Frisk Me(8)

Ava pulled out her phone and pulled up her video player before shoving the phone in his face. “Yeah, but have you seen…?”

Mihail made a grunting sound and tried to push her hand away. “I know, I know, I’ve seen it.”

Ava leaned toward him, holding the screen out so they could both watch it. For all of Mihail’s fussing, he didn’t look away.

“Are you seeing what I’m seeing, Mihail?”

“Grainy, shitty-ass movie recording?”

“Pretend for a second that you’re not a damn cameraman.” She pointed. “That is Luc Moretti, son of a previous police commissioner. Handsome huh? Oh, and what’s that? He’s running to the railing and jumping headfirst into the stank East River? Whatever could he be doing…oh look!”

Even though she’d seen the video dozens, if not hundreds, of times, both she and Mihail watched the grainy footage wobble as the tourist with the phone dashes to the railing where Luc had gone over, showing him swimming easily toward a small ladder.

A tiny pigtailed little girl is in tow.

But the story doesn’t stop there. She and Mihail both watched as Luc easily hauls himself and the little girl out of the water.

Ava’s eyes watered as they always do when it becomes apparent that the little girl wasn’t breathing.

She’d seen the videos too often to count, but every damned time she felt her heart stop and then swell as Luc Moretti leans down and begins giving the little girl CPR.

Ava let out a gush of relieved air when the little girl turns her head and coughs up water, before being scooped up by her hysterical mother as Officer Moretti sits back on his heels.

The tourist holding the camera focuses mainly on the reunion between mother and daughter, but Ava always watched Luc in the corner of the screen. Watched as his chin dipped to his heaving chest, his palms resting against his thighs.

His face lifted, and he looked at the girl, and there was relief, obviously.

But there was something else in his expression too. Ava lifted her thumbnail and bit. There was something else.

She wanted to know what it was.

She would find out what it was.

“Yeah, yeah it’s great,” Mihail muttered, pushing her phone away from his face and interrupting her thoughts.

“Right?” Ava poked him in his bony side with a finger. “It couldn’t be more perfect if it was a Spider-Man movie.”

“Spider-Man? That’s not wimpy Peter Parker; that guy is Clark Kent.”

Ava ignored this. She didn’t need Mihail’s reminder that Luc was tall, broad shouldered, and gorgeously dark-haired. She was doing her best to forget that little fact.

“Okay, now look at this one…”

“I told you, I’ve seen the damned videos.”

Ava pulled up the second video anyway. This one was shorter. Less than a minute, but it was every bit as poignant.

Taken a couple months ago in the middle of a late-winter cold snap, the frail figure of a homeless man sitting in the deserted Diamond District, his back against the wall of a long-closed jewelry shop, huddled against cold.

The now familiar figure of Officer Moretti approaches, his footsteps slowing as he spots the man. The video has no sound, but it’s easy to see Luc crouching down, speaking to the man, his face kind, his smile easy.

The conversation apparently doesn’t go the way Luc wants, because for a moment Luc’s chin drops against his chest, as though in defeat. Then Luc moves, shrugging out of his winter coat.

Luc extends the jacket to the man, who doesn’t reach for it. Then, incredibly, Luc creeps closer, gently maneuvering the man so that the warm coat is wrapped around him.

As though sensing the camera on him, the homeless man slowly turns his head, finds the camera before giving a heart-wrenching smile as he clenches the coat to his shoulders.

Officer Moretti stands, wearing nothing but his uniform as it starts to snow.

The camera jerks to the side before going to black, but the jarring end to the video doesn’t ruin its impact.

If anything, it highlighted the spontaneity of the moment, giving the watcher the sense that he or she was a spectator to a private moment.

Not so private anymore, Ava thought.

The coat video had been taken a few weeks before the East River one, but the tourist behind the camera hadn’t uploaded it until after the later video had been picked up by a small local news station.

From there, it had exploded.

And Ava had every intention of making it explode even more.

“Okay, you proved your point. It’s good stuff,” Mihail said, finally pushing her phone away and putting the key in the ignition. “I just don’t see why we have to be the ones to cover it. Especially if this cop guy doesn’t even want to be in the story.”

Ava put her phone away, faking confidence she didn’t entirely feel. “He’ll come around. Once the advertising offers start rolling in, he’ll be kissing my four-inch heels.”

“Which are where, exactly?” Mihail looked pointedly at her flip-flops.

Ava pretended she didn’t hear him.

“You know, I’ve never seen Gwen Garrison in anything other than five-inch spikes,” Mihail said.

Ava inspected her manicure. Yup. Chipped. “Your point?”

He shrugged as he turned the ignition. “Just that Gwen’s been anchor for a good many years now, and you’ve been chasing crap stories for how long? Maybe it’s time to accept that you’re destined for the gritty, in-the-trenches journalism and not the plastic talking head thing. And maybe you like it that way.”