“Feds?”
“FBI, I guess.”
She bites her wide lower lip. “So you told the bosses? You’re going to press charges? The paper’s going to fight?”
I shrug. “I hope so. But the M.E. said he had to talk to Kathryn.”
“Fuck! They’re so spineless.”
“I’m trying to see their side.”
“Fuck their side. Corporate journalism is on the way. We’ll be left running stories about Paris Hilton and dog-washing services.” She continues to fondle me under the table. Her expression is serious.
I’m inhaling in shorter bursts, trying to stay focused. It’s not easy. “What about this Heather Brady they mentioned? Friend of Megan’s?”
“I’ve never heard of her. I can check before they send me to suburban hell. You could put in a good word for me.” I tell her I did.
She says, “You’re not giving up those notes on any conditions. You’ve got the story of your life there.”
“Uh, huh.”
“You like that, huh? Take me home, now.”
I tell her I can’t. I have to figure out what to do tomorrow, when my notes are due on pain of God-knows-what.
“What if we’re followed? You could be in danger…”
“Let them watch. Let them listen. We’ll give them a thrill.” Her hand gropes and strokes. I start to speak, but my attention span has compressed. I am about to start moaning right there in the tavern. So I slug down the rest of the bourbon and we leave.
Chapter Sixteen
Tuesday, October 26th
Amber leaves before sunup, the darkness, sweet aches, and the scent of sex on me making the previous day’s events seem unreal. I make a cup of coffee and again check the new lock on the door. It looks undisturbed. I sit at the desk and go through my email, seeing a response from a FOIA coordinator at the Department of Defense: my requests related to contracts with Olympic Defense Systems have been received and will be reviewed, blah, blah. It’s a form response but at least the request is moving ahead. We’ll see how committed the new administration is to transparency.
I am less interested in the Olympic story now. It could be a great tale: get inside the head of Pete Montgomery, reveal the private equity players working to do the deal, peel the bark off of Heidi Benson’s press releases once an acquisition becomes public. Winners and losers. Stakes. It’s the stuff of a great column. But my mind returns to the piece of paper with the Department of Justice letterhead. Troy Hardesty. Megan Nyberg. Heather Brady. Ryan Meyers. Half of them dead. Maybe more. Maybe I’m “just the business columnist,” but I am still curious. And the paper, for the first time in my career, doesn’t have my back. I am not looking forward to the day. I sip hot, bitter coffee.
Back to the screen. My personal email inbox holds a note from Pam, sent Monday night:
I’m sorry about the ice water. Yes, I was a jealous bitch. So come over Tuesday night and make me territorial and horny with all the gory details about the underage redhead. You know what your problem is? You want flings, but women fall in love with you. Some day that’s going to get you in real trouble.
P
I would have missed Pam more than most if she went away. But now there’s Amber. The thrill of complications makes me shake my legs. To distract myself I go to Conspiracy Grrl. She has a post about the sale or closing of the Seattle Free Press and a rant about consolidation of the corporate media. Grrl notes how our Washington bureau has been aggressive in challenging lies about the war and uncovering scandals in the government. “They’ve pissed off a lot of powerful people. No wonder there’s an interest in this newspaper company going away.” She also has a link to my Sunday column about Olympic Defense Systems. It’s nice to be noticed. What the hell: I click the passion page and see that she has consummated her relationship with Mister EU. But it’s a short entry. She promises more details to come. I’ve never been a voyeur, but I’m interested.
Chapter Seventeen
Wednesday, October 27th
I wake up with a headache. Like my forehead collided with an anvil. Maybe it’s the price to pay for the bottle of red wine I shared with Pam the night before, or the release from having a calmer day Tuesday. Cooler heads prevailed. That’s one of those clichés that good writers avoid and editors remove. Clichés like “police remained tight-lipped” and “bright and early.” Trite and overused expressions bore readers. Good editors also add a layer of skepticism that reporters and columnists might miss, being too close to a story. So the day after Amber took me home from the Siren and gave me a working over, the M.E. called me in and settled me down. What proof did I have that the two thugs are federal agents? Anyone can buy badges. Anyone can fake a letter that is conveniently snatched away before it can be
verified. It sounded more like a hoax. They had talked to the newspaper’s security people and the police, and I could have protection if I wanted it.
I wasn’t so easily convinced: there’s eleven/eleven, the unexplained (and apparently uninvestigated) deaths, and Rachel’s pleading letter, delivered dramatically by her father. Unfortunately I couldn’t say all this without bringing Rachel into it. I also noticed that the story about CIA missteps didn’t appear in Tuesday’s paper. Instead, there was a very un-Free Press-like feature on Page One about fall leaves.
Amber has the sentimentality of the idealistic. It’s not as if the Free Press hasn’t done its share of stories that bored me, and we have more than a few lazy reporters and editors breathing the air, people who had long ago abandoned any curiosity or passion about what I consider a calling. Ones who, in a superior tone of voice, shoot down any story idea by saying, “We’ve already done that” or “I don’t see the story there.” They’re rigid and they dither. It’s just a job to them, and if any higher-ups call them on it, they’ll raise a stink with the Guild or threaten a lawsuit. Still, our staff is better than most papers. We are still a destination newspaper—a place people aspire to reach and spend their careers. Or they once could. And we didn’t do stupid weather stories—“it’s sunny today!”—or feel compelled to put a weak mom feature on page one for Mother’s Day.
Yet Amber is right. The paper is changing already.