He was right; but the fact that it was disgusting didn't stop Harry, after that, from calling her his precious little virus at the most surprising moments.
Laura, heading for the Staten Island ferry, climbed a plywood slope covering the temporary cable Verizon had laid along the curbs downtown. This close to the site, a smoky scent drifted on the air. Fires were still burning under tons of dust and steel. Like everyone downtown, Laura had been smelling this odor for weeks; but still she was unsure whether it was a bitter smell, or sweet. The acridness was the scent of smoldering plastic, and steel, and jet fuel. The sweetness, she had been told, was flesh.
The smell brought with it a familiar discomfort. She'd felt it from the first, inhaling this air, and recognized it. It was the same queasy sense that washed over her whenever Reporter-Laura crossed the line, from running after a story to trampling on private grief, from digging for facts to probing an open wound. Some things were too intimate, not made for strangers to intrude on.
Laura focused on the work ahead. She walked the blocks trying to ignore the smell, ignoring the traffic lights, as everyone now did. When cars were finally allowed downtown once more, she knew, pedestrians would start minding the lights, and ten minutes after that they'd be jaywalking again. People, especially New Yorkers, Harry had observed a few weeks ago to the newsroom in general, were infinitely adaptable.
Laura swept Harry's voice from her mind. She was working; she marched on. As she neared a building on Broadway, though, she found herself stopping. Small heaps of dust lay on the building's windowsills and protruding brick, but the bronze address numbers were newly burnished and they shone. The address clicked for Laura. The lawyer, Phil Constantine. The only one who'd refused to see her. He had his office here.
Laura checked her watch. She had time. Considering, she walked away from the glass doors. It was foolish to linger outside a downtown office building: security guards, like everyone else, were on edge these days. Circling the block, Laura called up everything she knew about Phil Constantine.
By the time she turned the corner again and approached the building's entrance, her stride had been transformed, her shoulders set. Her voice, when she spoke to Constantine, would be different from the voice that had come from her in Marian Gallagher's conference room, with its gently obvious view. The distracted, bumbling girl reporter was unlikely to elicit anything but impatience from Constantine. A man like him would need an equal, a worthy opponent. All right then, Laura thought, swinging her shoulder bag down, unzipping it for the guard in the lobby, taking out whatever he asked to see, then stuffing it all back in. All right. If that's what was most likely to work on him, that's what Phil Constantine would get.
And if that's what she gave him, Laura might get her interview.
And for sure, another headache.
PHIL'S STORY
Chapter 9
Phil glanced up when the outer door opened. He heard Sandra's challenge and the cocksure reply. So. Saying no hadn't worked on Laura Stone any better than it ever had on Harry Randall.
He watched as Sandra sat back, dragged his book a quarter inch closer, asked the gate-crasher whether she had an appointment. Sandra didn't look at the book: she had his day memorized, his week, and his upcoming month. This was just the game it was her job to play. When the answering volley came, she'd give the icy smile, lay down the smash, and this short match would be over.
Laura Stone looked past Sandra into Phil's office, right into his eyes. “I'm on my way to Pleasant Hills to talk to some people there. I thought Mr. Constantine might want to see me first.” This with her eyes still on Phil's.
“Mr. Constantine doesn't see anyone without an appointment.”
“I have a deadline. If Mr. Constantine doesn't speak to me before I have to file,
Not bad, Phil thought. Looking only at the back of Sandra's head, he still could have described the knife blade of a smile with which she said, “I'm sorry.”
Laura Stone said, “First in, last out.”
Sandra was thrown. Oh, she disliked that. Phil heard her irritation: “Excuse me?”
“People remember the first thing they read. Even if it's wrong. After that, it's hard to correct. A retraction never has the impact of the original story.”
Below her cropped hair the back of Sandra's neck was red. She could keep this reporter at bay all day and late into the evening, Phil knew that. Especially if she got mad. But the hell with it. He was sure she had better things to do.
“It's all right, Sandra.” Phil rose, though he didn't come out from behind his desk. Let her in, sure; trek to the border to greet her, no. “Come on in, Ms. Stone. Thanks, Sandra.”
With Sandra's bellicose glare following her—and Elizabeth's stare also, less hair-trigger, more weights and measures—Laura Stone marched into Phil's office. She sat down and plunked her massive shoulder bag to the floor beside her. Flipping it open, she pulled out a pad, two pens, and a tape recorder. She did this so fast and so smoothly he had to figure the bag, despite its bulging, chaotic look, was the kind with dividers, holders, pockets, and tabs. Velcro and zippers and snaps. Everything in the right place, instantly accessible.
He used one like that himself.
Stone held up the recorder, lifted her eyebrows.
“No,” Phil said, sitting again.
