Fury

Monday, September 17
10:07
A.M.
Day 1 of 6

In the year when summer never came, the spring rains lasted through July and then into August and September, until finally, with the leaves still green on the trees, people bowed to the inevitable and abandoned their memories of the sun.

More out of habit than duty, Bill Post flicked his eyes toward the street. Just in time to see her dismount the number 30 bus and step awkwardly out into a gray, driving rain. He watched as she pulled the hood low on her head and sloshed her big brown shoes across the sidewalk toward the front doors. Once inside, she removed her green raincoat and shook it out over the black rubber runner. He couldn’t remember ever seeing anyone go to that much trouble to keep water off the floor. Like somebody was going to make her clean it up or something.

In other years, he might have mentioned the rain, and they would have nurtured the bond that forms among those who suffer together. Not this year, though. This year, spring and summer had come and gone like wishes, washing any expectation of relief so far downstream that the state of the weather was no longer considered polite conversation.

From behind the security desk he asked, “Something I can help you with?”

She seemed startled by the sound of his voice. “I hope so,” she said. “I need to see a Mr. Frank Corso. He’s a writer…a reporter here.” She draped the dripping coat over her arm and approached the desk.

“Is Mr. Corso in?”

“Not that I ever seen,” the guard said with a chuckle. “The guy I replaced said he used to see him once in a while, but I been here just under two years and he ain’t never been in during my shift. Night crew says he comes in sometimes to see Mrs. Van Der Hoven, but I personally ain’t never seen him myself.” He leaned back in his chair.

When he tilted his head forward and looked at her through the upper half of his bifocals, he instantly realized he was supposed to know who she was. He sat up straight. Closed the travel brochures he’d been reading and stuffed them in the top drawer. Tried to let it come to him, but wasn’t surprised when he couldn’t put a name to the face. In recent months, he seldom could. Hell, if he didn’t hang his car keys on the same hook in the kitchen every night, he couldn’t find the damn things in the morning.

“Maybe somebody else could help you, Miss…?” He left it a question.

She looked like she was going to cry. “Mr. Corso
has
to see me.” She said it like daytime TV. “You tell him Leanne Samples is downstairs and needs to talk with him on a matter of life and death.”

The name did it. It was her all right. The girl from the TV. He kicked himself for not recognizing her right away and wondered again if he shouldn’t discuss his failing memory with his doctor. He picked up the phone. Who? Mr. Hawes? He was the honcho. The managing editor and all that jazz. Yeah. Last button on the right.

Natalie Van Der Hoven pulled her head back and looked down her nose at Bennett Hawes, her managing editor. She was in her mid-sixties, with a face from an ancient coin. Pointed and haughty like a hawk, with a “fear of God” gaze to match. Wrought-iron hair and shoulders wider than most men’s. Machete murderers jumped to their feet and doffed their caps when she entered a room. She had that kind of style.

“You can’t be serious,” she said.

“That’s all she’ll say. She lied at the trial. That and how she won’t cooperate with us unless Corso writes the story.”

Always impeccable, in a Nordstrom three-piece suit, Hawes claimed to be five-nine, but in reality stood about five foot seven. He wore what remained of his sandy hair combed completely across his scalp and sprayed in place. Worked out five days a week at the gym up the street. Everything he did, he did quickly.

She raised an eyebrow. “Surely she can be persuaded.”

He scratched the back of his neck. “I don’t think so,” he said.

“You explained that Mr. Corso no longer works directly for the paper?”

“The distinction between direct and indirect employees seems to be lost on Miss Samples. As far as she’s concerned, she reads his column in the paper twice a month, so he works here.”

“Did you explain Mr. Corso’s aversion to the lime-light? That he hasn’t been seen in public since he hit the bestseller list?”

Hawes nodded disgustedly. “She doesn’t care. We either produce Corso today or she takes her story up the road.” He turned his palms toward the ceiling. “Why she wants Corso is beyond me.”

“Did you ask?”

Hawes made a sour face. “She said it was because he was”—he used his fingers to make quotation marks in the air—“
nice
to her back then.” Jamming his hands in his pockets, he paced across the room.

“Do we have a number for Mr. Corso?”

“I was hoping you had one,” he said.

She shook her head. “When Mr. Corso wants to chat, he calls me.”

“What about his agent?”

“Some woman in New York named Vance.”

“She’ll have a number.”

