Basket Case (12 page)

The old days, a newsroom at this hour reeked of coffee and cigarettes and stale pizza. You'd hear the wire machines chittering and the police scanners gabbling and the pasteup guys snorting at dirty jokes.

But like most papers, the Union-Register switched to early deadlines to cut costs, so there's hardly a soul around at this late hour. If a plane goes down or the mayor has another coronary, come daybreak we're sucking hind tit to the TV stations.

These days we buy the loyalty of readers with giveaways and grocery coupons, not content. This makes for less clutter, so our newsroom is as spiffy as a downtown Allstate agency, complete with earth-tone carpeting. Every editor and reporter has a personal cubicle with padded pressboard walls and a computer station and a file drawer and a phone with a headset. Some days, we might as well be selling term life.

Nobody barks or shouts anymore, they "message" each other from their terminals. The old days, phones in a newsroom never quit ringing even after the final edition was put to bed. Tonight, as most nights, the place is oppressively silent except for torpid electronic bloops from the PCs (most editors favor the tropical aquarium screen-saver option, while the reporters go for intergalactic warfare motifs).

Still, these desolate gaps in the news cycle can be useful. Emma isn't here to circle like a kestrel, and young Evan, the intern, isn't around to dart in and pepper me with questions. Actual fact-gathering is possible. Addictive new technology allows one to sit at a desktop and browse tax rolls, real estate transactions, court files, arrest records, driver's licenses, marriage licenses and divorce decrees, as well as current periodicals, medical journals, trade publications, corporate reports—the bottomless maw of the Internet.

Also accessible are the library banks of other newspapers, large and small; a treasure trove. The only problem is that many papers have come online only within the last decade, and they don't always backfile the morgue stories into computer memory. Consequently, the odds are not so good of locating information about a man who died, say, at least twenty years ago.

But my mother claimed she read it in a newspaper, my father's obituary. And I've nothing better to do than go hunting.

On the keyboard I tap out T-A-G-G-E-R, J-A-C-K.

The joke's on me. Within moments the screen flashes a directory of thirty-six stories, all too familiar. The search engine seems to have locked onto my byline, resulting in an instant and unwanted sampling of my own work. Scrolling through past glories, written before my time on the obit beat, I'm amused to see that several of the Orrin Van Gelder stories popped up, all the way from Gadsden County. Evidently that stands as the pinnacle of my journalism career, at least in electronic dataland. Maybe Jimmy Stoma can change that.

At the moment, though, it's the other Jack Tagger that keeps me plodding through the search directory. But he's nowhere to be found, my father, evidently having died pre-Web. Any record of the event must therefore exist as a yellowed clipping in a musty old folder in some musty old newspaper warehouse. It's likely my mother herself saved a copy, although I doubt she'd admit it. This is some fucked-up game she's playing.

I sign off, lock the desk and head for home. While driving by Carla Candilla's place I see lights in the window and pull a U-turn. I call from a phone booth and she says to come on over, she's all alone and coloring her hair.

"Orange!" I say at the door.

"No, 'Lava,'" Carla says. "Because I'm worth it. Get your ass in here, I'm dripping all over the place."

She's wearing a full-length bathrobe appropriated from the Delano Hotel. I follow her to the kitchen where she toils with her soggy tendrils at the sink. I deliver a compressed but colorful account of my penthouse interview with Cleo Rio, and the celebrity scene at Jimmy Stoma's funeral.

Carla is an avid interrogator.

"What'd she look like?"

"Tan and glassy-eyed."

"The Case of the Suntanned Widow? Was Russell Crowe there?"

"Not that I recall."

"Come on, Blackjack. Rumor has him bonking Cleo."

"I saw no bonking."

"How 'bout Enrique?" Carla demands.

"Enrique who?"

She shrieks from beneath her marinating dome of hair. "How can you be so… out of if?"

"Cleo's supposedly bonking this Enrique, too?"

"You should've taken me along, Jack. You let me down," Carla teases. "You let me down, you done me wrong."

I feel obliged to inquire about the lava-hued tresses. "For a special event?"

"Saturday night," she says. "Every Saturday night is a special event."

"New boyfriend?"

"Nah," Carla says. "New mood."

She has completed some critical phase of the tinting process. Now we move to the living room where she trowels moss-colored clay on her face. Only eyes, lips and nostrils remain visible.

"So. Blackjack."

"Yeah."

"Think Cleo offed her old man?"

"I honestly can't say. Nobody performed an autopsy and now the body's been cremated so we might never know. Maybe Jimmy drowned just like they said, or maybe he had help. In any case, the widow is making the most of the moment."

Carla says, "I can't fucking believe she sang at the funeral."

"To plug her new CD."

"Skank. What's your story gonna say?"

A damn good question. "Well, I hope it'll say that Jimmy's sister wants a full investigation of the circumstances of his death. I hope it's going to say there are inconsistencies among the witnesses."

"Who are… ?" Carla asks through her frogskin cast.

"Cleo, of course, and Jay Burns," I say, "one of the old Slut Puppies. He buddied up with Jimmy for the dive."

"What if he backs up Cleo's story?"

"Then I drink myself silly and crawl back to the cave of dead rabbis."

Carla points to her face. "Can't talk. It's hardening."

The phone rings. She signals for me to pickup.

"Candilla residence," I answer in a British butler accent.

"Who is this?"

"Oh hi, Anne." Voice skips. Heart flops. Tongue turns to chalk.

"Jack?"

"Carla's in her mud mask. She can't move her mouth."

On the other end I hear a familiar sigh. Then: "What are you doing over there?"

Twitching like a junkie, I'm tempted to say.

"We're gossiping about fashion, music and models. Carla says I'm 'out of it,' which is surely an understatement. Now I've got a question for you: Why bother your hardworking offspring so late at night?"

