by Jon Talton
“Where have you been?”
“Bad day,” I say.
“Tell me about it.” She speaks slowly, her voice odd. “They called me at home. Did they get you?”
My stomach tightens. Everyone I know could be in danger. But I ask her what she’s talking about.
“I’m out.”
“They fired you?”
A long pause, and then: “No. They demoted me to night news editor and laid off Jennifer Campbell.” Jennifer had been in that job. “They’re killing the national desk, closing the Washington bureau.” The cell towers carry the sound of her choked-back sobs.
“Oh, Melinda, I’m so sorry.” Against the street noise I ask how they could do this. That she was the best editor in the newsroom. And closing the Washington bureau—along with Knight Ridder, it had been one of the few news organizations to challenge the Bush administration’s claims over weapons of mass destruction and al Qaeda links in the run-up to the war. How could they? “What?” I lean against the wall, disbelief shaking my abdomen.
“That goddamn James Sterling,” I nearly yell. “He never had the guts his mother had. She would never do this. She would have kept the family in line, and she never would have closed the bureau.”
“I thought she was a shrew,” Melinda says. “But you were her boy. To me, Jim has been a better publisher. He’s fought against the family. They would have sold years ago. Now they’d just close the place without him. He’s at least trying to find a buyer.”
“What, you’re on familiar terms with the asshole? I can’t believe you’d defend him, especially after what they’ve done to you.”
“I’m not defending him.” Her voice changes. “Are you okay?”
“I’m still employed, I guess.”
“They’re laying off 125, I hear. Most are older staff. Mark May is gone. Susie McDonald. Who’s going to cover federal courts? I can’t believe it. I get having to cut staff to make a sale happen, but why do it to the top talent?”
“Maybe they don’t know what the hell they’re doing,” I say.
She talks over me. “You’d better be prepared. You’re a high-cost employee, babe. Not to mention how many people you’ve pissed off over the years.”
“I know.”
“Are you hearing me? Maggie Sterling is dead. You don’t have your protector any more. What are you going to do if you get cut? Have you been thinking about this? They might close the whole paper.”
I lean away from the street noise. “I’ve been kind of preoccupied.”
“Aren’t you worried?”
“I’m scared to death.” My brain kicks out statistics: twenty percent of newspaper jobs lost between 2005 and 2008 alone—good jobs—what the hell happened to all those people? But that’s not my biggest concern at the moment.
Melinda’s voice hikes up half an octave. “These greedy, short-sighted sons-of-bitches have destroyed our profession.” Her voice changes, melts. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.” Now she’s holding back sobs. “What am I going to do?”
Her reaction is understandable. She had one of the plum editing assignments in the paper. But at least she’s employed. Me? Even if I had the temperament, I can’t go to work for some PR shop selling stories to newspapers, because there aren’t going to be any newspapers.
After a long pause, I just say her name again.
“Would you get a bottle of gin and be with me?”
I want to. Every instinct wants to fly to her side. We’ve been this way for almost twenty years—it staggers me to think about all that time flown by, so fast, so fast. We’ve seen each other through failed marriages, career troubles, and the verities of the newspaper business. Sometimes sex is involved. In many ways, she is my best and oldest friend. But Pam is hovering over me. Death is in my bloodstream. I’m amazed I can’t smell it seeping through my skin. I’m not healthy for my lovers or friends right now. I tell her no.
“Why not?”
“I just can’t.”
“Break the date. I don’t ask you for much.”
“I know you don’t. I can’t.”
“You’re fucking somebody new, aren’t you?”
I search the faces walking by, the fast-walking Asian woman with a computer case, the plump man in a too-small jacket, a homeless guy sitting on the sidewalk with a violin case open for cash but no violin. None are hard-eyed law-enforcement faces. Melinda pauses only momentarily.
“It’s the little redhead, right? She’s young enough to be your daughter, for God’s sake.”
“I’m not fucking Amber,” I say. “It’s not about anything like that.”
