Resurrection Day
Page 16
The sergeant muttered and made a great production of going through some file folders. Then he said, ‘Detective Picucci. Up one floor and to the left.’
Carl followed the directions and spent an unsatisfying few minutes with Detective Greg Picucci, who coughed a lot and looked about one week away from retirement. He looked through a collection of file folders, and peered through thick glasses as he said, ‘Ah, here it is. Merl Sawson. Case to be placed within the inactive file.’
‘Inactive? Hell, it’s only a week old!’
Detective Picucci blinked slowly a few times, like an old tortoise ambling his way home. ‘Sorry, young man. That’s what the file says. Inactive.’
‘Well, can you tell me—’
He held up a hand. ‘According to the department rules, you should be placing your request with the press liaison’s office, down at headquarters.’
‘You know that’s a waste of time. It takes a week for them to return phone calls.’
A shrug. ‘Not my problem. Them’s the rules, and that’s why I’m about to pull the pin and get out of this rotten city on full pension. I followed the rules and I suggest you do the same.’
Carl stood up and headed out of the detective’s bullpen. ‘Screw the rules,’ he said, but he was sure that Detective Picucci hadn’t heard him.
~ * ~
At the Globe, he was scrounging a cup of coffee from the cafeteria when he was ambushed by Grace Hanratty. She shook her head as she approached, her eyeglasses bouncing from the thin chain around her neck.
‘Sorry, Carl, couldn’t find a damn thing,’ she said in a loud voice, and a couple of Globe staffers looked up from their tables. ‘That list came up with nothing, nothing at all.’
‘Are you sure—’
‘Don’t be telling me how to do my job, boy,’ she said, snorting in disgust. ‘There’s nothing there, nothing. I put the list back on your desk. Don’t go bothering me again unless you’ve got some real work for me to do.’
Damn, he thought, as he left the cafeteria and went to the newsroom. There was a clump of reporters surrounding the metro desk and George Dooley was leaning back in his chair, grinning. Jeremiah King, the city hall reporter and beer trivia expert, was the center of attention, receiving a lot of backslapping and handshaking. Carl looked at the group and a voice echoed in his head: Quota baby. Student killer.
Bobby Munson, one of the other general assignment reporters, broke away from the crowd. Carl looked up and said quietly, ‘Hey, Bobby.’
‘Yeah?’ Bobby came over, reporter’s notebook in his hand, thick fingers smeared with newsprint and ink.
‘What’s going on over at metro? Somebody’s birthday?’
Bobby glanced back and said, ‘No, Jeremiah’s one happy fellow, that’s what.’
‘And why’s that? The mayor decided to stop asking Jeremiah to suck up so much?’
Bobby smiled, just a bit. ‘No. Word just came down from Albany. Northeast Military District’s allowing a press tour of Manhattan later this week, first one in five years. Jeremiah’s been selected to go as the Globe’s representative.’
‘Who did the selecting? The Globe or Albany?’
Bobby smirked. ‘What do you think?’
‘Then he must have a friend at city hall.’
‘Or an enemy or two who hopes he doesn’t come back.’
Carl looked over at the grinning Jeremiah King, wishing he had met the man when he was in the service. Back then, at least, you could take care of jerks in a more direct way. Like an elbow to the jaw. ‘He looks pretty pleased with himself.’
‘Maybe so, but that’s an assignment I’d gladly give up.’
He looked over at Bobby, who seemed almost embarrassed by what he had just said.
‘C’mon, Bobby, that’s a story anyone would want to go on.’
He shook his head fiercely. ‘No thanks. That there is a dead island. I’ve seen one before, and I have no urge to see another.’
‘You’ve been to Manhattan?’
Bobby glanced down at his feet. ‘No. It was when I was sixteen, back in ‘62.’ He looked up, a haunted look on his face. ‘My dad was in the Navy, stationed at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. My mom and me, we were evacuated from Gitmo on October 22, along with a couple of thousand other dependents. We were on a ship called the Duxbury Bay.’ His eyes started to tear up. ‘We didn’t even get a chance to say good-bye. We had one hour to pack and leave. We were placed on the ship, and three days later, we steamed into Norfolk. And when the war started, a couple of days later, we had to evacuate again because they thought the Navy base there would be a target. We went to live with my dad’s parents in Kentucky and that’s when we heard about the base being overrun by the Cubans and Russians. And that’s all we heard, ever. So Jeremiah can have his fucking dead island. I don’t want it.’
Bobby moved away and Carl pretended to look at a week-old Globe on his desk. Everywhere you go, everywhere you look, he thought, there’s those damn decade-old ghosts.
~ * ~
He looked through the papers on his desk, didn’t see the list. Damn it, Grace said she had left it here. Carl looked around at the adjoining desks, saw that he was being studiously ignored, and from inside his coat pocket—next to the JFK invitation and Merl’s identification card—he pulled out a small square of white cardboard. ‘Stewart Thompson,’ it said. He dialed the number and after three rings, it was picked up.
