“News!”
“Huh?” he startled.
“I was asking you a question.”
“I’m sorry. Hit me again.”
“Do you think this helps me, I mean on the beat?”
This was what he loved about Perez. She played the angles as often as he did. “Can’t hurt, can it? Thinking constantly about his wife shacked with the holy man, Jackson loses his focus, maybe he misses a big story or two. And suddenly …”
“No more second fiddle.”
“There’s something wonderfully The Prince about you, Isabel,” LaFontaine declared. “The trick here, of course, is to let events take their own pace. Intercede and you could turn the tide against you.”
“Slow and careful,” she said thoughtfully. “My chat with Lawlor this morning doesn’t hurt either.”
“Chat? What chat?” News hated not being the first to know.
“I came in early this morning to start entering those campaign contributions into my computer and who should wander by my desk with his morning coffee?”
“The God of local information himself.”
“Fate is turning my way,” Perez agreed. “He saw the stack and asked me what I was up to. I told him about the database and he said it was a great idea. Emphasis on great. Wanted to be kept abreast personally of what I find.”
“She stands anointed.”
Perez smiled briefly, then knitted her brows. “Of course with my luck, it will all backfire. Jackson will take strength from Patti’s infidelities. My data bank will yield nothing. In a year I will be coming to work dressed like Mae West to edit the food pages.”
“Such faith,” News said sarcastically.
“I’ve been in this business long enough to be a realist.”
Claudette X came stomping toward them. “Isabel?”
“Claudette, how are things today?”
“Rotten, getting worse,” the massive executive assistant city editor growled. “You got to take over for Kent today. He’s been …”
“Visited by the Holy Ghost?” News interrupted.
Claudette X crossed her arms. “So caring of others in distress, News.”
“He’d do the same for me, Ms. Muslim.”
Claudette X realized she would get nowhere with LaFontaine and went on. “Jackson had a late-afternoon interview with Arlene Troy. You take it, Isabel. Give me twenty inches for tomorrow.”
“You’ve got it. Twenty to the inch.” Perez hurried away.
“A star is born,” News said. He turned to rearrange his desk and call Gertie.
Claudette X folded her bulging forearms. “You look not busy, News.”
“Nonchalance often accompanies those in total control, dear X,” LaFontaine replied. “In a matter of moments, in fact, I’m off to ambush a WASP bank president who owns part of an Irish pub. Could present interesting information on Cote D’Azure.”
“Keep me posted,” Claudette X said.
LaFontaine made a face behind her back as she barreled back to her desk. He gathered his briefcase and notebooks, and turned to leave. But the sight of the Zombie stopped him cold. Beads of sweat pelted the brow of the living dead obituary writer. The Zombie’s lips were the color of lilies. His irises burned like molten pig iron. The Zombie glared with pure and unequivocal hatred at the Glasshole of Neil Harpster.
LaFontaine held up two fingers in the form of a crucifix before himself as he edged around the elegy scribe. Clear of the apparition, he hurried from the newsroom as fast as his thick legs would carry him.
At the same time, Ed Tower knocked on the corner Glasshole. Connor Lawlor waved him in. Tower grimly held out a computer printout of the latest circulation reports.
“Despite Savage Views’ high readership, The Beacon bounced back last month with five hundred new subscribers,” he said. “We’re flat on home delivery, though slightly up on street sales because of this Gentry scandal.”
The fatigue etched on Lawlor’s face bordered on bewilderment. He took the printout, then handed the Editor for News Operations a memo. “Newsprint’s going up another ten percent the end of the month. We’ll have to cut to bare bones.”
“That will hit The Beacon, too.”
“Doesn’t help much,” Lawlor said. “The Beacon boys were smart, putting all their resources up in the north two years ago. It’s growing faster than any other part of the county. They’re getting subscribers. We’re treading water.”
“We’ll survive, Connor. We always have.”
Lawlor looked at a photograph of two women in their early twenties on his desk. “I’ve sacrificed everything that’s ever meant anything to me for The Post. I feel like events beyond my control are conspiring to flush my life’s work.”
