One of the girls came over to him with a button for his lapel, but Terrell smiled and told her no thanks. He gave her his name and asked for Caldwell.
“Mr. Caldwell’s not here right now, but please don’t go away. I know Mr. Sarnac will want to see you. He handles the press for us.”
“Well, good for him,” Terrell said.
“Now don’t go away.” She hurried off, her pony-tail bobbing with excitement, and several of the girls looked Terrell over with what he rather hoped was a new interest.
In a few seconds a small man came through a door at the end of the room, and hurried toward Terrell. They shook hands, introduced themselves, and Sarnac asked him to come into his office. “We can relax out of this traffic,” he said, laughing a bit too quickly. “There’s always a mob up here. Remember that for your story. Good little touch, eh? It’s what you’d call color, I guess.”
Amateurs, Terrell thought, as he followed Sarnac into a cloakroom that had been put to use as an office. Filing cabinets and desks took up one wall and campaign pictures of Caldwell were piled high on a table under the windows. Rolls of election posters were stacked in a corner.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Terrell? Just sit down anywhere.” Sarnac bustled about removing leaflets from a straight-backed chair and piling them on the floor. “Here, sit down, please. We don’t have very formal appointments, I’m afraid. However, we’re not complaining.” He smiled rather wistfully at Terrell, an unimpressive little man with dark hair and a sallow complexion; in his gray sack suit and rimless glasses he could lose himself quickly and effortlessly in any crowded street in America.
“How do you fit into this set-up?” Terrell asked him.
Sarnac seemed somewhat flustered by the question. “Me? Why I’m Mr. Caldwell’s press secretary. And I’ve worked on the campaign booklets, radio and TV announcements and so forth.”
“Are you on a regular salary?”
“No, I’m on leave from Union College for this semester.” Sarnac looked puzzled now. “But I thought you wanted to talk about Mr. Caldwell.”
“Perhaps I was being irrelevant,” Terrell said. There had been nothing accidental in his approach; he wanted Sarnac off balance. “Would you go back to college if Caldwell were elected? Or stick with him?” He took out his cigarettes and looked around for an ashtray.
“I’m not sure — I haven’t really made up my mind yet. Here, use this, please,” Sarnac said, pushing a saucer toward Terrell. “Ashtrays disappear in the most mysterious fashion around here.”
“Thanks. Now tell me about Eden Myles,” Terrell said. “I know she’s been seeing Caldwell. But I’d like the rest of the story.” He smiled at the stricken look on Sarnac’s face. “There are no secrets in a political campaign. Not for long, at any rate.”
Sarnac stood and removed his glasses. “I haven’t the faintest notion what you’re talking about. Not the faintest.”
Terrell smoked his cigarette and let the silence stretch tightly across the dusty little room. Sarnac replaced his glasses and sat down behind his desk. “You heard me! I don’t know where you came across this absurd rumor, but I can assure you it’s completely false.”
“Now, please,” Terrell said in a pained voice.
“I have no further comment. None at all.”
“You deny categorically that Caldwell and Eden Myles have been — in conference?”
“I deny nothing. I make no comment at all.”
“That’s too bad.” Terrell smiled and got to his feet.
“One moment. Would you mind telling me where you heard this story?”
“I would mind very much. However, since it’s not true, what difference does it make?”
Sarnac came around his desk, frowning unhappily at Terrell. “We seem to have got off on the wrong foot. I didn’t mean to antagonize you. But you simply can’t use this preposterous rumor in your column.”
“I don’t think it’s just a rumor,” Terrell said. “And I think it will make a nice item. Incomplete, speculative, but interesting.”
“You can’t—”
“Listen to me, Sarnac. Every fifty dollar a week press agent knows what I’m going to tell you. You can’t keep news out of newspapers. Good, bad, a break for one side, a knee in the groin to the other — it goes in. And all you can do is hope your client’s name is spelled right.”
Sarnac was visibly disturbed; his face was white and there were tiny blisters of perspiration on his upper lip. “This is a very serious matter,” he said. “Could I talk to you off the record?”
“No.” Terrell said. “I’m not a bartender or a cab driver. I don’t listen to gossip for the fun of it. I’m a reporter. What I hear I use.”
“You’re very tough and shrewd, aren’t you? A typical product of the Call-Bulletin and Mike Karsh.”
“You can forget Mike Karsh,” Terrell said. “And you can skip the high moral tone. You’re trying to make a deal. You’ll tell the truth but only if I don’t use it. Isn’t that your proposition?”
“I didn’t mean it that way,” Sarnac said wearily. “You don’t seem to want to discuss this. You just want to fight about it.”
“I’ll tell you what,” Terrell said, smiling slightly. “You convince me I’ll get a better story by waiting a few days — then we’ll stop fighting.”
“Yes, I can do that,” Sarnac said. “I’ll give you everything, the background, the details. Then you’ll see that the important story is still in the making. Sit down, please.” Sarnac rubbed his hands together nervously. “I’m telling you this on my own responsibility. Mr. Caldwell is speaking in Borough Hall this morning, and I’m not sure I could get through to him. Also, I wouldn’t care to discuss it on the phone.” Sarnac cleared his throat and glanced at the door behind Terrell. Then he said, “Eden Myles called us six weeks ago. She had information concerning the incumbent administration, Mayor Ticknor and Ike Cellars — and she wanted us to have it. We arranged a meeting between her and Mr. Caldwell, in a suite at the Armbruster Hotel. Since then they have had five more conferences. Now, you can see—”
“Just one second. Has he been meeting her alone?”
Sarnac smiled. “We’re naive and innocent people who shouldn’t be allowed out after dark. This is Mayor Ticknor’s idea, at any rate. However, we’re not completely stupid. Every time Eden Myles has talked to Mr. Caldwell there have been witnesses present — men and women of unimpeachable reputation. Also, every conversation between them has been recorded on tape.”
“One other thing. Does Eden want money for her information?”
“No. She seems to want revenge. I gather that she’d had a split with her — steady friend, a man by the name of Frankie Chance. He works for Ike Cellars. Eden wants to pay them off, it seems.”
“And what sort of information is she producing? Anything good?”
“Not at first. And we weren’t too hopeful. It seemed to us she imagined she knew a great deal simply because she had accompanied a variety of notorious characters to the track and to nightclubs. But then, under our questioning, her memory sharpened. She began to dredge up more significant information. This dredging-up process has been going on for six weeks now, and the bucket is coming up with — I seem involved suddenly in metaphor — well, it’s coming up thicker and thicker all the time.”
“And what’s it going to prove?” Terrell asked him. “That Ike Cellars runs the rackets in town, that Ticknor has been re-elected for years by fraudulent registration in the river wards? That there’s graft in high places?”