“Then why you?” asked a Secret Service agent, a black man with light skin and more salt than pepper in his thinning hair. He was standing at Malcolm’s bedside, scribbling notes into a pad.
Malcolm looked at him. “Why not?” he said. And even as he said it, it came to him that that answer was probably as close to the truth as they were ever likely to get. It was 5:00 in the morning. A nurse was reading the meter on a blood pressure cuff that tightened against his forearm. He was tired.
The other man seemed to sense this. “Well, I guess that’s enough for now,” he said. He closed the notepad and put it in his breast pocket. “We’ll let you get some rest, but I’m sure we’ll have more questions for you once the forensics come back.”
“Thanks for the warning,” said Malcolm.
The man left. The nurse, a stolid-looking black woman of late middle age, was making a notation on his chart. Her smile was wry. “They startin’ to get to you?”
Malcolm said, “Was it that obvious?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Can’t blame you, though, what you been through. By the way”—and here, she leaned close, spoke in a confidential tone—“I liked what you wrote. You ain’t spoke nothin’ but the God’s truth.” She leaned back, all business once again. “Try to get you some rest. You need anything, you push that button there.” With her pen, she indicated a large contraption shaped vaguely like the sole of a shoe. It had many buttons on it, a handful of which controlled the television that had been playing silently from a ceiling in the corner. As the nurse walked out, Malcolm, finally alone, brought up the volume and flipped to the news.
On the screen, the nation’s newly minted First Family was walking out onto the stage in Grant Park, waving at the massive crowd. Flashbulbs sparkled like diamonds. Oprah Winfrey was leaning on some man, weeping. Jesse Jackson had an index finger to his lips, his eyes shining. And the president-elect addressed the nation. “If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.”
Then the story cut to an image of Malcolm—an old sig photo, ten years out of date. “Meanwhile,” said the anchorwoman on camera, “authorities are still piecing together details of that bizarre assassination plot yesterday in which Chicago Post opinion page editor Robert Carson and disgraced Chicago Post columnist Malcolm Toussaint were both held hostage.”
Disgraced columnist.
In that moment, he knew: this would be part of his name from now on. It would be the first sentence of his obituary. It was how he would be introduced at parties.
With a grunt of disgust, Malcolm turned the channel. He found another morning news show, this one running a helicopter shot of McLarty and Pym’s van, or the remains of it, sitting blown apart in a circle of light outside the old warehouse. A man identified by the caption beneath him as an “explosives expert” came on then, speculating about how McLarty and Pym had apparently bungled. It was possible they did not properly wire the bomb, he said, or failed to mix the chemicals in the right proportions. Whatever the cause, the expert went on, the bomb failed to explode with anywhere near the force they had apparently anticipated. And the armor plating on the van had acted to channel the greatest force of the blast to the path of least resistance—right out the open door where McLarty and Pym were standing.
McLarty had died instantly, shredded by his own shrapnel. Pym was critically injured and was said to be in surgery at that very moment, “In fact,” said the anchor, “he is at the same hospital where doctors are treating the two Chicago Post journalists wounded in the attack: opinion editor Robert Carson and disgraced columnist Malcolm Toussaint.”
Malcolm turned off the television. For a long moment, he just lay there on the bed, contemplating blessed silence.
Somewhere in that long night, at some point when doctors and cops had given him a momentary break from their interrogations and their palpating, he had taken a walk and found Amy Landingham standing at a nurse’s station, apparently being signed out. She had a daughter in her arms, another clinging to her pants by a belt loop, and a man—her husband the corporate lawyer, Malcolm assumed—standing right behind her. He looked frightened. He needed a shave.
“Malcolm,” said Amy when she saw him.
The little girl in her arms giggled at the slightly distorted voice that came through Amy’s wired up jaw. “Mommy, you talk funny!”
Amy handed the child off to her father. “Give me a minute,” she told him. She approached Malcolm. “How are you doing?” she asked. There was something guarded about her gaze.
