The Journalist

by Dan Newman

  Rent: $650. Credit card: $2,500 (but I’ll just make the minimum payment and get screwed to the wall with interest). Student loan: $160 per month (with a grand total of $12,585). Then there’s the small situation with Trots. Six grand plus the daily—Trots’s term for interest on outstanding payments, which he calculates out at $40 a day, percentages be damned.

  Still, if everything goes according to plan, I’ll come away clear of debt and, with any luck, a new career in the making. I am beginning to surface from my self-doubt when the front door chimes and Rhona slinks in. “Hi, Roly,” she says. “Coffee ready yet?”

  “Just about,” I say, automatically extricating myself from her desk chair. We move in practiced unison, setting up the equipment for another day of copy shop mayhem, then pause to splash some hot, black coffee into our mugs.

  “So, what happened to you yesterday?” she asks, examining her cuticles at full arm’s length.

  For a moment I have no frame of reference, then it comes to me: my sudden illness. “Just hit me right after lunch. Headache and hershy-squirts.”

  Rhona raises her eyebrows in mock surprise. “Lovely.”

  I am now positive she doesn’t believe me, and the regret I feel at my small betrayal seems again disproportionately large. I quickly change tack. “Hey, Rhona,” I say as if everything is okay. “Have you heard if Holt is in town this week?”

  Her eyes widen almost imperceptibly, but I catch it. “David Holt?”

  “Yeah.”

  “No, no. Why? Is he supposed to be?”

  I am about to blurt out that I saw Joiner yesterday afternoon, but catch myself in time. “I’m pretty sure I saw one of his staffers on my way in this morning.”

  “’Round here?” she asks, unconsciously adjusting her bra strap. My eyes flit to her large breasts, then back to her face. She sees me, I’m sure, and I think a tiny smile curls through her lip, but it’s only there for a millisecond before she turns away to pick up her coffee mug.

  I am a psychologist’s wet dream when it comes to Rhona; in an unspoken truth, she is the closest thing I have ever had to a mother—or at least what I think a mother would be—and at the same time her overt sexuality is something I am constantly aware of. Freud would have a field day.

  A man walks in and sizes her up with apparent approval. “’Morning,” she purrs, still thinking, apparently, about Holt.

  By eleven I get one of my many errands—to deliver a stack of freshly printed takeout menus to a restaurant down at First and Main—and set off just in time to catch the streetcar east along Park.

  I hop off at First Street, hoist the box of printed paper to my shoulder, and head south. The pedestrian traffic is light: mostly corporate types with slicked-back hair, cell phones, and pinstriped suits. Among them are clutches of tourists, laughing and pointing, happily falling victim to the T-shirt, watch, and sunglasses teams hustling on the sidewalk.

  At Main I turn right and start checking addresses for my delivery. I find it four buildings down, step inside, and see him for the second time in two days: Alex Joiner, Holt’s executive assistant.

  Now this strikes me as odd. Not just that I’ve seen him again, but also how he looks. In every press conference or news article I’ve seen him in, he’s been wearing a dark suit and lurking unobtrusively in the background. Even yesterday at the Royal Crown, he’d been in a suit. But here he is, inside the foyer of the Waterhouse Building by the elevators, wearing jeans, running shoes, a dark blue sweater, ballcap, and shades. He looks nothing like the high-flying government player that I know he is.

  He is standing by the glass wall across from the bank of elevators, glancing expectantly around every time a set of doors opens and spews out office drones. Seeing him makes me break the rhythm of my stride, just a slight pause, but enough to make him pivot his head toward me. I am already staring at him, and for a brief moment our eyes lock: mine wide open in full celebrity-stare, his hidden behind a pair of dark aviators—but I’m sure they lock. A fraction of a second later he flicks his head back to the elevator doors.

  At the elevators, I punch the UP arrow, and scan the lights above the six sets of doors. Behind me and off to my right, I can feel Joiner’s gaze. It is a palpable sensation, like the feeling you get with your back to an open fire, and in the end I can’t resist a look as I step into the lift. He is still there, not facing me directly, but watching. Behind the sunglasses, I am sure I can feel his stare.

