White Collar Girl

by Renée Rosen

  “So is that when you started wearing a wire?”

  He attempted a nod. “They told me I had to get it all on tape. They wanted these crooks to incriminate themselves. They wanted to hear these guys saying they were taking bribes and manipulating cases. I said absolutely not. I’d be a dead man if I got caught. The thought of it terrified me. But I was already in so deep. And they kept saying that this was my chance to help put some of those lying, cheating bastards away. I got so in over my head. . . .”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, what he’d been through and had been forced to keep to himself. He was still talking as I instinctively reached inside my purse for my pad of paper and pen.

  “What was the name of that first agent from the Bureau who contacted you?”

  “What?” Scott’s eyes strained to open, looking at me in confusion. I followed his gaze as it moved down to the notepad, and with all the energy he could muster, he shook his head. “Whoa, wait a minute, Jordan. This is all off the record. I’m not giving you a story here.”

  “Why not? This is huge.”

  “Because I haven’t even spoken to the Bureau yet. The FBI needs to find the guys who jumped me. They have to see if they can identify me. We have to try to find a way to salvage the investigation. If you say anything now, you could jeopardize the entire operation.”

  As soon as he said that, I went light-headed and dizzy. The presses were running at that very moment. The story was already out. And with Scott named in it and my byline on it. It had never occurred to me to hold back, to exercise some restraint. I’d already told the police what happened—I had to do that. And my eagerness to break this news before the police leaked it to the press had clouded my judgment, completely eclipsed my sense of decency. I believed in what Scott was doing—I thought he was a hero—and yet I could have just destroyed all his work.

  I turned away and stared at my reflection in a chrome water pitcher on the bedside stand. My nose and mouth, my eyes and ears were distorted. I looked like an ogre and felt like one, too.

  “You have to keep all this to yourself. You can’t tell anyone anything.”

  I heard his words circling around my head. I still couldn’t look at him. “Oh, Scott.” I swallowed hard. “It’s already too late.”

  “What? What’s too late?”

  “I—I figured the investigation was . . . I thought it would already . . .”

  “Jordan, what’s going on?”

  I saw the alarm set in on his face.

  “Jordan?” he pressed me, struggling to sit up.

  “Oh, God.” I blurted it out. “I made a terrible mistake. I did something and I wasn’t thinking and now it’s too late.”

  “What’s too late? What did you do?”

  “Please don’t hate me.”

  “Jordan.” His swollen eyes were filling with panic, as if he knew what I was about to say. “You didn’t say anything to the cops, did you?”

  “Scott, I had to. Those guys could have killed you. They’re still out there—they could come after you again.”

  “Oh, shit. Jesus, no.”

  “And I already called this into the city room.”

  “You what?” Scott leaned back into the pillow and closed his eyes. “No, God. Jordan, tell me you didn’t. How could you do that?”

  “I’m sorry. I figured those guys already knew it was you and so . . .”

  “And so, what? You figured it would be okay to let everyone else know? Please, dear God, Jordan, please say you didn’t name me.”

  I covered my mouth with my hand.

  Scott collapsed against his pillows, like he was sinking into himself. “I get that you had to talk to the police. I get that. But, Jesus—the city desk? Jesus Christ. I can’t believe you ran with this without even asking me about it first. Not everything is fodder for your paper, you know! Whatever happened to friendship? To loyalty? I didn’t think I had to preface everything going on in my life with a ‘please don’t print this in the goddamn newspaper.’”

  “I’m sorry, Scott. I was just—”

  “Just what? Doing your job? Everything I’ve been through, everything I’ve done for the past eighteen months could be for nothing.” He reached up and pushed the call button. “And goddammit, don’t look like you’re going to cry. We both know you’re not a crier, so don’t you dare try to make me feel sorry for you right now.”

  I wasn’t crying. I wasn’t thinking of crying. I was thinking of how to fix this. “I’ll—I’ll make it right. Somehow I’ll—I’ll make them retract the story.”

