by A. C. Fuller
Lance looked up from The New York Times. "What the hell are you talkin' about?" he asked in his deep, silky voice. At almost sixty, his hair showed specks of gray, but his eyes and teeth still shone bright. Predictably, his pants were wrinkled as he sat with his brown corduroy jacket draped across his lap.
Alex bowed his head, wiped a finger under his eye, and sniffled. "McDonald's announced that they are phasing out their supersize menu today."
"Shiiit, I don't even eat there anymore. I get my burgers at White Castle. Besides, I've always ordered double fries." He leaned back, admiring his abdomen. "This man knows the caloric abundance his body demands and can admit it."
Alex was searching for his next clever comeback when James said, "Alex, you said it was important."
Alex pulled out his Blackberry and read them the text twice. After letting it hang in the air for a few seconds, he said, "We know that by 'last time,' the source means Hollinger. And by 'killed again,' the source means something recent, presumably. But I'm stuck on the part that says 'the first time was worst of all.'"
"Wait, wait, wait," Lance said. "How do we even know this is real?"
"Well, if you or James didn't send it to mess with me, what else could it be?"
"Did you try calling the number?" James asked.
"First thing. No voice mail was set up."
James leaned forward in his chair. "Does the text resonate with anything he said before, when he was calling two years ago?"
"I'm not sure. But the point is, when the source says, 'the first time was worst of all,' he—or she—is pointing me toward something. Something big, something from before the Hollinger killing."
"No woman is crazy enough to do this," Lance said, shaking his head.
"The last call you got," James paused, "didn't he—"
Alex sat up on the edge of the couch. "Exactly. On the last call I got, the one after we broke the story about Bice—about Hollinger and Demarcus Downton and the merger—after all of that, the source said that Bice had done terrible things. That I was supposed to catch him. After I'd already caught him for all sorts of things."
"I don't know how any of this matters, or helps us," Lance said.
"You don't see how it matters? Bice is a murderer. This source was right about everything two years ago."
"Not to mention," James added, "that the story on Bice and Standard Media is still the biggest thing we've ever done."
Lance shook his head again. "Yeah, but this text doesn't tell you anything you can print. Anything you can do anything about."
Alex turned to face him. "For two years, those calls have been eating away at me. And the quote—"
"Yeah, w-what was the qu-quote again?" James rarely stuttered anymore, but it cropped up occasionally when he got excited or nervous.
"He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Lance said. "John, chapter twelve, verse twenty-five. We've been over this. So, your so-called source is off his meds again. There's nothing there we can do anything about. We have His Lordship Cooper Whyte coming over any minute to write a feature in The New York Times Magazine. About us. Can we focus on the stuff that's gonna get us famous and make us some money?"
Their usual dynamic was that Alex would get way out in front of a story, Lance would be the conservative voice of reason, and James would be somewhere in the middle. In this case, Lance was right. As exciting as it was to hear from the source again, there was no way to know for sure that it was the same person, and even if it was, there wasn't much they could do about it.
James asked, "Did you reply to the text?"
"I wanted to talk to you two first," Alex said.
They both looked at Lance, who said, "I doubt he'll respond—and yes, I know it's a man—but how about, 'Tell me where to start.'"
James nodded his approval as Alex typed the response. He pressed "Send" just as the door buzzer rattled the room.
"Do I have to talk to Cooper?" Alex asked. Technically, he and James were equal partners, but Alex relied on James to keep him on track when his lazier instincts kicked in.
"Yes," James said, walking to the door. "We'll get back to the text, but Lance is right. There's not much more to do until this source writes back."
5
James led Cooper Whyte into the living room and offered him a seat in the armchair across from Lance and Alex. Whyte was in his mid-forties, with dark brown hair specked with gray, round glasses, and a short beard. As he sat, he took out a thin, wire-bound notebook from the inside pocket of his blazer.
"Man," Lance said, "you even look like a Times reporter now."
Whyte frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"You look like the dean of a prep school," James said from behind the couch.
"We tend to rock a slightly less formal style around here," Alex chimed in.
Lance leaned across the black lacquered coffee table and shook Whyte's hand. "All starched and proper. I remember when you couldn't even afford a blazer. How are things going over at the Stuffy Lady?"
"Fine, fine," Whyte said. "They still pay an actual salary over there. Though I admit that it's getting a little depressing covering stories that broke on the Internet. Especially when they are stories about us not running stories."
"Get out while you can," James said.
Lance laughed. "If you ever need a job, we're always on the hunt for past-their-prime newspaper guys who are willing to take a pay cut." He stood and lumbered toward the office in the back. "That's how they got me."
"I'm gonna excuse myself, too," James said. "The McGregor piece was Alex's, and he can speak for us." He patted Alex on the shoulder and disappeared into the kitchen.
Alex had once been a younger version of Cooper Whyte. He'd worked as a court reporter for The New York Standard, doing his job well and playing by the rules—most of the time. He'd been angling for a job on local TV when he'd been fired for disappearing to pursue the Bice story. Soon after, James had thrown him a life raft by starting News Scoop. Ever since, they'd run one of the most respected news sites online, and the only site dedicated to serious investigations of the media itself.
