by Jon Cleary
“What you gonna do?” said the detective.
“Depends what he writes, if he writes anything,” said Rossano. “The men up in Chicago—” Then he stopped. He liked to think, and he liked those who worked for him to think, that he didn’t have to concern himself with the opinions of others.
“Can I make a suggestion, Tony? I don’t think anything oughta happen to him, not in K.C. The KCPD weren’t very happy about what happened to that other newspaper guy from the Courier. They know who put out the contract, they told me that. They told me they even knew who the hit guy was, but they couldn’t pin it on him. Something happens to this guy Border in this town, the shit’s gonna hit the fan, Tony.”
“Well, we’ll see if he writes anything. I might sue him for libel.” He thought he smiled, but neither of the men noticed it. “Any rate, one thing about a hit man, he’ll travel anywhere if the price is right. Even to New York.”
The Irishman polished the top of his head with a ham of a hand. “Wouldn’t it be nice if we all lived and let live?”
“You’d be out of a job,” said Rossano and went back to his putting. Golf was the ideal game. You were only playing yourself and, if you watched yourself, no bastard could cheat you.
V
After a week in Kansas City, Tom went down home to Friendship for a couple of days. After the muck he had dug up in K.C., the dogwood and redbud were soft-focus commercials for spring, now on the road up from the south. Goddam, he thought, I even think in city images now. He had almost forgotten what life could be like here in the quiet countryside. He sat on the front porch and watched the ducks and geese heading north again, drawing their dark lines across the pale blue sky. He went down to the big pond beyond the orchards and saw the mallards taking time out on the water still dark from winter and he marvelled again, as he had as a boy, at the colour in the birds’ heads and necks. At night he heard the great horned owl over by the main barn, sounding like an echo of the bird he had heard in his youth.
“Do you ever miss all this?” his father said to him on the last day of his visit.
He picked at the Maltese cross of the dogwood blossom in his hand. “I’m ashamed to say, Pop, I never really think about it. I think about you and Mom, but never this—” He gestured at the countryside, the landscape of his boyhood. “I should. This is what made me, generations of the families, yours and Mom’s, living here.”
“Will you ever come back?” Clem Border stroked the coat of his favourite dog, a crossbred setter. He had lost the knack of talking to his son and he was glad of the dog to distract him. He watched Tom out of the corner of his eye, remarking how the boy he had been close to had changed to this man who was a near-stranger. The change had all taken place in the last few years, since his marriage to Simone.
“Maybe some day. When I’m your age.” He grinned at his father. “You’ll still be here, even then.”
“I guess so. The Borders have always been a long-living family.” He looked carefully at the dog for ticks, though he knew it had none. “Your mother and I were sorry you and Simone broke up.”
“It was one of those things, Pop. She’s married again, or about to be.”
“What about you?”
“Marry again? I don’t know. There’s another girl—” He told his father about Cleo, but it was a thumbnail sketch; for some reason he was afraid that his parents would be prejudiced against her. “We’ve spent ten years dodging each other.”
“I was down in Australia during the war. World War Two.” It hurt him to have to identify the wars; he had thought his would be the last. “They’re a tight-fisted lot, the Aussies. Short arms and deep pockets. Even their girls thought so.”
“Cleo is generous.” She was in her love-making; but how would he know if she was generous in everything else? Ten years, and he was only at the beginning of really knowing her. “I think you’d like her, Pop.”
“She’s important, though, isn’t she? In her job, I mean.”
“Women have come out of the kitchen.”
“Yeah, I been reading about that,” his father said with a grin.
“It hasn’t spoiled her,” he said doggedly. “You’ll like her.”
“We liked Simone.”
Dear Christ, Tom thought, make it work between Cleo and me! There were so many people to be convinced. He shut his mind against the thought of whether he, too, had to be convinced.
