It was roughly the same size as our old Civic. Sleeker looking, too, but not necessarily peppier. I floored it as I got onto the highway and merged with traffic, and it felt a tad, well, anemic. But it hadn’t been my intention to buy a sports car. This vehicle was going to do just fine, and when you figured that I got it for about half the price of a new one, it was a hell of a good deal. There were times when I wasn’t even sure the car was still on. Sitting at red lights, when the electric motor took over to conserve fuel, the car was practically noiseless, like a golf cart. It wasn’t until the light changed, and I tapped the accelerator and moved, that I was certain the car was still in the game.
I found a metered spot on a side street around the corner from the Metropolitan building, walked past the huge bay doors where the papers rolled down off the presses, were bundled, and loaded into dozens of waiting trucks. I took the stairs up to the second-floor cafeteria and grabbed a coffee on my way to the fourth-floor newsroom.
I set my paper cup down next to my “work station,” part of a cluster of four desks separated by chest-high partitions, and pressed a button on my computer to bring it to life. I dug my notebook out of my sports jacket and flipped it open as I slipped down into my chair. I was typing a possible first sentence for the auction feature when I sensed a presence over my left shoulder.
I whirled around in the chair, catching one of my fingers on the edge of my notebook. It was Sarah. “Hey,” I said, glancing at the side of my index finger where a slender red line was developing.
“Hey yourself. What the hell happened when I was talking to you on the phone? Why didn’t you call me back? If you’re trying to give me a heart attack, your plan’s working perfectly.”
For a moment, I couldn’t remember ending our conversation so abruptly. “Oh yeah. Some nutjob went ballistic on Stan. No biggie. He’s dealt with worse.”
“How am I supposed to know that if you don’t call me back?”
I didn’t see Sarah’s other staffers getting chewed out like this. “Could we just move on?” I asked.
She took a breath, let it out slowly. “What are you doing now?”
“I’m gonna knock off this auction feature, Metro can use it any time they want with the pics Stan took.” I sucked on the side of my index finger. It was stinging like hell.
“Okay. How long?”
“Twenty inches or so.”
“Let it run. There’s a lot of big holes in the section tomorrow.”
Welcome to the newspaper biz. No one cares what’s in your feature, just so long as it will fill the space.
“And this feature on Larry? Is it-”
“Lawrence.”
“Right. Lawrence. Is that thing going to be done soon, because I was telling the M.E. about it, that things got a bit hairy last night.”
“Did you really have to do that?”
“Zack, there was no way I could not tell the managing editor about that. If Magnuson finds out about it from someone else, then comes to me and asks why I didn’t let him know, I’m toast around here.”
“Okay, I get it. But you explained it, right? That it just happened? It wasn’t like I planned to be in a shootout.”
“Uh, pretty much. But he wants to see you.”
My stomach did a flip. “You’re not serious.”
“He said, ‘Would you be good enough to have Mr. Walker come by and see me?’ And I said of course. He seemed a bit uncomfortable with the idea of you riding around in a car that’s taking shots at people. He also found it a bit hard to picture.”
“What does that mean?” I sucked on my finger again, winced.
“I don’t think he sees you as one of our more gung-ho staffers, risking his life to get a story.” She smiled and laid a hand on my shoulder. “Of course, he doesn’t know you the way I do. What have you done to your finger?”
“Paper cut,” I said. “Hurts like the devil. You got any Band-Aids in your office?”
Sarah sighed. “It would help, what with you being summoned to see Magnuson, if we had something to show him, some sort of progress on the Lawrence feature.”
“We’re going out at least one more night, tonight. Things could easily come to a head, then I can wrap the whole thing up.”
“Couldn’t you write it up now? Surely you’ve got enough. I mean, you’ve got a major robbery, a guy left dead in the street, what more do you want? It’s not like you have to solve these clothing store robberies. That’s Lawrence’s job, and if it takes him another month, I can’t afford to lose you for that long.”
“You just don’t want me to go. That’s what this is about.”
“That’s not true. I’m speaking totally as your editor here.”
“You’re lying. I can tell. You’re getting that flushed look at the base of your neck there.”
“Stop looking at the base of my neck.” She looked off into a far corner of the newsroom. “You know, I’m not sure this is working.”
“What? Our marriage?”
“No, you idiot. Our marriage is fine. You working for me, that’s the problem. Reporting to me. I hate it.”
“Do you find me a difficult employee? Because, if you’re considering giving me a poor performance review, I think we might be able to come to some sort of an arrangement.” I gave her my best “come hither” look.
“Oh, shut up,” she said.
“I have to admit, though, there are times when it is a bit distracting. For example, when I’m talking to anyone else in the newsroom, I’m not thinking about what color underwear they might be wearing.”
“Not even Sylvia, in sports?”
I paused, perhaps for too long. Sylvia, who keyed in late-night scores, possessed an amazing superstructure. “No,” I said. “Not even Sylvia.”
“Then you’re the only one,” Sarah said. “I swear, those have to be implants. I have two things to say to you. One, this kind of talk is the kind of thing that could get you in trouble with the paper’s sexual harassment police. And two, what color underwear do you think I’m wearing now?”
