The Guilty - Jason Pinter [112]
of those worthless dung heaps is on the line."
Louie recited what his boss had told him to after the first
barrage of calls came in.
"Any complaints you have regarding Ms. Cole's article in
today's edition should be addressed in the form of a typewritten letter or e-mail directed to the New York Gazette public
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relations department. Your concerns are duly noted. They
will be responded to either individually or as a whole."
"Listen, I got my whole extended family just waiting to call
in as soon as I hang up, and my grandma Doris is ready to
hop on the plane and whack Allen upside the head. So I'll fill
out your stupid forms, but I hope you're ready to repeat those
directions another few thousand times this morning. So 'duly
note' my ass."
Louie sighed as the line went dead. He drained his coffee
and picked up another one of the dozen lines that hadn't
stopped flashing in hours.
"New York Dispatch, how may I direct your call?"
Paulina had just hung up the phone when James Keach
appeared in the doorway. Sweat was streaking down his face,
and his work shirt looked several different shades of blue.
"This is not the time, James."
"I need to know what to do. People are calling me asking
for a statement. Some guy from the Associated Press, another
one from the Times. I don't know how they got my number."
"Our company directory isn't a secret. What are you telling
the people who call?"
"I've been hanging up on them."
"Good," she said. "You say one word to anyone who
doesn't work inside this building I'll roast your nads in my
Foreman Grill. Now get."
Keach disappeared.
Paulina turned back to her computer. Her inbox had three
hundred new messages, and another ten were appearing every
minute. They all bore colorful subject headings like you're
wrong and eat shite and die and does your mother know
you lie for a living?
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Jason Pinter
Never in her career had Paulina witnessed such an onslaught of offended readers, and that was counting the time
they ran a still photo from Pamela Anderson's sex tape with
her nipples blocked out. Hundreds of angry readers were
calling in, demanding her head, and every new message was
directed at the story she'd written for today's Dispatch. The
story Henry Parker had dropped on her lap. That sneaky shit
knew it would provoke this response. He wanted that story to
run, but didn't want the Gazette to go through exactly what
the Dispatch was right now. She'd have to remember to send
him a cyanide fruitcake for Christmas.
Once the brushstrokes are painted, the picture becomes clear as a Midwestern day. One hundred and
twenty-seven years ago, a lie was told, and that lie has
been perpetuated for generations by deluded, smallminded townfolk whose entire lives and economies live
and die on the wings of a myth. Once you know the truth
of Brushy Bill Roberts's identity as Billy the Kid, once
you know how William Henry Roberts burned his house
down with his family inside, once you know that
William's mother had an affair with a millionaire man
of God (with his father's blessing, no less), you know
that a hundred years too late, the truth has come to collect its revenge.
Soon the facts will prove that William H. Bonney did
not die in 1881 in Fort Sumner, New Mexico. He and
his bloodline lived on. This country has been living in
denial for years. And it is because of this veil of ignorance that nine people are dead, with another young
woman fighting for her life.
If there is any justice in the world, if the truth is
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327
regulated at all, then the entire citizenry of New Mexico, Texas and all those who convinced themselves that
the nightmare was over will wake up to the violent reality and confront a demon who manifested himself
right here, today.
Never had Paulina seen such an outraged reaction from a
"concerned" group of citizens. But to her surprise, many of
the protesters were from far outside the delusions of Texas
and New Mexico, and the sandblasted states who perpetrated
the myth. She'd only received