Oregon Hill

by Howard Owen

  Actually, they’ve decided that I’m going in another direction: out the door. Grubby is so unctuous, he makes you yearn for the golden days when the cigar-chomping boss calls you into his office, sans HR goon, and says, “Black, you’re fired.”

  “Am I fired?”

  Grubby can’t bring himself to say it. Sitting there, with the sun sneaking in between the slits of the blinds behind him, I am fascinated by his pink, translucent ears. I imagine his whole body being like that, not substantial enough to block out sunlight.

  After a short silence, I turn to Leon, who is waiting for his cue.

  “Leon,” I say, “will you please step outside. Mr. Grubbs and I need to have a few words in private.”

  Leon, whose last job might have been bouncer in a strip club, isn’t going anywhere unless “Mr. Grubbs” says the word.

  “This will go a lot better if it’s just you and me,” I tell Grubby, then turn to Leon.

  “Frisk me if you want to, Leon. I’m not packing.”

  Leon starts to do just that when Grubby stops him.

  “That won’t be necessary. Willie’s an honorable man.” And he motions him out the door. Leon scowls at me as if he does not share his boss’s confidence.

  He closes the door. I can imagine him sitting in the waiting room, with Sandy McCool ignoring him.

  “OK, Willie,” Grubby says. “What is it? I’ve got another appointment in ten minutes.”

  Which means he’d allocated fifteen minutes for ending my quarter-century of employment. There no doubt are more heads waiting to roll.

  “Well, Grubby, I’ve got a deal for you.”

  I can tell he doesn’t like it when I use the nickname, even if it’s just me and him. In his mind, he’s “Mr. Grubbs.”

  “We’ve already made our decisions, Willie. It has nothing to do with your performance, as I said. It’s just business.”

  “Well,” I reply after a pause, “you might want to rethink this one.”

  He seems to be afraid to ask the next question.

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re about to screw up the story of a lifetime. I’m this close to giving you something that’s going to make us all look good to those dickheads across the street in corporate.

  “If you ‘go in another direction’ right now, I swear to you that I will peddle what I’ve got to the Washington Post, freelance.”

  “I assume you’re talking about the Ducharme murder. Give it up, Willie. We’ll take it from here. Baer can handle it.”

  “Baer can handle my dick.”

  I slide my chair close enough that I can put my elbows on Grubby’s desk. He moves back a few inches and looks like he’s about to call Leon.

  “In two days, I will give you the kind of story you always wish you’d read in this rag. The readers will eat it up. The wire services and TV will be all over it. Press awards, Grubby, maybe even a Pulitzer, who knows? The suits will love you.”

  I know it’s the last part that really makes Grubby hard.

  I’m overselling like hell, but this is no time to be meek. And I don’t feel like begging, anyhow. I feel like I used to feel before I’d fly into some Hill asshole, depending on my aggression to make up for twenty pounds.

  “Two days,” I repeat. “It’s Tuesday. By Thursday, you will have the biggest story this paper’s had in years, Grubby. And nobody else has it. Nobody knows it but me.”

  Grubby says he thinks I’m bluffing. I think he’s bluffing.

  Finally, he blinks.

  “Let’s wait, then. We can always change the date on your, uh, papers.”

  “It isn’t going to be that easy,” I tell him. “I want something. Tit for tat. Quid pro fucking quo.”

  He leans forward.

  “What?”

  “I want Jackson’s job back.”

  He gives me a blank look.

  “Jackson? Enos Jackson? You know. The guy you sent in a different direction yesterday. The guy who taught you how to cover a goddamn city council meeting before you were toilet-trained?”

  What I want, I tell him, is a three-year contract for Jackson.

  “Tell you what: I’ll make it easy on you. Stick him on the end of the copydesk. Hell, we’ve been two down over there for six months. It’ll be a cut in pay, but that’s just the kind of generous bastard I am.”

  Jackson won’t last three months without a job, and I’m sure he’ll jump at anything Grubby offers, even if it does mean a $10,000 a year pay cut.