  “It’s too late. The damage has been done.”

  “Please don’t hate me. I didn’t—”

  “Stop it. Just stop. I can’t deal with your guilt right now, too.”

  “But, Scott . . .”

  “Please.” He closed his eyes, wincing in pain. “Do me a favor: just get out of here. Just leave.”

  The nurse came in. “You need something in here?”

  “Could you get her out of here? Just get her out of here and don’t let her back in.”

  • • •

  That part did make me cry. It was still dark outside when I left the hospital, and the tears blurred my vision, stringing the streetlights together as I passed by. It wasn’t even seven o’clock yet and the city was only half awake. More snow had fallen overnight. The el rumbled by overhead, the taxicabs and buses peppered the streets. Newspaper boys stood on street corners, surrounded by stacks of bundles bound together with string, selling their papers. I couldn’t bring myself to buy the morning edition of the Tribune. I wasn’t ready to face the damage yet.

  I walked through the early-dawn streets, hoping to clear my head, but it was no good. I couldn’t stay ahead of what I’d done, my mind replaying the scene inside Scott’s hospital room. And yet I had to tell the police what I’d seen. I’d been a witness to a crime. I had to report it, and Scott knew that. But I shouldn’t have called it in to the paper. That’s where I went wrong. Scott’s cover was probably blown anyway, but thanks to me, it was certain. I dragged my sleeve across my eyes and nose, making way for more tears.

  Normally I wasn’t one to talk about my problems, but I needed someone to tell me I wasn’t a horrid, self-serving person. Ironically, Scott would have been the perfect person to speak to, but there was no Scott anymore. There was no Jack anymore or Judge Casey, either. M didn’t deal with her own problems, so I couldn’t imagine she’d be much help with this. There was only one place left to turn.

  As soon as I stepped inside, I smelled coffee brewing and heard the ticking of the radiators. It was only then that I realized how cold I was, my fingers and toes numb from the walk. My father was still asleep, but my mother was up and surprised to see me.

  She was at the sink when she saw me standing in the doorway. As soon as she caught the look on my face, she cast aside the dish towel, came over and cupped my face.

  “What’s the matter? Why are you upset? Look at what you’ve done.” Her chin gestured toward the newspaper. She’d already seen the morning paper. The Tribune was resting on the kitchen table with my story on the front page, faceup. The photo editor had included Scott Trevor’s picture—a shot taken back when he worked for the state’s attorney.

  Yeah, look what I’ve done.

  My mother searched my face. “What is it, honey? Why aren’t you pleased?”

  “I went too far.” I dropped into a chair. “This time I went too far. I was only thinking about myself. About my byline.” I tried to keep my voice steady as I relayed what had happened with Scott at the hospital. “I should have never called that story in to the city desk.”

  “Why not?” My mother looked genuinely confused. “You had to do it. That’s your job. The police knew what happened. The story would have gotten out anyway.”

  “But not with my name on it.”

  My mother reached for my hand. “You’re a reporter and a reporter’s job is to report the news.”

  “But isn’t t
here a point where you stop being a reporter and you start being a human being? At the end of the day, isn’t there anyone you’re supposed to protect?” I asked.

  “If your father and your grandfather were sitting here with us right now, I know what they’d say.” My mother tilted her head and smiled. “You protect your family. Your family and the people you love like family. Everyone else is fair game.”

  This made me feel even worse because I did love Scott. I had always loved him. He was the one I truly wanted. It had taken me all this time to realize that, and now it was too late.

  “And don’t be so hard on yourself,” my mother said. “You didn’t ruin the whole investigation. Trust me on that. Your friend gave the FBI enough to go on. He’s just upset because his cover was blown. But from what you’ve said here”—she indicated the paper—“they were already onto him anyway. That’s why he was attacked in the first place. You had nothing to do with that.”

  A lot of what my mother said was true. Much of the FBI’s sting operation had already begun to unravel, and that was not because of me.

