Truth Like the Sun (30 page)

The publisher sat up and Birnbaum jingled some keys as Steele slowly read the opening five paragraphs, which to Helen sounded premature and reckless.

“He changed his name?” Birnbaum blurted. “Has that ever been written before? How long have we known that? But what about the sourcing? You’ve got a convicted liar, an old woman and—”

“I said it needs work, but after hearing its
potential
, can’t we agree that this might explain why these hacks are trying to smear Helen and scare you off a story we haven’t even finished reporting yet? And as far as these people trying to run
our
newsroom, I say, and this comes from the heart, fuck ’em.”

After a prolonged shuffling of legs and rubbing of faces, the publisher quietly said, “Yes.” His face tilted upward, his eyes brightening. “Yes!” he repeated, louder this time. “Fuck ’em!”

Everybody was nodding and blushing now. Marguerite raised her arms as if they’d just kicked a field goal. “
Fuck
them!”

T
HE PECULIAR DEATH
of Rudy Costello gets little attention the day after the closing ceremonies, when the vandals and vultures descend on the fairgrounds wielding sledges, prying nails and loading trucks as if this was merely a circus being packed up—Space Needle and all—that would be reassembled next month in Barcelona, Geneva or Tokyo. Most of it is trash anyway, yet there are plenty of exotic artifacts—Filipino lamps, Chinese dolls and so much more—amid the instantly nostalgic shrapnel of placards, trinkets and brochures. Coverage of yesterday’s finale rules the newsday, of course, so it isn’t more than an aside that Mr. Costello, who owned the contracts for the county’s 1,217 pinball machines, drowned in five feet of water beside his fifty-three-foot yacht in front of his Lake Washington mansion.

Roger can’t place the name or picture the face, in part because he’s distracted by reports that the northern span of the freeway from Roanoke to Ravenna will open earlier than expected next month and that the mayor pledged to tighten gaming policies and eliminate what he calls “the poor image of law enforcement.” Roger’s digestion of all this is further disrupted by Jenny Sunshine, who informs him that a tall, officious-looking man came looking for him but declined to leave his name.

“How tall?”

She reaches as high as she can.

“Did he say when he’d be back?”

“He wanted to know when you’d be in, and I told him I had no idea,” she says playfully, “seeing as how this is the first day of your new life.”

He hastily sorts his office into piles before realizing how badly he doesn’t want to be here when Ned Gance returns, then grabs his coat and heads out to do what he’s been putting off for months now. Riding the monorail downtown, he broods over what he’ll say, every combination of words sounding so inadequate. He steps off and trudges along Fifth Avenue toward Frederick & Nelson with the gait of a man who doesn’t truly want to get where he’s going.

From a distance, coat in arm, he watches her unlock glass cabinets, cheerfully showing necklaces to one woman, rings to another. He is tempted to postpone this drama, at least for several hours, or maybe even another day, until he admits to himself that he’s leaning toward leaving town tomorrow. Finally, both shoppers waddle out.

As he closes in on her, she looks as pretty as ever, with the sort of radiance only found in someone who is genuinely happy, and he feels a reflexive desire to add to her joy, to surprise her by taking her to lunch wherever she wants to go. When she spots him, however, it’s not with the look of a fiancée but the cordial mask of a saleswoman. “Can I help you?”

“I’m sorry,” he begins, plummeting immediately to where he needs to go. “I shouldn’t have waited this long.”

“You don’t have to do this now,” she says levelly. “You’ve already said it a million different ways.”

His words catch in his throat and he clears it, astounded she’s this composed, as if all this fine jewelry gave her strength. He stalls, looking at necklaces beneath the glass until he sees the fourteen-karat Space Needle charm for $39.50 and his own pinched expression in a small oval mirror.

“If you’d been paying attention,” she says softly, “you’d have noticed I haven’t sent the invitations out yet.”

She tries to slide the ring off, but it catches on her knuckle. She spins it around once and studies it, as if making sure it’s the right one. “I don’t want to marry you either, Roger. I want someone who adores everything about me.”

He wants to help her with the ring or say something soothing but can’t seem to do anything but watch as she tugs futilely. “Please,” he whispers, “just keep it.”

She doesn’t seem to hear, then looks up not with anger but something closer to sympathy. “Don’t worry. I’ll find someone to love me.”

