In the Time of Man

Chapter Thirteen

(I want to get this book finished so I may be using up my Wednesday posting space for these final chapters. Not too many more to go and then I can begin recording and publishing of the full manuscript. I’ve really been pleased with interest and feedback on the story. - JM)

Her night in the jail was sleepless after Becky made a call to Gene and had to explain to him that she was incarcerated on suspicion of murder. As patient and understanding of a man as her husband had proved to be through the years, Gene Acuna had now listened to his wife tell him about a man trying to break into their home and now she was suspected of murder. No charges had been filed, she told him, and she expected to be released in the morning when she and Mike Burke were able to clear up the confusion in conversations with detectives. Gene, she insisted, had to stay home with the kids and not disrupt their sleep by getting them up in the middle of the night. 

Mike Burke, who was marginally hung over and mostly angry at Becky in particular and the world in general, had no interest in calling the news director to ask for the station’s lawyer to come bail them out. He did not give a damn if he slept all day in the jail, if they would let him smoke. Burke had his bare feet up on his cot, glowering at Becky when she went past with a deputy escorting her toward the phones. Burke’s attitude was not helped by the 24 hours he had just spent without a cigarette.

Ed Smith, KSUN’s news director, was in no better mood than Burke when Becky explained their predicament.

“Okay,” Smith exhaled deeply. “Let me just say this out loud so that maybe, just maybe, I can start to think of it as real. I’ve got a reporter and a managing editor of my news department being held in the Maricopa County Jail as murder suspects?”

“That’s accurate but oversimplified, Ed,” Becky said. “We need a station lawyer to come down and get us out of here. The county’s not behind this. It’s the federal government. But I don’t think they have enough to charge us.”

“Oh that’s better. State law enforcement isn’t interested in you it’s the feds. Very good. CIA? NSA? You gonna be prosecuted under the Patriot Act, Acuna?”

“Come on, Ed. I told you what happened up there. Somebody killed Crawford and I think it was connected to his talking to us and revealing the whole Slims Disease project.”

“Sure, Acuna. That really had a major impact on the country, didn’t it? Why in the hell would you have to kill somebody the whole damned world is already ignoring?”

“Very funny. Look, Ed, the sooner you get us out of here the better chance there is this doesn’t get around to other reporters. Nobody checks cop shop blotters any more.”

“Like that matters. Christ, Acuna. You think those deputies haven’t already started talking? Maybe those plainclothes feds guys have been busy leaking it over night to discredit you even more.”

“Even more? Even more? What the hell’s that supposed to mean, Ed?”

“You know what I mean, Acuna. That Slim’s Disease special report didn’t exactly enhance your reputation or the station’s either, for that matter.”

“It’s not my fault that people are ignorant, Ed. If they want to pretend everything is safe and warm and wonderful, there’s nothing I can do about it.”

“I’m going to have to call Robbins and tell him about this, Acuna. And he’s damn sure not gonna be happy. My ass is already in a jam with him over your special report. And he’s got enough on his mind already.”

“Call him? He’s not back in town? I thought he went on vacation a month ago.”

“He did. But he isn’t feeling well. Thinks he picked up mono or something at his sister-in-law’s place up in Grand Junction. He’s waiting on some blood tests before he drives home. Don’t know why in the hell he didn’t fly up there.”

“Well, don’t bother him with this, then, Ed. Just get us a lawyer over here. I need to get home and clean up and see my family.”

“Sorry, Acuna. I’m short people. You’re going to have to cover a news conference with this Johnny Eddington guy. Can’t go home right away.”

“He’s that pretty boy baseball player, isn’t he? I don’t do sports, Ed. You know that.”

“Today, you do, though. I’ll have a news unit waiting for you as soon as you are cut loose. You’ll have time for coffee and lunch before it starts.”

“Whatever, Ed.”

Mike Burke was having nothing to do with KSUN-TV News after his night in jail. As soon as the station’s lawyer had secured their release, Burke left Becky at the curb waiting for a promised photographer to pick her up and take her to the Eddington news conference. 

“I’m going home and sleeping all day and KSUN and Ed Smith and the rest of you can go to hell today,” Burke explained.

He was jumping into an Uber when Uncle Pierre pulled up in front of Becky and lowered his driver’s side window.

“Burke need a ride?” he asked. “We’ve got time. We can run him to his condo.”

“I don’t think you want to do that today, Uncle Pierre.” Becky skipped off the curb and around the front of the SUV with the station’s logo brightly painted on its side in orange and blue.

