Eye Contact

by Michael Craft

  Manning feels his stomach turn, and he wonders for a moment if he might vomit. But the sensation passes, and he rises. Once he has sealed the various labeled cartons he has filled, he places them in the aisle for removal. Then he flumps Nolan’s secret files into another box, unlabeled, and carries it out of the newsroom.

  Monday, June 28

  MONDAY MORNING HAS dawned hot and sticky in the city. Chilled air gushes from vents in the loft where east windows brighten with a white sky. There are no telltale signs that a mob partied here Saturday night—all is in order for the start of a new week. It will be a busy one for both Neil and Manning.

  The opening of Celebration Two Thousand on Saturday is now only five days away, and Neil is up to his neck in last-minute committee work. The little time he’s spent at the office lately has been occupied by preparations for the festival, and he’s had to rely on other architects in the firm to pick up some of his work. But there’s a big project, a corporate headquarters, that’s been back-burnered too long, needing his attention before it can proceed. He decided to arrive early at the office today in order to spend some time working on it uninterrupted. So he’s up with the sun this morning, showered and dressed already, brewing coffee in the kitchen.

  Manning is due for a challenging week as well. In contrast to Neil, who knows exactly what he must accomplish during the next few days (Neil has a clipboard with a checklist that keeps getting longer, not shorter), Manning is faced with the uncertainties of not one, but two vexing stories. He knows that Professor Zarnik’s claimed discovery is a fraud, as is the actor who claims to be Zarnik. He fears that Nathan Cain has been unwittingly drawn into some far-reaching conspiracy, but he hasn’t a clue as to the nature of the plot or the motive behind it. Further, all his instincts suggest that the Zarnik plot is somehow related to Cliff Nolan’s murder, and yesterday, while going through Nolan’s desk, he discovered to his utter dismay that the esteemed science editor had a dark side, a taste for “dirt.” Worst of all, Manning has knowingly misled his readership—and that, more than anything, goads him to get some answers fast and set the record straight.

  Like Neil, Manning has risen earlier than usual this morning. He appears from the shower wearing a pair of linen shorts, then pads down the stairs to find Neil pouring coffee. He gives Neil a kiss, stands back to look at him, and steps near again to tweak the knot of his tie. “You are the early bird today. No time for …?”

  “’Fraid not,” Neil tells him, patting Manning’s thigh. “If I can just get through this week, we’ll get our lives back—I promise.” He hands Manning a mug of coffee and sits at the breakfast table to review his clipboard.

  “Is the paper here yet?” Manning asks while rummaging inside the refrigerator.

  “You won’t find it in there. Want me to check?”

  “No thanks, kiddo. I’ll go look.” Crossing to the door, he notices Neil studying the list. “Nose to the grindstone already, eh?”

  Immersed in thoughts of the chores that await him, Neil doesn’t answer.

  Manning joins him at the table, spreads open the freshly delivered Journal, and slurps from his mug as he glances over page one. Nothing earthshaking—Sunday, as usual, was a slow news day.

  Manning sips from his mug again and swallows; Neil does the same. Manning turns a page of the Journal; Neil turns a page of his checklist. Sip, swallow, turn. Sip, swallow, turn. “Even the letters are nowhere,” Manning mumbles.

  “Hmm?” Neil isn’t listening.

  Sip, swallow, turn—then something catches Manning’s eye. “What?”

  Neil looks up. “Hot story?”

  “No,” says Manning, “it’s this ad.” He slides the paper across the table so Neil can get a look at it.

  It’s a full-page ad, full-color too, congratulating Pavo Zarnik on his momentous discovery. “You’ve done Chicago proud!” it trumpets. “The City of Big Shoulders welcomes you with open arms!” There’s a picture of Zarnik, another of the mayor, and a drawing of little planets playing hide-and-seek in a benign star-dusted universe. The ad concludes, “The Office of the Mayor salutes one of Chicago’s favorite sons.”

  Neil looks up from the paper. “Pretty lame.”

  “Yeah,” Manning snorts his agreement. “It’s also a waste of tax dollars. Do you have any idea what that page cost?”

  Neil shrugs. “Thousands.”

  Manning rises, stands behind Neil, and looks over his shoulder at the ad. “If you ask me, it’s an overly generous gesture if it’s simply intended to make Zarnik ‘feel good.’ Other than that, what’s the point?”

