State Of Play Page #4

How's he doing?

Hey, you gonna let me know if

I gotta call the ID team, right?

I'll let you know.

Walter Schroyer, Army buddy

of your libidinous friend,

gives his moving tribute

to Stephen Collins

in that asswipe excuse of

a paper and not to us. Why?

Platitudes,

padding and fluff.

I'm a journalist.

I'm not a publicist.

I want to bring

some more people in

to work with

you on this, Cal,

on the political side,

people with real experience.

I'm thinking Ted Moody.

I mean,

Ted's perfect for this.

Are you taking me

off the story?

No, no.

Not off, just off point.

If this is as big as he

says it is, a big "if,"

then it's gonna

be good for you.

How? How is that good?

Well, watching

seasoned reporters

that work on

a big story, you know,

being a part of it all,

you'll learn a lot.

So, Ted Moody,

what do you think?

Don't let her do it.

And, Cal, if you're on this, I want

this to be clean through and through.

Tell her to forget it.

It's your gig.

You got it. Get loud now.

Excuse me.

You're defending her now?

She's fine.

I can work with her.

But, Cal,

she's inexperienced.

Inexperience isn't fatal.

I'm not giving up the story!

I just... Sorry. I just...

If I could just have

a few more days with it,

I promise you I'm not

gonna let you down.

For Christ's sake.

Don't throw those dewy

cub reporter eyes at me.

It's nauseating.

And f*** you very much.

Pleasure.

This is Nurse Leif and

myself... The lab work's back.

It's the panel 13 you ordered?

Yeah, well, we called for

a neurologist a half hour ago.

You can't use

that phone here, sir.

Hey. What's up, Carnes?

How you doing?

Yeah. Yeah.

Looks like that

Sando guy's waking up.

You sending anyone over?

You ever been to D.C. Hospital?

No.

Don't worry about it.

It's easy.

All right, there's a uniformed

officer on the third floor ICU.

Okay.

Write it down. Got a pen?

Yes.

Here.

I have a pen.

Okay.

The uniformed officer's

name is Brown.

Okay.

Brown.

Third floor ICU. Tell

him that Detective Bynes,

B-Y-N-E-S,

Joe Bynes...

Okay.

All right,

he cleared you for access.

Access for what?

Vernon Sando, the pizza guy,

looks like he's coming around.

That's your side

of the story.

Excuse me?

You heard me.

You want me to go and sit

around in some hospital,

waiting for a guy who looks like

he might be coming out of a coma,

while you clean up

the rest of the story?

I mean, is that what

that was all about in there?

Look, this is a real story.

It's not open

for interpretation.

It does not require opinion.

We got two dead bodies,

and we got a guy in a coma,

and we got us with a lead

that nobody else has got.

So you gotta make

a decision,

because I have to follow

another lead tonight,

and I cannot be in

two places at one time.

So, are you gonna

be okay slumming it

to find out if Vernon Sando's

coming around or not?

Good.

If we're gonna work together,

we gotta work together.

Yeah? Deal?

All right, see you later.

Excuse me.

Don't tell me

you're still lost.

Hey, what are you

doing here?

Working.

You're Officer Brown?

You're who I'm looking for.

I knew

you'd come around.

How about Sando?

Is he coming around?

Yeah, yeah,

it looks that way.

They're sending a detective over right now.

Maybe get an ID.

Really?

I gotta take this.

Yeah, go ahead.

Yeah, Officer Brown.

No, sir.

You okay?

My dad did warn me

about politicians.

The only people he hated more was journalists.

Smart man.

I'm making you nervous.

You always did.

Well, they say sex is the

best way to ruin a friendship.

They do, do they?

And who's they?

What, Cosmopolitan magazine?

Teen Beat?

Come on.

Tell me, please,

it didn't ruin ours.

It hasn't ruined anything.

Pulse is 82.

BP is 105 over 79,

O2 sats 94.

He seems stable.

Okay, let's do another

blood work-up, CBCs...

Miss, you cannot be in here.

I'd just like to

- ask him a couple of questions.

- Miss, please!

No, I'm sorry.

Come on. Look.

You know you're not

supposed to be in here.

I know. I just...

Get on the ground!

Stand back! Stay down.

That's a colleague of mine.

I'm gonna have to go.

I'm really sorry.

I'll see you soon.

Okay.

Let him through.

Blockade, let him through.

Hey, Ricky!

Let him through.

Della!

You okay? You all right?

Della, tell me that's not

yours, right? What is it?

It's just

a little bit of blood.

It's all right.

I got it, I got it, I got it.

It's okay.

It's okay.

It's all right. It's

all right. It's all right.

Oh, my God, Cal,

we could have stopped this!

What, by being psychic?

No. We should have given

the police that file.

What if there were

fingerprints on the photographs?

God, Cal, we can't just let

people get hurt like that.

Look, it's over. It's all right. It's okay.

We can't just keep

letting people get killed.

No, it's not okay.

It's okay.

It's over. It's over.

It's over.

All right? It's okay.

You're sitting on evidence

in an execution homicide.

How do you think that's gonna

play with the family of the guy

that just got

shot last night?

Chris, let's be productive.

Hold on,

I'm actually not done.

Our reporter made

a full statement last night.

What, you had these when?

Cam, don't answer that!

When did you have these?

You want subpoenas?

I'll get on

the phone right now.

We called you! We called you

before we called outside counsel.

A little late.

It's a little late.

Give me a break.

How you doing, Don?

I'm hanging in, Cal. You?

Good. Good.

This source have anything else

I might need to do my job?

Wait a minute.

Nothing, all right?

This was it,

and we've kept it

for less than a day.

Detective, until last night, we

didn't actually know what we had here.

Bullshit.

Who do you think I am,

Bambi's baby brother?

No, sir.

You knew exactly

what you had.

You just decided that your

need was greater than ours,

and now you have

blood on your hands.

Hold on.

Detective, look.

The thesis that

we are pursuing

involves a certain company that

Congressman Collins is investigating.

What, this is

corporate conspiracies

that threaten

the highest levels?

All my years on the job, I've

only ever seen that on TV.

All the years I've known you, you've

only ever watched sports on TV.

So, Detective, in exchange

for our cooperation,

can we be assured that you

will open your books to us?

Quid pro quo?

If we decide to go public with

this, we'll give you six hours,

but that's the end of it.

This is an open

homicide investigation.

You slow us down,

endanger the public

any more than

you already have,

it won't be pretty.

For the record,

I'm still not happy

the way you presented

the evidence.

I'm just gonna

put that out there.

Police gossip being what it is,

I'm guessing that even

Entertainment Tonight

will know as much as we do

within 48 hours.

So we've gotta have

something solid today.

That means no assumptions,

no unnamed sources.

Not fast and loose.

I want this thing wrung out.

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