A soft laugh. "I just got in, Jack."

"Oh."

"From out of town," she says.

How clever of me to ask. Smoothly I drop the subject.

"Well. You doing okay?"

"I'm good," Anne says. "How about yourself?"

"Better," I lie. "I'm surviving age forty-six just fine. No more obsessing. And this was a heavy year for bad karma—JFK and Elvis."

"And don't forget Oscar Wilde," Anne tosses in.

"Wilde? I thought he was forty-five."

"No, forty-six," she says. "I wouldn't have known except I just saw one of his plays in London. They had a biography in the Playbill. How're things at work?"

I find myself rattled by the Oscar Wilde bulletin, and also by the idea of Anne traveling to England without me.

Meaning with somebody else.

"Jack?"

"Everything's great at the paper," I say. "Big story in the oven—actually that's why I dropped by to see Carla. She knows the cast of characters."

"As long as she's not one of them," Anne says. "I'm glad you're doing well, Jack."

I hear myself blurting: "I'll be doing even better if you have lunch with me tomorrow."

"Can't, Jack. I'm afraid I'm busy." This is followed by a pause, during which I foolishly convince myself that Anne is reconsidering the invitation. But then she says: "Tell Carla I'll give her a shout in the morning."

"Will do."

"Bye," says Anne.

I set the receiver down very gingerly, as if it's made of Baccarat crystal.

"Wanna drink?" The lovely dark eyes staring out of Carla's mud face are brimming with sympathy. Worse, they are Anne's eyes.

"I've got beer," Carla says through fixed lips.

I tell her no thanks. Standing up, I say, "Well. Your mother sounds terrific."

"Surry," Carla mutters, endeavoring not to crack the facial plaster. Either a smile or a frown would do the job. She snatches a notepad from the dining table and scribbles these words: Least she knows how you feel.

"And that's good?" I ask.

Carla nods consolingly. Those eyes are killing me. I give her a quick hug and head for the door.

Next morning, Emma calls and commands me to appear in the newsroom.

"But I'm ill! Stricken! Indisposed!"

"You are not. Buckminster spotted you at the funeral."

"Fuckweasel," I remark.

"Pardon me?"

I stage a coughing fit worthy of a pleurisy ward, and hang up.

Forty minutes later comes a stern knock—Emma! This is unpardonable, accosting me at home. I greet her in my sleepwear, a rank Jacksonville Jaguars jersey and a pair of baggy plaid boxers. She is not as horrified as I had hoped.

"You the truant officer?"

"Enough, Jack." Emma charges past me and plants herself on the least stained and faded of the twin armchairs. She is wearing a sharp-looking Oxford blouse, black slacks and a pair of sensible low heels. Her toenails are concealed, but I'll bet the farm she has repainted them since Monday afternoon; a muted ochre, I'm imagining, something serious to match her mood. Never have I seen her so torqued up.

"Mr. Polk is slipping away. The doctors say it could happen any day," she begins urgently. "Any minute, really."

I stretch out supine on the floor and shut one eye. "I'm onto a possible celebrity murder, Emma. I've got a distraught sister who suspects foul play and I'm the only one who'll help. What am I supposed to do, slam the door in her face? Tell her the paper doesn't care that her only brother got whacked?"

Although I have liberally exaggerated Janet Thrush's state of mind, Emma remains unmoved.

"I told you once, Jack. It's Metro's story if they want it. You did your job; you wrote the obit. You're done." She's glaring at me, really glaring.

"What are you so afraid of?" As if I don't know.

"Don't be such an asshole," she says.

I pop up, wide-eyed and beaming, and jig from foot to foot like a Polynesian coalwalker. What a breakthrough!

"Did you call me an onerous name? Yes, I'm sure of it. You did!"

"We're not in the workplace." Emma, reddening. Then: "Look, I'm sorry. That was unprofessional."

"No, I'm glad. It means we're making progress. Breaking down walls and so forth. You want some fresh orange juice? A decaf?"

Emma says, "Old Man Polk wants to see you, Jack."

I stop prancing and suck a short breath. "What? I thought he was fading fast."

"He wants a deathbed interview, believe it or not. To jazz up his obituary."

"Dear Jesus."

"This was not my idea, I swear."

"A perverse final request."

"I couldn't agree more," Emma says, "but Abkazion already said yes."

"Dipshit," I mutter. "Fellator of mandrills."

"I'm begging, Jack."

"Why me?" I growl, pointlessly.

"Evidently the old man admires your writing."

A side effect of the Halcion, no doubt. I peel off my Jaguars jersey and toss it over a lampshade. Next I tug absently at the waistband of my boxers, Emma eyeing me warily. She is in no mood to deal with a naked employee.

"Don't get cute," she advises.

"Don't flatter yourself." I stalk off to the shower. Twenty minutes later, I emerge to find Emma still encamped. This, frankly, throws me. She has put on her reading glasses to study an obituary I recently cut out of the Times. Wrapped in a towel, I stand there dripping on the floor like some incontinent nuthouse savant.

Emma glances up, waves the clipping. "This is a fantastic headline."

"That's why I saved it."

The single-deck head on the obituary said:

Ronald Lockley, 96, an Intimate of Rabbits

Emma says, "How can you not look at that story?"

"Precisely."

"Even if you aren't a fan of rabbits, which I'm not." Then, as if she's reading my mind: "For God's sake, why couldn't I write headlines like this?"

I say, "Here's one: 'MacArthur Polk, 88, Wealthy Malingerer.'"

"Jack, please. I'm begging you."

Swathed in my damp bath linen, I lower myself carefully into the armchair across from Emma. My hair is still sopping and now I feel a droplet of water elongating itself on the lobe of my left ear. I pray Emma won't be distracted.