An hour later, Cade walked into the bar where Burdick was anxiously waiting.
Four months had made a big difference to Cade. He was thinner, harder, and there were white streaks in his black hair. The Mexican sun had burned his skin to an Indian brown, but he didn’t look well. There was a drawn, remote look about him that hinted of a secret illness, but his smile as Burdick looked questioningly at him was alert and pleased.
“Thanks, Ed,” he said, hoisting himself on a stool beside Burdick. “It worked. For better or for worse, I signed for two years.”
Burdick punched him lightly on his bicep.
“Val, old pal, now we will show them! This is something I have really set my heart on. You and I are going places!”
And they did. This was the beginning of a partnership of brilliant reporting that raised the circulation of the New York Sun way above its competitors.
The discipline and the pressure of newspaper routine seemed to agree with Cade. Working to a deadline, having Burdick as a constant companion, gave him little time to brood about the past. There were times when he wanted a drink badly, but he fought off the urge. It was at these times he was thankful to have Burdick, understanding and sympathetic, with him. Burdick had also given up alcohol to make things easier for Cade. Both men now only drank Coca-Cola or coffee.
Burdick had a three-room apartment near the Sun’s office and he persuaded Cade to take the spare room. This was convenient for the two men could work together in comfort and they seldom went to the Sun’s offices except to deliver their finished assignments.
There were times when Cade, before falling asleep, alone in his bedroom, would think of Juana. Her memory was less painful, but he was still in love with her. He knew that if she walked into his room at that moment, he would gladly take her in his arms which proved, he thought ruefully, what a stupid sucker he was. He knew her behaviour had been unforgivable, but he was ready to forgive her. She was in his blood like a virus. Although he often longed for her, he made no attempt to trace her or to find out what was happening to her. It was now six months since she had left him. The bull fight season was over in Spain. She was probably back in Mexico City. He wondered if she were still with Diaz or tiring of him, had found someone else. Cade was very conscious that she was still his wife. He knew he should divorce her, but he could not bring himself even to think of it.
One evening some months after Cade had begun to work for the Sun, he was settling down to watch television when the telephone bell rang.
Burdick, in dressing-gown and pyjamas, was lying on the settee. He lifted his head and glared at the instrument.
“Let it ring,” he said.
This call was to affect Cade’s future destiny. He felt an extraordinary compulsion to answer the call. He hesitated for a long moment, then got to his feet.
“I’d better answer it,” he said and lifted the receiver.
It was Mathison.
“That you, Val?”
“I suppose so,” Cade was sorry now he had answered.
“Listen, Val, things are popping and I haven’t a photographer. Two of my mutton heads are out of town and my other jerk is out of reach. Will you help me?”
Cade grimaced at Burdick, then shrugged.
“What is it, Henry?”
“Old Friedlander has been shot! We have an exclusive on this if we act fast! Lieutenant Tucker is handling it and he’s a good friend of mine. He gave me the tip. Will you get out there, Val?”
Cade could have refused. This kind of work wasn’t in his contract, but he remembered Mathison had given him his chance to rehabilitate himself. This seemed to him to be his chance to even the score.
“I’ll take care of it, Henry. Leave it to me.”
“Good boy! You know the address?”
“I know it. I’m on my way.”
Cade hung up, ran into the bedroom, put on a tie and his jacket, snatched up his camera equipment and started for the front door.
“Where the hell are you off to?” Burdick said, gaping.
“Friedlander’s been shot! I’m covering it!” Cade said and was gone.
Jonas Friedlander was a poet, dramatist, painter and musician. During the past thirty years, he had established himself as a character without whom no artistic event, no opera first night, no literary luncheon could hope for success. He was also a pederast. An ageing, fat, raddled, pot-bellied, slug-like creature who snapped, bit, clawed and caressed his way through New York Society always accompanied by a willowy, frail, beautiful youth who disappeared from time to time to be immediately replaced by yet another willowy, frail, equally beautiful youth who would last no longer than his predecessor.
But Friedlander made news. Whatever he did, whatever he said was scrupulously recorded in the World’s press. Cade knew, as he drove recklessly towards Friedlander’s magnificent penthouse that Mathison had every right to call on him for help. An exclusive on a Friedlander shooting was a scoop that News Editors dream of and news that would electrify the world.
Leaving his car double parked and not caring what happened to it, Cade ran up the steps of the apartment block. He took the elevator to the pent-house. As the elevator door swung back, Cade was confronted by a big, red-faced cop standing guard outside Friedlander’s front door.
Cade crossed the lobby while the cop glared threateningly at him.
“Who are you and where do you think you’re going?” the cop growled.
“Lieutenant Tucker around?” Cade asked briskly.
“What if he is?”
“Tell him Cade of the Sun wants in. Snap it up, Jack. That glaring act of yours is pure horror-comic”
The cop’s jaw dropped. He hesitated, then he opened the front door and stepped inside. Cade shoved his way in after him.
Lieutenant Tucker, a small, white-haired, hard-faced man, was standing in the ornate lobby, talking to another detective. He turned and scowled at Cade as Cade side-stepped the cop and walked up to him.
“Who are you?” Tucker snapped.
“Cade of the Sun. Mathison sent me. What’s going on?”
Tucker’s frown went away. Mathison and he had been to school together. They both helped each other whenever they could.
“Glad to know you, Cade,” he said and shook hands.
“What’s going on?”
“The old fairy tried it on once too often,” Tucker explained. “He forgot to get rid of his boy-friend before he brought in another. They had an argument and the boy shot him.”
“Is he dead?”
“No such luck. He’s in there, making like a hero,” and Tucker jerked his thumb to massive double doors.
“Who’s the boy?”
“Jerry Marshall. Seems a decent enough kid. Probably dazzled and corrupted by the old bastard. Still, he could have killed him.”
“Where is he?”
“The boy?” Tucker nodded to a closed door on his right. “I’m going to talk to him now.”
“I’ll want shots of him.”
“Sure. You can have him when I’m through,” and Tucker opened the door and went into the room.
Cade got his camera out of the case. He screwed on the flash gun and opening one of the big double doors, entered the vast, high-ceilinged lounge, decorated in black and white with Friedlander’s own decadent murals on the walls.
Lying on a chaise longue, covered with a zebra skin and raised on a high dais was Jonas Friedlander. He wore tight, scarlet velvet trousers and he was naked to the waist. Hovering over him was a scared-looking elderly manservant and a tall, thin man who Cade guessed was a doctor who was putting the finishing touches to a bandage on Friedlander’s fat arm.
“How are you feeling?” Cade asked, climbing the steps of the dais and pausing at Friedlander’s side.