A/N1: Anyone think the Los Angeles Herald Examiner owns Chuck? Me either.
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"I'll have the penne with broccoli and sausage," said Chen. "And a glass of the Chianti, please. And if you could bring some crushed red pepper, that would be great."
"Very well. And you, Sir?" asked the waiter.
"Chicken parm and a glass of chianti," said Booker.
"Good choice," the man said, and left them to themselves.
Chen blew out a breath. "Ok, this Peralta thing is going to be a shit show. So, let's organize the possibilities. Someone getting revenge for a story or someone wanting to stop a story from release."
"Or something having nothing at all to do with his work. Pissed off husband or neighbor or something," said Booker.
"But we've got nothing like that so far," said Chen.
"Agreed. But we keep an open mind and ask about anything else, but his work is the most likely motive," said Booker. "Until we hear anything else, we have to concentrate there."
"So, we have two avenues. I mean, we'll have the CSI report in the morning and somethig might come from that, but assuming not. The threats and the three current investigations," said Chen.
"That's way more than two. It's not even four. Fuck knows how many separate threats there are to check out," said Booker.
"Yeah. Well, I don't want to yell for help until we see the files for the other two active investigations," said Chen.
"Fair enough. You want to take the threat file home and I'll take the Acosta file?" asked Booker.
"Sure. We can compare notes in the morning," agreed Chen.
"We should give Pancho a call. Deppard's supposed to know him for years. Ask his opinion of the guy," said Booker.
"Yeah. Good idea. I'll do it tonight," said Chen. "Me? I liked Deppard. Seems like a straight shooter."
"Me too. I pushed on the confidential info and he pushed back ... well, appropriately, I guess. I wasn't surprised by it. Honestly, I sort of approve of it...well, sometimes anyway."
Their food arrived and they began to eat.
"Hey, did you notice this morning when Ms. Green said we were handsome?" asked Booker, chuckling over his chianti.
"She was talking to me, not you. And anyway, she told us to call her Milla," said Chen.
"Are you going to call her Milla?" asked Booker, taking a mouthful of chicken.
"Oh, hell no. She scares me," said Chen.
Both men laughed at that.
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The next morning, Chuck and Sarah sat at a booth in the local diner for breakfast. Neither bothered to look at the menu, having been there many times. The whole place was decorated for the holidays. Santa being a huge blown up presence in the front. Garland and tinsel festooned almost every surface.
Sarah marveled to herself how much she enjoyed being a "regular" at the establishment. Her training had been to avoid habits and predictability. Don't make connections with other people. Be a ghost. And not just her CIA training, her dad's training for most of her formative years.
She smiled. What bullshit.
She'd never been happier in her entire life and her connection to other people was the reason. First and foremost, of course, was her soulmate, Charles Irving Bartowski. The incredibly handsome sexy brilliant man sitting across the booth from her. She loved him more than she could ever even conceive possible, but she did. But it was more than that. It was the whole mindset that came with Chuck. The idea that most people were generally good, nice folks. People to be trusted and befriended. She'd ended up living in a community, to her shock.
The waitress arrived at their table, with two empty mugs and a pot of coffee.
"Hey, you two. The usual?" she asked.
"Hey, Doris. Yes, please," said Chuck with a smile.
"You got it. Here's the coffee," she said, putting the mugs and the pot on the table. "I'll be back with water."
Sarah asked, "Did Gemma get over her cold?"
"Yeah. She did. Thanks for asking. But now Henry has the sniffles. I'm sure I'm going to get it too. I swear I get sick in October and get better in April. Just wait until you have a couple kids. You'll see," Doris said, laughing.
"Marriage first. We do things in the orthodox order," said Chuck with a laugh, pouring coffee for Sarah.
"Right after Christmas, right?" asked Doris.
"Yup. Can't wait," said Sarah with a huge smile. "I really want to be married to my most perfect man." They reached for each other's hands.
"Wonderful," said Doris with a smile. "You guys give me hope."
Doris walked away to put in their order.
Chuck looked at Sarah and said, "I'm thinking about the wedding, but I'm really trying not to. I feel so bad for Daphne. I can't imagine how horrible she must feel."
"Yeah. I know. To lose your..." she stumbled to a stop with her thoughts. She took a deep breath and said, quietly, "World destroying. It's world destroying. We can try to help her as much as possible. But shit, at the same time, we need her to finish up our stuff.
"I know. I think we ought to try to lean on Sadie. I like her and think she's pretty good. Most of Daphne's stuff is taken care of by now and Sadie should be good to take us across the finish line," said Chuck.
"Yeah," agreed Sarah.
Their food arrived. Scrambled eggs. Home fries. Sausage. Bacon. Whole wheat toast. Strawberry jam. Without words, Sarah took half her bacon and put it on Chuck's plate. At the same time, Chuck took half his sausage and put it on her plate. Neither made any note of it at all.