“You are fucking her! I can tell by the way you say a woman’s name if you’re fucking her.” I hear her blow her nose. “I need you. Amber doesn’t. She’ll throw you away in a heartbeat. She’s a little bitch.”
“She’s a good reporter.” I want to throw the cell phone in the empty violin case and be done with it, but I keep talking. “Why did they send her to the East Side?”
“I don’t know. The M.E. did it.”
“And did he stop the coverage of Megan Nyberg?”
“As a matter of fact, he did. Why do you care? You hate that kind of trivial shit. ‘The economy’s in the biggest crisis since the Depression, and we’re playing tabloid.’ That’s what you’d say. The M.E. said readers are bored with it. You’re trying to distract me.”
“It’s been all over television,” I say. “Why would we not cover it?”
“It’s not on TV lately, either. This is not my problem. I haven’t supervised metro in five years.”
“So tell me about the national desk, then. What happened to the big exposé that was supposed to run last weekend? The one from the Washington bureau on the CIA?”
“Kathryn herself stopped it. Said it needed more work. She actually flew back to town from whatever journalism shindig she was attending, called us all in, and held the story. We’d already lawyered it—every source and every fact was nailed tight. She had signed off on it the previous week. Then she changed her mind.”
“And the reason was…?”
“She didn’t give one.”
I could tell my own First Amendment sob story and it would be a doozy. But I may have already put her in danger, just by being her lover. I didn’t need any more proof that they could hurt me. I didn’t need more bodies on my conscience. My voice is sandpaper. “This is very strange stuff. We’ve never backed down before. And this Nyberg girl. What if she were more than just the missing blond teen of the week? What’s going on?”
She doesn’t answer.
“Has anyone been to see you, asking about me?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Have they?”
“No!”
“Have you heard the term eleven-eleven?”
“I lost my job today!” she yells, so loud I hold the phone away. After a long pause, Melinda says my name. “Please come be with me.”
“I can’t.”
After another long silence, her voice is strong and final. “You’re a real son of a bitch.”
***
I walk around the block of my building, absently touching the 120-year-old stonework that frames the first floor. The rough, damp texture is somehow comforting. Everything appears normal. The small lobby is empty, the elevator door open. On the second pass, I enter through the alley door. It takes a key to get in and I quickly close it behind me. Residents use it to take down their recycling. I climb the stairs up to my loft, lock the door, and leave the lights off. The city lights fill the living room with a diffuse blue glow.
I own 850 square feet on the corner of the building, with three rectangular windows facing First Avenue and one window that overlooks King Street. The ceilings are twelve feet high and the windows are nearly tall enough for me to stand in. I have a large living room, a pocket kitchen, and a sleeping loft up three steps and surrounded by a low wall that separat
es it from the living area. Tall IKEA bookshelves line the walls opposite the windows. I got the place for a steal during the last recession. It was the only smart money move I had made in my life. I love my place, but tonight it smells musty and unlived-in. The wood floors were reinforced against earthquakes when the building was redone, so they don’t creak. Still, I walk carefully to the big front windows and look out. I keep my body against the wall.
A steady flow of people pulses along First Avenue, none looking up toward me. I’m attached to this place partly because there’s always action going on. You can always look out the windows, day or middle-of-the-night, and see something happening down below. Melinda Hines told me it was the ideal Seattle pad, that a person was less likely to feel depressed on dark, rainy days if there was something to see out the windows besides another house. The Melinda my federal agents didn’t know about. The lights are on at Cowgirls, beckoning drinkers. An employee locks up a pricey rug store. No black SUV is parked at the curb. Yet the trees aren’t bare enough for me to see far beyond the middle of the block. I leave the lights off.
When the door knock comes it’s like a kick in my middle. It’s a hard rap: one, two, three. Like a cop knocking. I let it be until the knock comes again, harder and faster. Just act normal. I’m still in my suit. I set my face, cross the room, and unlock the door.
Amber stands in the hallway. She is wearing a gray knit cap, leather jacket, black sweater, denim miniskirt with a wide, grommet belt, black tights, gray leg warmers, and off-white tennis shoes. She has a plastic bag in her hand.
