Deadline Man

The game is called “the Phantom.” Pam likes to dress up in a trench coat, stockings, garter belt, and nothing else, then drive to my loft late at night, let herself in, and have her way with me. The idea of driving around town that way is part of the turn-on for her. Then, an hour or four hours later, she puts back on the coat and wordlessly leaves me naked in bed. Pam most enjoys the Phantom when no words at all are exchanged.

Pamela is an executive with one of the biggest non-profits in Seattle. She wears tailored suits and her straight blond hair is cut in a sensible bob. I love the way it sweeps back and forth against her shoulders when she moves her head. She reads copiously, even buying the Weekly World News; my column was a great icebreaker when she first walked up to me at an otherwise boring party. I find her incredibly sexy, and fortunately for me, I am the one she has chosen to work out her wantonness with.

I had forgotten this was a Phantom night. Now she wants to comfort me and talk about my nightmare, she’s that kind of person, but in a few minutes I persuade her to go back outside and let herself in again. The trench coat falls off. Her warm, wet mouth finds mine. And I lose myself in the sounds we make without corrupting them into words.

After Pam leaves and I hear the door lock, I fall into a deep and dreamless sleep. But it doesn’t last. I am bolt upright awake and the clock says three. I walk to the window and lose myself for a few minutes by watching the street. The window is cracked open and I smell the cool, wet air coming in. A man walks by quickly. Somewhere I can hear another man’s voice yelling profanities, probably at nothing.

Then I see him, walking north with a lurching gait, another Michelin man with the heavy padding of his layers of clothes, all brown under the streetlights. Every few steps he turns and engages in his profane soliloquy, turning in to face a doorway, then turning out to face the street. Individual cars go by every few minutes. I hear the fire department roar out of the big station nearby, their sirens fading slowly, then replaced by a train whistle. Then,

“Woooooooooooooooeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee…”

It’s a funny sound but it makes my flesh crawl. Maybe it’s the pitch of the woman’s voice making it, high and wailing and terrible.

“Wooooooooooooooooooooeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee…”

I can’t see where it’s coming from. It’s like a banshee on the moor. I think about the woman on the street, “eleven-eleven,” and the tattoo on the dead kid’s leg, “eleven-eleven.” I listen for the banshee but she’s gone. Eleven-eleven. How creepy is that, especially after the national nightmare of 9/11. But maybe it’s just me. I had a sister who believed she saw bugs crawling on blank sheets of paper. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. There are coincidences. I went my whole life never personally knowing anyone named Mary Beth. Then one year I dated three of them. One claimed she loved me. I crank the window shut and go in the other room.

At my desk, I open the laptop, sending white light into the room. I can link to the CCI system and actually see my column as it will appear on the front of the Sunday business section tomorrow. “Is Olympic stumbling toward a takeover?” the headline reads. Not bad. Civilians think the writers do their own headlines, and often the headline can misstate the totality of the story. We get the angry phone calls and emails from people who only read headlines. Headlines are powerful. I surf over to the Seattle Times—so far, they’re clueless. They didn’t even pick up the 13-D filing. Their economy columnist writes some esoteric blah-blah-blah on the credit markets. It’s actually not bad. But he doesn’t have news. I do. The Wall Street Journal and New York Times also don’t have it. Again I Google the name “Animal Spirits LLC” and get nothing. I am just about to get sleepy again when I Google “Olympic International” and “takeover.” I get one hit. My pulse rate doubles.

“Shit.”

It takes me to a site called Conspiracy Grrl. I’ve never heard of it. I read the post:

The takeover boys are at it again, going after Olympic International. Don’t yawn yet. The company is known for its mining and timber businesses, but Conspiracy Grrl has found that it also has a tasty little defense subsidiary that makes, among other things, night-vision goggles that don’t work. Hey, Support the Troops! Oly got $120 million for this no-bid contract and the Government Accountability Office found that the goggles had a huge failure rate—not a good thing on the battlefield. Where was the fine? Turns out the CEO is a big contributor to both parties, and so far no action is being taken. More contracts just keep coming. So now Oly is takeover bait because the wars will just keep adding to the profits of this little-known subsidiary. Look for the top executives to get golden parachutes while the workers get screwed. Who else benefits here? Stay tuned. If you wonder about the conspiracy that is the Military-Industrial Complex, watch this one. Has this been reported? No. That’s why you can’t trust the corporate media.

