I wasn’t really listening, I have to admit. I was mindsurfing. Sandy Galvin—the man who had renounced the usual undergraduate dreams in his twenties in favor of acquiring money—had decided, just shy of his fiftieth birthday, to take the dreamy gamble of buying a newspaper. I didn’t understand why then—and as I suggested before, I didn’t really understand even later. But from that day on, I was his man—his spear-carrier and spy—and he was my man too, in ways that he probably never understood, even at the end. We had embarked on a conspiracy of mutual self-interest, which offered the opportunity to create mischief on a scale bigger than I had ever imagined.
SIX
THE WASHINGTON SUN AND TRIBUNE BUILDING WAS AN elegant metal-and-glass structure in Foggy Bottom, halfway between the White House and Georgetown. The area had once been known for its warehouses and empty lots, but in recent years, like nearly every district of fin de siècle Washington, it had become a magnet for money and power. Fifteen years before, the owners had moved the paper to this glamorous headquarters from its old home in Northeast, uncomfortably across the city’s invisible but universally recognized racial boundary. The new building was their reward—their monument to themselves and their victory over the Post. They had hired one of the country’s leading architects to design the structure, and spent far too much on it. Sometimes an unhappy married couple will do something similar—build a magnificent home in the hope that it will take their minds off their troubles, but it rarely works.
The skin of the building was gleaming in the midday summer sun. It looked too hot to touch. I stood on the curb outside, admiring what the owners’ wealth and taste had been able to create. The facade was like a piece of modern sculpture—a sheet of chrome and glass that soared gracefully into the air, like a roll of newsprint rising to the tower of one of the Sun’s presses. It was bounded on each side by metal beams that were as black as ink. Inside was a large atrium, in which the two families had erected a museum to celebrate themselves and their good works. There was a bronzed statue of the first Hazen shaking hands with the first Crosby back in 1910, when they had bought two failing newspapers, the morning Sun-Democrat and the afternoon Tribune, and combined them; and modest pictures of their sons, who had kept the paper alive through the lean years of the forties and fifties; and a much bigger picture of the current patriarch—Harold Hazen—who with the blessing of the Crosbys had managed the paper through its years of growth. He was a shrewd old man, I thought as I stared at the likeness of him that towered over the atrium lobby—but also a vain one. Perhaps that was inevitable in a newspaper owner, but it was a dangerous trait.
I had come to see my friend Candace Ridgway, who was my most reliable source of gossip about the Sun. She had a reporter’s knack for gathering information. She didn’t wheedle or scheme for it, as I did; it flowed to her naturally, as if by right. She had recently returned from a tour as London bureau chief to become foreign editor. That was a sign, and her colleagues assumed that more promotions would follow. People talked about Candace; there was an assumption that what she did mattered. Part of it was that she was openly ambitious. She had been telling people ever since she was in college that she wanted to run a newspaper someday.
I had known Candace slightly at Harvard. She was three years older than I was and already a senior when I arrived—but she had been nice to me during the odious “comp” to join The Harvard Crimson and helped keep me afloat during my suicidal freshman year. I had followed her career from afar ever since, sending her fawning notes when I liked one of her stories and occasionally calling her for advice. Unlike me, she seemed to have perfect balance. Where I had bumped from job to job, priding myself on my noncelebrity, she had moved steadily upward in the news firmament. I try, as a rule, to dislike people who have been so successful, but in Candace’s case, it was difficult.
Part of Candace’s aura was that she was a child of the Washington establishment. What took the edge off, and made her current success tolerable to others, was the fact that her outwardly perfect life had been touched by tragedy. During the late 1960s, her father had been deputy secretary of defense. At the height of the Vietnam War, he’d had a “breakdown,” as people used to put it back then. Two years after that, in the fall of 1971, he had committed suicide. I’d known about Candace’s father before I ever met her. He was a symbol of The Crack-up—the end of the genteel but short-of-breath Establishment that was routed by a bunch of Asian peasants and dope-smoking college students.