“It’s not over,” Tower said firmly. “You’ve worked too hard. We’ve worked too hard.”
Lawlor rubbed his face with both hands. He took in the circulation figures again. He glanced at his Pulitzer Prize, at the front page of this morning’s Post, and then back up to the stone visage of his second-in-command.
“Okay, we won’t let the fat lady sing this week,” he said. “Ideas?”
Tower took off his beret and said, “Swingo.”
“No! No Swingo! I draw the line somewhere.”
“I know your feelings about using games of chance to promote papers, but I don’t think we have a choice,” Tower said. “I had Harpster research it. Swingo attracts readers as much as Dear Abby, the horoscopes, or Calvin and Hobbes.”
“It’s tawdry.”
“It works,” Tower insisted.
Lawlor kneaded his temples. “What happened to the days when you could run a paper on the basis of hard news?”
“They’re gone,” Tower stated flatly. “They’ve been gone a long time. We have to be pragmatists.”
Lawlor reviewed the summary of the circulation report a third time. “How much will it cost to get the game up and running?”
Tower grinned. “I’ll have the projections on your desk tomorrow morning. We can be producing Swingo cards in a week.”
“Have it here first thing. We’ll talk at lunch.”
Tower got up and made for the door, calling over his shoulder, “It’s the only thing we could have done.”
Lawlor nodded, letting his attention travel beyond Tower into the boil of the newsroom. He wished he could tell them what it meant to run The Post. Hell what it meant to be The Post. The newspaper was undoubtedly cast in his image, for right or for wrong.
He sighed. There had been penances to be paid for this achievement. A life of endless deadlines, grinding seven-day work weeks and agonizing decisions that kept him awake most nights. His wife, Kathleen, had left him five years ago after a marriage of twenty-six years. His daughters, all grown now, rarely spoke to him. He had no social life to speak of other than the charity events his position demanded he attend. He rarely took vacations. He lived alone in a ranch house near the ocean. The highs and lows of his existence had all taken place here at The Post.
Lawlor rubbed at the throb below his knee. The pain had been worse these past few weeks. It turned sharp whenever he allowed himself to think about the difficult decisions he’d had to make to keep the paper alive. For years he’d been able to keep those memories buried. Lately they’d surfaced to shoot red-hot agony through his leg.
He wished again he could tell someone what daily journalism had done to him and what he’d done to daily journalism. But such self-revelation could be dangerous in the superheated flux of gossip and backstabbing that permeated the business he’d come to dominate.
Lawlor kept these thoughts even from Tower, the closest he’d ever had to a confidant. He glanced again at the Pulitzer Prize. He knew that Tower had done almost as much to get the prize as he had. From the moment of his arrest, through the long months of imprisonment for refusing to name his sources, Tower had been behind him. Tower wrote dozens of stories on his incarceration. Tower kept Lawlor’s stand for journalistic principles alive in the public
’s mind.
Despite this thirty-year-old debt, there were things Lawlor could never tell Tower. Outside the newspaper Tower reveled in the social life of the city’s power elite. And like that annoying reporter, Prentice LaFontaine, Tower loved sharing the latest gossip about the triumphs and tragedies of the upper crust. If Lawlor disclosed his innermost concerns with his number two man, he could never be sure Tower wouldn’t use them as barter on the informational black market.
The editor-in-chief rubbed at his knee again. His personal problems were irrelevant. The important thing was keeping The Post alive and its reputation intact. He closed his eyes. He found a few moments of peace imagining puffy clouds in a blue sky. Then a dark vapor roiled on his horizon.
“Swingo,” he muttered.
A Hatchet Job …
PRENTICE LAFONTAINE WAS PERCHED on a barstool inside O’Branaghan’s Irish Pub waiting for Carlton Bank’s president, Thomas P. Whitney, to show up. The Zombie’s terrible countenance haunted him. He wondered if the obituary writer saw his reflection in mirrors. He thought about buying a string of garlic to hang on his statue of Arthur Miller. He ordered a Campari on the rocks.
