Sole Survivor

natural enthusiasm for his family.

Joe hated this awkwardness in his friends, their pity. Even after an entire year, here it was. This was one reason he avoided everyone from his old life. The pity in their eyes was genuine compassion, but to Joe, although he knew that he was being unfair, they also seemed to be passing a sad judgment on him for being unable to put his life back together.

“I need to go upstairs, Dewey, put in a little time, do some research, if that’s okay.”

Dewey’s expression brightened. “You coming back, Joe?”

“Maybe,” Joe lied.

“Back on staff?”

“Thinking about it.”

“Mr. Santos would love to hear that.”

“Is he here today?”

“No. On vacation, actually, fishing up in Vancouver.”

Relieved that he wouldn’t have to lie to Caesar about his true motives, Joe said, “There’s just something I’ve gotten interested in, a quirky human interest story, not my usual thing. Thought I’d come do some background.”

“Mr. Santos would want you to feel like you’re home. You go on up.”

“Thanks, Dewey.”

Joe pushed through a swinging door into a long hallway with a worn and stained green carpet, age-mottled paint, and a discolored acoustic-tile ceiling. Following the abandonment of the fat-city trappings that had characterized the Post’s years in Century City, the preferred image was guerrilla journalism, hardscrabble but righteous.

To the left was an elevator alcove. The doors at both shafts were scraped and dented.

The ground floor — largely given over to file rooms, clerical offices, classified ad sales, and the circulation department — was full of Saturday silence. In the quiet, Joe felt like an intruder. He imagined that anyone he encountered would perceive at once that he had returned under false pretenses.

While he was waiting for an elevator to open, he was surprised by Dewey, who had hurried from the reception lounge to give him a sealed white envelope. “Almost forgot this. Lady came by few days ago, said she had some information on a story just right for you.”

“What story?”

“She didn’t say. Just that you’d understand this.”

Joe accepted the envelope as the elevator doors opened.

Dewey said, “Told her you hadn’t worked here ten months, and she wanted your phone number. Of course I said I couldn’t give it out. Or your address.”

Stepping into the elevator, Joe said, “Thanks, Dewey.”

“Told her I’d send it on or call you about it. Then I discovered you moved and got a new phone, unlisted, and we didn’t have it.”

“Can’t be important,” Joe assured him, indicating the envelope. After all, he was not actually returning to journalism.

As the elevator doors started to close, Dewey blocked them. Frowning, he said, “Wasn’t just personnel records not up to speed with you, Joe. Nobody here, none of your friends, knew how to reach you.”

“I know.”

Dewey hesitated before he said, “You’ve been way down, huh?”

“Pretty far,” Joe acknowledged. “But I’m climbing back up.”

“Friends can hold the ladder steady, make it easier.”

Touched, Joe nodded.

“Just remember,” Dewey said.

“Thanks.”

Dewey stepped back, and the doors closed.

The elevator rose, taking Joe with it.

* * *

The third floor was largely devoted to the newsroom, which had been subdivided into a maze of somewhat claustrophobic modular workstations, so that the entire space could not be seen at once. Every workstation had a computer, telephone, ergonomic chair, and other fundamentals of the trade.

This was very similar to the much larger newsroom at the Times. The only differences were that the furniture and the reconfigurable walls at the Times were newer and more stylish than those at the Post, the environment there was no doubt purged of the asbestos and formaldehyde that lent the air here its special astringent quality, and even on a Saturday afternoon the Times would be busier per square foot of floor space than the Post was now.

Twice over the years, Joe had been offered a job at the Times, but he had declined. Although the Gray Lady, as the competition was known in some circles, was a great newspaper, it was also the ad-fat voice of the status quo. He believed he’d be allowed and encouraged to do better and more aggressive reporting at the Post, which was like an asylum at times, but also heavy on ballsy attitude and gonzo style, with a reputation for never treating a politician’s handout as real news and for assuming that every public official was either corrupt or incompetent, sex crazed or power mad.

A few years ago, after the Northridge earthquake, seismologists had discovered unsuspected links between a fault that ran under the heart of L.A. and one that lay beneath a series of communities in the San Fernando Valley. A joke swept the newsroom regarding what losses the city would suffer if one temblor destroyed the Times downtown and the Post in Sun Valley. Without the Post, according to the joke, Angelenos wouldn’t know which politicians and other public servants were stealing them blind, accepting bribes from known drug dealers, and having sex with animals. The greater tragedy, however, would be the loss of the six-pound Sunday edition of the Times, without which no one would know what stores were conducting sales.

If the Post was as obstinate and relentless as a rat terrier crazed by the scent of rodents — which it was — it was redeemed, for Joe, by the nonpartisan nature of its fury. Furthermore, a high percentage of its targets were at least as corrupt as it wanted to believe they were.

Also, Michelle had been a featured columnist and editorial writer for the Post. He met her here, courted her here, and enjoyed their shared sense of being part of an underdog enterprise. She had carried their two babies in her belly through so many days of work in this place.

Now he found this building haunted by memories of her. In the unlikely event that he could eventually regain emotional stability and con himself into believing life had a purpose worth the struggle, the face of that one dear ghost would rock him every time he saw it. He would never be able to work at the Post again.

He went directly to his former workstation in the Metro section, grateful that no old friends saw him. His place had been assigned to Randy Colway, a good man, who wouldn’t feel invaded if he found Joe in his chair.

Tacked to the noteboard were photographs of Randy’s wife, their nine-year-old son, Ben, and six-year-old Lisbeth. Joe looked at them for a long moment — and then not again.

After switching on the computer, he reached into his pocket and withdrew the Department of Motor Vehicles envelope that he’d filched from the glove box of the white van at the cemetery. It contained the validated registration card. To his surprise, the registered owner wasn’t a government body or a law-enforcement agency; it was something called Medsped, Inc.

He had not been expecting a corporate operation, for God’s sake. Wallace Blick and his trigger-happy associates in the Hawaiian shirts didn’t seem entirely like cops or federal agents, but they smelled a lot more like the law than they did like any corporate executives Joe had ever encountered.

Next he accessed the Post’s vast file of digitized back issues. Included was every word of every edition the newspaper had published since its inception — minus only the cartoons, horoscopes, crossword puzzles, and the like. Photographs were included.

He initiated a search for Medsped and found six mentions. They were small items