I nodded.
“Mr Cavanaugh would want you to work with me, Johnny.”
Mr Robert Justice Cavanaugh was the owner of the Star. He was a big man, a very big man in this town. I said flatly, “You’d better talk to him, then.”
He nodded, and he wasn’t smirking or trying to be chummy any more. He said quietly, “That’s exactly what I intend to do. That’s all, Johnny.”
He didn’t frighten me. Cavanaugh would back me. He was just desperate and frustrated and annoyed and was taking it out on the first stooge who happened along. He didn’t frighten me – much.
I left the quiet room behind, and went out into the clatter of the outer office. A flash bulb went off in my face.
Bitsy Donworth, photographer for the Courier, said, “Nice shot. Could we have a statement, dear?”
The, Courier was a tabloid, the kind of paper that would play up something like this. Any relation to the truth in the Courier was purely coincidental.
I thought of Norah. “Don’t make the mistake of printing that picture, Bitsy. You’ll be asking for trouble.”
“The Courier,” Bitsy replied, “thrives on trouble.”
“But you don’t,” I said. “You’re too small. This would be personal trouble, Bitsy.” I realized I was making a damned fool of myself, but I was past caring.
Jug Elder, who handles the courts for the Courier, said, “Run along, dear. You don’t want any trouble with us.”
Jug goes about two hundred pounds. I figured about half of it was fat. I should have run along, as he said. But I walked over to him, and slapped his face. My name is Shea.
He drew his big right hand back, and I let him have it, right on the button.
I could feel the shock traveling up my arm, and I could see him go crashing backward into a desk. I saw the flash bulb go off again, and then the red went flashing through my brain, and I was moving in.
The next thing I knew, a couple of reporters from the Journal were holding my arms. Jug was getting up slowly, rubbing his chin. Bitsy was on his way out. The DA stood in his doorway, asking, “What the hell’s going on out here?”
One of the Journal reporters said, “Jug fell down, didn’t you, Jug? You all right, now?”
All the stenos, the cops, the help in the outer office were watching us. It had happened so quickly that none of the girls had had a chance to scream.
“I’m all right,” Jug said. He didn’t look at me. I’ll bet he didn’t even want to look at himself.
There was a murmur of voices from the spectators. The DA took one swift glance around the room, and then his door closed.
I went out with one of the Journal reporters. He said, “The Courier’ll print that picture. They’ll make some kind of a lousy story out of the whole thing.” He swore.
“They’ll probably print both pictures, now,” I said. “I wonder, you think there might be a libel angle—”
He shook his head. “Not the way they’ll write it. Avoiding libel suits is a business they understand. They’ve made an art out of that.”
He left me, there on the sidewalk, and I walked down to the coupé. I was thinking about June. I was remembering her hands, her pale, fluttering hands, always moving, always reaching. They’d repelled me, back in high school, repelled me and fascinated me. I remember, I could never take my eyes off them.
She had jet-black hair, this June Drexel, and her pale complexion was almost sickly in its whitness. But she’d done a lot with that contrast, that and the dark-blue eyes. That and the reaching, grasping hands.
As though she couldn’t get enough of whatever it was she wanted. A high-school kid wouldn’t know what it was. I wasn’t sure, even now, and high school was ten years behind me. There’d been a war and a wedding and a birth in my life since then.
To hell with her, I thought. To hell with her and her hands.
I drove back to the office. I went up to the city room and hammered out a couple of routine stories from the department.
Our local political man, Tom Alexander, was working at the machine next to mine. I asked him, “You think this Peckham was playing house with that Drexel dame? You think his wife’s got a case?”
He smiled cynically. “The Star thinks so, slave. The Star would like to nail Peckham any way they can.”
“But why?” I said. “Peckham’s no bigger than some of the other grafters in this burg. Why him?”
He shrugged. “Ours not to reason why, Johnny.” He lighted a cigarette and considered his next paragraph. Then he looked over at me. “Is this a professional or a personal interest?”