  “Sweetheart,” she said, “all you did was give it ink.”

  • • •

  After leaving my mother, I stopped by my apartment, washed up and changed my clothes. It was going on nine in the morning. I still hadn’t been to sleep, and as soon as I walked into the city room, Mr. Ellsworth and Mr. Copeland circled around me, wanting to talk about a follow-up piece.

  I looked at them, wondering if I had the stomach to do another story about this. Then I thought about what my mother had said. I realized that my friendship with Scott, or budding romance or whatever it was to be, had been destroyed. It was over. He’d never trust me again and perhaps rightfully so.

  But all the same, if I walked away from the story now, it would have all been for naught. I’d already lost Scott, and now I could lose my chance at the story that could make my career. If it wasn’t going to be my byline, it would surely be someone else’s. The inside story on Operation K had landed in my lap. How could I turn away?

  So, with my decision made for me, I sat down with a cup of coffee and told Mr. Ellsworth and Mr. Copeland the whole story, everything that I’d been told by the mole himself from his hospital bed about how he’d come to work with the FBI in the first place and the toll that going undercover had taken on him.

  “Well, what are you waiting for, Walsh?” Mr. Ellsworth cracked a sly smile. “Get busy. You’ve got an exclusive to write.”

  Chapter 31

  • • •

  My work on Operation K started out like a locomotive, moving slowly at first but then rapidly picking up steam. Whatever misgivings I had about pursuing this story were gradually replaced with an all-consuming drive, pushing everything else off for a later time. Even the horsemeat scandal. And yes, I admit that in the back of my mind I was hoping I would uncover something—something unexpected—that might make this up to Scott.

  I went back to Fitzpatrick’s, the bar where he’d been attacked. It looked different in the daylight, and by different I wish I could say better. But with the sun streaming in through the windows, I saw just how grungy the place really was. Stale beer and smoke lingered in the air. I stepped over cigarette butts and dead matchsticks on the floor. The liquor bottles behind the bar that had sparkled like a prism the night Scott and I danced before them were now streaked with greasy fingerprints.

  The bartender, a fellow named Mick, was reluctant to talk to me at first.

  As soon as I said I was from the Tribune, he said, “I read all about it in the paper. I don’t know what more I can tell you that you don’t already know.” He was alternating between wiping out glasses and clearing the surface of the bar. I couldn’t help noticing he was using the same rag for both jobs.

  I ordered a bottle of beer and eventually Mick started talking.

  “Trevor seemed like a decent enough guy,” he said, futzing at the cash register. “He would come in here a couple nights a week with some of the others.”

  “The others?”

  “You know, some of the cops, the other lawyers. There was a whole group of them. You know, regulars.”

  It took another beer and a bit more coaxing before he began giving me names, including Albey Riley, the man with the mustard-stained necktie. I left Fitzpatrick’s, and after two fruitless attempts to track down Albey Riley, one of his neighbors on the South Side directed me to Manny’s Deli on Roosevelt Road.

  “Do you mind?” Riley said when I approached him, giving me a look of disgust while he tucked his napkin into his shirt collar. “I’m eating here.” He was even bigger than I remembered and more than filled his half of the table.

  “I just have a few questions for you,” I said, slipping into a chair across from him.

  “Who the hell are you?”

  “I’m Jordan Walsh. I’m with the Tribune.”

  He grunted. “And what’s this about?”

  I told him that I was looking into the incident with Scott Trevor and began asking questions, some of which he answered truthfully: Yes, he was a lawyer. Yes, he knew Scott Trevor. But the rest of the time he was playing games with me.

  “Gotta tell you,” he said, in between bites, “I was sorry as hell to read about what happened to him. But I’m glad this city’s finally doing something to clean up the court system.”

  “So you were aware of the corruption?”

  With each bite, the guts of his sandwich leaked out, chunks of corned beef landing on his plate. “I’m not saying that I was personally, but you know, you hear things here and there.”

  “What sort of things?”