He went back to New York that afternoon and straight to the Courier’s office. He typed a few notes for his story, waited around and then took Cleo home to her apartment and bed. They were hungry for each other; there was no discussion of Jack or of Tony Rossano. In the car taking them uptown she did say, “Things went okay with you?”
“Yes. The same with you?”
She nodded. It was enough; discussion could wait. It was next morning before they talked about Jack, and not at all about Rossano; crime and its power were not important for the moment. She said, “He took it badly. No temper or anything like that, just as if I’d kicked him in the stomach. I took it badly, too.”
It had been more than a matter of conscience. One doesn’t live with a person, or anyway half-live, without his becoming part of oneself. Almost against her will she had found herself remembering moments with him; part of the perspective was that she remembered no moments at all with Alain. Jack had been part of her life; Alain never had. The trouble with Jack had been that he had been only part of her life; not her whole life, as Tom would be. She screwed that last thought firmly into her mind, securing it against any doubts that might arise.
“He’s gone back to London?” Tom said. “I guess I should feel sorry for him, but I don’t. He had you all those years when I didn’t.”
“Not all the time. I was pretty lonely sometimes, especially when I’d think about Simone being lucky enough to have you. Incidentally, Alain and Simone are due back tomorrow. They were married in Paris last Thursday. Claudine, I gather, is furious. She wanted a royal wedding. Well, semi-royal.”
“I better send them a present. All three of us are still supposed to be good friends. Maybe you and I could send them a joint gift.”
“I don’t really think that would be a good idea.” Men, even this one she loved so dearly, so often did not know when to leave well enough alone. “I’ll send them a best wishes card. They can tear it up if they’re offended.”
“Simone won’t be. She’s a sweet girl.”
“Thanks for telling me.” But she kissed him to show she understood his lack of tact. He mistook it for generosity on her part.
Cleo was in seventh heaven (Was there an eighth or ninth? She had never felt so happy) to have Tom so close to her, to no longer have any barrier between them. But at the Courier she kept him at a distance; he worked for her but only through Carl Fishburg or Joe Hamlyn. It was Carl who brought Tom’s Kansas City story to the news conference table.
“Tom’s done a good job. But there’s no angle we can hang it on, nothing that’s gonna make the readers sit up and take notice. I don’t think New Yorkers are going to get too excited about the fact that Tony Rossano runs Kansas City for the benefit of Sebastiano Giuffre and his Family in Chicago. Maybe Tom’s been away from New York too long. People here could care less about what happens in the rest of the USA.”
“Righto, spike the story—we may be able to use it if something breaks in the future. What else have you got?”
“The Mayor says the city’s going broke again—”
Cleo had no regrets about spiking Tom’s story. He might be upset, but she hoped he would not complain to her. Life was never meant to be easy for lovers who worked together. Especially when one was the boss of the other.
Tom did complain to Carl Fishburg, but shut up at once when Carl told him who had spiked the story. He did not mention his complaint to Cleo, but he wondered if she was going to go out of her way to show him no favouritism. He began to see difficulties ahead as a newspaperman.
At the end of that week th
ere was a board meeting. When Cleo walked into the boardroom she was surprised, and at once on guard, to see Alain and Roger there. Alain was standing by a window, leaning on his stick; it seemed to her that he had put on some weight and some years. The college boy that had lingered in him was gone now.
She walked up to him. “Congratulations, Alain. I hope you and your wife will be very happy.”
“Thank you. We got your card.” He was not cool and distant, but neither was he all smiles and good cheer. “I hear you’ve become famous while I’ve been away. Meet the Press, the Johnny Carson show—it must be like London when you lived there.”
“Not quite.”
“No. I understand Lord Cruze isn’t around any more.”
She smiled, knowing now exactly where he stood, right on her toes. “You sound like your mother, did you know that? The same intonation—”
At that moment his mother called the meeting to order. With all the intonation of an empress she said, “You will have observed the presence of my son and my brother. They are here to be formally introduced. I am putting the motion, seconded by Stanley Beaton, that two more board posts be created. I nominate Alain Roux and Roger Brisson to be the new directors.”
