“Mike?” Terrell said. “You still there?”
“Sure.” Karsh’s voice had changed; he sounded very tired and very sad. “I wouldn’t go without saying good-bye, son. You should know that.”
“Don’t go outside. Sit in that booth. You hear?”
“Sam, I played it tough tonight. It wasn’t the way I felt. But there was nothing else to do. Trying to re-establish yourself in someone’s... well, it’s no go. But Sam—”
“You listen to me,” Terrell said sharply. “Don’t seduce yourself with visions of a grandstand gesture. Stay put. You hear me?”
“Sure, you’re yelling like a fishwife,” Karsh said. “But you listen to me. I’m sorry I let things change between us. I’m sorry I let that happen. I’m sorry about everything. I should have said this simply and quietly to your face. But there wasn’t time.”
“There’s time now,” Terrell said. He could hear Tuckerman talking to a sergeant in the Hall. “Time for anything you want to say. Let’s have that drink and talk things over.”
“We always think there’s time,” Karsh said. Suddenly his voice was sharp and hard again, and running through it was the familiar thread of good-humored mockery. “Take it easy, kid. You’ve got the world ahead of you. And you’re a Mike Karsh product, genuine and unadulterated. Remember what I taught you about the newspaper business, will you?” Karsh’s voice trembled slightly, and then he recovered himself and said quickly, “Will you do that? Remember what I taught you on the job? And forget everything else? Everything I did?”
“Of course, Mike. Of course. But sit still. We’re coming—” Terrell stared at the phone in his hand. The connection was broken.
“A squad is on the way,” Tuckerman said.
“Sam, come here!” Ollie Wheeler called. He was at the big, floor-to-ceiling window staring down at the street. The rain had streaked the thick glass with long silver lines. Terrell went to Wheeler’s side, jarred by the urgency in his voice. Tuckerman and Williams came up behind him, and Wheeler said, “Tickets, please,” in a bitter lifeless voice.
The street below them was dark except for a patch of light that fell on the shining pavement from the all-night restaurant.
Terrell saw Karsh standing in that square of brilliance, his figure square and blocky, his face shadowed by the brim of his homburg. Even from the distance that separated them, Terrell could see the cigarette holder in Karsh’s mouth, and the gleam of the white silk muffler at his throat.
A car swung into the street a half block away and came toward Karsh with its lights turned off; it rolled silently through the darkness, angling toward him with the fluidity of a shadow. Karsh turned to meet it, moving purposefully, his arms swinging with an easy rhythm and his cigarette holder cocked at a jaunty angle.
It was a pantomime they witnessed, a dumb show; the sound-proofed walls of the Call-Bulletin sealed them into a cocoon of silence.
The car picked up speed suddenly and shot past Karsh. When it was gone, swaying on its springs at the next intersection, Karsh lay in the gutter looking small and unreal, like a broken toy in a child’s make-believe of life and death. The silence made the tableau infinitely more terrible.
For an instant Terrell didn’t realize what had happened; he thought Karsh had thrown himself out of the car’s path. It wasn’t until he saw the fragments of glass gleaming in the sidewalk that he knew Karsh was dead; the bullets that killed him had also smashed the window in the restaurant.
Wheeler made a harsh, whimpering noise in his throat and struck the window before him with the flat of his hand. “Garbage collections will be improved. Taxes will be lowered a tenth of a mill. That’s reform, that’s progress.” His voice was shaking.
“Cellars is through,” someone said. “And Ticknor is all finished.” For some reason the comment struck Terrell as irrelevant.
He turned and sat down wearily at a desk. Karsh didn’t have to... This was the thought running through his mind. Except to prove — to prove what? That he was Mike Karsh. That he could make the gesture. No trip to South America with a tidy collection of blue-chip stocks. No screams of innocence. He had handled the story superbly — at last. The Night Extra was a writ of habeas corpus for Caldwell, an epitaph for Mike Karsh. He was the man I wanted him to be, Terrell thought. Finally. By a devious, preposterous route he had gone to glory.
Tuckerman brushed his shoulder with a fist as he walked back to the city desk, and Ollie Wheeler said, “I’d like to get drunk tonight. Anyone interested?”
“Sure,” Williams muttered. “Why not?”
The tears stung Terrell’s eyes. He had never felt this way in his life before — lost and hurt and alone. Later he would go out to the hospital, and that would be all right. The doctor had said to be good to her, and he wanted to do that very much. He wouldn’t feel alone then. But now he hurt all over.
Above him the illuminated second hand made its last circuit before deadline and the loud, warning bell rang shrilly. Everyone looked up at the clock. The forms were locked up, the presses were ready to start rolling.
Terrell folded his arms over the typewriter on the desk and put his head down wearily. When the bell stopped ringing, its echoes lingered in the long room for a few seconds, and then trembled slowly away into the silence.