Yesterday’s news, Yocke sighed to himself as he surveyed the ranks of the fashionably disheveled men and women taking seats around the table. Most of them were young, in their late twenties or early thirties. These aggressive, mortgaged-to-the-hilt graduates of prestigious colleges had replaced the overweight cigar chompers of yesteryear for whom murders were bigger news than presidential pontifications. Whether the new journalism was better was debatable, but one thing was certain: trendy cost more, a lot more. The new-age journalists of The Washington Post—always three words with the definite article capitalized, intoned the style manual — were paid about twice the real wages of the shiny-pants reporters of the manual typewriter era.
Some of this new breed dressed like fops — white collars atop striped shirts, with carefully uncoordinated padded coats and pleated trousers. How the old front page-style reporters would have hooted through their broken teeth at these dandies of the nineties!
And here was their leader, the deputy managing editor, Joseph Yangella, making his entrance. He was nattily dressed, fashionably graying, socially concerned, a man you would never see half potted at a prizefight with a floozie on his arm. He nodded right and left and settled into his seat at the head of the conference table. His shirtsleeves were rolled up and his tie was loosened, as usual. Why did he wear a tie, anyway? He got right to business.
“This Colombian doper — where is he going for trial? Ed?” Yangella looked over his glasses, which he habitually kept perched precariously on the end of his nose.
The national editor said, “We’re getting all kinds of rumblings. Senator Cherry doesn’t want him tried in Florida and is throwing his weight around. Justice isn’t saying anything. The governor of Florida is having a fit. Nothing from the White House, although we hear the attorney general went over there about an hour ago.”
“Any announcements coming?”
“Maybe later today. Nothing for sure.”
“What’s your lead right now?”
“Cherry and the governor.”
The editor nodded. He perused the slug sheet. “Another airliner bombing in Colombia?”
“Yes,” the foreign editor told him. “Seventy-six people dead, five of them Americans. The Medellín cartel is taking credit. Retaliation for the extradition of Aldana. It’s the fifth or sixth one they’ve blown up in the last couple of years. They also blew up a bank yesterday and killed another judge. We’ve got some pictures.”
The paper’s pollster spoke. “We’ve got a poll conducted by a newspaper in Miami coming in over the wires. Seventy-three percent of those polled don’t want Aldana tried in south Florida.”
“Can we get a poll here in Washington?” Yangella asked him.
“Take some time.”
The conversation moved to international affairs; political events in Germany, Moscow, and Budapest, and a flood in Bangladesh. They spent a minute discussing the efforts to rescue a child trapped in an abandoned well in Texas, a story that the TV networks were feasting on. Forty-five seconds were devoted to a new study on the reasons high schools gave diplomas to functional illiterates.
The managing editor didn’t say a word or ask a question about Jack Yocke’s murder stories. A murder is a murder is a murder, Yocke told himself. Unless you have the good fortune to be spectacularly butchered by a beautiful young woman from a filthy rich or politically prominent family, your demise is not going to make the front page of The Washington Post.
Joseph Yangella was clearing his throat to announce his decisions when the door opened and a woman from national stuck her head in.
“News conference at Justice in forty-five minutes. Rumor has it Cohen will announce that Aldana is being brought back to Washington for arraignment and trial.”
Yangella nodded. The tousled head withdrew and the door closed softly.
“All right then,” Yangella announced. “On the front page we’ll go with the doper to Washington.” He put a check mark beside each story as he announced it. “The poll in Miami, airliner bombing and violence in Colombia, flooding in Bangladesh, the kid in the well, illiterate graduates. Photos of the airliner bombing and the rescue team in Texas. Let’s do it.”
Everyone rose and strode purposefully for the door.
After dinner that evening Henry Charon bought copies of the Post and the Washington Times and took them to his room. It was after nine P.M. when he finished the papers. The assassin stood at the window a moment, looking at the lights of the city. He stretched, relieved himself in the bathroom, and put on a sweater and warm coat. The paper said the temperature might drop to forty tonight. He made sure the room door locked behind him on his way out.
CHAPTER THREE
Jack Yocke and his date could hear the voices through the door. When he knocked the door was immediately opened by a black-haired, gawky colt of a girl, about twelve years old or so. She smiled, flashing her braces, as she stood aside to allow them to pass.
“Hi,” said Jack.
“Hi. I’m Amy. My folks are here somewhere. Drinks are in the kitchen.” She spoke quickly, the words tumbling over each other.
“Jack Yocke.” He stuck out his hand solemnly. “This is Tish Samuels.”
The youngster shook hands with her eyes averted, blushing slightly. “Pleased to meet you,” she murmured.
They found their hostess in the kitchen talking with several other women. When she turned to them, Yocke said, “Mrs. Grafton, I’m Jack Yocke, one of your students. This is Tish Samuels.”
“I remember you, Mr. Yocke. You had such a terrible time with your pronunciation.” She extended her hand to Tish. “Thanks for joining us. May I fix you a drink? Snacks are in the dining room.”
“What a lovely apartment you have, Mrs. Grafton,” Tish said.
“Call me Callie.”
His duty done, Yocke left Tish to visit with the women and wandered into the dining area. He surveyed the crowd with a professional eye. His fellow students he knew, and their spouses and dates he quickly catalogued. But there were some other guests he didn’t know. He was greeting people and reminding them of his name when he saw the man he wanted to meet lounging against a wall, beer in hand, listening to a shorter man wearing a beard. Jack Yocke nodded and smiled his way through the crowd.
The bearded man was monopolizing the conversation. Yocke caught snatches of it: “… The critical factor is that real communism has never been tried … commentators ignore … still viable as an ideal….”
The trapped listener nodded occasionally, perfunctorily. Steel-rimmed glasses rode comfortably on a prominent nose set in a rather square face. His thinning, short hair was combed straight back. Just visible on his left temple was a jagged scar that had obviously been there for years. As his gaze swung across Yocke, who grinned politely, the reporter got a glimpse of gray eyes. Just now the man’s features registered polite interest, although when his eyes scanned the crowd, the expression faded.
The reporter broke in, his hand out. “Jack Yocke.”
“Jake Grafton.”
Grafton was a trim six feet tall, with just the slightest hint of tummy sag. He looked to be in his early forties. According to the people Yocke talked to, this man was destined for high command in the U.S. Navy, assuming, of course, that he didn’t stumble somewhere along the way. And Jack Yocke, future star journalist, needed access to those on their way to the high, windswept places.
“Our host,” Yocke acknowledged, and turned to the other man.