He looked about the bar giving it the News appraisal. O’Branaghan’s was a 1990s interpretation of an Irish pub: brass rails, bleached pine board floors, numerous photographs of the Kennedys on the wall, dreadful ditties about the old sod played in the background. The place attracted florid-faced, tweedy types in their mid-twenties accompanied by their peaches-and-cream debutantes. Ghastly!
Nonetheless, this was where Perez claimed he was most likely to find Whitney after hours. Which LaFontaine found amusing. A WASP like Whitney owned a third share in a yuppie Gaelic restaurant. Middle age does strange things to the average male.
I should talk, he thought. He allowed himself a brief pang of remorse for breaking his last photograph of Gene. Then, as was his habit, he forced himself to dwell on the future. He had an invitation to a party tomorrow night at the Pink Stag, the city’s hottest gay club. Perhaps he’d meet someone! That’s what LaFontaine loved about life; you created hope not by examining the real, but by projecting the possible.
At seven-thirty the bank president entered, dressed casually in pleated green slacks and a white polo shirt emblazoned with the kelly green O’Branaghan’s logo. The bartender called out to him and Whitney asked him how business was going. I’ll tell you, News thought: The florid-faced and the peach-faced are on their way to shit-faced.
Whitney made the rounds, then took the booth in the back right corner and ordered dinner. LaFontaine waited until Whitney was three bites into his meal before sliding into the booth.
“Mr. Whitney, what a surprise finding you here!”
The bank president reacted as if he’d eaten a rotted potato. “We concluded business yesterday.”
“A reporter always has another question to ask.”
“But a banker doesn’t have to answer. I’ve explained all there is to explain. Good day, Mr. LaFontaine.”
“… it was what you said at the end of our chat yesterday … something about Sloan Burkhardt carrying on in the tradition of his father. I thought you might elaborate.”
Whitney slammed his fork down. He gestured to one of the bouncers at the door. “I didn’t want to do this, LaFontaine. But I have a right to my privacy in my own saloon.”
The bouncer, a beefier version of the bar’s customers, lumbered over.
“Pete, would you escort this gentleman to the door?”
“My pleasure, Mr. Whitney.”
The bouncer dropped a heavy paw onto the reporter’s shoulder.
“Let go of me, you steroidal Irish goon, or I’ll cause a scene!” LaFontaine snarled.
The bouncer drew his hand back uncertainly. “Mr. Whitney?”
“Get him out of here,” Whitney ordered.
Before the bouncer could get hold of him, News had squirmed into the back of the booth and assumed the fetal position. He squealed at the bank president, “I have friends in the Department of Health. One word from me and they’ll be all over this place.”
Whitney smiled. “Two inspectors were in last week. Triple-A rating. Pete?”
The bouncer leaned into the booth with a grin that turned to shock when the reporter kicked him in the chest. “Why you fucking little fairy,” the bouncer said. “I ordinarily don’t get rough with someone your age. But tonight I’ll make an exception.”
Pete grabbed him by the ankle before LaFontaine could flail again. News grabbed the edge of the table and held on for dear life. “I just want to talk about Sloan,” he pleaded with Whitney. “I found this case, this sealed criminal case and I …”
A flicker of interest and then, curiously, of pain passed across the bank president’s face. LaFontaine caught it. “No one knows what he did. Do you? That’s why I want …”
At that moment the reporter’s grip on the table’s edge slipped. He flew out of the booth and thumped onto the floor. To the delight of the happy hour crowd, the bouncer got hold of his other ankle and began dragging him dead deer-style across the barroom.
News arched to look backward. Whitney was leaning out of the booth. “My spine!” LaFontaine cried. “I’m going to sue!”
The bank president stood up, napkin still hanging from his belt. “Pete! Let him go.”
The bouncer turned. “Mr. Whitney?”
“I said, let him go.”
“But …”
“Now, Pete!”
The bouncer glared down at LaFontaine, gave the reporter’s foot a quick, vicious twist, then dropped him.
