Cole Fire, page 4
“Why’s that?” Cole pressed.
“I don’t know, something in his eyes, real, I don’t know, other worldly. How ‘bout you? You ever see him?”
“Oh yeah, several times. I never was quite sure what to make of him.”
“So you’re not one of those ‘God’s other son’ people?” Randy asked.
“No, not one of those,” Cole said flatly, somewhat taken aback by Randy’s question.
“Good, too many Kool-Aid drinkers in this city already. I’ll get back with what I find.”
“Thank you, sir.” Cole hung up the phone.
“Here you go.” Hanna handed Cole his mail across the desk.
On top of the stack was a small manila envelope. “Mr. Cole Sage” was handwritten across the front. The return address made no sense, though. In the upper left corner was a star, a snake, and what appeared to be a fingerprint, a thumbprint, really. The thing that didn’t set right was the color of the print. It was a deep cordovan red.
“Where’d this come from?”
“It was left at reception. Shoot! I forgot the note.” Hanna whirled around and returned to her desk. “This was in the other envelope. Sorry.”
Random correspondences were nothing new. Cole filled his waste basket with them a couple times a week. Clippings, inner-office memos, assignments, story ideas, but usually they followed a more conventional to-and-from format.
The envelope wasn’t sealed; the flap was just tucked in. Inside was a single yellow sheet from a legal pad, folded in thirds.
Dear Cole
I bet you never expected to hear from me again. I was your driver in ‘Nam. You remember when I told you I wanted to be a writer. That dream was destroyed by the war. You are living my dream. So, I will give you a chance to write my story. We will win the war this time.
I’ll be waiting.
Cole stared down at the abbreviation at the bottom corner, 10th PCH. No signature, no date, not even a clue as to what it was about. Yet, he couldn’t just toss it in the trash.
Without even thinking, Cole tapped in the numbers of Randy Callen’s line. Five rings, he was about to hang up and try later, when the panting voice of Cole’s “go to researcher” came on the line.
“Training for the Iron Man again?” Cole said jovially.
“If you must know, I have started a juice fast and I have to pee every ten minutes.”
“Can you tell me what 10th PCH is?”
“You ever heard of Google? You type things in and magically information pops up! An amazing invention.” Randy chided.
“What kind of juice are you drinking? Snarkberry?”
“10th Public Affairs Detachment or Press Camp Headquarters,” Randy offered, ignoring Cole’s question. “Thinking of joining up?”
“Too late for that. Think you could get me a list of people attached to that office in Vietnam, 1972?”
“I’ll see what I can do. Say, I have an extra bottle of kale, celery, beet, ginger, and carrot juice if you want to join me for lunch.”
“Let me get back to you on that.” Cole hung up to the sound of Randy’s laughter.
Cole punched in the four digits for reception. “Hi, Cole Sage here, I got an envelope earlier. Did you see who delivered it?”
“He was just one of a dozen ‘drop offs’ this morning.”
“You don’t recall who it was or what they looked like?” Cole pressed.
“Sorry, it was just a guy. He walks in, comes up and lays the envelope on the counter and walks out. Nothing about him sticks out in my memory. Security can review the camera feed from behind me,” the receptionist offered.
“Thanks, it’s not that big a deal.” Cole hung up the phone.
“I don’t have time for this,” Cole grumbled, wadding up the note and tossing it and the envelope into the trash. With newborn determination he spun around to his computer and went back to work on Jesse Monday’s obituary.
THREE
Around two o’clock Cole hit a wall. Randy Callen was plunged headlong into the well of cyberspace data and wouldn’t resurface for hours, the FEDEX package from Carter Washington wouldn’t arrive until morning and his last three calls were answered by voice mail. By three o’clock Cole was ready to escape. Various members of the staff came by his office with everything from requests for donations for a “Jesse’s Lambs” orphanage, to elaborate conspiracy theories involving the NSA and Pat Robertson. It was time to go.
