Deadline Man

by Jon Talton

  I ask her again what eleven/eleven means. My voice is too harsh and she draws back.

  “I can’t remember!” Then, “It scared us, so after we got back, we went to Ryan.”

  “These big shots brought you back?”

  “Yeah, in the float plane, same as always.”

  “And they let you go?”

  “Yeah, but then they called Megan on her cell and wanted to meet us. But it’s not the weekend. You know? It wasn’t the usual time we go with them.”

  “So you didn’t go.”

  She shakes her head. “But Megan thought they were watching us. My memory…” She pushes her hands up in a gesture of futility, the bats escaping her belfry. “They thought we knew more than we did. Megan said they’d kill us.”

  I just sit with her. The air coming off the sound grows warmer.

  “Megan decided that only Mister Big could protect her. So she called him and he picked her up.”

  “What happened next?”

  “We never saw her again. That’s when Ryan got the tat. Eleven/eleven. He didn’t even know what it meant, except somehow it took her away from him.”

  “He thought it was a clue.”

  “I guess. He was out of his mind over her. But he didn’t do drugs. I had to go find a fix. Ended up with this other guy…god, I’m fucked up. Is Megan okay?”

  I tell her I’m going to call a friend and I speed-dial Amber.

  Chapter Forty-four

  It’s 10:45 before I get home. Someone has stacked the newspapers neatly in front of my door. It unlocks flawlessly and the inside of my loft looks exactly as I left it. Amber has taken Heather to a safe place. Maybe when she dries out she’ll remember more. Amber told me she had been laid off from the paper. I told her I was sorry—she was a good newspaperwoman. I gave her back the Airweight .357 and told her how I had used it. Amber looked like the most beautiful creature ever to walk the earth. I will not let myself wonder what she thinks or feels for me, will not do an autopsy about our meeting in person again after so many days—it was a reunion that could be nothing more than professional, given the circumstances. I will not let her have that power over me. It was one reason why I preferred to see more than one woman at the same time—if one kicked me to the curb, it wouldn’t destroy me. Now I can only rely on will. The story is all that matters.

  I drop my duffel on the bedroom floor, strip out of the suit I bought in Phoenix, take a hot shower, and change into jeans and a sweat shirt. I retrieve my new MacBook Pro from under the bed and download the story from the file I sent to my Gmail account. Amber said she loves the story. But my email shows no takers for it.

  There is little on my home answering machine but one message from the cops asking me to call them, that I have been reported missing from the ferry, and another one, frantic, from Melinda Stewart. Nothing else. I always told myself that the acclaim I received over the years, all the speaking engagements, all the friends and invitations to dinner parties and cocktails—it would all stop the moment I was no longer a columnist for the Seattle Free Press. It hurts to know how right I was. The machine didn’t even hold a message of concern from any of the other editors in the newsroom.

  It’s about the time when the last edition has pretty much been put to bed. Only a skeleton crew will be left in the newsroom. I call Melinda and she immediately starts crying uncontrollably.

  I can’t tell her everything. There’s not enough time and she might still be in danger. So I give her the bare-bones account—“short-cut it for me,” a gruff old editor used to tell me—and I describe the story I have produced.

  “My God…”

  “I can’t get it published,” I say. “Nobody will even respond to me. Nobody will run it.”

  She says, “I’ll run it.”

  ***

  I go to the paper to walk her to my place. Seattle’s a pretty safe city, but I don’t want Melinda walking through Pioneer Square at this time of night. As I walk up the hill, I see the big neon sign proclaiming the newspaper’s name in the same font that appears on the front-page flag. Steam boils out of a manhole in the middle of the street. Rainwater sits in the ruts of the asphalt. I wait outside for her. Nobody will know me at this time of night.

  Then I see Zimmer, the maintenance supervisor. But he’s seen me first, and then we are face-to-face. His complexion drains to a graveyard gray and he stares at me. He looks like he’s seen a ghost. I nod to him. He just stares. His large brow gleams with sudden sweat and his neck tendons pulse. Then he hurries past me, down the hill.