Whyte opened his notebook and cleared his throat. "So, how did you—"
"Must hurt, huh?" Alex flashed him a sardonic smile. "Getting scooped by a news organization that ends with dot com."
Whyte sighed. "You gonna help me or just gloat? You know I'm doing a feature in The Magazine, right? This could be big for you."
"I'll give you some quotes, sure. But, before I tell you anything, what's your beef with Lance?"
"Brickman? I have no beef with him."
Alex leaned back on the couch and crossed his right leg over his left knee. "C'mon."
"Okay, okay. If you must know, he stole a story from me a long time ago."
Alex glanced around for signs of Lance, then heard him talking on the phone in the back. "I'll bet he wouldn't see it that way."
"I was covering Labor for The Times and—"
"You work at The New York Times? You don't say!"
"Back when Brickman was at The Standard, he and I got the story of the '94 baseball strike on the same day, from the same source. He was only at the meeting because I told him about it. Anyway, we both agreed to sit on it for twelve hours to get our ducks in a row."
"And his paper dropped the piece early?"
"He dropped it early."
Alex gave him a look. "I don't buy it. Lance wouldn't do that."
"He would, and he did, but can we please talk about my piece?"
Alex put his feet up on the coffee table. "Sure, but hasn't the story about how the Internet is changing the media landscape been written a dozen times already?"
Whyte flipped pages in his notebook. "Not by me."
"Fair point. So, what do you want to ask?"
Whyte took a printed copy of News Scoop's latest story from between the pages of his noteboo
k. "Times Buries Congressional Corruption Story. Nice headline. I guess the obvious question is, how'd you find out about it?"
The truth was, Lance had heard that The Times was sitting on a story about a second-term congressman named David McGregor, who was taking money from some major companies to try to influence Federal Communications Commission policy in Washington. Lance had fed the information to Alex, who had investigated the hell out of the piece for weeks—both from the angle of the corruption itself, which was low-level and nothing especially shocking, and from the angle of The Times burying the story. Not that he was going to tell Whyte any of this.
"You mean, how'd I find out about Congressman McGregor taking bribes, or how'd I find out you guys knew about it and weren't running it?"
Whyte sighed and closed his notebook. "In our defense, we didn't have the story locked down. We have certain standards you guys don't have to meet."
James poked his head out of the kitchen. "You print guys will be saying that all the way to your graves."
"We have standards, too," Alex said. "But we don't have the same editorial or advertising pressure. We don't have presidents flying in to beg our editor not to run stories."
Whyte smiled and leaned back on the sofa. "Imagine Air Force One landing in Washington Heights."
Alex laughed. "And James meeting with President Bush. But seriously, you know I'm not going to tell you how I got your story, so what else do you want to know?"
Whyte opened his notebook again and flipped a few pages. "Ok, let's rewind a bit. You guys were mentioned recently in the Columbia Journalism Review. They wrote, 'News Scoop is doing to media elites what I.F. Stone's Weekly did to politicians in the sixties. Shining a light where it has never been shone, showing how the sausage is made. If, as journalists, we truly believe that sunlight is the best antiseptic, we can only embrace them.' How do you respond to that quote?"
Alex smiled broadly. "I sent them a thank-you e-mail. That article helped legitimize us in some people's eyes."
"But you don't consider yourself a crusader for Internet journalism?"
Alex glanced down at his Blackberry, crossed his legs, then uncrossed them. He was growing impatient. There was the part of him that craved the attention, the praise. But the more of it he got, the more he realized that it wasn't going to satisfy him in the way he'd imagined it would. "Look, I just want to do good stories. Talk to James, and he'll give you all the quotes you want about the future of journalism, the shift to digital, and whatever else you need. Better yet, call Sadie Green at the Media Protection Organization. She's very quotable. To her, this is a battle of good versus evil. I think she may actually believe that she is leading a rebellion against the Empire."
"And in this analogy the Empire is . . .?"
"Mainstream media. Corporate media."
"And the rebels are . . .?"
"All the mom-and-pop newspapers. The few that are left. The Internet start-ups, the alternative weeklies, the gay and lesbian press, any minority newspaper or blog. Even the libertarian and Christian right newsletters and blogs. She supports them all. Even though she's a liberal, she loves the conservative papers, the religious papers—anything—as long as it's independently owned."
"So, just to finish off the Star Wars analogy, that would make you . . .?"
Alex smirked at him. "I'm not gonna go there."
"Seriously, as the face of one of the most respected, most journalistically sound Web sites, that would make you . . .?"
"You're not gonna get me to say Luke Skywalker."
"You just did. My headline is gonna be, Luke Skywalker of Journalism Declares War on Galactic Media Empire."
"Very funny," Alex said.
Whyte scribbled notes for a minute, then looked up. "Okay, back to the story. I know you won't name names, but can you confirm that a source within The Times told you we were sitting on a story?"
"We knew that The Times had something on Congressman McGregor in a drawer. Then, we got it on our own."
