Deadline

by Randy Alcorn

  “What’s not like me? I’m a general columnist, right? I’ve always been told the sky’s the limit. Variety. Don’t just do what everybody else does. I think the media bias columns made people feel good knowing we’re honest enough to recognize it.”

  “It’s just, coupled with some other things, I’m getting the feeling you’re changing your style. What you’ve been talking about is okay, I guess, but it’s not you, not your strength, Jake. People are used to a certain flavor in your columns. I don’t know what I’m saying, really. Just wanted to make sure everything’s okay for you.”

  “Hey, I’m fine. I’ve been doing some thinking about a lot of things lately, but I’m the same guy. Okay, maybe I haven’t been hitting as hard against conservatives lately. I’m just trying to be a little more fair, check out my facts, try to understand what they’re really saying. Look, Jess, if you’ve got a specific problem with any of my columns, let’s talk.”

  “Nothing specific. Just noticed a little shift, actually not as much me as some of the others around here. That’s all. It’s probably not important. On the being fair thing, that’s fine, but don’t forget you’re a columnist. You’re supposed to take people on. Hit ’em hard. Don’t lose your nerve.”

  “I’m not losing my nerve. That’s why I took on media bias. That takes a lot more nerve around here than facing off with right wingers. And how come fair is a word we use with groups we agree with, but when we’re talking about conservatives, trying to be fair is losing your nerve?”

  “Look, Jake, don’t get so defensive. I just thought I should say something before…well, I just thought I should. Look, I better get on this crash thing. Never ends, does it?” Jess turned and was out the door.

  “No. It doesn’t.”

  Jake worked late at his desk, trying to think of column ideas to prove to Jess and everyone else he was still as good as ever, that he wasn’t going soft or whatever it was they were thinking.

  It was six-thirty now, already a dark and rainy night. He’d spent the last thirty minutes looking at street lights reflecting on the wet streets of the city below. He didn’t feel like going home. Jake walked to his car, past the loading dock where things were settling down after the second evening edition had been shuttled out. He got into his car, and just before buckling up, he opened the glove compartment, sucking out the faint smell of WD-40. He gave the Walther P38 a reassuring touch, then shut the glove box, wondering whether he needed a concealed weapon permit to keep a gun in his car. He’d never done this before.

  Jake drove across town, past adult bookstores and tattoo parlors, to a place he hadn’t been in months. There it was. Lou’s Diner. It was straight out of the fifties, unmolested by the wheels of progress. There had been no progress in this side of town for decades.

  Whenever Jake came to Lou’s he almost expected to see Reggie trying to get Veronica to go for a spin in his new convertible, Betty batting her eyelashes at Archie, and Jughead eating three king-size burgers. There to his left was the old juke box, titles faded with time. Lou’s still had its Elvis records, Beach Boys, and a strange hybrid of pop favorites. The labels were faded and worn. Lou’s Diner wasn’t a yuppie nostalgia place that had new copies of the oldies. It didn’t have CDs of the greatest hits of the fifties and sixties. It had the same 45s that Lou bought back in the fifties and sixties. Only the most damaged had been taken out. Somehow the others had survived. Lou’s didn’t pretend to be from another era. It was from another era. Finney dubbed it “The Diner Time Forgot.”

  When Lou’s health failed, there was talk the place would close down. Jake heard three or four businessmen discuss buying it just to keep it open. “I don’t care if we lose money,” a Computer Tech Systems executive had commented. “I’ve just got to have a place where I can get a decent hamburger and milkshake.” His friend, dressed in a business suit worth more than cars Jake had owned, said, “Yeah, I know what you mean. One more power lunch at the Marriott, or ‘Today’s special with shrimp’ and I’m going to take over this place myself.”

  As it turned out, no such rescue was needed. Lou’s son, Rory, left his meatpacking business and took over. It was as if Rory had been biding his time, maybe trying to get up a nestegg, knowing it was his duty, his destiny to take over Lou’s Diner. He was the heir apparent.