  On the return trip Joiner is nowhere to be seen and I take the same route back to Dory’s—a route that will keep me well clear of the Royal Crown, and the chance of accidentally running into Trots.

  With my shift over, I head back to my apartment and eat a quick meal of Kraft Mac & Cheese and peas. I flip through the notes I made two nights ago, and check the plan once again for fatal flaws. There are a few spots where the wind creeps through, but no showstoppers. I realize there is little work I can do on it tonight, and to some degree I am relieved—partly because I know at some level that the plan is a stretch, and partly because I have another plan for tonight. Something much simpler—and noble by comparison. It’s what the Professor would have called exercising the absolute necessity of the Fourth Estate. He’d stride through the hall, really selling it—I mean, laying it on so thick you could hear it sloshing around your ankles. This weighty responsibility must not be shouldered lightly, my soon-to-be learned friends. It is the real seat of power in a society. Not the politician with his hollow promises, nor the businessman with his influential and highly mobile dollar. Not even the soldier, bristling with arms and itching for a fight. No! The real seat of power is here, among those who will decide—yes, decide—what the masses will talk about tomorrow. Be not mistaken: we set the agenda. We determine the issues.

  Melodramatic? Perhaps. Accurate? Hell, there was always truth in it for me.

  I stuff my battered Pentax into my backpack and relish the feeling that with that act I am actually doing journalism—something that seems to be increasingly rare for me these days. I set off for the Royal Crown, not completely understanding what I am going to do, but the reason, whatever it is, is connected to my double sighting of Joiner. I tell myself that it smacks of a story, and I even let myself believe I am following a “hunch.” All I need now is a trilby hat with that PRESS card the Professor gave me stuck in the band and the corniness will be complete.

  Perhaps Holt is here on a secret rendezvous. I have little weight as a freelancer (two stories placed in larger metropolitan dailies and a half dozen magazine articles), but I know that opportunities are made by blending luck, knowledge, and persistence; I can hear the Professor’s voice preaching again in my head even now. Exactly when the combination will occur is a crapshoot, but I’m not completely in the dark. I have the knowledge part, sort of—my double sighting of Joiner—and I can certainly persist.

  • • •

  The lobby of the grand old hotel is impressive. The impression is one of glass, brass, and fine deep carpets, wingback chairs and marble coffee tables circled occasionally by doormen in short green coats pushing decorative baggage carts. There is a hubbub of prosperity in the foyer, reflected in the tall mirrors and captured in the giant oils bordered by velvet curtains.

  In the bar I ask for a glass of water, muttering something about a headache, and find myself a spot in the corner that has a good view of the whole room—and not a bad line of sight into the lobby, either. I gulp back the water and, waiting until the bartender is busy at the far end of the bar, pull the tab on the Coke I have smuggled in. Budget surveillance.

  It’s a Wednesday and hotel traffic is light, and after an hour I am pulling quizzical stares from the bartender. Nothing has happened, and my hot lead is quickly fizzling out. Outside in the lobby I settle into a leather wingback, trying to look like a guest waiting on a friend—complete with regular glances at my wrist, occasional sighs, searching looks and, of course, subtle shakes of the head. Twenty minutes pass and nothing, save the odd forced smil
e from the artsy prick at the check-in desk.

  By nine o’clock it’s a bust, and I have to move on. Outside I decide to try my luck from across the street at the train station, and, after checking to make sure Trots is not pulling any night shifts, I pick a spot on the chest-high wall that surrounds Union Station. It gives me a perfect view of the Royal Crown’s front doors. The spring is turning into a kind one, and the evening is unseasonably warm—enough, I see, for people to go out in shirtsleeves. I hoist myself onto the wall and see him immediately.

