“Come on. Come on. Gimme.” Her cigarette bobbed as she gestured for the powerlines. Carrying them around to the side of the van, she left them with the others against the front wheel and came back for another load. On the third trip back, she picked up a clipboard from where it lay on the van floor, stopped a second to speak into the mike on the wire curving from her earphone. The cigarette bumped plastic and lost its ash. When she finished talking, the other men with the earphones began moving much faster.

She took one of the ballpoints out of her blouse pocket—she had at least half a dozen pens and pencils in there in one of those plastic pen-cases that have a lip that goes over the pocket edge—made a mark on the clipboard, and put it back. She must have smudged the paper, because she looked at her hand, rubbed her fingers together, frowning, then wiped her hand on her gray skirt.

Through the van doors I saw banks of tape recorders and electrical equipment. There was an old bridge table in front. Inside, a guy was rearing back in a folding chair, reading a Fantastic Four comic and sipping from a Styrofoam coffee cup.

When I looked back, the woman was walking towards me. A man in a sports jacket, also with headphones (all the other guys were in shirt sleeves), wearing a string tie like a line of blood down his blue shirt, came with her. I heard her say: “… on in four minutes.”

The man said: “This on-the-spot ought to keep the ghouls out there in Radio Land happy.”

The woman said: “Too bad it isn’t TV. Then we could go inside and show them the mess.” She frowned at the barge. “Have you been in?”

The man shook his head. “And I don’t want to. I’ve got one of the cops lined up to describe it.” He shook his head again. “He gave me a little sample. Mary, this Harkner kid is a real monster!”

“Alleged monster,” the woman said. “You’ve been doing fine up till now. But if the station gets into a lawsuit because you leave out an adjective, Martin will have your left testicle for breakfast, my dear, on a gold toothpick.”

“A real, alleged monster,” the man said. “Okay?”

But she was running her finger down the clipboard. “Let me see.… Oh, here. Lend me your pen a minute—oh, never mind.” She took one out of her pocket, a yellow one, this time, with a blue cap. She made a note and put it back. “You’ve got somebody looking out for all your interviewees so they don’t run off?”

“Yeah—if they haven’t run off anyway. Don’t worry. It’ll go.”

She turned up two pages, took out another pen, made another note. “Teddy’s giving you a thirty-second delay.”

“Why not just five?”