by Allen Weiner
“Where did you get that idea?” Taylor said, raising his voice.
“At the FBI office in Scranton. I think it’s nice how the agency honors the men and women who risk their lives for our country, don’t you?”
“What I did or did not do for this country is not the subject at hand,” Taylor said, regaining his composure. “So, I’d say we have a situation on our hands.”
“We do, and if you don’t mind, I’d like to get on with my evening. Why don’t we agree to meet on the second and discuss our options? I need to include my reporting partner, Aaron Grant. He knows the entire story, including the hidden FM transmitter and the fact that you are an FBI agent.”
“You told him?”
“I sure did. We trust each other and are doing the investigation into the mayor together. He’s a good man with a lot of journalistic experience.”
“As you wish. We can meet at 10 a.m. on Tuesday. I’d like to do this somewhere out of the way. We’ve come too far to let anything derail the work we’ve done.”
“Who’s this ‘we’ you are talking about?”
“Depending on our conversation Tuesday, I may tell you who ‘we’ is.”
With that, Taylor buttoned his coat and walked toward the door of Max’s apartment. He turned around one last time. “Happy New Year, Max. Happy New Year, Sue. See you later.”
Max stood with his back to Sue as Taylor stomped down the stairs and out the door. The Joe Taylor New Year’s Eve Drama took the wind out of the intimate moment Max and Sue were about to share. Sue hadn’t said a word the entire time Joe Taylor confronted Max, and she had no idea how to rekindle the magic they felt during and right after dinner. She waited for Max to say something and took his silence as an inability to process the clashing events of the evening. Sue assumed she knew what was going on but wanted to give Max room to figure things out.
“Max, come sit with me,” Sue said softly. “There’s plenty of time for you to come up with a plan for Taylor and the mayor.”
It was ten minutes before midnight when Max joined Sue on the couch after turning on the TV. With an earpiece in his left ear and the noise of a massive crowd in midtown Manhattan, Dick Clark turned to face the giant ball in Times Square as the seconds ticked away, ending 1978.
When the countdown ended, and confetti rained down across the TV screen image, Max leaned over and kissed Sue. It was a warm, pleasant kiss, but without the passion from the previous hour. The mood had passed and would need to be reignited on another night.
Max got up and turned off the television. There was plenty of wine left from dinner, so he grabbed two clean glasses and poured. He brought them over and handed one to Sue. She seemed unphased by the mayor’s assistant’s strange visit but didn’t show any interest in discussing it further.
Sue raised her glass and turned, facing Max, sitting a comfortable distance away on the couch. “Here’s to a successful 1979,” she said, clinking glasses. “I am looking forward to an exciting year.”
Expecting something a bit more personal, Max paused for a second and simply responded, “Hear, hear,” to her toast.
Time flew by for the next two hours as Max and Sue drank their wine and talked about life. Each recounted their college days with Max explaining his failures in the romantic department and his underachievement academically. He also talked about the fact that he was not involved with his college’s newspaper and came to the world of news reporting relatively late.
Sue said her lifelong dream was to be a journalist, keeping a diary from age ten on. She worked on her high school’s newspaper and excelled in her college courses related to her future career. In her senior year, she became editor of the Shippensburg State News-Chronicle, the school’s daily paper. Her move to a position at the Chronicle was the next logical step in her career path.
Max and Sue talked for hours until neither one could keep their eyes open. It was 4 a.m., and the mood for anything other than sleep was not in store for the two New Year’s Eve celebrants. The evening began with wine, flowers, and a thoughtfully prepared meal and ended with Max and Sue falling asleep on the couch. Max slept at one end while Sue was at the other, their legs resting on one another.
Some four hours later, Max opened his eyes and found Sue standing in his kitchen, boiling water to make instant coffee. She only had one cup in front of her, figuring she would let Max sleep while she loaded up on caffeine before leaving.
“Why are you up so early?” Max asked Sue, who was stirring her coffee, facing away from the living room. She was looking in the fridge for milk to take away the bitterness of the instant brew.
