It probably said a lot that that segment had been one of our most rewatched clips on our website.
The only downside, of course, was that I had missed a slew of text messages and voicemails. I saw that I had a voicemail from Mr. Roberts and an unidentified 702 number. I had some texts from Leigh asking if I wanted to grab some drinks to ease off the stress of the day, a text that made me laugh, considering it was a Monday at the time. I had a couple of unnamed texts that I hoped were…
Well, honestly, I hoped they were Satan, which was stupid because I still had his name in my phone. I couldn’t imagine the same was true for the reverse, but I guess…I didn’t know. I was desperate to make things right but fearful I’d never get an audience to do so.
But alas, they were just spam messages. One was from an actual viewer, which was unsettling but not uncommon by this point; I never published my phone number, but I knew that if people asked around and knew how to get around well enough, my number could eventually be found. I listened first to the voicemail from the unknown number, thinking it was spam.
“Yes, this message is for Hailey Cook.”
The call started out with a man’s voice who spoke in a very calculated tone, like everything he said had been thought through and measured before he said it.
“My name is King. I live in Las Vegas. I saw the report that you issued on the Devil’s Patriots. As a concerned citizen, I would like to help you uncover more of their crime and end the issue of their presence. I will be in town on Thursday. Please let me know if I may have the honor of speaking with you at that time. Thanks.”
There was something unsettling and uncomfortable about that voicemail. For one, who called themselves King and wasn’t in reference to a sports star or celebrity? I didn’t know of any names that would pop up on TMZ named King.
For another, why would he see the report if he was in Las Vegas? What in the world was going on here?
On the one hand, my journalistic instincts said to pursue this further. Get a story out of it. As long as you identified yourself as Hailey Cook from WPTV, anything that got said after that would be on the record.
But on the other hand, wasn’t the whole lesson of the last few days that I could no longer trust the very industry I’d worked so hard to become a part of? That even if I could, financial difficulties made it no guarantee that I could continue functioning?
And if I chose not to pursue it from a journalistic angle, what would I do?Give it to Satan.
But would he even be willing to hear it?
At least for now, I decided that I would go about my day. I would show up to work, go to my assignment, and muse on what King had said to me. Perhaps I’d call him back and see what else I could extract.
But either way, the fact that this was even something I needed to think about said a lot about where my life and head were at.
Satan
Feeling somewhat annoyed about the damage I’d done—not that that was something I was going to show my members and prospects—I cleaned down some of the bartops once I left church a second time. It was kind of relaxing, although that wasn’t to say I felt blissful. I just felt slightly more chilled.
I grabbed a bottle of whiskey and drank enough to knock myself out. I was too old to drink my liver into a coma nowadays, but I could still toss back with the best of the boys. It just had to be planned out with the understanding I’d be in a bit of a shitty situation the following day.
When I woke up, it was a little after ten a.m. I could already hear the sounds of the shop roaring to life; if memory served me right, Spawn would be overlooking the duties of the shop for the day, with two club members and one prospect in tow. Spawn was a good boss, better than Sonny and I were. He didn’t lead by loud words or stupid displays of anger; he justwas.
I went about my day mostly by myself. I nodded to Spawn and said hello to Sonny when he came by, but otherwise, no one had any updates for me. It was an oddly dreary and slow day for a period of time that felt like it could explode at any given moment. Someone smarter than me might have called it the whole “calm before the storm” shit, but I never fucking understood that metaphor. Usually, winds started to pick up, thunder started to rumble in the distance, and clouds started to billow in the sky when a storm was approaching.
It was probably better to just assume we were getting lucky so far.
Toward the end of the day, I told the prospects and club members they could have the evening off, save for the ones tasked with guard duty. They all looked almost disappointed, like I told them they couldn’t hang out at the clubhouse. They were welcome to do whatever the fuck they wanted; I just wanted to encourage a little fucking R&R, since I needed it as much as anyone.
I stood by the bar, trying to pick which channel I wanted to watch. Out of morbid curiosity, I flipped on the station that Hailey worked for. Would they now ask random grandmas what they thought of the Devil’s Patriots? Would some pissy bitch of a politician get in front of a microphone and declare he was going to get tough on crime?
The thought literally made me laugh out loud. Nothing was funnier to me—and I meant that sincerely—than seeing a frail, obese politician, probably no taller than five-foot-eight, slamming a podium with his fist and raising his voice about coming down on crime. While we never assaulted a politician—there were less overt ways of getting what we wanted—let’s just say that raised voice and that tough talk suddenly turned into blubbering whimpering and nervous shaking the instant we pulled up a chair at whatever favorite watering hole or restaurant he had.
And the best part was? We never had to fucking lay a finger on anyone. The only thing those assholes were tough on was taxpayers’ dollars, because they sure as shit weren’t using them properly.
But no, so far, they were just discussing what off-season work the Arizona Cardinals football team was doing. It was interesting enough, a few of the guys in the clubhouse liked sports, but it wasn’t like anyone here dressed in red and took off Sundays to watch the team.
And then the segment switched, and who else but one Hailey Cook showed up on the screen.
And goddamn, she lookedexhausted.
The bags under her eyes sagged. She could barely force a smile. It was the five o’clock news, but she looked like she was doing a segment for five a.m.
Dare I say it, she almost looked…guilty?
