Jeremy McClintock, Lines Crossed
Factotum Publishing, pp. 612
UK: £20/RSA R10
Early praise for Lines Crossed:
“Not completely rambling and incoherent”
The Evening Standard
“You couldn’t make this up”
Sappington Sentinel
“A man who knows Bosnia like his back”
The Natal Finder
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**** Please note: due to the ongoing state of emergency in Haiti, printing of the book is suspended as of October 2006 until further notice ****
Chapter Ω
The next day I couldn’t stop thinking about Mick. If the FBI really did want to speak to me then it was just as likely they’d also want to speak to Jagger, now that I counted the chief Rolling Stone among my circle of friends. This thought gave me no satisfaction.
I glanced at my Rolex. Two diamonds past 10. Time to get moving.
Downstairs in the lobby of the Roosevelt a bunch of Chicago Times hacks had arrived and were checking in at the reception desk, a long and sumptuous mahogany desk located at reception. These guys were no doubt here for the Tyson fight.
“You guys are here for the Tyson fight, I guess,” I wondered out loud.
“Yeah,” the fat one replied.
“Tyson in five,” I exclaimed.
“No flies on you,” he responded in a South East Chicago accent.
“Sure,” I confirmed.
Chicago hacks. In all my years of reporting I had yet to meet a more repellent species. These coves would set fire to their own house just so they could report on it.
“You a journalist?” said the fat windy hack.
“War reporter.”
“So are we,” he retorted, and with that they erupted in a polyphonic cacophony of booming laborious laughter that sounded like a bunch of elephants eating a crispy fish supper.
Ordinarily I would have joined in. But on this occasion I held back. How did the fat hack know I was staff? There was something fishy going on, and it wasn’t the crispy fish supper. Nor for that matter was it the other fish dish of Kippers being served on silver platters in the dining room adjacent to the lobby, down the short flight of three stairs decorated in expensive plush velvet red carpet that led there.
Just as I was contemplating evasive action, Harry Bellefonte cruised in with his entourage. Ordinarily I would have ignored him, but right now this guy’s appearance was better than a massage parlour on the company slate.
“Harry!” I screeched across the lobby like a chimpanzee with a megaphone.
He didn’t hear me at first, so I rolled up a newspaper into the shape of a megaphone and screamed like some wild animal.
This time he got the message, and with a subtle wink from behind his Ray Bans he signalled me over.
“Where the hell have you been?” he asked, “I’ve been calling you all week, man,” he said.
“Did you leave me any messages?” I asked. “Because there’s been some strange stuff happening. I was at the UN yesterday…”
“Never mind,” he said, and with that I surmised that I should stop talking.
On reaching Harry’s private suite everything was about to become crystal clear. Or so I thought. Ordinarily I wouldn’t have been seen dead in a private suite; it’s just not my style. The number of scoops I’ve lost over the years because some big shot wanted me to pay homage to his ego almost runs into the number of points awarded for hitting the bullseye at darts three times in a row. Salmon Rushdie was the worst. That guy was more paranoid than a shark on coke that’s just been refused entry to the Copacabana on New Year’s Eve. And the Prima Donna couldn’t even write.
But on this occasion I was relaxed. Ordinarily I wouldn’t have been, but on this occasion I was.
“What can I get you?” Harry enquired.
It was only 10.15 in the morning.
“Harry,” I said, “it’s only 10.15 in the morning…”
“That never stopped you before, Jezza,” said Hazza.
“Sure,” I said, “but that was before I had the FBI on my back.”
“What about the girls in Marrakech?” he asked ironically, like a guy with inside information who knew something I didn’t.
“Sounds great,” I said, “but I’m being tailed by the FBI, Harry. I don’t have time for a holiday right now.”
Harry laughed in a warm irresistibly infectious giggle that left me cold.
“You hacks make me laugh.”
At that point I realised Harry was probably being ironic.
“I don’t know whether to take that insult as a compliment,” I said. Ordinarily I wouldn’t have said that, but on this occasion I did.
Then, just as the conversation was threatening to become interesting, Dusty Springfield came in.
“Dusty!” I blurted out, like some demented fan (even though we’d been close personal chums for years, after meeting in Hollywood in 1987 at a time when Dusty was emotionally traumatised, shortly prior to beginning her collaboration with electrical pop combo The Pot Shop Boys, and during which time I was lucky enough to get to know the real Dusty – or “Mary” as I would call her – on the countless occasions when she used to phone me in the early hours of the morning in strictest confidence, in order to seek advice on those ill-judged private liaisons of hers).
“Dusty,” I said, “you can’t stay here, it’s too dangerous; the Russians have got people in Indonesia, and that partly explains why the FBI is following me all over New York.”
Dusty took a step forward and did her famous panda impression.
“Jeremy,” she whispered in that million-dollar rasp of hers, “the Chinese are involved.”
“Dusty!” I exclaimed. “What have I done to deserve this?”
© Jeremy McClintock 2006