‘Hello?’ came the man’s voice.
Carl sat up in his chair, blocking out the sound of the teletypes and ringing phones and typewriters. ‘Stewart Thompson, please.’
There was a pause. ‘May I ask who’s calling?’
Carl thought furiously and said, ‘A friend of Merl Sawson’s.’
A longer pause on the other end, and the man cleared his throat. ‘Could you say that again, please?’
‘A friend of Merl Sawson’s,’ Carl said.
‘And what might your name be?’
Carl said, ‘Look, my name doesn’t matter, could I please speak to—’
Click. The man had hung up.
‘Damn it all to hell, you stupid reporter,’ Carl said to himself. ‘You should have said Caz, Caz Cynewski. Moron.’
The phone rang twenty-five times before he hung up. He looked at the card, double-checked the number and dialed again. This time, it was picked up on the first ring.
‘Hello, is this—’ Carl began, and then he listened in disgust.
There was an odd-sounding tone, and a recorded female voice. ‘I’m sorry, that number is no longer in service.’
He slammed the receiver down. Damn it, if you had only thought this out before calling, you fool, he thought, looking again at the business card. Stewart Thompson, mystery man. Avoiding answers. Avoiding phone calls. Even avoiding repeat phone calls. But there were two things old Stewart Thompson could not avoid.
One was his British accent.
And the other was his distinctive, high-pitched voice, a voice Carl had heard a few days ago, huddled in a men’s room at the British consulate.
~ * ~
He had a quick lunch with Jack Burns at the Bel-Aire, an old aluminum-cased diner that had survived the 1950s and ‘60s, and which got a lot of lunchtime business from the truckers going up the Southeast Expressway to Boston and the North Shore. As they ate Carl asked, ‘You know anyone at the British consulate?’
‘I guess the hell I don’t,’ Jack said. ‘I don’t think they’re in the business of handing out immigrant visas to music critics. Why do you ... oh. You’re working on something odd, aren’t you.’
‘You could say that,’ he said, wondering how much he could tell Jack. ‘Let’s say I’ve got a story here that’s somehow connected to the consulate.’
‘Did George assign you this story?’ Jack asked, his voice sharp. ‘Oh, Jesus, don’t tell me. It’s hooked into that murder, right? The one that got spiked.’
Carl noted the fear in Jack’s eyes. ‘Maybe it does, and—’
‘I can handle it, Jack.’
‘Maybe you can,’ he said. ‘But I like having you around the newsroom, Carl. I’d hate to see you get re-upped and sent to Omaha because of this. Take my advice. Don’t piss off the powers that be.’
Carl picked up a fork, thinking again about that encounter he had the other night with the orfie gang near the consulate. ‘It might be a little late on that point, Jack.’
~ * ~
There was someone waiting for Carl in the newspaper’s lobby as he came in off Morrissey Boulevard. Sandy Price was wearing a long leather coat belted tight around the middle over tan slacks. ‘Finally,’ she said, smiling. ‘You’re back. I dropped in to see if you’d like to join me for lunch. If only I had been a few minutes earlier.’
He smiled back. It was good to see her. ‘Sorry to disappoint you, and I’m afraid I’m going to have to disappoint you again. I really have to get up to the newsroom.’
‘Can I come in with you, then,’ she said. ‘I’ve got something to ask.’
They took the escalator up to the second floor. As they went into the noisy room, past the desks and pillars and teletype machines, she laughed. ‘My word, newsrooms don’t look much different, no matter what side of the Atlantic you’re on.’
‘It’s been said newsrooms are run on beer, butts, and coffee. How about the Times?’
‘Except for the coffee,’ she said. ‘We have afternoon tea, with biscuits.’
He steered her through the crowded desks, conscious of the looks they were attracting. To hell with them all, he thought.
She sat next to his desk, large black purse in her lap, and said, ‘I wanted to thank you again for spending the day with me on Sunday. It was lovely and I learned a lot, and I had to go and spoil it all by falling asleep. And thanks for that little note, especially the au revoir part.’
‘No apologies necessary,’ he said, conscious again of her fair skin, her warm smile. ‘I’m glad you were able to get some good out of it.’
‘Yes,’ she said, opening her purse and taking out a thin envelope, which she passed to him. ‘Here. Sandy Price always keeps her promises. A check for a day’s work for the Times’
He supposed he should have done the noble thing and refused the check, but his bank account had a hard time recognizing nobility. ‘Thanks,’ he said, taking the envelope.
‘There,’ she said, clasping her hands back on top of the bag. ‘Now that we’ve got that out of the way, I have another proposition for you.’
‘A business proposition, I’m sure.’
Her eyes were shiny. ‘Of course a business proposition. Tell me, can you take, pictures?’
‘News photos?’
‘Yes, of course that’s what I meant. News photography.’
