Deadline Man

I manage a weak, “Now, wait…”

“You’re a real son of a bitch!” He yells it, then pushes me back into a display of coffee mugs, rubs a hand across his hair, and turns away. “A real son of a bitch!” he repeats, waving a hand backwards toward me, just in case anyone missed the target of his venom.

I watch him walk out, conscious of the eyes on me. My face is burning. None of the mugs break.

“Wasn’t that Craig Summers?” This from a woman in a lumberjack shirt and jeans. Then, “Hey, aren’t you the columnist?”

It’s way past time to leave.

Chapter Eleven

Rachel might have saved me. I might have saved her. But I’m not sure I wanted to be saved. The price might have been too high, the gain desperately fragile. It wasn’t until our second date that I even knew about her father, so no one could say I was after her money. I was only her second lover. I didn’t know that when I let things go too far. Let’s take our time, I said. I want you to really get to know me. She laughed at me, gently joking that “maybe we’d never have sex.” But of course we did.

Outside I cross the rough old bricks of the street and slip into an arcade, searching for anonymity. I stop in a deserted alcove and fix my collar, readjust my assaulted suit coat. That’s when I feel the envelope in my inside coat pocket. I pull it out. Inside is a piece of off-white stationary with Rachel’s loopy half-print, half-script handwriting.

Hello, Writerman. This note isn’t what you think it is, although I miss you terribly and am convinced you made a big mistake. You aren’t the only one with secrets. My Dad has them, too. A whole other life I never told you about. He’s a good man, but he knows bad ones. Long story short: you’re in trouble, even if you don’t realize it. You have to take my word for this and trust me for once. I always wanted to protect you, but this note will have to do. Even writing it could put us in danger. Leave 11/11 alone. Please. Drop it. Back away from it. Tell no one. And please take good care. I love you.

Rachel

p.s., Dad doesn’t really hate you, but the scene was the best way to make sure you got this note in a timely manner and still protect us. Please destroy this note and don’t try to contact me. No joke.

I replace the note in the envelope and put it back in my pocket. My heart hammers against my sternum. I walk outside again, dazed, crashing into a guitar case just outside the door. The musician curses me until I drop a five-dollar-bill in his hat. But when I hear his thanks I am already half a block away. I duck behind a building into a deserted courtyard where I sit at a table and re-read Rachel’s letter. Then I read it a third time. I pull off my suit coat. My skin feels as if it is radiating heat on a forty-degree day. Sweat is visible on my dress shirt. I let the cool wind whip into me, chilling me. By that time I am feeling a landscape of vulnerability, from the shop windows behind me to the buildings hanging above on the hillside. It’s time to get moving.

When I was an investigative reporter I once worked on a story so sensitive that the cops suggested I get a gun. I did. But that was only about drugs and organized crime, horrible but tangible things. What am I to make of Rachel’s letter? It was delivered in a way that gave Summers perfect cover for being seen with me, but ensuring that I got the note. And of course it’s about eleven/eleven. At this point, I actually pause on the street and pinch the skin on my forearm hard. The pain is a wonderful confirmation that this is real. I’m not going nuts.

Eleven/eleven, or as Rachel wrote it, “11/11.” The prostitute had yelled it at me. Ryan’s tattoo said “eleven/eleven.” Now Rachel had written it as a date, rather than some obscure piece of numerology. But a date for what? A terrorist attack? No, Rachel would have urged me to go to the police. Maybe it’s a formula, a code, a password—but for what? What 11/11 could be so dangerously potent as to make Craig Summers afraid, and cause him to go to such extremes to warn me? I know this much: thi

s is an unlucky number, with two dead and a crazed crack whore to show for it. And November 11th is only twenty days away. That’s a big story.

It’s time to talk to an editor.

