Stone Cold Dead (29 page)

“That’s great, Charlie,” I said. “Snow melts, makes water.”

“Clever girl,” he said. “You should be begging me for stories like this one. But if you’re too
hep
for this, I’ve got an idea for a human interest story for tomorrow’s edition. Short and easy. You can knock this one out in your sleep.”

I rolled my eyes.

“No, really, Ellie,” he said. “This one is good. Remember that boy who won the spelling bee last year? What was his name? Gordie Douglas. A little genius, that kid. What if we did a follow-up on it? ‘Winning Spells Success for Fifth Grader.’ What do you think?”

“I think it S-T-I-N-K-S,” I said, and Charlie’s face fell. “Why don’t you ever ask George Walsh to write that kind of stuff? He’d be a natural. Might even learn to spell.”

“Ellie, I can’t ask George to write that,” said Charlie. “Besides, you don’t have anything else for tomorrow’s paper, unless you’ve finished your profile on Teddy Jurczyk.”

“That’s not fair,” I said, taking the seat in front of his desk. “You know I didn’t get the chance to work on that today. And I’ve already done the social calendar for next week and the Rock ’n’ Roll Hymnal thing you wanted me to cover at St. Agnello’s.”

“You actually went to that?”

I thought for a moment. “Well, no,” I confessed. “But I phoned Father Francis, and he told me who won. Anna Maria Galderoni, in case you had money on it. But maybe I’ve got a big story for you. Right here in my hand, perhaps.”

Charlie feigned a chuckle. “Very funny. Now do this little genius story, and you’ve had a great week. I would have liked to print the Teddy J. story before the game, but I guess you didn’t have time to do that in the slammer.”

Now it was my turn to fake a laugh. Then I realized I hadn’t thanked him for getting me out of stir. I was even feeling kindly toward Sol Meshnick. I supposed a leer or two was the least I could grant him for such prompt results.

“I was upset this afternoon,” I said. “And it was rude of me not to have thanked you.”

“Thank me for what?” asked Charlie.

“For the get-out-of-jail-free card.”

Charlie shook his head. “Thanks for the thanks, but it wasn’t me.”

“Then I’ll thank that old pervert, Sol Meshnick,” I said.

Charlie scoffed. “It wasn’t him either. We got to the station and started making a ruckus, threatening lawsuits and bad press if they didn’t spring you pronto. But they wouldn’t even let us in to see Chief Finn.”

“Then who fished me out of there?” I asked.

“You should call Frank Olney,” said Charlie, and I flushed.

“Frank? What for?”

“While Sol and I were yelling and screaming and getting nowhere, Don Czerulniak showed up and zipped inside to have a chat with the chief. Five minutes later you were out.”

“So what’s that got to do with the sheriff?” I asked, feeling a knot in my stomach.

“The DA was in a hurry, but he stopped to say hello on his way out. He said Frank Olney had phoned him and told him to get you the hell out of jail. He’d heard all about it from that nitwit Pat Halvey, who’s got a buddy on the NHPD. A guy he bowls with. Paulie Iavarone, I think he said.”

I felt the bus-ticket story burning in my hand. I tried to hide it behind my back, and Charlie noticed.

“So, what’s the big story you’ve got?” he asked. “Is that your Rock ’n’ Roll Hymnal story?”

“No,” I said, taking a step back. “It’s just a memo. It’s nothing.”

Back at my desk, I swore to myself, stuffed the doomed story inside a drawer, and went home.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

THURSDAY, JANUARY 12, 1961

At three in the morning, I was still wrestling with my decision to pull back the unused-bus-ticket story. I’d been grinding it through my head since bedding down four hours earlier, having been awakened several times with ever-new, twisted dreams to torture me. One had me getting fired for not producing anything more interesting than a high-school boy could write. Another was my assignment to a new position at the paper: assistant to Luba, the office’s ancient, Ukrainian cleaning lady. She swept and mopped, emptied wastepaper bins and trash cans, washed windows and polished brass, always half bent over, with a kerchief tied around her head. A third torture had me leaving the paper altogether and jerking sodas for Fadge at Fiorello’s. A nice enough place to spend time, but not my idea of a future.

When I wasn’t sleeping and dreaming of my life circling the drain, I lay awake staring at the ceiling, searching for convincing arguments for why I would be justified in printing the bus-ticket story. I had found the ticket, deduced the significance of its presence, and handed it to the sheriff myself. It was true, of course, that he’d invited me along to search the locker, but it had been my idea in the first place. Frank never would have thought of looking there. And then there were the mind-numbing human-interest stories my dear friend and mentor, Charlie Reese, felt were my bailiwick. Not even the success of the Jordan Shaw investigation had shaken me loose from the second string, and I was beginning to think that, despite his affection for me, Charlie shared the same old-school ideas on girls in the workplace. Coffee and shorthand, for sure, but newspapers were a man’s game. At best, the fairer sex might be entrusted with the society pages or church news. But even those positions put effeminate men and pious laymen out of work. As for the big stories, leave those to the boys like George Walsh.