“I have to get going. My parents are having a New Year’s brunch, and I promised to help set up the tables.”
“I understand. Do you want to get some breakfast before you leave?”
“No. I’m still full from dinner last night,” Sue said, turning to face Max. She had a radiant smile on her face, which made her host feel better about her early departure.
Sue gulped down her coffee and went into the coat closet for her sweater. Max sat up on the couch, filled with disappointment and confusion, while he watched her prepare to leave. He rubbed his eyes, in part to get the cobwebs out, but more to hold back the tears he felt welling up inside.
“I had an amazing time, Max. I think we’re going to have a great 1979.” Sue bent over and kissed Max on the cheek as she buttoned her sweater. She found her purse on the faux dining room table, put it under her shoulder, and headed down the stairs.
Max’s New Year’s Eve dinner, with a dash of intimacy as a nightcap, was officially over. He started replaying every minute of the night before and concluded that the Joe Taylor Show was the cause for the sudden romantic course correction. Simultaneously, though, Max was puzzled that Sue didn’t ask for any details about Joe Taylor’s visit. It wasn’t as if Joe was scheduled to appear like a delivery from the local pizza parlor. Max was about to fall victim to one of his major foibles—trying to explain the inexplicable.
With a cup of coffee in hand, the reality of life was setting in for Max with a litany of challenges to tackle in the next several days. He debated calling Aaron on a day most family men spent with their spouses and children. He knew it was important to share his discovery about Joe Taylor’s identity because Max had agreed to a meeting between the two of them and the FBI agent on January 2. Next on the list was to get Jack Devlin to delay their blockbuster for Sunday the fourteenth. Max hoped that either Tom or Ximena’s stories were ready for publication, which would allow Max to delay his and Aaron’s story to allow the Joe Taylor situation to come to a resolution.
It took Max until mid-afternoon to work up the courage to call Aaron Grant. In addition to informing his reporting partner about Joe Taylor’s identity, it was time to come clean about the hidden FM transmitter plot. Going back to the one he and Barrett planted in the Carbon County Courthouse was not important; however, the device Barrett, with Sue’s help, put in the elevator in city hall needed explanation.
Loretta Grant answered the phone. “Good afternoon, Grant residence.”
“Happy New Year, Loretta. It’s Max. I hope you, Aaron, and Bud had a great celebration. May I speak to your husband?”
“Sure, he’s right here,” Loretta called to Aaron in the living room and told him Max was on the phone.
“Max, Happy New Year. What’s up?”
“I am sorry to bother you today, but we must talk. Can you get away for a few hours? It isn’t something we can discuss on the phone.”
“Sure, sure,” Aaron answered, a bit perplexed. “Where do you want to meet?”
“There’s a place called the Golden Gate Diner on Union in Allentown. I checked, and they are open today. Can we say in ninety minutes?”
“Yeah, sure. See you then.”
What a way to start the year, Max thought as he got ready to leave. Meeting Aaron for a tell-all chat was not what Max figured he would be doing on the first day of 1979. Up until the late New Yea
r’s Eve events, Max fantasized about spending the day with Sue after their night together. Instead, his focus was on finding an easy way to confess to Aaron his plan to bug the mayor’s elevator. Max wasn’t sure to lead with the difficult news or the discovery of Joe Taylor’s identity.
Max was fifteen minutes early and found a booth near the back of the diner. He was surprised at the number of people at the twenty-four-hour restaurant. There were three bowl games in progress, including the Sugar Bowl in which Penn State was playing Alabama for the NCAA Football crown. In contrast, New Year’s Day in Philadelphia was a big one with the Mummers Parade—the city’s answer to Mardi Gras. Locals lined the streets to watch men in glittering costumes strum their instruments and waltz down Second Street to the delight of half-sober onlookers.