  Melinda Stewart comes out of the employee entrance, wearing a turtleneck sweater and a long coat. She runs to me and covers my face with kisses. She holds me so tightly my ribs are about to break. Oh, my god, it feels good to be held. We walk back to my place in silence, where I have a bottle of wine and a hot pizza waiting. Then we get down to business. She sits at my desk before the MacBook. I pull up a chair beside her and keep quiet. Melinda puts on her glasses and gives the story a long first read, saying nothing. It takes her thirty minutes and two slices of extra pepperoni. She has never edited me before, but I’ve watched her work. She’s one of the best in the newsroom. One of the best in the business. Wickedly smart. Wise in the craft and in handling writers. I know I won’t be flying without a net.

  That’s a good thing. Highly sensitive stories such as this would normally go through a dozen editors and probably be lawyered, as well. That’s the care that distinguishes us, at our best, from most blogs. But there’s no time. No time and no support. So Melinda and I will do it together, just us, with the skills we’ve built over long careers and the trust of a friendship nearly as long.

  When she says, “This is good,” I know I’ve earned it.

  But we’re only getting started. We go section by section, then graf by graf. She asks great questions, gently encouraging me to make improvements—my way, not the way she might do it if she were the writer. She helps me see a couple of holes and plug them. We go through documents and sourcing, slowly and carefully, as she challenges each assertion.

  By 3:30 the energy we both generated to work over the story is fading. The wine bottle is empty. “It’s a great story,” she says, and kisses me. But it’s a friendship kiss, nothing more. And I don’t push it. The sexual vibe between us has been fading for a long time. Maybe it’s menopause. I’m so grateful for her friendship. She agrees it must run for Wednesday’s newspaper, November 10th.

  I call a cab and walk her to the curb. “How can you get this in the paper? Olympic will cut it off at the publisher’s office. The M.E. will never go for it.”

  “I’m not going to ask him. I’m the night news editor,” she says simply. “I’m just going to put it in.”

  “They’ll fire you.”

  She smiles sadly. “We’re all going to be out of work soon enough. Nobody’s going to buy the newspaper. That’s the skinny I’ve heard from very good sources. They’re going to close it. Let’s go down fighting.”

  Chapter Forty-five

  Tuesday, November 9th

  I sleep late without dreams. Then I shower, dress, and take the bus to West Seattle. It’s cool and rainy, my weather. Melinda Hines’ condo looks fine and her plants are thriving. The plastic container on the balcony looks untouched, except for the fine layer of moisture on the lid. I pull it off, remove the garden tools, and lift out the plastic bag. Inside, the Coach briefcase is dry and smooth. The files are undisturbed. I’ve gathered so much information since I hid it, I doubt these papers will be any use.

  Still, they’re copies of what I gave the Praetorian crew, and as I go through the last checks of my story I’ll want every document at the ready. This is a story that will get you sued. And if Melinda succeeds in sneaking it into the paper, the Free Press may not even stand behind me. My only hope is that the reaction to the story will be so explosive, the newspaper won’t have a choice. For a few moments, I linger on the balcony, looking across Elliott Ba
y at the city. Downtown looks more beautiful than any postcard.

  ***

  Back in my loft, I spend the afternoon triple-checking every sentence. My normally neat desk is trashed with files, documents, printouts. So is the floor in a four-foot semi-circle around it.

  Who, what, where, when, why.

  I still don’t have the “why.” Olympic International has been profitable all through the recession. Not spectacular—its margins actually trailed its peers in some quarters—but respectable. But the paper trail makes clear that most of the money hasn’t come from its timber or paper operations. It’s come from defense—and much of that money was never accounted as such in the company’s reports, much less in Pete Montgomery’s conference calls with analysts or PowerPoint presentations. Olympic has kept enough of its old businesses alive to provide camouflage, but it’s essentially become a massive defense contractor. Before Animal Spirits LLC ever took a stake in Olympic, it had been taken over by Praetorian.

