Reparations

by Stephen Kimber

  Once Jack had satisfied himself that Ward had had no contact with Ray since high school, his tone changed. “Okay,” he declared, “we have some cards to play too. This fucking story will never see the light of day.”

  And it hadn’t. Not yet anyway. Ward looked at his watch again. Seven minutes to ten. Almost time for another newscast. He turned the radio back on.

  For most of the past forty-eight hours, Patrick Donovan had wanted more than anything to be home in his bed asleep. But now that Harkin was telling him he should go and do exactly that, he resisted.

  “But—”

  “Look, kid,” Harkin said, not unkindly, “you did what you could. It didn’t work. It’s not your fault. It’s not our fault. It’s not our paper. It’s not our call.”

  “But—”

  “Go home, kid. Get some sleep. Things’ll look better when you wake up.”

  Patrick doubted, that. He’d lucked into the biggest scoop of the election campaign, maybe the biggest story of the year, and the Trib wouldn’t print it.

  Late Saturday afternoon, Ray Carter, the Black Pride guy he’d quoted in a bunch of stories now, had phoned him at home, asked if he was interested in “a big story.” When they met for coffee at Black Pride’s offices a few hours later, Carter laid it all out. Affidavits, photos, everything. “Signed, sealed and delivered,” he said with a smile.

  But not published. When Patrick brought the materials back to the newsroom, Harkin was skeptical. “How do we know these people even exist?” he said, pointing to the sworn statements from eight Maynard Square residents, who each claimed a Liberal campaign worker named Ward Justice had given them a Thanksgiving turkey to vote for Seamus O’Sullivan. “Have you talked to any of them?”

  “No, but—”

  Harkin was incredulous. “You want us to put our asses on the line and you haven’t even talked to them?”

  “I will. I just got this stuff a few minutes ago and—”

  “And these photos. Look at them. Grainy. Taken from miles away. You say this guy in the suit is that Liberal campaign worker talking to a coloured woman. What’s that prove? Is she one of the affidavits? You say he’s giving her a turkey, but all I see is a grocery bag. How can you tell what’s really happening? Black Pride could have set the whole thing up just to make O’Sullivan—and us—look bad. Don’t forget they don’t like us very much.”

  “What about the picture of the guy by the car?” Patrick persisted.

  In the photo, the same man stood beside the open trunk of a car, handing what looked like a liquor bottle to a black man. Other men stood in a line behind him. Beyond them, you could clearly make out the outlines of the project’s townhouses. The photograph had been taken in Maynard Square.

  “Okay, so you can see his face in that one, and, yes, it could be the same guy in the other pictures . . .” Harkin took his loupe out of his desk drawer, placed it on the photo over the trunk of the car. “What were you saying about the licence plate?”

  “Carter told me somebody in Motor Vehicles ran the plate for them and came up with the fact that it’s registered to . . .” Patrick flipped through his notebook looking for the name. “. . . Jack Eagleson,” he said triumphantly. “The party’s provincial campaign manager.” He hadn’t known who the campaign manager was until Carter had told him a few hours ago. He hoped he was right.

  “That could be worth a story, no question,” Harkin mused. He seemed to be warming to the idea. “A very big story. But we’d have to confirm it. You’d have to confirm it. That and everything else. Interview everyone who gave a statement. Talk to their neighbours. What do they know? Did they see anything? Eyeball this Justice guy. Who is he? What does he do for the campaign? Is he really the same guy as in the pictures? And what’s he have to say for himself?”

  “I can do that.” Patrick wasn’t sure how, but he wasn’t going to let this story slip away from him.

  “And you don’t have much time either, kid.” Harkin looked at his watch, more for effect than for information. “The polls open in forty-eight hours and this is a holiday weekend.”

  “I can do it,” Patrick repeated, more confident this time.