Pulling back into mid-afternoon traffic, Cole decided to go straight away and meet back with Jenny and Kelly. He always enjoyed sitting on the top deck of the floating house Kelly lived in on the Sausalito side of the Bay. By the time he finally passed the car fire on Geary, and then sat for ten minutes trying to pull onto Van Ness, Cole decided it was a lost cause and headed for home.
The air was crisp and the sky was the kind they write greeting cards about to cheer people up. There was no way he would be stuck inside. When he finally pulled into the drive shortly after three-thirty, he decided to grab his bike and ride to Kelly’s. He quickly changed into jeans and a sweatshirt and filled a water bottle.
Turning his blue Intel cap around so the wind wouldn’t catch the bill and blow it into traffic, he headed toward the bridge. As he climbed and twisted his way up to the back entrance to the Golden Gate Bridge bikeway, Cole couldn’t help but smile. The sight of windsurfers at the base of Fort Mason always made his heart feel light. As he watched the sailboards bounce and chop their way across the water, sails filling and gliding over the white caps, Cole seemed to feel lighter and faster as he pedaled harder and harder up the winding road to the bridge.
Clear days always brought people out in droves to walk, jog, and ride across the Golden Gate. Determined not to knock anyone down, Cole slowed and at times even walked his bike. It didn’t matter because he loved just being on the bridge. At the halfway point he stopped and gazed back at the city. The crisp, clean air stung his cheeks. Far below, a freighter, decks stacked with cargo containers, passed into the bay. A young German couple Cole took for honeymooners, stopped and laughed, and hugged near him, as they pointed at the landmarks on the skyline.
“Alcatraz, Alcatraz!” The rosy-cheeked woman squealed and pointed excitedly, her pale blue eyes dancing as she made the connection between her airport tourist map and the Rock in the middle of the bay.
Cole wanted to comment or just be part of their excitement but realized his four or five words of German would probably not make for any kind of meaningful dialog. He smiled at the couple and rode on.
When he arrived at the dock where Kelly’s house was moored, Jenny was down for a nap. Kelly was heating some leftover chicken noodle soup for a snack and Cole helped by digging around the cupboards until he found a box of saltine crackers.
“Up top?” Kelly said, setting two steaming mugs onto a tray.
“Read my mind!” Cole said pointing toward the door with the box of crackers.
On the top deck Cole pulled two chairs around to the lee side of the divider wall that acted as a windbreak. They settled into the chairs and each took a mug.
“Nothing in the world better than chicken noodle soup with lots of crackers.” Cole smiled and crushed a half-full plastic tube of crackers.
“You mean nothing better than a little soup with your crackers.” Kelly frowned at his desecration of her homemade offering.
“You don’t like crackers?”
“I like you,” she said coyly.
“Funny girl,” Cole said pushing crackers into the soup with the backside of his spoon.
They ate in silence for several minutes. The banners on the lines of the floating house next door snapped and popped in the wind. Cole was so used to eating soup from a red and white can that it took him a minute to realize that Kelly made the soup from scratch, noodles and all.
“I love these noodles,” he offered.
“Nice save,” Kelly said, giving him a forgiving smile. “Cole,” she was obviously choosing her words. “What are you going to write about Jesse Monday?”
There it is, Cole thought. “How do you mean?” He always answered a question with a question when he needed time to gather his thoughts.
“Hero, villain, con-man, righteous servant, God’s messenger, Satan’s tool, divider, healer, how will you portray him?”
“Truthfully,” Cole answered, watching for her response.
“And that is?”
“What I will try to find out in the next few days.” Cole took a big spoonful of soup and admired the ratio of cracker to fluid. “You know, if you do it right, you can put in just enough cracker to absorb the fluid and make the crackers soft and moist without ending up with a dry bowl of dust.”
“You’re avoiding the question. What do you think of him?”
“Did I think of him?” Cole said, correcting the tense of Kelly’s question.