“Just like that,” said Jerry Kibler. “No agenda notice, nothing. No offence, Roger. But Claudine—you made that sound like a military government edict. I read AMGOT notices like that on village walls in Italy during the war.”
“I’m delighted to hear the military could be so lucid and to the point. I’d always thought they were exactly the opposite,” said Claudine. “No offence, Roger.”
“Everyone is busy not offending me,” said Roger. “Would you prefer that Alain and I retired?”
“There’s no need for that,” said Stanley Beaton. He looked a trifle embarrassed and harassed, as if he had only just learned the motion he was seconding. “I think the voting will show you are elected.” He glanced at Claudine, then held up his hand. It looked more like a salute to her than a voting gesture.
Everyone but Cleo and Jerry Kibler held up their hands, though Stephen Jensen held up his only after some hesitation. Claudine looked at Cleo, but then addressed herself to Jerry. “You object? Why?”
“This isn’t US Steel, it’s a small newspaper company. Why do we need so many directors?”
“Alain will eventually succeed me and I think it will be good for the company that he gets practical experience before he does take over from me.” When Alain had suggested that he be put on the board she had not been enthusiastic; blood was thicker than water, but she did not want her authority watered down. She had, however, never denied him anything he really wanted and she had recognized that he had set his heart on having some authority on the Courier. Cleo was the reason, of course; as soon as she realized that, she agreed to nominate him. Cleo, it seemed, had lately begun to look on the Courier as her paper. “We must look to the future.”
“I always thought you had the future under control,” said Cleo.
“What about General Brisson?” said Jerry Kibler, before knife-throwing could turn the meeting into a blood-bath.
“Roger owns ten per cent of the stock. That entitles him to a place on the board. If we don’t create an extra post, then it will necessitate someone with a lesser holding retiring.” She looked at Jensen and the other four underprivileged directors. “I don’t think we should sacrifice their experience.”
“Certainly not mine,” said Jensen, winking down the table at Cleo. She had continued to sit at the bottom of the table, always leaving argument to Jerry Kibler. She knew that he enjoyed argument and was good at it.
“I’ll have to consult my client.” Kibler looked at his watch, then at Cleo. “Would he be at home now?”
“I don’t know what his routine is these days,” said Cleo.
At the far end of the table Claudine’s smile was like a knife-edge of wintry sun. Alain’s grin was nothing more than a smirk: some college boy still lingered in him after all. Kibler went out of the room and Claudine said, “We shan’t waste time. Let’s attend to the less important matters.”
Kibler was back in ten minutes. He came to the door of the boardroom and signalled to Cleo with a hooked finger. She got up and went out to him. They stood in the corridor while secretaries, passing them, looked at them curiously and wondered what was going on in the boardroom that had sent the editor and another director out to a whispered conference in the corridor. The secretaries went on to their own offices and spent the rest of the day munching on rumours.
“Have you and Jack Cruze had a fight?” Kibler said. “He sounded as if he didn’t care a damn about Alain and Roger.”
“There was no fight. We’re no longer—well, the best of friends, if you want to put it that way. What did he say?”
Kibler looked carefully at her for a long moment, then decided not to ask any more personal questions. He was a banker, not a lawyer: that, to an extent, kept him out of the intimacy of his clients’ lives. He had never wanted it any other way.
“He said to do whatever I thought fit.” Cleo noted the I. Had Jack already dismissed her from the Courier, just biding his time to tell her? “I’m all for saying no, at least to Alain.”
Cleo looked up and down the corridor. She remembered the political cliché, the corridors of power. There was no power here or even in the boardroom behind her: it was virtually all in the person of Claudine. Two Roux would be too much; it would be hooroo, Cleo. “What are you smiling at?” said Kibler.
