Yeah, thought Luther, looking from one to the other of them. This was the way to do it. Just like in the army, just like in battle. The system got you through, the team got you through. You were part of them and you worked together and you got the job done.
The image of Frank Beachum’s face had almost entirely ceased to trouble him for the moment. This was going to be all right, he thought. He thought he was going to get through this just fine.
2
It was about two-thirty when I walked back into the St. Louis News. Bridget Rossiter met me at the city room door, her freckled face urgent. “Have you heard about Michelle? She’s been in a temble accident.”
Being the Trends editor, Bridget always got the news a little later than everyone else. I nodded and patted her shoulder. She shook her head sorrowfully.
“You know, alcohol figures in over fifty percent of all traffic fatalities,” she said.
“Is Michelle still in a coma?” “She’s in a coma? Oh my God,” she murmured, as I walked past.
The city room was busy now. Reporters sat at various places within the maze of desks, leaning toward their computer screens, tapping their keyboards, or kicking back with a coffee in their hand and a paper open on their legs. At the city desk, Jane Marsh and William Anger, the minority affairs editor, stood flanking Bob Findley’s chair, bending over him in conference. For a moment, I thought I might sneak in and out of the place without Bob spotting me. But it was not to be. I’d hardly taken three steps into the room, when Bob raised his head as if a radar blip had sounded. He pinned me, across the long room, with that expressionless stare which told of how his heart had erased me from the Book of Life.
I forced a pained smile and went past the desk, hewing as close to the wall as I could. The door to Alan Mann’s office was closed, but I could see him in there through the venetian blinds. He was talking on the telephone, making expressive gestures with the candy bar in his free hand.
I didn’t knock. I just pushed the door open. I felt Bob’s eyes on my back-drilling into my back-as I stepped inside and shut the door behind me.
“Right,” Alan was saying into the phone. “We’ll do a lead editorial on that for tomorrow. What’s my opinion?” He listened, his hawklike head bobbing up and down, his candy bar holding fire in his raised hand. “Got it,” he said then. “Sure thing, Mr. Lowenstein.” He rocked forward in his chair and dropped the handset into its cradle. He looked up at me from under his bushy brows. “Stop fucking Bob’s wife,” he said. “He doesn’t like it.”
“Oh Christ,” I said. “What did he do, put it in the company newsletter?”
Alan pointed the candy bar at me. It was a Snickers, the kind with all the peanuts. “If he comes to me and wants your ass, I’m gonna have to give it to him. Then you’ll just be a hole without an ass around it.”
I pulled out my cigarettes and stuck one between my teeth. I hid behind the match flame as I lit it. “She started it,” I muttered lamely into the fire.
“Doesn’t count. You’ve got the dingus.” His big body fell back in the chair. He ripped a hunk of chocolate off and mashed the nuts savagely. He regarded me savagely. “You know what?”
“All right, all right,” I said.
“You’re a fucking womanizer, that’s what. It fucked you up in New York and it’s gonna fuck you up here. You’re fucking up your whole career and you’re fucking up your marriage and if you can’t keep your goddamned prick in your pants I’m not gonna be able to goddamned protect you. How was she?”
“None of your goddamned business,” I said. “Not bad.”
“Lucky bastard. I always liked her.”
“Shut up, Alan. Jesus.”
“Hey, don’t take it out on me, boy. You’re the one who sinned against God and man.”
I turned away from him and walked over to the wall. It was crowded with plaques and certificates, awards and appreciations. They were what he had instead of windows. There were photos too-of Alan standing with the governor, standing with the president, standing with Mr. Lowenstein, who owned the paper. I stood blowing smoke at them.
“Listen,” Alan said to my profile. “Did I ever tell you about the ADA I fell for in New York?”
“No, and if you tell me now, I’m going to throw myself across your desk and rip your throat out with my bare hands.”
“It’s an edifying tale.”
“I’ll kill you.”
“I’ll save it for another time.”
I swiveled around. He had taken another bite of chocolate and was holding the bar up to his face, eyeing a drooping curlicue of caramel with affection.
“I’ve got a problem,” I said.
“Oh, the nickel finally drops.” His beak nose bent down as he grimaced. “Christ, boy. Don’t you know Bob’s been after you since you got here? In that quiet, earnest, morally just way of his. He’s probably glad you fucked his wife so he has an ethical reason to destroy you.”
“Great. I live to make him happy. But that’s not my problem.”
“How can you be so goddamned self-destructive?”
“Practice, Alan. But that’s not my problem.”
“You should’ve fucked my wife. I’d’ve just punched you.”
“I did fuck your wife.”
He laughed. “Lucky bastard. How was she?”
“She sends her love. But that’s not my goddamned problem, Alan.”
“All right. What’s your goddamned problem? Tell papa. You soulless shit.” He popped the last of the candy into his mouth.
“Frank Beachum,” I said.
“The soon-to-be-dead guy?”
“Yeah.”
He crumpled the candy wrapper and laid it up in the air with a flick of his wrist. It plonked into the metal can against the wall. “For two!” he said.
“I’m supposed to interview him this afternoon,” I said.
“A chance and hope of my procuring, Ebenezer. Don’t fuck it up.”
“I think he could be innocent.”
“Is that your problem?”
“Yes.”
“Well, he’s not,” said Alan. “I’m glad we could have this little talk.”
He stretched out in the high-backed chair, folding his hands atop his volleyball belly. I flicked an ash angrily off my cigarette so that it looped into the wastebasket. Alan sniffed, annoyed.
“I’m serious,” I said then.
“No, you’re not.”
“I am. Look at my face. This is my serious face, Alan. This is how you can tell.”
“Steven,” he said. “Young Steven Everett. Listen to me a minute. Listen to your mentor and guide. Life is less mysterious than we know. Things are almost always exactly what they seem. The guy was busted, tried and convicted. This isn’t TV. You’ve been in the courts. You know he’s guilty.”
I grinned with gritted teeth. Smoke seeped out between them.
“All right,” he said finally. “What’ve you got?”
I lifted my cigarette hand as if to speak. Then, not speaking, I held the filter to my lips and sucked on it hard. What was I going to tell him anyway? That six years after the event, there were potato chips in my line of vision? That I looked into Dale Porterhouse’s eyes and knew he was lying? That it bothered me that Nancy Larson hadn’t heard any gunshots even though she had a perfectly good reason why she shouldn’t have?
“Oh,” said Alan sadly. “Oh, Ev.”
“No, no, wait …” I said.
“Ev, Ev, Ev …”
“Just listen to me.”
“Ev. I don’t have to listen to you. I’m looking at you, Ev. I’m looking at you and I see a reporter who’s about to tell me that he has a hunch.”
“Alan, I’ve done some checking up …”
“Do you know my opinion of reporters who have hunches?”
“I talked to one of the witnesses.”
“I can’t fart loud enough to express my opinion, Ev.”