“Not that she’ll share with us,” Mrs. V. said. “I’ve tried before.”

“I went down to accounting. We send his checks to a P.O. box in the U District.” Hawes’s normal pacing suddenly took on the air of a strut. She searched him with her eyes. “You think you know something, don’t you?” she said.

He kept his face as bland as a cabbage. “I might,” he admitted.

“Come on now, Bennett,” she prompted. “Out with it.”

A smile escaped his thin lips. “While I was down in accounting, I went through his expense file. Gave me an idea how we might be able to find him quickly,” he said.

“Oh?” she said. “At one time, people made careers of trying to find our Mr. Corso. What makes you think you can run him to ground?”

“They never had to pay his expenses.”

“Such as?”

“Such as Corso hired a local private eye a couple of times. I know because we paid the guy’s bill. I think the guy probably knows where to find Corso.”

“Who would that be?”

“Guy named Leo Waterman.”

“Bill Waterman’s boy?”

“Yeah.”

She managed a small smile. “I haven’t seen Leo since he was in short pants,” she said. “As you know, his father and my late husband, Edmund, were quite close. What makes you think Leo could find Mr. Corso?”

“I saw the two of them having a beer together one time, when I stopped for cigarettes. Over on Eastlake, a neighborhood dive called the Zoo.”

“That’s all?”

“You know how Corso is. He hates everybody. For him, having a beer with somebody is like a long-term relationship.”

“He’s not
that
bad, Bennett,” she scoffed. “That’s just his act.”

Hawes made a noise with his lips. “If that arrogance of his is an act, he ought to get an Academy Award.”

“It’s just his way of protecting himself.”

Hawes snorted. “By this time, if anybody out there still wanted him dead, he’d be dead.”

“Not
physically
. Emotionally.”

Hawes scowled. “Christ, I feel like I’m on
Oprah
.” He crossed the room. “So, what do you want to do?”

“I don’t see how we have a choice here,” she said after a moment. “The Himes execution is six days off. Not only do we have a moral obligation to the public, but I don’t have to tell you what a story such as this could mean to the paper.”

No…she didn’t. An exclusive like this could go a long way toward rescuing the
Sun
. If not financially, then at least in terms of restoring some measure of credibility.

“Problem is, even if we do find him, he won’t do it,” Hawes said. “Why should he?” He kept pacing the room, slowly shaking his head. “Last time I looked, that new book of his was number seven on the
New York Times
bestseller list. He doesn’t do interviews of any kind. He doesn’t sign books. He sure as hell doesn’t need the money anymore. Why in God’s name would he open himself up to all that abuse? Quite frankly, I’m amazed he still sends in his columns.”

Mrs. V. smiled. “Mr. Corso and I have an agreement,” she said. “And Mr. Corso is an unusually honorable man.”

“Lotta people don’t think so.”

“Lots of people like professional wrestling,” she said.

Hawes snorted and shook his head. “He’d have to be crazy to get involved in something like this. The whole
New York Times
libel thing is going to end up right back on the front page. No way he’s going to let that happen.”

“Ironic, isn’t it?” Mrs. V. said.

“What’s that?”

“That the same mighty newspaper that so publicly fired Mr. Corso for fabricating a story now gives him free publicity for his fictionalized reporting efforts.”

Bennett Hawes was beyond wistful irony. He paced the room at breakneck speed. “Even if I do find him, he’s just going to tell me to kiss his ass,” he blurted out. “Excuse my French, but you know he and I aren’t exactly…,” he said.

Bennett Hawes had been managing editor for twenty-one years prior to Corso’s arrival. He’d lobbied long and hard for Corso not to be hired. First time they met, he’d asked Corso for an explanation of New York. Corso told him he didn’t have one. “Then I’ll never be sure I can trust you,” Hawes had said. Corso said he didn’t blame him. Said he wouldn’t hire himself either. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your outlook, Mrs. V. had insisted.

“I know,” Mrs. V. said.

She opened the top drawer of her desk, pulled out a piece of pale blue notepaper and a matching envelope. He couldn’t see what she wrote, but whatever it was fit on a single line. She then reached down into her bottom drawer and fingered her way to what she was looking for. Found it. A scrap of white paper folded in thirds. She signed her name to the note, folded the page in half, slipped the white scrap inside, and sealed the envelope. “If he can find him, have Leo give this to Mr. Corso.”