The Money Shot Read online

  [ the ]

  money

  shot

  Glenn Deir

  BREAKWATER

  P.O. Box 2188 | St. John’s | NL | Canada | A1C 6E6

  www.breakwaterbooks.com

  LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

  Deir, Glenn, 1958-, author

  The money shot / Glenn Deir.

  ISBN 978-1-55081-657-0 (paperback)

  I. Title.

  PS8607.E4824M66 2016 C813’.6 C2016-905776-3

  Copyright ©2016 Glenn Deir

  Cover Photo ©Shutterstock | Vlad_Nikon

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright licence, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.

  We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $153 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada and the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador through the Department of Business, Tourism, Culture and Rural Development for our publishing activities. PRINTED AND BOUND IN CANADA.

  Breakwater Books is committed to choosing papers and materials for our books that help to protect our environment. To this end, this book is printed on a recycled paper that is certified by the Forest Stewardship Council®.

  For Bryan Hamilton

  A fine shooter and an even better friend

  [ contents ]

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  money shot

  noun

  1: the scene in a pornographic movie in which a male actor ejaculates

  2: a very important, impressive, or memorable picture or scene

  Merriam-Webster Dictionary

  [ one ]

  Sebastian Hunter needed God to reach down from the heavens, tap the house, and finish the job. Just his index finger would be fine, the one Michelangelo painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, the same one that created Adam. The house refused to topple. It defied the law of gravity. The situation called for divine intervention.

  “What’s holding it up?” asked Sebastian.

  Bruce rocked back from the viewfinder of his Sony high-definition camcorder. The camera stared forward, motionless, locked on the tripod.

  “Stubbornness?” suggested Bruce.

  “Doesn’t it know I have a deadline?”

  Police Line—Do Not Cross fluttered between Sebastian and the slanting house. He stood at the end of the driveway. Red bricks with splashes of grey led up to the danger zone.

  It had been the Andersons’ “dream home.” A two-storey colonial with cedar shakes, nestled in old-growth forest atop a steep headland that offered panoramic sunsets over Paradise Point.

  That was before the storm.

  On the map it was called Loon Bluff. The less-charitable locals had turned that into Loony Bluff. The Andersons had been warned not to build there. Sebastian heard the I-told-them-so chorus all day.

  The bluff always had a reputation for tumbling rocks, but the Andersons couldn’t resist the view. They built twenty metres from the bank, a sensible and safe distance they thought. Neither they nor their architect had counted on Tropical Storm Fran.

  Fran had blown through only yesterday and she made quite the impression. Gale force winds whipped up the bay. Waves as big as buses pounded the bluff, chewing their way inland. Torrential rain soaked the ground and turned the soil into soup. Landslides lopped off the Andersons’ front lawn, dragging a slate patio and matching Adirondack chairs to their demise. The storm gnawed at the earth underneath the basement, tearing off chunks.

  Word quickly spread around town that something bad was happening to the Anderson house. Dozens of gawkers gathered for the deathwatch, smart phones at the ready. Their tweets and posts acted like chum to the sharks of the CBC newsroom. Sebastian could smell blood.

  He and Bruce had hit the road before sunrise. They arrived in time to capture the house tipping forward. Boards snapped viciously enough to make children cover their ears. It should have slipped over the edge, the way a sinking ship slips beneath the waves. A smooth descent into the abyss, but the house would have none of it. It stopped sliding and teetered on the rim.

  “A million-dollar home is on the verge of being swallowed up by a million-dollar view,” said Sebastian.

  •

  Monotony deserved to die. Sebastian juggled words, looking for just the right combination to amuse himself. He didn’t notice three men in hard hats and safety vests walking down the road.

  “Don’t get any closer,” barked one of them.

  Sebastian glanced back only to discover the rebuke was directed at a teenage girl posing for selfies while leaning backwards over the police tape. A posse of paparazzi couldn’t have generated as many camera clicks.

  “Kids today,” said Sebastian, shaking his head with mock disapproval. “Such narcissists.”

  “Are you the same Sebastian Hunter who said, ‘Vanity, thy name is TV reporter.’?” asked Bruce.

  “Yes, but does Instagram really need more I’m Awesome pictures?”

  Sebastian watched the hardhat trio drift away. Each had a reflective yellow X on his back. XXX. Side by side they walked up the hill, superimposing themselves against the dawn sky. XXX over crimson.

  “Amsterdam’s red-light district,” exclaimed Sebastian. “Inspiration at last.”

  Sebastian needed an audience; even an audience of one would do in a pinch. You can’t waste a good line on just yourself. Bruce’s face was jammed against the viewfinder. Sebastian whispered, “Do you know what porn and TV news have in common?”

  Bruce’s closed eye popped open. He pulled back from the viewfinder and shook his head. There was no turning back to the camera until Sebastian uttered his quote of the day. A quote that would delight Bruce’s black humour. A quote you would never say into a microphone.

  “Someone’s going to get fucked and you’d better get the climax on camera.”

  Bruce covered his mouth to stifle his laughter. The camera’s microphone might hear. Such a sound at such a time would not do. Better to leave it for the sanctuary of the cameramen’s room.

  “How much longer?” Bruce asked quietly. Sebastian shrugged. Bruce checked the record light for the umpteenth time. It blinked on. His picture was sharp. No need to adjust the focus. The audio metre bounced with the wind. What he needed was a climax. And until it happened, the camera would roll.

  Sebastian could tolerate surliness, disinterest, timidity, boredom, even the occasional episode of sloth, but missing the money shot—never. There’d be hell to pay. A full-blown rant in front of the entire newsroom about how he had been sabotaged by incompetence. Sebastian always got the video he demanded. It wasn’t worth the grief to do otherwise.

  The impending calamity electrified Twitter. Sebastian’s hashtag #HouseOfCards was trending. Re-tweets burst with OMG and WTF hysteria. He had the Twitterites hooked. Now he had to deliver the goods.

  Sebastian extended his index finger, lining up the tip with the lopsided roof. He pushed down.

  Come on, just let go.

  •

  Sebastian hit End Call with panache. “Thank you, God, thank you, Jesus,” he said, lifting his eyes to the heavens.

  Bruce stopped inserting fresh batteries into the wireless microphone. “What’s up?”

  “The
premier and that house have a lot in common. Both are hanging on by their fingernails and both will fall.”

  “What have you got?” Bruce mimicked Sebastian’s eagerness.

  “Too early to say. It’s just a tip, but a good one. I could be calling sources right now if not for bloody radio.”

  CBC Radio demanded to be fed. The beast had a voracious appetite; it devoured news every hour. No matter how many baskets of stories reporters dumped into its gaping maw, it could never be sated.

  Sebastian compared radio to a fruit fly—a nuisance and impossible to swat. What a waste of time to describe what pictures could easily show. His future father-in-law called radio the senior service. Sebastian called it the senior-citizen service. News for the horse and buggy crowd. Despite his best attempts at ridicule, The Desk still insisted on a live report during Radio Noon.

  Notwithstanding his disregard for the visually reluctant, Sebastian would not have anyone say he mailed it in. He had professional pride. If grandpa and grandma needed a picture painted he would paint a masterpiece.

  The space between the basement and the floor joists looked like a V lying on its side. Sebastian held up a protractor borrowed from a retired geometry teacher down the road, lining up the cavity with the degrees.

  “Unbelievable. Thirty degrees. Bruce, that house is tilted thirty degrees.”

  Sebastian had an angle of inclination but who besides math geeks would understand. Certainly not the boss’s mother. Evan Forbes often demanded rewrites with the admonition, “Mom won’t get it.” A seventy-year-old woman, whose comprehension faltered after knit one purl one, was an unseen guardian of clarity for Canada’s public broadcaster.

  Still, Mrs. Forbes was a useful yardstick. If she could grasp a concept, anyone could. Sebastian needed a common item to illustrate the angle. Something simple for listeners to imagine.

  Nothing popped into his head. Perhaps Warren Zevon could bring out an idea. Sebastian opened the music icon on his iPhone. Zevon was a favourite. Sebastian admired his bizarre lyrics, his dark humour wrapped up in rock and roll. Zevon wrote about an excitable boy.

  Well, he went down to dinner in his Sunday best.

  Excitable boy, they all said.

  Sebastian hit pause. “He went down to dinner…stairs.”

  A quick Internet search on his iPhone told him the typical staircase was thirty degrees. Even Evan’s doltish mother could picture a house sliding down a staircase.

  Sebastian felt like an excitable boy.

  •

  If anyone could make soil erosion sexy, it was Sebastian Hunter. The trick was to ignore soil erosion, more specifically the geotechnical analysis. Sebastian interviewed a geologist prattling on about a silt-clay matrix, glacial sediment, and wave action; an explanation only the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers could possibly understand, or care about. Normal eyes glazed over. Sebastian could at least fake interest. He opened his laptop and scanned the ten-minute interview with the jargon-riddled geologist before homing in on the ten seconds he could actually use.

  “Nothing but a miracle can save that house,” said the geologist, his voice trailing off. “It’s just a matter of time before it topples over. I wish I could do something, but I can’t.”

  Sebastian had a reputation for getting good clip, and that was good clip. No need to ask another question. Thank the guest. Down tools.

  Compassion from an expert was a small coup, but Sebastian knew he needed more than that to make the victory bells peal. The house in peril had owners. Getting the distraught couple on camera would put a lump in the province’s throat. Sebastian had them in his crosshairs.

  “Get ‘em while they’re in shock,” he muttered to himself.

  The Reporter’s Creed guided all of Sebastian’s actions. The longer upset people think about a request, the less likely they will agree to it. So make the approach early, be empathetic, and push gently. The technique rarely failed him. Battered women, grieving parents, scammed investors. Sebastian had convinced them all to expose their wounds on TV.

  John Anderson stared at his listing house, his arms wrapped around his wife, her face buried in his chest. He rubbed her back with soothing, almost indiscernible movement. All filmed at a shrewd distance, a zoom lens catching every tear running down Beth Anderson’s cheek. Sebastian waited until they broke apart to sidle over.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Anderson, I’m Sebastian Hunter with CBC News. I’m terribly sorry for all that’s happened.”

  “Please,” Mr. Anderson said, holding up his hand to signal stop. “We just want to be left alone.”

  “I understand that. I don’t want to make your lives more difficult than they already are, but your house is news across the country. Millions of people, millions of home owners, are worried about you. They want to know if they can help.”

  “We have all the help we need,” said Mrs. Anderson. “The police, the fire department, government officials, our neighbours—they’ve been wonderful. We can’t thank them enough.”

  “You can thank everyone through us,” said Sebastian. “I’ve seen dozens of people in hardhats around here today. I can’t imagine you’ve met all of them. Use us to send a message. Let them know how much you appreciate what they’re doing.”

  Mrs. Anderson dabbed her eyes. “I don’t think I could get through an interview without breaking down.”

  Exactly what Sebastian wanted to hear. He was counting on tears, but squelched any trace of enthusiasm for her grief.

  “I’m not here to make you look bad. If you feel you can’t go on, we can stop the interview and let you compose yourself.”

  Mr. Anderson touched his wife’s face and wiped away a tear with his thumb. “It’s up to you, honey.”

  “I’d ask a few questions about what happened, what this place means to you and the gratitude you have for the folks trying to help. You don’t have to answer any question you’re not comfortable with.”

  “If we talk to you, won’t everyone else want an interview too?” asked Mr. Anderson.

  Time for the clincher assurance. “Probably, but you don’t have to give them one. You’re under no obligation to talk to anyone, including me. You could say, ‘We already talked to the CBC and that’s our only interview today.’ ”

  Mrs. Anderson sighed and looked at her condemned house. Mr. Anderson ran his fingers back through his grey hair.

  “My camera is just right over there. We’d be done in about five minutes.”

  Mrs. Anderson bit her lip. “Let’s do it, John. People have been so good to us.”

  “Are you sure?”

  She nodded and pulled a tissue from her pocket.

  “I’ll be right back,” said Sebastian. He strolled over to Bruce and gave him a discreet thumbs-up.

  •

  Sebastian’s scoop demanded his TV script be overhauled. Here & Now viewers deserved uncomplicated, catchy words to complement the gripping video. Time to put pen to paper, though in his case it meant finger to iPhone. He resisted pointing out the irony of Paradise Point in the opening line. Where was the sport in that? He could do better. Give the viewer something clever, something bordering on the poetic. He always read his script out loud. The words had to sound spoken, not written. The ear was the best judge.

  They say home is where the heart is.

  Both home and heart are broken in Paradise Point.

  Still, he couldn’t ignore the irony altogether. He’d work in a reference somehow.

  Living in a fool’s paradise.

  “Cruel.” He wagged his finger at his iPhone. “Viewers would be offended.” He deleted the words as quickly as he had typed them.

  Trouble in paradise.

  “Pedestrian. Every hack songwriter uses it.”

  Paradise lost.

  “That’s the one.” Sebastian felt pleased.

  “You know, one day that phone is going to talk back to you,” said Bruce.

  “It already is. It’s saying, ‘If it’s good enough for John Milton, it�
�s good enough for me.’ ”

  “You’re writing for the eggheads at the university now?”

  “Bruce, I’m trying to raise standards here. It’s an epic poem and even though nobody’s ever read it, everybody knows the title. The great unwashed will get it. And if any of the pipe puffers are watching tonight, they just might snort approval. It’s not the fall of man; it’s the fall of a man’s house.”

  And what a day for a fall. The sky was royal blue. The bay belonged in the Caribbean. Turquoise and inviting. A light breeze occasionally caused ripples.

  A thunderous rip filled ears. Heads wrenched with whiplash speed. Sebastian gasped. The diagonal house slid, tearing away from the foundation. It plunged towards rocks with the vertical form of a diver wanting a smooth entry into a pool. A skeleton of floor joists whooshed past the edge of the cliff. Crunching and splintering echoed round and round the bluff. The house growled.

  Sebastian made a fist, cocked his arm and dropped it.

  “YES-S-S-S-S-S.”

  His fingers madly typed a note to The Desk.

  Fire up the bird. House is gone. Have the Money Shot.

  Sebastian ran to the satellite truck. “CNN, here I come.”

  •

  Paris in the spring. Was there anything more pleasant? Janice Stone didn’t think so. She savoured duck confit and sautéed potatoes, complemented by a glass of Bordeaux from Saint-Emilion. No need to rush. Her flight out of de Gaulle was hours away.

  “Regarde ça!” said a male voice behind her.

  Janice turned to see a couple at the next table, the beau pointing at the bar, his lunch date heeding his advice. Janice followed suit and saw a bartender mesmerized by a TV sitting on the beer cooler. It showed a house at an odd angle; Sebastian Hunter appeared on the screen.

  “Monte le volume!” shouted Janice.

  No one moved to turn up the sound. Janice bolted to the bar. The woman on TV sobbed as her husband held her close.

  “This house was our dream home. We put our heart and soul into it. I can’t believe this is happening.”