“I’m fine,” he said. “How about you?”
“They’re letting me go home. Finally.”
“Good for you.”
“You’ve talked to the FBI?”
“I’ve talked to every cop in America.”
“You know,” she said, “they’re going to have me write about this, a big first-person takeout for Sunday tying everything together. Of course, that’s assuming I can get it together by then. But we’re talking front page and everything.”
“Great,” he said, genuinely pleased for her. “Might be your first Pulitzer.”
This made her smile. But then that look returned. “Are you willing to be interviewed? By me, I mean?”
“Sure.”
“Can I have the exclusive? I know you don’t owe the paper anything, but…”
Malcolm smiled. “I’ll talk to you and nobody else until after Sunday. Or maybe never, I don’t know.”
“Thank you,” she said. She turned away. Then she turned back. “You know, I did have one question for you now—do you mind?”
“Sure.”
“When I asked you yesterday morning why you did what you did, you told me you just got tired. And I’ve been wondering about that ever since. What did you mean? Tired of what?”
Malcolm had sighed. “You want to know the truth? I’m just tired of having to explain the same things to white people, year in, year out, over and over and over again. I’m tired of saying the same things and them not listening.”
She gazed up at him thoughtfully. “I was listening,” she said.
They had regarded one another for a long moment. Then she had given his shoulder a quick squeeze and left to be with her family.
Now, a few hours later, sitting in his bed beneath the blank and silent television, Malcolm groped for the word to describe what he had felt in that moment.
Startled? No, it was more than that.
Ashamed? No, it was less than that.
Embarrassed?
He turned the word over in his thoughts a few times. Yes, he decided, that was what Amy’s words had made him feel: embarrassed. In writing that angry, impulsive column, he had treated “white people”—whatever those words still meant—as an undistinguished lump of malfeasance and ignorance. He had forgotten the things he learned at the river’s edge on the night he sat with Martin Luther King. He had forgotten about Amy and people like her, and become undiscriminating in his antagonism. He had become like the worst of them, those people he had railed against for so many years. And that was deeply embarrassing.
He’d been wrong to do that. And yet—he remembered the nurse leaning in close to whisper her confidential agreement—he knew he had not been wrong about everything.
Lord, he was tired. Body, soul, tired.
Still, there was something he had to do. Malcolm got out of bed. He slipped into the terrycloth slippers the hospital provided and tied tight the flimsy gown the nurses give you to make sure you don’t accidentally maintain some shred of dignity while in their care. He grabbed hold of the wheeled IV stand feeding painkillers into his body by way of plastic tubing and walked out of the room.
The hallway was full of nurses and doctors. Some of the FBI agents, Secret Service agents, and police detectives who had been questioning him all morning were also loitering th
ere. “Where are you going?” demanded the black agent with the more salt than pepper hair.
“Visiting,” said Malcolm. “Is that okay?”
He didn’t wait for an answer.
Malcolm’s step was lively for a banged-up man of a certain age. The drugs were good. He took the elevator two floors up. This was a quieter floor, the lights lower, the walls done up in soothing earth tones. It was the surgical suite. He found his way to the waiting room. They were all sitting there on plush couches—Lassiter, Perry, Lydia, a few others from the newsroom, and some young man Malcolm recognized from desktop photos as Bob’s son. At the sound of him, they all looked up. Lydia’s eyes narrowed.
She came and stood before him. Seeing the flint in her gaze, it was only through an act of conscious will that he did not step back. Or indeed, run. “Are you okay?” she asked. Her voice was soft, but hard.
“Yeah,” he said.
“I can’t imagine what you’ve been through.”
“Doctors say I’ll be fine.”
“Good.” She leaned closer. “You do know you’re fired, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I know that.”
