Optimal Risk
an excerpt

The moment the phone rings, I become convinced that there should be the death penalty for anyone who wakes me up prior to three a.m. Bear in mind, I'm not a particularly violent individual. But I do tend to keep late nights, and most often those nights end with me taking a beautiful woman home for some "extra-curricular exercise." The women love a crime reporter. No, check that. The women love a crime reporter who has the know-how to convince them that he's Roger Chase, a private investigator in posession of a very large gun. Euphemism intended.

So here I am. Clock on the nightstand reads 2:25 and there's little but the light from the streetlamp outside my window to illuminate the exposed naked back of last night's visitor. And the phone's ringing, waking me up, and if I'm not lucky, waking her up.

And if she wakes up, she'll want to talk! Unacceptable.

I answer:

"Better be good," I mumble.

"Good?" says the voice. "Good? There's crime to be covered, and you're sleeping?"

My editor. You know what they're good for, and none of those things can be mentioned in polite conversation.

"I was trying to sleep, Hammond, if that's what you meant," I slur, sitting up slightly, back supported by my arm on the pillow. "So speak."

"Murder, Rog," he says, then stops, as though that should be enough. Editors. After a brief pause, he continues. "A mafia murder, if you're needing more prodding."

I shake my head and sit all the way up, and my bedroom companion stirs slightly, rolls, then is quiet. At least one thing works in my favor.

"What's that got to do with me?" I ask. "Got any other beat writers you could put to work until a decent hour?"

"Fucked if I haven't tried that," he snaps. "You're the best I got, wish I could say otherwise. And this one sounds big."

I stand and grab for my pants on the floor, nearly tripping on a rolling, empty, vodka bottle, a remnant of last night's fun. I should be in bed, I remind myself, then tell my inner voice to shut the hell up, it's too goddamned early.

"Where?" I say, slipping my right leg into the tattered jeans. He's got me, the prick, might as well go check things out.

Maybe if I'm lucky, she'll be gone when I get back.

- - - - -

First rule of being a crime journalist masked as a detective when working an active crime scene: blend in. To that point, I decide that, based on my slightly-better-than-disheveled appearance, I should if asked claim to be plainclothes and leave it at that. Usually no one asks, because I also follow the second rule to the letter.

Find the dumbest looking cop on the scene and play the authority figure.

It works every time. Just got to find the right mark.

The one you see on the television shows who walks all clumsy, runs into walls at the scene, tries to pick up items in order to dust them for prints.

Cops hate these guys. I love 'em. They make my job easier, since nothing's worse than having to subpoena a document when I can get it handed to me at the scene by someone who doesn't know his ass from the foot his superior puts in it when he learns how I got my information.

Though he won't learn that from me, if all things work to plan.

Illegal? Maybe. Okay, yes. But it's made me the crime journalist I am today, so I don't knock it.

It's twenty of three by the time I walk up to the scene. Parked the car in a garage a few blocks down and hoofed it. Rule number three: don't be noticeable. Pulling a car right up to the scene is noticeable, and usually gets you booted from the place by the first uniform who sees you. That doesn't get results. Ties in with rule number one, since unless you've got a cop car, you'll be noticed if you treat the scene like a drive-in movie.

I'm wearing the dark jeans I'd put on after Hammond's phone call, along with a plain, black polo. I've got a real-looking plastic badge in my pocket if needed, but I try not to let it come to that. It's all in the stance. Look like you belong and you belong, it's simple as that.

I see a cop leaning against a light pole, eating a donut. He's standing inside the yellow tape, which means he's eating something that creates crumbs within the confines of an open scene.

Bingo, I've found my rube.

I notice he's a patrol cop, so I step under the crime tape, march up and without stopping to question, I demand information.

"Officer," I intone seriously. "Tell me what we've got here!"

"You kidding?" he blinks, spits crumbs in doing so, and then shrugs. "You gotta see this one, ain't seen nothing like this one I betcha."

I follow his gaze, past the dozen-or-so cops standing in clique clumps around what had to be the body. I judge this from the spreading pool of blood. No one seems to be processing anything, rather they simply stand there gawking. Patrol cops, never much for getting things done. Judging from the time and my editor's quick phone call, I figure he heard about the crime from his at-home scanner. I guess I have mere minutes before the real detectives show up and take this scene over.

I step toward the body.

I recognize the victim immediately.

You can't get by as a crime reporter in this town without knowing something about organized crime. And what -- or should I say who -- lay before me was the stiffening corpse of none other than Esau Ramadi, brother to the regional boss of the spanish mafia.

His throat has been sliced, ear to ear, the look of fear permanently imprinted on his dead, blue face. At least I think it's fear. Could be something else entirely, since a simple downward glance reveals the fact that he's missing his pants.

