He has been waiting now for twenty minutes, and the receptionist has explained with chilly vagueness that the publisher knows he is here. The door into his office remains shut and Briscoe knows why. He glances at Forbes, New York magazine, and the lone copy of the Friday edition of the World, with its wraparound and the faces of the two women. He wishes he could stretch out and sleep.
The door opens. And a man and a woman emerge, holding coats before them in laced fingers. They are obviously from Homicide, but too young for Briscoe to know them. Richard Elwood is behind them, his white shirt open, tieless, looking solemn.
— Thanks again, Sergeant, he says. It’s a horrible, horrible tragedy, and I hope you catch whoever did it very soon.
— We will, the male cop says, while the woman nods. They shake hands with Elwood, glance at Briscoe, and go to the outer door leading to the elevators. Elwood gestures to Briscoe to come in. They shake hands briskly and Elwood closes the door behind them.
— Hello, Sam, Elwood says. Great paper today. You were right to do the wrap.
— Thanks, Richard.
— I just wish it had never happened.
— Me too.
The office has more square feet than the old apartment on East 49th Street. Briscoe glances around and sees that everything remains as it was a few months earlier, when he last came for a visit. The bar. A cork wall behind Elwood’s desk, busy with a collage of index cards, newspaper clippings, Post-its, business cards. A wall with framed photographs of his mother with Ted Kennedy, Bill and Hillary, Mike Bloomberg, Bush the Father, and young Elwood himself. One of him as a little boy. Through a wide window Briscoe can see Queens. Elwood leads the way to the sitting area, with a couch, two wing chairs, and a low table. A Mark Rothko rises above the couch, all reds and yellows. The table is bare except for a single copy of the World. Elwood sits in a corner of the couch, and gestures for Briscoe to take the near chair.
— Cynthia Harding was a wonderful woman, Elwood says.
— She was. Did the cops tell you anything new?
Elwood stares at his hands.
— Not much, he says. They have two theories. One, a guy saw guests leaving the party, waited, took a chance on the door being open, and got lucky. He finds the Watson woman in the kitchen. She runs up the stairs, yelling. He stabs her. Then Cynthia comes out of the bedroom, and he stabs her too. Then starts a fire and runs.
Briscoe waits. Then:
— What’s the other theory?
— It was somebody one of them knew. Maybe both of them knew.
Briscoe stares at Elwood.
— The Watsons have a son, Briscoe says. In his early twenties.
Elwood shakes his head slowly.
— They didn’t mention that. I mean, would a son kill his mother? Like that? I guess, maybe. Like you told me once: It’s a tabloid city. But, ah, hell, I know they never tell everything to people like us. Until they’re, like, sure.
Elwood rises abruptly.
— You want coffee, Sam?
— Sure.
Elwood goes to the door, opens it, whispers to the receptionist. He comes back, but remains standing. He breathes in heavily.
— Sam, I hate to say this. But I’m closing the paper.
A pause.
— When?
— Now. Today.
He lifts the paper, holding each corner with thumb and forefinger.
— This is the last issue of the New York World. My mother’s paper.
He bends and lays the newspaper on the low table. He turns his back and faces Queens. Briscoe rises, removes his jacket, and drapes it on the back of his chair.
— That’s a mistake, Richard. We own this story. They’ll want more.
Elwood turns, a smile on his face.
— On Saturday? Maybe snow coming tonight? Come on, Sam. Get real.
Briscoe comes up beside him. They can each see the dumb blank faces of high-rise apartment houses, a sliver of the East River, condos where there once were squat fuel tanks on the Queens side. A fragment of the 59th Street Bridge. A shard of distant Citi Field. Briscoe thinks: Where is the Pepsi sign?
— It’s inevitable, Sam. Closing the paper.
The door opens behind them and the receptionist crosses the room holding a tray with two cups, a silver pot, some pastries.
— Just leave it on the table, please, Elwood says.
— Yes, sir, she says, and goes out.
Elwood is quiet for a beat. Then:
— Where was I?
— Inevitable.
— You know, the delivery system is changing, very fast. The ads have dried up. And eighty percent of our expenses go to paper, ink, and delivery. Eighty percent. Not to journalism.
— You need to—
— I need to close the thing, Sam. But that won’t be the end of the World. I’ve been working for months on the plan.
— What plan? I haven’t heard about any plan.
— Let me show you. We have a website already, as you know, so—
Briscoe has almost never looked at the website. Thinks: The kids who do the mechanics work right here, in this building. The three of them combined as old as I am. He has met them once but can’t remember a single name. He wonders if they smoke. Elwood walks to his desk, Briscoe behind him, and sits before the computer to the side of his desk. Briscoe knows what’s coming. Then it’s before him, the home page, in handsome Caslon, bold and medium, a photo from Afghanistan, a local angle on health care.
TheWorld.com.
Elwood keeps talking fast, excited now, all about the changing business model, the market share, the younger audience, about availability on electronic readers, about the way the Times now has more hits on its website than it has daily sales, and how the Wall Street Journal is charging money for access and… Briscoe has heard it all before, from all sorts of people, and he flashes on Elizabeth Elwood all those years ago in Paris, her enthusiasm, her sense of possibility and purpose. She never once used the phrase “business model,” although she surely had one. Elwood keeps talking, clicking on a traffic jam in color video, on the sports section, on style and gossip and how you could blow up the pictures of the stars and print them out.
Then both are silent. Elwood turns to Briscoe, who remains standing.
— So?
— It looks good.
Briscoe turns away, hands in his back pockets.
— That’s all? Elwood says.
He rises now, the computer locked on the home page.
— We need the Saturday paper, Briscoe says. We need a chance to say good-bye.
— Sam, you don’t get it, do you? It’s not good-bye. On Monday morning, we say hello. There’ll be no good-byes. We’ll have ads starting Sunday morning on New York One, and every day next week. Right after the weather! Channels Two and Four too. It will be a media sensation. The first month will be free to everybody, then they pay six bucks a month. We’ll be out in front of the pack. We’ll—
Briscoe walks to his chair and lifts his coat.
— Good luck, Richard.
— What? I want you to be part of this, Sam.
— You mean, you want me to be the guy that lays off people?
— There have to be layoffs, Sam. But you are the World.
Briscoe buttons his jacket and smiles.
— Richard, I’m a newspaperman.
He walks to the door.
— Where are you going?
— I’ve got to make some calls. I don’t want my people to hear about this from some fucking blog. And I have to get my lawyer to call your lawyer about severance and all that. Good luck with everything.