“Good,” she said. “I wouldn’t want there to be any misunderstanding.” A pause. She gave him those fiery eyes. “Here’s what’s going to happen,” she said. “Amy Landingham is going to contact you, probably later today, to participate in a story about this whole sordid disaster. And you’re going to cooperate; you’re going to give her the exclusive. Otherwise, so help me, I am going to find some way to sue you til your eyeballs—”
“We’ve already talked,” said Malcolm, not wanting to hear what gruesome fate Lydia had in store for his eyeballs. Or, indeed, any of his other balls. “I already told her yes.”
Lydia did not bother to hide her surprise. “Oh,” she said, eyebrows arching just slightly. “I’m glad to hear that.” She regarded Malcolm for another long moment. “You know,” she finally said, “if I had been able to get my hands on you 18 hours ago, I would gladly have ripped out your spleen with my bare hands. I have never been more furious with a human being in my life. I cannot believe you did that.” Another pause. The fire in her eyes dampened almost imperceptibly. “How are you, Malcolm, really? Are you all right?”
He pondered this for a moment and decided that, yes, all things considered—his body sore, his head aching, his life, career, and reputation in tatters—he actually felt pretty good. Better than he had in years. Maybe it was just the drugs, but he didn’t think so. “I’m fine,” he answered. “I really am. How’s Bob?”
“Resting comfortably, as they say. Thank God the wound was through and through and did not hit anything vital. Ms. Lattimore is in with him. They’re trying to keep the visitors down; they don’t want him to have too much excitement.”
“I just want to apologize to him,” said Malcolm. “I apologize to you, too, by the way. I don’t blame you for being furious with me. You have every right.”
“Why did you do it, Malcolm?”
“I just had enough,” he said. “I just couldn’t deal with it anymore.”
She thought about this. She nodded. Malcolm was grateful she was black. It meant, at the very least, that he did not have to explain what “it” was.
He moved past her toward Bob’s room. Just as he got there, a woman’s cry stopped him. He looked back toward the waiting area. The woman was white, about 60. She was pretty. Gray hairs were just beginning to streak the brunette fall that framed her face. At that moment, she was speaking with a surgeon who had apparently just delivered bad news. The woman wept inconsolably and Malcolm studied her for a moment. There was something familiar about her, but he could not place it.
He went into Bob’s room.
Pale dawn sunlight filtered in through the lace curtain. Janeka sat in a chair pulled up to Bob’s bedside. She had his hand in hers, her head resting on his thigh. They both appeared to be asleep and Malcolm turned to leave, but she lifted her head at the sound. Her face was still bruised from where McLarty had slugged her.
“Malcolm?” she whispered.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to disturb you. How is he?”
Bob spoke then through closed eyes. “He’s doped up pretty good from abdominal surgery, but he bets he’s going to be in a heck of a lot of pain when that wears off.” Bob’s eyes fluttered open. “But considering the alternative, he doesn’t mind.”
“Bob,” said Malcolm.
“Malcolm,” said Bob.
The silence that filled the next moment was as awkward as a newborn colt. Janeka tried to lighten the tension. “Well,” she said, “now that the two of you have been introduced…”
Malcolm cleared his throat. “Look,” he said, “I just came to apologize.”
“So apologize.”
“I’m sorry,” said Malcolm.
Bob regarded him for a long moment. Finally he said, “You know, if I could have gotten my hands on you this time yesterday—”
“You’d have pulled my spleen out through my nose. Yes, I know. You’d have had to wrestle Lydia for the privilege, though. I really am sorry. I knew I was torching my career when I did it. I accepted that and I really didn’t care. But it didn’t occur to me that I’d be taking you with me. If I’d known that was going to happen—”
Bob cut him off. “They offered me my job back,” he said.
“Really?”
“Yeah,” said Bob, wincing a little as he adjusted his body slightly in the bed. “Turns out I’m a hero, though all I did was blunder in there and get shot. Still, how are you going to fire the hero editor?”
Malcolm was relieved. “That’s great,” he said. “I’m really glad to hear it.”
Bob hunched his shoulders. “Don’t know yet if I’m going to take it.”
“You don’t?”
