Charm City

by Laura Lippman

  “Well, paper is awfully handy for taking on a bus, or sharing at the breakfast table. By the way, my grandmother on my mother’s side is the only person who gets away with calling me Theresa.”

  “I hope you’re not one of those types who’s still hot for hot type, Theresa.” Whitman didn’t seem to be deliberately ignoring her, he had just lost the habit of listening to any voice other than his own. “Dreaming of pneumatic tubes—don’t tell me that’s not Freudian. But things do change, and usually for the better, I think, although that’s not always a popular opinion these days. Do you think football should be played in leather helmets? Should we use carrier pigeons to cover breaking events? Would you have preferred to come here today via streetcar? You’re young, you’re suppose to embrace the future, while old farts like myself—” he paused here, in case she wanted to object to his characterization of himself. “Anyway, you make a lovely Luddite.”

  For someone who’s so gung ho about the future, Guy Whitman was sure behind the times when it came to the current thinking on what constitutes sexual harassment. Tess thought about reprimanding him, but he had ducked through a narrow space between two plastic dividers covered with soiled, once-blue fabric—the systems manager’s “office.”

  Behind the dingy dividers, all was order—a severe, meticulous order. The metal cabinets shone, as did the desk, giving the alcove the high-tech, unused look of an office in an Ikea catalog. With the exception of a Georgia O’Keefe wall calendar and one Post-It note on the computer terminal, there was not a single scrap of paper in this office. Not even a newspaper, Tess noticed.

  “So, where’s the computer geek who presides over this electronic kingdom?” she asked Whitman.

  A scratchy female voice came from somewhere around their ankles. “The geek is under her desk, unplugging a laptop whose batteries she was recharging because the prima donna reporter who had it last couldn’t be bothered with such a mundane task.”

  A plump woman in her late thirties crawled out and stood up, brushing off her jeans. Of medium height, with flyaway brown hair that had long ago surrendered to a nest of cowlicks, she was as soft and disarrayed as her office was hard and sleek.

  Tess held out her hand. “Tess Monaghan, vicious purveyor of stereotypes.”

  “Dorie Starnes. And I don’t mind being called a geek. It’s a promotion for someone who started in circulation. Who’da guessed I had a natural gift for computers? Not the teachers at Merganthaler Vo-Tech, that’s for sure. They kept trying to steer me toward the commercial baking classes.”

  Dorie was not someone to do one thing when she could be doing two or three. As she spoke, she settled into her ergonomically perfect chair, complete with tie-on backrest, and rolled another chair to her side, patting it in invitation even as she began to type a series of mysterious codes into the computer.

  “Move on, Mr. Whitman. You’ll just be in the way. Go make a news decision, or convene a focus group on box scores. Aren’t you going to run a reader’s contest to name the new basketball team? Oh, I forgot, that was a promotion marketing worked out with Wynkowski. Guess that’s no longer a go.”

  Whitman forced a hearty laugh. “That’s a good one. Of course, Dorie doesn’t even read the paper, do you, Dorie? Who’s the prime minister of Israel, Dorie? Is the state legislature currently in session? Who’s the President of the United States? What’s NAFTA stand for?”

  “I try to read the newspaper, Mr. Whitman, I really do. But all I see are the computer commands that make it possible to put black stuff on white stuff. Sometimes the arrangements turn into stories I want to read, but most of the time they just look like those crazy paintings in that new wing at the Baltimore Museum of Art. Black stuff on white stuff.”

  Dorie stared at her computer monitor as she spoke, running her fingers rapidly across the keys like a pianist warming up. As far as Tess could tell, she wasn’t really doing anything, but it looked impressive, blocks of copy appearing and disappearing on her screen.

  “Very clever, Dorie. When you’re through taking Ms. Monaghan through the system, ask my secretary to take her to the office we’ve set up for her. Jean also has a list of the workers you need to interview, Terry.” Terry! That was worse than Theresa. “By the way, would you like to have lunch with me today? I find myself unexpectedly without plans.”

