Deadline Man

by Jon Talton

  Amber studies me and lays a hand on my arm. “Maybe that’s a little paranoid.”

  Chapter Eight

  Saturday, October 16

  I am outside, just to walk the night streets, watching the rain dance against the pavement. Loud bars around Pioneer Square give way to bleak streets of empty buildings on the edge of the International District. The news racks are empty. Those piles of debris every few yards are really homeless people who couldn’t find a doorway for shelter. What am I doing about it? The homeless had been a big cause for Jill. So were prisoners. She was also convinced one of them would kill her. If I am a little paranoid, I come by it honestly.

  Now that the crisis has passed I can’t stop thinking about the young man hanging from the bed frame, looking impossibly fragile in death. His skin blue and thin as parchment. The dogs, snarling and lunging. I keep looking behind me, as if they will be there on the sidewalk, as if we’re still in the hallway and can’t quite make it to the stairs. The feelings almost, but can’t quite, mute the sound of Troy Hardesty falling into the street right in front of me. The sense of menace from the federal agents who staked out my lover’s house and followed me. And all the feelings, all the events, flow into the big bay of “eleven/eleven.” Don’t they? Then I am on a dark street I’ve never walked down, then I am down looking up. I sense the figure looming over me, then I see it and I hear my scream before I am conscious of screaming.

  “Baby, it’s all right.”

  The figure sheds its fedora and trench coat and slides into my bed next to me. She is warm and soft-skinned, and almost nude.

  “I didn’t mean to scare you,” Pam says.

  The game is called “the Phantom.” Pam likes to dress up in a trench coat, stockings, garter belt, and nothing else, then drive to my loft late at night, let herself in, and have her way with me. The idea of driving around town that way is part of the turn-on for her. Then, an hour or four hours later, she puts back on the coat and wordlessly leaves me naked in bed. Pam most enjoys the Phantom when no words at all are exchanged.

  Pamela is an executive with one of the biggest non-profits in Seattle. She wears tailored suits and her straight blond hair is cut in a sensible bob. I love the way it sweeps back and forth against her shoulders when she moves her head. She reads copiously, even buying the Weekly World News; my column was a great icebreaker when she first walked up to me at an otherwise boring party. I find her incredibly sexy, and fortunately for me, I am the one she has chosen to work out her wantonness with.

  I had forgotten this was a Phantom night. Now she wants to comfort me and talk about my nightmare, she’s that kind of person, but in a few minutes I persuade her to go back outside and let herself in again. The trench coat falls off. Her warm, wet mouth finds mine. And I lose myself in the sounds we make without corrupting them into words.

  After Pam leaves and I hear the door lock, I fall into a deep and dreamless sleep. But it doesn’t last. I am bolt upright awake and the clock says three. I walk to the window and lose myself for a few minutes by watching the street. The window is cracked open and I smell the cool, wet air coming in. A man walks by quickly. Somewhere I can hear another man’s voice yelling profanities, probably at nothing.

  Then I see him, walking north with a lurching gait, another Michelin man with the heavy padding of his layers of clothes, all brown under the streetlights. Every few steps he turns and engages in his profane soliloquy, turning in to face a doorway, then turning out to face the street. Individual cars go by every few minutes. I hear the fire department roar out of the big station nearby, their sirens fading slowly, then replaced by a train whistle. Then,

  “Woooooooooooooooeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee…”

  It’s a funny sound but it makes my flesh crawl. Maybe it’s the pitch of the woman’s voice making it, high and wailing and terrible.

  “Wooooooooooooooooooooeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee…”

  I can’t see where it’s coming from. It’s like a banshee on the moor. I think about the woman on the street, “eleven-eleven,” and the tattoo on the dead kid’s leg, “eleven-eleven.” I listen for the banshee but she’s gone. Eleven-eleven. How creepy is that, especially after the national nightmare of 9/11. But maybe it’s just me. I had a sister who believed she saw bugs crawling on blank sheets of paper. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. There are coincidences. I went my whole life never personally knowing anyone named Mary Beth. Then one year I dated three of them. One claimed she loved me. I crank the window shut and go in the other room.

