The Guilty - Jason Pinter [30]
too busy relaying the news to their entire address book. I
scanned the crowd. Looked each person in the face, tried to
understand their emotional state, if there was anything more
to them being there.
One woman stood out. She had stringy brown hair, a cheap
pantsuit and a brooch that looked way out of her price range.
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There was a speck of red on her white blouse that I knew had
to be blood. Her eyes were wide, her mouth open. She stared
at me for a moment, then looked away.
Slowly I walked up to her. I extended my press pass, along
with my hand. She stared at me, unsure of what to do. Her
eyes were terrified, but something was shackling her to the
scene. She had to be here. She was much closer to all this than
she wanted to be.
"You were next to him, weren't you?" I asked softly. She
nodded. "I'm Henry," I said, taking her hand in mine. Her
whole body was shaking. I put my hand on her shoulder,
tried to comfort her. I felt silly. I'd seen people die in front of
me. And no hand in the world could comfort that.
"Betty Grable," she said. "I'm--was--oh God--I'm Mr.
Lourdes's assistant."
My jaw dropped.
"That," I spat out. "That's Jeffrey Lourdes?"
She nodded again, then burst into tears.
Jeffrey Lourdes was the publisher of Moss magazine, and one
of the most influential figures in popular culture for nearly thirty
years. He'd been credited for discovering dozens of headlining
acts, some of the greatest reporting the country had ever seen,
and now he was a mass of flesh torn apart by a piece of lead.
"I didn't know what was happening," Betty said. "I swear."
Her hands were a trembling mess, tears cascading down her
cheeks. "I was just telling him he had to be in early tomorrow
for a photo shoot, then out of nowhere--"
She covered her mouth with her hand, choked sobs into it.
I stayed silent. Had to let it come to her.
"Then he shot him!" she cried. "He shot him!"
"Who?" I asked.
"The young man," she said, her lip quivering. "He did it."
The Guilty
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"Who was he? Young man? How old was he? What did he
look like?"
"I don't know," Betty said. She looked at me as if having
a revelation. "He looked about your age."
I stopped writing, looked at her.
"What happened?"
"We were standing there, Jeffrey was about to hail a taxi,
and all of a sudden this man came out of nowhere. He was
holding this giant--gun isn't even the right word--this giant
thing. This fucking cannon. He just walked right up to Jeffrey
and pulled the trigger, and then he ran. Oh God, Jeffrey!" She
was staring at the body. One foot was visible through the sea
of blue and white. I saw a police car pull up in front. An ambulance behind it. Two EMS workers popped out, ran to the
body. I could tell from their body language they weren't going
to work too hard on this one.
"What did he look like?" I said.
Betty shook her head. Not because she didn't know, but
because she didn't want to.
"He was tall," she said. "Maybe an inch taller than you.
Jeans. A jacket." She trailed off.
"What else?"
"I don't know!" she cried.
"Trust me, I know this is hard," I said. "But did he have
any distinguishing features. Facial hair, tattoos, piercings..."
"The gun," she said.
"The gun?"
"The way he held it after he killed Jeffrey. I'll never forget
that look in his eye. He stared at his gun for a second and then
he ran. Looked at it the way somebody looks at a lover. This
sick, sick boy. Oh my God..."
"The gun," I said. "What did it look like?"
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She looked at me as if in shock that I could be asking such
a trivial question.
"Please. It's important. Think. "
"It...it looked like something out of a movie. Not a recent
movie, something old. And the way he held it, like it was fragile."
"What about what the gun looked like?"
"The handle was brown..."
"Could it have been made from wood?" I asked. She nodded.
"There was this terrible explosion..." She stopped.
"Please, I can't do this right now."
"Can you tell me anything else about