  He dabbed his mouth. “Nothing specific. You know, just talk.”

  I backed up and tried a different angle. “You were at Fitzpatrick’s the other night when Scott Trevor was attacked. And you made a phone call before you left. Who did you call?”

  “Huh? What are you talking about?” He acted as if I were mistaken.

  I scooted in closer and squared my elbows on the table, looking at him head-on. “You went to the phone booth in the back that night and made a call right before you paid your tab and left. I was there. I saw you do it.”

  That’s when he made a show of checking his watch and said he was late for a meeting. It was probably the only time he’d ever left half a sandwich on his plate.

  Before the day was done, I had spoken to nearly a dozen lawyers, bar patrons and cops. I even spoke with Ahern and some other people at Adamowski’s office. What I needed now was a source inside the FBI. Although given that I’d interfered with their investigation, I was probably the last person they wanted to talk to. Still, I wasn’t giving up.

  “Hey, Henry,” I called to him when I returned to the city room. “Who’s your guy at the Bureau on Operation K?”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “I just need to verify a few facts.”

  Henry grabbed the pencil from behind his ear and threw it down on his desk. “You’ve got to be kidding me. You want my contact at the Bureau? You’ve got a lot of nerve, Walsh.”

  Walter rolled his chair over to Henry’s. “We’re busting our asses on this investigation,” he said, “and the whole time you’ve been holding out on us, going behind our backs and—”

  “Hey—” I stopped him right there. “First things first. I did not go behind your backs. I wasn’t holding out on you. I had no idea that Scott Trevor was an informant. Read what I wrote in my article and you’ll know exactly how the whole thing came about.”

  Henry waved me off. “Aw, forget you. I don’t trust a damn thing you have to say.”

  “You got some balls, Walsh,” said Walter, stuffing his pipe in his mouth before he rolled his chair back to his desk.

  Peter adjusted his eyeshade and kept his head down, refusing to look at me. Randy avoided me, too, keeping his back to me while he chattered away on his telephone. Even Marty was decidedly cool toward me, telling me he was busy when I stopped by his desk with a que
stion. M, Gabby and the other girls didn’t really care, since I’d done nothing to infringe upon their territory.

  And then there was Benny. He came over, leaned in and whispered, “I think it was a great piece that you wrote. I really do.”

  “Benny!” Henry snapped. “Did you get that quote for me yet? You’re holding up the whole piece.”

  Benny’s ears turned almost as red as his hair. “I—I gotta get back to work. But maybe we could get a drink?”

  “Benny! I need that now!”

  He practically sprinted across the room, and I went back to the notes from my interview with Albey Riley.

  About an hour or so later, Mrs. Angelo stopped by my desk. “Here”—she plunked a sandwich down in front of my typewriter—“ham and Swiss on rye.”

  I shook my head. “Thanks, but I can’t eat.”

  “Okay, then, fine.” She reached down and picked up the sandwich. “Grab your coat and come with me.” She gestured with a tilt of her head.

  I got up and followed her into the hallway, onto an elevator and down to the lobby. “Where are we going?”

  “Someplace where we can talk. This is where I go to get away from those clowns upstairs so I can think.”

  We went out the back door and down one more level to the loading dock on Lower Wacker Drive. Hidden beneath Michigan Avenue, Lower Wacker was the underbelly of the city. If you didn’t know this underground world existed, you’d never find it. It was dark and dank down there, with water leaking through the ceiling. I looked up at the dripping pipes and cracks, wondering what would happen if the street above collapsed. We could hear the traffic rumbling overhead while the cars on Lower Wacker turned on their headlights, speeding and swerving around the curved streets, barely slowing at the stop signs. Flatbeds on the dock were piled high with stacks of newspapers bundled together with twine, waiting to be loaded onto the Tribune trucks and sent out for delivery.

  Mrs. Angelo paused before the white brick wall and a wooden milk crate. Dozens of lipstick-kissed cigarette butts littered the ground. “Sorry I don’t have an extra chair.”