Read Online The Sixth Station by Linda Stasi - Free Book Online Page B

any of them back, I called the desk.
    “What the hell have you been doing?” Dickie screamed into the phone without once pausing to hear what I had to say. “Do you not know this is the biggest story of the frigging year? Have you written your column? We want forty inches—more if you want. What was it like? The kiss? Wet? What? Why you? Direct from Bob, put in how disgusted you were by the whole thing and that you want the world to know that this baby killer should die.”
    “But Dickie—” I tried to say.
    To which he responded, “Get it done in fifteen minutes. We’re putting out a special because of this, and we’re going big and going early.”
    “Am I columning on it?”
    “You bet.” And with that he again hung up.
    Father handed me coffee and a big cognac, while I feverishly wrote and then filed a column exactly twenty-three minutes later using the present tense. (Newspaper reporters always write for the next day, but if you’re filing online, you write in the present tense.)
Kiss of Death
By Alessandra Russo
Nothing would, could, should have, in my life, ever prepared me for what happened to me today.
Not kissed by a lover nor a friend but by someone I thought of as a mass murderer. And after nearly being mobbed by reporters because the man I thought of as a mass murderer had kissed me, that man once again sought me out.
At the end of today’s proceedings he came up to me and whispered words that I still can’t decipher or comprehend.
I can see by the instant blogs and rush-to-air / should-know-better newscasts that I am now considered a “friend” of ben Yusef’s, someone who’s known him secretly or, as one idiot blogger maintains, “for longer than she will admit.”
Admit? Admit to what?
No, I’d never met this man before in my life. No, he’s not my Facebook “friend,” and no, we aren’t secret lovers who plan to overthrow the world.
I don’t know why I was singled out. I still can’t figure it out—and I would love to say that I don’t want to figure it out either and be done with it, but I do of course want to figure it out.
Why me? What does he want with me?
I’d like to think that it’s because I’m so important, so irresistible, and so well read, but, hey, that’s just not true.
So, really, here’s how it went down, and this is all I know myself:
As the reporters scuffled in front of the UN today, my pal, video blogger and Fox 5 reporter Dona Grimm, and I managed to steal some space at the curb. We expected to get a good look at the suspect from that angle. We got the shock of our lives instead.
For reasons I still can’t explain, except for maybe dumb luck or bad luck, the van holding the suspect, Demiel ben Yusef, stopped right in front of us. As you know by now, as he exited the van, shackled hand and foot, we saw him (and this I can positively attest to) nod his head so slightly that it was almost more of a thought than an action.
At that moment, everything stopped for me. The roar of the crowd, the insanity of the mob, the aggression of the reporters, and even the movement of the federal agents turned into slow motion, or maybe sluggish is a better term.
Then I found that even I, intrepid, note-taking reporter, lowered my pad as ben Yusef ambled toward me. He stared at me—and I was shocked to see a depth of feeling in those eyes (and I can’t for sure explain what the feeling was), and then without warning, he leaned into me and kissed me on the mouth!
So what does it feel like to be kissed by an alleged terrorist? I’d like to say that it’s no different from any kiss I’ve ever received, but that would be a lie.
It was, in fact, not like any kiss I’ve ever received. For one thing, the world has never stopped when I was kissed before. I always thought that was just an expression! But in fact, the world did stop; everything seemed so calm and serene in the midst of the madness.
Yes, his mouth was like the mouth of any other man, but then again, not like the