  Alex Joiner comes through the revolving door and pauses at the sidewalk. He lights a cigarette—an act that seems somehow out of character given the sterile, public servant image I have of him—then paces slowly around the corner and up toward University Ave. Traffic is thin this time of night, save the odd car or cluster of late-night office types hustling by. I follow him at a distance, and slip into a dark alleyway when he stops at the corner of University and Fifth. He watches the traffic slide by, then strolls a few hundred meters up University, stepping back occasionally when big Greyhound buses or street sweepers rumble by. He paces up and down like a sentry, watching, waiting for something. I step a little further into the darkness just to be sure I’m not seen, and suddenly realize that I am shaking, not through cold, but through excitement. This is my first real stakeout, although just what I am staking out I don’t exactly know. I wrestle my old Pentax from my backpack, and drop the shutter three times on one of the country’s most influential players in Immigration, Alex Joiner.

  Moments later a gray car rolls by. Joiner flicks his cigarette into the street and watches the car do a U-turn at the lights. The car cruises slowly past again, this time on my side of the divided road. At the next set of lights the driver U-turns once more—there’s no traffic to challenge him—and pulls smoothly up to the curb where Joiner is waiting. Joiner leans into the window and I drop the shutter again.

  There is only the driver in the car, but it’s too dark to catch his face. Two more shots, just in case. I am now hoping Joiner will get into the car—an old reporter’s trick; wait until the person gets in, dome light comes on, snap the photo and boom, you’ve got the driver. Easier said than done, but I set up the shot and wait.

  Joiner looks up and around, then pops the door open. The dome light comes on and I snap away. The driver scans the street, swinging his head toward me. Snap, snap, snap. The car then pulls into the near-deserted avenue and rolls silently away.

  I’m a competent photographer, and I’m sure I have some good shots—of exactly what, I don’t know, but I have them. I’m shooting with actual film—an economic imperative just now because I’ve had to shop for camera gear within my budget at places like Liberty Pawn and Clarke’s Cash Now. So just what I’ve got is hard to say, and developing the prints will be a job for another day, when I have some spare money (is there such a thing?). But for now I’m satisfied and I walk home triumphant. Of course, I don’t completely delude myself: I know this whole evening has been more about feeling like I’m part of a profession. Doing something practical—regardless of the fact that I’ve likely got nothing more than some low-rent paparazzi shots—buoys me up and for now, that’s good enough. What I have most likely means nothing, but by God it felt like journalism. Real journalism. Professor Bowman, if you could see me now.

  • • •

  I spend the next few days establishing that Chloe’s route is predictable, and that she follows it according to the day and her class schedule. It’s easy to do; Chloe seems to be someone oblivious to the world around her—not in an absentminded sort of way, but oblivious because she doesn’t need to be aware. Chloe is like a well-fed shark cruising through a school of minnows: everyone else is paying attention, but she doesn’t need to.

  My shifts at Dory’s are all mornings this week, and afterward I head to the business campus to watch Chloe. I’m not stalking her—no, this is surveillance. A completely different thing.

  Over the course of the week I discover, as I was hoping to, that she is a creature of habit. I have also discovered that, for whatever reason, Chloe chooses not to park her chrome Audi TT Roadster near the University. Perhaps it would clash with her slouchy college wardrobe, or it would identify her as a rich kid and draw undesirable attention. Who knows. Maybe she’s just trying to avoid door dings from Corollas.

  Whatever the reason, Chloe follows the same route to an underground parking lot three blocks over and few more north of the campus. She also takes a shortcut through what I would call a slightly risky alleyway, although, in all fairness, it is a good shortcut. She even takes this route after night classes, and I suspect it’s that sense of oblivion that lets her do it. If she thought for a moment that the damn minnows were dangerous, well, I suspect she’d think twice about that alley. I think this will be the place for it, though. It has all the dramatic elements I need.

  The alley runs the width of a city block, and is wide enough for a single car to pass through comfortably. The buildings backing onto it are windowless for the most part, and in one of two recesses sits a group of large dumpsters—the kind people like to dump bodies in. The other recess, about thirty meters down and on the opposite side, is actually a back entrance to a building, but the door has no handle—just a keyhole—and the light overhead—the only light in the alley—is a spiritless low-watt thing set in a wire cage. It sits in exactly the right spot.

