But, though Kit didn’t buy the act, Leo always made him feel like the tallest, whitest gooney bird on earth. Leo stood a foot shorter and a good eighty pounds baggier. Out here among his product samples, he kept his chest thrust up.
“Kit, kid,” he repeated.
Was the nickname part of the charade? “Leo,” Kit said, “I need to ask a favor.”
“Really, hey. He-ey, no kidding. I was just thinking I had to ask you a favor.”
“Me? You need something from me?”
“Yeah. He-ey. Maybe you and me, we can help each other.”
Didn’t waste any time, did he? Wondering, Kit followed Leo down a buckskin-colored corridor.
A more formal space, the CEO’s office was decorated by reproductions of murals from Pompeii, scenes of gladiators and heroes. Their reds and flesh-tones had darkened under centuries of ash. On a corner of Leo’s desk sat a white block of stone. A piece of Roman marble, the man had told Kit proudly. Coliseum marble, Leo had said, momentarily revealing a cool appraiser’s eye.
This morning, Kit found himself stalling and unable to sit. He talked about Zia’s piece in the first issue. Saturday night, at the paper’s publication party, Leo’s daughter had gotten a lot of compliments. “Everybody I talked to was impressed. These are professionals, Leo.”
The old man had made hiring his daughter the single non-negotiable stipulation of financing. He’d let Kit look over a couple of Zia’s papers from UMass Boston, plus a club review she’d placed in the Real Paper. These might have held a glimmer of something, a few bubbles of possibility. But nothing had prepared Kit for the intelligence and style of her first full-length piece.
“There was an editor from the Globe,” Kit went on, “who said she’d like to have Zia do some work for her.” Rachel Veutri, an old friend who now worked for the Sunday magazine. “And I’ll tell you, this is a woman who doesn’t know anything about punk rock. She’d never even heard of the band.”
“Human Sexual Response,” the father said.
“Human Sexual Response.”
“Wise guys.” The father blinked impassively. “A buncha faggots.”
It didn’t take Leo long to put Kit uptight. Human Sexual Response was a gay group, mostly anyway. Their songlist included a ditty named “Buttfuck,” and in interview their leader liked to talk about San Francisco’s new homosexual councilman Harvey Milk. Zia had proven admirably balanced on the subject, neither backing away nor making a fuss.
“Faggots,” Leo repeated. “I mean, these are the kind of people? The people my daughter runs with?”
“Leo, frankly, I thought it would never work either. You remember I had doubts about that kind of thing for Sea Level. That kind of … entertainment coverage.”
Oh Kit, stalling and feinting. When he and Leo had discussed their contract, this had been Kit’s lame attempt at an argument against hiring the man’s daughter. She didn’t fit the editorial stance, he’d said, or tried to say. Sea Level was supposed to cover hard news.
“I remember,” Leo said.
Kit twisted the paper stick in his hands. The way Leo sounded, just now, you’d think he wanted nothing to do with Sea Level. This had always been the bedrock quandary of working with him — once Leo had made sure his daughter went on the payroll, he’d acted as if the paper itself were incidental. Stranger still, so far as Kit could see, Zia hadn’t needed Pop to buy her a paper. She’d been making headway, breaking into print. Why hadn’t the old man just set her up with a computer?
Kit had fallen a long way from this morning’s good news. Abruptly, half angrily, he told Leo: “So, listen, there’s something you should know.”
Kit told him and went on to point out how neatly the BBC’s timing — going into the prison Thursday morning — fit Sea Level’s deadlines. And he brought up the danger of doing nothing. “I mean, Leo, you can bet the Globe’s going after this hammer and tong.” The confirmation call this morning, in fact, had come from a Globe stringer. “You can bet that, right this minute, there’s someone at the Globe who’s on the line to the State House.”
Folding back into place beside the desk, he gave the old man a long moment to reply.
“But see,” Kit continued finally, “so far I have an advantage on the Globe. I know more than they do.”
The stringer had been in touch with the BBC about an entirely different matter. He’d been part of a Globe Spotlight investigation into the city’s current arson wave. Small world, that investigation had helped Kit think of Cousin Cal. The stringer had mentioned that in two recent arson cases, two apartment buildings that had burned down over Christmas, title was held by Halterstock & Steyes.
“Right now,” Kit said after another long moment, “I know more about Monsod Penitentiary than just about anyone in the city. All I need is some help from the Building Commission.”
The stringer had been so talkative, of course, because he was fishing for an assignment. Since Kit had reached the editor’s side of the desk, freelancers had gotten a lot more generous with tips, ideas, whatever they had. Today’s was typical, a Monday-morning eager beaver. So why was this old man before him just sitting there, a Brando-on-a-log?
“The BBC takes a reporter along every now and then,” Kit said. “A reporter or a politician or somebody.”
The old man’s hands lay still. His vest, bunched up around his slouch, revealed a shadow-silver lining.
“They’ll take someone along now and then,” Kit repeated. “Even if it’s dangerous.”
“Dangerous,” Leo said. His voice came rheumy, showing his age. “Hey Kit, yeah. A place like that could be dangerous.”
“Ahh …”
“They got murderers in there, Kit,” the old man said. “Murderers, rapists, real slime. They had a riot a coupla months ago, right?”
“There’ve been disturbances, yeah. They’ve had trouble on and off for a year now.” Trouble enough to prick up Kit’s muckraker antennae. Once he had the paper up and running, Monsod was the first place he looked for a story.
“Disturbances, bullshit. They put a guard in the hospital. Kit, there’s no telling what those animals might do.”
Kit refolded his arms.
“They’re gorillas in there, Kit. Dangerous guys.”
But surely Leo realized the BBC people would have a security escort. A proper inspection wouldn’t allow for contact with the prisoners. “I mean,” Kit said, “they’ve got a job to do, these inspectors. Just to check out that closet …”
“Oh yeah, the closet,” Leo cut in. “That’s an incredible story, Kit. Where’d you get something like that?”
Where’d he get it?
“See Kit, that closet, I mean, that’s just what I’m talking about. That’s really dangerous, Kit. Where’d you ever hear about that?”
“Leo, come on now.” Kit was careful to smile. “I don’t remember anything in the contract about giving you my sources.”
The publisher had worked himself forward in his chair, gesturing. At this he dropped his hands.
“Kit, I’m not kidding around here. Monsod, a place like that, they’ll rip you open and pull you inside-out.”
“Leo,”
“Place like that, no way you want to go in there.”
“Leo, I have to.”
Back to the silent treatment. His heavy face hidden, Leo fingered the white hunk of stone between them, the two-thousand-year-old marble. Kit knew enough to leave him alone. Leo must have long since figured out what he was here to ask. In fact in the next half-minute, Kit realized he knew this old worker with the horny palms better than he’d thought.