All for a Story (9 page)

“No comment,” she said. “But a question —how am I supposed to know which joints are Doc’s and which aren’t? He doesn’t exactly have his name on the doors, you know.”

“Easy,” Max said with the same authority he’d held when the gangster was in the room. “You don’t go into any of them. At least not officially, not for the paper.” He clapped his hands together as if to preemptively squash any protest. “Now, with the exception of Miss Bisbaine’s next column —and may I assume it’s one less likely to bring gangsters to our office?”

“It is,” Monica said, hoping he would regret his condescension once he read her tribute to his uncle.

“Then we have the next issue ready to go to press —am I right?”

Hums and nods of agreement overruled Monica’s sulky glare.

“Terrific.” He rubbed his palms together, looking like a man ready to work, and then surprised them all. “We’re shutting down for a while. No writing, no digging, no stories. We’ll meet here again, two weeks from now. Nine o’clock —” he gave Monica a soft punch on the shoulder —“sharp. I need some time to assess.”

Monica assumed she spoke for each of her comrades when she asked, “Assess what, exactly?”

“What you’ve done here,” he said. “And given the events of the last few minutes, whether or not we’re going to continue.”

O Hope! Dazzling, radiant Hope! —What a change thou bringest to the hopeless; brightening the darkened paths, and cheering the lonely way.

AIMEE SEMPLE MCPHERSON

HE KEPT A FIRE constantly burning in the woodstove throughout the days. He might have spent his childhood in the equally bitter Philadelphia winters, but years spent in temperate California had thinned his blood.

The first order of the day was breakfast, and as the bacon sizzled in the pan, he thanked God for the generosity of Uncle Edward’s neighbors. One by one they’d trickled by, always carrying some grocery gift —pies, sausages, loaves of bread, jars of pickled beets.

“We didn’t know your uncle well,” they’d said, bearing the burden for his misanthropic ways, “but we hope you’ll feel welcome just the same.”

Always Max smiled, took the gift, and thanked them for their hospitality, though clearly the true motives changed depending on the giver. Matrons came with jars of hearty soups for the poor
young transplant. Little boys, banded together in groups of three or four, had combined their pennies to bring him bottles of ketchup or Coca-Cola, and they contorted themselves to get a glimpse of the house behind him, no doubt allaying their fears that its previous owner was some kind of child-eating monster.

And then there were the young women. Dolled up in coats and hats befitting an occasion of much more importance than a social call to a new neighbor, they came in pairs, arm in arm, offering tins of sardines and boxes of crackers. They giggled behind their soft, leather gloves phrases about not being able to cook —not in the kitchen, anyway —and knowing of some fun places where a fellow could go to make some new friends. These were, he assumed, the daughters of his neighbors, older girls living at home, maybe working in some of the local shops or even attending a local college, but some were clearly no more than sixteen years old. Between the bulkiness of their coats and the layers of makeup, it was sometimes hard to tell the difference. Both he and any one of the girls might have faced a world of trouble if not for the constant presence of Sister Aimee in his head.

“Today’s young woman thinks nothing of the treasured gift she’s been given, and if we cannot train them up to prevent the mass suicide of their virtue, we will rely on godly men to protect it in daily battle.”

Fortunately, it was a battle easily won. This morning it had been two sisters, easily in their teenage years, bearing a loaf of cinnamon bread and an invitation to accompany their family to church the following Sunday.

“If that’s something you enjoy,” the older of the two added, leaving him no doubt that she held such convention in disdain. “But afterwards there’s lots of us who go to the pictures. Some even as old as you, and they don’t mind going around with a bunch of kids.”

Max had accepted the bread, promised to consider the invitation to church, and politely declined the invitation to the movie. Now, with the neighborhood streets quiet, having emptied all of their occupants to school or work, he enjoyed the scent of the bread wafting from Uncle Edward’s electric toaster and dropped an egg in to fry beside the bacon.

A week had gone by since shutting down production of
Capitol Chatter
, during which time he’d met twice with Thomas Harper and felt less hopeful after each encounter. Truthfully, he’d imagined the financial situation to be much worse, given the small number of subscriptions and the newsstand competition with at least ten other publications of its kind, but Uncle Edward ran his business with the same spartan approach as he did every other aspect of his life. A shoestring writing staff, no freelancers. Advertising cheap and plentiful, and little time or energy spent on the pursuit of redeeming society. Story after story of vice and crime —all things plentiful enough in the city, and endless enough to keep the bottom line bobbing in the black.

“But don’t you think we could do more?”

“Your uncle was never a man driven by profit,” the complacent Harper had replied.

“I mean more for our readers. More for this city. Stories about heroes, maybe. Good people doing good things. Certainly that is all just as plentiful.”

“It is a little harder to dig up.”

Max thought of this conversation now as he dug into his breakfast, wishing he had somebody with whom to share his thoughts —somebody not so invested in the paper. Not that
he
had any investment in it, because the cleanest option would be to simply shut it down and walk away. It might mean a small refund to the subscribers, but there were few enough of them to
buy off with the paltry amount in petty cash. Chances were slim that riots would break out at newsstands when the tabloid failed to make its weekly appearance, and the staff was small enough to be absorbed by the glut of other papers just like it.

And Max? Well, he could make his way back to Sister Aimee, blame his outburst on the grief over losing his only living relative, and rely on her grace to take him back into the fold. Working on the
Bridal Call
might not have been the most satisfying position he could ask for, but at least their staff meetings had never been interrupted by a group of new converts crashing through the door with guns. Surely Manarola would find another home for his particular set of skills, and Mrs. Ovenoff could continue on as janitress for whatever tenant took over the office space. As for Monica . . .

