Goodnight, Irene ik-1

by Jan Burke

  “Gee, thanks.”

  He laughed and said goodnight.

  That night I dreamed again and again that I was buried under sand, suffocating. I couldn’t move my hands or mouth, but somehow I was crying out. The sand muffled the cries. Frank was walking right over the place I was buried, and I couldn’t get him to hear my screams. Sometimes O’Connor would be there, and he’d tell Frank, “She’s here,” and Frank would dig me free. Other times O’Connor wasn’t in the dream, and Frank kept walking on down the beach. I’d wake up drenched in sweat either way, afraid to fall back to sleep.

  I had a hell of a time making the bed the next morning.

  11

  TWO NIGHTS without much sleep threatened to make me a cranky baby, so I had to talk myself into getting going the next morning. I was excited about digging into O’Connor’s files, but first I had to face Kevin.

  Kevin was the Malloy of Malloy & Marlowe, the public-relations firm I had been working for since I quit the Express. He had worked at the paper at one time as well, but left just after old man Wrigley died. Kevin had the foresight to see what was coming with Son of Wrigley. He had left amicably, hooked up with Don Marlowe, who was another former reporter, and formed a very successful firm. Always able to smooth-talk if need be, Kevin had also been a real go-getter, and the energy had paid off. He wasn’t the writer Don was, but the combination of the copy Don turned out and Kevin’s ability to work with people made for lots of happy clients.

  Kevin had been a great friend of O’Connor’s. They often went drinking together, and O’Connor used to say that Kevin made him feel like a true Irishman. They would tell stories all night, and Kevin was one of the few who were a match for O’Connor’s silver tongue. As one of the members of the circle that revolved around O’Connor, Kevin embraced me as a friend, but I’ve no doubt it was his love of the old man which led to his hiring me after the great brouhaha at the paper.

  I had gone into the newsroom pissed as hell one day after learning that Wrigley was not going to take any disciplinary action against an assistant city editor who had all but raped one of the women working as a night-shift GA. It was part of a whole atmosphere that had festered under Wrigley’s inability to keep his hands to himself. He never touched me, but he made sexually provocative comments to me and other women staff members on a nauseatingly recurrent basis.

  I made a lot of unflattering references to his ancestors and his own person, told him I was through working for an ass-pinching sleazeball and stomped off. I got a loud cheer and some hoots from my longtime companions in the newsroom. Lydia told me later that as the applause died down, O’Connor stood up and told Wrigley that he wasn’t going to have much of a staff left if he didn’t take better care of people who depended on him to see the right thing was done. Word got out to the Publisher’s Board, which could still outvote Wrigley, and was starting to do so more and more frequently. Some pressure was brought to bear, and Wrigley fired the assistant city editor.

  I, of course, for all the personal satisfaction that had given me, was out of a job, finding myself in the position of many a person who has told the boss to shove it. The bills came anyway.

  O’Connor tried to get me to swallow my pride and come back, but I couldn’t make myself do it. Kevin Malloy heard what was no doubt a richly embellished version of this story one night when he was down at one of the local newshounds’ watering holes; he called me up the next day and gave me a job. Although he was a demanding boss, he had been nothing but good to me since. Trouble was, my heart wasn’t in the work.

  So when I went into Malloy & Marlowe that Tuesday morning, it was with the lousy taste you get in your mouth from biting the hand that feeds you. Kevin was talking to Clarissa, his back to me. Clarissa’s eyes widened in surprise and she called out, “Irene, you aren’t supposed to be in for another week!”

  Kevin turned around. I asked if I could talk to him for a minute. He stood there looking as if he were making his mind up about something, and then invited me back.

  I sat in one of the four chairs surrounding what we jokingly referred to as the “Aircraft Carrier Malloy,” Kevin’s gigantic marble-topped, dark cherry-wood desk. Kevin opted for a chair close to my own instead of the one behind the desk.

