“Sure. You’d know then whether they’re telling the truth.”
“Mr. Walker, I’ve taken this as far as I can. I don’t think there’s anything here for you,” and he hesitated, “or your paper to get involved in.”
“Is that what you’re worried about?” I asked. “You’re worried that I, or someone else here at the paper, might be planning to do a story on this?”
“I never said nor implied that,” Sandler said. “The paper is welcome to do whatever story it wants, but there’s none here, and I don’t think the Metropolitan would like to find itself the subject of a million-dollar libel suit.”
“Oh, that’s good. I haven’t written a single word yet, and already you’re threatening me with a lawsuit.”
“It wouldn’t just be me,” Sandler said. “I’m sure the Gorkins would do whatever they had to do to protect their reputation and their livelihood.”
My hot wave of anger had turned into a chill. I was pretty sure I’d just been threatened, and with more than just a lawsuit.
“I’m just going to go out on a limb here,” I said, “and ask you how much Mrs. Gorkin pays you to look the other way. It’s probably a lot quicker, and cheaper, to pay off an inspector than bring an establishment up to standard, am I right?”
Sandler’s response was slow and measured. “I’d be very careful about throwing around those sorts of allegations, Mr. Walker. I think the smartest thing you could do would be to let this go. There’s nothing there. Am I making myself clear?”
“Oh yeah,” I said. “It’s becoming very clear.”
“Thanks very much, Mr. Walker, for bringing this to the health department’s attention,” he said formally. “And watch your back.”
He hung up.
I replaced the receiver feeling numb. I dialed in for my messages, and both had been from Sandler, asking me to call him. The son of a bitch had threatened me. And he’d more or less passed on a threat from Mrs. Gorkin and her daughters as well.
What else could possibly go wrong today-
“Zack?” I turned around in my chair. It was Frieda. She gave me a pained smile. “Mr. Magnuson’s secretary just called. He’d like to see you in his office.”
I could feel everyone’s eyes on me as I walked through the newsroom. Word spreads fast. The city desk would have already been tipped to a murder in Oakwood, and chances were that if Dick Colby had been on the phone to Detective Flint, he might already know of my involvement. All I needed, as I took my last steps toward Magnuson’s door, was someone to announce, “Dead man walking!”
Sarah was already there. Her eyes were red, and there was a wadded tissue in her fist.
“Mr. Walker,” Magnuson greeted me from behind his desk. “I was trying to recall the last time one of my reporters found himself handcuffed in a hooker’s basement next to a man who’d had his throat slit. And you know something? Nothing comes to mind.”
“Yes, sir, I don’t suppose it does.”
“I’m suspending you, effective immediately, with pay, which is mighty generous of me if I do say so myself, while the police and the courts and the CIA and the Masons and the Shriners for all I know sort this fucking mess out. I’m also putting Colby on it, see what he can learn. Call the guild, file a grievance, I don’t much care. But when you walk out of this office, keep on walking until you hit the street.”
I thought, considering everything, that I had gotten off easy. I was expecting to be fired outright. Or, possibly, shot.
“Of course, this leaves Frieda short someone once again,” Magnuson mused. “You were barely there long enough to warm a chair,” he said, looking at me. “But fortunately, I can solve her personnel problems immediately. Sarah, you can report to her tomorrow.”
Sarah was dumbstruck. “Sir?”
“Is that a problem?” he asked.
“Mr. Magnuson, with all due respect, not only do I not feel I should be punished for any of my husband’s alleged misbehaviors, but I’m in a different job classification. I’m an editor. You’re proposing moving me to a lower job classification, to a feature-writing position. You can’t do that.”
Magnuson said nothing for a moment, then a sense of calm came over him that was nothing short of chilling. “Ms. Walker,” he said, “I can do anything.”
He swiveled his chair around so that he could work on his computer, and it was clear that we’d been dismissed. Once outside his door, Sarah burst into tears.
“I can’t believe this,” she said. She stormed off toward the center of the newsroom. I almost had to run to keep up with her.
“Honey,” I said to her, “I’m so sorry. That was totally unfair. Not what he did to me, but what he did to you.” I reached out, touched her arm, but she yanked it away. There wasn’t anyone in the room who was still looking at their screens. “You should go to the guild, you should fight this-”
She shook her head and waved her hands at me in a fit of rage. “Shut up! Just shut up! Just shut the fuck up and leave me alone!”
The newsroom was dead silent. Sarah turned away from me and headed for the elevators. I took the stairs down to the parking lot. By the time I got there, Sarah’s car was gone.
“No, no, Candace, hold it like this,” Eldon said. He molded Miranda’s hand around the gun. “There, doesn’t that feel better?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
They were out in the country. He’d lined the top of a split-rail fence with half a dozen empty Campbell’s asparagus soup tins. Eldon liked asparagus soup. “Okay, just squeeze the trigger. Just look at your target and your arms will know what to do.”
She squeezed. Blam. God, what a feeling. Thrilling and terrifying at the same time. Would have been even better if she’d hit the can.
She glanced back at Eldon’s Toyota parked on the shoulder of the gravel township road, saw six-month-old Katie through the open back window, buckled into her safety seat, gnawing on a red plastic ring. Miranda waved.
“Okay, try again, but relax a bit this time. Don’t think so much about aiming, just look at your target, concentrate on it, don’t concentrate on your arms or your hands or anything. You’re just one with the gun.”
“Jesus, you’re getting all philosophical on me.” She squeezed again. Blam. Ting! A can flew off the fence. “I did it! I don’t believe it!”
“Yes!” Eldon said, giving her a hug. “Awesome!”
It didn’t take long until she could hit a can about half the time. Not bad, Eldon said, considering how small the can was and how far away she was standing. “If it was a moose,” he said, “you’d have no problem. And really, how often do you see a little can walking through the woods, anyway?”
She went to hand him the gun when they were finished, but he said, “No, it’s yours. I got it for you. You keep it. You know how to use it now. It’s small. It’ll fit in your handbag.”
Well, she didn’t want to carry it in her handbag. She was too frightened by what it could do. She couldn’t imagine using it on anything but a tin can. And there was the baby. It wasn’t safe, having guns around with a baby in the house.
But she didn’t tell him all that. She kissed him and thanked him. He wanted to do the right thing for her. He just wanted her to be safe. Things had been kind of crazy the last few months, and he wanted her to have some protection. But he was her protection. She didn’t want to have to carry a gun around in her purse.
There was a war on, and Eldon was feeling pretty tense. Not just because of the skirmishes between the Slots, who owned the Kickstart and were led by Gary, and the Comets from across town. The battle over hookers and drugs would have been enough to keep someone awake at night. But Eldon was troubled by how ineffective a leader Gary was. Gary needed to take bold action. He needed to make it clear to the Comets, once and for all, that the Slots were in charge.
But Gary wasn’t a planner. He was ruled by impulses, often reckless ones. A Molotov cocktail had been tossed through the window of the Kickstart, starting a small fire. Luckily, it was after hours, no one got killed. But Eldon