  “What happened?” Dorie asked, all sweet innocence. “Was there a fire at your favorite motel?”

  This time, Whitman’s fake chuckle was not so robust.

  “Now, Dorie, Miss Monaghan will have the wrong impression of me if you keep this up.”

  “I’m afraid I couldn’t join you today, anyway. I have plans.” Dorie might have been kidding about the motel room, but Whitney had warned her that the very married Whitman felt honor bound to make a pass at virtually every woman who passed through the office.

  Dorie kept her eyes trained on the monitor, fingers tapping away. “NAFTA is the North American Free Trade Agreement,” she said softly to herself. “The Maryland legislature convenes on the second Wednesday in January and meets for exactly ninety days. Is he gone?”

  “Yes,” Tess said, glancing over her shoulder. “Is he always such a jerk?”

  “Actually, he’s generally harmless, which is saying something around here. He was only trying to impress you. But I don’t love him. And Whitman needs to be loved, and not just in the boy-girl way. He needs complete, unconditional adoration, something I reserve for Johnny Unitas.”

  “Hey, I grew up in a house where the Colts were the only theology my parents could agree on.”

  Dorie allowed a small, crooked smile at that. She was typing rapidly again, with some purpose now. A copy of Feeney and Rosita’s Wink Wynkowski story appeared on the screen.

  “Okay, this is a story, or a ’take,’ which is stored in a directory. The Wynkowski piece was assigned to CITY HOLD, a directory for stories that have been edited, but are waiting clearance, sort of like jets ready to take off. Some are evergreens—stories that can run anytime there’s space, but it’s not urgent. Others are hot potatoes, designated WFP—Wait For Permission. The Wynkowski piece had an WFP on it—Wait For Permission. Only three people, Mabry, Reganhart, and Sterling, can move one of those.”

  “Does an WFP have limited access, then? I mean, can only those editors call it up?”

  “Good question.” Dorie’s tone suggested she had not expected Tess to ask good questions. “WFP is a policy, not a program; the computer doesn’t make any distinctions. Anyone could pull a story out of this directory and make changes, but they’d better not. The computer keeps a history, and if Colleen found someone messing with a WFP, that person would be history.”

  Tess studied the words on the screen. “Is this the story, or a copy?

  “It’s the original. The one in the paper was a copy of an earlier version, before Colleen had edited it last. But there’s still a trail. The computer tells us someone sat down at computer number 637, the classical music critic’s terminal, a little before eleven-fifteen P.M., the time the story was sent to composing. Everyone in the building knows the critic never remembers to shut his machine off. He’s legendary for it.”

  “So you can use his sign-on, knowing you won’t get caught.”

  “Yeah, but even with the guaranteed anonymity of working under the critic’s user name, this person was real, real careful. Watch.”

  Dorie tapped another key and Tess saw a form, which showed when the story had been created—almost six weeks ago, by Rosita Ruiz—and who had made changes to the story since: Ruiz, Feeney, Sterling, Reganhart, Hailey, Whitman, Mabry. Too many cooks, she thought. No wonder Feeney’s usually clean writing had broken down into clichés and chest-thumping hyperbole.

  “Here’s my working hypothesis.” Dorie said the word as if it were two words, hypo thesis. “He/she called up the old version on ‘Browse’ and saved all of the text—” Nimbly, Dorie demonstrated how to define a large block of copy and store it with just three keystrokes. “The
n he/she went into the set directory and picked out a Page One story already set into type. A tidal wetlands story in this case, which the paper probably could live without. You see, the coding is already there, so all our unofficial editor had to do was erase the wetlands text and put the Wink text in its place.”

  “What about the headline?”

  “Wrote a new one—not a very good one, but it was the same number of characters as the tidal wetlands head, so it fit. Probably didn’t want to take the time to make it good. Now watch this.” Dorie hit one key, and the body of the Wink Wynkowski story appeared. “I hit justify—” she stroked another key “and the computer tells me I’m over by six lines. I cut from the bottom—” She deleted the last graph with two keystrokes. “I justify again. Perfect. Now all I have to do is change the bylines and I’m ready to roll.