  He was a sandy-haired man with boyish but not foolish looks, and a smile that could melt the world’s hardest heart. “We’ve both lost a very good friend,” he said, and halted, a sadness so sudden and complete coming over his face that when I saw it I felt a tightening in my chest. Tears began welling up in his eyes, and in no time flat we were both crying quietly, neither of us able to speak. Eventually, we both went digging for our handkerchiefs.

  “God, I loved that man,” he said, unbashedly weeping now. “He was one of the best. I can’t believe it. I can’t.”

  “He thought a lot of you, Kevin. You were one of his favorites. He didn’t have many real favorites.”

  He just wept.

  After a while he sat up straight and said, “I’m sorry,” giving me that strange apology we Americans make for our grief. Between the two of us, there was a lot of nose-blowing for a few minutes. We both sighed and tried to pull ourselves together.

  “How are things going here?” I asked.

  “Hectic as usual. We miss having you around, even though you’ve only been gone for a day. The Kensington project and the various campaign work going on is keeping me from sitting around using up boxes of Kleenex. It’s a busy time of year.”

  I was feeling more and more like a heel. “Kevin,” I said, “I have a very difficult request to make of you. I need an extended leave of absence.”

  “Oh.”

  I thought he was going to say more, but he waited for me to go on.

  “The police think O’Connor was probably killed because of some story he was working on or had written in the past. And yesterday someone tried to murder his son.”

  “I heard about it at Calhoun’s,” he said, referring to a bar that’s the current hot spot for the staff of the Express. That saved me a lot of explaining, because that meant he already had heard any news in more detail than was printed in the late edition. Doubtless in more detail than would ever be printed. Most people don’t like to read that stuff over breakfast.

  “Did you ever meet a guy in Homicide named Frank Harriman?” I asked.

  Kevin thought a moment. “Yes, in fact, Mark Baker introduced us down at Calhoun’s a few months ago, when he was working on that double homicide at the Legs.”

  “The Legs,” or, in Spanish, “Las Piernas,” were two tall, rounded cliffs above the beach. From out on the ocean, they did indeed look like two long legs, and were so named from the time the Spaniards first sailed past them.

  “Well, he’s on the O’Connor case now. The only way he’s going to get anywhere is if somebody who knew O’Connor, knew his notation system, knew how he worked — if somebody like that gets back on the paper and digs up whatever dirt is making this bastard kill people.”

  “And you think it should be you.”

  Long silence.

  He studied me again. “I’ll be honest with you, Irene. I knew the minute I heard about O’Connor that you would go after this guy. I’ve known you too long. I’ve also known that you haven’t been happy here…”

  I started to object, but he cut me off.

  “Hear me out. It’s true. You’ve done everything I’ve asked of you and more, and I’ve asked a lot. O’Connor used to take me out to Banyon’s or Calhoun’s and tell me how I was never going to take the black ink out of your veins. He’d kid me about how I was trying to harness a racehorse to the plow, and while a racehorse might pull steady, it would always be looking over the fence at the track, longing for a good run for the money. ‘One day, she’ll bolt the harness,’ he’d say.

  “Well, he was right and I knew it. I hope you don’t mind my extending the analogy, but I told him you at least were making hay, more hay than the Express offered. But, to my advantage, this day took longer
to get here than even O’Connor imagined.”

  “Kevin, I know I’m leaving you in the lurch now, but it’s not because I’m not grateful to you. I always will be. I could be slinging hash if it weren’t for you.”

  “You underrate yourself. And don’t feel guilty. There never would be a good time to leave, and we both know it.”

  “You’re being very understanding.”

  “I can’t keep you here if you want to go. Your work would suffer, you’d resent me, and I’d probably end up resenting you. Not worth it. O’Connor would haunt me to no end.”

  “I owe you, Kevin.”

  “Well, leave that sort of thing to people who keep such accounts. Anyway, before you go, there’s something else you should know. Someone has been very curious as to when you’ll be coming back to work here. I was just talking to Clarissa about it. I don’t like it at all. The caller won’t leave a name or number, but he called several times yesterday and he’s already called twice today. What would you like me to have her tell him?”