Among other things ... or perhaps, better put, another thing, the bulk of which currently sits between his big fat stupified lips.

Classic. "Don't fuck with us," it tells me, winking. "He didn't take that advice."

I look around, suddenly, surprised there's not more of a crowd. Then I think better of that idea. It's three in the morning and we're smack dab in the middle of the warehouse district. I don't even know who the hell found the corpse, but considering how slow detectives have been to arrive, I'd bet it was a beat cop who called in a few of his fellow patrolmen to see the sight before it got plastered all over the news.

Amazing the fuckers bothered putting up yellow tape at all, considering.

I'm quick with the draw. I pull out my small digital camera and take a close-up of the corpse, doing my best to look official. I step back and snap a few more photos at a wider angle, then stuff the camera back in my pants and turn, walking back toward the direction of my car.

Officer numbnuts looks at me oddly.

"Where'ya goin,' boss?" he asks, spitting a few more crumbs as he does. I don't turn, but I sense he realized who I was when I hear his yell, followed by the surprised movement of other cops.

They're too late.

I've done this before, I'm no amateur. By the time the cars from detective division pulled up twenty seconds later, sirens blaring, I am gone.

And I'd bet dollars for donuts he wouldn't remember enough to I.D. me.

They never do.

- - - - -

I call Hammond from the cell in my car, and I can tell from the sound of his voice he's already salivating for details. Just like the fucking weasel he is, I think to myself. Always ready to find himself another carcass to tear apart. But that's what gives me the excellent paychecks, so I put up with whatever it takes.

"So, Rog, what's the story?" he asks, drool all but oozing through the receiver.

"Esau Ramadi. A quick slice, dice, cock surprise."

"You're shitting me!" he yells, and I have to pull the phone back a moment as he does his little sleaze dance.

"Yeah, guess he was pissing in the wrong pot. You back at the office?" I ask, knowing the answer.

"No, but I fucking will be in fifteen. Esau Ramadi? Unbefuckingleavable!" he drops the phone, and I hear him catch it after the first bounce. "You got any idea how many papers we're going to sell with the scoop on this one?"

"Papers?" I laugh, fingering the camera in my right pocket as I use my left hand to steer through the darkened city streets. "Forget the papers, Hammond, we're going national with this. I've got photos."

"You're shitting me!" He's hardly the eloquent one, my editor. "Seriously? How'd you pull that off, Rog?"

"Dead serious. Got in, got out, fuckers didn't even barely notice I was there. These photos are gonna make us famous."

"Was there anyone else?" he asks, taking the edge off the celebration abruptly.

"Not that I saw."

"I'll be there in ten!"

Click.

Okay, so maybe I wasn't up front enough.

I'm a crime reporter, yes, but hardly for the paragon of journalistic integrity. Screw integrity. We sell papers, and we fill them with all the best sleaze a buck'll buy you. Let the New York Times have its journalistic excellence. We here at The Cooler choose to focus on the stuff you don't normally read about in the mainstream press.

Or talk about in public, or with family.

We study the slimy side of this town, the crimes good people don't talk about but which normal people are fascinated by.

And yes, we sell a lot of papers.

Got my job here straight out of college. By which I mean I got kicked straight out of college and found myself unemployed, until Terry Hammond offered me a twenty-bucks-a-story job digging up murder leads for him.

The Cooler at the time was pretty much a low circulation rag, a once-a-week newsletter featuring grainy photos of cops at crime scenes which accompanied lousy stories, mostly ripped off from better rags like the Enquirer or the Examiner.

The kind of shit you use to line a bird cage.

So Hammond brings me in, and it's money, so I'm not complaining. And I'm good, he learns. Maybe too good for his rag, but I take what I can get and soon I'm sneaking my way into places reporters don't usually get to go.

I get the photos no one else can get.

I write my stories in that snappy prose people want to read while they're on a lunch break, or around the water cooler if the boss ain't listening.

Gets to where the criminals, stupid fucks that they be, want me to be the one to cover their trials. Build 'em some publicity. Make them infamous.

Word gets around.

Suddenly I find myself pulling in my first decent paychecks and building a name here in this scumhole, and I took The Cooler with me.

We go from being a low circulation once-a-week rag to being a low circulation daily rag with a cult following. And better pictures. We stay under the radar, just enough to let me keep getting away with the shit I get away with on a daily basis, and to this point that's worked for both of us.

But now ... something tells me this story's gonna break and take me right with it. With the right promotion, I could take a step up, ride this murder for all it's worth.

They say a picture's worth a thousand words.

Maybe, though, these ones'll be worth a few more.