  It had been ten years now since Lou had died, and nothing at Lou’s Diner ever changed. Rory would often point to Lou’s picture on the wall—standing beside Buddy Holly and the Crickets—and begin, “You know, Dad used to say…”

  Jake, Finney, and Doc had been there often together. Other times Jake came with one or the other of them. Who needed a time machine, when there was Lou’s Diner? Maybe that’s why he was here tonight. Maybe it would take him closer to his friends.

  “Jake, it’s great to see you. It’s been what, a couple months? I’m so sorry about your buddies. Man, what a shock. You guys were the three amigos, eh?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, we were. Thanks, Rory. Good to see you too.”

  “Hey, I read your column yesterday.”

  “Yeah? What did you think?”

  “I really liked it. Kind of surprised me though. Didn’t really sound like you.”

  “Thanks, Rory.” Just what he needed to hear.

  “Start with a cafe mocha, Jake?”

  Jake smiled and nodded. Okay, so Lou’s had made one concession to the modern world, and that with Jake’s urging. At first Rory had balked at all this strange talk about frothed milk and flavorings and little chocolate covered coffee beans, but when Jake explained the gourmet coffee phenomenon and how it could draw in business, Rory checked into it. He didn’t understand the craze, but he did understand profit margins. Within a week he bought the full equipment and was selling espressos, cappuccinos, lattés, the whole nine yards. Within a few months he was even pronouncing their names correctly. The new profits kept the business afloat, and Rory thanked Jake for it every time he saw him. He refused to take Jake’s money for coffee—every cup, single or double, regular or grande, any added flavor he wanted, was on the house. Typically, Jake left Lou’s with a major caffeine buzz.

  After serving up the mocha, Rory took Jake’s order and went back to the kitchen to fix up the burger, fries, and shake in Lou’s patented way.

  Jake sat evaluating, thinking of Ollie and Sutter and Mary Ann and Dr. Scanlon and Dr. Marsdon. His thoughts went to Janet and Carly. Much as he didn’t want to admit it, he had several life struggles on his hands at once. The investigation was only one of them.

  Amazing how your friends’ deaths make you stop and think about life. Guess it makes sense. Why wait till life’s over to think about how you should have lived?

  Long after his remaining fries had assumed room temperature, Jake stared off into space. Without asking, Rory had served him two more coffees, first a caramel mocha, this one an almond latté. There’d be no danger of him sleeping tonight.

  Finally, at about eight-thirty, he went to the front counter cash register, the old type that looked like it weighed two hundred pounds. He and Rory reiterated how good it was to see each other again. As Jake headed out the door, Rory said again how sorry he was about Doc and Finney. “What a shock. You see these guys, and a few days later they’re gone. It’s over. Finito.”

  “Later, Rory. Take care of yourself.” As Jake walked by his table, he reached in his pocket and grabbed three quarters, then tossed them on the white-speckled table, on which quarters had been falling before they had Washington engraved on them. One of the quarters came up heads, another tails, and Jake looked back as the third spun and wobbled as if unsure how to land. Finally it succumbed, as everything eventually must, but by this time Jake had walked too far to see if it had come up heads or tails. Was life really so random? Or was there a controlling hand behind the flip of a coin? Or did anyone have the power to challenge the flip and change the course of his life?

  Jake strolled back to his car, watching the shadowy images in the darkness, a few hookers putting
on their care-free act, empty men heading from one porno shop to the next, pathetic people with no clue what life was really about. Jake wondered now if he understood it any better than they.

  Jake was almost home when he realized what Rory had said. “You see these guys, and a few days later they’re gone.” What did he mean “a few days later”?

  Jake made a sudden U-turn, so sudden he caught a clear head-on view of the driver of the Mercedes following him at what had been a discreet distance. He saw the surprised look on Mayhew’s face. Mayhew tailing him again? That’s right. He pulled the evening shift.

  Jake had to know what Rory meant. He hadn’t been at Lou’s with Doc and Finney, or either of them since…well, it had to be six weeks before they died. A few days?

  It took fifteen minutes for Jake to get back to Lou’s. He barged in the front door, then saw from behind the white outfit busing a table.

