Liz was hesitant.
“Oh, Mr. Swift, there’s nothing I’d rather do more, but I’ve still got a semester to go at school. Can I come back when I’ve finished?”
Swift fluffed his beard. “Young woman, do you know how many jobs there are in daily journalism in this country? About five thousand, and I’m told there are fifty thousand journalism students in the United States. You’re a talented youngster, but I’m sure there are others just as gifted who would jump at this opportunity. I’m offering it to you now, but I can’t hold the place. It may be filled when you get that precious diploma.”
Frank, standing behind Swift, was listening to all this and when Liz looked helplessly at him responded with a wink. She smiled and said, “Mr. Swift, you’ve got yourself a photographer. ”
“A photographer’s assistant, young woman. You did an excellent job in a dicey situation, but don’t get the idea you’ve mastered your craft. You’ve got an apprenticeship to serve, and it isn’t going to be as exciting as your first taste of the job. But with Mr. Tandee’s help, we can make you into a photographer.”
Liz looked down at her shoes, appropriately chastened. Swift told her to report to Tandee, who already had been informed he might be getting an assistant. Whine had been complaining for years that the paper needed a second shooter, but of course his reaction, expressed over a beer at the Next Door, was, “Hell. Now I got to play teacher for some young broad that got lucky. And I suppose she’ll be rubbing up against Swift and Grace to get the good jobs/’
As it turned out, Liz was well aware that she had a lot to learn and quickly established a relationship with Whine that made clear she was willing to do the donkey work in the lab if he would give her the pointers she needed to master the camera work. In a week, Whine was worrying aloud about how he’d be able to get Liz on the payroll as a regular photographer after he broke her in on the job.
I had a drink with Frank before he left. He gave me several telephone numbers where I could reach him at the university and suggested that I compare notes with Liz on anything I turned up.
“She knows what you’re looking for?”
“A sharp young lady, Bob. She figured out before we came here that I was interested in something besides the way this sheet is produced. I told her months ago that we were going to do the short course between semesters in the city, and when I switched signals she guessed that I had one of my little sideline jobs. Yep, she knows, and if I’d had any idea she would be staying here, I wouldn’t have had to bring you into this.”
I must have looked a little offended, because he reached over the table and tapped my arm. “Now don’t get your back up, Bob. She isn’t in a position to see and hear what you can and the way it works out, I’ve got twice as many eyes and ears here than I expected. But do keep in touch with her. If anyone gets nosey, it’ll look more natural if she’s contacting me regularly than if you are.”
Jesus. It was obvious that Swift wasn’t the only semi-paranoid I was dealing with.
But it was surprising how soon I had something to pass on to Frank, and how quickly I found myself playing cloak and dagger.
About a week later, I was leaving a senate budget hearing during a recess when Ed Ridgely, the state commerce commissioner, beckoned me over to his seat in the back of the committee room. Next to him was a tall, gray-haired man I had seen before but couldn’t place.
“Sit down if you’re not in a hurry, Bob,” Ridgely said. “You know Marty Gonsalves here?”
I leaned across and shook the man’s hand. “I should, but…”
“He’s the manager of Capital International. You’ve probably seen him out there.”
“Oh sure,” I said. “I covered a news conference you had when the airport expansion bill was before the legislature.”
“Marty tells me the paper is getting into air transport. What’s it all about?”
I remembered the stuff in the incorporation papers about transportation, but couldn’t imagine that was what he was talking about.
“Search me, Ed. What do you mean ‘getting into air transport’?”
“Marty says the paper has bought a helicopter and is renting hangar space at his place. You don’t know about it?”
“Hell, Ed, the owners must have forgotten to clear it with me. Maybe we’re gonna be using it to flit around the state covering stories.”
“Not in this sucker,” Gonsalves said.
“No?”
“Not likely. The helicopter you all are getting is for toting a hell of a lot heavier loads than reporters. It’s a Sikorsky CH54A…. one of those humungous big machines the army uses to hoist big stuff, like bridge trusses and trucks. Some lumber and construction companies have em, too. Funny-lookin’ things—about seventy feet long, nose to tail, and skinny—look like grasshoppers, but they call em Sky-cranes.”
“First damn thing I heard about it, Marty. Is it already out at the airport?”
Gonsalves obviously felt set up to be telling a reporter something about his own business. “It was ferried in day before yesterday. They’re fitting it out now for your pilot.”
“Our pilot?”
“Sure, that little fellow, the Jap, or whatever he is. They’re putting in a new seat and modifying the controls so he can reach em. I tell you, I never would have spotted the runty little guy for a chopper jockey, but he showed me his license. He’s checked out in just about anything you can get to leave the ground.”
“You’re talking about Shiu? Shigetsu Shiu?”
“That’s what it says on his ticket. He didn’t have a lot to say, but I take it he learned to fly copters in Laos or Vietnam or one of those damn places. When he came in, I said that was a lot of aircraft to handle, and he got a little puffed up and said it ain’t hard at all if people ain’t shooting at you, like where he first started flying.”
I thought about that all afternoon and decided I ought to pass it on to Sanders. I went by the paper after work, but Liz wasn’t in the photo lab, so I tried the Next Door. The regulars were in the usual booth and Liz was sitting down the row with some of the younger staff members. Kirk Bright was there and an older guy, a hulk in a tight sports jacket, was sitting next to him. I’d never seen him around, but the paper was hiring a lot of new people.
I had a beer with the regulars and when Liz got up and headed for the ladies’, I patted my pocket and said I was out of cigarettes. I went to the bar, asked for change, and chatted with the bartender until I spotted Liz coming out. Then I walked back to the cigarette machine and met her in the aisle.
“Need to talk,” I said in what I hoped was a mutter. “Half an hour in the Clark bar?” She smiled and nodded and went back to her friends.
I finished my beer, excused myself and left by the rear door, the closest route to the paper’s parking lot, and the way out most of the staff used when they headed home. I walked down the alley, around the block and into the side door of the Clark Hotel, across the street from the Next Door.
The bar was small and dark and I sat at one of those tables the size of a Susan B. Anthony dollar near the door. Liz showed up in about forty minutes and looked into the gloom. I stood up and touched her arm.
“Here.”
“Oh, hi, Bob. Sorry it took me so long, but I wanted to hear what Kirk was talking about. Swift has given him a special assignment, and it sounds to me like it’s going to be something.”
“Now what?” I asked.
“Swift wants an expose of the massage parlors off Capitol Circle. He says this town has a red-light district operating as wide open as Times Square, and nobody seems to be paying attention. He picked Kirk cause he’s new in town and he wants him to do some first-person pieces about what goes on in The Three Bares and the Fugue U Ranch.” Liz giggled.