  “Last step.” She hit another key and the type was now underlined as she wrote “SUB, SUB, SUB FOR TIDAL” at the top. “See, that’s in a special format, the computer can’t ‘read’ it, but the guys in the composing room can. A final command—Command X, in fact, and it’s on its way. Vol-A.”

  “What’s Vol-A? Computer jargon for Volume A?”

  “No, it’s French. You know, like a magician might say. Vol-A!” And she made a large, sweeping gesture with her hand, as if pulling a rabbit out of her computer.

  “Oh, voilà,” Tess said, hating herself for it when she saw Dorie’s face.

  “I saw it in some book. I didn’t know you said it that way.”

  “Hey, I’m the same way, phonics screwed me up for life. I can’t pronounce half the words I see in print. But it’s more important to know something than to know how to pronounce it.”

  “Not around here,” Dorie said, looking unhappily at her keyboard. “I read a lot—history, especially the Civil War, and I’ve been listening to all these books on tape—full-length, not abridged. It took me a month to get through Great Expectations. But it doesn’t matter. Here, it’s how you say things, not what you say. It’s how you talk, it’s how you dress, and whether you went to some fancy college. And if you’re a woman, it’s how you look, too.”

  “But you have the real power, Dorie. You could bring this place to its knees. They couldn’t put the paper out without you.”

  “Yet I’m still just a computer geek, right?” Apparently, she had not forgiven Tess’s tactless opening line. “Lesson over. You’re on your own now. Let me tell you one more thing—”

  Tess looked up hopefully.

  “If you spill soda or coffee on one of my keyboards, your life won’t be worth living.”

  Although barely in his thirties, classical music critic Leslie Brainerd wore voluminous khakis hiked up to his sternum, belted so tightly they suggested an Empire ball gown. This effect was heightened by his long-fallen pectoral muscles, bobbling like voluptuous breasts in his knit polo shirt. Alone at his desk, he appeared to be listening to music on his headphones, which looked like a strange growth on his shiny bald head. But when Tess tapped him on the shoulder, he jumped with a violent start, awakened from a covert catnap.

  “Small details are for small minds,” he sniffed, once he understood why this strange woman had disturbed his sleep. “I have more important things on my mind than turning off this machine every night.”

  “I’m sure you do,” Tess assured him, determined to ingratiate herself after her rough start with Dorie.

  “Tuesday night was very busy for me,” Brainerd continued fretfully. “I had to write on deadline. A most exquisite concert, featuring a young violinist.” The name he mentioned meant nothing to Tess, and her blank look must have given this away.

  “But you must know her! She’s lovely! To see her in a black velvet gown, slit to the femur, is to experience heaven. ‘The curves of her body mirror the curves of the violin, creating an almost sexual tension between the performer and her instrument.’ That’s from my review.”

  She couldn’t stop herself. “When Pinchas Zukerman was in town, I don’t remember any details about his body.”

  “Oh, yes, my Zukerman piece. Another exceptional piece of deadline writing. I received quite a few compliments on that.”

  Good, Brainerd’s hide was too thick to pierce, armored as it was with self-importance. Tess would bet that perhaps 5,000 of the Blight’s 400,000 readers actually slogged through his reviews, but they were the right 5,000, the men and women likely to fraternize with the publisher and the top editors.

  “So you left here about ten-thirty. Did you see anyone on your way out? Did you go straight home, or did you stop somewhere along the way?”

  Brainerd looked confused. “Where would I go?”

  “I don’t know. A restaurant, a gas station, a bar. I’m trying to figure out if you can prove the time you left here, or if someone else can establish the time frame. The computer tells us when you filed, but because you didn’t turn it off and the security system was down, there’s no record of when you left the building. And your boss edited the piece from home, so he doesn’t know when you left, either.”

  “I was not happy with Harold’s changes. He never gives me enough space. Just slashes from the bottom, like some vandal, or that crazy Hungarian who hammered Michelangelo’s Pièta. I asked him once if he thought Mozart could be edited, and he said, ‘He could if he wrote for me.’”

