actually tried.
'I want you the fuck out of this building,' I replied.
That demand didn't seem to hold any sway. Drinker continued to walk toward me, around a clutter of desks. I stood frozen in the middle of the room. I'm not sure what Martin was doing behind me, because I didn't dare turn my back to look.
In the heat of the moment, I figured it was best to try to engage Drinker in any way possible. Conversation buys time. Time buys the opportunity to be creative. Creativity might help me get out of this situation with some semblance of my health, or at least life.
So I asked, 'What is it you want?' Of course, I knew the answer to that already. Unfortunately for me, his intention was to make sure that I wasn't about to transmit a story to the Record that would include details of Hutchins's past life and suspicions that the FBI-SPECIFICALLY he-had killed Havlicek and tried to kill me in an attempt to block the truth from being known. Even less fortunately for me, he also wanted to make sure that I wouldn't live to tell anyone about what I knew. Of course, the reason he hadn't killed me in the prior twenty seconds was because he didn't yet know if I had sent the story yet.
'Fuck you,' he said, maybe twenty feet away from me by now.
I was standing by Michael Reston's computer. I knew this because on his desk was a metal-framed photograph of Reston standing in front of the Supreme Court with the chief justice, both of them smiling as if they were soul mates. The picture spoke volumes about our favorable court coverage, but no need to get bogged down by such journalistic issues right now.
Drinker was circling desks in silence, still coming at me. He was hunched down, as if ready to do battle. I thought about picking up the photograph and flinging it at him, in expectation that he wouldn't shoot back because if I were dead, he would never know the damage I may have already done. Then I thought, if I ruined this photo, Reston would kill me anyway, so either way, I lose. My eyes quickly drifted over his desk, to a huge, hardcover legal volume, and then to his telephone. I could throw the book, which weighed more, but the fluttering paper might slow the velocity. I saw that on television once. The telephone was sleeker and harder. Of course, there was the general problem of the cord, which might slow down the throw, or even stop it in midair. I knew for a fact, though, that the cords on these phones stretched about a dozen feet, because I often liked to walk around my desk and talk at the same time.
Here goes. Drinker was but fifteen feet from me now, a free throw in the NBA. I waited another second for him to get within range, and in one quick swoop I picked up the phone and fired it at his head. Mind you, in Little League, back when I was twelve, I once pitched a no-hitter, and in the dog park in Georgetown, I am widely considered to have the best arm in the neighborhood, at least among those who are inclined to think about such things.
And I'll be damned if this throw didn't prove it. Drinker ducked, and the phone smashed into his wrist, causing the gun to fly out of his hand and slide underneath a nearby desk. He shook his wrist violently in pain, scanned the floor quickly for the weapon, then looked at me with a hatred I hope never to see again.
I was very temporarily elated, pleased at my decision to choose the phone over the picture frame or the book, and wondered if this was what the nice ad people at ATANDThat had in mind when they coined the slogan
'The right choice.'
'You fucking cocksucker,' Drinker said. And he started toward me at a faster pace, almost a run, but something more controlled, more determined. Tellingly enough, he seethed the words, 'You should have been dead at Congressional.'
Um, Peter, I thought to myself, anytime you want to help out here, please feel free. I shot a glance back and saw him at the computer keyboard, and I realized quickly that he was transmitting the story to the Record. Good to know where I stood in the scheme of things.
When I turned, Drinker saw what I was looking at, and that made him panic. He charged me with the force of a linebacker, smartly throwing his forearms into my sore ribs and lifting me up off the ground and onto Reston's desk.
As Drinker started to move past me, I collected myself and dove off the desk for his leg, bringing him down in a heap, the sound of him screaming as he fell on his bad wrist filling the room. I punched him once in the face before he even knew what had hit him. Problem was, that didn't seem to faze him much, or at least it didn't impede his ability to knee me in the ribs and cause a measure of pain that I hadn't thought possible.
As I saw stars, Drinker, free from my grip, raced across the room.
From my perch on the floor, I could see Martin back away from the computer and stand aside. I could see the story quite literally scrolling across the screen, as it does when it is transmitting. When it finally arrives at its destination, the computer beeps twice and the screen says, 'File sent without errors.' If we could see that now, it would read like poetry.
Drinker arrived at the computer with an absolute cognizance of what was happening. He started pressing keys immediately, hitting what was probably the escape button again and again and again. Still, the story continued to scroll.
Frantic and frustrated-never a good combination-he picked the keyboard up to rip it out of the terminal, in a last, desperate attempt to save himself. Standing now twenty feet or so behind him, I assumed he finally had us, that the force would cause such technological havoc that the whole computer would shut down or explode and the story of Hutchins's past would end up in some netherworld of information. And we, of course, would end up dead.
Martin must have thought the same thing, because at that second, the slightly built Washington bureau chief of the Boston Record lunged for Drinker and shoved a ballpoint pen deep into the side of his neck.
Drinker collapsed, his eyes bugged out. The keyboard tumbled out of his hands and dropped to the floor, and as it did, the monitor beeped twice and the words 'File sent without errors' flashed across the screen. Drinker rolled around on the ground, moaning, the pen still protruding out of his neck. Martin leaned on a desk, disheveled, licking a cut on his finger. I stood back in something of a fog, taking it all in. You'll forgive my lack of restraint in thinking for a brief moment, as I looked at Drinker's neck, that the pen is indeed mightier than the sword.
Anyway, Martin casually picked up the telephone and called for an ambulance. I picked up Drinker's gun and told him, 'You try to stand up, you're dead.' As I stood guard, Martin made a second call, this one to Appleton.
'Yeah, you're right,' I heard Martin say. 'This really is a pain to have this story move so late at night.'
twenty-four
Wednesday, November 8
So how important is truth, anyway? I don't mean small truths, and conversely, small lies, like, 'Honey, you look great in that dress.'
No, I mean larger, consequential truths, along the lines of 'Are you having an affair?' and 'Are you really behind me on this?' Sometimes lies hurt. Sometimes truths hurt more.
Of course, in the news business, we don't particularly care, and maybe that's part of both the problem and the majesty of the profession. We aim only for the truth, or what we think is the truth, or what may well prove to be the truth. Of course, all this is seen through the prism of time and competition and the driving need to be different and interesting, even while being mostly the same. When Moose Myers is doing a stand-up from the White House lawn twice an hour for CNN, when the New York Times and the Washington Post have an army of Ivy League graduates swarming for any scrap of news they can push their WASP-ISH
white teeth into, truth can suffer, even in the most indefatigable and valiant pursuit. Facts are molded to beliefs, decisions are rushed on deadline, calls aren't made for lack of time.