  And he had. Patrick had done everything Harkin asked. He’d re-interviewed everyone who’d given a statement. They’d all confirmed what they’d claimed in the affidavits. Some had even shown him the turkeys and told him about the arrangements they’d made to be picked up and driven to the polling station by a Liberal volunteer on election day. One thing missing from the affidavits Black Pride had gathered was any reference to the role of a black man named George Johnstone; he was, they told Patrick, the man who’d initially made all the arrangements. Patrick included that in his story, too. And he got the paper’s police reporter to call in a favour and confirm that the car was indeed registered to Eagleson. He found out Justice was a law student working on the O’Sullivan campaign out of Eagleson’s law offices. He even tracked down the wholesaler who’d sold Justice fifty fresh turkeys—paid for in cash—and found out he’d picked them up from the depot on Saturday morning. When Patrick reached Justice at Eagleson’s law office Sunday evening to ask for a comment, Justice hung up on him.

  He called Eagleson, too. Eagleson listened quietly while Patrick laid out the story.

  “I was wondering, sir, if you have any comment you want to make?”

  “Only that you should be very careful what you print, young man,” Eagleson replied evenly, more calmly than Patrick had expected. Then, after a pause, “You went to Saint Mary’s, didn’t you?”

  “Ah . . . yes.”

  “You must know Father Hanrahan, then.”

  “He was my History professor.”

  “Great man. The best. Give him my regards when you see him.”

  “But—”

  Eagleson cut him off. “I’ve been told that you’re a clever young man with a very bright future,” he said slowly. Who would have told him that? Patrick wondered. And how did Eagleson know who he was when Patrick had never even heard of Eagleson before yesterday? “I wouldn’t want to see your career go off the rails before it’s begun.” Eagleson sounded solicitous. “So my advice to you, young man, is not to let yourself be used by some radical group with an axe to grind. That’s my comment. But it’s off the record. I don’t want to see it in the paper. Understood?”

  Patrick understood it was a great quote. In his first draft of the story, he put in the entire exchange, even including Eagleson’s warning not to use it. Harkin took his red pen and carefully stroked out the entire paragraph. “This isn’t about you,” he grumbled. Instead he wrote in the margin: “Reached by the Tribune, Mr. Eagleson said he had no comment.”

  He also cut out the reference to Justice hanging up on him. “How do you know he hung up on you? Maybe there was a problem with the connection.” He replaced it with a simple, “Mr. Justice could not be reached for comment.”

  Harkin finished editing the piece early Monday evening, the night before the vote, while Patrick sat in the straight-backed wooden chair beside his desk, feeling like an errant schoolboy in the principal’s office. Finally Harkin put down his pen, shoved his glasses on top of his head and slumped in his chair.

  “Not bad, kid, not bad. I’d say it’s ready for the lawyers now.”

  And that was the last anyone had told him anything, until just after nine this morning when Harkin told him to go home.

  Harkin had called Mr. MacDonald, the Managing Editor, at home to tell him about the story. Within the hour, MacDonald had breezed into the newsroom, motioning for Harkin to follow him. Soon, his big, glass-windowed office at one end of the newsroom began to fill with men in suits.

  MacDonald and Harkin were joined by two men Patrick didn’t recognize. Their conversation was animated, much of it directed toward Harkin, who seemed alternately angry and resigned. By midnight, the publisher himself had arrived. Within a
few minutes, he was talking to someone else on the telephone.

  While the publisher talked, Harkin came out into the newsroom to dispatch a copy boy to the all-night restaurant a few blocks from the newsroom to get hamburgers and Cokes for the men in MacDonald’s office.

  “What’s going on in there?” Patrick asked apprehensively.

  “Horse-trading,” Harkin replied. “Stuff you don’t need to know, stuff you don’t want to know.” And went back inside.

  Over the course of the night, while Patrick remained rooted to his chair, the newsroom emptied out as the last of the night editors went home, and then, a few hours later, just before dawn, it began to fill up again as the first dayside editors arrived to put together the afternoon edition.