"Hey," said Chuck. "I talked to Morgan last night. He had something to say about our color scheme." He had a bit of a smirk on his face, as if he thought she would find it funny.
Smiling at the idea, she said, "OK. Lay it on me."
"Red and black. Screams socialism, he told me," said Chuck with a silly grin, eating his eggs with a healthy helping of the hot sauce from the condiments from the side of the table.
"Socialism?" she asked. "In a good way?"
"Is there a good way?" asked Chuck.
"Got me there," said Sarah, giggling.
"Hey, I know we haven't been reading the papers for a few weeks now, but I have to share something with you. You won't believe it, but here it is. One of the Kardasian sisters got her GED."
Sarah started to laugh and said, "No way. You are totally lying to me."
"Well, I mean, allegedly."
Sarah was snuffling trying not to laugh so exuberantly as to spray her food all over the table.
"You're terrible," she finally managed to squeak out, her hand covering her mouth.
Grinning, he said, "You too. And yet perfect at the same time."
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Later that morning, Chen said to Rusty Becker, "Thank you for talking to us, Mr. Becker."
"Yeah. Ok. Um, please call me Rusty," he said. He was a nervous young man, in his early twenties. Maybe out of school a couple of years. Dressed professionally with khakis and a button-down shirt. They had imagined him with red hair, but he had almost black hair. He did, however, have the freckles along his nose. He looked subdued. It seemed that Vinnie's death had dampened his spirits.
"Ok, Rusty," said Booker. "Ok if we record our conversation?"
"Yeah, sure," he said. "Whatever."
Chen put the recorder on the table and went through the usual routine. Date and time of the recording. Consent to record. Contact information.
"Rusty, thank you for speaking with us. We understand you worked with Vinnie. What can you tell us about him?"
The younger man looked like he might cry. "He was great. Really great. He was pretty much my mentor here at the paper. I learned more in a few months with Vinnie than in four years getting my degree. How to deal with people. How to sniff out a story, a real story, not some bullshit gossip. Something that mattered. He was the best. I don't know what I'm going to do without him, frankly."
"How long did you work together?" asked Booker.
"Almost two years. Eighteen months. Twenty months. Something like that. Since I got here," said Rusty.
"Did you work on all his articles?" asked Chen.
"No. Only the ones where I shared the byline. Probably two thirds, or so," said Rusty, with a shrug of a shoulder.
"How about the current investigations? Mr. Deppard told us there were three ongoing," said Booker.
"Yeah. I haven't been involved with the art theft one. With the bribed cop..." said Rusty.
"Allegedly bribed," interrupted Chen with a small smile.
"Yeah. Allegedly bribed," agreed Rusty. "But the other two, yeah. The Acosta one and the Korean thing. Yeah, I was helping him on those."
"I've read the Acosta file last night," said Booker. "Mr. Deppard stripped out anything we could use to identify your sources."
"Yeah. He would," said Rusty, nodding. He held up his hands in front of him, palm forward, warning them not to advance further. "I'm not going to tell you anything that's not in the files, guys. I'm living by the same rules."
"Of course. We understand," said Booker. "My question is a little different. How much do you trust your sources? I can't make that determination because I have no way to know who they are. What axe they are grinding against someone? What their motivations might be to lie or exaggerate. If I can't figure that shit out myself, I am going, to a certain extent anyway, to rely on your guidance."
Rusty got a cynical smile on his face and shook his head sadly. "Guys, there's an old saying in journalism. If your mother tells you she loves you, get another source to confirm. We wouldn't take any single source as gospel. Never. I can tell you that Vinnie and I agreed that the sources on the Acosta thing were telling us the truth so far as they knew it. I'm less sure about the sources on the Korean thing, though. Frank wouldn't spring the bucks for us to fly back east to meet them in person, so I'm a bit more iffy about them. You guys know even better than I do how important it is to talk to people in person and get a read."
"Yeah. Yeah, we do," agreed Chen. "Thanks. That's helpful. Changing topics for a moment, Vinnie received a lot of threats. I looked at the file last night. He pissed off a lot of folks."
"Yeah," he said, shaking his head. "Get the fucking phone book. Half the people in there think he's a hero and the other half would string him up."
"Do you have anything to add to the threat file?" asked Chen.
"Humm. That they are all cowardly motherfuckers who should be chopped into little fucking pieces while alive and while their families are forced to watch? Does that help your investigation?" He spoke like a man who'd been defeated by events but had a huge undercurrent of rage.
Booker said, "Honestly, not too much. Did you think that any of them were more realistic than any of the others?"
He thought for a few moments and said, "Naw. Not really. Vinnie used to shrug those off. As much as I tried to get him to be concerned, he never would. And his wife, as brilliant as she was, couldn't get him to worry about it either. There was nothing we could do to get him to pay attention, to watch out for himself. Vinnie danced to his own band. I'd say, 'look, dude, don't have a meeting with some bad dude at midnight in a dark park. Make him meet you in the middle of a crowd on a sunny day.' He never took me seriously." Rusty was rapidly losing his composure.
