Live shot, p.1
Live Shot, page 1
LIVE SHOT
By
Dick Wybrow
Other books by Dick Wybrow
THE HELL INC SERIES
Hell inc.
Hell to Pay
Hell Raisers
The InBetween
The Night Vanishing
Past Life
Ride the Light
The Hangman
Hell’s End (Coming 2023!)
Note: If you haven’t read Hell inc. yet, we’ve included the first few chapters at the end of LIVE SHOT.
WOLFWERE SERIES
Kane (Coming April 2023!)
If you’d like a free copy of Dick Wybrow’s humorous semi-apocalypse novel The Swordsmen and get free stuff and the latest updates from the author, click here.
“Loved this book... Fabulous!” -- Natasha Schmidt“
Too funny. Laughing just thinking about it!” -- LadyP
“Brilliant.” -- Jack White
Copyright © Dick Wybrow 2023
www.dickwybrow.com
Edited by Red Adept
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemble to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the copyright owner of this book.
Live Shot
by
Dick Wybrow
CHAPTER ONE
There’s an old saying in television. Never work with kids and animals. One can bite you or sling a handful of shit at your head when you’re not looking. The animals aren’t much better.
“Melody Sunday?”
I turned toward the voice that had chirped behind me. She looked like a soccer mom dressed for her first safari. Only the official-looking clipboard told me she was an actual Atlanta Family Zoo staff member.
That and her shape reminded me of a panda bear. Sure, a panda that had been held down and clumsily shaved to its pink skin. But, yeah, total hairless panda vibes..
“Yes, hello.” I waved at her as she padded my way. “That’s me.”
She held out her hand. When I went to shake it, I recoiled at the sight of the V-shaped animal bone between her thumb and forefinger.
I asked, “Do you eat the ones that misbehave?”
The zoo woman laughed, and a tiny fleck of white hit the collar of my pink blazer. “Just finished up my lunch, chicken salad my husband made for me, and I found this little guy in the container.”
First off, it was ten o’clock in the morning, and she’d been eating lunch? Second, if her husband was dropping bones into her chicken salad, I’d give it fifty-fifty he’d started dating again.
Her hand turned into a greasy fist, one half of the bone poking out from a crook in her bent pinky. “Okay, make a wish and pull.”
I offered her a smile, because she was being sweet. Weird, but sweet. When I wrapped my pinky around the extended bone, she counted down.
“One, two, three!”
We pulled, but the damn thing was still moist, so it wasn’t going down without a fight. Both determined, we tugged harder, grimacing and grunting, and I wrapped the manicured red nails of my left hand around my other wrist to get leverage.
I yanked the bone right out of her grasp. She yelped.
When I lifted my fingers up, I had the larger half of the wishbone. The smaller now rested in the palm over her hand. There was a tiny spot of blood on it, but I didn’t think it had come from the chicken.
“You got your wish!” She smiled pleasantly, unfazed. “What’d you wish for?”
“Um, I… you know, I forgot to make a one?”
The short woman laughed, flicked away the bone, and it bounced off the head of a colorful bird. It didn’t even flinch. “Ah, my grandmother didn’t put too much stock in them either. She used to say, ‘If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.’”
Looking around for somewhere to toss the scrap of bone, I only saw an overflowing trash can. When I glanced upward, the bird eyeballed me and quietly flew away.
I dropped it into my obnoxious blazer’s pocket and gave her a smile. “Is this how you greet all your guests?”
“No, but I’d heard you’re new to town, so I thought you could do with a little luck.” She then grinned wide enough to pull a muscle in her lower back. “The baby primate is ready for you.”
Yeah.
Kids and animals? I had the double shot. I should have known then this wasn’t going to go well.
With a new critter to show off, today was a press day, but that didn’t mean there weren’t still families choking up the winding paths. I’m not sure why zoos felt like they needed winding paths; maybe they thought it made everything feel more like a jungle, minus the gnashing teeth and dysentery.
After we’d slipped away from the concession area near the zoo’s entrance, my guide let out an audible sigh. Ahead lay the lions, tigers, and bears, deeper in the zoo, but in truth the real animals were those jostling in line for blue-raspberry slushies and twelve-dollar corn dogs.
“I’m Diane Trainor,” the woman called back over her shoulder, casually dodging an eight-year-old with a waffle cone. “I’ve been at the zoo for three years now.”
In my four-inch heels, it was hard to keep up with her. “Do you like it?” I said, giving waffle-boy a wide berth.
She laughed. “It’s wonderful. I worked in advertising for fifteen years, in billing, but this is so much more rewarding. You never quite get used to the smell.”
“Well, there are animals everywhere.”
Diane stopped for a moment and looked at me. “I was referring to the ad job.”
“Right.”
The zoo media liaison officer—that was her official title, according to my assignment editor’s notes—hooked a left at a sign with a cartoon depiction of a giant…ostrich? Emu? The bird leered down at us with a massive, gap-toothed smile.