  Why? Why hide the sources of money? And could you conceal it from the ratings agencies, the accountants, regulators—well, history shows you could, as long as you made or beat your quarterly earnings estimates by Wall Street. Olympic did that. And it was a dull company headquartered way off in the Pacific Northwest. Not covered by either Seattle newspaper.

  Why? One why becomes clear as I tabulate all of the ODS and Praetorian defense revenue. It outstrips the revenue reported by all of Olympic. It’s nice to have black ops money flowing in—maybe an inspector general will stop by, probably not. If you get a slap on the wrist, it probably won’t lead to federal prosecution, especially if your board is politically connected. A fine here and there is a cost of doing business. And none of it has been reported in that disappearing mainstream media. Meanwhile, the difference between the real revenue and the reported revenue was $200 billion last year. The personal motive is powerful enough: Imagine the secret bonuses for the executives “in the loop.”

  Why? Perhaps also to conceal the size and missions of Praetorian. The unit began by providing protection for American diplomats, then for entire U.S. installations in Afghanistan. Imagine that: Praetorian guards protecting American soldiers. Now it has become something much more. Fitz is a student of history. He knows that in the Roman Empire, the Praetorian Guard, the emperor’s personal army, became powerful enough to dictate who the emperor would be. There’s been a bureaucratic fight going on in recent years between the military and the contractors, and the contractors were starting to lose—lose money and influence.

  That could change with an “event.”

  At that moment, a siren’s loud wail fills First Avenue.

  I am back in my dense city of narrow streets where the sirens echo loudly off the walls of the buildings. They barely penetrate my focus. I am strangely detached from the killings I did not twenty-four hours before. No remorse. No anxiety. No satisfaction. I want the story clean and tight, to email to Melinda. That way, she can in-put it into the newspaper’s CCI editing and composing system later tonight. By that time, the bosses and most of the newsroom will have gone home and can’t see it. I ask her once again if she really wants to do this. She says she does.

  Another run through the story. So much I wish I had: the killer ambush interview with Pete Montgomery, the first-person account from a whistleblower Praetorian employee, where and when “the event” might happen. What is eleven/eleven? But I can only write the facts I have and hope they are enough.

  Then it’s done. I spell-check it. I make a notation at the bottom of the text:

  --30--

  It’s the old style that marked the end of a story. I’ve heard various versions of its origination, maybe as a telegraph code. It is so old school. Melinda will get it and laugh. I do, too, as I press the key that sends her the story.

  That’s why I barely react to the tapping on my door. It is a quarter before five and full dark outside.

  I’m not expecting company, so I carry the Combat Magnum with me as I cross into the living room. The revolver is straight down my right arm, slightly concealed behind my leg as I open the door.

  Standing there is Karl Zimmer.

  He’s wearing his standard maintenance uniform. His big hands are empty and the prominent planes that define his high cheekbones look red raw. He just stares at me, like he did the other day. He struggles to speak.

  “After I did this thing,” he begins. “Afterward…my mother appeared to me. She shamed me…”

  He taps his head and gives a knowing look. “I live alone. Too much time on my hands. Crazy Old Zimmer, I know that’s what people say…”

  “They say I’m crazy, too.” I smile. He doesn’t.

  “My mother. She demanded to know how I could do such a thing. And she came back, night after night.” His jaw strained, as if carrying an unimaginable weight.

  He says, “My mother has been dead for fifteen years. She believed in signs, don’t you get it? When you came back, when I saw you there, after they said you were dead… I knew I couldn’t live with this any longer…”

  I invite him inside and we talk for an hour.

  ***

  Amber answers her cell on the first ring.

  “How’s your lifeline?” I ask.

  “It’s good. Strong. I’m going to have some interesting news for you. Good news.”

  “Same here.” While Zimmer sits in the other room, I give her the details that moments before made me feel as if I had been kicked in the stomach. “Maybe you could talk to our friends at Seattle PD and get a search warrant.”

  Amber sucks in a breath. “I can do that.”

  “Don’t be in a hurry,” I say. “Meet me around eleven p.m.”

  I am selfish. The story must run prominently in tomorrow’s paper. Even this can’t get in the way.

