“Ancient history,” Reynaldo Flemm said defensively.
Unspoken was the fact that no such embarrassments had happened since Christina Marks had been hired. Every show had been finished on time, on budget. Reynaldo did not appreciate the connection, but Mr. Dover did.
“You understand my concern,” he said. “How much longer do you anticipate being down in Miami?”
“Two weeks. We’ll be editing.” Sounded good, anyway.
“So, shall we say, one more trip?”
“That ought to do it,” Reynaldo agreed.
“Excellent.” Mr. Dover straightened the stack of Reynaldo’s expense receipts, lining up all the little corners in perfect angles. “By the way, Miss Marks wasn’t harmed, was she?”
“No, just scared shitless. She’s not used to getting shot at.” As if he was.
“Did they catch this person?”
“Nope,” Reynaldo said, hard-bitten, like he wasn’t too surprised.
“My,” said Mr. Dover. He hoped that Christina Marks was paid up on her medical plan and death benefits.
“I told you it was heavy,” Reynaldo said, rising. “But it’ll be worth it, I promise.”
“Good,” said Mr. Dover. “I can’t wait.”
Reynaldo was three steps toward the door when Mr. Dover said, “Ray?”
“Yeah.”
“Forgive me, but I was just noticing.”
“That’s all right.” He’d been wondering how long it would take the twerp to mention something about the hair.
But from behind the desk Mr. Dover smiled wickedly and patted his midsection. “You’ve put on a pound or three, haven’t you, Ray?”
In the elevator Reynaldo angrily tore off his seven-hundred-dollar wig and hurled it into a corner, where it lay like a dead Pekingese. He took the limo back to his apartment, stripped off his clothes, and stood naked for a long time in front of the bedroom mirror.
Reynaldo decided that Mr. Graveline was right: His nose was too large. And his belly had thickened.
He pivoted to the left, then to the right, then back to the left. He sucked in his breath. He flexed. He locked his knuckles behind his head and tightened his stomach muscles, but his belly did not disappear.
In the mirror Reynaldo saw a body that was neither flabby nor lean: an average body for an average forty-year-old man. He saw a face that was neither dashing nor weak: small darting eyes balanced by a strong, heavy jaw, with a nose to match. He concluded that his instincts about preserving the mustache were sound: When Reynaldo covered his hairy upper lip with a bare finger, his nose assumed even greater prominence.
Of course, something radical had to be done. Confidence was the essence of Reynaldo’s camera presence, the core of his masculine appeal. If he were unhappy with himself or insecure about his appearance, it would show up on his face like a bad rash. The whole country would see it.
Standing alone at the mirror, Reynaldo hatched a plan that would solve his personal dilemma and wrap up the Barletta story simultaneously. It was a bold plan because it would not include Christina Marks. Reynaldo Flemm would serve as his own producer and would tell Christina nothing, just as she had told him nothing for two entire weeks after the shooting in Stiltsville.
The shooting. Still it galled him, the sour irony that she would be the one to get the glory—after all his years on the streets. To have his producer nearly assassinated while he dozed on the massage table at the Sonesta was the lowest moment in Reynaldo’s professional career. He had to atone.
In the past he had always counted on Christina to worry about the actual nuts-and-bolts journalism of the program. It was Christina who did the reporting, blocked out the interviews, arranged for the climactic confrontations—she even wrote the scripts. Reynaldo Flemm was hopelessly bored by detail, research, and the rigors of fact checking. He was an action guy, and he saved his energy for when the tape was rolling. Whereas Christina had filled three legal pads with notes, ideas, and questions about Victoria Barletta’s death, Reynaldo cared about one thing only: Who could they get on tape? Rudy Graveline was the big enchilada, and certainly Victoria’s still-grieving mother was a solid bet. Mick Stranahan had been another obvious choice—the embarrassed investigator, admitting four years later that he had overlooked the prime suspect, the doctor himself.