“What for?” Grimes’s sneering smile broadened, which made the sharp end of his big nose dip so far it nearly touched his upper lip. “Searching for clues, is it?”
“Something like that.”
Grimes tossed the papers back onto the sideboard. “There’s a letter there from a priest,” he said, with a sniff of amusement. “Would that be the kind of clue you’re after?”
6
Carlton Sumner’s rare visitations to the offices of the newspapers he owned burst upon the place like summer storms. First a prophetic and uneasy hush would fall throughout the building, then a distant disturbance would be felt, a sort of crepitation in the air, to be followed swiftly by the irruption of the man himself, loud and terrible as the coming of Thor the thunder god. That Wednesday morning Harry Clancy hardly had time to get his feet off of his desk before the door burst open and Sumner came striding in, smelling of horse leather and expensive hair oil. He was a big man, with a big square head and a black, square-cut mustache and large, slightly drooping, and surprisingly soft brown eyes. He was dressed like the businessman he was, in a three-piece suit of light brown herringbone tweed, a white shirt with a thin blue stripe, and a blue silk tie, yet as always he gave the impression of just having dismounted after a long, hard gallop over rough terrain. He was Canadian but spoke and moved and acted like an American out of the movies.
“All right, Clancy,” he said, “what’s going on?”
Harry, although still seated in his swivel chair, had a vision of himself cowering on his knees with his fingers clamped on the edge of his desk and only the top of his head and his terrified eyes visible. He licked his lower lip with a dry tongue. “How do you mean, Mr. Sumner?” he asked warily.
Sumner gave his head an impatient toss. “I mean what’s going on about this reporter of yours who got himself murdered? What are you doing about it?”
Harry forced himself upright in his chair, straightening his shoulders and clearing his throat. His wife often lectured him about his craven attitude to his boss. Sumner was only a bully, she would say, and threw his weight around to entertain himself. She was right, of course — Sumner always showed a glint of amusement, even in his stormiest moods — but the bastard had a mesmerizing effect, and Harry, steel himself though he might, felt like a frightened rabbit trapped in the glare of those big and deceptively melting, glossy brown eyes. “Well, the police were here,” he said. “Detective Inspector Hackett…” He faltered, remembering, too late, that Hackett had been instrumental in having Sumner’s son deported to Canada for his involvement in a recent series of nefarious doings.
Sumner frowned, but either he had not recognized Hackett’s name or was pretending to have forgotten it. “So what are they going to do,” he said, “the cops?”
“They’ve launched a murder investigation.”
Sumner gazed down at him, his mustache twitching. “A ‘murder investigation,’” he said. “Jesus, Clancy, you’ve been working in newspapers too long, you’re beginning to talk like them.” He walked to the window and stood looking out at the river, his hands in his trouser pockets. “You know I almost missed it?” he said.
“Missed what, Mr. Sumner?”
“The report of this kid’s death. It was buried at the bottom of page five.”
“Page three.”
Sumner gave a harsh laugh. “So it was page three! Great.” He turned and came back and tapped hard on Harry’s desk with the tip of a thick, blunt, but perfectly manicured finger. “The point is,” he said, “why the goddamn hell wasn’t it on page one? Why wasn’t it all over page one? Why wasn’t it all of page one, period?”
“This is a delicate one, Mr. Sumner,” Harry began, but Sumner pushed a hand almost into the editor’s face.
“Don’t talk to me about delicate,” he said. “What do you think we’re running here? House and Garden? The Ladies’ Home Journal?” Now he jammed both elbows into his sides and splayed his hands to right and left over the desk, like an exasperated hoodlum in a gangster film. “It’s a newspaper, for God’s sake! We have a story! One of our very own reporters gets kicked to death and thrown stark naked in the river and you bury it on page five? Are you a newsman, or what are you?”
Noosman, Harry repeated to himself, and in his imagination curled a contemptuous lip.
There was a brief, heavy silence, Sumner leaning over the desk with his hands held out in that menacingly imploring gesture and Harry looking up at him wide-eyed, his mouth open.
“Canal,” Harry said, before he could stop himself.
Sumner blinked. “What?”
“It was the canal he was dropped into, not the river.”
Sumner, frighteningly quiet, nodded to himself. He let his hands fall to his sides in a gesture of helpless resignation. He pulled up a straight-backed chair and sat down and planted his elbows on the desk. “How long have you been in this job, Harry?” he asked, purring, sounding almost friendly, as if he really wanted to know.
“A year,” Harry said defensively. “Two, in September.”
“You like your work? I mean, you get satisfaction out of it?”
Harry’s mouth had gone dry again. “Yes, of course,” he said.
Once again Sumner was nodding. “I’m glad to hear it,” he said. “I like to think the folk working on my newspapers are happy. It gives me satisfaction, to know that you’re happy. You believe that?” Harry only looked glum, and Sumner smiled, showing his big white teeth. “You’d better believe it, because it’s true. But you’ve got to realize”—he leaned back and brought out from the breast pocket of his jacket a box of cheroots and flipped open the lid—“I’m in business here. We’re all in business here.”
The cheroots were of a blackish-brown color, obviously handmade; long and thin and misshapen, they reminded Harry of shriveled dog turds. Sumner selected one, held it up before himself between his fingertips, and gazed at it with satisfaction. Harry pushed a heavy desk lighter towards him but Sumner shook his head and brought out a box of Swan Vestas. “Lighters taste of gasoline,” he said. “A good cheroot deserves a match.”
He lit up with a flourish, making a business of it, while Harry looked on in dull fascination. Sumner shook the flame until it died, then set the smoldering matchstick carefully on a corner of the desk, ignoring the ashtray Harry was offering, and exhaled with a soft sigh a flaw of blue, dense-smelling smoke. “The point is, Harry,” he said, settling back on the chair and crossing his left ankle on his right knee, “newspapers thrive on — well, you tell me. Come on. Tell me. What do newspapers thrive on, Harry?”
Harry regarded him helplessly with a glazed stare. By now he felt less like a rabbit than a torn and bloodied mouse that a cat had been toying with for a long time and was about to eat.
“Noos, Harry,” Sumner said, almost whispering the word. “That’s what they thrive on—noos.”
He smoked in silence for a time, smiling to himself and gazing at Harry almost benignly. Harry was bitterly reminding himself that although Sumner had taken over the Clarion less than a year before, obviously he saw himself as an expert at the business.
Below them, deep in the bowels of the building, the presses were starting up for a dummy run.
“So,” Harry said, “what do you want me to do, exactly?”
“Me? I don’t want you to do anything. What I want is for you to tell me what you’re going to do. You’re the professional here, Harry”—he paused, seeming about to laugh at the notion but settling for a broad smile instead—“you’re the one with the know-how. So: impress me.”