Pizza, Selfie, Corruption

As soon as she woke up, Goldie headed straight for the fridge. She’d passed out before being able to consume her midnight snack, so this morning, cold Sesame Chicken was the first thing on her mind. The cool air of the hangover sanctuary soothed her face, but her bleary eyes failed to resolve the icebox’s contents into the familiar cubes and rounds of Chinese takeout. Instead, the mirage of a flat, rectangular box stubbornly refused to fade away even as she brought herself down to eye-level. Pizza. How was this possible?

The answer revealed his brown, shaggy head. Schafer stumbled into the kitchen, rubbing his eyes.

“Fuuuuuck, Goldie. Why did we do that to ourselves? Pass me that pizza, will ya? And the OJ – need to start mopping up these toxins.”

Goldie handed over the box and slammed the fridge door. Remembering the juice, she opened the fridge again, extracted the jug, and slammed the door again. The impact caused a single photo to escape the pull of its magnet and flutter to the floor. Goldie rolled her eyes and set the jug of juice down, as Schafer snagged two tumblers from the dish drainer.

Opening the box, Goldie sniffed at its contents. Only Schafer could make her spend the night on the couch in her own house and have breakfast pizza after a bender, instead of what was right and proper. She reached in.

“We have to make up for all those months of drinking nothing but coffee to keep us going through all the bullshit,” Goldie mumbled through a mouthful of pizza. Taking the time to chew and swallow, she continued. “Those bastards are going down. I wish I could see the look on Congressman Baccus’ face when his aide hands him tomorrow morning’s papers.”

She poured a measure of OJ into her glass and downed it in a healthy swig. “I can’t believe I don’t see you for the last four months of this, and then you show up just in time with the key piece of evidence I needed to convince my editor to go to print. I’d given up after sending two months’ worth of increasingly frantic texts and voicemails. I thought you’d bailed.”

“Even when I was doing the research I wasn’t sure I wanted to, and I wasn’t sure I was going to give it to you if I found anything,” Schafer countered, frowning and swirling the juice in his glass. “But when I finally saw what it was – when I saw the scope of the corruption, I realized you were right. I knew you’d be stuck without the diary and I knew my source would never come to you himself so…”

Sighing, Goldie rinsed her glass in the sink and then headed out of the kitchen. “I’m off to shower and get ready. Mr. Stern doesn’t get in until ten, but I want this waiting on his desk, and me waiting in my office. Today is going to be grueling.” Looking back at Schafer, she smiled. “I’m glad you’re back.”

Once they had taken turns getting showered and dressed, Goldie went through the copy of the diary again, mentally reassuring herself that the information was correct, and not hallucinated in the throes of last night’s drunken celebratory stupor. Schafer’s source had really come through. She grabbed her phone and called him over.

“Come, I’m so happy I didn’t have to take this selfie alone today. We started this together and we’re finishing it together!”

Schafer smiled as Goldie arranged herself around him and snapped the photo. “Where do you even get these things printed out these days, anyway? You’re the only person I know who prints selfies.”

Goldie grinned. “Evidence! It’s all for journalistic purposes, I swear! Now let’s go. You’re driving, by the way.”

As they drove, Schafer turned to Goldie. “My source wants to meet you. Let’s stop off quickly and get that done, it won’t delay you too much. Trust me, you definitely want to do this.”

Screwing up her face, Goldie nodded. “Alright, but we *have* to make it quick. Why are you and your source playing all this cloak and dagger stuff, man? Is it really necessary?”

Schafer looked concerned. “Goldie, this is serious stuff! Careers are at risk, not just the congressman’s! What you’re going to publish tomorrow is going to turn things upside down. People want to be careful, you can’t blame them.” He turned onto a side street and pulled up in front of a nondescript office building, no different from its neighbours. A sign listed the building’s tenants in font so small it was impossible to read from road distance. Schafer got out and walked around, but Goldie was already on the sidewalk. “I wish you’d let me be chivalrous at least sometimes,” he whined.

“I don’t have time for chivalry. Let’s get this shit done,” was Goldie’s only response.

They walked into the building and Schafer hustled her down the hallway. Goldie got the sense that it wasn’t a good idea to meet anyone going to or coming from the blank doorways they passed. Finally they seemed to reach the right one. Schafer tapped lightly. “It’s me. Schafer. I have Goldie.”

The door swung open and they stepped into a surprisingly well-lit reception room, manned by two man who could only be body guards. Schafer sat on the mundane loveseat, which was flanked by two equally mundane armchairs. He didn’t seem surprised or perturbed, so Goldie also played it cool. She heard the deep bass of voices muffled by the door to the inner office – all she could tell was that there was more than one male in there. In short order, that door opened and two people stepped out. Goldie stared, utterly stunned.

One was Mr. Stern, her editor at the Daily Standard. But the other man, looking so piercingly at her, looking so real and so solid, was someone she thought had been dead for ten years…her father.