“Aaargh!” News yelled, and he sat up fast to rub at the ankle. “You potato-eating fascist. I hope the IRA takes you for a Protestant.”
Pete made as if to grab the reporter again, but Whitney stepped in to put a hand on his chest. “Just go back to the door, Pete. It’s all right.”
The bouncer’s nostrils flared once. “Whatever you say, Mr. Whitney.”
The bank president turned to News, who still sat cross-legged on the floor alternately rubbing his ankle and the back of his neck. “Why don’t we talk?”
“I still might sue,” LaFontaine declared. He waved his finger around him. “I have at least a dozen witnesses.”
Whitney looked at the silent crowd, then back at the reporter. “Do you wish to talk or not?”
“If you insist.” He got to his feet and hobbled, after the bank president.
Back in the booth, Whitney said, “What’s this about a sealed case?”
“If you hadn’t been so thuggish, we might…”
“Mr. LaFontaine, I’m tired of you. Cut to it or leave.”
The reporter brushed carpet lint off his forearm and said haughtily, “I told you, there’s a sealed 1986 criminal case against Burkhardt. And I want to know if you know what’s in it.”
The bank president studied LaFontaine. “I don’t. But that such a case exists does not surprise me. However, my position puts me in a delicate situation as far as talking.”
“Believe it or not, Mr. Whitney, reporters can be masters of discretion.”
“Tell that to the people who watched you scream and kick a minute ago.”
“Yes, well, even masters falter,” LaFontaine said.
Whitney took a sip of beer. He took another sip of beer, making his decision. Finally, he asked, “How much do you know about Harold Jennings?”
“Former mayor,” LaFontaine said. “Long time ago my editor pithed him like a froggie. He got my editor sent to jail. Eventually he ended up in jail himself. Did ten years, I think. What does this have to do with Burkhardt?”
“Everything, I should think. To understand a man, begin by understanding his enemies. Even his father’s enemies.”
Whitney broke into a long monologue about the Jennings family, which had been around since the city’s founding days. The grandfather had run brothels and gin joints in an area known as “Little Shanghai” at the turn of the century. The father used the profits
of sin and swill to set up a company called Jennings Concrete & Construction. The company built most of the city’s early commercial projects. The son, Harold, took over the business before World War II. Harold was bright, flamboyant, shrewd, and vindictive.
“Patterned himself on classic big-city operators,” Whitney said. “Harold Jennings thought nothing of making payoffs or making threats. Whatever it took to get the next job on-line.”
Over the years, young Jennings forged ties with other real estate types, money men, navy admirals, politicians. One of the connections was to a hot young developer named Coughlin Burkhardt. He worked closely with Jennings on the dozens of military construction projects undertaken when war broke out.
“They were good friends, Jennings and Burkhardt,” Whitney said. “Made millions together. After the war Burkhardt was the brains behind Jennings’s successful run for mayor.”
In the early fifties, however, the two men had a falling-out. Burkhardt formed his own construction-development company. He focused on the growing business of building shopping malls. Jennings consolidated his political power and used it to ensure that Concrete & Construction received a steady succession of public works projects.
“No one could prove it until your editor there, Lawlor, started poking around, but it became clear that if you wanted to get a big public project through city hall, Concrete & Construction had better have a chunk of it,” Whitney said.
LaFontaine thought back to the photograph in Sloan Burkhardt’s office. “And then came Alta Bay,” he said.
“And then came Alta Bay,” said Whitney, who described how in 1956 Burkhardt proposed to dredge and fill a coastal marsh, to turn it into a tourist Mecca with hotels, beaches, sailing bays, and marinas. It was an audacious idea, one that could potentially transform the city. Mayor Jennings opposed the plan.
“Why?” News asked.
“He and Burkhardt hated each other’s guts by then. But mostly because there was no room for Concrete & Construction in the Alta Bay plan. Burkhardt wanted the whole deal to himself. He had spent years paying for feasibility studies, laying the groundwork.”
Hard News Page 13