  “Rory?”

  “Sorry, Mr. Jake. Mr. Rory gone. Go right after you did. I close tonight. Take a message for Mr. Rory?”

  It was Chang, the brilliant Chinese student from the University. He’d been there six months and already spoke English better than Jake spoke Spanish after four years of classes.

  “Uh, no thanks, Chang. Listen, I’ve got to get hold of Mr. Rory, I mean, Mr. Santelli. I mean, Rory. Look, do you have his home number?”

  “Okay, Mr. Jake. Mr. Rory not mind, for you. I get you number of his telephone. Okay, Mr. Jake?”

  “Yeah, okay, great. Thanks, Chang.” Jake resisted the urge to call him Mr. Chang.

  “Here is number, Mr. Jake. Mr. Rory live only few minutes away. Probably home already. You use this phone if want to. Not long distance. No problem.”

  “Thanks, Chang.”

  It was an old rotary phone, and Jake had the distinct impression it was the same phone he’d used to call home to Janet before Carly was born. It was probably an antique even then.

  “Yeah, Rory. Jake Woods. Listen, did you tell me you had seen my two buddies not long before they died? You did? No kidding? Did you hear anything they were talking about? Yeah? Look, Rory, can I come to your house? How do I get there? Fifth to Thompson—by the Chevy dealer? 5106. Yeah, okay, I’ll find it. On my way.”

  Jake took off again, after waving at Mayhew, parked across the street and back about sixty feet. Why had Doc and Finney met? What were they talking about? And why wasn’t Jake invited? Rory told him it was a real serious talk. Why hadn’t either of them mentioned it to him? What was going on? Did it relate to the accident? (Murder, Jake kept correcting himself.)

  Jake’s mind raced, trying to put together the puzzle. Now he stood on the Santelli doorstep.

  “Oh, you must be Jake Woods. Hi, I’m Maria, Rory’s wife. Don’t think we’ve ever met, but I know all about you. I just loved your column on health food. It was really funny.”

  As Maria pulled him in the door—literally—Jake tried to remember a column about health food. He’d never written one. And his columns weren’t funny, not deliberately anyway. But it didn’t matter. Maria was talking about Boston cream pie, and how it was a new recipe but she hoped he’d like it.

  “Jake, so glad you came,” Rory said. “Maria’s been dying to meet you ever since she read your column on health food.”

  “It was hilarious,” Maria said. “Funniest thing I ever read.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Cecily, Robert, come here. There you are. This is Mr. Jake Woods, a very famous writer. And a friend of your grandfather’s and mine. And a very good customer.” Rory winked at Cecily, who looked about Carly’s age, and said, “He gives very good tips.”

  Jake had never thought about Rory’s family. Rory was a one-dimensional fixture in his world, like the holodeck images on Star Trek: The Next Generation, as if when Jake left Lou’s Diner, Rory didn’t have a life. He existed just to round out one little corner of Jake’s world. Open-minded as he liked to think of himself, Jake was beginning to realize he seldom saw any place or anything from someone else’s point of view. He was always the main character. The rest of the world had a supporting role or no role at all. It struck him as a strange and selfish way to live.

  After they had their pie, and Rory and Maria brought Jake up to date on Cecily’s soccer and Robert’s water polo and their academic achievements and college plans, Maria was in the kitchen with the dishes and Jake was peering over a cup of coffee (not another one, he thought) at Rory, who finally said, “Now, you were wondering about your friends.”

  “Please, tell me everything you remember. It could be important.”

  “Well one of them, the doctor, he was very serious. I think he invited your friend Finney to meet him. He got there first. Seemed very nervous. I didn’t hear very much, and I don’t want you to think I’m an eavesdropper. Now, if my wife Maria had been there, she’d be telling you every word.”

  Jake wished she had been there.

  “But I do know that the doctor was scared.”

  “You mean he looked scared?”

  “Not just that. I heard him say he was scared. That maybe he’d gone too far.”

  “Gone too far?”

