Evan agrees wholeheartedly as he backpedals toward his desk. I wish I felt worse about using him, but at least the kid had some fun. A nubile MTV starlet rubbed an unfettered breast against his flesh—how many pre-law majors can make that claim?
Time crawls toward three-thirty. My eyes tick between the phone on my desk and the clock on the newsroom wall. Two o’clock. Two-twenty. Two forty-three.
Ridiculous. Emma must be stuck in a meeting.
Now I remember: It’s Thursday, and Thursdays are a marathon day for meetings at the Union-Register. Emma has come to hate them, which is a positive sign. All good editors hate meetings because they steal precious hours from the hectic task of putting out a paper. It’s the very same reason bad editors love meetings; some Thursdays they can make it through an entire news cycle without having to make an independent decision or interact with an actual reporter.
Looking around the place now, I see a few stiffs and climbers but also plenty of authentic talent; as good as Emma could be if she ignores my advice and sticks with the business. Nobody with a living brain cell goes into the newspaper business for the money. They’re in it because digging up the truth is interesting and consequential work, and for sheer entertainment it beats the hell out of humping product for GE or Microsoft. Done well, journalism brings to light chicanery, oppression and injustice, though such concerns seldom weigh heavily on those who own the newspapers. Race Maggad III, for instance, believes hard-hitting stories are fine as long as they don’t encroach upon valuable advertising space or, worse, affront an advertiser.
It’s pleasing to report that since Maggad-Feist acquired the Union-Register, circulation has declined commensurately with each swing of the budget ax. This trend suggests newspaper readers expect some genuine news along with their coupons and crosswords. Young Race Maggad will tolerate losing readers only as long as profits rise, which he achieves by the aforementioned paring of the budget, shrinking of the staff and cold-blooded gouging of local retailers. Eventually, however, Wall Street will take note of the sliding circulation numbers and react in a manner that could jeopardize young Race Maggad’s blond and breezy lifestyle. His trepidation over this prospect has leached into the management ranks of all the company’s newspapers, including ours. The result has been the urgent convening of even more newsroom meetings, one of which undoubtedly imprisons Emma at this moment.
Quarter past three on Thursday afternoon.
Phone rings. Eddie Bell from the Bellmark Funeral Home.
“Jack, you been out sick, or what? I miss your stuff in the paper lately. That Evan kid, he’s okay but—”
“I can’t talk now, Eddie. I’m waiting on a call.”
“This’ll just take a sec. I got one cries out for your golden touch, Jack. I’m so glad you’re not sick, God forbid,” he says. “Remember a few years back, widow lady shot some dirtbag that was breaking into her condo? Eighty-four years old, she popped him like five times point-blank. Pow! Blew his gourd off.”
“Yeah, I remember, Eddie. Let me call you back—”
“Made all the networks. Maury Povich, too.” One thing about Eddie Bell, he loves the hype. “Lady name of Audrey Feiffer?”
“How could I forget.”
The burglar had gotten stuck sneaking into Mrs. Feiffer’s kitchen through the kitty door. She thought he was the neighbor’s chow, trying to get at her Siamese, and emptied her late husband’s revolver into him. Then she fixed herself a cup of chicken broth and lay down for a nap.
“Well, she finally passed on,” Eddie says. “Natural causes, God bless her. We happen to be handling the arrangements—”
“Evan’ll do a nice job on the story.”
“Wait, wait! The best part, she asked to be buried with her NRA patches—the ones they sent her after she wasted that guy.” Eddie is breathless. “She was so proud, she stitched ’em to the front of her favorite housedress. By hand!”
“Patches,” I say.
“Plus an autographed picture of Charlton Heston—she wanted that in the casket, too. Come on, Jack. This one cries out for your touch, no?”
“I’ll have Evan call you.”