"How'd you confirm the story once you knew it was out there?"
Alex checked his Blackberry. Still no new texts. "I made three hundred calls to over fifty people in DC, and two trips down there. Despite what you think, we're not just sitting in our boxer shorts cutting and pasting information off the Web."
James appeared over Alex's shoulder, munching on a celery stick. "You guys sending anyone to the Digital Media Conference?"
Whyte frowned at him. "We have a stringer in Seattle who's gonna work it for us."
James laughed. "Biggest digital media event of the year, and you can't even send someone from New York?"
Alex was thumbing through e-mails on his Blackberry. "Any other questions?" he asked, not looking up.
Whyte stood slowly. "I can tell I'm not gonna get anything from you."
Alex shrugged. "Don't hate the player, hate the game."
James showed their visitor to the door.
"One more thing," Whyte said, stopping in the doorway. "Are you guys going to try to sit down with Denver Bice at the conference?"
Alex shot him a look. "What?"
"I'm surprised you didn't know. I thought you were light-years ahead of us. Rumor is, he's getting back in the game."
"Where'd you hear that?" James asked.
"You know I can't say."
Alex leapt off the couch and got right in his face. "Who'd you hear that from?"
"I'm really not at liberty to say," Whyte said, offering up a condescending smile. "Don't hate the player, Alex."
6
Alex shut his apartment door and threw his running shirt toward the hamper in the corner. He'd come home for just a minute after work before heading out for an evening run to clear his head. He knew he had to tell Greta what was going on, but he dreaded the conversation.
"That better have landed in the hamper," Greta called from the kitchenette, without turning around.
Alex fetched the shirt from the floor, used it to wipe the sweat off his chest and face, then placed it in the hamper. Greta was pouring baking soda into a large stainless steel bowl as he put his arm around her waist.
"When did you get home?" Alex asked.
"Half-hour ago. My last Yankee canceled."
"Brian, right? Hard to believe he would cancel on you. Hasn't his batting average gone up like thirty points since he started seeing you?"
She tilted her head back and winked at him. "All I did was help unlock his hips."
"I bet you did."
Greta had been a licensed massage therapist since before Alex met her, and in the last few years she had been trained in sports massage, as well as a dozen esoteric techniques from all around the world, half of which Alex couldn't pronounce and most of which he didn't understand. A year ago, she'd left her job at a downtown spa to do freelance work on professional dancers, athletes, and even the occasional CEO. With a little help from Lance, she was now working with top athletes on all the New York teams, including the Yankees.
She got on her tip-toes and kissed Alex on the lips. "You're sweaty. You wanna help me make toothpaste?"
Alex stepped back and ran a hand over her tan robe. "What is this thing made of? It feels like a burlap sack."
"It's made of hemp."
"Hemp?" He looked down at her shoes. Sapphire blue leather with three-inch heels. "I was wondering why you seemed taller. Are those Blah-neeks, or whatever?"
"Blahniks, like blah-nix. But, no, these are the Jimmy Choos. Nice, right?"
"How come I don't recognize them?"
She set the bag of baking soda in the sink, the only open space in the kitchenette, and stirred the mixture in the bowl. "I don't wear them out. Not worth the risk."
"What risk?"
"That they'll get dirty or scuffed. I love them too much. They're my inside shoes."
"But you'll wear them to make . . . wait, what are you making again?"
"Toothpaste. Well, tooth powder, technically. James is on this health kick, and he seemed interest
ed. Making extra for you, too."
"Oh goodie!" Alex pointed at a small baggie full of brown powder. "What's that stuff?"
"Bentonite clay."
"The chances of you getting me to brush my teeth with clay are slim. Slim to none."
"It's not just clay. Also sea salt, baking soda, peppermint, and stevia. It's cheaper and doesn't have the sodium fluoride, triclosan, sodium lauryl sulfate, or hydrated silica of regular toothpastes."
"Are those things bad?"
She splashed him with water from a large pitcher next to the stove, careful not to hit her shoes. "White teeth are very important to me."
"Can I be honest with you about something?"
She turned toward him.
"I find it very strange that you're stirring a bowl of hippie tooth powder while wearing a robe made of hemp and a pair of three-hundred-dollar shoes." He kissed the back of her neck. "But I also love it."
"Actually, they were seven-hundred dollars."
Alex was glad the conversation was light and playful. When they'd moved in together, Greta had asked him not to get involved in any more dangerous stories. And she'd made him promise not to pursue Denver Bice. He was satisfied with his job at News Scoop, and had been happy to oblige, but the fact that Bice had never been prosecuted still nagged at him.
He gave her a timid look. "So, I found out today that Bice is going to be at the conference."
"What?" she asked, shaking a few drops of peppermint oil into the bowl.
"In Seattle."
She turned around and studied his face. Once she realized he was serious, she sat down on the bed.
He paced the room, not willing to meet her eyes. "I know what you're thinking. I swear I had no idea until just a few minutes ago."
She glared at him.
"A couple hours ago, actually. Cooper Whyte told us, and God knows how he heard."
"What's he going to be there for?"