  “This has already been decided,” he says. “It won’t be easy. We’ll have to cut somewhere else.”

  The way he says it, I know I’ve won already.

  “Jesus Christ, Grubby. You’ll sell enough papers, get enough juice out of this to more than make up for one tired-ass sixty-one-year-old editor’s pathetic salary.”

  “All they look at is the bottom line,” Grubby says, “this month’s bottom line.”

  Grubby doesn’t very often used the pronoun “they.” He’s more of a “we” kind of guy, a real team player. I get a tiny glimpse, like looking at sunlight through Grubby’s ears, of what a one-time semi-promising journalist endures to sit in the big seat.

  “Well,” I say, “sell ’em. Earn those big bucks, Grubby.”

  “If we let Jackson stay on,” he says, back to the first-person plural, “what about you?”

  I’m feeling my oats now, going way farther than logic would indicate I should.

  “If you’re not happy with what happens in the next two days,” I tell him, “you can fire my ass. Just, for God’s sake, don’t start talking about ‘going in another direction.’ ”

  “Let me see what I can do.”

  I stand up.

  “Here’s what you can do. Sign this.” I hand him the piece of paper I printed out earlier.

  He reads it and shakes his head.

  “I can’t do this. They’ll . . .” He lets it trail off.

  Grubby needs some spine Viagra.

  “Sign this,” I tell him. “Then go across the street and tell ‘them’ that it’s essential. Tell them that the bottom line will shine like polished brass if they keep Enos Jackson on, because he’s the key to this whole story. Without him, there isn’t a story.”

  Jackson doesn’t have a clue about what I’m about to spring on our breathless readers, but the suits don’t have to know that.

  Grubby hesitates.

  “OK,” he says.

  I figure he must have some tiny bit of capital in the goodwill bank at corporate. He doesn’t like to use it, being a naturally stingy SOB, the kind of guy who used to borrow quarters and not pay them back. But that tiny sliver of journalist that’s still alive somewhere inside him wants the story I hope I can deliver.

  “Get Sandy to come in,” I tell him. “She can notarize it.”

  This seems to bother him almost as much as agreeing to let Jackson stay on, but he finally calls her extension.

  So James H. Grubbs signs a three-year contract for the editing services of one Enos Jackson, who will work at the position of Copy Editor II for $54,000 per year. I know Jackson can live on $54,000 a year.

  Sandy notarizes it, makes a copy for me and leaves.

  “One more thing,” I tell Grubby. “Nobody else knows about this, especially Jackson.”

  “Don’t worry,” he says. “This isn’t near the top of my list of things I want known.”

  I get up to go, even shake Grubby’s hand.

  He looks me in the eye, which he doesn’t do very often.

  “If you don’t deliver,” he tells me, “you are the most fired person in Richmond. You won’t get a penny beyond your last paycheck. I’ll find a way to fire you for cause. It shouldn’t be that hard.”

  True. If they’d wanted to “for cause” me, they could have done it many times over the years. Drinking on the job. OK, maybe drunk on the job once or twice. Inappropriate relations with staffers who were more or less under me. That unfortunate incident with the company
car and the hooker down in Florida.

  There’s only one way to go from here. No backtracking. Just wriggle through this tight little tunnel I’ve put myself into and go for the light.

  I’ve always done my best work on deadline. If this isn’t a deadline, I’ll kiss your ass.

  As I’m leaving, I see that Leon is still in the waiting room, reading People magazine. His lips seem to be moving. He looks up at me and scowls.

  As I’m about to close the door, something makes me look back. Sandy is staring at me. This time, our eyes do meet.

  From where she’s sitting, Leon can’t see her right hand on top of her desk. She turns the hand ninety degrees and gives me a thumbs-up.

  “Have a nice day, Willie,” she says.

  The day’s still young, but so far, Sandy McCool has made mine.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Just for fun, I get off the elevator at the second floor. The newsroom is humming pretty good for a Tuesday.