I sit back in the chair and let out a long sigh. The post came out a week before my column. I’ve been scooped by a Grrl.

It’s a bare-bones site. The kind you can get with a ready-made template. Most of it is devoted to conspiracy debunking. The tale that most passengers on the 9/11 airplanes could possibly have used cell phones to call is questioned. Speculation that the World Trade Center was deliberately demolished is persuasively deflated. In another post, she writes about the vice-president’s secret energy task force and higher oil prices. She links to documents showing the players—big oil companies—that attended the closely guarded meetings, and how Iraq’s oilfields were divided among them. This all before the United States invaded Iraq. Another has a report on the safety standards for microbiology labs.

It’s not a nut site. There’s some real journalism here. It makes me crazy.

I click on the link “about me.” There’s a piece of clip art, a young woman in a trench coat and fedora. I think of Pam and smile. But there’s no real name. Her location is listed “somewhere in the United States.”

I can’t help myself from clicking the link to her “Passion Page,” a separate part of the blog where she writes about her love life. It’s basically a diary of her musings on past and present love affairs, and, brother, she gets around. It seems out of place on a Web site devoted to furthering or debunking conspiracies, but maybe this is what gets the eyeballs. If I were after pornographic writing this would be a gre

at find. Now she has a new man in her life, Mr. EU. The new man is attractive but mysterious. Conspiracy Grrl is not looking for a father figure, but older men are attractive. Still, who knows if the romance will happen? He is shy and distracted. I think, wake up, Mr. EU. It is a global economy. Why am I wishing her well?

Chapter Nine

Monday, October 18th

The phone wakes me at ten minutes after eight. It’s James Sterling’s secretary, Holly, asking if I can meet with the publisher at nine. Of course, Holly. What other answer am I going to give? I hurriedly shower and dress, toss the newspapers inside the door, and walk up to the office in the light rain, wondering what’s going on. Like most Seattleites, I don’t use an umbrella. I drape my Burberry trench coat over my shoulders. At nine I am in the ornate publisher’s office on the top floor. James Sterling sits before me, his triangular face partly hidden by tented hands.

“That’s quite a column you had Sunday morning.”

I don’t think it’s a compliment, so I say nothing. It’s been three years since I have been in this office. That was when his mother was publisher. She would laze back on the leather sofa, eat Ritz crackers with peanut butter, and gossip about Seattle business. Since her death, her son has exercised the correct separation between the business side of the newspaper and the editorial side. Either that, or he has been disinterested. Now I don’t think he wants to gossip.

“You’re sure everything is correct?”

I run through the documents I have. My voice is pleasant and respectful. Nowhere will I show the tangle of my emotional guts. You’re selling the paper, you jerk? Your family’s legacy? You might close it down? I mention my sources but I don’t give Troy’s name. The tent remains in front of his mouth. He doesn’t make eye contact.

“And why didn’t Olympic talk to us?”

“It’s not unusual,” I say. “If they’re facing a takeover they’ll want to lawyer every statement. I asked them to comment repeatedly.”

He gives a noncommittal “Hmmmm.” He stares out the window.

This is not a happy conversation for me. Why is the publisher involved? I don’t know James Sterling well enough to drop the mask and ask outright, what’s the real agenda? I could have done that with his mother. But, then, she never had a hidden agenda. I always knew where she stood. I can guess what prompted today’s call. It’s not unusual for bigwigs to complain directly to the heads of newspapers. CEOs are modern royalty and they only want to communicate with each other. Many would never deign to complain to a mere business editor, much less a columnist. So I am assuming Sterling heard from Pete Montgomery.