I take another bite of my cold pancakes, trying to stretch it. After this, we don’t have much of a plan, and as bad as that is for Salem, it’s probably just as bad for me. If we go back to Boston with nothing, I can’t see how I don’t get associated with failure on the first big job I’ve been put on since I started at Broadside. I can’t see how my chances of getting to tell Cope’s story there don’t take a pretty big hit.
Salem’s trying to catch the eye of the server—probably to get our check—when her phone vibrates on the table between us.
We both look at it—a local number—and then at each other.
She reaches for it, and I can’t decide if I’m relieved or disappointed that she doesn’t put it on speaker.
“This is Salem.”
It feels like a long time while she’s listening, but I don’t think it’s more than a couple of minutes. Whoever’s on the other end—and I think I know already—I’m pretty sure she’s not interested in letting Salem get a word in. I’m pretty sure she worked out exactly what she wanted to say before she called.
I try not to feel like I’m pressing against a windowpane.
“I’m happy to hear that,” Salem finally says, and then, after a second, she pulls the phone from her ear and looks down at the screen.
“She hung up.”
I don’t know why that makes me want to smile.
“That was Jess Greene,” she adds, unnecessarily.
“A problem,” I repeat, shoving another bite of cold pancakes in my mouth.
Salem sets down her phone. “They’re in, though.”
I finish chewing, swallow. “It doesn’t mean she’ll talk.”
“It doesn’t. Especially to me.”
I look up at her, and once again, she’s watching me close, her lips set in a small smile.
“What?”
She shrugs and looks away, waving at the server. She doesn’t look at me when she speaks again.
“Hawk,” she says, casual-as-you-please, as if she’s not about to change my relationship to this story—to the woman I was up half the night thinking about—entirely.
“If you get Jess Greene to talk to us about her mother, I’ll produce your podcast myself.”
The Last Con of Lynton Baltimore
Transcript Excerpt from Episode 2, “The Inmate”
Automated Voice [fading in]: This is a SimLink Global prepaid call from
Baltimore:Lynton Baltimore
Automated Voice:An inmate at a Georgia correctional facility [fading out, intro music plays]
[Durant, voice-over:Ten years ago, when I was just starting out as an investigative journalist in public radio, a colleague of mine took a big risk, the kind that can change the course of an entire career. In this case, the risk was eating a box of takeout in his refrigerator that was long past its safe-to-eat date. The career that got changed was mine, because I was suddenly assigned the very unexpected task of interviewing my first head of state: a man whose recent election to his country’s highest office had been shrouded in controversy, in claims of criminality. He was in New York City, and I was slated to meet him in a small conference room of the hotel where he and his team were staying. When I walked in, I remember thinking that I would never be able to ask this man the questions my colleague had prepared. He had eyes like a snake’s, a voice like the edge of a butcher knife. Every second of my four-and-a-half minutes in his presence felt like a risk to my life, as though the man giving me clipped, noncommittal answers was simply cataloging everything he would need to know about me in the event that I reported on him in a manner he would find distasteful. In the event he would need to find me again, and hold me to account for it.]:: sound of a deep breath, indistinct whispers::
Automated Voice:Will you accept this call?
[Durant, voice-over:But that interview was nothing compared to my first conversation with Lynton Baltimore.]
Baltimore:Where would you like to begin?
Chapter 5