  I walk past several reporters and editors on the way to my desk. At least a couple look like they’ve seen the ghost of Willie past. I see Mal Wheelwright look out from his little glass box. He starts to stand, then picks up the phone, then puts it down. As he comes out of his office, he’s approaching me the way you might come up to a wild animal that’s escaped from the zoo.

  “Are you OK?” Wheelie asks, still out of striking range, looking and wondering where the HR goon is who’s supposed to be escorting me.

  “Never better,” I tell him. “You’re going to have to get somebody to cover for me tonight, though. I’ve got something to do.”

  “But . . .”

  Wheelie’s stymied. No one’s supposed to know who’s getting it in the neck, although obviously everyone does. Again, it’s a newsroom. Since yesterday, the story has been more or less sussed out.

  He can’t act like I’ve just been fired, because he’s not supposed to know. This way, his hands are clean, even though any fool can figure out that those pink, manicured digits of his are all over this. He’s been on the fourth floor a lot lately.

  So, if he doesn’t know I’m supposed to be fired, he can’t act surprised when I’m not.

  Finally, he does the only smart thing. He shuts up and nods his head.

  One of the features editors comes over. She’s a little teary.

  “Oh, Willie,” she says, throwing her arms around me. “I’m so sorry.”

  I need a smoke.

  Coming out of the building, I meet Baer coming in.

  “I’m sorry, Willie,” he says, holding out his hand. “I know we didn’t always get along, but . . .”

  Then he sees that I still have my ID badge. I guess Leon was supposed to rip it off my neck after he explained what my benefits were, beyond the benefit of drawing unemployment.

  “Oh,” he says. “Sorry. My bad.”

  I tell him it’s going to be his bad indeed if he doesn’t stay the fuck away from my story. I’m pretty sure I can’t get away with punching out Grubby or Wheelie, and Leon would kick my ass. But I need to hit somebody.

  Baer wisely scurries into the building.

  It takes both hands to get my nicotine fix going. One time, I asked Les how he could work on all those steep roofs. I mean, they’d do churches sometimes with pitches that would have freaked out a mountain goat.

  “The key,” Les said, “is to never, ever look down. Just imagine you’re on a little three-foot hill.”

  I think Les has more imagination than I do. I feel like I’ve put myself out on the shakiest limb of the biggest tree in town. It’s a long way to the ground.

  It’s amazing what a fount of wisdom beetle-browed, addlepated Les Hacker can be. We were watching the playoffs the other night, and this dumbass comes around third, going full bore. He gets at least forty feet down the line when he tries to slam on the brakes and get back to the bag. Of course, he’s tagged a full two feet off the base, flopped out on the ground like a dead mackerel.

  “He lost his nerve,” Les said. “You’ve got to keep going.”

  That probably is the core of Les’s philosophy: Don’t look down and keep going forward.

  OK, Les. Be my mentor.

  I call Kate and ask her if we can meet for coffee.

  “What is it?” she asks me.

  I tell her I might have what she needs to induce Bartley, Bowman and Bush to make her a partner, although she’ll have to change her name back to Black. Alliteration is everything.

  “I’d be happy right now if they didn’t make me unemployed,” she says. Apparently, that august firm is not thrilled to see its name sullied by proximity to accused predator and murderer Martin Fell.

  She says she can get away in about an hour, so we settle on lunch.

  I call the Fourth Precinct. Shiflett isn’t in, and they don’t know when he will be. I tell the guy at the desk that it’s about the Martin Fell case. No, I won’t talk to anyone else. He goes away and comes back. Shiflett will be on duty at two.

  I meet Kate at Kitchen 64. I order a cheeseburger with sweet potato fries and a Legend lager. Yes, I tell the waitress, the big one. What can I say? When I’m nervous, I eat. And drink.

  Kate starts off ordering salad, then changes it to something called a Southern fried chicken salad. Poor Kate. She wasn’t a healthy eater when I met her, and about the only things she came away with after the divorce were a few of my bad habits. As long as a dish has some healthy words in it, like “chicken” and “salad,” she can convince herself that she’s being virtuous. I pray that her hummingbird metabolism doesn’t slow down. Sadly, it was her various appetites that really attracted me to her.