Right now he wished it was him.

She pulls on the diamond again and then looks past him, her taut lips sliding into a magazine smile. “Hello there, ma’am. Can I help you?”

Afterward, he drifts back to the fairgrounds and bounces around the clean-up projects, unable to let go of this spectacle, he realizes, until it’s entirely gone. Apparently the mayor is caught in this same vortex, because he’s here too, gushing about how swell everything was.

“Where’s this gonna end?” Roger asks softly.

“What?” the mayor asks, his smile lagging behind his startled eyes. “Where what ends?”

“I hear council members took money. Head of licensing too.” His voice is quiet, but he’s moving closer. “Where’s it end?”

The mayor’s lip trembles. “Look.” He pulls both pants pockets inside out. “Nothing but lint, Roger. Okay? Never got a dime, I swear. Christ almighty …”

Two hours later, he’s reliving his ineptitude with Linda and taking off his coat to help demolish a ticket booth when the planet stops spinning. “Within the past week,” President Kennedy says on every television and radio station in America, “unmistakable evidence has established the fact that a series of offensive missile sites is now in preparation on that imprisoned island.”

Roger and a swarm of workers are huddled around a small transistor outside the food pavilion as the president states the obvious: “The purpose of these bases can be none other than to provide a nuclear strike capability against the Western Hemisphere.”

Of course
, Roger tells himself. It wasn’t a stupid head cold that kept the man from the closing ceremonies.

Kennedy explains his plan to quarantine Cuba by inspecting all seaboard shipments, then drops this gauntlet: “And finally, I call upon Chairman Khrushchev to halt and eliminate this clandestine, reckless and provocative threat to world peace.” Roger’s mind hurtles ahead so fast he misses the next line. All those gushing accolades
he’d thrown out last night about
peace and universal understanding
were already being exposed as so much happy horse shit. A more apt speech might have concluded:
We threw a ridiculous six-month party on the eve of the apocalypse, but thanks for coming
. Finally Kennedy closes with this comment about his Soviet counterpart: “He has an opportunity now to move the world back from the abyss of destruction.”

PSAs follow the speech, encouraging everybody to load up on food, water, flashlights and radios. “The head of the family should have a plan of action, so panic can be avoided. If war comes, every man should be prepared so that we may survive to win and rebuild the nation.”

Afterward, there is a quiet moment of awe similar to people’s reaction when they stare into the Grand Canyon for the first time. Roger pictures Murrow in mid-inhale, squinting at him as if he were a toddler.
Boeing makes you a bull’s-eye, of course. But you already know that, right
?

When a 707 thunders overhead, vertebrae crack in thousands of necks. Roger drifts into the numb crowd around the International Fountain and stands silently among them, absently noticing the yellowed maple and alder leaves dangling loose, the slightest puff testing their resolve.

“Mr. Morgan.”

He recognizes the voice but keeps his eyes on the leaves, wishing like hell he’d already left town.

“Mr. Morgan,” the tall man says again.

“Does the federal building,” Roger asks, still staring upward, “have a bomb shelter?”

“I have no idea.”

“You should look into that.”

“Will do. But have you heard from McDaniel? We need him to testify
right
now.”

Roger turns and sees that Ned Gance is paler than ever.

“You understand this is serious, right?” Gance glares down his nose at him. “We were supposed to interview Rudy Costello yesterday,
but perhaps you heard he didn’t make it to his appointment. You want to know something else that article didn’t mention? Rudy was a competitive swimmer in high school.”

Roger hears this last bit but it doesn’t stick because he’s busy recalling a night in Club 21 when Mal Turner introduced him to a tanned and bloated man named Rudy, who shook his hand with moist, meaty fingers, one sporting a massive onyx ring that looked like it wouldn’t come off without a hacksaw.

“So you can understand,” Gance says, “why we’re a bit worried about your pal Charlie.”

Roger watches people hugging and crying and walking in circles.

Gance steps closer. “They want to subpoena you too, see. They’ve waited until the fair was over, at my personal request, but I can’t hold them off any longer. I only have so much pull, you understand?”

All of Roger’s suspicions click into place. Gance has been a double agent since the beginning, earning points with the U.S. attorney for everything he’s squeezing out of Roger while making the senator think he’s doing him all the favors.