Now I’d worked myself into a lather of resentment toward Charlie Reese for things he’d never said and, as far as I knew, didn’t even think. My runaway fantasy had my heart racing in my chest and my anger seething. I got out of bed and poured myself a Scotch from the cabinet in the parlor. I spied that damned letter from the Berg and Raphael Statuary sitting on the end table, calling to me. And there was my bag, leaning against the wall, still packed and waiting. I switched on the television without thinking. There was nothing on, of course, but the Indian-head signal, so I put some soothing music on the hi-fi, low, so as not to wake Mrs. Giannetti downstairs. Schubert’s “Trout” quintet was jaunty and lighthearted, but the next LP that dropped down the spindle was “Death and the Maiden.” Why had I loaded so much Schubert? I switched it off and went back to bed. Despite my best efforts, I still hadn’t convinced myself to print the bus-ticket story, nor had I fully resolved to bury it. And that made me even angrier at Charlie Reese, who’d had nothing at all to do with my moral quandary.

The morning found me in a foul mood. All bile and no mirth make Ellie a dull girl. I shuffled to my desk, placed my purse in the lower right-hand drawer, and opened my agenda: Gordie Douglas at half past ten in the Academy Street School cafeteria. Eat your heart out, Edward R. Murrow. Then nothing until the four o’clock basketball practice at the high-school gym.

“Any news on George Wash?” I asked Norma as I poured myself a cup of coffee from the percolator.

“Nothing,” she said. “But I heard from Brenda in the steno pool that his son wets the bed.”

“Thanks for trying to cheer me up,” I said. “But it didn’t work.”

The shrill bell rang, caroming off the bare palazzo floors and glossy paint of the walls, signaling the end of yet another illuminating lesson at the Academy Street School. The children spilled from their classrooms, twittering and twaddling like . . . well, schoolchildren. A thin woman in a taffeta dress approached me in the cafeteria, her heels clacking over the hard floors. She was pushing a small towheaded child in a striped shirt and black, high-top PF Flyers before her. She introduced herself as Dorothy Galligan, teacher’s aide. The little, blond dingus was Gordon Douglas, boy genius.

“I’ll be back in ten minutes to collect him,” said Mrs. Galligan. “He has midmorning milk at ten forty-five, followed by arithmetic at eleven.” Mrs. Galligan disappeared, leaving me alone with the spelling prodigy.

“How are you, Gordie?” I asked.

“Fine,” he said, looking off into the nothingness beyond me.

“So, you’re the spelling champ?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Tell me. Has winning the spelling bee changed your life?”

“No.”

“Are you going to enter the spelling bee again this year?” I asked, thinking what a dullard this kid was.

He shrugged. “I guess.”

“What word did you spell to win?”

“‘Poodle,’” He said, and wiped his nose.

“Really?” I asked. “‘Poodle?’ P-O-O-D-L-E?” He nodded. “And that won?” Again he nodded.

“The other kid missed ‘endomorphic,’ so I won.”

“Can you spell ‘endomorphic’?”

“No.”

“May I take a picture of you?” I asked. Interview over.

I drove back to the office, one frame of Gordie Douglas in my camera, regretting even the waste of that much celluloid on the worst story of my career. But I promised myself that I would write the best spelling-bee follow-up profile ever written. No one would know or care if I embellished the lad’s personality and intelligence in my article. In fact, I was sure everyone, from Gordie’s proud parents to Charlie Reese and Artie Short, would appreciate the snow job I was rehearsing in my mind. I’d be done with my piece before Gordie had managed to snort his midmorning milk through his nose.

Back at my desk, I pounded out the story in eleven minutes and dropped it into Charlie’s in-box before heading out to lunch at Wolfson’s Department Store next door. Gordie Douglas’s eyes were closed in the photo I’d taken.

As I slurped chicken-and-rice soup out of my spoon, I eyed the waitress who’d served me. Consolidating two pots of coffee into one, she stood there in a flowered cotton dress and blue apron, her narrow shoulders sloping gradually into her wide middle and wider behind. Her legs were trunks planted in white orthopedic shoes. Her name tag read Maureen. She was sweet, about thirty, with a blonde beehive and thick glasses.

“Endomorphic,” I thought, sipping my soup, recalling the little genius and his moment of triumph. And I’d come across that word somewhere else recently, too.

The New Holland High School gymnasium echoed with shouts and squeaking sneakers. A vague smell of stale sweat hung in the air. I climbed halfway down the bleacher stairs from above and took a seat to watch. The coach was running a half-court drill, working on the offensive schemes with the first and second strings. The plays were designed to get the ball into Teddy J.’s hands to shoot, and he was on the mark this day, sinking six of his first eight shots. Then he caught a glimpse of me taking in the practice from the bleachers, and he lost his touch, missing his next three attempts. A couple of the upperclassmen razzed him—and me in the process—for having his “girlfriend” come to watch him. Teddy sulked. Then Coach Mahoney blew his whistle and told the boys to take a knee. Several players craned their necks to look up into the stands, and the coach took notice of me for the first time. He told the team to run a lay-up drill, while he climbed the stairs to speak to me.