With the passage of time, the Post had begun to break even. The brilliant and visionary Mr. Chase subsequently designed numerous striking interiors, which were celebrated in Architectural Digest and elsewhere, and then died in spite of his genius and talent, just as the billionaire would one day die in spite of his vast fortune, just as Dewey Beemis would die in spite of his commendable variety of skills and his infectious smile.
“Joe!” Dewey said, grinning, rising from his chair, a bearish presence, extending his big hand across the counter.
Joe shook hands. “How’re you doing, Dewey?”
“Carver and Martin both graduated summa cum laude from UCLA in June, one going to law school now, the other medical,” Dewey gushed, as if this news were only hours old and about to hit the front page of the next day’s Post. Unlike the billionaire who employed him, Dewey’s pride was not in his own accomplishments but in those of his children. “My Julie, she finished her second year on scholarship at Yale with a three-point-eight average, and this fall she takes over as editor of the student literary magazine, wants to be a novelist like this Annie Proulx she’s always reading over and over again—”
With the sudden memory of Flight 353 passing through his eyes as obviously as a dimming cloud across a bright moon, Dewey silenced himself, ashamed to have been boasting about his sons and daughter to a man whose children were lost forever.
“How’s Lena?” Joe asked, inquiring about Dewey’s wife.
“She’s good… she’s okay, yeah, doing okay.” Dewey smiled and nodded to cover his uneasiness, editing his 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 discoloured 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.