecting Lockhart’s question and selling the proposal to him at the same time. And she knew this triangulation would back me right into the corner where she wanted me. In an odd way, I was proud of her.
Lockhart huffed, pressed his lips together, stroked his chin, but appeared to resign himself and switch gears. “Where exactly would this interview take place?” he said, already figuring the overhead costs, I’m sure.
I shook my head to signal an emphatic need-to-know status on this information. Lockhart the publisher would aid and abet a fugitive to sell newspapers, but I wasn’t sure Lockhart the true-crime aficionado could be trusted not to blab to the authorities or anyone with a camera and an audience.
He waved it off. “Never mind. I don’t care.” Then he turned to Monihan. “Look, Tommy, I want a series on this, three pieces minimum. Pull the files on the original crime. King will do the one-on-one to get Armstrong’s story. We’ll balance that with a sidebar on the official law enforcement version. And have someone on the news desk ready to do play-by-play on her surrender and any future developments.”
“I’ll send a shooter with Archer, too.” Monihan said. He’d been standing over by the door, his head following the back and forth like a tennis match, obviously enjoying my discomfort, although with no idea what they were getting me into.
“No photographers.” Valentine jumped in.
Lockhart steamed out another exhale. “Okay, no pros,” he said. “But we need something more than file art, so King gets to shoot one good mug on his phone.”
She considered, then assented with a nod.
“Any other conditions, Ms. Jones?” Lockhart was one of those leftover men who simply could not pronounce the term Ms. without a note of condescension.
“No video, no audio recordings. And, obviously, no police. Or anyone else. Just Ms. Armstrong, Mr. King, and myself.”
“It’s all on you then, Archie.” Lockhart gave me a go-get-em slap on the back.
The conversation had seemingly rushed right by the point where I had a choice, but I threw up a desperate last shot anyway. I said, “Look, Dan,” because at the banquet, as if doing me a huge favor, he’d told me to call him Dan. So now I said, “Look, Dan, this Armstrong thing sounds like good copy and all, but it’s really not my beat. My contract clearly stipulates that I’m an independent opinion columnist and not obligated to accept reporting assignments.”
“Contract, my ass. You get the fucking story or you’re done at this paper, Pulitzer or not. Understand?” And he blustered out of the room.
The Blues & Billie Armstrong is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents in this book are either the product of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance of the fictional characters to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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