“Why?” Roger stalls. “What could they possibly want to hear from me?”

“They want you to explain what McDaniel told you, and what you saw at the Dog House, and what you know about how the city works, that sort of thing. This is a broad investigation, understand?”

“Have you guys even figured out who’s running this goddamn thing yet?”

When Gance reaches inside his coat, Roger braces for a subpoena, but it’s just his tiny black notebook in which he jots something, then says irritably, “What
thing
would that be?”

“The network, or whatever you want to call it. Who runs it?”

Gance leans forward, his neck bowed. “There’s no godfather, if that’s what you’re asking. There’s just people who live and work here. People like your police chief and your county prosecutor and some of your other friends.”

“
My
friends?”

“Have you invested in an apartment building, Mr. Morgan?”

Roger’s voice gets small as the air pressure drops. “What?”

“Having trouble with English? Do you or do you not have a stake in the construction of an apartment building on Seventh Ave.?”

Roger stalls, amazed, wondering if Gance had botched the address. “No,” he says finally, “do you?”

Gance reshuffles his feet like a man getting ready to swing a bat. “Tell you what, I’ll do what I can to get you blanket immunity.”

Roger forces a laugh. “From what?”

“For your own peace of mind. Blanket immunity: think about it. It’s not easy to get. I can’t guarantee it, but I’d do my best, especially if you bring McDaniel in
today
. ”

Roger jingles the change in his pants pocket, realizing that Gance, like everybody else, is just guessing. “I don’t think so,” he says.

Gance cocks a thin eyebrow. “How’s that?”

“I don’t need any more of your so-called favors. Your boss has no legitimate interest in me, and he’s well aware of the risks of overreaching. If I’m wrong, come find me.”

Roger waves aside Gance’s rebuttals and legal advice and strolls off, eyes on the ground, heart thumping, his thoughts hopping from Gance’s warning to wondering what percentage of the city can squeeze into bomb shelters to reliving Linda’s emotionless response as another plane roars overhead, and all eyes, including his, swing upward.

S
HE COULD TELL
when the depleted night shift gravitated toward the newsroom TV that the mayoral debate had begun. Joining in, she listened to their mockery of the candidates. Rooney and Morgan looked exhausted. As the questions mounted, their answers warped into snide attacks on each other, an unsightly fracas in such a mannerly city. Norheim was the only one who seemed reasonable. A slight shift in countenance or tone suddenly made her look and sound more appealing, competent and
original
than the surly men smiling painfully on either side of her. The newsroom banter faded until Helen was finally staring at the television alone, realizing with a low groan that this was the fifth straight night she’d stranded Elias with another teenage babysitter.

The story had gotten away from her. She liked to work fast, but with just nine days left before the primary, everybody was rushing her. Management’s fear of getting sued had been trumped by the more unthinkable dread of getting scooped, especially with the
Times
dropping more bombs about Vitullo and his strippers backing Rooney. The latest installment featured read-aloud funny quotes from anonymous dancers who said all fifty-six performers at Vitullo’s three clubs were offered $700 in cash for every $650 check they wrote to the mayor’s campaign. Told she was among Rooney’s most generous contributors, one of the girls was quoted as saying, “I never even knew Mr. Chubby’s real name until I wrote that check.” A local weekly stole the next news cycle by offering Norheim a front-page endorsement if she came out of the closet and admitted she was a lesbian. The race was so close now—a virtual three-way tie—that every
newspaper, radio and TV station was firing off whatever they had. Given that only two candidates would survive the primary, nobody wanted to be left holding a scoop on someone who soon might no longer matter. As Marguerite kept telling Helen, “Carpe diem!”

She’d spent most of the past four days skimming grand-jury transcripts and tracking down cops who’d testified. One former sergeant politely declined to talk and then, the second time she called, suggested she leave him alone. When she then knocked on his peeling front door, he looked at her through a swirl of whiskers and slurred, “Get off my porch, you communist slut.” Another retired cop who’d testified in ’62 told her he didn’t recall hearing anything disparaging about Morgan other than that he preferred married women. She tried to find the U.S. attorney who’d led the crusade only to discover that James Stockton had been dead since 1971 after a forgettable six years in Congress; his deputies and assistants also had vanished.