  Tess mentally crossed Brainerd off the list of possible accomplices. It was obvious to her now that Leslie Brainerd was too egotistical to care about any story written by someone other than Leslie Brainerd. If he had stumbled into the Watergate burglary, he probably would have written about how sleek the Cubans looked in their black pants.

  The others on Tess’s list of those known to be in the building the evening of “unscheduled publication” were night-side workers who wouldn’t arrive until 2 P.M. or later. She took a long lunch at Lexington Market, opting for an all-peanut meal: fresh roasted nuts for her main course, then brittle from Konstant Kandy for dessert. After a morning at the Beacon-Light, with its strange codes and conflicting agendas, the old market felt refreshingly real. You want an apple? Some bananas, maybe? Apple meant apple; banana meant banana. No more, no less.

  Back at the Blight a little after 2, she found custodian Irwin Spangler taking a cigarette break on the loading dock. He shook his head mournfully at all her questions. “The only thing I ever notice around Mr. Brainerd’s desk is how many cups of coffee he’s managed to spill in a day. Tuesday must have been a good day for him, because I don’t remember needing too much time up there. I was off the floor by eleven.”

  Following the story’s journey through the paper, Tess went to the composing room, on the third floor. Howard Nieman, the worker who had pasted the story in place and sent it on its way, was starting his shift. A stoop-shouldered man with thinning brown hair, he had a permanent squint from a lifetime of working with agate type.

  “Didn’t anything seem out of the ordinary to you that night?” Tess asked him, after introducing herself. “Wasn’t there something about the story, or the way it arrived, that seemed unusual?”

  “It fit and it didn’t make the paper late. Those are the only things I really care about, miss.”

  It was a slow time for Nieman, the lull between the advance Sunday editions, which would be followed by the rest of the Sunday paper, and then the Saturday paper. He showed her how the copy came in, on shiny rolls of paper with gummy backs. The strips were sliced, then pasted on the pages. A camera shot a photograph of the page, and this photo was used to make the printing plate. Tess had known this once, albeit dimly.

  “I’ll tell you one funny thing,” Nieman said. “This kind of trick would be difficult to pull off if the pagination system were in place. That’s where they design all the pages by computer. They do some of them that way, but not page one, not yet. Ol’ Five-Four is always slow to put out money for the new stuff.”

  “What are you going to do when they go to pagination company-wide? Would you take a buyout if they offered it,
like they have at some other papers?”

  He smiled with only half of his mouth. “Our contract calls for lifetime job security, so they’ll retrain us for some monkey work around here. I’m fifty-two—too young to stop working, too old to learn another trade. I gotta stick it out.”

  Tess stopped next to an easel where the Real Estate section front was displayed. The standing “sig” across the top—the columnist’s name, in this case—said Annie Heffner. The photograph showed someone with a full, glossy beard. She pointed this out to Nieman, who shrugged.

  “We catch most of ’em. What’s that thing about the forests and trees? Well, we’re the tree guys.”

  Tess understood. Howard Nieman, like Dorie with her head full of computer commands, saw the paper differently than the average reader, or even the average reporter. His version was a modular collage, pieced together from strips of copy, photographs, and standing features. Tidal wetlands or basketball, what did he care? As long as he was off the floor on time and his paycheck came through for another week, he was a happy man.

  And another unlikely accomplice.

  The editors had given Tess a small, windowless office near the old, now unused presses. Tess consulted a list of Beacon-Light employees and sent an e-mail message to Lionel Mabry’s secretary, asking to see the night rewrite, Chick Gorman, as soon as he arrived for work.

  Tess had assumed Chick was a man, but the person who burst through her door minutes later was a small woman with close-cropped dark hair, the same reporter she had seen that morning. At first glance, the woman could have passed for a college intern. Then one noticed the fine lines at the corners of her eyes, the shadow of a worry line between her eyebrows. Her poise finally gave her age away: absolute self-confidence can’t be faked at 22.