Booker said, "Rusty do you need to take a minute?"
"Yeah. I'm gonna go take a leak and get some water. Can I get you guys water or coffee or something?"
"Nothing for me," said Chen.
"Water, if you wouldn't mind," said Booker.
Chen shut off the recorder and looked at his partner.
"I think I'm sorry I didn't get to meet Vinnie. I think I'd like him," said Booker seriously.
"You and everyone else it seems," agreed Chen.
Rusty returned with his face washed and a bottle of water each for both he and Booker. Chen restarted the recorder.
"Sorry, guys," said Rusty. "I was his..I don't know...mentee, I guess. I helped him on everything. He used to come to me to bounce ideas around. Questions or issues he was trying to get clear in his own mind. To get my judgment. Honestly, guys, I'm prouder of that than I am of anything else in my life. Seriously. That he would choose me to bounce ideas off of." Without making a sound, Rusty began to cry, taking a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe his eyes. "Sorry. I thought I had myself under control."
"I understand," said Booker. "Mr. Deppard has given us the file on the Acosta thing. Before we leave today we'll get the files on the art bribery thing and the North Korea thing. Do you thing there's anything Mr. Deppard missed? Anything else Vinnie was working on that we should look at?"
"Naw. Frank and I worked on that selection together yesterday. Those are the right ones you should look at. There's some miscellaneous crap out there, but I don't think it's worth your time. At least not yet," he said, shaking his head.
"Ok. Ever talk to him about other stuff? Home? Family? Not work stuff?" asked Booker.
"Sure. We used to go out for beers sometimes. Well," he laughed, "I'd drink beer. He'd drink bourbon. I'd always talk to him about my family. My kid. My marriage. He was great. Not that I always took his advice, but he was always ready to lean in and help me out. Big brother stuff."
"You knew Vinnie really well. Any chance that his murder was unrelated to his work? Some outside grievance? Someone mad at him for another reason altogether?" asked Chen.
Rusty paused to think and finally shrugged and said, "Naw. Nothing I can think of. Other than the folks he pissed off with his writing everyone loved the guy. Me included. I loved him. And I'm totally straight, guys." He chuckled softly. "He was my hero...larger than life. All the other guys here were jealous of me and our connection and all the women were jealous of Daphne. I'll tell you this. For the rest of my life, if I can even consider myself half as good a journalist as Vinnie was, I'll be incredibly proud because it means I'll be twice as good as anyone else. Twice as good. And that's no shit."
"Thank you, Rusty," said Booker. "Thanks for talking to us. Here are our cards. If anything comes to you that you think we ought to know about, please give us a call."
"I'll do that," he said.
"If we have questions from the files, do we call you or Mr. Deppard?"
"Call me. He'd probably just ask me anyway. If I'm confused, I can ask him. Make me the initial point, I guess," he said. "I'll clear that with him."
"And another thing. I have to assume you won't stop the investigations you were both working on. If this had something to do with an active investigation ...well, just be careful. You understand?" said Chen. He'd put on the serious cop voice he'd learned in the Academy and the Los Angeles streets
Rusty visibly paled as that concept shocked him. But he rallied, straightened his back, and said, "Yeah. I got it. Thanks. No meetings in poorly lit alleyways for me. Vinnie was macho. I'm a pussy. I'll hide behind women and children."
Both Booker and Chen looked at him seriously. Finally, Chen said, quietly, "Somehow, Rusty, I don't really think you will."
"Thank you for talking to us," said Booker, shutting off the recorder.
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A/N2: Jeez. Gotta be honest here. I'm sort of bummed that I never met Vinnie either. He seems pretty freaking cool, to be honest. And I just made him up. A wonderful journalist and mentor and friend.
A/N3: Several readers have reached out in PM's to ask me about my family's friendship with Jimmy Breslin's family. Ok. Not really requested by anyone, but here's a quick true story:
JIMMY: John, what's new?
JOHN (my dad): I heard that Joe Smith took a $10,000 bribe.
JIMMY: What? Where'd you hear that?
JOHN: Can't tell you. Sorry. You'll have to confirm it yourself.
JIMMY: I'll call you back.
Jimmy calls him back several hours later.
JIMMY: John, we're going to press. You have to give me your source. I swear I'll protect you.
JOHN: You swear? Really? Cause I don't want to tell you without that.
JIMMY: I swear. Just tell me your source.
JOHN: OK. I read it this morning on page B4 of The New York Times.
JIMMY: GODDAMN SON OF A BITCH BASTARD.
Jimmy hung up the phone. Mostly so as not to listen to my dad laughing his ass off. True story.
A/N4: Come on. You know what we expect now. Love you guys and gals. Talk soon.