  “Tell him I’ve gone back to work for the paper.”

  “You in a hurry to have someone harm you?”

  “Look, they’re going to find out the first time I have a byline, the first time they call the paper, or the first time they bend an ear to conversations at Banyon’s or Calhoun’s. The Express staff loves to talk about nothing so much as the Express staff. This won’t be a secret for long.”

  “Okay, Irene. But keep in mind that you’re worried after. It’s okay to help, but let the professionals go after the criminals.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m cooperating with the police on this. I’m not as crazy as I sometimes seem.”

  “One other thing — speaking of crazy people — how the hell did you ever get Wrigley to ask you back?”

  “Kevin, if she ever gets tired of the newsroom, hire a woman named Lydia Ames. I’ve never seen so great a PR job done on anybody.”

  “She’s your school chum, isn’t she? Well, I’ll keep that in mind. And don’t forget, there’s always room for you here if you want to come back.”

  We shook hands warmly. On my way out, I said good-bye to Clarissa and Don, and then left for the grand old offices of the Express. As I drove along, I had a feeling that O’Connor was watching over me. He might not be the only one, but together he and I had the luck of the Irish.

  12

  COMING WITHIN SIGHT of the newspaper meant coming within sight of the hospital, and I wondered how Kenny and Barbara were doing. I decided I would stop by there after I had done some work at the paper.

  As I walked up to the double glass doors and went into the marble-and-brass entry of the Express, a great sense of anticipation filled me. I hadn’t been inside those doors since I marched out two years before.

  I couldn’t take in enough of the place. In the center of the room sat Geoff, the reedy gentleman who served as our security man. Geoff was so old and had been with the paper so long, we used to say he was put into the foyer by the architect and greeted the original Wrigley when he first came through the door. A big smile lit his face.

  “Welcome back, Miss Kelly! You’re a sight for sore eyes!”

  “And you are, too, Geoff. It feels good to be back. Are they running now?”

  Geoff laughed his wheezy laugh and said, “I told myself this morning, when Mr. Wrigley said to send you right upstairs when you came in, I said to myself, ‘Miss Kelly is going to want to go downstairs before she goes upstairs.’” He wheezed and shook in glee. “And I was right, wasn’t I? Yes, ma’am, they are most certainly running. Special sections right now, I believe. So you go right on down, and if anybody asks, I ain’t seen hide nor hair of you yet.”

  “Thanks, Geoff.”

  I went down the stairwell and through a maze of doorless hallways. The building was laid out by someone whose previous work was in rabbit warrens. But through the ancient walls I could already hear the rumble of running presses. A sound I loved almost as much as the smell that permeated this basement area — ink and newsprint.

  Overhead the open ceiling was crisscrossed with wires and rollers which would later carry finished papers to the machines that would bundle them for distribution. I turned a corner and stepped into the main press room. I grabbed a pair of “visitor’s” ear protectors and listened through them to the magnificent roar of rolling paper and press. Coburn and Parker, two of the operators, saw me and waved, grinning from ear to ear.

  Straight ahead was the tall black housing of the Motters, our newest presses, which had color-printing capabilities. The older, green Goss presses surrounded the two Motters. Newsprint rolled into them and streamed from them in a blur of speeding print. Eight pages at a time, cut, rolled, turned, folded, and moving, moving, moving in a web of fantastic design. I stood and watched for a while.

  Coburn walked over and shouted, “Good to see you back!” It was a greeting I would hear again and again as I made my way upstairs.

  Wrigley was smoking a cigar in his glass-paneled office. We called this his “God office,” which was one of two he had in the building. The God office was the one he sat in when he wanted to watch what was going on in the newsroom, or hold conferences with the editors. He had another one upstairs that he spent most of his time in; that one commanded the much more attractive view of the skyline and was more impressive to visitors.