Aaron showed up right on time. Max waved at him to come to the back booth. Max was so wrapped up in his dilemma, he didn’t realize it was twenty degrees outside. Aaron took off his heavy overcoat, scarf, and gloves before sitting down.
Before Aaron even got comfortable in the booth, Max could no longer contain himself.
Following a series of deep breaths, Max spoke. “I have a few things to tell you. One you won’t like; the other you will. Where should I start?”
“That’s up to you.”
“I was blown away by Devlin selecting me to be on this new Sunday Squad, and I wanted to do well. Anyway, I read about how, in the Cold War, the Russians and Americans spied on each other using FM transmitters.”
“Yes, I know all about the bug in the Great Seal,” Aaron replied, expecting the worst.
“After talking about some of the strange things regarding Mayor Donahue’s background and ability to bring companies to the Lehigh Valley, I wanted to get an edge.”
“So, you bugged his office, is that what you want to tell me?”
“No, with the help of a friend, we bugged his elevator.”
Aaron nodded, not that he liked what he heard, but as a sign of acknowledgment. “So why are you telling me this now?”
“That’s the other part of the news,” Max said, saddened by Aaron’s response. “I had an assignment on December 30 that involved a kidnapping. I was told to go to the FBI office in Scranton for a briefing that afternoon. To make a long, boring story short, I saw Joe Taylor’s picture on the wall of heroes at the FBI office.”
“What happened with the kidnapping?” Aaron asked, matter-of-factly.
“That’s a story for another day. On New Year’s Eve, I had a friend over for dinner, and Joe Taylor stopped by right before midnight to ask why we’ve been asking around about him. That’s when I confronted him with my discovery.”
“How did he take it?”
“Not great. But, see, here’s the thing: he found out about the FM transmitter in the elevator. I’m not sure how, but he has it and is using it to threaten me away from writing our story. But now that I have something on him, we’re in a stalemate.”
Aaron Grant continued to shake his head as if he was hearing someone spin a fanciful yarn that was essentially bullshit. For a moment, Grant wondered if Max was making this all up. Having worked with Max, though, he knew what he was being told was not only plausible but most likely true.
“As difficult as it is for me to believe, I understand everything you’re telling me. So, how did you leave things with Joe Taylor or whatever his name is?”
“I agreed that we’d meet him tomorrow morning. We, meaning you and me. I told Taylor that I already told you about his covert identity.”
“Max, this is a lot to process. Have you set a time and place for this meet?”
“No, what do you suggest?”
“I don’t think you’ll like this, but right after you called, Jack Devlin called and said he wanted to have a Sunday Squad meeting at 10:30 a.m. tomorrow. How about we arrange to meet the mysterious Joe Taylor at 8:30 a.m. here. This place is out of the way for all of us. How are you supposed to let him know when and where to meet?”
“He’s supposed to call me tonight.”
Aaron Grant sat, staring at his reporting partner, wishing he had been paired up with Tom or Ximena, or anyone else for that matter.
“Let’s talk before he calls. I need some time to think about this. You need to go home and make sure you don’t miss his call.”
It was a shade past 4 p.m., and the sun was beginning to set as Max got in his car. The temperature was beginning to drop as Max headed back to Nesquehoning. He was relieved that he unburdened himself of his misdeed to Aaron and hoped that his partner and now friend had the experience and practical wisdom to find a way out of this mess. Even more than Aaron not having a viable solution, the biggest concern was Jack Delvin’s meeting scheduled for the next day. What if Max couldn’t convince the managing editor to hold the front-page Sunday story?
Max had no sooner walked in the door to his apartment when the phone rang. He rushed over and grabbed the receiver off the cradle affixed to the wall in the kitchen. Out of breath, Max answered.
“Hi, this is Max.”
“Max, it’s Joe Taylor. I want to arrange our meeting tomorrow.”
Before Taylor could say anything further, Max interrupted.
“I spoke to Aaron Grant, and we came up with 8:30 a.m. at the Golden Gate Diner. Do you know where that is?”