“Okay,” he said as Becky got in the passenger seat. “Burke seems like he spends a fortune on Uber and Lyft.”

“He’s saving it on furniture, though,” Becky said. “Trust me. Anyway, most of the time he has no business behind the wheel of any vehicle.”

“Wonder why he doesn’t own a car, Beck?”

“Don’t know. I wonder why he doesn’t talk to his kids, why he lives alone, why his marriage failed and he never met anyone else. Burke doesn’t want anyone to know anything about him.”

“Yeah, he’s pretty good at keeping secrets,” Uncle Pierre said. “But I doubt your evening as guests of the county will be very secret.”

“You hear anything?”

“No.  I’m pretty sure it’ll be out, though. So, Crawford’s dead?”

“Very.” 

Becky did not feel like talking about the scientist or her reporting on his work, even with Uncle Pierre, who was her favorite photographer. Phil Pugh had picked up his nickname as a result of his penchant for wearing a black beret on assignments, which caused his colleagues to accuse him of trying to affect the profile of an artiste instead of a simple button pusher. He certainly looked the part with an untrimmed brown beard and hair curling out and upward from beneath his beret. His eyes were narrow and intense and made him appear to be constantly scrutinizing all of existence for missing details. Unlike most photojournalists, Uncle Pierre, in spite of his artistic inclinations, wore a tie and slacks to work every day, even during the searing desert summer.

As eccentric as Uncle Pierre acted and appeared, Becky considered him brilliant. He had taken a masters degree in English literature from the University of Colorado and he was always talking about great books. On one assignment, he had seen a paperback copy of Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea hanging out of Becky’s computer bag and asked her if she had not read it previously. When she explained she was just going back through it to study the simplicity of Hemingway’s style in order to improve her own writing, Uncle Pierre had suggested she look also at Fitzgerald and Wolfe so that she might have an appreciation for more ornate prose.  The next day he brought her a copy of Editor of Genius, the biography of Max Perkins, the great Scribner’s editor who had guided the literary careers of all three men.

“What’s this news conference about, Uncle Pierre?” Becky was fishing in her purse for a brush and makeup in an attempt to make herself slightly more presentable for a public venue.

“Not sure. Rumor is the guy is going to retire or quit for a while or something?”

“What? That doesn’t make sense. He just signed like the most idiotically outsized contract in the history of professional sports, didn’t he?”

“Yeah, but he’s got some kind of problem and isn’t playing well and the story is he’s either quitting for good or is getting out until he gets a grip on whatever it is that’s kicking his butt.”

“Well, okay. Where is this gonna be?”

“Out at the Biltmore.”

* * *

In the ballroom where the news conference was to be held, cables wound and curled around the perimeter and out various doors.  It was all secured to the floor with silver duct tape. A technician was checking connections for the mult-box being used for the audio from the podium, which had been positioned in front of a dark, blue wall. Thirty rows of chairs, spanning the width of the ballroom, filled the space between the podium in front and a camera platform at the back of the room. The camera risers had been constructed with four tiers and dozens of production crews were taping off their space and putting up tripods. 

Outside of the hotel, satellite and microwave trucks representing stations from across the southwest and all of the networks had blocked off the streets. Engineers were tuning in various audio and video frequencies assigned to them on specific satellites and a few crews were simply broadcasting live over the Internet using their iPads as cameras, and even their phones. Police had arrived to control the anticipated crowds and direct traffic.Technicians were unrolling additional cables and checking circuits, testing microwave relays and the relative strength of audio and video signals being sent into the sky and across the web.

Becky helped Uncle Pierre grab a spot near the middle of the second tier of the camera riser. He adjusted his tripod, plugged his wireless into the mult-box, and measured the audio signal. Becky extended the boom, fixed the shotgun mike to the end, and followed Uncle Pierre out to the hotel’s main entrance where camera crews and still photographers had gathered to record the arrival of Johnny “The Jet” Eddington.

Over an hour later a shimmering black limo stopped beneath the port cochere of the Biltmore and Eddington stepped out and smiled and waved to the cameras. His agent, Mort Bender, ran around from the other side and ushered his number one client through the scrum of photographers and the reporters shouting questions.  CNN was doing a live broadcast of the superstar athlete’s arrival and his comments from the podium. 