Her father’s death was the one area of Candace’s life that remained untidy. It was the only way you understood what had made her so strong—when you saw a hint of that wound and realized the strength and self-discipline it had taken to get past it. We used to talk about it, when we were at college. We had both lost our fathers. That was one of the few things we really had in common.
Her personal life was mysterious, but so far as I knew, she had no permanent attachment to anyone or anything—except the newspaper. She was rumored to be dating an aging wonder boy who was an assistant secretary of the Treasury—we had even published a picture of them together in Reveal, a few issues back—but she just rolled her eyes when I asked about him. She liked to call herself the “Mistress of Fact,” and that was reassuring. Part of why she was so sexy, I thought, was that it was impossible to imagine her actually having sex with anyone.
As I waited for her, a stream of people flowed out of the building for lunchtime appointments. That was what journalists did when you stripped away the nonessentials; they ate lunch. Most of the men were wearing suits, even in the heat. The Sun did that to people—it seemed to wrap its recruits in a kind of corporate identity and rebrand them, so they all looked and talked the same. I had observed the process with some of my ambitious friends who went to work there. The Sun sucked out whatever was loose and frail and particular, and then pumped in its own zero-temperature life force, and soon enough the new recruits were swollen up larger than life, dressed in their suits, ready to go out into the world and piss on everybody. I liked to think that Candace was different, that she had retained her own look and smell and sense of values, but maybe that was because I didn’t know her as well as I thought.
CANDACE BOUNDED FROM THE glass palace at twelve-thirty exactly and gave me a little wave. She was dressed in a light green suit, the color of a Key lime pie—an outrageous thing to wear to work! I let myself imagine she had worn it because she was having lunch with me, but that couldn’t be. She walked toward me, pushing a dancing tendril of blond hair back from her face, smiling and extending her hand. There was something charming and appropriate about her self-consciousness. She knew she was beautiful. Like a model, she understood the impression she created: the perfect ivory skin; the dewy glow on her cheeks; the supple body.
She donned her sunglasses against the noontime glare. They helped to mask the keenness in her eyes. That was Candace’s true secret: Under the blond veil was a rock-hard woman. Indeed, within the news business, she was known less for her beauty (which was tolerated) than for her toughness. She’d been trapped once in Basra during the Iraq-Iran war—after all the other journalists had been evacuated, she had somehow been allowed to stay. And she’d written a hilarious diary recounting her adventures—driving to the front in broken-down taxis; taking a four-hour bath one night when the city was being bombed because someone had told her the plumbing fixtures would survive if the hotel was hit; fending off an egregious string of propositions from sexcrazed Iraqis. She had captured it all in her diary. She was the kind of feminist who believed that it was okay to be sexy—that for a woman, sex was power. “Honestly now,” she supposedly had said to an envious male colleague after securing an exclusive interview, “who do you think King Hussein would rather talk to after a long day—you or me?”
I shouted for a passing cab to stop, and held open the door for Candace as she swung her slender legs across the seat. That was one sure mark of an elegant woman—the ability to enter a cab in a short skirt and make it look gr
aceful. I had made a reservation at an absurdly expensive French restaurant nearby, figuring I would stick Galvin with the tab. When I called out the name of the place to the driver, she instantly sensed that something was up.
“I thought Reveal was broke,” she said, eyebrows arched. “What happened? Have you started selling space in the photo section?”
“Actually, business is rotten—but that’s a good idea about selling space. I may get back to you on that. No, I want you to think of this as a date, with your old and dear friend.”
“Then let’s go to a hotel,” she said. “We can have lunch in bed.”
That was the game she played with me—bantering about sex because she knew it was harmless. She had a way of finding the right frequency, different for everyone she was with. Some of her friends resented that, but not me. I liked being manipulated by a professional.
“How are things at the paper?” I asked when we were seated at our table. That was always an acceptable question with journalists. They really do think their work is so interesting and important that everyone else must be dying to know what it’s like at the office.
