people are on the horn looking for a national pickup and we get more phone calls from that one goddamn story, for Chrissakes, than anything I can remember.
‘That lady has instincts. And that’s the name of the game. I have never argued with her since. And she’s never let me down.’
‘She seems very good at finding people,’ Howe said quietly. ‘People who don’t want to be found, that is.’
‘It’s far from the first time. Take Tomatoes Garziola. Just before that mess between Garziola and the Feds blew up. In fact, she kind of fired the first shot in that war. An assistant DA named Flannagan had made some comments at a luncheon about Garziola and everybody was looking for him, except Garziola wasn’t that anxious to be found.
‘But Lizzie decided, by God she was gonna find him, so she pulled his package and was going through the stuff and found a reference to Garziola’s mother. Lo and behold, it’s the old lady’s birthday. So she and a crew head down to Providence, which is where the old lady lives, and Lizzie cruises up to the door, and sure enough, there’s Tomatoes with half a dozen of his gorillas, having dinner.
‘Thing is, she kept calling him Tomatoes to his face. I mean, the last time anybody called Garziola Tomatoes to his face, they floated up under the Atlantic Street pier. Did you see the original tape? Here comes Garziola out of his old lady’s front door with a look on his face would make the whole front line of the Dallas Cowboys wet their pants and he stares down at her and says, “I don’t pick on ladies, okay, particularly they don’t weigh twenty pounds soakin’ wet, but I could make an exception in your case, sister.”
‘She looks up with that fifty-dollar smile, says, “The DA, Flannagan, is making a fool of you, Mr Tomatoes, I just thought you’d like to get your side of the story on the record,” and he starts laughing and he turns around to these four apes behind him, says, “Mr Tomatoes!” and he’s laughing so, of course they all start laughing, too, and then he says, “Whaddya talkin’ about?,” and she says, “Mr Flannagan has publicly accused you of graft and kickbacks and hijacking and even a little murder here and there,” and Garziola looks down at her again and says, “Why, that little son of a bitch, on my mother’s birthday, too,” and she says, real tough like, “Yeah, on your mother’s birthday,” and then without even a breath in between she says, “Why do they call you Tomatoes?,” and the next thing you know, Garziola’s sitting there on his mother’s stoop telling her all about how it was on the docks in the old days when he was getting started and how’ they used to hold up off-loading the produce until the tomatoes were rotten and finally the owners started knuckling under and that’s when they started getting a living wage and that is where the name Tomatoes came from.
‘Forty-five minutes later he’s still talking and then he puts the cork in the bottle and says, “Look, little lady, when it comes to kickbacks and the old payola, the first one’s got his paw out is that little schmuck, Flannagan. You want a story, I’ll give you a story,” and his lawyer’s standing there trying to shush him up and he’s telling everybody get lost and he gives her book, chapter, verse on what turned out to be one of the juiciest scandals in years. I’m not saying she broke the story — I mean, in the long run it all had to come out — but we got it first, and that’s the name of the game. Your papers got most of the mileage out of it, but you saw it first on Channel Six and she’s the one started the river flowing. That time it took adorable.
She was adorable. See what I mean?’
‘Sum her up in one word.’
Mooney thought for a few moments. ‘Tenacious,’ he said.
‘Thank you very much, Mr Mooney..’
‘Anytime, sir. She’s not in trouble, is she?’
‘If she were, Mr Mooney, she wouldn’t be anymore. Not after that accolade. And by the way, congratulations on being number one in the ratings again this period.’
‘Thanks. Thanks a lot.’
‘Goodbye, Mr Mooney. Thank you for your time.’
Click.
Just like that. What in the hell was the old bastard up to? If he steals her away from me for some other station, Mooney said to himself, I think what I’ll do, I’ll go over his house and kill the son of a bitch.
II
She got off on four, a floor below the studio, and ran down the hail to the editing room. Eddie, the best editor at the station, was waiting for her. Good old reliable Eddie.
‘You’re a dream,’ she said and kissed him solidly on the top of his bald black head.
‘Anytime. What’ve you got?’
‘An exclusive interview with Jonathan Caldwell.’
‘Are you kiddin’?’
‘It’s all right there,’ she said, pointing to the video cassettes.
Eddie whistled softly through his teeth. ‘How in hell did you swing that?’
‘I nailed him, Eddie. I’ve been following that cute little girl friend of his for four days, and today she led me right to him. What time is it?’
‘Four forty-five.’
‘Shit, just a little over an hour... Okay, let’s put together five minutes and I’ll bend Tubby’s arm to get the extra air time.’
‘Okay, but I better leave you a thirty-second outtake, just in case he holds you to your usual time. That way we won’t have to make any last-minute cuts.’