  All in all it’s not a really intimidating alley, but, like alleys in all the worst movies, it only has one way in, and one way out.

  7

  On my way to Dory’s the next day, I pass the Employment Resource Center and a momentary flutter of panic races through me. I haven’t written a cover letter or sent a résumé in over a week. The feeling is fleeting, however, chased away by the certainty of my plan—which is rapidly taking on a life of its own. I have already set part of the mechanism in motion, the part that involves Trots, and I am sure he has his minions on the lookout for me. Fair enough and rightly so.

  I notice a black BMW parked out front of the center, and it makes me smile; I guess Warren is still struggling on his own without his family’s millions. I step inside, search the ten cubicles, and find him in short order. Apparently only four people need to look for jobs today. Warren sees me and calls out. “Roly, buddy!” I think he’s genuinely pleased to see me—or maybe just pleased to be pulled from the tedium of the job hunt.

  “Did you land something?” he asks, already nodding his head.

  “Naw, just been pulling a lot of hours at Dory’s. How about you?”

  Warren spreads his hands wide and smiles. “Still here, bud.”

  I check my watch and see that I still have a half hour until I need to be at Dory’s. “You wanna go across the street and grab a coffee? I still owe you one.” I only have a pocketful of change, but enough, I hope, to spring for a coffee for Warren. Today is a payday, so I’ll have a few more dollars tonight.

  At the coffee shop Warren tells me about two interviews he had last week, one at an upmarket clinic in the chic East End, and another at a dive an hour north. He got nothing from East End chic, but had an offer in hand for the dive within hours of leaving. He tells me the place needs to be torn down, and that he’d stock supermarket shelves before he’d work in a place like that.

  “Still, you’ve got offers and that’s something,” I say to him, but clearly Warren can afford to wait for the right job. Must be nice. “Do you know Chloe Dysart?” I ask, surprising myself with the suddenness of the question that bears no reference to the current conversation.

  Warren notes it too, twitches and raises his eyebrows for a brief second. “Well, yeah, I know her.”

  He is regarding me oddly, and I know an explanation is required. “I was wondering, because a friend of mine has classes with her Thursday nights.”

  Warren is still trying to figure me out. “…Right.”

  “And her dad is Colin Dysart,” I say, trying to make it look like Warren is the odd one he
re, unable to follow my speedy train of thought.

  His forehead is now in full spasm, so I lay my story out further. “Dysart owns Newsco…”

  Warren makes the journalistic connection. “Oh, I gotcha. You wanna know if I can drop a good word about you to the Dysarts.”

  “You’re making those connections at quite a pace, Mr. Barton.”

  He laughs and smacks his forehead in mock surprise. “Eat me, Roly.”

  “Sorry, man, but I had to ask. You know, turn over every stone and all that shit.”

  “Hey, no problem, and uh, do you know anyone in the vet business looking for a new man?” He chuckles and swigs his coffee. “I know Chloe, but not her old man. I will tell you this, though: she is one unrelenting bitch.”

  “Wouldn’t date you, huh?”

  Warren laughs again. It seems so easy to make him laugh, and I wonder if he’s just a guy who laughs easily, or a skilled diplomat. “Well, true enough. But that’s a whole other matter. But that just makes her a bitch with bad taste.”

  • • •

  At Dory’s, I am distracted and careless, spilling toner, wasting paper, and generally exasperating Rhona. She shakes her head at me more than once, and threatens to send me home if I can’t pull it together. I apologize and try to focus on what I’m doing, but it’s no use.

  I never expected Warren to have a job-securing connection to the Dysart family, but I did suspect that he at least knew them. The ultra-rich keep the same circles, and it was likely that his family money and the Dysarts’ had almost surely crossed paths at some time or another—debutante balls, lunch at the Yacht Club, that kind of thing. What I did hope to get was a little more information about Chloe herself.

  I turn my attention to the next phase in my strategy—perhaps the most dangerous phase, one that involves putting myself at risk. It is time to set the entire apparatus in motion, time to launch kite and key to the skies and see if lightning will find it. What that effectively means is putting myself in front of Trots.