Saving Grace (12 page)

“Was it a gradual disillusionment, or did something happen?”

“We had a falling-out.”

“What about?”

Gracie didn’t answer.

He went and sat beside her on the bed. She wore a sleeveless denim shift with a zipper down the front. The thought of opening that zipper had been with him since he first opened the door. No doubt that’s why she wore it, seductive little baggage. Her father had seduced, then fucked him over. Barnaby was damned if he’d fall for the daughter’s line of goods. Yet somehow, a moment later, he found himself kissing her.

When he released her, Grace was a dusky red. Her blush was delicious, like the skin of an apple; he longed to sink his teeth into her cheek. In her admiring eyes, he saw himself as wise and courageous, a man of the world, a person of substance. He pulled her to him. She was light and sweet in his arms, and her hair smelled like fresh-cut grass. When he cupped her breast, it nuzzled his palm like a puppy.
This is fucked up,
he told himself.
This is really stupid.
But it was already too late. He tugged down the zipper, and her dress fell open. Barnaby pushed her onto her back and lay on top of her. He thought he would have stopped if she’d objected, but it was just as well he wasn’t tested.

Afterward, he petted her and kissed her and told her she was beautiful. She stretched languidly, shameless in her nakedness, and her long black hair fell over her breasts just as he’d imagined it would. He stroked the smooth curve of her thigh and said, “You’re a wicked girl, Gracie, seducing a poor weak man like myself.”

“You feel taken advantage of?” she asked. He smiled at that, and something in his smile made her uneasy. “What?”
 

“I was just thinking: If your old man could see us now…”

“He said you have evil intentions. He just doesn’t know how evil.”

Barnaby laughed, his mouth warm against her ear, his hands caressing her back in long, slow strokes. “What happened between you?” he murmured.

She stiffened in his arms. “Why do you keep asking?”

“Because I want all of you, Gracie, not just this part, sweet as it is.” He leaned back and gazed into her eyes. “Because I’m in love with you, you doofus.”

A vision came to Gracie. She saw herself living in this apartment, Barnaby’s lover. Sometimes their friends would come to visit, and they would spend long evenings sitting around, talking and laughing. But when Barnaby was busy working on a story, she would protect him from intrusions and they would stay home alone, he at his desk and she curled up on the sofa. They would talk about his work. She was a stern critic with an eye for the weak points, and sometimes he would get angry; but in the end he would listen to her. He would grow to depend on her.

Barnaby was waiting. She couldn’t distrust him anymore, not after what he’d just said.
 

“Do you remember when the city announced it was building low-income housing in Martindale as part of a plan to integrate the town?” she asked.

“Sure.”

“There was a huge town meeting. My father spoke.”

“I was there. I remember that speech.” He remembered the article he’d written, too. There were references to Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy.

“It was good, wasn’t it? He told them, ‘Don’t panic, don’t sell, don’t do the blockbusters’ dirty work for them. Integration doesn’t destroy neighborhoods, white flight does.’ And they trusted him, because he wasn’t just a politician, he was their neighbor. I was so proud I started bawling. You were right, I was his coat- bearer, literally that night. I looked in his pocket for a handkerchief.”

“And found?” Barnaby asked, with a hint of impatience.
 

“Papers. Documents. When I saw what they were about, I went into the ladies’ room and read them thoroughly, twice. I couldn’t believe it.”

“Believe what?” More than a hint now.

“He’d sold our house,” Gracie said, the wonder of it still in her voice. “Right out from under us. Our house in Martindale. Those were the papers.”

His hand faltered, then resumed its steady, soothing stroke. “You must have confronted him.”

“Sure, that night.”

“How did he explain it?”

She answered flatly. “We needed a bigger house. An opportunity came up and he had to sell our house quick to take advantage of it. The timing was pure coincidence.”

“But you didn’t you believe it?”

“Would you? They kept it a huge secret. If I hadn’t found those papers, they wouldn’t have told me till the moving vans arrived.”

 
Barnaby frowned. “But you didn’t move right away. I’d have noticed; everyone would have. People would have raised a huge stink.”

“We moved a year later,” she said. “We stayed in the Martindale house as tenants. That was part of the deal. And I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone or talk about it outside the family.”

He sat up and reached for his jeans. “He panicked.”

“My father doesn’t panic.”

“Did he ever admit it to you, that he sold out because of the housing project?”

Of course not, she thought. He never admitted it even to himself.
 
But there was an edge to Barnaby’s voice she hadn’t heard before, and suddenly she felt Jonathan’s presence in the room, heard him inside her head.
Always working.... You can be damn sure he’s got a motive.
She glanced up at Barnaby and caught an avid gleam in his eye.
 

Gracie pulled the sheet up over her breasts. “Never,” she said.

8

“A reporter is supposed to be objective. If he’s not, he owes it to his readers to say so up front.

“In the interests of fairness, then: I’m not objective about this particular story. On the contrary, I confess to being deeply embarrassed by it, both personally and professionally.”

Barnaby stared balefully at the words on the screen. Soft, soppy lead, New Journalism crap. Though his politics were liberal, Barnaby’s professional ethic was conservative; he considered reporters who wrote in the first person to be as inept as photographers who shot their own shadows. Accordingly, he’d written the Fleishman story without any reference to himself.

Roger Hasselforth had read the draft and called him in. The editor’s office had one of the few outside windows in the
Probe
warren, but it was thrown away on him. No one could see out of it. The small area that wasn’t blocked by piles of old newspapers was covered with years of uncut city grease and grime.