Here he paused, took a sip of his coffee, and stared at the empty chair on the other side of the table. He could still remember the feel of her tiny body tucked under his arm, the way she practically vibrated with what he thought was fear, but upon further reflection saw to be something more like indignation.

“Monkey Business,” he said out loud, just to hear the sound of it.

He finished his breakfast, rinsed his dishes in the sink, poured himself a second cup of coffee, and went into the front room to sit in the comfortable chair by the fire. His few halfhearted attempts to bring order to Uncle Edward’s book collection had only resulted in a more confusing jumble as he’d become engrossed in more than one volume as he perused it to determine just where it should be shelved. Now a stack knee-high sat between the arm of the chair and the wall, topped with
The Invisible Man
, of which about half remained to be read. Beneath that,
The Tragedies of William Shakespeare
, with a ribbon marking act 1, scene 1 of
Macbeth
. For
now, though, the less-than-wobbly pile created a perfect place to rest his coffee cup as he settled back into the chair. Already the leather seemed to know him, conforming to his body in that perfected melding of man and furniture.

His Bible lay beside the pile of books, and the leather scrunched as he reached down for it, along with the stenographer’s notebook in which he kept a journal of his thoughts and prayers. As testament to his state of mind of late, the last few pages were full of notations and numbers, offering to God the details of the choices put before him. He did not record his questions, for all of them could be summed up in a single petition.

Show me, O Father, what to do. There’s no one else whose counsel I trust.

He stared at the numbers, hoping God would supernaturally arrange them on the page, spelling out a clear message, much like he did for King Belshazzar. Even if it spelled a message of doom, pointing out Max’s clear unworthiness to create even the modest success that Uncle Edward had, at least he would know what to do. He didn’t need a promise of success, only a nudge of direction.

It was his habit to begin each daily devotional time by reading a chapter from Proverbs, especially during those times when he was in need of wisdom. Quoting from this book had been a staple of his father’s conversation, but Max lacked the ability of precise recall. Too often, he hated to admit even to himself, his eyes skimmed over the all-too-familiar words, but sometimes, like today, everything came to a halt at a single verse. Proverbs 15:22: “Without counsel purposes are disappointed: but in the multitude of counsellors they are established.”

Max looked out the window to the iron-gray morning and laughed out loud.

“And this multitude of counselors, Lord? Who would they be?”
Harper had staunchly refused to offer any advice, remaining mathematically objective on the paper’s viability. “Maybe Trevor? He’s young, but he’s sane.”

For the duration of the cup of coffee, his Bible remained open and unread as his gaze focused and blurred and focused again on Uncle Edward’s bookcase.

No,
his
bookcase. His books, his house, his chair. His publication. All given to him not because he’d proven himself as a reliable steward but simply because of who he was in life. This wasn’t exactly a legacy; it was a weekly twelve-page tabloid. It would bear his name only because he bore his uncle’s, but no mistake —it was
his
.

He set his cup back down on the stack of books and thumbed through the pages of his Bible until he found the well-worn folded slip of paper. One of his first assignments as part of the staff of the
Bridal Call
was to create a page listing the parables of Jesus, chapter and verse in corresponding Gospels.
“The words of Jesus Christ,”
Sister Aimee had said,
“our Rabbi, our Teacher. In them lie the answers to our questions of how we are to live as his disciples.”

And she’d insisted that they were all disciples, Christ’s followers and students, daily at his feet, attuned to his voice through the Scriptures. It had been Max’s job to create a cheat sheet.

His eyes skimmed down the column, though he knew exactly what he was looking for. The parable of the talents. Though he nearly knew the passage by heart, there was something comforting about the soft turn of the pages. The Bible was a gift from his parents upon his graduation from high school, and one of the few things he had from his childhood home.

He adjusted his glasses, focusing on the red text, and took in the familiar story of three men, each entrusted with a portion
of their master’s fortune. Two double their portions’ value; the third —much to the master’s ire —simply buries his.

Which would he be? Already an answer was beginning to form.

Just when he began a second reading of the parable, a familiar form passed by his front window, and a purposeful knock soon followed. Curious, he left his Bible open in his seat and moved to the door, trying to hide his surprise at the sight of the woman standing on his front step.

“Mrs. Ovenoff?”

“Is Tuesday,” she said as a way of greeting and brushed past him. “I did not come last week out of respect for your privacy to mourning. But I am here today.”

She was wasting no time, tugging off her gloves and taking off her hat. Once she’d shrugged off her coat, she opened the small closet and hung it on a hook inside —clearly a task of habit.

Max backed out of her way. “Can I get you something? Put on some coffee?”

Zelda looked at him indulgently and clucked her tongue. “Sweet boy. No, I am here to clean. Every Tuesday, nine o’clock. Until ten thirty. Then we have tea.”

“Tea?”

“Your uncle and I had tea.”

Her voice caught on the final word, and a shadow crossed her narrow face. The woman who, to this point, had exhibited the strength of a Russian bear seemed to be on the verge of girlish tears, and he brought a hand out to touch her thin shoulder.

“That’s nice, knowing that the two of you were friends outside of the office.”

“Yes,” she said, obviously fighting for composure, “that’s what we were. Friends. Good friends. Edward was a good man.” Her
eyes darted around the room. “Messy, though. I see you are like him that way.”

Max estimated that woman was old enough to be his mother, and he fought the emptiness that threatened to push him into her arms. Whatever made him think she would welcome such an embrace had already passed, as she was rolling up her sleeves and trudging toward the kitchen with a purposeful step.