| |
––––––––
“You’re fucking kidding me,” Ann Coleman laughed. The owner of The National Informant propped her long, beautiful legs up on her desk and ran a hand through long brown hair. She peered out her office window at Main Street, and immediately sat up. “Wait a minute,” she said, and threw down the phone. She grabbed her camera and aimed it out the window at two policemen who were about to shoot it out with crack dealers.
Ann snapped away as bullets flew. The crack dealers lost, both of them suffering fatal head wounds. “Got you,” Ann giggled as she retreated from the window, the gruesome carnage below captured and destined for front page status in one of the nation’s worst tabloids.
“Okay,” she sighed as she went back to the phone. “This sounds like bullshit. Where did you get this?” Suddenly something flashed through Ann’s mind, and she grabbed her pen and paper. “Okay, maybe it isn’t bullshit. Give me the details. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, get your ass down here. Yes, I’ll pay you the finder’s fee, you moron. What? I am not, you bastard!” Ann slammed down the phone. “Call me a whore, will you. I never charged anybody.”
Ann sat back for a minute, already knowing what she would do. The Informant got tips all the time, most of which came from people confined in mental institutions. Occasionally, however, one had the ring of truth, especially when Ann knew the caller. After twenty years of filtering wheat from chaff, she knew the difference. If this was true.........she reached for the phone.