“You’ve been in this guy’s corner since he came up.” Roger said from within a cloud of smoke. “Wouldn’t hear a word against him. Didn’t I say to you a year ago: ‘Fleishman’s living awfully high on the hog, what’s the story there?’ And what was your answer? ‘The guy’s a lawyer, what do you expect?’ Look at this shit.” Roger disinterred a clipping from the clutter on his desk. Barnaby recognized his own column. “The best choice by far to unseat the mayor, if he could be persuaded to run, is Jonathan Fleishman, Eastborough’s gutsy reformer.’ “

Barnaby winced. “Don’t rub it in.”

“That was just four months ago. Suddenly Dr. Jekyll is Mr. Hyde? You owe readers an explanation. What happened? Did Fleishman change, or were you duped all along?”

Barnaby slammed the desk with an open palm, raising a cloud of ash and dust. “You want me to cock up a first-rate piece of investigative journalism with some totally irrelevant personal confession? The piece is damn good as it stands; in fact, it’s so strong I wouldn’t be surprised... “

“What? A Pulitzer? A call from the
Times?
”
 

“So what, it’s a crime to want recognition for good work? It’s not like I get paid decently.”

Roger ignored the bait. “You helped put Fleishman where he is, and now you’re the guy who’s knocking him down. That makes you part of the story.”

“Damn straight I put him where he is. I’m the one who broke the story on Fleishman’s predecessor, who also got caught with his hand in the cookie jar.”

“Before my time,” said the editor, who’d been with the
Probe
for only eight years, less than half the time Barnaby had put in.

“Yeah, well, guess who my informant was.”

Roger fell back in his chair. “Fleishman? You’re kidding.”

“Nope.”

“How come you never told me before?”

“No reason to. Ulan knew.” Ulan had been the
Probe’s
editor at the time.

“So Fleishman blew the whistle on this guy, then took his place?”

“Yup.”

“Didn’t that bother you?”

“At the time, no. I figured why can’t the good guys play hardball, too?”

“Still, it casts a light on Fleishman.” Roger rubbed his stubble. “Can we use it?”

“I promised him anonymity.”

“Way back then.”

“Why? Is there a statute of limitations?”

“Fine. But this just supports what I’m saying. You need to work on this piece, put yourself in it.”

They argued a while longer and finally compromised. Roger would run the story as written, and Barnaby would write a mea culpa sidebar.

The rest of the morning Barnaby spent trying to track down the elusive Solomon Lebenthal, Michael Kavin’s business partner who was also a major shareholder in Rencorp. His home number was unlisted. The printing company he owned jointly with Kavin claimed ignorance of his whereabouts. By their tone, Barnaby could tell he wasn’t the only one looking for Lebenthal. On a hunch he phoned Jane Buscaglio in the U.S. attorney’s office. She took his call at once.

Barnaby told her they’d be breaking a big Fleishman story in the
Probe’
s next issue. Buscaglio asked in a pro forma sort of way if he could wait a week; he replied, “No way;” she thanked him for letting her know, and then there was a pause. Neither said good-bye. Barnaby could hear the aimless scratching of her pen as she doodled. “So,” she said at last, “what have you got on Fleishman?”

“You know, Jane, I’d love to go into that, but I really need to track down Solly Lebenthal.”

A moment passed. “Who?”

“Once again, with conviction.”

“Off the record?” she said.

“Okay.”

I don’t care what you write about Fleishman. But I’d appreciate it if you’d leave Lebenthal out of your story.”

Barnaby had nothing on Lebenthal anyway, but he wasn’t about to tell her that. “What’s in it for me?”
 

Buscaglio said she would call him back, and she did, fifteen minutes later: just enough time for her to have checked with Lucas Rayburn. “What do you want?” she asked.

“An overview, for starters.”

“I’ll give you an exclusive when I’m free to discuss it.”
 

Barnaby snorted. “I’m not writing your memoir, Jane.”

“You’ll leave Lebenthal out?”

“For now. Has he been subpoenaed by the grand jury?”

“Not served,” she replied carefully.
 

“But one was issued?” If he was right, she wouldn’t answer: that was how they handled delicate exchanges.

She said nothing.
 

““Is he talking with you?” Barnaby asked, jotting notes.

“Not directly.”
 

“Through an intermediary? A lawyer?”
 

Silence again: confirmation.

“So you’re looking to cut a deal. What’s he got? Something on Fleishman?”
 

“
Something?”
she said ironically.

Something big, then. Barnaby’s heart fluttered. This could be the missing link in the narrative he’d been constructing, the one piece of the puzzle he hadn’t been able to find. “Was he Fleishman’s bagman?”

Another long, pronounced silence. Then Buscaglio said, “I’ve gotta go. Remember your promise.”

Barnaby finished his notes on the conversation while it was fresh in his mind. Only then did he turn to his computer to write the sidebar Roger had demanded. First the lead: “A reporter is supposed to be objective…” Then the rest:

“Probe
readers know that this reporter has long touted Jonathan Fleishman as the best politician this city has to offer. I backed him for mayor and saw no reason why he should stop there. He was a sharp, effective reformer with a genius for using the system against itself. His credentials were impeccable. Fleishman was a freedom rider from the early days of the civil rights movement. He spent his first decade as a lawyer to the oppressed; there’s hardly a civil-rights battle he didn’t fight in. As Democratic leader in Eastborough, he worked aggressively to eradicate longstanding housing and school segregation. He brought thousands of jobs to his borough and created a minority set- aside program that set the standard in affirmative-action programs. His office door was always open to constituents. Jonathan Fleishman was the ultimate buck-stops-here politician.

“What I did not know, because I refused to see, was that he was also the worst kind of hypocrite: a white-collar crook in blue jeans and a cloth cap, who hid his corruption beneath a veneer of high principle and social responsibility. For years the warning signs were masked by his golden tongue, which never failed him even as the corruption deepened. Indeed, his voice seemed to gain in resonance, issuing from the hollow shell of a once-ethical man.