Ch. 2 – Rico
“ T hree . . . two . . .” counted down the technician in the recording room.
Rico squelched his self-satisfied smile, forcing an expression of stern disappointment on his face.
“One,” called the technician. Rico’s pre-recorded news segment ended, and the studio cameras went live.
“Wow, those are certainly shocking allegations against Councilman Blake,” said Rachel Espinoza, lead news anchor for KPVM in San Diego. She looked over at Rico, who sat at the end of the news desk. “How has he responded?”
“I’ve given his office several opportunities to comment on my findings,” Rico spoke solemnly, “but so far they’ve chosen not to respond.”
“Do we know if he is under active investigation by the authorities?” asked Miles Washington, co-anchor for the flagship 6:00 p.m. broadcast.
Rico allowed a flicker of a smile to reach his lips, an expression he knew would delight a significant contingent of female viewers and quite a few male viewers as well. He had the heart-filled tweets to prove it .
“I spoke with the police chief on the matter.” He leaned across the polished desk. “And all I can say is that Councilman Blake may want to hire a good lawyer.” That was putting it mildly. The councilman had steered multiple city contracts to a consulting agency co-owned by his brother. Rico had picked up a clear trail of kickbacks to Blake.
“Voters will certainly need to take this information into consideration when they hit the polls next year,” Rachel was saying. “Good reporting, Rico.”
“I just go where the facts lead me.” He spoke his tagline with as much modesty as he could muster.
Miles gazed into the camera. “Next up, something in your fridge could increase your risk of cancer. When we return, we’ll tell you what it is and explain a chilling new scientific report.”
Everyone held their expressions for three long seconds.
“And we’re out,” called the show technician.
Rico sat back in his chair and unconsciously patted his hair. Perfect, as usual. Next to him, Miles gulped from a bottle of water beneath the desk.
“Another good story, kid,” the veteran newsman said. “You still ain’t getting my seat, though.”
“Don’t want it,” Rico lied. He’d give his left nut for an anchor chair. “All you do is read off a teleprompter anyway. Us real reporters make news.”
“Screw off,” Rachel said as she reapplied her lipstick.
“Don’t miss me too much.” As he pushed back his chair, Rico smirked, but inside, his stomach tightened. Obviously, she was still pissed at him. Shit. That was a bridge he couldn’t afford to burn. But how was he supposed to know that Rachel Espinoza, top news anchor in the entire San Diego market, was practically best friends with Selene, the morning show weather girl ?
And why was Selene still mad about the breakup? Rico had given her a good time for a few months. He’d been gallant and more than generous in bed, if he didn’t mind saying so. She’d been the one to ruin things with talk of moving in. God, she’d even asked about kids at one point.
Rico unclipped his lapel mic and pulled the power cell from under his suit jacket. He handed the gear to a technician and waved to the crew in the broadcast booth before stepping into the hall. If anything, he’d done Selene a favor. If she wanted something serious, she was barking up the wrong tree with him. Breaking things off had freed her to tie down some other sap.
Rico walked down the long hallway filled with pictures of anchor teams past and present. He was just about to turn into his small office when a cheerful voice spoke behind him.
“That was an amazing scoop!” Melissa, fellow field reporter, wore a blouse so pink it nearly burned his retinas. “How do you do it?”
Rico shrugged humbly. “Just good old-fashioned reporting.”
As in, reading through every city contract report as a matter of course, noting the suspicious pattern of contract awards, then embarking on three months of painstaking investigation. His days had been filled with phone calls, document requests, and research trying to weave together disparate strands of information. He’d filed a dozen record requests for campaign documents and spent his nights combing through spreadsheets and bank statements until his vision went blurry.
But it’d been worth it. With any luck, Councilman Blake would lose his seat and maybe see the inside of a courtroom. One less crooked politician in office made the world just a tiny bit better as far as Rico was concerned .
Melissa grinned at him, wild curls framing her face. “You’re such a talented reporter.”
Talent had nothing to do with it, but Rico smiled back gamely. “And your story on that prom at the senior center was . . .” Lame, cheesy as hell, the very definition of filler material? “Sweet,” he managed.
Melissa’s eyes glittered with tears. “I know,” she sighed, clasping her hands together. “It was so beautiful. There’s so much you can learn from the older generation.”
“Mm-hmm,” Rico muttered. In another universe, he and Melissa might have been competitors for airtime on KPVM, but Melissa’s specialty was human interest stories, and Rico was more than happy to let her cover every fuzzy, happy, adorable thing that happened in San Diego.
He had real news to break.
“Oh, Diane wants to see you in her office after the broadcast is done,” Melissa said over her shoulder as she bounced away.
Rico nodded. No surprise there. The show’s evening news producer probably wanted to compliment him on his story. Maybe she’d finally give him the higher budget he’d been begging for. He could seriously use a research assistant or two. In a world where local news was practically an endangered species, it was more important than ever for the few remaining soldiers of journalism to fight the good fight.
Local news mattered far more than most people realized. Business openings, updated zoning regulations, new city laws—hell, even the local traffic reports—affected the everyday lives of people in San Diego. The work of a local councilmember in many ways impacted San Diegans on a far more intimate level than what their senators or congressmembers accomplished in D.C.
Two hours later, after Rachel and Miles had signed off for the night and the entire news team had finished a wrap-up meeting to discuss tomorrow’s format, Rico knocked on the open door of the show’s producer.
“You see my feature tonight?” Rico asked. “Councilman Blake must be shitting himself right now.”
Diane looked up from her laptop and pressed her thin lips together. Her short brown bob and dark pantsuit only added to her menacing look. “It was a good story. You know that. You done patting yourself on the back for doing your job?”