  At my desk, I open the laptop, sending white light into the room. I can link to the CCI system and actually see my column as it will appear on the front of the Sunday business section tomorrow. “Is Olympic stumbling toward a takeover?” the headline reads. Not bad. Civilians think the writers do their own headlines, and often the headline can misstate the totality of the story. We get the angry phone calls and emails from people who only read headlines. Headlines are powerful. I surf over to the Seattle Times—so far, they’re clueless. They didn’t even pick up the 13-D filing. Their economy columnist writes some esoteric blah-blah-blah on the credit markets. It’s actually not bad. But he doesn’t have news. I do. The Wall Street Journal and New York Times also don’t have it. Again I Google the name “Animal Spirits LLC” and get nothing. I am just about to get sleepy again when I Google “Olympic International” and “takeover.” I get one hit. My pulse rate doubles.

  “Shit.”

  It takes me to a site called Conspiracy Grrl. I’ve never heard of it. I read the post:

  The takeover boys are at it again, going after Olympic International. Don’t yawn yet. The company is known for its mining and timber businesses, but Conspiracy Grrl has found that it also has a tasty little defense subsidiary that makes, among other things, night-vision goggles that don’t work. Hey, Support the Troops! Oly got $120 million for this no-bid contract and the Government Accountability Office found that the goggles had a huge failure rate—not a good thing on the battlefield. Where was the fine? Turns out the CEO is a big contributor to both parties, and so far no action is being taken. More contracts just keep coming. So now Oly is takeover bait because the wars will just keep adding to the profits of this little-known subsidiary. Look for the top executives to get golden parachutes while the workers get screwed. Who else benefits here? Stay tuned. If you wonder about the conspiracy that is the Military-Industrial Complex, watch this one. Has this been reported? No. That’s why you can’t trust the corporate media.

  I sit back in the chair and let out a long sigh. The post came out a week before my column. I’ve been scooped by a Grrl.

  It’s a bare-bones site. The kind you can get with a ready-made template. Most of it is devoted to conspiracy debunking. The tale that most passengers on the 9/11 airplanes could possibly have used cell phones to call is questioned. Speculation that the World Trade Center was deliberately demolished is persuasively deflated. In another post, she writes about the vice-president’s secret energy task force and higher oil prices. She links to documents showing the players—big oil companies—that attended the closely guarded meetings, and how Iraq’s oilfields were divided among them. This all before the United States invaded Iraq. Another has a report on the safety standards for microbiology labs.

  It’s not a nut site. There’s some real journalism here. It makes me crazy.

  I click on the link “about me.” There’s a piece of clip art, a young woman in a trench coat and fedora. I think of Pam and smile. But there’s no real name. Her location is listed “somewhere in the United States.”

  I can’t help myself from clicking the link to her “Passion Page,” a separate part of the blog where she writes about her love life. It’s basically a diary of her musings on past and present love affairs, and, brother, she gets around. It seems out of place on a Web site devoted to furthering or debunking conspiracies, but maybe this is what gets the eyeballs. If I were after pornographic writing this would be a gre
at find. Now she has a new man in her life, Mr. EU. The new man is attractive but mysterious. Conspiracy Grrl is not looking for a father figure, but older men are attractive. Still, who knows if the romance will happen? He is shy and distracted. I think, wake up, Mr. EU. It is a global economy. Why am I wishing her well?

  Chapter Nine

  Monday, October 18th

  The phone wakes me at ten minutes after eight. It’s James Sterling’s secretary, Holly, asking if I can meet with the publisher at nine. Of course, Holly. What other answer am I going to give? I hurriedly shower and dress, toss the newspapers inside the door, and walk up to the office in the light rain, wondering what’s going on. Like most Seattleites, I don’t use an umbrella. I drape my Burberry trench coat over my shoulders. At nine I am in the ornate publisher’s office on the top floor. James Sterling sits before me, his triangular face partly hidden by tented hands.