  I knew that he had watched as I made my way over to the office, stopped every few feet by an old, familiar face, or to be introduced to someone new. When I stepped into his God office, it was as if we were in a glass cage — I realized that every face was watching from the other side. I also realized that Wrigley had orchestrated our first reunion as employee and employer in this manner to make a point to the staff. Bygones were going to be bygones.

  “Irene, dear!” he beamed and stretched out a hand. “Come in, come in.”

  What the hell, I thought, and shook it. He glanced out the windows behind me and the staff went back to work. He didn’t say anything for a while, just sat there grinning like a fool. It was a scary sight.

  Finally, he said, “Well! I guess you’ll want to get going. Your, ah, old desk—” He floundered, circling the cigar in the air as if it would help him speak. “Your old desk is in use. But I want you to take O’Connor’s desk. I think it’s — it’s appropriate. It’s just the way he left it — well, except for what the police took.”

  I had wanted to work with whatever O’Connor had left here, but I guess I hadn’t considered the possibility of being given his desk as my work station. It was crazy, of course, to think that no one would be using my desk over a two-year absence — after all, I had quit and refused to come back. But so much at the paper had seemed to stand still in time, I suppose I had figured that would too; now I saw the nonsense of it.

  Wrigley handed me a small brass desk key and shook my hand again, and once more all eyes seemed to be on me as I stood up and walked toward O’Connor’s desk. Except for the crackle of the scanners, the room was as quiet as I ever remembered it being.

  As close as O’Connor and I were, as I approached his desk I felt like an intruder. And as curious as I was about what secrets I might learn there, I couldn’t make myself sit down in his chair. So many, many times I had seen him there. I walked around the outside of the desk, running my fingers along it. I could feel my co-workers staring at my back. Suddenly I heard a booming voice say, “Haven’t you rubberneckers got some work to do?”

  It was John Walters, the news editor. John was a great old gruff bear of a man, about seventy pounds overweight and all of it cantankerous. The room was startled back into motion at his command, as if a stern teacher had walked back into a schoolroom. We got along famously. In John’s book, I was “a feisty broad.”

  “Welcome back, Irene,” he said to me in his low, growling voice. “Have a seat. He’s not going to put an Irish curse on you for sitting in his chair.”

  Reluctantly, I sat.

  John laughed. “You’ll get used to i
t. That chair was lonely until just this minute.” He winked, an incredible gesture on his stern face, and strolled off to harass somebody.

  For a few moments, I simply sat there, thinking of O’Connor. Finally, I reached over and turned on the monitor at his computer terminal. It glowed to life, the bright cursor pulsing on and off below the words “Sign-off completed.”

  Not yet. I thought. Not yet.

  13

  I NEEDED A PASSWORD to get into O’Connor’s files. Unlocking the desk and looking through its drawers, I realized that the detectives who had searched it had been thorough. No loose papers, no calendar, no notebooks. I was going to have to spend some time down at police headquarters if I wanted to go through anything handwritten.

  Just as I was about to give up, Lydia stopped by the desk and handed me a small piece of paper with what looked like a license plate number on it. “It’s a new password,” she said. “You’ll need it to access O’Connor’s computer files. They had to override the old one so that the cops could copy the files onto a disk.”

  “Thanks.”

  I entered the password in the terminal. There was the usual delay while the computer looked for the files. Just as O’Connor’s notes were coming up on the screen, the phone rang.

  “Kelly,” I said, picking it up.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I was trying to reach Mr. O’Connor. Is he in?”

  Now what should I do? I couldn’t bring myself to say, “Mr. O’Connor is dead,” or “He won’t be in today,” or “Not at the moment.” I settled on “May I ask who is calling?”

  “This is Dr. MacPherson at the Los Angeles College of Dentistry.”

  “Mac teeth,” I said half-aloud. It had to be the man referred to in O’Connor’s notes.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Oh, excuse me. This is Irene Kelly. May I help you with something?”

  “Well, I’m not sure that he would want me to talk about this with anyone else, so maybe you could have him give me a call when he gets in.”