Diane was an absolute pill, to be sure, but he respected the hell out of her. She’d despised him when he’d started at the station as a lowly stringer five years ago, reporting on oddball beats or stories tucked in the small towns surrounding San Diego where the station didn’t have a dedicated reporter. Over time, Rico had won Diane over. Not in his usual way, with loads of charm, but with his unrelenting drive to break stories.
Over the years, she’d grudgingly mentored him, honing his doggedness and intuition, and helping him refine his research and story-building skills. She was, honestly, like a second mother to him. Granted, a perpetually exasperated, foulmouthed mother, but a mother nonetheless.
Rico walked into her office and dropped into a chair in front of her desk. “I want an increase in my budget. My stories are making a difference. I could do so much more with a research assistant.”
“There’s been a complaint filed against you.”
“What?” The 180-degree turn in the convo practically gave him whiplash. “From who?”
“Teresa Wilds.”
“The intern?” Sweat gathered in his armpits. Had someone cranked central heating to the hell setting? “Look, Diane,” he said, “I don’t know what she could possibly complain about. It was a consensual relationship. I have plenty of texts to prove it. And she was twenty-two.”
“Twenty-one.” Diane’s face gave nothing away. She could be so damn unnerving when she wanted to be . . . which was most of her waking hours.
“Okay, twenty-one. Obviously legal,” Rico continued. “I’m not her supervisor. And I didn’t do anything . . .” He paused, his mind scrambling for an appropriate word. “Untoward. I swear. She had a great time.”
Diane was unmoved. “Teresa’s complaint states that you are, and I quote, ‘an asshat.’”
Rico frowned. “An asshat?”
“She’s claiming personal injury due to a broken heart.”
Rico laughed in relief.
“This isn’t funny.”
“I know. It’s not.” Rico pushed himself up in the chair. His time with Teresa had been delightful, but once her internship had ended last month, she’d gone back to college. What had she expected? Berkeley was nearly five hundred miles away from San Diego. He wasn’t about to fly up every weekend just to keep the good times going. It’d always just been a fling. Hadn’t Teresa known that?
He’d driven her to the airport, given her a kiss for the road, and said, “It’s been great.”
Surely that had been clear enough. Yes, she’d texted, and he’d replied at first with one-word answers or an emoji. But then he’d stopped responding. What was the point? Better to go their separate ways and remember the good times rather than stringing it out. Breakups were so messy, so . . . unpleasant.
“I warned you, Rico,” Diane said, breaking through his thoughts. “I told you to stop getting involved with people at the station. ”
Yes, she had said that after the weather girl fiasco, hadn’t she? Rico leaned forward, planting his elbows on Diane’s desk.
“Look, I could have ended things a little better with Teresa. True enough, but she’ll get over it.”
“That’s not the point, Rico.” Diane closed her laptop, a rare move that showed how seriously she took this conversation. “You know it pains me to feed your horrendous ego, but you’re my best reporter. That’s why I put you on the six p.m. broadcast, and you’re what, twenty-eight?”
Twenty-eight? She didn’t have to hit below the belt. “Twenty-seven,” he corrected her.
“Whatever. The point is, you’ve got a hell of a lot of potential, but your behavior is appalling.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Rico shot back. “I wasn’t Teresa’s supervisor. She was an adult. And—”
“Skirting the letter of the law doesn’t make it okay,” Diane cut him off fiercely. “I’ve heard rumors that you’ve slept with interview subjects, for God’s sake!”
“Only after the story was complete,” Rico insisted. He puffed out his chest. “I’d never cause a conflict of interest like that.”
Diane balled her manicured nails into fists and spoke slowly, as if to a toddler with gum in his hair. “When you sleep with everyone who has two legs and tits you hurt your reputation. That hurts the credibility of your stories.”
“That’s not fair—” Rico began, but Diane cut him off.
“I told you to stop dipping your dick into the work pool.” When she glowered at him, Rico was shocked he didn’t turn to stone. “I told you there’d be consequences,” she warned.
Rico swallowed. He hadn’t thought she’d been serious . . . or at least not that serious. He should have known better. Diane didn’t know the definition of levity. She probably wore those crisp pantsuits to bed. What would his punishment be? A leave of absence? She wouldn’t fire him just for ghosting an intern . . . surely not.
“You’re off the sewage story,” Diane said.
“What?” Rico gripped the edges of the desk. “I’ve been working that story for months. I’m on the cusp of breaking it.” And it was going to be huge when he did. Heads would roll.
Diane held his gaze. She seemed to enjoy tearing the beating heart out of his chest. “I’m reassigning the story to Melissa. Hand over your notes and get her up to speed.”
“Melissa?” The word strangled in his throat. Melissa didn’t have the cojones to work a story like that. The woman could barely keep it together when reporting on a llama with cancer at the children’s petting zoo. No way could she reveal significant municipal corruption that could land multiple people in jail.
“Melissa is going to take over investigative reporting for the next three months,” Diane explained. “She needs the experience.”
Rico dropped his head into his hands with a groan. It would have been kinder if she’d just fired him. Giving his stories to “turn that frown upside down” Melissa was pure torture. Diane was probably breaking multiple statutes of the Geneva Conventions with this move.
“And what will I do?” He looked up just in time to see Diane smile. His boss so rarely smiled.
“You’re on the human-interest desk.”
“You wouldn’t,” he hissed.
Diane didn’t flinch. The best poker players in the world had nothing on her. “For the next three months, you’re covering every baby beauty pageant, every kid derby car run, every military dog tribute. All of it. Starting with this one. ”
She slid a sheet of paper across her desk. With trembling hands, Rico accepted the story pitch. As he began to read, it was everything he could do not to weep in abject self-pity.