  Neil shrugs again, then notices something on the page. He peers close. “Aha!” He taps his finger on a line of agate type buried at the bottom of the ad.

  Manning strains to focus. “It’s a bit early for that, babe. What does it say?”

  Neil reads, “‘Paid for by the Office of the Mayor, City of Chicago, Victor Uttley, Cultural Liaison to the World.’”

  “You’re kidding,” says Manning.

  Neil tells him, “Until last night, I’ll bet you didn’t even know we had a cultural liaison to the world. Point is, it’s been sort of hush-hush. It’s a patronage job, naturally. Victor Uttley is related to someone who must have had a favor coming. The position was dreamed up a few months ago, and Victor fits it to a tee. He’s an ineffectual bureaucrat whose job is on the line.”

  “What does he actually do?”

  “Good question. Basically he just bugs the festival committees. I don’t think he means to be intrusive—he’s looking for something to justify his paycheck.”

  Manning circles the table and faces Neil from across the newspaper. “So this ad is meant both to congratulate Zarnik and to pump up the esteem of Uttley’s office.”

  “Exactly.”

  “God. …” Manning takes his coffee from the table and crosses the room, rising several steps to a platform area in front of the big east windows. He gazes vacantly at the sky, squinting through the sunlight, thinking.

  Neil moves the paper aside and returns to the perusal of his checklist.

  Manning turns, backlit by the white haze, and asks, “Victor Uttley—who is this guy? Does he have any qualifications as a cultural ambassador?”

  More amused than annoyed by the repeated interruptions, Neil closes the pad on his clipboard and shoves his chair back a few inches, sitting sideways to face Manning. “He’s no Alistair Cooke, but he seems well versed in the arts. Mostly theater. He was an out-of-work actor waiting tables somewhere before he lucked into the mayoral appointment—good thing his uncle’s a ward boss.” Neil winks.

  Manning raises the mug to his lips and drinks. With his other hand, he scratches his scalp, then rubs the back of his neck. Thinking aloud, he says, “It’s curious that Uttley would make such a hoopla about Zarnik. Uttley’s job security would seem to depend more upon the success and prestige of Celebration Two Thousand. What interest would a ‘cultural liaison’ have in astronomy? It doesn’t fit. Does it?”

  Manning’s question was rhetorical, and Neil doesn’t bother to answer. Instead, he simply watches Manning as he poses in thought, nearly naked, on the platform that displays him as if on a stage. Gaping windows give the world a glimpse of the profoundly beautiful man whose intimacy has been Neil’s alone to savor for the past two years. Something stirs between Neil’s legs. He grins. I’d take you here and now, he telepaths, but I’m ready for the office, and duty calls. No time to linger. Sorry.

  Manning says, “Too weird. Just yesterday, Cliff Nolan’s neighbor told me that the man she saw at Cliff’s door had a limp, and I’m still not sure if I should believe her. When she told me this, Victor Uttley sprang to mind—he fits the description perfectly—but I couldn’t imagine that he would have any connection to either Pavo Zarnik or Cliff. Now this splashy ad. Who knows?”

  “He doesn’t strike me as a killer, if that’s what you’re driving at.” Neil is talking about Victor Uttley, but he’s thinking about Manning. Damn, wh
at a hot man, right there in front of him, his for the asking. “By the way, don’t be thrown by his fey manner—he’s straight, thank God.”

  “He’s straight?”

  “Sure is.” Neil steps up to the platform, and drapes his arms over Manning’s shoulders. “But guess what—I’m not.”

  “I’d heard rumors to that effect.”

  Neil presses his mouth to Manning’s. Their tongues meet, and they taste each other’s coffee—Neil likes that amaretto-flavored cream, while Manning takes it black.

  Manning’s passions quickly rise. So does the lump in his shorts. He tells Neil, “Take your clothes off.”

  “Can’t. No time.” He drops to his knees, takes the coffee from Manning’s hand, sets the mug down, and hooks his thumbs in the waistband of Manning’s shorts. “There’s time for this, though.” And he shucks them to the floor.