  This late in the game, there’s not much point in holding out any longer, although I can’t let go of it all. Not yet.

  It’s time, though, to at least show her that little piece of non-biodegradable crap Custalow picked up at the boat landing.

  She looks at it, turning it over as if more can be determined by inspecting the other side.

  “And you found this upstream from where her body was found? I mean, there’s no way somebody put it there or something?”

  I tell her that I can’t see how anybody but David Junior Shiflett could have managed to lose that particular item at that particular place.

  She thinks about it for a while.

  “You haven’t taken this to the police?”

  I shake my head.

  “Why? I mean, you know Chief Jones.”

  Yeah, I tell her, and I know cops in general. They are more inbred than cocker spaniels. They won’t turn on their own unless the evidence is written in red letters three feet high. L. D. Jones might believe my story, and something might get done, but not fast enough, especially with Andi forced into hiding. I am in search of fast, fast, fast relief. I am yearning for resolution. Jerry Clower, this redneck comedian I used to enjoy, told a joke about a guy who climbs a tree, thinking he’s going after a possum, and winds up entangled with a bobcat. “Just shoot amongst us,” the guy tells his friends on the ground. “One of us has got to have some relief.”

  I need some relief.

  Kate says Fell is doing OK, now that he’s out of the general population. She is trying to keep his spirits up, and he swears he won’t do anything as stupid as last Friday again.

  “I keep telling him that I’m building a good case,” she says. “I think I can prove that Shiflett called that guy Jenkins on Thursday night, not long before Jenkins moved Fell. But we need more.”

  I tell her that, if she will be patient, I will get her more, soon.

  “Willie,” she says, taking my face in her hands, forcing her to look at me while I try to swallow a big lump of well-done beef, cheese, bacon and bread, “what else do you know? What are you holding out for?”

  But I’ve come too far, doing it my way like old Frank.

  “You know he was at the landing,” I tell her. “You know he talked to Jenkins at the jail. You know Fell and his mother couldn’t have cooked up that story about
where he was.

  “OK, here’s something else: he was grossed-out by blood.” I tell her about the chickens.

  “And that’s it?”

  I’m silent.

  “You son of a bitch,” she says, really angry now. “You’re holding out. You better be holding out, actually. If I’m going to court with what you’ve got, I might as well start sending out résumés right now.”

  I don’t know which pisses her off more, knowing I’m still not telling her everything or thinking I’m not holding a strong enough hand to win. I’m afraid that her fried chicken salad and I are giving her indigestion.

  So I tell her about Grubby and the deal I made, leaving out the Jackson part.

  “You really are crazy,” she says. “I always thought you were, but that was mostly when you were drunk.”

  She points toward my twenty-two-ounce draft beer, still my first one of the day.

  “But now you’re more less or sober, and you’re still crazy.”

  Either that, I tell her, or I’ve got the goods.

  I reach across to wipe some chicken grease off her pretty face. She flinches but then allows it.

  “You have to trust me,” I tell her, and we both know she’s heard that one before.

  “Oh, Willie,” she says, looking down at her plate. “I just wish you trusted me.”

  Guilty as charged. It was maybe the ugliest part of our marriage. I’d come in at two thirty or she’d be at the beach with some girlfriends and I couldn’t ring her, and the bloodletting would begin. We thought we were adults, thought we could be cool and casual, look the other way. We thought we could get by without trust.

  “This will work. I guarantee it,” I tell her. I’m lying through my teeth, but if I say it enough, I’ll believe it, too.

  When it’s obvious that she has to put her abused faith in what I tell her and what I don’t, we wrap it up. She insists on Dutch, and I don’t argue much.

  “The rent’s overdue,” she reminds me, and I tell her, truthfully this time, that the check is in the mail.

  On the way out to our cars, I ask her about Mr. Ellis.

  She’s quiet for a few seconds. Uh-oh.

  “I don’t know why I’m telling you this,” she says, “since you don’t seem to find me worthy of your confidence, but Mr. Ellis is staying with a friend.”