  Sometime around five in the morning, yet another man, this one dressed more casually in a sports jacket and wearing no tie, arrived. Patrick didn’t recognize him either. Soon after, he and the publisher left and took the elevator up to the publisher’s office. Patrick knew that because the brass half-moon floor indicator above the elevator jerked its way haltingly up to the fifth floor. An hour later, the two men returned. The publisher, looking pleased with himself, was holding a piece of paper in one hand. As they walked through the empty newsroom, seemingly oblivious to his presence, Patrick couldn’t make out what they were saying, but he couldn’t help but notice the other man’s booming laugh, which filled the newsroom.

  A few minutes later, the publisher, the Managing Editor and the men Patrick didn’t recognize emerged from the office. No one looked at him; in fact, they seemed to deliberately avoid looking in his direction. Harkin accompanied them to the elevator, where everyone solemnly shook hands and talked quietly until it arrived.

  After the others had left, Harkin slowly, almost reluctantly, returned to his desk and gestured for Patrick to join him.

  “The good news,” he began, trying his best to smile, “is that we still have our jobs.” He let that sink in. “The bad news is that we’re not running your story.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, for starters, the lawyers think we’d get sued—”

  “But we’ve got affidavits, pictures, everything!”

  “I know, I know, but they—”

  “What do they need? I’ll go back and—”

  “The story’s not running, kid. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever.” Harkin sounded tired, defeated.

  “What! Why not? You said—”

  “I said it wasn’t a bad story, and it wasn’t. But there’s more going on than you know.”

  Patrick was fighting the tears now. I must be really tired, he thought.

  Harkin looked at him thoughtfully for what seemed like hours, then, apparently deciding to risk it, said, “Okay, I’m going to tell you what’s going on, but you have to promise you won’t breathe a word of it to anybody. Anybody! Got me?”

  “Yeah, sure, but—”

  “Not buts. Nobody. Understand?” He waited while Patrick nodded that he did. “You know that parliamentary committee, the one looking into newspaper ownership?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Well, the publisher’s heard from his buddies in Ottawa that the committee’s final report is going to piss all over us for being a lousy newspaper, so he’s getting his ducks in a row so he can piss right back at them.”

  Patrick was confused. What did this have to do with—?

  “He figures the Liberals are gonna win today and O’Sullivan’s going to be premier,” Harkin explained. “Why do you think the paper endorsed him?” Patrick was dimly aware of Saturday’s signed editorial in which the publisher had announced that, for the first time ever, the Trib was supporting the Liberal Party. Patrick had been too busy with other matters to bother reading it.

  “He wants O’Sullivan to intercede with the Prime Minister, get him to put pressure on the committee to rewrite its report before it’s released. So the last thing he wants right now is for his own paper to starting gumming up the works with the new government.”

  “You mean he—?”

  “Exactly. But don’t worry. He’s not pissed off at us. In fact, he’s delighted with us. We gave him the ammunition he needed. Tonight was all about making a deal. That’s why Eagleson was here.”

  “He was?”

  “You didn’t know that was him?” Harkin laughed. “You are young. Eagleson was the last guy to come in, the one not wearing a tie. Those two other guys were lawyers, ours and theirs. But Eagleson was the only one who could make a deal. That’s what he and the publisher were doing when they went upstairs. They were agreeing on the wording of the letter O’Sullivan’s going to send to the Prime Minister and what he’s going to say when the PM phones him later tonight to congratulate him on his election victory.”

  “But what about—?”

  “About nothing, kid. It’s over. Finished. The good news is we live to fight another day.”

  Somehow, at that moment, that didn’t seem like good news to Patrick.

  On his way back to his apartment, he stopped in at the Black Pride offices. He hadn’t planned to tell Carter what had really happened, simply that the lawyers had decided the story could be libellous, but then he couldn’t help himself and the whole mess spilled out.

  He was surprised Carter was so unsurprised. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I knew they’d find a way not to print it.”

  Patrick made Carter promise not say a word to anyone—“I’m not even supposed to know”—and then continued the walk to his apartment. On the way, he passed his local polling station, thought briefly about going in to vote—it would be the first election in which he was old enough—but decided against it. Who would he vote for anyway? He went home and went to sleep instead.