“Why should it be personal?” I asked.
“I don’t know.” He pulled at an ear. “Your tone of voice, I guess.” He frowned, and went back to work.
To hell with June Drexel, I thought again. And to hell with the Courier. Just for good measure, I threw in the DA.
I went over to pick up Sammy Berg and we went out to lunch. I told him what had happened.
He shook his head sadly. “You know Cavanaugh, Johnny. Dignity, all the time; ethics, every minute. He’ll blow his stack.”
He didn’t, really. The early-afternoon edition of the Courier came off the press, and there was yours truly, in both poses. There was a story you could read any way your mind happened to run, though it would prove most interesting to a low mind.
I remember thinking, I hope Norah doesn’t see this, just before I got the summons from R.J.
I was nervous. I won’t say I was frightened, not at first, but the palms of my hands were wet, and I wanted a cigarette. In R.J.’s office, nobody smokes.
His desk is on a dais, sort of, and he’s looking down at you, even if you’re standing, which you usually are, in his office. I was standing now. It was very quiet in the room. He had the Courier spread out on his huge desk.
He’s a distinguished-looking gent, tall and beautifully tailored, and not quite fifty. He was looking more than a little troubled at the moment.
he looked down at me gravely. “Mr Shea, you . .. ah . . . appear to know this June Drexel rather well.”
“I knew her in high school,” I told him. “I haven’s seen her much since.”
“Much? How much, Mr Shea?”
I was still nervous, but the Shea temper was climbing, too. I could feel my neck get warm. I said, “I’ve seen her around from time to time, and said hello. In public places, you understand. It’s nothing like the Courier tried to suggest.”
His face was still very grave. That’s why I couldn’t understand his smile, just then. It was a small, cold smile. “And that’s all?”
“That’s all.”
He seemed to be trying to read my mind. He stared at me quietly for a moment. Then, “Do you think she’s Peckham’s girl?”
“I don’t know,” I told him. “She isn’t working, and she isn’t married. She must be somebody’s girl.”
He ignored that. He said, “I’ve a complaint from the district attorney, on you, too. I got it at lunch, at the club.”
I said nothing.
“He seems to think you know more about this than you’re telling, too.”
I shook my head. “I don’t.”
He had a letter opened in his hands which he kept sliding back and forth from one hand to the other. “You know, of course, that the Star put Gargan in office?”
Gargan was the DA. I nodded.
“You know that we are working with him and for him, all the time?”
I nodded again.
“Yet, you create a minor riot in his office. You lose your temper and strike a fellow worker. You embarrass not only this paper, but the district attorney.” He seemed to be working himself into a temper. “I hope you realize the gravity of all this. Mr Shea.”
“I lost my temper,” I said. “I wasn’t in my right mind. That Drexel dame brings out the worst in me.”
“Oh,” he said, and was silent a moment. “You haven’t seen her since high school, but she brings out the worst in you. Wou
ld you mind telling me, Mr Shea, just how long ago you went to high school?”
“Ten years ago,” I replied.
“I see.” He put the letter opener down on his desk. He was fumbling with a tiny jet elephant he wears on his watch chain, now. “Ten years ago.” He studied me. “You’re an extremely competent employee, Mr Shea, but still subject to discipline. Do you think a month’s leave of absence would be adequate punishment?”
I stared at him. Finally, I said, “I didn’t expect any punishment. I didn’t figure I had it coming.”
He smiled. “That would be for me to decide.”
I was trembling now. I said, “Whether I work here, or for some other paper would be for me to decide. I wouldn’t work for a paper that doesn’t back up its reporters.” I turned, and walked out.
I expected him to call me back, but he didn’t. Some of my anger held, but not enough to prevent me from realizing I’d been a fool for the second time that day.
Tom Alexander was still working on his column when I went back to clean up my desk. He watched me quietly for a full minute, then asked, “Leave of absence, huh? The Cavanaugh curse.”