“Appalling!” she answered. “I can’t get anyone into Baghdad. Our New Delhi bureau chief went into labor the day the typhoon hit Bangladesh. Our Moscow correspondent says he’s going to the Times unless we hire his wife. I’m sick of them all, frankly.”
She made a dismissive gesture with her hand, as if brushing away a bug. Her nails, I saw, were freshly lacquered and buffed. That was another thing about Candace: She never let the drudgery of newspapering deflect her from the fundamentally important things, like a good manicure.
“I don’t know how you put up with all the crap,” I said. “You’re not cut out to be a bureaucrat.”
“Yes, I am,” she said. “That’s the worrisome thing. I’m actually quite good at it. It plays to my dictatorial side. My reporters care desperately what I think. They’re so needy. Especially the men. I have to be careful I don’t torture them.”
I could believe that about Candace. She made you want to please her. A waiter came and rattled off the list of specials. None of them had any prices. I wondered whether my Visa card could handle the damage and then thought, What the hell? Spies didn’t worry about credit-card limits.
“Are you still seeing the king of the sub-Cabinet?” I asked. Why was I so derisive about him? His name was Mark Pavel, and he was assistant secretary for international economic affairs. It was a very important job, I’m sure, but he struck me as an empty suit. I’d looked up his biography once, in a spasm of jealousy. He had the entire string of merit badges: Yale (his board scores must have been a bit low for you know where—too bad!); Trinity College, Cambridge, on a Marshall Scholarship; Harvard Business School; Goldman Sachs; Council on Foreign Relations. He’d done everything except live in the world.
“We get together occasionally,” she answered. “He’s decorative, and he has nice ties.”
“You should dump him. He’s a worm.”
“Maybe, but he’s easy. Microwave ready. And if you won’t propose to me, I have to fend for myself.”
Much as I enjoyed this idle flirtation, I needed to change the subject. If I was going to stick Galvin with the lunch bill, I would need to give him some information.
“How are the Hazens and Crosbys doing?” I asked. “I hear things are a little rocky.”
She looked at me curiously. It was an odd question for me to be asking, but then I had the benefit of being odd.
“They are rocky,” she answered. “The families are a mess. They’re unhappy with the paper, and they’re upset with each other. The younger generation thinks the Sun isn’t making as much money as it should, and they’re all mad at Harold Hazen because the stock price is so low. It’s trading at about forty dollars—the same as it was five years ago. The biggest bull market in history, and they haven’t made a penny on the family business.”
“Poor dears.” It was hard for me to feel sorry for rich people with underperforming assets. “How do you know all this? It doesn’t sound like your normal newsroom gossip.”
“It’s not.” She smiled coyly. “I have a source.”
“Come on.” I held out my hands and beckoned. “Tell David. Please. I really want to know.”
“This isn’t one for Reveal, is it?”
“Of course not. Never heard of it. This is for my novel about Washington life. Unless you tell me the truth, I’ll make up something really unpleasant.”
She laughed and shook her head. What a card! In her mind, I was still the skinny freshman trying to get on the Crimson, and desperately making moon eyes at her even though I would have been terrified if she’d said yes. “Do you really want to know?” she demanded.
“Yes. Passionately.” There must have been something in my voice that conveyed that I was serious. I really did want to know.
“All right, I’ll tell you, but only because you’re so hopeless I know I can trust you. I have an old friend named Ariane Hazen. She’s Harold’s daughter. For a year or two in high school, she was my best friend. We’ve stayed in touch, and I’ve seen a good deal of her since I came back from London. She’s divorced and lonely. I think she wants a friend in the newsroom, and I’m the only one she really knows.”
“So . . .” I leaned toward her conspiratorially. “What does she say?”
“She’s upset. She thinks the paper is mismanaged, and she wants changes. She’s trying to convince her brother and the Crosby kids to work with her. Her father is angry. He’s heard the gossip that his daughter is plotting against him, and his feelings are hurt. He knows the paper is in a rut, but he doesn’t know how to change it. And he doesn’t want to undercut the newsroom. That’s why we love Mr. Hazen. He’s old school. He takes care of us. He gets his kicks from publishing a good newspaper, not from the stock price.”