  “Amber, now I know why the FBI sent you to the Free Press.”

  She only asks me to take care of myself.

  Chapter Forty-six

  Deadline.

  I find that my employee identification card works fine. The guard nods; he must not read the paper. Indeed, I am technically still on the payroll. Paychecks have fallen into my bank account regularly since I walked off the ferry. It would be nice to believe it could last, but I know better.

  Instead of taking the employee elevator, I go through a door that leads me into the soaring lobby of the Free Press Building. Even though it’s closed after 5:30 p.m., the ornate Art Deco lights are kept burning. I am alone and my shoes click loudly as I walk across the polished marble floor. I kneel down and rub the bronze plaque over Bob McClung’s final resting place for luck. It is shiny from being rubbed. The front doors and elevator doors glow golden. The eight Pulitzer Prizes sit in the unpretentious wall cases. I stand and take it all in. Tonight I wear my favorite navy pinstripe suit with a blue polka dot tie that Melinda gave me years ago. I will miss my suits. I will miss this building. This…everything. I press a well-worn button and the elevator opens instantly. The car moves up steadily, past the ghost newsroom of the third floor, and opens on the bright space of the fifth floor.

  The newsroom is nearly empty. One cops reporter is left. She’s in a corner and doesn’t notice me. I see some heads above cubicles in sports. Melinda is sitting on the rim, the circular copy desk. I pull up a chair.

  “Hal is copy editing it,” she says. “Then I’ll slot it.” She plans to replace a New York Times thumbsucker on healthcare reform with my story.

  Hal Pettee is the best copy editor in the building. He has a full head of white hair and a mountainous body when he sits down, which is almost always. He has had that white hair for all the years I’ve known him. He looks up at me over his bifocals. “Not bad,” he says. This is effusive praise from Hal.

  So I wait. It is 10:45. Melinda has already sent the night page-one designer home. The front page is essentially done—put to bed—unless late news breaks. If it does, the breaking story can be put in place of one of th
ose already designed on the front page, the metro section front, and one page of briefs inside. These and sports are the last to go before the presses can start for the state edition at eleven p.m.

  Melinda shows me the new page on the CCI system: My story is in the lede position, stripped across the page on top of a centerpiece about funding for the ferry system. A chill runs from my shoulders down my back.

  But we have one disagreement. Melinda has my column logo running with the story. I say I’d rather have a byline. It’s a reported story, not an opinion piece.

  “But you’re the columnist,” she says. “It’s who you are. And it will get more readers.”

  “Melinda,” Hal says, “Lock and load.”

  She presses the reload button on the CCI menu and the page flows back in to fill the computer screen. My story is there. The headline says: Olympic International, With Hidden Billions, Builds Private Army.

  She reads through once more quickly, puts her hand on my knee. “Good?”

  I nod. “Let’s put it on the streets.”

  Who will tell the people? We will. Whether the people are paying attention anymore is another matter.

  Melinda presses the keyboard button that “releases” the page. Two decades ago, an editor would have been in the “back shop,” the composing room where printers laid out pages with strips of computer-generated stories and headlines on photographic paper. They would glue it down with a waxy substance that allowed for columns and headlines to be moved, pulled up, shifted. Then the final page was signed off on by an editor and sent to a large phototypesetter machine that took its picture, part of a long process that ended up on the press. The printers were often gruff, working much as their forebearers had done with “hot type”—the Linotype machines which had given newspaper jargon so many gifts: pigs, slugs, the hell box. The printers had better news judgment that many a young editor.

  Even with the “cold type” that followed it, editors had to know how to measure headlines and type; everybody had a metal pica pole on his desk. Melinda still has a pica pole, but it’s an objet d’art, not a work implement. Now the printers are gone, and all this work is performed by computers using sophisticated software from Denmark, controlled by designers and editors in the newsroom. When a page is “released,” the system automatically sets it up for the pressroom. It will also, at 12:01 Pacific Standard Time, automatically go out with the rest of that night’s print edition onto the Free Press Web site.