HIM: McGinnis is dead, you dumb fuck! I buried him in the desert. Just like I was going to bury your bitch when I was through with her. Me: Why didn’t you just run? Why risk everything to go for her?
HIM: No answer.
When I was finished I read it a couple of times and made a few fixes and additions. Larry was right. It came down to that last question. Courier had been about to respond but I’d used the distraction to catch him off guard. I didn’t regret that. The distraction may have saved my life. But I sure wished I had an answer to the question I had asked.
The next morning the Times basked in the glow of national news exposure and I was along for the ride. I had written none of the stories causing the nationwide media stir but I was the subject of two of them. My phone never stopped buzzing and my e-mail box over-flowed early.
But I didn’t answer my calls or e-mails. I wasn’t basking. I was brooding. I had spent the night with the unanswered question I had posed to Marc Courier, and no matter which way I considered it, things didn’t add up. What was Courier doing there? What was the great reward for such a large risk? Was it Rachel? The abduction and murder of a federal agent would certainly place McGinnis and Courier in the upper pantheon of killers whose deadly lore made them household names. But was that what they wanted? There had been no indication that these two were interested in harnessing public attention. They had carefully planned and camouflaged their murders. The attempt to abduct Rachel did not fit with the history leading up to it. And so there had to be another reason.
I started to look at it from another angle. I thought about what would have happened if I had gone to Los Angeles and Courier had been successful in grabbing Rachel and getting her out of the hotel.
It seemed likely to me that the abduction would have been discovered shortly after it occurred, when the room service waiter did not report back to the kitchen. I estimated that within an hour the hotel would have been a hive of activity. The FBI would have swarmed the hotel and the area, knocked on every door and turned over every rock in an attempt to find and rescue one of their own. But by then Courier would have been long gone.
It was clear the abduction would have drawn the bureau in and caused a massive distraction from its investigation of McGinnis and Courier. But it was also clear that this would be only a temporary shift. My guess was that before noon the next day, agents would be coming in by the planeload in a federal show of might and determination. This would allow them to overcome any distraction and put even more pressure on the investigation, all the while maintaining a suffocating effort to find Rachel.
The more I thought about it, the more I wished I’d given Courier the chance to answer that last question: Why didn’t you run?
I didn’t have the answer and it was too late to get it directly from the source. So I kept working it around in my head until it was all there was to think about.
“Jack?”
I looked over the wall of my cubicle and saw Molly Robards, the secretary to the assistant managing editor.
“Yes?”
“You’re not answering your phone and your e-mail box is full.”
“Yeah, I’m getting too many-is that a problem?”
“Mr. Kramer would like to see you.”
“Oh, okay.”
I didn’t make a move but neither did she. It was clear she had been sent to retrieve me. I finally pushed my chair back and got up.
Kramer was waiting for me with a big, phony smile on his face. I had a feeling that whatever he was about to tell me was not his idea. I took this as a good sign, since his ideas were seldom good ones.
“Jack, sit down.”
I did. He straightened things up on his desk before proceeding.
“Well, I’ve got some good news for you.”
He gave me the smile again. The same one he’d had on when he told me I was out.
“Really?”
“We’ve decided to withdraw your termination plan.”
“What’s that mean? I’m not laid off?”
“Exactly.”
“What about my pay and benefits?”
“Nothing’s changed. Same old same old.”
It was just like Rachel getting her badge back. I felt a trill of excitement but then reality hit home.
“So what’s that mean, you lay somebody else off instead of me?”
Kramer cleared his throat.
“Jack, I’m not going to lie to you. Our objective was to drop one hundred slots in editorial by June first. You were number ninety-nine-it was that close.”
“So I keep my job and somebody else gets the ax.”
“Angela Cook will be the ninety-ninth slot. We won’t be replacing her.”
“That’s convenient. Who is the big one hundred?”
I swiveled in the chair and looked out through the glass at the newsroom.
“Bernard? GoGo? Collins-”
Kramer cut me off.
“Jack, I can’t discuss that with you.”
I turned back to him.
“But somebody else is about to get the hook because I got to stay. What happens after this story winds down? Will you call me back in here and can me all over again?”
“We’re not expecting another involuntary reduction in force. The new owner has made it-”
“What about the next new owner? And the one after that?”
“Look, I didn’t bring you in here so you could preach to me. The news business is undergoing serious changes. It’s a life-and-death struggle. The question is, do you want to keep your job or not? I’m offering it to you.”
I swiveled all the way around so my back was to him and I was looking out at the newsroom. I wouldn’t miss the place. I would only miss some of the people. Without turning back to Kramer I gave him my answer.
“This morning my literary agent in New York woke me up at six. He said he had gotten me an offer for a two-book deal. A quarter million dollars. It would take me almost three years to make that here. And on top of that, I got a job offer from the Velvet Coffin. Don Goodwin is starting an investigations page on his website. To sort of pick up the slack where the Times drops the ball. Doesn’t pay a lot but it pays. And I can work from home-wherever that may be.”
I stood up and turned back to Kramer.
“I told him yes. So thanks for the offer but you can put me down as number one hundred on your thirty list. After tomorrow, I’m gone.”
“You took a job with a competitor?” Kramer said indignantly.
“What did you expect? You laid me off, remember?”
“But I’m rescinding that,” he sputtered. “We already made our quota.”
“Who? Who’d you fire?”
Kramer looked down at his desk and whispered the latest victim’s name.
“Michael Warren.”
I shook my head.
“It figures. The one guy in the newsroom I wouldn’t give the time of day and now I’m saving his job. You can hire’m back, because I don’t want your job anymore.”
“Then I want you to clear your desk out right now. I’ll call security and have you escorted out.”
I smiled down at him as he picked up the phone.
“Fine by me.”
I found an empty cardboard box in the copy shop and ten minutes later was filling it with the things I wanted to keep from my desk. The first to go in was the worn red dictionary my mother had given me. After that, there wasn’t much else worth keeping. A Mont Blanc desk clock which somehow had never been stolen, a red stapler and a few files containing call sheets and source contacts. That was it.
A guy from security watched over me as I packed and I got the feeling it wasn’t the first time he had been placed in such an awkward position. I took mercy on him and didn’t blame him for just doing his job. But having him standing at my desk was like waving a flag. Soon Larry Bernard came over.
“What’s going on? You have till tomorrow.”
“Not anymore. Crammer told me to hit the road.”
“How come? What did you do?”