I studied her blouse. It was dark blue. That made it tough. Plus, Sarah was standing with her arms crossed.
“I’m betting the black one, with the clasp in the front,” I said.
Sarah mulled my answer.
“So, am I right?”
“You’ll never know,” she said. She started to walk away, then turned on her heel. “I nearly forgot to ask. What happened at the auction?”
I steeled myself. “We have a new car.”
Sarah looked wary, afraid to ask. “How much?”
“It’s perfect,” I said. “Not only that, it’s something we can be proud to own.”
Sarah’s eyebrows went up. “Oh my God. You went and bought a Beemer.”
“No no, not that kind of proud. That’s showy. I’m talking proud in a civic-minded kind of way.”
Sarah continued to look suspicious. “God, just tell me.”
“A Virtue.”
“A who?”
I explained the whole hybrid concept, as best as I was able.
“An electric car,” she said dubiously.
“Only half electric.”
“So, you got us a car that needs an extension cord? And you still haven’t told me what this cost us.”
“Not that much,” I said.
Sarah was starting to glower. “How much?”
“Just a little over eight thousand.”
She swallowed. “How much over eight thousand?”
“Nine hundred.”
“Nine hundred? So the car was nine thousand? Dollars?”
“No, just $8,900.”
Sarah shook her head. “There goes the budget for the next six months.”
“It’ll be okay. We’ll be saving hundreds on gas. Just wait and see. It’s a good deal.”
Sarah shook her head. “I think life was simpler when I only had to put up with you at home,” she said, and turned to make the trek back across the newsroom to her of
fice.
I turned back to my computer screen and started typing. A moment later, I felt a pair of hands on my shoulder, then noticed the familiar scent of Sarah as she leaned down and put her mouth close to my ear.
“You were right about one thing,” she whispered.
“About what?” I said, eyes on my screen.
“Black, front clasp.” And she strode off. I would have spun around in my seat to say something, but I had responded, involuntarily, to her comment, and felt that keeping a good part of me under the desk was prudent for the next couple of minutes.
Stan poked his head from behind the partition. “That was a good guess on the clasp thing,” he said, startling me. “I wasn’t even sure she was wearing one at all.”
“You probably know, Stan, that Sarah’s my wife,” I said.
He nodded. “I had a feeling you’d met her before.” He came around the partition, dropped a contact sheet on my desk. “There’s the auction stuff. There’s another copy with the desk, whenever they want it.”
I glanced at the negative-size shots. Stan could take something as mundane as a lot full of cars and, with the right angles and lighting, turn it into something special.
“Great,” I said. Stan didn’t acknowledge the compliment. He’d been praised by people a lot more important than I. One of the frames caught my eye. “That the guy?”
Stan squinted. “What?”
“The one who wanted your film? That him there?”
The angry short man was off to the left side of the frame, not doing anything in particular. Stan’s focus had been a pair of guys looking under the hood of a Pontiac. “I think so. I wasn’t even shooting him. Asshole.”
“Hey, Walker,” someone on the other side of me said.
I looked around. It was Cheese Dick Colby, the paper’s star police reporter, a heavyset man in his mid-fifties. A police search of his medicine cabinet would be unlikely to turn up any deodorant.
“Hey, Dick,” I said.
“Thanks for the call the other night, about the hit-run outside the men’s shop. Just so you understand, I do the breaking stuff, you can do the puff pieces.”
“Sure, Dick. I just hope someday I’m trusted to handle the big stories like you.”
Colby, evidently oblivious to sarcasm, said, “What you working on?”
“A feature.”
“This still the same thing you were working on the other night, hanging out with the detective?” He was leaning over my desk, forcing me to hold my breath, and looking at the contact sheet Stan had presented to me.
“Whoa, the fuck is this?” Colby asked. “That’s Barbie Bullock there.”
“Who?” I said, leaning in close to the pictures, not only to see them better but to put as much distance as possible between my nose and Colby’s armpit.
Colby pointed to the guy who’d roughed up Stan and demanded his film.
“Him. His actual name is Willy Bullock, but everyone refers to him as Barbie Bullock. He’s been attempting to run Lenny Indigo’s organization ever since Lenny got sent away for everything from dealing to robbery.”
“That name’s popping up everywhere,” I said.
“Lenny’s number two guy, Donny Leppard, he got sent up, too, but he’s going to be out in less than a year. Barbie here’s under a lot of pressure to do well while Donny’s gone a few months. He does a good job, Indigo’s likely to make him his number two guy instead of Donny.”
“So why do they call this clown Barbie?” Stan asked.
“He collects them. Barbies. Got hundreds of them, they say. All sorts of rare ones, plus accessories.”
“His key chain,” I said. “It was a like a mini-Barbie. I figured it was his wife’s or something. Doesn’t a guy who collects Barbies run the risk of being made fun of?”
Colby paused. “Last guy who made fun of Barbie Bullock had his face shoved into the running propeller of an Evinrude. You doing something on Bullock?” Colby eyed me warily, like I was trying to work his side of the street.