Eddington, trim and fashionable in a beige four-button suit with a pale blue tie and white shirt, hustled through the hotel lobby toward the open double doors and the dais where he was to speak. Cameras were clicking incessantly. A room full of gossipy, speculating journalists fell silent as Eddington approached the podium.  Motor drives on still cameras whirred and cranked out photos as if they were trying to record the effort of a diving catch. On an adjacent wall, a video played showing a montage of The Jet’s greatest plays and game-winning clutch hits.   

Pausing to assess the room, Becky Acuna watched the Giant’s All Star take a deep breath the way hitters often did before stepping into a batter’s box. He raised his hand to shield his eyes and then stared into to the blazing bank of television lights blasting the room with heat and glare. 

“Man,” Eddington said. “I always wondered what it might be like to get into the Hall of Fame. Probably not this much interest, though.”

Everyone in the room laughed and waited for him to explain why they were there. The Giants had sent around an e-mail notification that he was going to be making a “major career announcement.”

"Thank you all for coming.” Johnny Eddington paused, words caught in his throat.  Uncle Pierre looked at Becky from behind his camera. They were both wondering why he was emotional at the outset of a news conference.

“Some of you, I recognize from the papers or TV stations. But I guess this is the kind of thing that will bring around strangers, huh?" 

No one laughed and Johnny Eddington looked down, away from the expectant faces hovering before him. 

"I brought a prepared statement up here with me but I think I’ll skip it. I know there’s a lot of speculation about why I am here today and I want to clear everything up that I can. But I still don’t have a lot of answers. There is something wrong with me and I don’t know what it is. I don’t feel well and I am not playing baseball the way I am capable. So I’m here today to let everyone know that I am leaving baseball until I recover my health and can play the way I am paid to play and the way the fans expect me to play. I want to play at the big league level again."

Reporters looked at each other and began chattering. A few of them raised their hands, stood up, and began asking questions.

“Hang on,” Eddington said as he put out the palm of his hand to calm down the crowd. “I’ll get to your questions in a minute. I need to explain this a little bit more.  First, I want to point out my physician, Dr. Gerry Antonetti, he’s right there near the back door and he’ll be around to answer whatever questions he can when this is over.  But there isn’t much to tell.” 

Another reporter jumped up hoping to get in the first question. "Johnny, did you....."

Johnny motioned for the man to sit back down. "Just a minute. I said I’d get to all of your questions. The reason I came back down to Phoenix from San Francisco to make this announcement is that I didn't want to distract too much from the Giants’ pennant chase. And besides, I plan to live here until I get back to playing, assuming I can get back to playing. Phoenix has been great to me since I was a rookie in spring camp here. All I can tell you about what’s happening with me is that I am listless, have almost no energy, feel dizzy sometimes and have double vision, and I’m losing a bit of weight, which is always good if you’re an athlete but I think it’s hurting me somehow.  I’ve been to several specialists and they’ve done all kinds of blood tests and they can’t find anything. My blood counts appear normal. No cancers, in case that’s what you are thinking.”

It was not what Becky Acuna was thinking and she wondered why Johnny Eddington was dancing around the real issue. Was he oblivious? Was everyone in the Giants organization ignorant of what was going on? 

"Anyway, in case I don’t get to play baseball any more, I won’t get a chance to stand in front of a bunch of you all ever again so I am going to take a moment here and thank my parents for my career, even if it turns out to be brief. My dad worked an assembly line in Flint, Michigan for 33 years and my mother was a waitress at a short order restaurant and they devoted themselves to my two sisters and me to make sure we had better lives. And we all did. And I want to thank the Giants. They have been a class organization from the top down and they would have had every justification in the world for backing away from me in a situation like this. Instead, they have stood beside me and offered support and encouragement. And I am grateful. I guess I’ll take a few of your questions now."

A chaos of shouts and waving hands erupted when Eddington finished his last sentence. He pointed at a middle-aged male reporter with silver hair who wanted to know what the ballplayer's physical condition had been like in recent weeks.

"Well, obviously, not the best, as I mentioned, or I would still be playing baseball. I run out of energy and breath a lot more easily than I used to and I can't seem to ever get enough sleep. If I’ve contracted something, the docs just can’t identify it. And that’s what has me a little scared.”

Another reporter, this one a female, broke in with a question. “Why don’t you just go on the 21 day disabled list, Johnny, until you figure this out?"

“Yeah, well, I thought about that but I know my own body pretty well and it’s telling me this is something a bit more serious. It’s going to take more than three weeks and I didn’t want endless distraction and speculation to detract from the team’s efforts to win the pennant so I came down here to talk to you all.”

