I turned to face the group. “How many of you go to the huddle? Besides Murray, I mean.”
After looking around to see if anyone else would speak up, a woman in a miniskirt and leggings said, “There are several huddles. The big one is at Global One. Murray goes to that, and so do the assignment editors—me, Klaus Hellman, and Gavin Aikers. Then the assignment editors have our own huddles with the newsroom teams.”
“So what was the official line at Global One when they brought up Malina and Warshawski and so on?” I asked.
“There wasn’t a line about you,” Murray said. “Of course, Harold Weekes is obsessed by illegal immigrants, and he hates Chaim Salanter, or at any rate is targeting him. But no one said, ‘Go after the Warshawski family, including V.I.’s dead mother.’ ”
The woman in the miniskirt nodded. “They told us to do some digging on Malina, see if we could come up with the foundation’s policy on illegals, or find out who the girl with your—is that your daughter in the photo?”
“No. Petra is my cousin.” Lawlor’s assault had left me exhausted; the words came out slowly.
“They wanted us to find the girl who’s with your cousin in the photo,” the young woman said.
“And has anyone?” I asked.
The group in the hall exchanged glances, but there were head shakes all around.
“Do you know who she is?” someone else asked.
“Not a clue. But I’ll call Petra.” I speed-dialed my cousin. “Have you seen Julia? How did it go?”
“I don’t know. She didn’t fire me, but she chewed me out in a really scary way. I mean, she never raised her voice, or called me names, but she made me feel like I might have jeopardized the whole foundation. I did like you said, told her Murray was your friend and I didn’t know he would take what I said and turn it into a story. She called my boss and the two of them talked it over and decided I was just naive, which is better than being unemployed, but gosh, they made me feel like I was a puppy who’d messed on the Persian rug.”
“I can call Julia if you don’t think that would make things worse.” I described the drubbing I’d just taken.
“Just don’t say anything that’ll get me fired,” Petra fretted.
“I have talked to Murray,” I said. “We agreed that we all need to be more professional. But I can tell Julia that Harold Weekes, the head of GEN’s so-called news division, apparently put out a hit on the foundation in his infamous huddle.”
“Huddle?” Petra repeated doubtfully.
“Darling, they used to call them news conferences, but that was when journalists were journalists and looked for news, instead of going on air and in print to destroy people’s lives.”
Murray looked like another puppy caught on the Persian rug, and I smiled grimly but said to my cousin, “GEN seems to think you know who that kid was next to you in their picture, but I don’t think you’d ever seen her before, had you?”
“Vic! You remember Kira Du—”
“That’s right, babe. She was a complete stranger, whom you saw being attacked by the mob and pulled to safety. Isn’t that right?”
My cousin was silent for a second. “You mean if anyone calls to ask—”
“Is that what happened? You pulled her to safety, and then she ran off in the direction of the Green Line? You didn’t get her name?”
“Okay, okay, I get it,” Petra said. “You’ll tell Julia about, well, what happened at the news thingy? How they decided to target me?”
“Yep,” I said. “And if anyone, either Julia or the press, tries to move you to the center of the story, we’ll be taking legal action.”
When I put my phone away, a man around forty, in a necktie and short-sleeved shirt, said, “That sounds as though you just coached your cousin to lie to the press.”
“And you would be?”
“Gavin Aikers,” Murray supplied. “He’s the city desk assignment editor.”
“Mr. Aikers, I don’t think anyone at GEN can get more hysterical and lie-filled than they already are, but by all means, call Harold Weekes and tell him to bring it up at the next cuddle.”
“Huddle,” Aikers corrected.
“I thought it was the meeting where you cuddled each other and said what a swell job of creating an alternate reality you were doing. Maybe it’s the muddle.”
Murray put a hand on my shoulder. “Vic, let’s go somewhere private before you actually slug someone. I don’t think you have enough liability insurance to cover the damages.”
I let him guide me out of the viewing area. Behind us I could hear Gavin Aikers telling his staff they had work to do, they couldn’t watch TV all day. Reporters began to trickle in behind us.