“I do. That works. Bring a copy of the draft of the story you and your pal wrote for the paper when you come. You know I’ve seen it, but there are some things I want to straighten out.”
“Okay.”
After his call with Joe Taylor, Max called Aaron to lock down the time and place. They spoke briefly, and Max reminded Aaron to bring the draft of the story they submitted to Devlin before the managing editor left on vacation.
With chaos in both the personal and professional parts of his life, Max slept poorly. Again, he thought how things could have been if New Year’s Eve had ended differently. Max had no time to dwell on the what-ifs of his life; there were a series of hurdles he needed to clear to preserve his job and steer clear of any legal action.
Running on pure adrenaline, Max was up and out the door at seven in the morning. Traffic was light even with folks getting back to work. It took him only forty-five minutes to get to the east side of Allentown. He parked outside the diner, where he stared off into space and took stock of his situation. Max remembered a close friend in college telling him to the best way to assess your position in any crossroads is to think of the best and worst that could happen. In this case, Max was hard-pressed to think of the best case; far too many things would have to fall in place for him to emerge unscathed. As far as worst-case, it was too dangerous to go down that path as it would have a paralyzing effect.
Max spotted Aaron pull up in front of the diner. As Aaron got out of the car, Max got out of his and called his colleague’s name. Aaron turned around and waved but had a stern look on his face. This was not how the more senior reporter wanted to spend the morning on his first day back at work for the new year.
The two men entered the diner and grabbed the same booth they shared the day before. Seated across from each other, the two men ordered coffee but nothing to eat. No words were exchanged, and at 8:40 a.m., Joe Taylor walked in. Taylor was skilled at hiding in plain sight as he walked over to the booth without looking at anyone.
“Gentlemen. Aaron, nice to see you again. I’ve heard a lot about you over the past few years. Your reputation precedes you,” Taylor said, taking off his coat and sliding in the booth next to Max.
Aaron nodded but said nothing in response.
“So, here we are. You two know about me, and I have some incriminating evidence against you. Well, at least against Max.”
Max was in over his head, fighting for the right response. Luckily, Aaron was armed and ready.
“Joe, or whatever you name is, I know you are more than familiar with the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction,” Aaron said forcefully, staring directly at Joe. “I think you would agree that’s wha
t we have on our hands here.”
“I get your point,” Taylor said, realizing he was up against someone with more guts and guile than Max. “How do you propose we proceed?”
“Neither of us has anything to gain by giving away each other’s secrets,” Aaron said in response.
“Oh? Then what do you propose?”
“Depending on where the FBI is in its investigation, we agree to hold our story until your case is wrapped up. We also want your help in fleshing out some of the details we may have missed in our work.”
“In principle, that’s fine, but I can’t legally tell you where we are in our work,” Taylor said. “We’re close, but just how close I cannot share.”
“Do you think you’ll be done by January 14?” Max asked.
“Most likely, but not definitely,” Taylor said, turning to face Max, seated to his right.
Max and Aaron exchanged glances. The two men had recently spent enough time together for them to get a read on each other’s mindset.
“You have a deal,” Aaron said, reaching out to shake Joe Taylor’s hand.
“From now on, you can reach me at this private number,” Taylor said, handing Aaron his card. “Let me review this draft of your story and see where I can add some color.”
The men rose from the booth one at a time, led by Joe Taylor. Max left a five-dollar bill on the table to cover the two coffees. Aaron put his hand on Max’s shoulder, indicating they should let Joe leave first.
Max looked at his watch and reminded Aaron they had a meeting with Jack Devlin and the other Sunday Squad members. It was 9:45 a.m., which gave them plenty of time to get to the Chronicle building a few miles away.
Before pulling away from the diner, Max felt some hope he’d be able to get out of his self-inflicted dilemma, not only without getting caught for his illegal transmitter. He even dared flirt with the possibility of an award-winning story at the end of this saga. There was reason to be hopeful, but Max knew many things could still go wrong and throw their deal with Joe Taylor off course.