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“I can’t because it didn’t happen. Seems to me you should be going after the woman in the video.”
“What do you know about her?”
“Nothing. Jesus.” He withdraws his hands in an effort to stay down his meager strands. “You got caught with some broad giving you hand action and you come here trying to pin this shit on me.”
“You’re the one with a reputation for falsifying stories.”
“It was one time. A stupid, costly error in judgment.”
“You don’t strike me as a changed man. I have people tracking down the anonymous source. I will find out.”
“It. Was. Not. Me. For fuck’s sake, I’m trying to get my career back. I’m trying to live my life. I stopped blogging about you. I stopped looking for a story. What more do you want?”
“The truth.”
“I’ve given it to you. You think I’d chance posting that video—even anonymously—and risk another beat down or worse?”
“I’d hardly call busting your lip a beat down.”
“Playing dumb, Peters?”
“Playing dumb about what?” My patience is waning. “Stop talking in fucking riddles.”
“Look…” he puts his palms up. “I didn’t post anything. I got the message loud and clear.”
“You’re pissing me off, O’Malley. Spit it out.”
“You really don’t know. Jesus.” His hands shaking, he pulls a cigarette out of his jacket pocket and lights the end. “I was good at my job. Too ambitious maybe. But I was good. Smart. An astute reader of people and situations. I fucked up on one big story. I reported what I knew was true, but without proof, I made up the sources. I lost everything. I would not fuck up like that again.
“I was chasing real stuff. I knew basketball had to be the source of the dynamic between you and your father. It’s a common tale. Controlling dad, living vicariously, forcing his will. Obliging son, dispassionate about the sport but desperately wanting his father’s approval. Only that wasn’tquite you, was it? You didn’t care one bit about your father’s approval. No, it’s Cayo Torres who mattered to you. He was the man you looked up to. So, I asked myself, why would you play basketball all those years for someone you didn’t seem to give a shit about?” Squinting, he drags the nicotine through his lungs, and blows a plume of smoke.
“You wouldn’t, unless there was some compelling reason. That was the story I knew could get me my career back. Real investigative journalism. While nobody else wanted to look beneath that golden boy image of yours, I was going to be the one to unearth those buried secrets.
“Your denials, your refusals to sit with me for an interview, never revealing anything personal about yourself, all made me more suspicious and more certain. Ah, then you clocked me in the face and that really turned me into a dog with a bone. I couldn’t let it go. When I learned from a source about your night at the Lemon Lounge, I followed you to the deli the next day.
“I didn’t know then that the woman in question was Deeana Chase or that she was part of your past, but I knew from your reaction that I’d stumbled onto another hidden gem. I left the deli and called your father. For months he wouldn’t budge, wouldn’t speak to me. But this time when I mentioned a woman that went against your type and revved up your protective defenses, that got his attention. He agreed to meet me. Suggested it. I was too excited to be skeptical. I went all the way out to this dive.”
O’Malley’s face turns red. He finishes his cigarette, drops it to the stair, and stubs it out with his shoe. “That’s when I got jumped—soon as I exited the car. This scrappy dude with a scar down his face, punched and kicked the hell out of my stomach and ribs. When he was done, and I was lying in a heap on the ground, hardly able to move, he gave me your father’s warning:keep digging and you’re dead.”
My blood runs cold. But I retain my neutral expression and give nothing away. “You want me to believe that this one alleged beating kept you quiet about me?”
“It didn’t stop there. That thug, the kind of ex-con that dirty cops keep around to do their bidding, paid me more surprise visits—same warning. Then small bags of cocaine were planted in my car, in my house, in plain sight. I could have been arrested. Your father was letting me know he had the power to take me down any time I stepped out of line.”
“If you were so sure it was my father, why didn’t you go to the police?”
“Are you crazy?” he scoffs. “I had no proof. You think I could crack the blue wall on my word? Your father, the big, popular sheriff, andme, the ousted journalist who falsified a story. Come on, Peters. You know I couldn’t.”
Yeah, I did know that all too well. “Have these threats stopped?” I ask, needing to know.
“If you mean the beatings and planting evidence, there’s been nothing in the last few months. I read that your old man retired and left town. But I’m not stupid enough to think he can’t reach me from wherever the hell he is.”
“And this sob story is supposed to make me believe you didn’t post that video?”
“It’s not a sob story.” Spittle forms in the corners of his mouth. “I’m done with anything having to do with you. That means I’ve sat on a story that’s worth millions, worth my career. You at least owe me for that.”
“Think you can shake me down, O’Malley? Think again.”
“You’re a real piece of work.” He shakes his head in disgust. “You can play the innocent here, but you knew your father had silenced me somehow and that makes you no better than him.”