“So where’s it heading?” I queried. “Are the Hazens shopping the paper?”
“I don’t think so. The family is still bickering. Ariane isn’t sure what to do. The last time we talked, she wanted to hire an adviser to help the younger generation sort out its options. Why are you asking about all this? You’re up to something. Do you have a buyer?” Her face was alive with that taunting curiosity. She knew more than she was telling—she always did. But in this case, so did I.
“Me? Of course not! How would I know anyone who would want to buy the Sun?”
She reached out and gave my hand a little pat. There, there. That was the advantage of being perceived as a loser. It made you seem harmless. People could not imagine, as they told you their secrets, that you could do anything truly damaging with them.
There was a rustle over by the door. A bulky figure with a fancy tie and a big handshake was entering the restaurant, setting off little ripples of recognition. He was greeting the maître d’, stopping to chat with a magazine columnist seated at another table. The man was a former government official, now an investment banker, rumored as a possible secretary of state if the Republicans returned to power. It was inevitable that he would know Candace, and that his rolling bonhomie would soon grace our table.
“Hello, Candy,” he said, giving her a kiss on the cheek. Candace introduced me, mercifully leaving out the fact that I worked for Reveal. This was a certified Big Guy. I stood awkwardly while they talked about Bosnia and Iraq and other subjects on which I had no opinion. Amazingly, during this odious interaction, Candace never lost her poise. She never gave him a false smile, never laughed too loud at one of his jokes. She had perfect pitch that way. She was the Mistress of Fact.
“I WORRY ABOUT YOU sometimes, David,” she said after the dessert had been cleared. “You don’t seem happy.”
I had to pause a minute. People didn’t normally discuss my private life. What was the point? “I’m sorry, but you’re using a word I don’t understand. What is happy?”
“I’m serious, David. You worry me. You have so much talent, and you’re wasting it on that ridiculous magazine. As far
as I can tell, you have no personal life whatsoever.”
“What do you mean?” I demanded. “I have a cat. And I have a television set.”
“Stop making a joke out of everything. It makes you seem even more pathetic. Are you seeing anyone?”
“No, of course not. Come now. Who would I see?”
I left that thought hanging in the air. Who would I see? And what would I do if I saw them? That problem was far too complicated to address at that moment, after a fine lunch of sautéed squab and a tasty crème brûlée. No, when it came to personal matters, the monastic approach was the most sensible. I’m told there was a saint, long ago, who spent her life picking the fleas off her unkempt body, one by one, and then, when she was done, putting them all back in the same painstaking way. And all things considered, I had a much better life than that.
Candace Ridgway was looking at me: the soft vellum of her skin, the hint of color on her cheeks, the full lips, the effervescent intelligence. “Who would I see,” I asked, “unless it was you?”
WE BOTH HAD COLD hearts, I suspected. That was what had drawn me and Candace together. I don’t mean that in the usual, cold-and-clammy sense, but in a particular way that Candace first suggested to me soon after we met in college. I thought at the time, in the portentous way that under-graduates do, that I had found the key to her personality. And oddly enough, it’s possible that I was right.
I had entered the Crimson building on Plympton Street that day looking for her. She was my “tutor,” the upper-classman who supervised my work for the paper. She was sitting on a fat, red leather couch in the editorial chairman’s office, reading a novel by Graham Greene. It was The Heart of the Matter—one of his bleak Catholic novels, a great book and all that, but an unlikely thing to be reading back then.
I asked her about the novel, wanting to make conversation. She had a faraway look in her eye, like people sometimes get when they’re about to cry. My question pulled her back; she was grateful, I think, for someone to talk to. She said she wanted to read me a passage from the book. It was the part where Yousef, the Arab trader, quotes a Syrian proverb to Major Scobie, the despairing police chief. I looked it up again recently, to remind myself of the exact words: “Of two hearts one is always warm and one is always cold: the cold heart is more precious than diamonds: the warm heart has no value and is thrown away.”
The Sun King Page 5