First, I stop at home. My card key unlocks the small lobby door and it relocks with a heavy, safe metal sound. But I wait just out of view, against the outside wall but away from the door, just to see if anyone might be following me. It’s dusk and soon Seattle will enter the season of short days and early dark. People walk by quickly, huddled into their coats. The neon starts coming on up and down the street. After five minutes, I take the restored old elevator up to my floor. The ambient city light is enough to see by, so I don’t turn on lights. I sit on the ledge by the tall windows and read Rachel’s note again, and yet again, speaking it aloud in a low unfamiliar voice. In the kitchen, I pull out an ashtray that stayed when a smoker lover left. I fold the note and place it in the glass bowl of the ashtray. In another drawer, I find matches and strike one, its light unnervingly bright. I move it to the edge of the paper and hesitate. The journalist in me knows this is critical documentation. I stare at Rachel’s handwriting and the match burns my fingers. I strike another match and put it to the paper, watching the ashtray flare into a bright little pyre. Then I dump the ashes into the sink and wash them away. I owe Rachel this much.

I go back out in the car. It crawls along in the downtown traffic as I retrace the route the federal SUV took the other day, carrying me to the anonymous building. It sits in the low-slung industrial area south of downtown called SoDo, not because it’s south of downtown but because it is south of the old King Dome, long since demolished. I am very aware of my rear-view mirrors, but it doesn’t look like anyone is following me as I turn off Fourth Avenue South. Rain starts to lazily fall onto the windshield. The skyscrapers soar into the clouds and fade under raindrops.

The streets around the building have less traffic and I cruise slowly around the block. The building is a new, windowless brick and concrete rectangle, bracketed on each end with small parking lots surrounded by high walls topped by curved iron bars. Through the gates I can see SUVs like the one that carried me, and one large white unmarked van with emergency lights. The only door to the street is protected by a heavy black gate. I slow and pull the car over. Saplings are planted between the building and the sidewalk. Video cameras hang off each end of the roof. It has no address. I write down the cross streets in my notebook. A building with no name, no address, where I was taken by federal agents who didn’t want to give me their names or leave their cards. They asked about Troy Hardesty, who had asked what I knew about eleven eleven. Now the memory of Rachel’s note is so real I can almost feel it in my pocket, like a phantom limb. Pieces are connecting even if I don’t fully understand them.

A guard appears within seconds and walks quickly toward the car. He is uniformed and armed, but there are no patches on his arms. He glares at me and approaches the passenger side. I drive away and he writes down my license tag.

Chapter Twelve

It’s full dark by the time I get back to the newsroom. The light is still on in the managing editor’s office but the door is closed. I see Amber’s red hair in one of the chairs facing away from the glass wall. She has it down this time and it falls just below her shoulders. She hasn’t taken off her coat. The M.E. is talking and gesturing. He nods and studiously rubs his beard, something he does when he’s uncomfortable or delivering bad news. Behind him is a poster showing a reporter in a fedora, telephone to his ear, with a cartoon bubble showing the words, “Get me rewrite.” I sit in an empty cubicle nearby and wait. Most sections of the paper are finished, “gone” we would say, “put to bed.” Lifestyle, entertainment, and business are composed and waiting for the presses. What’s left is for the nightside crew: the main news section, the metro B section, and sports. The big room is quiet and tense as reporters finish their stories, work that will move to the originating editors, the night copy desk and the designers. The temperamental lead city hall reporter faces her computer terminal like it’s a creature from hell that must be subdued in mortal combat. Two metro editors lean over a reporter’s back, reading the top of his story. They make faces, comedy and tragedy. I don’t see Melinda Stewart.

The door opens and Amber stalks out. She hesitates when she sees me. Her eyes are red.

“You okay?”

“No. Come have a drink with me.”

Now I hesitate, until the M.E. closes his door and starts a phone call.

“Let’s go.”

***

We end up at a dark, expensive bar several blocks away, far from where we might run into Free Press people. It has edgy, angular furniture, not particularly comfortable. It’s packed, but we find a table.

“Things are changing already. The paper’s not the same. Can you feel it?” Amber peels off her full coat. I take in the nicely tailored black dress she has underneath, her feet in peek-toe pumps. She looks like a million dollars untouched by inflation.