  “I think so—maybe those weren’t the exact words, but it was like that. And something about being involved with the wrong kind of people. I wondered if maybe he was into gambling or something a little shady. Whenever I came up to pour them some coffee, they got real quiet, so I backed off and let them alone.”

  “Did you see anything else?”

  “It wasn’t a busy night. Don’t think we did a hundred dollars business. I noticed Mr. Finney reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a little book and read to the doctor.”

  “That must have been his Bible. He carried a little one in his coat pocket.”

  “Yeah, I thought it was a Bible. Well, the doctor didn’t seem to like it. He waved his hand at Mr. Finney several times. I heard him say, ‘I don’t need this.’ And Mr. Finney said, ‘This is exactly what you need.’”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Well, Mr. Finney managed to calm the doctor down, but he seemed to get very…”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, stubborn. Like Finney was trying to help him but he didn’t want his help. I heard him say, in kind of a loud voice, a gruff voice, something like ‘I don’t need anybody’s help.’ But it was very strange to me. Because it seemed like he very much did need someone’s help. And Mr. Finney seemed eager to help him, but the doctor wanted nothing to do with it.”

  “Maybe he wanted a different kind of help than Finney was willing to give him.” Jake thought for a moment. “Things must have been bad for him to call Finney in the first place.”

  “They were friends, weren’t they?”

  “Sure. But Doc is…was a very proud man.”

  “Yes, I could see that. When they were done…”

  “Yes?”

  “When they were done, the doctor seemed eager to leave. And Mr. Finney had tears in his eyes, and put his arms around the doctor and gave him a big hug. I remember because…it reminded me of my father’s hugs. When you grow up in an Italian family you get used to hugs. I miss my father’s hugs.”

  Jake nodded, surprised he wasn’t more impatient when Rory got off track.

  “You know, I do remember one other thing. It struck me as kind of funny.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The Doctor said it right at the end, and he must have said it three times, like it was very important to him. I guess that’s why I remember. He said, ‘Forget everything I said, Finney. Erase your files.’”

  Erase your files?

  “Thanks, Rory. Thanks a lot.” Jake grabbed his coat, stuck his head in the kitchen to thank Maria.

  “You have to write another one of those health food columns. That was so funny.”

  “Okay, maybe I will, Maria. Thanks again for a great piece of pie.” Jake took off in his car, not waving to Mayhew this time, reminding himself that somebody else, maybe somebody with a
baseball bat, might be following him too.

  “Jake, you’re full of surprises. First these incredible columns, and now you’re dropping in on me ten o’clock at night?”

  “Sorry Sue, but—”

  “Hey, don’t apologize. I’m delighted to see you.”

  Little Finn stuck his head out of the bedroom and called, “Hi dere, Unca Jake.”

  “Hi dere, Little Finn. Get back in bed, buddy. Sorry I woke you up.”

  Sue pointed to the couch. “Sit down, Jake. What’s going on?”

  “Sue, did Finney ever talk to Doc on his modem? You know, like E-mail?”

  “Yeah, sometimes. They both had Compuserve. They left messages for each other once in a while. I remember Finney said, this wasn’t that long ago, he got an E-mail message from Doc, that Doc wanted to meet him for dinner the next night. I thought dinner was kind of funny, seemed like lunch was more typical. And I really thought it was funny to have two grown men typing messages to each other when they could just pick up the phone and talk. Must be a man thing or something. Anyway, Finney sounded concerned. I asked what was wrong. He told me he wished he could talk to me, but he’d promised Doc he wouldn’t. I was afraid it had to do with Betsy. Maybe that Doc was thinking of divorcing her.”

  “Do you know where they went for dinner?”

  “Sure. Finney had onion rings. He never has onion rings anywhere except—”

  “Lou’s.”

  “Right. What is it, Jake?”

  “Maybe nothing. Remember those files Angela said were coded?”

  “Sure. She was really frustrated. Whenever she tried to call them up, it said to enter the password, and she had no idea what it was. She never got into them. Why?”

  “Mind if I turn on the computer and try some passwords?”

  “Sure, Jake. It’s all yours. Have at it. If you need any technical help though, count me out!”