All this time, looking at her smile and bright eyes, he realized that more than a dozen people in the newsroom were watching him, and he didn’t let his gaze waver from her, not a bit.
‘Sure,’ he said. ‘I’ve done some shooting with a 35-millimeter single-lens reflex. Most people in this newsroom have. But I don’t do darkroom work. I let the magicians handle that one.’
‘Don’t we all,’ she said. ‘Well, here’s my proposition. I’ve just been invited to go to Manhattan for a press tour, one of the first ones the U.S. Army has had in years. Remember what I said, at the consulate party? I told you I’d find a way to get to Manhattan before my trip was over. And can you believe my luck, that I was here at the right time?’
He thought of the tears in Bobby Munson’s eyes and decided to be polite. ‘I know, you must be really happy.’
‘I am, and my editors are terribly excited. They are making room for a special report next week, and they’ve asked me to make other arrangements as well. Visual arrangements. They’ve given me the authority to hire a photographer to come along and I thought, well, you’ve done work for the Times already, you’re vetted as it were, and why not? I think we’d have a wonderful time.’
Damn that smile, that self-confidence, the spirit that this whole trip was just a lark, and not a trip to a dead city. He hated what he was going to say but he saw no other choice.
‘I’m afraid I can’t,’ he said, and something stirred inside him as he saw the disappointment in her face. ‘It’s not that I don’t want to, but I can’t see how I can. First of all, the Globe will be sending along its own reporter and photographer. I’m positive they won’t want me to be there. Second, there’s no way I could get the time off to go, even freelance. I’m sorry, Sandy.’
When she frowned, faint lines creased her forehead. ‘Well, why don’t I talk to your editor? Perhaps we could work it out.’ She turned in her chair and said, ‘Which one of those characters up there do I talk to?’
He let his fingers brush across his typewriter keys. ‘I really wish you wouldn’t.’
‘Why? Don’t you want a chance to go to Manhattan? Most reporters I know would cheerfully give up beer for a lifetime to be in on a story like that.’
Carl wondered how to say it. ‘Let’s just say that my position in this newsroom is already precarious. Most of my fellow reporters don’t think I even belong here in the first place.’
Her hands were quite still on her large black purse. ‘What do you mean?’
He slowly turned his head, looked over at the newsroom, saw his fellow reporters either whispering with each other or pretending to ignore him. Up at the semicircle of desks that belonged to the editors, a couple of them were craning their necks, looking over the mess of newsroom furniture toward him.
‘Time for another lesson,’ Carl said. ‘There’s a term that’s used here, although they try not to use it when I’m around. But sometimes people slip and refer to me and a few others here at the Globe as “quota babies.’”
‘Quota what?’ she asked, puzzled.
‘Quota babies,’ he said, finding it hard to avoid those steady brown eyes of hers. ‘When I left the service, because of my veteran status, I was able to get into a rent-controlled apartment in a reasonably nice part of the city, and I was able to get this job as well. Some, well, most people resent that, especially nonveterans. They see us as “quota babies” and the whispers around the newsroom are that if I weren’t a vet, I wouldn’t be at the Globe. I’d be working on a suburban paper somewhere, covering PTA meetings and church fairs. If that.’
‘And you’re afraid that a trip like this one—’
‘Will make my position in the newsroom even worse,’ he said. ‘Afraid is probably not the right word, but I am concerned. I’ve also been working on a story that’s gotten me into a few scraps, one that I want to wrap up, and well, Sandy, it’s a hell of an offer but...’
She nodded briskly. ‘I understand perfectly. I think some of the most devious politicians I’ve ever met worked at the Times, and not the House of Commons. Some hate the fact that my father’s influence helped me get my job, and I continually have to prove myself by always going after better and bigger stories. Like this one.’
She stood up and passed him a business card. ‘It will be a unique trip, Carl, and I wish you were coming along. But if that can’t happen, I’ll buy you dinner when I get back and you can ask me anything you’d like.’
Sandy held out her hand and he shook it gently. ‘Deal,’ he said,
‘Deal.’ And then she left the newsroom. He watched every step she made, strolling to the glass doors.
~ * ~
Searching for a pencil in his desk, he found the list of names from Merl Sawson. It was in the center drawer and attached to the list was a handwritten note:
Carl—
Here’s what I found, and I didn’t like what I learned. Which is why I pretended otherwise in that very public scene this morning.
Please ke
ep me out of whatever you’re doing, but in the meantime, good luck.
By the by, I was a volunteer for JFK in 1960…
—Grace
PS. Please destroy this note. Thanks.
—G.
Carl looked up to see if he was being watched. He wasn’t. He removed Grace’s note, tore it into tiny pieces, and then dropped the pieces in a half-empty coffee cup that was on his desk. He poured the sludge into his wastebasket.
He looked at the clippings Grace had supplied, blurry photocopies from Boston Globes past, and with every name on the list, there was a clipping from the year listed next to each person’s name: