Then he motions with his head.
— This lot here, Sam? Logan says. We could put out a hell of a paper.
— We already did, Briscoe says.
One of the older photographers, Barney Weiss, is moving around with his Nikon. Some of the younger reporters are using cell phones as cameras. Others reach over to tap Briscoe on the shoulder or exchange fist bumps.
— Whatever you do, Matt, don’t pick your nose. You’ll end up on YouTube.
Logan laughs, and angles away, and Briscoe sees Janet, making a secretarial face that demands his attention. He nods to her. Slowly he pushes through, smiling, explaining that he has to get rid of his coat, hears an outburst of laughter, sees a Mexican pizza delivery man looking baffled, holding at least five stacked pies. No sign of the Fonseca kid. I hope he’s getting laid. He sure earned it. Here comes Dorfman, the city hall guy, smoking a pipe left to him by Murray Kempton. He says something that is lost in the general chaos of words. Sam, hey, Sam, let’s… No deadline tonight, baby… Who’s got a bottle opener?… I’m not shittin’ ya. The Iverson deal is… Where’s Helen? Anybody seen Helen?
Briscoe knows Helen isn’t coming. Or said she wasn’t. She’d love the aroma of this version of a city room. Christ, fourteen years since I stopped cigarettes, he thinks, and I want one now. A whiskey too. Cynthia helped me stop both. There’s a clear spot now and he eases toward his office, where Janet is at the door. He shrugs off his jacket while he moves. Now another voice is playing on the CD player, wherever it is. “Well, since my baby left me, / I found a new place to dwell…”
And here coming into the city room is Billygoat, followed by a brigade of pressmen. They are all carrying bundles of newspapers. Briscoe stops, turns back into the city room. They plop the papers on desks, cut the cords, and start handing them out. Everybody is laughing. Briscoe sees the wood, and laughs out loud too, reaching for a copy.
WORLD ENDS!
And the subhead: Jews, Irish Suffer Most.
A photo from some apocalyptic movie shows floods, toppling skyscrapers.
Briscoe scans smaller headlines in a stack on the left, with page numbers, shaking his head, chuckling at them all, guffawing at a few.
Mexicans Demand New Day of Dead p. 9
Sharpton: Proves God Is Black p. 3
Taliban, al-Qaeda Thrilled p. 28
Health Care Plan Dead p. 11
Glenn Beck, GOP Blame Obama p. 2
Palin Applauds ‘Rapture’ p. 5
Albany Gang Dies in Vegas Debut p. 10
Two-State Solution in Middle East: All Die p. 14
In the lower-right-hand corner there’s a box:
Tomorrow: INSIDE HELL by Richard Elwood, F.P.
The complete back page shows a slack-jawed Jared Jeffries with a basketball bouncing off his chest and the headline:
UCONN WOMEN
BEAT KNICKS BY 23
Here Briscoe guffaws. Then Billygoat has him by the elbow, pushing him toward the pressmen, and the rest of the crowd, and both face the cameras, holding up the front pages with everyone else, the photographers clicking away. Even the photographers are laughing. Barney Weiss photographs the photographers, from the front and from behind. They will all soon have prints, to hang on walls for the rest of their lives.
Janet is now beside Briscoe, grabbing his sleeve with a free hand. She has his coat and jacket under her arm.
— There’s a shitload of messages, she says. But you better call Dick Amory first.
— Yeah, okay.
She grabs his arm, waving off people, guiding him to the office. They both know that Amory is Cynthia Harding’s lawyer. In the office, Janet hangs the coat and jacket on the clothes tree, sits down, starts dialing. Then Janet nods to Briscoe as he slides behind his desk, making a phone sign with her hand. He picks up the phone, gestures to her to close the door.
— Hello, Dick.
— I’m sorry for your trouble, Sam. For our trouble. Our loss.
He’s a decent guy, Amory. And a terrific lawyer. Not a Court Street ambulance chaser. That’s why Cynthia chose him.
— Thanks, Dick. So what do we do?
— For a service, there’s different possibilities. The Ethical Culture place on Central Park West. They can do it late next week.
— Nah. It’s a nice place, but it’s not Cynthia.
— What about a Catholic place? She talked about it a lot. She said she wasn’t religious but she liked the art and the music. Maybe St. Patrick’s—
— Too grand. Maybe Old St. Patrick’s, down by Little Italy. She sent them money once for a library.
— Yeah, Amory says.
— They can have a bigger memorial a month from now, at the library on Forty-second Street.
— Perfect. You got the name of a guy at Old St. Patrick’s?
— Hold on… Janet, go find Farrell and ask him if he has a contact at Old St. Patrick’s, downtown, not the cathedral.
She gets up and moves into the crowded city room.
— I’ll have it for you in a few minutes, Dick. What else?
He hears Amory exhale.
— Big trouble. For you. In her will, she names you as executor. She left you some money too. And some paintings…
— Fuck. I don’t know a goddamned thing about that kind of stuff. I’m a newspaperman, Dick. Or was.
— I’ll help.
— I just want to get the fuck out of town.
There’s a beat of silence. Then Amory speaks.
— Look, Sam, none of this has to be done on a newspaper deadline. Go away. Take a break for a month. When you come back—
Janet returns, hands Briscoe a paper with a name on it.
— Dick, I have the name of a priest at Old St. Patrick’s.
They talk for another minute and agree to meet on Monday. Briscoe hangs up. He sits there gazing into the city room, which is full of rowdy laughter, people slapping fives, shaking their heads, telling lies and war stories and doing anything to hold back tears. A few are wearing the fake page 1 on their chests, held by tape or pins. Briscoe knows what he is seeing. A wake. He notices now that some of them are wearing black armbands. Matt Logan is one of them.
He turns and stands, his reverie over. Janet waves the messages.
— There’s others, she says. Including the F.P.
— If he calls, tell him I’ve caught a boat for Morocco or something.
— You want the others?
He takes the cluster of notes and leafs through them. Imus. The mayor’s office. David Carr. Howard Kurtz. Oreskes at the AP. Liz Smith. Matt Frei at BBC America. Howard Rubenstein. NPR. The Columbia Journalism Review. NYU. Morning Joe. To talk about the future of newspapers. Or any news about services for Cynthia Harding. And there: Sandra Gordon.
Wanting to know about services. About a memorial.
Sandra Gordon. Remembering again that party in Jamaica when she was a child. Cynthia helping her to education and life. A pretty girl. A proud beautiful woman. He folds the note and slips it into his shirt pocket.
He gazes out and sees dozens of them eating pizza. A truly New York wake.
— I guess I have to make a farewell address, he says.
— You’d better, Janet says.
— What are they all going to do? he says.
— Far as I know, every one of them signed up to work on the website. Including me. You gotta reapply, you know. And the F.P. isn’t gonna hire us all. That’s the point. Right?
— I’m afraid it is.