Busted by Wendy Ruderman

Author:Wendy Ruderman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins

16

OUR STORY ABOUT TIFFANY AND HOW JEFF HAD PAID HER BAIL MONEY UNEARTHED ONE MORE EXAMPLE OF HOW JEFF HAD CROSSED THE LINE. A few days later, a Philadelphia attorney, Todd Henry, called me. Todd told me he represented a fifty-three-year-old Jordanian shop owner named Samir.

“You know those cops you’re writing about?” Todd asked me. “Well, I have a client whose shop was raided by those cops, and he says they took thousands of dollars from him and other stuff like cigarettes,” Todd told me.

My heart started to race.

“And you know what, those cops cut all his video surveillance wires. So what do you think? You want to talk to him?”

Absolutely. “Just tell me when and where,” I said.

I darted over to Todd’s office later that day. Todd’s receptionist showed me into a conference room and shut the door. “He’ll be with you in a moment.”

I took out my notebook, tape recorder, and a pen, lining them up on the glossy wood table. The anticipation of an interview, especially one that held so much promise, was one of life’s teeny pleasures, like that first sip of hot coffee in the morning or the gradual dim of lights at the start of a movie.

Todd came into the room and I shook his hand. I looked behind him, expecting to see Samir.

“I’m sorry. Samir changed his mind,” Todd said.

Samir was too scared to talk. He feared retaliation from the cops and didn’t want a story in the paper.

I walked the nine blocks back to the Daily News office, disheartened and anguished. Maybe if I went to Samir’s house, I could convince him to tell his story. Wait. No. That might wig him out. Might be better to show up at his smoke shop. . . .

Barbara and I needed to brainstorm. We got something to eat from Gus and Joan, the Greek couple who operated a lunch truck parked outside our office. Barbara got her usual salad—romaine lettuce, tomatoes, egg, cucumbers, mushrooms, grilled chicken, and absolutely no cheese. I almost always ordered a BLT. Back at my desk, I opened a mayo packet with my teeth and squeezed creamy ribbons onto the bread.

“Wendy, I’m telling you this as your friend, if you don’t eat more green leafy vegetables, you could get cancer,” she said.

“I don’t like salad. It’s like eating grass.” We’d had this conversation a zillion times.

As much as we were the same, Barbara and I were different. She was a frugal, coupon-clipping, to-the-penny bookkeeper; I never looked at my pay stubs and only learned how much money was in my checking account when I withdrew cash from an ATM and looked at the receipt. For breakfast, Barbara ate low-fat Greek yogurt, mixed with fresh berries and raw oatmeal; I ate a chocolate chip muffin. When Barbara’s lower back ached, she did core-strengthening exercises; I popped two Aleve. She religiously got an oil change every 3,000 miles; I rarely checked my oil. Barbara obsessed over her throw pillows, which she meticulously

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.