Another sports writer wanted to know about Eddington’s endorsements. “You've got your name on a lot of products. Do you think corporate America is going to be disappointed in losing their All-American pitch man?"

"Oh, I can't answer that and, to be honest, I can't say it's all that important to me. I have more than enough money. I don’t think anything that’s happening to me can be a source of embarrassment for any company, though. But I’ve got a question for you all, if you don’t mind. My agent, Mort, said there was something on TV here in Phoenix the other night about some mysterious ailment that the government’s working on.  Anyone here tell me about that?”

There was whispering among the journalists sitting on the folded chairs in front of the bank of cameras and several of them appeared to be looking around the room to see if Becky Acuna was in attendance. Becky did not respond and remained standing quietly on the camera riser next to Uncle Pierre.

“No? Okay. Well, I’ve got to find out about that and see if it has any clues for what’s bothering me.” 

“Mr. Eddington. Mr. Eddington.” Becky raised her voice to be heard behind the glaring lights and picket line of cameras. Other reporters recognizing her voice sat down and were quiet. 

"Becky Acuna with KSUN News. There are, as you know, a number of viruses and other diseases that are contracted sexually. They are commonly referred to as STDs, sexually transmitted diseases. Most of them have been identified, cured, or controlled. Do you think it’s possible you’ve contracted one of these STDs that are just being discovered and there’s no clinical cure yet? I mean, you've stated publicly many times, including on our television station that you are, well, let's call it sexually prolific.”

The audience moaned and laughed but Becky decided to persist. “Do you think your sexual activities have anything to do with your present health problems?"

"I don’t have the answer to that, Miss Acuna, was it? Hell, I don’t even know what I have or if I have anything. I just know I don’t feel right. If there’s a disease out there that somebody knows about, especially the government, and isn’t telling us, well, that’s wrong and we need to know.”

“Hey Johnny.” The pompous sportscaster from Channel 10, who had made a point of sitting on the front row, stood and turned around to look at the cameras before he asked his question. “What are you doing next? Are you going back to San Francisco for more tests or just going into hiding for some rest and relaxation?”

Eddington looked pensive and then smiled, quickly. “I was just thinking about what it would be like if I had ever gotten to play in the World Series and we won and then I got to do one of those Disney commercials. It would be great if I could tell you I had just won the World Series and what I was doing next was going to Disney World, or is it Disneyland? I can never remember which one. Anyway, I’m not going to either. I’m going up to the Mayo Clinic for a round of tests. Don’t know what I’ll do after that. I do know I hope to play baseball again. That’s all I want to do. I love baseball. Oh, and for Miss Acuna, I’ll also try to be less ‘prolific’ with the ladies.”

Everyone laughed and looked back at Becky but she offered no reaction. The questions kept coming in an endless stream from reporters Johnny Eddington had never before encountered. He stayed and answered them until there were none left to ask, facing down a roomful of grim faces who had discovered their life's worth by creating workman-like prose out of someone else’s tragedies and this was a narrative with great drama for even the most unimaginative of writers. A superstar athlete at the peak of his health and power, possessed of money and beauty, was being laid low by an illness unnamed and unidentified. If it were caused by his promiscuous behavior, the tale would be more poignant because the fall from grace would be the old human story of hubris. Eddington, though, dealt with his apparent athletic demise using candor and humility and he laboriously answered each question, lingering over their individual implications while gracefully extricating himself from a life of glory, unexpectedly interrupted.

“I want to thank you all again for coming,” he said. “And I trust now you will grant me some privacy to deal with this and be with my family.”

Johnny Eddington eased away from the podium and stepped down to where his agent was able to escort him through the less clamorous crowd. Becky watched him leave as reporters rose from their chairs and resumed trading in gossip and speculation, having all the interesting discussions they never shared with their viewers or their readers. A few of them looked in Becky’s direction but no one approached her to discuss Slims Disease and her reportage on the subject. 

“Wait a moment, please everyone.”

A shrill voice was passing the front of the ballroom as photojournalists were snapping the release plates on their camera tripods. 

“Please. Please, don’t leave. I am begging you.”

Becky looked up and saw the ever-disheveled figure of Elliot Anders. He had reached the podium and was projecting his voice several decibels higher to be heard over the clatter of reporters gathering their gear.

“Please. Please. My name is Elliot Anders. I am a scientist and I have something that all of you need to see before you leave here.”