I shook my head. “It’s personal.”
“Ah!” he said, disgusted. “You got a personal life now?”
I swallowed the wad of dough and meat and mustard. It plopped into my roiling stomach: a stone dropping into a volcano.
“I had a personal life once,” said Donaldson. “My wife gave it to me for Christmas. I exchanged it for a tie.” He held his tie up. “Whattaya think?”
“I think you’re a wise man. Is Rossiter still here?”
“I don’t know, why?”
“I was gonna try and talk her into doing some scutwork for me. Women are feeling more secure these days or something.”
“No, I think she went home. To hang herself probably.” I laughed wearily. “So how secure are you?” Donaldson shrugged. “I’ll fetch you a cup of coffee if you give me head.”
“Could you make a couple of phone calls for me?”
“Sure, I guess.”
“See if you can track down any of the detectives who worked on the Beachum case. See if anyone ever heard of another witness who was at the scene of the murder. A young guy. A kid. Just drove in and bought a soda or something. Didn’t see anything. I just need a name and address.”
“Hokay.”
“And could you fetch me a cup of coffee?”
He blew me a kiss and walked away.
I put the ham sandwich down, half finished. My stomach couldn’t take any more. I drew the phone book to me and opened it to the state listings. Legal Services, capital punishment division.
I had just found the number when I caught a movement at the corner of my eyes. I felt that in my stomach too, a hot whiplash of acid. It was Alan, opening his office door to look out. To look at me. And Bob was standing up from the city desk, ready to join the attack. They were coming to get me.
I took hold of the phone fast. Punched in the number. Phone to my ear, I swiveled in my chair and waved at Alan. Alan glanced at Bob. Bob glanced at Alan. Alan withdrew into his office. Bob sat down.
“Whew,” I said.
“Legal Services,” a man said over the phone. A young man by the sound of it. A young, very tired man.
“It’s Steve Everett at the News,” I said. “Who can talk to me about Beachum?”
“All of us,” he said sleepily. “Anyone here.”
“How about you? You’re there.”
“Yup.”
“Okay. Nancy Larson,” I said, “the witness in the parking lot.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”
“As she’s driving out, someone else drives in. Another guy, a kid, another witness.”
“No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
“There’s nothing like that in the files,” said the man with a sigh of exhaustion. “Nothing,” he murmured sleepily. “Nothing …”
“Are you sure? How can you be sure?”
He made a noise. A laugh, I think. Some kind of noise like a laugh. “Because I’m sure, Mr. Everett. Believe me,” he said. “Even if I’d never seen this case before, I’d have had all the files memorized in the last two weeks. There’s nothing like that. There are no other witnesses.”
I hesitated. I listened to the silence on the line. “Thanks,” I said finally. I put the phone back in the cradle.
With a nervous glance at Alan’s door, I got up and walked down the aisle to Donaldson. He was still on the phone. He looked up at me as I leaned over his monitor. He shook his head.
“Shit,” I said.
The door to Alan’s office opened again. Alan stepped out again.
“Shit,” I said.
Donaldson hung up. “That was Benning. He was whip on the investigation. He says it rings a bell, but he doesn’t remember any names. He said it was just some minor thing.”
“Shit,” I said.
“And Ardsley, who headed the investigation, is retired. In Florida somewhere.”
“Shit,” I said. “What about the files?”
“He says they’re all over at the CA’s office.”
“Shit,” I said.
“Everett!” Alan was calling me from across the room. Bob was standing up again at the city desk. “Everett, get in here.”
“Shit,” I said.
Donaldson raised one corner of his mouth. “Come on, man, what is this?”
I left his desk and walked across the room slowly toward Alan.
Bob had joined him now at the office door. Alan waved me inside. “Would you step this way, Mr. Everett.” Bob came in behind me and closed the door. He was smiling that smile again.
“You don’t have to look so happy about it,” I told him. “I’m not happy,” he said softly. “Why would you say that?”
Alan lowered himself into his chair. He massaged his forehead with his hand. “I should be home dancing with my wife,” he said.
I grabbed my cigarettes and shot one into my mouth. “Look, I don’t have time for this. So Plunkitt’s pissed. That’s too bad.” I lit the cigarette and sucked on it hard.
“Oh yes,” said Bob, his eyes glittering. “He’s pissed all right. And there’s no smoking in this building.”
Alan heaved a deep sigh. “Boys, boys, boys. Come on. I can’t have this. I got ten reporters out there covering you guys and no one’s watching the city. Everett, say you’re sorry. Bob, punch his lights out. Let’s get it over with.”
Bob looked surprised. “Look, this isn’t a personal matter.” His voice was calm, reasonable. “This was an important story.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”
“I mean it, Alan. I gave Steve very specific instructions on this. I wanted a human interest sidebar, that’s it, that’s all. The paper made promises to Plunkitt …”
“The guy’s innocent!” I said, jabbing the cigarette at him.
“Oh …” Smirking, Bob rolled his eyes. He turned his back on me.
I felt my blood go hot. “He is!” I said to his back. “Bob. It’s not a human interest sidebar! It’s a cruci-fucking-fiction, man! What did you want me to say to him, ‘How’s the weather up there, Mr. Christ?’ ” I pulled a notebook out of my back pocket. I tossed it onto Alan’s desk. “Look, I got all that personal … crap you wanted. He believes in God. He’s going to heaven. He’s happy as a pig in shit, all right? He can’t wait to be juiced. It’s all in there. You can use that in the sidebar.”
Bob bowed his head as if sadly. “That’s not the point.”
“You bet it’s not the point.”
“Well,” Alan said to him, “look. We’ll take Everett off the execution. Okay? Everett, you’re off the execution. We’ll put Harvey on the execution. That’s what you wanted in the first place, isn’t it”
“Yes,” said Bob, “but that’s still not the point.”
“Yeah, well, we all know what the point is,” Alan said.
Bob spun back around. The flush had come up into his cheeks again, but the dark depths of his eyes were shut away. There were only the surfaces showing, flat and hard. He spoke deliberately now, without a trace of passion, without a sign of any feeling at all. “The only point,” he said slowly, “is that I can’t work with you anymore, Steve. We’ve had this problem from the start, but it’s just gotten to be too much. Maybe you’re a good reporter sometimes. Everyone says so. But there are other good reporters and they don’t have your attitude and they follow instructions. I can’t work with you.” He looked at Alan. He looked at me again. That was all he said.
A silence followed. Alan let out a low moan. I drew on my cigarette, studying the floor. I could feel the seconds pass. Bob gazed at me coolly, not moving. He had made his play. He had said what he had to. If he really forced Alan to choose between us, I was out of a job for sure.
My stomach guttered blackly. What a mess this was turning out to be, I thought. What a mess I’d gone and made of it. And what time was it anyway? Almost quarter of seven by the clock on Alan’s desk. Cecilia Nussbaum would be having her meetings now, probably with the governor’s people at some hotel somewhere or at the Wainwright Building. Then, I guessed, they’d all drive down to the prison together. At the prison, Plunkitt would be asking Mrs. Beachum to leave the Deathwatch cell and there’d be great weeping and gnashing of teeth. The cook would be preparing the condemned man’s final meal. Jesus, I thought, what a mess.