"Pepsie Dobbins?" asked a muffled female voice.
"Yes?"
"I can't identify myself, but if you want a story that will get you back into the good graces of ANC, you should go over to St. Elizabeth's and ask to see Gila Gingold. "
The line went dead.
"Who was that?" Buck wanted to know.
"I'm not sure, but it sounded like the First Lady. She sometimes leaks stuff to me."
"What did she say?"
"She said it was Gila Gingold who's at St. Elizabeth's."
"That doesn't seem plausible," said Buck.
"You should talk," snorted Pepsie. "Get your coat and camera. We're looking into this."
"Can't it wait? I want to hear what Hardy Bricker says. He's my hero."
"Get a new hero."
CONGRESSMAN GILA GINGOLD sat at his desk in the Capitol Building trying to decide whether to paint the kronosaur gray green or green gray when the telephone rang. Kronosaurs were giant prehistoric crocodiles, and no one knew what color they were supposed to be.
He was alone in his office, his staff having gone home. Congressman Gingold would have gone home, too, but his wife was there. She took a dim view of his fascination with dinosaurs. Wouldn't see Jurassic Park once, never mind six times, which was the number of times Gila Gingold had sat through the film, not counting video viewings. With a film that great, video viewings didn't count.
Gila was trying to get the bottle of gray-green enamel open as the ringing continued incessently. Deciding it might be his wife, the congressman from Georgia set aside the bottle and plastic-model kronosaur he'd assembled in his off-hours and lifted the desk receiver.
"Yes?" he said guardedly, because you never knew.
"Fred Flowers, BCN News. I'm calling to confirm a story that's sweeping the city."
"What story?"
"That Gila Gingold is under observation at St. Elizabeth's after an incident on the White House lawn."
"It's a crock!" Gila Gingold roared, coming to his feet. "And it's 'Gila' with a hard G. Not 'Hila.' A Hila is a Spanish lizard. I'm Gila."
"You're Gila Gingold?"
"It's Gila. Hard G, damnit!"
"Would you mind commenting on your alleged biting of the Presidential ankle?"
"That never happened, you stegosaur!" Gingold roared.
"Then why have you been committed to St. Elizabeth's? Allegedly?"
"Idiot!" snapped Gila Gingold, slamming down the phone and grabbing his overcoat. He was so mad he knocked the plastic kronosaur to the floor without noticing. When he slammed the office door after him, the array of plastic tyrannosaurs, allosaurs and velociraptors shook on their shelves.
AT ST. ELIZABETH'S, no one in authority would talk to Pepsie Dobbins.
"Are you denying Gila Gingold has been committed here?" she insisted. "Remember, you're on camera."
They were in the office of the hospital's spokesman. Behind Pepsie, Buck Featherstone sighted through the ANC videocam lens and hoped he was pressing the right button.
"I am neither confirming nor denying it," said the official spokesman for St. Elizabeth's Hospital.
"That's no answer."
A man walking on very hard heels tramped up behind them and demanded to know, "Who's in charge around here?"
Recognizing the voice, Pepsie turned. Seeing Gila Gingold, face red with anger under his white thatch of hair, she struck Buck in the arm and hissed, "Film everything that happens!"
She shoved her mike into Gingold's perpetually red face and asked, "Congressman Gingold, what do you say about reports that you were taken away from the White House tonight after an unsuccessful attack on the President's life?"
"I deny them absolutely," Gingold snapped, voice thundering with indignant rage.
Pepsie whirled on the hospital spokesman and said, "Obviously Congressman Gingold hasn't been committed here. So why do you refuse to deny the rumor?"
The spokeman looked confused. "But-but he is here."
"Show me," Congessman Gingold said.
"This way, Congressman," said the spokesman.
"We're coming, too," said Pepsie triumphantly.
"No, you're not," the spokesman retorted on the run.
"Congressman, the only way you're going to quash this vicious maligning of your character," said Pepsie breathlessly, following Gingold down the immaculate hallways, "is with raw footage."
"Stick with me," Gingold bit out.
In a private ward on the fourth floor, they were taken to a private room where a man lay sedated. He was sleeping on his stomach, his arms hanging over the sides of the bed.
"We keep turning him over on his back," an orderly said, "but he keeps flopping over like that."
Gila Gingold strode up and lifted the man's head by his thick hair. "That's not me."
"It sure looks like you," Pepsie said.
"I'm handsomer. Vastly."
"Maybe it's your brother."