Stan spoke up. “He just happened to be in the picture. We were there doing something else, Dick, so chill out.”
Colby snorted, and I shifted in case any of it landed on me. After he walked away, I said to Stan, “So, don’t you feel special? Pissing off an important underworld character?”
Stan shrugged. “Listen, when you’ve pissed off the Taliban, everything else kind of pales in comparison.”
10
I banged off the auction story in under an hour, let the desk know it had been handed in, and popped into Sarah’s office. She was at her desk, reading stories on her screen.
“I’m outa here,” I said.
“Okay,” she said.
“Cheese Dick came by to see me.”
Sarah closed her eyes. “And?”
“He strutted about, then left. Could you put him on some sort of beat that requires bathing? Maybe send him to fashion, writing about skin care.”
“See ya at home. And don’t forget to see the managing editor before you leave.”
I hadn’t forgotten, but I had been considering pretending to have forgotten. I wandered over to his office, where his secretary was posted outside the door.
“Mr. Magnuson wanted to see me?” I said.
His secretary said, “And you are?”
This is always encouraging, when the secretary to the guy who runs the newsroom where you are employed has no idea who you are.
“Zack Walker?” I said. “I work here?”
She buzzed him, spoke so quietly into her phone that I could not make out what she was saying, and when she was done, said to me, “He’ll be with you in a moment.”
I cooled my heels for about five minutes, standing around Magnuson’s closed door like a kid waiting to see the principal. Finally, it opened, and Magnuson himself gestured for me to come in.
He was a slight man, a bit round-shouldered, thinning gray hair atop his head, immaculately dressed, even with his suit jacket off and hanging over the back of the leather chair behind his broad oak desk.
“Mr. Walker, what a pleasure,” he said. “I don’t think we’ve actually spoken since you joined us.”
“No, Mr. Magnuson, I don’t think we have.”
“Have a seat.”
I took a chair in front of his desk as he got back into his behind it. He tossed a red binder across the desk at me. There was a sticker on the front that read “Editorial Policy Manual.”
“Did you get one of these when you were hired?” Magnuson asked.
“Uh, I believe I did.”
“I’m going to have to rewrite it,” he said.
“Really? Why is that, Mr. Magnuson?”
“I left something out. I should have thought of this before I had it drafted. I can’t believe how neglectful I was.”
I didn’t want to ask, but felt it was expected of me. “What, uh, did you leave out?”
“The part that says Metropolitan staffers are not supposed to be involved in shootouts.”
“Mr. Magnuson, that’s not exactly correct. I was in a car with someone who was doing the shooting, but the only thing I was doing was holding the steering wheel so he could get off a few shots.”
“Oh, I see,” Magnuson said. I didn’t get the impression that this made everything okay. “You used to work for the competition, didn’t you?”
“Several years ago, yes. I worked at The Leader.”
Magnuson nodded thoughtfully. “Did the reporters over at The Leader get involved in shootouts, Mr. Walker?”
“Not regularly, sir, although there was one night when two guys from sports who’d had a bit too much to drink started shooting at each other over a Leafs-Sabres game. I don’t know where they got the guns, exactly.”
Magnuson cocked his head, squinted at me. “Is that an attempt at humor, Mr. Walker?”
I swallowed. “If it was, sir, it was evidently a very weak one.”
Magnuson eased back in his chair. “I’ve asked around a bit
about you. You know what I hear back?”
“I’m somewhat hesitant to ask, sir.”
“People say you’re annoying.”
“You should talk to more people than my wife, Mr. Magnuson.” I was hoping that might spark a smile, even a small one. It did not.
“When you were hired there, at The Leader, did they give you a notepad, a pen, a tape recorder, and a.45?”
“No, sir, they didn’t.”
“Because I was thinking, if it was okay for reporters there to do that kind of thing, to ride around in cars shooting off guns, that might explain why you thought it was okay when you got hired here. Maybe no one told you.”
“You see,” I said, swallowing, “what happened last night was kind of an unusual set of circumstances because-”
“Mr. Walker,” Magnuson said, leaning closer to me and pointing his finger, “we write the news. We try not to create it. It’s nice when we can be there as it’s happening, but as a rule we don’t hold the steering wheel so that others can fire wildly into the night. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“Yes.”
“That’s good. Because if you do, maybe I won’t have to rewrite this manual.”
“I don’t think that will be necessary.”
“Excellent.” He leaned back in his chair. “Good day, Mr. Walker.”
I understood what that meant, too, so I got up and walked out of the office, and as I headed for the elevator, thought I’d rather take my chances with those guys in the Annihilator than have another run-in with Bertrand Magnuson. The guys in the Annihilator didn’t have control over my paycheck, and with a new car and a daughter in college, it was the Magnusons of the world who could really put the screws to you.
11
I’d picked a bad time to leave the office. It was rush hour, and it took me the better part of half an hour to get uptown to our place on Crandall.
As I was approaching our house from the south, I saw a blue Jag coming from the north. I scooted into our driveway, pulling far enough ahead to allow Lawrence to pull in behind me.
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