“What is the point of killing someone like him? I mean there is a crackpot on every corner, right? Half the channels on TV have somebody espousing some goofy philosophy.” Kelly stared into the mug as she stirred her soup. “Seems so pointless.”
“All murder is pointless.”
“But some are understandable. Like gangsters and drug dealers, they kill each other all the time. It’s not right, but it is part of their world. If you live by the sword, you know, but to kill a preacher?”
“They killed The Preacher too.”
“Well, Monday certainly wasn’t Him.”
“Lot of folks seemed to think he was. I think one of them was Chris Ramos.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Chuck has asked me to look into this whole mess and find...” Cole made two quotation marks with his fingers in the air. “The truth. Turns out that Chris was one of Jesse Monday’s fans.”
“I don’t know if fan is the right word for this,” Kelly said.
“Probably not. The problem is that this assignment is not business, it’s personal, at least for Chuck. He needs answers on a spiritual level. He wants me to find a ‘truth’ that will assure him he will see Chris in heaven.”
“He said that?”
“Not in so many words, but his meaning was pretty clear.” Cole shrugged.
“So where do you start?” The process Cole used to research a story always fascinated Kelly.
“This time I’ve called in the cavalry. I called my contact at the FBI and I have Randy Callen doing his snoop thing. I should have something by morning to get me started.”
“Then we can have a nice evening and not have to worry about where you start. I say we go out for burgers when Jenny wakes up and eat by the pier. She loves to watch the gulls.”
“I’m thinking bacon, grilled onions and extra cheese.” Cole grinned.
“I’m thinking veggie burger, extra lettuce for you, Mr. 170 over 80 blood pressure.”
“I rode my bike here,” Cole pleaded. “Grilled onions and regular cheese?”
“That will be OK, I guess.” Kelly smiled, then added, “On a veggie burger.”
* * *
Cole kissed Jenny on the top of the head, and she enthusiastically waved good-bye as he pedaled up the dock. Kelly called Erin to let her know that she was on her way with Jenny. Cole arrived home just as the last light of dusk was slipping away. He kicked off his shoes in the entryway and headed for the kitchen. The red light on the answering machine flashed in the half-light. Cole hit the play button.
“You have two messages,” the robotic voice reported.
“Hey, it’s Randy. Pick up. Are you there? Got a bunch of stuff for you. Are you gonna pick up? No? See you in the morning then.” The robotic voice reported that the message from Randy Callen had come in a 4:38 p.m.
A broad smile crossed Cole’s face as the second message bubbled from the machine, “Hi grandpa! Did you get home O.K.? I hope you’re not too tired from too much fun. Love you.” There was a pause, then Cole could hear Erin in the background saying something he couldn’t make out. “And mom says no ice cream!” Again the sound was muffled. “Be a good boy and keep on your diet. What? We want you here a long time! Bye!” Jenny’s laugh was the last thing he heard as she hung up. The machine reported her call came in about five minutes before he got home.
Cole held it to one scoop of ice cream while he channel-surfed. For once he went to bed early.
Early to bed, Cole thought as he plopped the morning paper on the kitchen table. The front page seemed to explode with the news of Jesse Monday’s shooting. A picture of Monday with his arms spread, head back, being carried by some of his followers to an ambulance covered nearly the entire page above the fold. The headline screamed “Death of a Miracle Man” just below the banner.
The paramedic stood at the open ambulance door. His expression was what grabbed Cole. It was as if he had no control of the situation and was powerless to do his job. His hands were half-raised in a questioning gesture and deep furrows creased his brow.
Monday’s eyes were closed and his mouth was gaping open. A big man was holding his feet at the ankles. Two other men supported most of his weight, their hands under his shoulders and back. At first glance, Cole thought, you would think he was on a cross.
The details of the article were sketchy at best. The time and place were as concrete as it got. The shooter was described only as a person dressed in a black sweatshirt with the hood up. No one seemed to see where the shooter came from or went. Monday’s wounds were not specifically identified, only that he was hit in the “chest area.” He was taken to St. Mary’s Medical Center on Stanyan Street because the shooting occurred outside a Starbuck’s on Fulton. He died on the five-block ride to the hospital.