“I quit,” I told him.
“Sure,” he said. “Of course. I’ll see you in a month. That’s what I bet it would be. Did I win?”
“That’s what he tried to nail me with,” I admitted. “But I wouldn’t take it. I tell you I quit.”
He swiveled around in his chair. “Johnny, don’t be a sap. There isn’t another paper in town’ll hire you. Cavanaugh’ll see to that.”
“Not even the Courier?”
“You wouldn’t work for them, Johnny. Nobody with any self-respect would work for them.”
I didn’t answer him. I went over to see if Sammy Berg was still in the office, but he wasn’t. I left, without saying anything to Foley, the city editor. He’d find out, soon enough.
I didn’t go home. I didn’t want Norah to find out I’d lost my job, not yet. I still had hopes. Foley would go to bat for me; the whole city room would go to bat for me. I hoped.
I went over to Mac’s and had a drink. A couple of the boys were in there, and we gabbed for a while, and then they had to go to work. Mac’s is a hell of a place when there aren’t any customers around. I went to a movie.
It was a lousy show. They’d spent a couple of million on it, and it was full of names, and it had been promoted right up to the budget limit. It was still a lousy show. I could produce a better one myself.
I left, in the middle of it. I walked along Fourth Street, dreaming about that, about the big names Norah and I would be entertaining in our beach home. Norah was just giving me hell, because she’d caught me kissing one of moviedom’s biggest stars, when I heard her voice.
I came back to this world, and there she stood. My Norah, my lovely, red-headed parcel of honey and fire. She stood there, on the sidewalk, with a copy of the Courier under her arm.
“John Badlwin Shea,” she said.
I looked at the Courier, and into her blue eyes. “You don’t believe any of that do you, honey?”
“Is it true, Johnny?”
I shook my head.
“Then I don’t believe it.”
I kissed her, right there on Fourth Street.
She said, “You’re so impulsive. Did you have to hit that reporter?”
I nodded.
She sighed. “As soon as I saw this paper, while I was out shopping, I went down to the Star. Tommy Alexander told me you’d quit. You didn’t have to quit, Johnny.”
“I guess I didn’t,” I admitted.
“And now you’re going back to see Mr Cavanaugh, aren’t you? You’re going to apologize for losing your temper.”
“Like hell,” I said.
“You’ve got seniority there, Johnny, and they pay better than the other papers. You’re not going to forget all that.”
“Honey,” I said, “you let me worry about that.”
Her lips set primly, and she said no more about it. “Well, we’d better be getting home. Mrs Orlow is with Junior, but I told her I’d be back in two hours. Let’s go home and talk this over.”
“There’s nothing to talk over,” I told her.
Neither of us said anything more as we walked to where the coupé was parked. Norah was beginning to get that look.
Silence, on the drive home. Silence, as we walked up the flagstones to the door, while Mrs Orlow explained that Junior had been just fine, and slept like a little lamb, and wasn’t he just that, a little lamb, though? While she looked at me curiously, probably wondering how much of the Courier account was true.
Things the public reads in the Courier, they forget the next day. But things your friends might read about you in the Courier they never forget. They might not believe them, but neither will they forget them.
When Mrs Orlow had gone, Norah said, “I’ve never known you to be this stubborn, Johnny.” She paused. “But I guess there are quite a few things about you I didn’t know.”
“If you’re talking about June Drexel,” I said, “that’s ten years old.”
“But you went with her then, didn’t you? And yet, you’ve never once mentioned her name.”
“I’ve gone with lots of girls,” I answered. “I’ve forgotten most of them. I don’t know all the boys you went with.”
“You’ve forgotten most of them,” she repeated. “But you didn’t forget her.”
“She’s about as easy to forget as a toothache,” I explained. “She’s a very unusual girl.”
“I’m sure she is.” She hesitated, about to say more. But at that moment, Junior awoke, and started to cry. She hurried into his room.