“Do you like to sit in the dark?”
I tell her I just got home and invite her in. But I stop her from turning on the lights.
“Kinky,” she says, shedding the coat. “I brought Thai.”
“Thank you. Do you still have a job?”
“I do, but four other reporters were escorted out today. Sucks.”
She finds a candle in the kitchen and lights it. I don’t object. We sit in the living room, drinking beer, and using the takeout joint’s cheap chopsticks to eat out of the containers, sharing them back and forth. One is pad Thai and the other is a dish with pineapple, rice, and pork. I realize I haven’t eaten all day as my stomach growls loudly.
I tell her everything. This time, I hold nothing back, including the note from Rachel. Hearing my voice, I realize how incredible it sounds. “In-credible”—lacking the one thing a journalist carries like gold: credibility. Your former girlfriend’s note sounds intriguing—where is it? You were served a National Security Letter—may I see your copy? Yet Amber has lived some of this: the dog attack in Ryan’s apartment, his lifeless body hanging from the bed frame. Unfortunately, she didn’t see the tattoo on his leg. Nobody has screamed “eleven-eleven” at her on a darkened street. I just try to tell it straight, chronologically, keeping the doubt out of my voice. I know it’s real. Amber says nothing. She sits so close that our bodies meld together. Her warmth comforts me as we hold communion with containers of noodles and rice. I broach eleven eleven, cautiously, watching her green eyes. She nods sympathetically.
“Do you think I’m crazy?”
“No.”
I reach for the briefcase to show her the documents but she pushes me back firmly on the sofa, shoves away the food, and starts to undress me.
“Will you ever tell me your life story?”
“No.” Her wide mouth parts in a smile. “Maybe. Boring, fucked up family.”
“Bet I can top you.”
“Shhhhhhhhh.”
My suit is soon in a pile on the floor. She kicks it away. It has to go to the cleaners anyway. She strips off her black tights and gray turtleneck, tosses aside a black bra, steps out of skimpy black panties. She must be the only woman of her age in Seattle without a tattoo. My body reacts inevitably as she climbs onto my lap. I am unfaithful to my loss, to Pam. Amber sits astraddle me wearing only her knit cap, which I pull off to free her lush hair. Tonight she’s wearing it straight, parted in the middle.
I cup her face in my hands and kiss her, lightly at first, then more deeply. She gently bites my tongue. My fingers are daredevil divers, making slow-motion plunges down her soft waterfall of hair, which assumes the color of buffed copper in the ambient light from the street. They land on the smooth skin of her back and slowly find their way to her hips. Her breasts are small and perfectly formed, topped by prominent nipples. She orders me to suck them harder as she throws back her head and moans. When she leans forward, her hair falls around me, blocking out everything.
The world is gone for now. Death is outside the force field of her hair. She reaches down and readjusts, gasps and begins to ride me. Between the urgency of kisses, I whisper for her to slow down. She ignores me, moaning, and bucking against me. She sounds close to hyperventilating. Her hands and arms grip me more tightly and she whispers obscenities in my ear, over and over, then… Her orgasm is a long, loud eruption: sudden, lingering, rising and falling and soaring again, a seismic wave, finally giving way to sobs. She cries a long time as I hold her, feeling her tears pool on my bare shoulder.
I am swimming in very deep waters with this Amber. As I have told myself so many times before, I will mourn later, later.
Chapter Twenty-one
Amber is naming people who were laid off today. She lies on the sofa now, only her head visible under the blanket I brought in from the bedroom, funereal disbelief in her voice. The room smells of sex.
“I thought the Free Press was one of the stronger companies. I know everybody’s in trouble, but this just came out of nowhere.”
“The heirs want their money,” I say. “Greed is a powerful thing, maybe especially in a recession.” I am standing beside the window, staring into the street.
“Do you think someone will buy the paper?”
I say no.
“I don’t know what I’ll do if I get laid off.”