  “One more round, then we eat. Okay?” Ward must have looked dubious; he was hurtling past tipsy on the way to drunk. “Hey, don’t worry, Ward, this one’s on Canada. Your friend Pierre’s buying this round.” He raised his still half-full glass. “To Pierre . . . I mean, what the hell, eh? It’s almost Christmas, you’ve finished your exams, your team won—”

  “Okay.” What the hell, Ward thought. Why not? It was almost Christmas.

  “Waiter . . . Another draft here. And can we see some menus?”

  “Team, what team?” It was John, a beat behind the conversation. Or was he Tom? Were those even their real names? They both wore dark-blue suits with red ties. They both looked like they’d be more comfortable without the ties. One was bald, one wasn’t. That was the difference. Ward decided Baldy would be Tom, and Not Baldy would be John. Just to keep them straight.

  “Liberals,” Baldy Tom answered his buddy. “Our boy here helped get O’Sullivan elected down here this fall, didn’t you, Ward?” He looked at Ward, winked. “My friend doesn’t get out of Ottawa much.”

  Oh God, this was going to be about the election, about the affidavits and photos. But why would these guys care about that?

  “Politics.” Not Bald John emitted a bubbly beer belch of dismissal. “I thought you meant somethin’ interesting. Like hockey.” He turned to Ward. “You like hockey, Ward?”

  “Yeah . . .” Ward needed to slow this down, figure out what was really going on. One of them—Ward thought the one who said his name was Tom, whichever one that was—had called him at home this morning. Victoria had answered. He’d asked her not to; he was worried his parents might call. He hadn’t told them about Victoria.

  “Some guy,” she said, putting her hand over the mouthpiece. “Deep voice.” She was sitting cross-legged on the bed, dressed only in one of his old sweatshirts. She still hadn’t moved her clothes into the apartment. He’d asked her to. He reached out, took the phone.

  “Yes?” he said. He needed to brush his teeth, blow his nose, expel last night’s smoke from his lungs. After his Criminal Law exam yesterday, he’d bought a bottle of Mateus to celebrate. He thought
he’d done well enough, but he knew the profs liked to be hard-assed with Christmas marks to send the first-years a message. Victoria knew he was worried. Which was why she’d scored a couple of joints from one of her friends at the Art College. They’d got drunk and stoned and made love, and since it was only ten o’clock, they’d gone over to the law school bar, and drank and danced until they were the last ones there. When was that? The bar was supposed to close at one, but it never did. “We’re on west coast time,” one of the bartenders told him. “We close when it’s one o’clock in Vancouver.” Which would have made it five in the morning Halifax time. He looked at the clock on the night table. Nine forty-five! No wonder he was—

  “. . . maybe for lunch. We were thinking the Downtowner. The boys here claim they have the best tavern steaks in town.”

  What was he talking about? Who was he? Ward had drifted in and out, and could bring back only snatches of what the man had said. Tom something or other? Security? “Sorry,” he said finally. “Can you run that by me again? I’m not quite awake . . .”

  “Hard night last night.” The man hadn’t asked it as a question. “Sorry, let me rewind. My name’s Tom Aniston and I’m with the RCMP in Ottawa. My partner John and I are in town on other business and someone suggested you might be able to help us. So I decided to give you a call, Ward, see if you were free for lunch.”

  “Ah . . .” He looked at the roach in the ashtray. Was this . . . ?

  “Don’t worry,” Tom said, as if anticipating. “You’re not in any trouble. We just think you might know some things that could help us.”

  “Ah . . .” What kind of information? Ward wanted to ask. But he couldn’t. Victoria had submarined under the covers. She was kissing his chest now, using her teeth to tease his nipples. Her hand was on his penis.

  “I’d rather not get into the details on the phone,” Tom continued, answering the question Ward hadn’t asked. “Why don’t you just let us buy you lunch and we can lay it out for you?”