and mutants sleeping or haphazardly cranking away at VDTs like chimps beating on toy pianos,
Ah! What was the name again, oh yes, Longly, Longly, Longly. Claudia Longly.
She was looking at the resume.
“How long were you at the
“A year. I started on the features copy desk and they seemed to like me and I became the assistant Lifestyles editor after six months.”
“And you left …?”
“Well, I had a great idea for a book and I didn’t think I could do justice to both careers. So I left the
“But it’s not a career thing? You don’t see yourself committing to a career on the
“Oh, to be honest, my main thing is the book. I don’t want to lie to you. But if you offered me a position, I’d take it as a matter of course that I’d stay at least six months.”
“You went to Princeton, I see.”
“Yes. I was lucky, I got a scholarship. I was a superbrain in high school, but I got tired of the East and I felt I needed a change after two years. I did do an internship on the
“Can I ask what the book is about?”
“There was an act of violence in Polk County in 1955 that had a direct bearing on a subsequent act of violence in Oklahoma that affected my family. My idea was to research and dramatize both of them and show how they were connected. I’m just having trouble running down people from 1955. It’s going to take several months, not several weeks.”
“I should tell you, if you were offered a position, it’s a Guild paper. I’ll give you a copy of the contract. We’d start you at the one year’s experience mark. It would be three-fifty a week. You’d be on the morning rim, probably from four to midnight. We expect hard work, professionalism and a good attitude. I don’t like a newsroom that talks too much.”
“That’s fine,” he said.
“Well, let’s go introduce you to Bruce Sims, our copy chief. We’ll give you the test and we’ll see how you do.”
“That’s fine, thanks very much.”
Bruce Sims was a folksy older guy, about forty-five, with thinning hair and a newsroom pallor. He jawed with Russ for a bit, showed him around the newsroom, the cafeteria, the wire room, Don’s office—Don, the managing editor, would have the final say—and then finally the library.
This is what Russ was waiting for.
“What databases are you into?”
“Nexus, Entertainment Data Service and On-Line Search.”
“Cool. What about the phones? Just as I was leaving the
“Oh, yeah. We started that up, too. Phone Disc Power Finder.”
“Yeah, I think that’s what we had. Very useful.”
By this time, they’d reached a little room off the corridor.
“You’re ready?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Okay, it’s two-ten. I’ll be back at three-ten.”
“Swell,” Russ said.
Bruce left the room and Russ started the test at 2:11. He finished it at 2:26. Of the 100 general information questions, he knew he had gotten 97 right, and only had to guess on the year of the Little Big Horn (he guessed 1873, and it was 1876), the percentage of the vote Upton Sinclair received for governor of the state of California in 1936 (45, right) and whether Willa Cather or Edith Wharton had written
Then, glancing at his watch, he rose, took off his coat, loosened his tie and discreetly stepped out into the corridor. Nobody that he’d been introduced to was in sight. Trying to look as if he belonged, he went to a coffee urn in the newsroom and got himself half a cup in Styrofoam. He picked up a ballpoint and a notepad from an untended desk. He didn’t look ahead but he knew his newsroom culture: everybody read everything, nobody paid any attention to anything.
He turned into the library, taking a quick peek to see that no one he’d been introduced to was here either. All clear. He went up to a desk that said “Information Service.”
“Hi, I’m Russ, I’m new in Metro,” he said, hoping they called it Metro, but what else could they call it? It was
“Oh, uh, hi,” said a middle-aged woman, looking up over half-lensed reading glasses.
“I’m looking for some numbers. Could you run the CD-ROMs for me, please?”
She turned and opened a desk, where a stack of CDs in their little clear plastic containers were.
“Which section of the country?” she asked.
Key question. Bob had searched his memory that morning and came up with the idea that Miss Connie was from Baltimore, or Maryland anyway. He didn’t know why he thought that; it was just an impression from some clue stored irretrievably in his head. But would she retire to Baltimore? Would she return after her twenty-five tragic years in Arkansas? Or maybe she did return and died there in the eighties. Maybe she did return until she got very old and then moved to Florida. Or Mexico. Or California. Or Arizona. Or—
“Northeast region. Maryland.”
She selected a disc and they walked over to a large computer terminal on the adjacent desk. She loaded the disc into the tray, which with a hum absorbed it into the machine, which buzzed, clicked, flashed to life (“Phone Disc Power Finder, from Digital Directory Assistance, Inc.”) and yielded a menu.
“Do you know how?” she asked.
“Sure.”
“Call me when you’re done.”
He sat down and snapped through the commands until he got an entry prompt.
He typed “Constance Longacre.”
The machine hummed and flashed and diddled, and in seconds, across its blue screen, in white, there traveled a list of endless C. Longacres, Constance Longacres, Conny Longacres, Connie Longacres; fifty-nine of them, spread between Maine and Virginia.
He scanned the list. Anyone could be her or none of them could be her. What could he do now, write down the fifty-nine numbers and call them, one at a time?
Well … what about something else?
He restarted, this time narrowing the field to Maryland. Only thirteen Longacres resided in Maryland. That was something. He could write those down. He did, in fact, in the notebook. Now he could call those thirteen and …
But he knew another capability of the CD-ROM; it could be entered via phone number or by street address or by institutional identity. Returning to the menu, he called up a prompt by institution. He typed “Nursing home” and narrowed the field to Maryland.
