Deadline Man

“He’s probably doing the only thing he can,” she said. “The heirs control the board. As you probably know, the family covenants allow the board members to call for the sale of the newspaper if earnings fall below a certain level, and they have.”

“And nobody on the board wants to keep the paper going?”

“They just want their checks every month. Now they’re afraid that not only will that go away but they’ll also be on the line for the losses. So they’re cutting staff to make the paper more attractive for a buyer. But they’re sure as hell not going to sit through months or years of being in the red.”

“Bastards.”

“I think Sterling would keep the paper if he could. He’s not the bad guy. Blame the board. You still have a crush on Maggie Sterling. You never realized how dysfunctional this family is.”

I understand dysfunctional families. I don’t understand rich people, even though I have spent most of my career writing about the messy business of money. I was careless in picking my parents, didn’t get a trust fund, or the gold door-opener from the Ivy League university. All I could ever do was work harder than anybody else. Now even that won’t be enough. “Maybe,” I said, “I can get a job in the courthouse lobby, the guy at the information desk.”

“Yeah,” Melinda said, “I can see Mister Big Personality doing a job like that. Sure.”

We fell asleep, spooning against each other. But that was it. Me, I’d rather keep tension, unemployment, mortality at bay with sex. Melinda isn’t built that way.

Outside it’s cool and the air is thick with fog. It takes me a moment to notice the man leaning against my car. He wears a leather jacket and jeans, and as I get closer I can make out his close-cropped brown hair. Seattle is one of the safest large cities but the crime of the season is mentally-ill transients that murder strangers out on the street. I’m on guard but armed only with the warm memory of Melinda’s company. But as I get closer he looks pretty normal and well scrubbed, with clean clothes and an expensive brown leather jacket. He has a jock’s face. His eyes are very blue under the streetlamp. People in this neighborhood walk their dogs at all hours. He stands and walks away when I approach. He’s not walking a dog.

I drive down the hill into downtown, trying to use the windshield wipers to wash the seagull attack away. The bay is shrouded in fog and the Space Needle looks like a ghostly alien craft from a 1950s movie. Back home I shower then dress and make a quick run through the Free Press, the Seattle Times and the Wall Street Journal. It is a good day for the Free Press: an exclusive by our Washington bureau that the FBI had violated the law more than a thousand times in its domestic surveillance work. We’re proud that our D.C. staff punches above its weight class. Close to home: another scoop about poor security against terrorism at the local ports and a story about corruption in the city streets department. It’s a good day to be a journalist. Except for the story in the Seattle Times about the pending sale or closure of the Free Press. It’s on the front page. Of course, we wrote about it, too.

The Seattle Times has a sidebar about the history of the paper, including the fabled infighting of the extended Forrest and Sterling families, the uniting figure of Maggie Sterling, the seventy-eight heirs to the family fortune who are shareholders of the company, and even Tyee Island in the San Juans. The private compound was built by the colorful patriarch, Gov. Eugene Forrest, and features some grand houses and little cottages built by some of the leading architects of the 1920s. Family members are able to reserve a house there one week a year. I think: If they sold the damned island, it would probably keep the newspaper going for ten years. But this isn’t the way rich people think.

I get a call back from New York, where it’s a little after nine. A good source at Global Insight and he’s willing to be quoted. He doesn’t know of an impending deal but he sees how it could work.

“The best part of the company is Olympic Defense Systems,” he says.

I tell him I’ve never heard of it.

“That’s the way they want it. But it’s a very solid unit. They’ve done a lot of contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan, avoided the taint of outfits like KBR. Also a major supplier of night-vision goggles.”

“What about the defense cutbacks?”

“Don’t fall for that. Some programs are being cut, but the budget keeps growing.”

I wear my phone headset and make notes on my laptop. I thank him, shut down the computer, decide to head into the newsroom and start writing.

Ou

tside on the street, a tall, skeletal young man stops me. He wears a denim jacket adorned with arcane patches and has a silver chain hanging from his pocket. And he is wearing a kilt. I’m wearing a gray suit and one of my favorite ties, sartorial armor for the day ahead. We momentarily stare at each other like members of isolated tribes who suddenly discovered the other. He uncorks the earbuds from his head.

“I read your column yesterday. Why are you always making excuses for big business? The middle class is under siege. Don’t you get that?”

I thank him for reading. Long ago I decided to let the columns speak for themselves. I’m not a reporter. As a columnist, I’m paid to have an opinion. How much opinion varies from paper to paper, but at the Free Press I have considerable latitude. I try to use it wisely. One day I might take readers into the executive suite, to hear what Steve Ballmer or Howard Schultz has to say. Another day, I connect the dots, backed by twenty years experience as a financial journalist. I’m the one who’s paid to see around corners, demystify the news, analyze, and investigate. I start conversations. I start arguments. Three times a week, Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Sixteen inches on the weekdays. Twenty-four inches on Sunday—more if I need it. I have the best job in journalism.

This reverie ends when I encounter another man. He’s the same one who had been leaning against my car outside Melinda’s house. This time he has a friend in a dark suit. They walk toward me.

He calls me by my first name and shows a black wallet with a small badge and credentials. He pockets it after five seconds.

“We need to talk.”

I make excuses and ask if I can contact them after deadline. I already talked to Sgt. Mazolli. They stare at me. The man in the suit is more compact than his partner but has one of those ageless, unlined, churchgoing faces. He might be thirty. He might be fifty. I guess that he’s older than the first man. His dark hair is thinning, worn unpretentiously, and he looks amiable. But he steps to one side of me, way inside the comfort zone, boxing me in. The first man leans in and smiles at me. His eyes are still supernaturally blue and his skin is flawless. His chin is prominent, nearly overwhelming the rest of his features. He’s not a person who looks better when he smiles. He takes my shoulder and steers me toward a black Chevy Suburban.

“We need to talk to you now,” he says. I don’t like being pushed, but I climb in the truck. They drive south, past King Street Station and the stadiums and the clotted incoming traffic. We’re not going to police headquarters on Fifth Avenue or the precinct on Virginia. I say this.

“We’re not police. We’re federal officers.”

The SUV isn’t going to the federal building, either.

“What do you want?”