  Manning’s head lolls backward as Neil’s face nuzzles his crotch. There they are—one naked, the other fully dressed—onstage before an anonymous city. Thousands of waking eyes may be watching. More likely, none at all. Manning’s arms hang limp, his fingers tracing lazy circles on the temples of the man who loves him. Manning’s eyelids flutter, revealing strobe-flash glimpses of the ceiling of the room where he is worshipped by the man who kneels before him. As if dreaming, Manning feels himself slipping down Neil’s throat. He’s needed this. They’ve needed this.

  The phone rings. Neil’s teeth clench; Manning’s eyes pop. “Sorry,” Neil tries to mumble, but it sounds more like “thawgy.” They attempt to ignore the intrusion and get back to business, but it’s impossible—the moment has passed.

  “Thanks anyway,” says Manning, bending over to plant a kiss on Neil’s head. “It might be important.”

  Manning trots to the kitchen and answers the phone. “Oh. Hello, Gordon.”

  Neil, satisfied that the unwelcome call is not for him, rises from his knees, checking his watch. He whisks his hair and clothes with his hands, picks up Manning’s shorts and coffee, and heads for the kitchen.

  Gordon Smith’s voice tells Manning, “Sorry to bother you so early, Marko.”

  “No bother at all,” Manning lies. He and Neil roll their eyes at each other.

  The editor continues. “Nathan Cain just phoned me.”

  “Oh?”

  Neil has rinsed their cups and put the clipboard in his briefcase. He’s ready to head out, but he still has Manning’s shorts shoved under one arm.

  Smith says, “He wants to see us in the inner sanctum again. Thirty minutes.”

  Neil approaches, flips the shorts onto Manning’s head like a big floppy beret, then gives Manning’s penis a jaunty good-bye tug—it’s still wet with Neil’s spit, but has shrunken fast in the air-conditioning. Seconds later, Neil is out the door.

  There’s a touch of nervousness to Smith’s chuckle as he suggests, “Better get cracking, Marko.”

  Resigned to a morning that just isn’t working out right, Manning tells him, “No problem, Gordon.”

  Half an hour later, riding the private elevator to the top of the Journal Building, Manning asks Smith, “Did Cain say what he wanted?”

  Smith shakes his head. “I assume he wants an update on Cliff Nolan or an account of your meeting with Zarnik.”

  “Either that,” says Manning, “or he wants to know how his star reporter managed to screw up the Sunday lead.”

  Bingo. “I doubt that,” Smith says.

  The door slides open, the security guard nods—he’s been expecting them—and they are admitted without comment into Cain’s outer offices. The receptionist rises, also without comment, and escorts them down the hall past the secretarial pool, where the four desks are not yet occupied, since it’s barely eight o’clock. When they arrive in Lucille Haring’s office, the receptionist gives Manning and Smith a half-smile, then turns and retreats to her desk.

  The office seems empty. Manning and Smith exchange a look that asks, Now what? Then, someone rises from a desk behind a file cabinet. Their first glimpse of short-cropped carrot-colored hair confirms that Lucille Haring also got an early start this morning.

  “Gentlemen,” she says. It’s a greeting without inflection that merely acknowledges their presence. She’s busy shuffling paperwork. Her eyes do not meet theirs. “The Colonel is expecting you.” She crosses to the arched door that leads to Cain’s office, reaches for the knob, and turns back toward Manning and Smith. She at last looks Manning in the eye, but her face seems utterly featureless, even more so than before. The slightest cock of her head signals that they should enter.

  The situation is entirely too weird for Gordon Smith’s down-home nature. As he passes Haring on his way into Cain’s office with Manning, he tells her, “Cheer up, Lucy. I don’t much care for Monday mornings, either.”

  She looks at him as if he’s out of his mind.

  Awkwardly, he adds, “It was sure nice to see you at Marko’s party Saturday. Too bad you had to skedaddle.”

  She looks from Smith to Manning with a panicky expression that asks, How much do you know? What did you tell him?

  Manning opens his mouth, searching for something to say, but before he can muster any words, she slips back into her office, closing the door behind her.

  Standing just inside the inner sanctum, Smith lowers his voice to ask Manning, “What got into her?”

  Beats me, Manning shrugs silently.

  A pervasive quiet fills the vast room, and Cain does not seem to be present. Last Thursday, however, Cain was lurking, listening, somewhere in the library stacks. This time, Smith won’t give his publisher the opportunity to eavesdrop, so he stifles his loquacious tendencies and prudently decides to zip it. He and Manning aren’t sure what they should do, where they should go, but they feel silly standing there by the door. Side by side, they walk with measured steps toward the high altar of Cain’s desk, like timid Munchkins approaching Oz. They look about. Smith clears his throat and calls out, “Nathan?”

