“Why didn’t we think of that?”
Though miserly with compliments, Cardoza privately held great admiration for Cab Mulcahy; he couldn’t imagine anyone trying to manage so many deeply disturbed individuals as there were in the newsroom. It was a disorderly place where eccentricity, torpor, petulance, even insubordination were tolerated, so Cardoza stayed far away, where it was safe. He stayed near the money.
“God knows I’d never tell you how to run that operation, Cab, but I do want to see Skip Wiley in my newspaper again. That means you’d better find him. I want a New Year’s column from that crazy sonofabitch, you understand? Don’t tell me he’s sick and don’t tell me he’s exhausted, and don’t fucking tell me that he’s not himself. Just tell me that he’s writing again, understand?”
“Yes, sir, but apparently—”
And Cardoza hung up.
All week long Cab Mulcahy had been waiting for the phone call or telegram, waiting for that familiar profane foghorn greeting. Waiting in vain. He couldn’t believe that Skip Wiley had docilely accepted the butchery of the Christmas column; he couldn’t believe that Wiley had suppressed what must have been a colossal homicidal rage.
Was Skip that far gone?
In the meantime, the Nights of December had fallen quiet and dropped off the front page, much to the relief of the men in the orange blazers. Scores of suspects had been rounded up, including a few men who might have vaguely resembled Jesus Bernal or Daniel “Viceroy” Wilson; all were released or charged with unrelated crimes. There was also talk of a summit with Seminole tribal elders to seek assistance in locating Tommy Tigertail, but the Seminoles refused to go near the police station and the cops refused to enter the reservation, so the meeting never materialized.
The morning edition of the Sun had carried four stories about the upcoming Orange Bowl festivities (including a color photograph of twenty newly arrived Shriners, jovially polishing their Harleys), but in the whole newspaper there was only one item about Las Noches de Diciembre. It was a short feature story and a cartoon, beneath a headline that said: Tennis Buff Boffs Bomb Suspect.
It was only now, rereading it in print, that Cab Mulcahy realized how trenchantly the presentation of Ricky Bloodworth’s article—the tone, the headline, the slapstick cartoon—struck at the very manhood of the Nights of December. It worried Mulcahy. Coupled with Wiley’s ominous silence, it worried him profoundly.
He looked out at the newsroom just in time to see a lean figure running toward the office, weaving through the desks and video-display terminals. It was Brian Keyes.
“He called!” Keyes said breathlessly. “Twenty minutes ago. The bastard left a message on my beeper.”
‘What did he say?”
“He said he’s gonna phone here, your office. Wants to talk to both of us.”
“It’s about damn time,” Mulcahy said, feeling a little better about the prospects. He took off his black dinner jacket and hung it over a chair.
As they waited for the phone to ring, Mulcahy busied himself by brewing a fresh pot of coffee. His hands shook slightly as he poured it. Keyes scooped a handful of peppermint candies from a jar on the secretary’s desk and ate them mechanically, one by one.
“What are we going to say?” Mulcahy asked. “When he calls, what the hell are we supposed to say?”
“We’ve got to convince him it’s all over,” Keyes said. “Tell him we know the whole plan. Tell him if he tries anything at the parade, Las Noches are as good as dead. Tell him it’ll make Bonnie and Clyde look like Sunday at the beach.”
Mulcahy nodded neutrally. Might work, might not. With Skip, who the hell could ever tell?
“I think we ought to concede some minor points,” Mulcahy suggested. “He’ll never give up if he thinks it’s been a total loss.”
“You’re right,” Keyes said. “Congratulate him on all the ink they got. The newsmagazines, the Post, USA Today. Tell him the Nights of December made their point. They got everybody’s attention.”
‘Which is true.”
“Of course it’s true.”
“But is it enough for Skip?”
Keyes and Mulcahy looked at each other with the same answer.