“A dreadful play on words.” But she didn’t enlighten him. “We’ll vote yes for Roger and no for Alain.”
Jerry Kibler nodded approvingly. “Let’s go back in and jerk the finger at the Empress.”
Claudine recognized the jerked finger, though she had never in her life seen the actual physical gesture. “I hope there is nothing personal in this. There never should be in business,” she said, who conducted everything she did on a personal level.
“I’m sure there’s nothing personal in it,” said Stephen Jensen, who was sure there was and wished he knew the reason for it. “But a top-heavy board is like a top-heavy woman, out of all proportion to her efficiency.”
“Thank you for the analogy,” said Claudine, sitting straighter than ever to show she was not top-heavy. “That sounds like a Hasty Pudding Club line, about 1923.”
“Before my time,” said Jensen, knowing once again that one could never have the last word with Claudine.
Alain stood up, holding his cane halfway down its length like a club. He ignored Kibler and looked down the table at Cleo. “I hope this won’t prevent us from working together.”
Then he limped out of the room and Claudine looked at Cleo. “You appear puzzled by what Alain said. That was the next point I was going to raise. The paper, improving as it is every day under Cleo’s able editorship—” her smile would have cut a swathe through the besiegers of the Alamo “—needs someone in the publisher’s office every day, time that I cannot afford. I nominate Alain to be the associate publisher, to stand in for me.”
Kibler glanced at Cleo, who managed to restrain a shrug, knowing the matter was already decided, and dredged up a smile that matched Claudine’s. “A good idea. It will give him that experience he’ll need when he takes over from you.”
“I’m glad you see it that way,” said Claudine, who intended to live forever. Or at least till God would invite her to join Him as an equal.
The meeting eventually finished and Roger followed Cleo out of the room. “You’ll have my support. You’ve done a marvellous job on the paper. It’s a little more sensationalist, but I suppose that’s what people want these days.”
“I like to think it’s nicely balanced. I don’t believe in sensationalism for its own sake.” She had encouraged the copy editors to brighten up their headings, but the paper was not strident. “It will be nice to have you on the board, if you’re going to be on my side.”
“Oh, I shall be. I do owe you something.”
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br /> “I thought serving army officers couldn’t take civilian jobs?”
“I retired from the Army yesterday. The announcement is being put out from the Pentagon this afternoon. It will probably get only two lines in tomorrow’s papers.” He looked suitably modest, a self-inflicted wound that deserved a Purple Heart.
“I’ll give it more, if you wish. I’ll mention it to Joe Hamlyn.”
“No, I want to keep a low profile for a while.”
“You’re not going to content yourself with being just a part-time businessman.” It was a statement, not a question.
“No, I’ll be doing some studying and some travelling.” But he wouldn’t tell her any more, though she knew at once there was something to tell. “In the meantime you can rely on my support.”
“How’s Louise?”
“I’m still living in Washington and she’s out at Sands Point. But we have dinner together when I come up here. We’re friends. Not like you and Jack Cruze, of course.” He was fishing, having listened to Claudine’s suspicions.
“You’re wrong. We’re very much like you and Louise.”
He watched her walk away down the corridor, wondering why (but knowing only too well) she and he could not have been more than friends. She had that rare quality, a ladylike swagger to her ass. It was not as pronounced as it had been when he had first met her in Saigon, but she still had it, though it was now politely provocative. She had class and style, which one didn’t expect of Australians. He was going to be an expert on foreign affairs, but a little selective xenophobia never hurt anyone.
Alain moved in as associate publisher the very next day. When Cleo arrived in the office that afternoon Joe Hamlyn strolled in immediately behind her. “Guess who’s sitting up in the publisher’s office sharpening his pencils and his mother’s knives?”
“So soon?” But Cleo was not surprised. The emanations from the Roux end of the table at yesterday’s board meeting had warned her that Alain, whether from his own intentions or his mother’s, had come home to make life uncomfortable for her.