  No response.

  From the side of his mouth, Smith tells Manning, “Must be in the crapper.”

  With a clank of heavy brass hardware, the door to the publisher’s private quarters opens, and Nathan Cain appears. He apparently spent the night here in the tower, for he still wears pajamas—silk, of course, the color of deepest burgundy. Over them he wears a copious robe—also silk, of royal blue that’s almost black. If he wore a stovepipe hat, he’d look like a smoked Uncle Sam.

  “Good morning, Gordon,” he says dryly, then adds, “Mr. Manning,” nodding to each of them. He guides a pair of ostrich-leather slippers across the parquet floor, moving toward the bar. “Can I get you something?”

  Manning’s had his coffee, but wouldn’t mind some orange juice. Then he sees Cain pour himself a generous snifter of cognac. “No, thank you, sir.”

  Smith asks, “Do you have any coffee, Nathan?”

  “I’ll send for some,” he offers, then crosses to his desk. He presses a button there, telling the gadget, “Coffee.”

  He walks toward the seating area where they had their last discussion and flumps himself with difficulty onto one of the sofas, sloshing some cognac over the edge of his snifter. He wipes the side of the glass with his index finger, which he then licks. With his finger still in his mouth, he motions with his eyes that Smith and Manning should sit on the sofa across from him.

  Smith says, “I was surprised to get your call so early, Nathan. What’s up?”

  “‘Up’?” Nathan Cain doesn’t need a reason to call underlings to his office, day or night. Maybe he felt like talking. Maybe he wanted company. “I thought Mr. Manning might appreciate my take on Sunday’s Zarnik piece.”

  Uh-oh. “Mr. Cain,” Manning begins.

  But Cain cuts him off with a flick of his hand. “The story seemed a little … thin. Not quite as much meat as I expected.”

  Manning glances sideways toward Smith, who looks toward him with a nervous smile. Manning isn’t sure how he can justify the story to
Cain—he’s buying time, and for Cain’s own good, but he’s not yet prepared to reveal his suspicions. Cain would expect proof, and Manning doesn’t have it.

  “However,” Cain continues, “on balance, I felt you did a commendable job of making a complex topic accessible to the general reader. Just enough technical mumbo-jumbo to be authoritative, but not overly long. Pithy, in fact.” He raises his glass in a salute. “Well done, Manning.” He drinks.

  Smith gives Manning an elbow nudge, all smiles. “See there, Marko? I said you nailed it—and you had doubts!”

  Manning tells him, “One of these days, Gordon, I’ll learn to take you at your word.” Then he says to Cain, “Thank you, sir. I appreciate your vote of confidence, but in truth, that story was not my best work. There were some loose ends—factually—that I wasn’t able to bring together before deadline.”

  Cain asks, “The funding angle?”

  “Right. And the computer power—I wanted to be quantitative, but Zarnik was either unable or unwilling to supply me with facts. What’s more, he seemed totally thrown by my questions regarding his scientific method.”

  “So you ran with what you had,” says Cain, indifferent. “That’s the nature of this business, Manning—I needn’t explain that to you.” He snorts his terse little laugh. “The main thing is, Zarnik’s on the level.” There’s a pause. “About his discovery.” Pause. “Right?”

  Manning chooses his words with care. “His video demonstration was … compelling. He’s presented us, in effect, with a redrawn map of the solar system. If it’s inaccurate, intentionally or otherwise, the truth will eventually win out. It’s possible, of course, that the video demonstration itself is some sort of fabrication, but I can’t imagine any reasonable motive for deception. Why would Zarnik lie?”

  “Why, indeed,” echoes Cain. He warps his brows in thought. Then he leans forward, elbows on knees, coddling the snifter with both hands. “Let me be frank about this. My contacts in Washington now seem satisfied that Zarnik isn’t playing games, and that’s really all that they’ve asked us to help them to determine—so we’ve done our job, and a favor has been repaid. But I have to tell you, Manning, that some of the issues you’ve raised have roused my own reporter’s instincts. Would you like to keep digging on this a while longer?”