The body was later transported to the Bryant Mortuary on Fulton. Somehow, it never arrived. There was no explanation of how the body disappeared during the transport of a mere sixteen blocks. The morgue technician, a Topher Saldono, claims he turned over the body at the back door to a couple of guys in dark suits from the funeral home at 11:15 pm. The funeral director says no such pick-up was ever made.
When Cole arrived at The Chronicle, the first thing he noticed was the number of black armbands being worn by the staff. Others wore lapel pins with messages like “Remember Jesse,” “Expect a Miracle” or “He Will Be Back”. As he passed through the main office he was struck by how many desks and cubicles bore some form of tribute to Jesse Monday, everywhere, flowers and pictures with each individual’s personal message. “Jesse Mended My Broken Heart and his Killer Has Broken it Again.” was pinned to the outside wall of the cubicle of a woman who sat at her desk, her face resting in her hands.
The mood and stunned silence in the building reminded Cole of a long-ago November day. He could almost feel the heavy sensation of shock mixed with grief hovering in the room. The gray clouds outside his classroom windows had seemed to add to the despair.
Cole was in the sixth grade. Just four days after his birthday and just a few days until Thanksgiving, it was just like any other day, until the secretary came and handed his teacher a slip of paper. Cole never forgot the look that crossed Mrs. Van Camp’s face. A teacher was someone from a different world in those days, they had no first names, and represented a power and authority that has long been replaced by privacy laws and students’ rights. On this day, though, Joan Van Camp became another heartbroken American, like those who cried and choked on the words that told us that our President had been assassinated in Dallas. That day everyone was sent home early. Eighth graders wept openly and everyone stood around as if somehow the world had come to an end.
As he walked to his office, Cole felt a strange disconnect from those around him. He did not share their sense of shock and heartbreak. He was saddened by the death of a person he knew, but he never bought into the Jesse Monday, “second coming.” “new messiah,” “God’s anointed one,” “Jesus for a new age” hysteria.
“Good morning,” Hanna said, smiling up at Cole.
“So, what do you think of all this?” Cole said, giving a sweeping motion across the wide ocean of cubicles.
“I’m Jewish. We’ve had a million wanna-be prophets, including, your Yeshua. I think they had the right idea when they used to stone them,” Hanna said, enjoying her own remark.
“Alrighty then.
Cole pulled the door of his office half-closed and sat down. On top of his desk was a file folder at least two inches thick with a rubber band around it. Randy Callen didn’t waste any time compiling data on Jesse Monday. As he began thumbing through the material inside, Cole grabbed a yellow note pad and started scribbling phrases, names and notes of his own. Lost in the research, and formulating the direction of the piece he would write, he didn’t notice Hanna’s knock on his doorframe until she rapped harder and cleared her throat.
“FedEx for you,” Hanna said as she approached the desk. “Requires your signature, too.”
Cole scribbled his name across the line after the X, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” came from a different voice in the room.
“Randy! Hey, you must have burned the midnight oil.” Cole indicated he take a seat.
“Here is a bit more, but I thought I would hand-deliver it.”
“Why’s that?”
“You might call it “sensitive” material,” Randy said, passing a manila envelope to Cole.
“There’s more to all this than meets the eye, isn’t there.” Cole smiled.
“What the hell’s going on around this place anyway? Has everybody been “podded”?”
Cole laughed in appreciation of his young friend’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers reference. “Sure feels like it. I had no idea so many people were impacted by Monday. It might be a good idea just for self-preservation if we kept our skepticism to ourselves. This love of Jesse goes all the way to the top and could be a real wedge issue. No sense creating ill will that might reap unwanted future problems.”
“Got it. You seem deep into it. I’ll get back to work. If you need any more “background” let me know.” Randy stood to go.
