Fargo was so relieved that it never occurred to him to ask what was to become of Morgan’s brother-in-law Dudley, who held the title of editorial page editor and performed that function as perfunctorily as possible every weekday before he left for the country club.
Shiu told him anyway. “Mr. Graydon has elected to take early retirement and intends, I believe, to devote himself to his memoirs.”
That struck me as downright remarkable, inasmuch as Dud Graydon was somewhere in his early forties, had never been farther from home than Chicago, and seemed unlikely to have much to write a memoir about—unless you count the time he wrestled a two-iron away from his golf partner when the guy tried to kill a goose that wandered on the course and honked just as he flubbed his sixth shot on the par three eighth.
“Nasty business,” Dud told a circle of admirers in the clubhouse afterwards. “Even a goose has a right to express his or her opinion. After all, what else have we got to separate us from the damn communists? And Freddie was butchering the hole.”
I was so engrossed by what was going down that I blew my cover. I stepped into the doorway of Fargo’s office just as Shiu hoisted his balloon-sided briefcase onto the desk top. Fargo could see me but gave no indication; the others had their backs to me.
“My principals have instructed us to retain all of the present staff who care to continue in their current assignments for now,” Shiu said. “However, Mr. Swift will be making some additions to the staff in several areas. Those need not concern you.”
Shiu fished in the leather cavern on the desk and brought out a sheet of paper. “You will please print this notice in today’s edition in a… ah, Mr. Swift?”
“A box,” Swift said. “Front page, bottom right.”
“But today’s paper is already made up,” Fargo said.
“Indeed?” Swift shrilled. “Then, Mr. Barton, let us consider Mr. Shiu’s instruction to be your challenge for today. Get it in.”
Shiu turned to leave—listing somewhat to the side he was carrying the briefcase—and then turned back to Fargo with a fluorescent smile. “And, Mr. Barton, perhaps it would be advisable for you to read the notice to the staff before sending it to the… ah, Mr. Swift?”
“Composing room,” said Swift, following Shiu and Morgan past me without a flicker of interest. They disappeared into the elevator, presumably en route to the publisher’s office upstairs.
Fargo got up, scanned the sheet of paper, and looked up at me. “Call the staff to the city desk.”
“The staff” on duty consisted of me; Drew Claggett, who had been reading out advance feature copy that would be used to legitimize the potful of ads that had been sold for the annual June bride’s special section; Mary Frasci and Doralee Green, the society page ladies who had been writing the slurpy copy for the section; Shep Carley, who had to hang around the wire until the press run began just in case World War III started before he could adjourn to Next Door—which was the bar next door; and Bicker, Snicker, and Whine, which is what everyone else called Al Wilks, the world’s most cantankerous copyreader, Hank Terry, the sports writer who giggled at football injuries and racing car crashes, and Rip Tandee, who insisted he would have won a dozen Pulitzers if it had not been for the lousy camera equipment the lousy publisher bought for the lousy paper.
Fargo, who had seen pictures of this sort of drama (“Editor Reads News of Paper Folding to Staff”) in Editor and Publisher, climbed up on a chair, cleared his throat and declaimed as follows:
“A NOTICE TO OUR READERS
“The Capital Register & Press today is being published under new ownership. All-American Enterprises of Chicago has acquired the property from the Morgan family and will continue to publish the newspaper as a unit of its extensive media and other commercial holdings in this country and abroad. Mr. J. D. Morgan has consented to remain with the company in a consultant capacity and Mr. L. Fargo Barton, the incumbent editor, will continue in that capacity.
“All-American Enterprises hopes and intends to bring to this community and to the state, whose government this city is the seat, a newspaper of the same unswerving distinction and high quality as was maintained by the former ownership. The new ownership also intends to provide an infusion of resources and innovative improvements to the property in order to assure its economic viability in the marketplace at large under the changing circumstances of today’s requirements for maintaining an adequate level of profitability in both the near and far term.
“The new ownership wishes to assure the community that every effort will be made to continue, and we hope enhance the high standards of journalism and civic responsibility for which it has looked to the newspaper in the past. There will be some modernization of the newspaper’s scope and broadening of its circulation base as a means of generating new revenues required to establish the property as a profit center that can occupy a proud place in the family of All-American Enterprises entrepreneurial undertakings.”
“Jesus,” said Claggett. “The rag has been bought out by Philly lawyers.” Drew was tough. He got that way reading The Front Page about twenty times.
“No, no,” Mary said. “We’ve been swallowed by a multinational conglomerate. Arab sheiks, probably.” Mary had saved her money and had a position in pork bellies. High finance was no mystery to her.
“The new publisher looks Oriental,” I said.
“The Chinese Reds,” Doralee announced, looking for all the world like a Roman virgin who has just spied Attila the Hun crossing the front yard. “Do they recognize marriage? Do they have spring proms?”
“Another paper about to go down the tubes,” Bicker growled. “I give us three months with that kind of happy talk.” Al had a loving wife, devoted children, and a host of friends who admired his untiring church and civic work. It wasn’t until he came to work that he became a pain in the ass.
“Aren’t we supposed to have a wake?” Shep asked. “I’ll just go next door and get a couple of tables shoved together.” Shep tipped a jar now and then. Actually, both now and then.
“Soccer. I bet they’ll be ape-shit about soccer. I don’t know nothing about soccer,” Snicker said, chuckling morosely. Hank had been a fair high school halfback and football was his passion. He regarded basketball as slightly sissified (“They play in short pants, f’Christ’s sake”) and liked nothing about baseball except collisions at home plate.
“I suppose this means there’s no hope for getting a new enlarger,” said Whine. Tandee actually was a pretty good photographer. It’s just that nobody ever told him that except his mother.
Fargo turned to me with the notice. “This has to go in today as a front page box.”
“No problem,” I said, ignoring his obvious surprise at getting no argument from me. It took some shuffling, but we got the notice right where Swift wanted it. The only item that had to be spiked was the Garden Club election.
CHAPTER 2
The next month was quiet. Bill Grace, who dropped his drink and broke the glass on the new patio he had laid during his recuperation when he read about the paper being sold, made a miraculous recovery and returned to work, half expecting to find his city editors job filled by some eager minion of All-American Enterprises. All he found was me, eager to get the hell out of his seat.
I went back to the pleasant and slow-paced environment of the fusty old statehouse pressroom, where I was bombarded with questions about what the hell was happening at the Capital Register & Press. Interest ran so high that the pressroom’s perpetual low stakes hearts game was suspended while I was being interrogated.