  “That’s quite a column you had Sunday morning.”

  I don’t think it’s a compliment, so I say nothing. It’s been three years since I have been in this office. That was when his mother was publisher. She would laze back on the leather sofa, eat Ritz crackers with peanut butter, and gossip about Seattle business. Since her death, her son has exercised the correct separation between the business side of the newspaper and the editorial side. Either that, or he has been disinterested. Now I don’t think he wants to gossip.

  “You’re sure everything is correct?”

  I run through the documents I have. My voice is pleasant and respectful. Nowhere will I show the tangle of my emotional guts. You’re selling the paper, you jerk? Your family’s legacy? You might close it down? I mention my sources but I don’t give Troy’s name. The tent remains in front of his mouth. He doesn’t make eye contact.

  “And why didn’t Olympic talk to us?”

  “It’s not unusual,” I say. “If they’re facing a takeover they’ll want to lawyer every statement. I asked them to comment repeatedly.”

  He gives a noncommittal “Hmmmm.” He stares out the window.

  This is not a happy conversation for me. Why is the publisher involved? I don’t know James Sterling well enough to drop the mask and ask outright, what’s the real agenda? I could have done that with his mother. But, then, she never had a hidden agenda. I always knew where she stood. I can guess what prompted today’s call. It’s not unusual for bigwigs to complain directly to the heads of newspapers. CEOs are modern royalty and they only want to communicate with each other. Many would never deign to complain to a mere business editor, much less a columnist. So I am assuming Sterling heard from Pete Montgomery.

  “Pete Montgomery and I are old friends,” he says, folding his arms across his chest. His body looks as if it hasn’t stretched in a decade. “I’m sure he’d talk to you at the right time.”

  I don’t know what to say. I’m not going to lecture the publisher about the need to get information out the door. If we sit on it, there should be a good reason. Hell, Conspiracy Grrl had it a week ago. But she doesn’t have my readership. I hope. So I just tell him I think the column is solid and I hope Montgomery will talk. That we scooped all the competition, including the Wall Street Journal, doesn’t seem to interest him. Readers will often say, “You guys just want to sell newspapers.” I wish it were so. At the big chains, they want a hefty profit margin—if they can get it by cutting circulation, fine. At the Free Press—the family just wants its money, and the publisher doesn’t want to be harassed by his buddies at the Rainier Club.

  My body is rigid in the chair. I don’t want to be here. Maybe he’s called me up to give me my pink slip in person and the column will just be the excuse. I never thought I would believe that about a publisher of the Free Press. Publisher meddling is commonplace at other papers, bad papers—hands off the advertisers, give a puff piece to this department store. But not at the Free Press.

  Still not looking at me, Sterling talks about the uncertainty of the market, how we have to be careful what we write because it can move a stock price. I nod but I am half listening. The rhythms of daily newspapering have ruled my adult life. The Tuesday column is due at one p.m. My job may be gone well before that, but all I really know is that I am taking a fresh breath and a column is due. In the morning you’re on the front page, but by the evening you’re on the bottom of the birdcage. The machine must be constantly fed. I am thinking of the next column.

  “It’s a very delicate time in the life of this newspaper,” he says, propping his hands in front of his face again. His voice quavers. Nerves? Maybe he is about to fire me.

  I wonder what he’s trying to tell me. Back off? Do more? He doesn’t say.

  “I’ll try to get an interview with Pete Montgomery,” I say. In a minute the tent comes down and the meeting ends.

  ***

  The newsroom oozes a paranoid, bitter, sad vibe. People look up from their desks and look away. Some huddle in groups and gossip quietly. Gossip is usually a newsroom delight. Now it’s all bleak. It’s a hell of a time to be looking for work in the newspaper business. I think about telling the business editor about my audience with the publisher, but, no. I don’t want her to start looking over her shoulder. An Olympic follow-up column needs to be written soon. I open up my little office and the red message light glows merrily on the phone. The first message is the nearly hysterical voice of Heidi Benson, the director of corporate communications at Olympic. Her voice is little changed when I get her in person.

