Suck It Up by Brian Meehl Page B

like. They didn’t fire up cameras and start barking questions until she walked up the stoop of the town house. She ignored them, making sure they didn’t see her face. If she stayed incognito she could return later with her own camera and interview some of the media jackals feeding America its daily dose of sensation.
    Moving down the hallway to the apartment door, she brimmed with excitement. Her video was getting more Michael Moore by the minute. And she was about to pounce on her two main targets: Penny Truly Dredful and Morning McFaker.
    She and her mother lived in the bottom two floors of the four-story town house. The top floors were occupied by an elderly couple who traveled a lot. They’d chosen a good time to be in Europe.
    Portia unlocked the door and moved into the kitchen, which looked out on the back garden. She dropped her backpack on the table and ran up the spiral staircase. On the way to her room, she noticed the guest room door was shut. She could burst in on Morning later. Right now it was more important to spring a trap on her mother. She grabbed her Handycam, went back downstairs, and was shooting by the time she entered her mother’s office.
    Penny looked up from her desk and saw the camera. “What are you doing?”
    â€œHow much are they paying you for passing off a missing orphan as a vampire?”
    Penny stood up and started to shoo Portia out. “Okay, you think I’m crazy—again. But clients like this only come around once in a lifetime.” She managed to herd Portia, still shooting, into the living room. “Now go. I have a ton to do.”
    The door shut in Portia’s face. She turned the camera on herself and reported, “Obviously, Ms. Penny Dredful, of Diamond Sky PR, has drunk the Kool-Aid. Now, to find another Kool-Aid drinker: Mr. Morning McCobb.”
    She went upstairs, knocked on the guest room door, and made sure the camera was recording. There was no answer. She knocked again. No answer. She opened the door. He wasn’t there. She pointed the camera at the neatly made bed and added her commentary. “What do you know? A con artist who makes his bed. The nicer they are, the more dangerous they are, right?” She turned the camera on herself again. “Or have I, Portia Dredful, seen too many horror movies? Whatever the case, I may have reason to fear for my life. Not because he’s a”—she bugged her eyes in mock fear—“vampire, but because pathological liars ramp up to psychos when they get caught.” She pushed a little closer to camera and whispered ominously, “I hope you’re not watching this on
America’s Bloodiest Home Videos.
”
    As she turned off the camera, she got a creepy feeling from what she’d just said. She thought about deleting it. “Get over it,” she scolded herself. This was no time for editing. That’s what postproduction was about,
after
she got all the footage she could. Which reminded her, she didn’t have one frame of Morning yet.
Sucko
wouldn’t exactly work if she didn’t have footage of the kid con artist.
    After checking for him in the upstairs bathroom, she headed back downstairs. Coming down the spiral staircase, she stopped cold. The door to the back garden was slightly ajar. It was always locked. She raised her camera, got a shot, and whispered, “We have an intruder. Or one of those reporters has crossed the line.” Her stomach plunged at another thought. “Or Morning has flown the coop.”
    The possibility was devastating. If he was gone for good, she’d never get footage of him. She cursed herself for being a coward the night before, for not knocking on his door and getting the interview. She cursed herself for going to school, for missing the story of a lifetime. She cursed herself for not obeying her first rule of documentary film-making:
Do it like the coolest newswoman to ever report from the hot spots