He looked at Janeka. “No,” he said. “We’ve got to talk about it. Got a lot to figure out.”
Malcolm arched an eyebrow. “We?”
Bob grinned. “Yeah,” he said. “We.”
A white man came into the room then. Close-cropped hair, an earpiece in his ear, nothing but business in his eyes, which surveyed the room like a general mapping a battlefield. He might as well have borne a neon sign that said, Secret Service. Malcolm sighed. Obviously, they had come to drag him back for more questioning.
But the man looked at Janeka instead. “You’re Ms. Lattimore?” he said.
“Yes,” she said.
“You have ID?”
Puzzled, Janeka released Bob’s hand, went into her purse, and produced a California driver’s license. The stranger studied it for a long time.
“And you are?” prompted Janeka.
“Secret Service, ma’am.” He handed the ID back to her, pointed to Bob. “You’re Carson, right?”
“Yes.”
“And you?” The finger was pointing now at Malcolm.
“Malcolm Toussaint.”
“The guy who was kidnapped. The columnist.”
It occurred to Malcolm that he should probably be grateful the guy hadn’t referred to him as “the disgraced columnist.”
“Yeah,” he said. “That’s me.”
He gave Malcolm a hard look. His eyes roamed the room once again. Then, without another word, he spun on his heel and disappeared.
Malcolm stared after him, then turned to find his own confusion mirrored in Bob’s eyes.
“What the heck was that all about?” asked Bob.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” said Malcolm. “Place is full of cops and Secret Service agents. I’ll be glad when they’re done with me so I can get out of here.”
Janeka said, “So, what are you going to do, Malcolm? I mean, now that you’re—”
“Unemployed?” Malcolm sat on a couch near the foot of the bed. “I have no idea. My kids are on the way, flying in from California to make sure the old man’s okay. I’m sure I’ll get the usual full-court press about how I need to give up snowy old
Chicago and come live with them in the land of earthquakes and perpetual sunshine.”
“Maybe you should,” said Janeka. She spoke gently.
“Maybe I will,” said Malcolm.
“I hear a ‘but,’” she said.
“Oh, it’s no big thing,” he said. “I’m thinking that whatever else I do, the first thing I want is to go down to Memphis and spend a little time with my dad. He’s 81, still living in the house I grew up in, still working for the city in the sanitation department.”
Bob said, “He was in the 1968 strike, wasn’t he? You wrote about him once.”
“Yeah,” said Malcolm. “I don’t know how many times I’ve offered to help him. Move him to a better place or even bring him up here to live with me. He won’t do it. Still hauling garbage. He’s such a hard-headed old man. Too much pride for his own damn good.” He smiled as he said it. “Haven’t seen him in awhile. I think I’d like to.”
“That’s good,” said Janeka. “I bet he’ll be happy to see you. I bet if you ask your kids, they’d—”
And then she stopped. Her eyes widened. Malcolm followed her gaze. He felt his jaw drop open. The president-elect of the United States had just come through the door.
He was tall and lean, impeccable in dark suit and tie, smiling his toothy smile. “Hey, everybody,” he said. He crossed the room to Janeka, hands outstretched. “Janeka, how are you? You okay?”
She rose and he took her hand in both of his. “Mr. President-elect,” she said. “Congratulations, sir. Yes, we can.”
“Yes, we did,” he replied.
He took the two men in with a glance, then returned to Janeka. “I don’t mean to interrupt,” said Obama, “but when I heard that you were hurt in that incident yesterday, I wanted to come and check on you personally to make sure you’re okay.”
Janeka touched her bruised mouth self-consciously. “I’m fine, sir. Just got punched in the mouth is all. It’s Bob here and Malcolm who got the worst of it.”
Obama shook Bob’s hand. “Mr. Carson? How are you doing? You going to be all right?”
Bob had a dazed look. “I’m fine, Mr. President. I mean, Mr. President-elect. They say I’m going to make a full recovery.”
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