This, I thought, would be a good time to take the screens down. This would be a good time to get out of the house. I changed my clothes quickly, and went outside.
I was trying to pry the too-tight screen off the sun-room window when Norah came out with Junior. She put him in the carriage, and told me, “I have to finish my shopping. We’ll be back in a half-hour.”
That last sentence was just by way of letting me know that our discussion wasn’t over. “I’ll be waiting,” I said. “I’m not going any place.”
She sniffed.
She and Junior were just turning the corner, when this Caddy pulled up behind my car at the curb. It was a black sedan, long and low. I went around to the side of the house, to get the kitchen screens.
I could still see the Caddy, and I could see the smallish, thin gent who got out of it. He didn’t look like a banker to me. He came up the walk, and I came around to the front of the house, to wait for him.
He was wearing an expensive topcoat, and a fine hat. He was wearing a dead expression on his thin face. His eyes were brown stones.
“You John Shea?” he asked.
I admitted it with a nod.
“I’m from the Courier,” he said. “I’ve got some questions for you.”
“I haven’t got any answers,” I told him. “Does the Courier furnish all their reporters with Cadillacs?”
“Don’t worry about that,” he said. “I’m no reporter. But if you think the Courier isn’t backing me, you could call ’em.”
I took a shot in the dark. “You’re from Peckham, aren’t you? He owns a piece of the Courier, huh?”
He studied me. I looked out to the Caddy, and saw there was another man there, behind the wheel. I looked back at him.
“All right,” he said, “I’m from Peckham. He’s wondering about you and Miss Drexel. The boss isn’t one to wonder long.”
A silence. I didn’t know what other instructions the little man had received from his boss, but I was sure he’d carry them out, no matter what they were. I said carefully, “I knew Miss Drexel when I was seventeen years old. I took her out, then. I haven’t taken her out at all, in the past ten years, and have seen her only a few times since, always in public places. You can tell your boss he needn’t worry about me.”
The little man considered me thoughtfully. “He�
�s not worried about you. But he’ll want to talk to you. He’ll make it worth your while.”
“I haven’t anything to tell him,” I said. “I haven’t anything he’d buy.”
“He’ll decide that,” the man said. “Let’s let him decide that.”
“OK,” I said, “but I can’t go now.”
“Sure. We’ll pick you up tonight. About eight all right?”
“Eight’s all right,” I agreed. “But don’t come here. My wife would worry. I’ll meet you somewhere.”
“You name it.”
“The filling station, two blocks down, the Gargoyle station on Burnham and Diversey. I’ll drive down there and park the car.”
He nodded. “At eight. We’ll be there.” He turned and went back to the Caddy and the car pulled away.
There wasn’t anything I’d be able to tell Peckham, but I wanted to make that clear. If I’d been single, I’d have told them all to go to hell. If it weren’t for Norah and Junior, the cops would be meeting the little man this evening in front of the Gargoyle station.
I still considered calling them into it, but decided against it. Peckham, I’d heard, was a reasonable man. Unless opposed.
When Norah came back, I told her, “Foley wants to see me at his house tonight. He just phoned. Maybe I’ll be going back to work for the Star.”
She looked relieved. “Be sensible, now, Johnny. Don’t let your temper get the best of you.”
“I won’t,” I promised, quickly.
Junior looked at me, and sadly shook his head.
“Nuts to you,” I said.
“Blaa-a,” he said, and made a face.
“Two of a kind,” Norah said. “He certainly gets his disposition from your side of the family.” She came over to kiss me.
There was a faint breeze, a chill breeze, coming in from the north. Most of the trees lining Diversey were bare; what few leaves were left were dry and gray. This was the pause between fall and winter, when you can expect anything in the way of weather.
I drove slowly along Diversey, planning my words for Roger Peckham, wondering if I hadn’t made a mistake. At the corner of Diversey and Burnham, the Caddy was waiting.
The New Mammoth Book of Pulp Fiction Page 84