  “I’ve never read such an irresponsible piece of reporting! This is full of errors! I just can’t even believe you write on the business page, you are so anti-business. It’s no wonder you people are going out of business.”

  Some flacks are helpful to journalists. Others see us as The Enemy, particularly if we fail to be cheerleaders, ask embarrassing questions, or discover unpleasant information. Anyone who questions the company line is little better than a child molester. Heidi Benson is definitely in this latter category. As I listen to her, I write readers thank-you notes for their emails—I call it constituent service. Everybody who writes me gets a reply, even the nuts.

  “Well?” she demands.

  “Why didn’t you return my calls?” I crook the receiver on my shoulder and check in on the Web. My column is one of the most-viewed items today on the Free Press site. And Olympic shares are up five percent. I look at my emails: concern from friends about the Free Press: its sale or demise is at the top of the media news report from Romenesko. In the same report, a professor says “this is the best time ever for the media.” Maybe if you have tenure and are not a working journalist trying to find a job. A reader emails: “I’ve always said YOU’RE A SOCIALIST MORON! You don’t have readers because you are all SOCIALISTS. The Free Press is a dead horse that needs to be put down!!!” I close my eyes and listen to the voice on the phone.

  “I thought it would be clear we didn’t choose to participate in the story.” Heidi lectures with the finesse of an old lawn mower.

  “That’s a pity,” I say.

  “This should never have appeared. What will our shareholders think? What will our employees think?”

  Maybe they will think they’re getting some real information about the future of their company, instead of the tomb-like silence that has emanated from the executive suite for the past several months.

  “So walk me through the errors,” I say. “I’ll be happy to make a correction.” I’m not too worried. I know it’s nailed down, and indeed she wants to argue about things like the headline and “the tone.”

  “It draws the wrong conclusions!” she sputters. “This is all speculation!”

  I remind her that part of what I do is to speculate, based on facts and analysis: I’m a columnist. This sends her into a long silence.

  “Heidi?”

  The phone line is empty, then, “I’m just trying to make you understand how unacceptable this is. How one-sided.” I can almost hear her teeth grinding.

 
“I want it to be more complete. An interview with Pete Montgomery would be a great start.”

  “That’s not going to happen.”

  “Is he in town?”

  Again, silence. I just cradle the phone and run through my emails. I set one aside to read again.

  “So talk to me about ODS, Olympic Defense Systems.” I start a fresh page of Microsoft Word just in case.

  “Are you crazy?” she nearly screams it.

  “Let’s start off on the right foot again. I know the paper hasn’t had a reporter cover your company for a long time, so maybe we can have lunch?”

  “After this? After what you’ve done to me?”

  God, I want a drink. I say, “ODS looks very interesting. I had never even heard of it before.” Conspiracy Grrl knew about it. I pull up her post on the Internet and read about the faulty night-vision goggles. I don’t mention this. “I see it’s headquartered in D.C. I’d like to go back there and meet people.”

  “What right do you have to do this?”

  “You’re a public company, for one thing. And you’re making news. The 13-D filing is real. What about this Animal Spirits LLC?”

  “What about it?”

  “They’ve taken a stake in your company. Who are they? What do they want? What are you going to tell your shareholders?”

  When her voice comes back it’s trembling with rage. “We have no comment! I’ve never seen such shoddy, yellow journalism in my life! We have a great story to tell!”

  “So talk to me.”

  “Never. I intend to call your publisher to complain.”

  I’m tempted to tell her that her boss has beaten her to it. But I give her Sterling’s extension. I offer to transfer her, but she’s gone. With the new phones, you can’t hear them slam down like in the old days.

  The business editor breezes by with a “Good column. They said nice things about you in the ten o’clock.” That would be the morning news meeting, where the editors sit around and critique the paper. I go back to my email and open one with no name on the sender slot, just a subject line: “About Olympic International.” I open it and read: “You made a good start. But you’re missing the big story. Dig deeper.”