Diane said, “This is exciting, isn’t it? I love babies, even the animal ones. Never had any myself. You, Ms. Sunday?”
“Melody is fine.”
She lifted an arm into the air, waggling a thumbs up. Above her, a big toothy cat in a long wire tube growled at it. She didn’t even notice.
“Your boss, Karen, said you’ve only been with Channel Three a few weeks. How is Atlanta compared to Kansas City?”
I fought the urge to correct her, Big Glasses is not my boss!, but I let it slide.
“Atlanta’s pretty. I’ve never seen so many trees with flowers in my life,” I said. “But Kansas City has a great blues scene. I do miss proper music.”
“We’ve got good music, Melody,” she said and hooked a right below a sign with some type of monkey. This cartoon creature also flashed a gap-toothed smile. Either they were going for some jolly animal theme or the artist-in-residence had a personal gripe with the zoo’s dental plan. “In fact, we’re the birthplace of REM. Their singer John Stipe was born just ten miles north of here!”
“No kidding,” I said, ducking my head under a low-hanging branch she’d glided under.
Excitedly, she spun toward me. “You know he worked at a Waffle House when he was a boy?”
“Huh,” I said. “Were his waffles morose and accusatory as well?”
“So what prompted you to move from Kansas City to our town?”
“Oh,” I said. “My husband got shot dead in the atrium of a run-down apartment complex last December. I’m looking for a change of scenery.”
That stopped her, and she spun toward me. “Oh dear. Oh my, I’m so sorry,” she said. “Shot? I didn’t know it was such a violent city.”
“As much as any other in the US. He was a cop, though.” I shrugged. “Part of the job.”
The moment Diane turned away, she had to jump back as a woman in spiked heels and a power skirt clomped past with mascara streaming down her face. I recognized her as a reporter from one of our competitors, Channel Four. She looked different up close, but that may have just been the feces in her hair.
“As a reminder, Melody,” Diana said, walking more quickly. “No sudden movements around the macaques.”
CHAPTER TWO
When we finally arrived, an excited crowd had gathered at the high wall, looking down into the animal habitat. The new macaque was the star attraction.
News stories about animals guaranteed a ratings windfall.
Not a months’ long investigation into political corruption. Not exposure of systemic bias and favoritism in some multi-billion-dollar corporate hierarchy masquerading as a meritocracy. Not laying bare top-level pharmaceutical fraud, graft, and outright crimes against humanity.
A monkey in a diaper.
Big numbers. Huge. Every time.
So, like a number of other TV reporters in Atlanta, I’d been sent along to get the baby’s first “interview.”
It’s cheesy and embarrassing, but viewers loved that stuff. Although, it wasn’t clear if they actually enjoyed seeing an animal being interviewed or just witnessing the total unease of the reporter trying to do it.
Diane Trainor handed me off to one of the zoo keepers, a leather-skinned older man with short-cropped gray hair.
“The wall of the enclosure is about twenty feet high, so tons of good viewing for our guests,” Gr
Ahead of us, a massive sign: Authorized Personnel Only.
“Our macaques have plenty of room to run around in—logs to scoot along and platforms to get some height.”
Grady pressed a keycard to the lock, and the gate buzzed and popped open.
“If you do encounter one of the macaques up close, please keep a neutral disposition,” he continued, his voice as dry as the concrete beneath my clicking heels. “Primates are perceptually tuned to facial expressions.”
“How many times have you had to give this speech, Grady?” I smiled at him.
He held the door open, letting me inside.
“I suppose once is too many,” he said, his grin as empty as mine. “Your man is here already, getting shots for your program.”
I looked over and saw Doogle, my brother-in-law. He’d been my cameraman for years, and after his brother, my husband, had been killed, I’d convinced him to take the leap from Kansas City to the Atlanta market with me.
“Hey, Doogs,” I said, coming up beside him. “Didn’t I say this city would be where the real action was? We’re in the bigs now, baby. I mean, look. Monkeys!”
“You know your damn clackety-clackety heels just ruined the last twenty seconds of audio, right, Mel?” he said, not looking up from the playing-card sized display on his camera. “Finally get some clean shots of these hairy varmints, and it sounds like off-camera there’s some fat kid rolling around on bubble wrap.”
“The heels make my calves look good.”
“It’s a three-quarters shot,” he said, sneaking a quick glance at my legs. “That’s knees and up. No calves.”
“It gives me Big Calves Energy,” I shrugged and took a step forward to get a better look at the scene.
“Don’t get too close to the fence. I think Regina Alford got monkey shit in her hair.”
“From what I’ve heard, it’s not likely the only body fluid up there.” I looped my fingers into the wire barrier. “How we looking?”
My brother-in-law stood, put his hands onto his lower back and stretched, turning the sunlight above me to shade. Sometimes I forgot how tall the guy was.
“I got a bunch of setup shots and did the interview with Grady McHappyface over there for you.”
“Cool! You’ve done all the hard stuff.”
He grinned. “Naw, you’re the one who has to interview the monkey.” Doogle handed me the wireless mic.
“It’s a macaque,” I said, then turned back to the fence. “How do I get the little bastard near enough to do that?”
My shooter pointed over to Grady, who was standing thirty feet away at a yellow box. One hand was on the phone, the other was waving animatedly through the air.
Doogle nodded toward him. “Zoo dude’s supposed to bring it over.”
A splashing snapped my attention back to the enclosure. I shaded my eyes with a cupped hand and watched three of the creatures frolicking in a circular pond. On the back of one of the red-faced primates, holding on, was a tiny version of its mother. I noticed none of them appeared to be smiling like I’d seen on the signs.
However, they were delighting the smiling crowd by tossing bits of bread to ducks who’d come down near the water. From high up on the wall, I heard a little kid’s voice pierce the Atlanta humidity: “Hey, Momma, just like we do!”
Several others joined in with their own laughter at the undeniably sweet scene. A few of them clapped as one of the macaques arched a marble-sized lump of bread toward the water fowl.
“So cute!” I gushed and shook Doogle’s shoulders as he leaned over his camera again.
“Jesus, can we just get it over with. This is embarrassing.”
“It’s a walk in the park,” I said. “This ain’t the first animal interview we’ve ever done, Doogs.”
Slowly, he stood and put a gentle hand on my chin, turning my head toward him. “Is this the sort of thing that’s going to get us to network news? Atlanta is supposed to be just a way station to NCC, Mel. But we ain’t going to get there with… monkey interviews.”
I shrugged. “They’re macaque.”
Grady hadn’t yet gotten off the phone with whoever he was speaking to. The way he was moving his arms around, gesticulating, I wondered if he was in an argument with his wife. Or his girlfriend. Or his wife about his girlfriend.
“I’m burning up out here.” I stepped closer to the fence again. “What’s the baby’s name?”
“Banda.”
“Right,” I said, then raised my voice. “Banda! Hey Banda, come on over!”
Doogle chuckled and took a half step away. “Last reporter who did that got poop to the head.”
“Just get it on camera if it happens.” I sighed. “Better than a one-sided interview with an animal.”
I drew in a breath to call out again but then saw Grady making a beeline for me. He didn’t look happy.
Above us, I heard more cheers.
“Get a picture! The monkeys are feeding them bread!”
“I love it!”
“Monkeys and ducks! This is the best day ever!”
The zookeeper slowed as he looked over at the animal enclosure. About ten feet away, he stopped, took a step forward, and put his fingers through the fence.
I walked over.
“What’s up, Grady? When do we get our exclusive interview?”
Mumbling to himself, he grabbed his radio then had second thoughts and reattached it to his hip.
“Seems like Banda’s mother is keeping him close,” Grady said, not looking toward me. “I think you’ll have to do with just the shots you’ve got.”
“Fine by me.”
He then looked at Doogle, frowning. “Your man about done there?”
“Yeah, pretty much,” I said, happy to not humiliate myself with yet another goofy animal interview. I’d done far too many in my ten-year career. “I’ll ask him if he needs anything else, and we’ll get—”
“Can you ask him if he saw where the other two went?” Grady said, finally looking at me. His eyes were wider than before. “I can see five in there, six with the baby. But I only see—”
That’s when all hell broke loose.
As if on cue, the two missing macaques burst out from underneath one of the log stacks, running full-tilt toward the ducks who’d come closer, lured in by the tasty chunks of bread. Two of the primates by the water also launched forward, their limbs flailing, and moving incredibly fast.
This was some real primate SEAL Team Six shit right here.
On the wall, the tone of the voices of the public shifted.
“What are they doing?”
“Are they playing with the ducks?”
“Get a picture!”
Grady gripped the fence tighter, muttering to himself. He then spun toward Doogle, shouting: “Turn that camera off!”
“As if,” Doogle muttered, catching every second of the action, his brow flush against the eyepiece, zooming and panning, ignoring the fevered cries of the other man. He was using the camera mic for sound, so no way was he going to screw up the shot by shouting back.
So I spoke for him: “He’s nearly done.”
The zookeeper jammed a finger into my face then opened his mouth to say something but was cut off by a horrendous “scroooonkkk” sound coming from the enclosure.
Above us, in the air, two of the bread-loving ducks had gotten free.
However, one had not and was now being gripped from either side by the crafty creatures in the habitat. I watched as the screeching pair of primates pulled and pulled on the panicked bird, until, snap!, they fell apart. One had just a detached wing.
The other had an entire duck, minus one wing.
I turned to Grady. “Oh, that monkey got its wish!”
The zoo man put his hand to his eyes then dragged it down the length of his face. “They’re macaques.”
CHAPTER THREE
Three weeks earlier
After all these years, no one was more surprised that Carl DiCapo was still alive than Carl himself. However, the longer he had to stay on the phone with the asshole “boss” in Atlanta, the greater the risk that state of existence might falter. Maybe by his own hand.
