He waved his hand dismissively. "We'll survive. Hollis has always had an inflated sense of his own importance. The ranch does support a lot of businesses around here, but not us. If Basha's pulled out we'd be in big trouble, but the Rocking DID?" He snorted. "Hollis has always been a miser about advertising in The Gazette. We'll live without his fifty bucks a week."
"Good."
Rich walked back to his desk. ""It just depresses me that the man would even try to tell me what to print and what not to print." He shook his head. "Most people don't believe in freedom of the press.
Not really. They think they do, but they don't. People like to hear or read things that they agree with. They want their own views promoted as fact and don't want equal time given to their opposition.
They want only their side given. But the presentation of facts is never wrong. Remember that, if you remember nothing else. It is the journalist's responsibility to be oh jective. When you start printing only one side of a story, when you start limiting people's access to facts, telling them by your presentation and emphasis what to believe, what is truth, then you are not doing your job."
Sue smiled. "Was that going to be a lecture to your class?"
"No. But it should've been."
Their eyes met. It was now or never, she thought. She looked down at the scratch paper on which she'd written her lead. She was nervous, her heart beginning to pound, but the opportunity was here, had presented itself without her having to reach for it, and she forced herself to act. She looked up at him. "It is a vampire," she said.
Her voice was meek, barely audible.
"What? '
She licked her lips. She wasn't sure if he didn't believe her or hadn't heard what she said, but she pressed on. "There is a vampire.
We call it a cup hug/rngs/."
This time he had heard. "Cup hugrngs.
"It means 'vampire' in Cantonese." "And these vampires drink the sap of trees, too, I sup pose?"
Sue reddened. "You read my story." .
"Of course. I copy edited it."
"Then, yes," she said. "As a matter of fact, they do." The editor chewed his lip for a moment, looking at her, thinking. Then he put down his pen and sighed. He stood, walked over to Sue's desk, and pulled up a chair, sitting down next to her. "Okay," he said. "I admit it. I'm not the skeptic I used to be." He crossed his legs. "I guess it's about time I heard this. Tell me about the cup hugirngsi.
"" She looked at him. "This isn't a joke."
"I know." Sue nodded. "Thank you," she said quietly. And she began to talk..
When Sue arrived at the restaurant, both her parents and her grandmother were standing next to the front window, staring out toward the highway. The sight of their faces peering from between the taped signs advertising Egg Roll and Sweet and Sour Pork lunch specials filled her with a sinking feeling. There was none of the dread she associated with D/Lo Ling Gum, and she knew that if something truly important had happened, her father would have called her at the paper, but she could still tell that something was wrong, and instead of parking the station wagon in the back, she pulled up to the short side walk at the front of the restaurant.
She hurried inside, the bell above the door tinkling as she pushed the door open. She addressed her father: "What is it? What is wrong?"
']John is late. He was supposed to be here half an hour ago."
There were two diners in the restaurant, eating a late lunch or an early dinner at the far table, and they looked up, frowning, at the sound of the Chinese words ...... Her grandmother's voice betrayed no emotion, but her eyes were troubled. "It is not safe today. Not even in the daytime."
Sue looked from her grandmother to her mother and father. "I'll look for him."
"I will go," her father said.
"I want to go too."
Her mother shook her head, but her grandmother nodded. "All right," her father said.
Sue dropped her notebook on the nearest table. "I'm sure he's fine. He probably just stayed after school for something. I don't think anything's happened to him."
Neither her parents nor her grandmother responded. They pulled out of the parking lot a few minutes later, her father driving, and followed in reverse the path John usually took home from school. They cruised slowly through the parking lot of Basha's, Sue peeking down the trail that led through the vacant land between the shopping center and the restaurant. They even drove past Dairy Queen and the liquor store, in case he'd stopped off to get something to eat or drinL But there was no sign of John, no sign of any students.
Something had happened. They drove up Ocotillo toward the junior high.
The school was hosting an afternoon home game against Globe, and the sound of cheering from the football field carried clearly in the cool desert air. It surprised Sue that real life was still continuing for some people in town, that they knew or cared nothing about the cup hugirngsi, and though she knew that ignorance was not really bliss, that not being aware of the situation and failing to take proper precautions was more likely to lead to death than happiness, she could not help envying those people their innocence.
Her father pulled into the school parking lot. There were two dingy buses and some cars parked here, but by no means as many vehicles as usual. The cup hugirngsi had had an effect. Could John have gone to the game? She didn't think it likely. He didn't like sports, had never before been to any school activity at all, and if he wanted to go somewhere with friends after school he always called. Still, she mentioned it to her father, who promptly pulled into one of the parking slots. "We will look for him," he said. "Maybe he is here."
There was more wish than conviction in his voice, and that note of nearly desperate hope made everything slid demy hit home. Her brother might really be dead. Or kidnapped, taken to the cup hug/rngss lair.
She might never again see him alive.
She felt not angry, not scared, but drained, tired. "Sue."
The voice was a whisper, faint but audible. It had come from somewhere close, but if it had been spoken a moment sooner, while the football crowd was cheering, she would not have heard it.
Her father was already walking up the crooked concrete steps that led to the gym and football field. She wanted to call out to him but dared not, for fear of missing the voice if it spoke again. She stood next to the car, unmoving
"Sue!" The call came again, weak and whispery and somehow familiar.
Frowning, she turned toward the Dumpsters pushed against the low brick wall a few parking spaces away. She thought she saw movement in the shadows between the blue metal sides of the twin bins, and she started cautiously forward.
"Sue!"
It was John. She could see him now, leaning against the side of the closest Dumpster.
"Father!" she called. She did not wait to see if he'd heard her but rushed between the metal bins. John was sitting up but was curled into an almost fetal position, his head nearly touching his knees. His face was purple and red, the skin around his mouth and eyes bruised and swollen, his nose and hands bloody. There was drying blood on his ripped shirt, and his pants were open, the snap torn off. She knelt down next to him, filled with a gut-wrenching hurt that made her want to cry, made her want to hit someone, made her wish this had happened to her instead. She had never before seen any member of her family injured or in serious pain, and the experience made her feel sick inside. "What happened?" she asked.
John's voice was again a whisper, and she realized that he could barely move his puffy lips. "They beat me up. They said God told them to do it. They said God doesn't like... Chinese people."
Her father hurried around her, knelt next to John, -reached under his arms, and pulled him into a straighter sitting position. "Chink," her father said in English. "They say 'chink." " It was a statement not a question. John nodded.