“That’s silly,” My tone is too abrupt. “You’re so young, you can do anything.”
“I’m not as young as you think. And the only thing I ever wanted to be was a reporter for a great newspaper.” Her voice is fierce.
“I’m sorry. I’m the one who’s fucked, unless I end up in prison.”
“Mmmm. You are fucked, and you will be again.” The wide, sunburst smile. “You’ll be fine. Everybody reads your column.”
“That may not matter.” Out on the street, a woman is leaning against the door of a gray Ford with four doors. The car looks unsettlingly official. She has short, pale blond hair, pale skin, and high cheekbones. She’s looking in my direction. The wind is still blowing strongly. I can hear a wind chime from somewhere, and every few seconds the woman brushes the hair out of her eyes.
I hear Amber’s voice.
“Maybe it’s all over.”
“The newspaper might close. I get that.”
“No. I mean, you gave up your notes. The newspaper cooperated. I hate that. But this was what they were after, so now maybe they’ll leave you alone.”
She goes on, “I saw the Web site this afternoon. I don’t know if you looked. I probably wouldn’t have if I were you. Anyway, the story said your friend died in a murder-suicide. The cops blamed her boyfriend. Case closed. You’re okay.” When she sees me lean forward, my hand on the wall and my head sagging, she adds in a soft tone, “I’m sorry about your friend.”
I am watching the blonde. She wears an olive raincoat that accentuates the pale color of her hair and skin. It flaps in every gust of wind. “They meant for me to be asleep or barely awake when the cops arrived at Pam’s house. They’re not going to be satisfied until I’m…” I let it hang. I don’t know who the hell they are or what they really want.
“I mean, what if it really matters?” I return to the sofa and Amber raises up so I can cradle her head in my lap. I stroke her face and hair. My hand shakes and my eyelid twitches. “What if something in Troy’s world is connected to the disappearance of these girls? Wh
at if they’re dead? What if they’re kidnapped? What if eleven-eleven is when somebody blows up the Space Needle?”
She says, “Do you think these guys who said they were FBI agents are working on that?”
“And it’s important enough to kill an innocent woman?” I hear my voice crack and I swallow hard. “There’s something so wrong here. Even what you used to read about the abuses in the Bush years, rendition, holding people without charges, even American citizens. I never read anything like this.”
“Maybe it needs to be written now.”
I can’t tell what Amber thinks. Should I leave it alone or not? Can I leave it alone if it won’t leave me alone?
“I think somebody is watching my place.”
***
Ten minutes later we climb into Amber’s car and she drives east at an easy pace. It’s five minutes before eight and the weeknight traffic is light. I can’t tell if she’s trying to calm my paranoia or if she’s curious about the blonde, too. Maybe both. We drive in silence as she turns on Fourth Avenue and again on Spring Street. Then we’re stuck at the light on the incline leading out of downtown to Interstate Five.
“Gray Ford?”
“Mmm-hmmm.”
“She’s made every turn we have. Sure it’s not an old girlfriend stalking you?”
“I’m sure.”
“Oh, you remember them.” Her lips curl into a smile.
The light changes and we gradually climb over the freeway and into First Hill. Amber turns again at the hospital and makes another onto Madison going east. She’s driving the speed limit. The wind gusts buffet the Jetta.
“Sill there?”
She squints into the rear-view mirror. “Yep. She’s a few cars back but still with us.”
The vise that has held my stomach all day tightens again.
“Could she be a cop?”
“I never saw a homicide detective who looked like her,” Amber said. “Back in the wonderful days before I was exiled to Bellevue. Let’s have some fun.”
Amber punches the accelerator and I am pushed against the back of the seat. She closes an empty two-block gap to the truck ahead of us in seconds, then swings left onto Broadway, headed to Capitol Hill. She’s quickly jammed in traffic. Broadway is two lanes, running through the heart of the hip business district. Even with the wind, the sidewalks are crowded. Couples, neo-grungers, the ever-present homeless. It’s mostly young people. They’re so thin.
