White Collar Girl (28 page)

“Sweetheart,” she said, “all you did was give it ink.”

•   •   •

A
fter leaving my mother, I stopped by my apartment, washed up and changed my clothes. It was going on nine in the morning. I still hadn't been to sleep, and as soon as I walked into the city room, Mr. Ellsworth and Mr. Copeland circled around me, wanting to talk about a follow-up piece.

I looked at them, wondering if I had the stomach to do another story about this. Then I thought about what my mother had said. I realized that my friendship with Scott, or budding romance or whatever it was to be, had been destroyed. It was over. He'd never trust me again and perhaps rightfully so.

But all the same, if I walked away from the story now, it would have all been for naught. I'd already lost Scott, and now I could lose my chance at the story that could make my career. If it wasn't going to be my byline, it would surely be someone else's. The inside story on Operation K had landed in my lap. How could I turn away?

So, with my decision made for me, I sat down with a cup of coffee and told Mr. Ellsworth and Mr. Copeland the whole story,
everything that I'd been told by the mole himself from his hospital bed about how he'd come to work with the FBI in the first place and the toll that going undercover had taken on him.

“Well, what are you waiting for, Walsh?” Mr. Ellsworth cracked a sly smile. “Get busy. You've got an exclusive to write.”

•   •   •

M
y work on Operation K started out like a locomotive, moving slowly at first but then rapidly picking up steam. Whatever misgivings I had about pursuing this story were gradually replaced with an all-consuming drive, pushing everything else off for a later time. Even the horsemeat scandal. And yes, I admit that in the back of my mind I was hoping I would uncover something—something unexpected—that might make this up to Scott.

I went back to Fitzpatrick's, the bar where he'd been attacked. It looked different in the daylight, and by
different
I wish I could say
better
. But with the sun streaming in through the windows, I saw just how grungy the place really was. Stale beer and smoke lingered in the air. I stepped over cigarette butts and dead matchsticks on the floor. The liquor bottles behind the bar that had sparkled like a prism the night Scott and I danced before them were now streaked with greasy fingerprints.

The bartender, a fellow named Mick, was reluctant to talk to me at first.

As soon as I said I was from the
Tribune
, he said, “I read all about it in the paper. I don't know what more I can tell you that you don't already know.” He was alternating between wiping out
glasses and clearing the surface of the bar. I couldn't help noticing he was using the same rag for both jobs.

I ordered a bottle of beer and eventually Mick started talking.

“Trevor seemed like a decent enough guy,” he said, futzing at the cash register. “He would come in here a couple nights a week with some of the others.”

“The others?”

“You know, some of the cops, the other lawyers. There was a whole group of them. You know, regulars.”

It took another beer and a bit more coaxing before he began giving me names, including Albey Riley, the man with the mustard-stained necktie. I left Fitzpatrick's, and after two fruitless attempts to track down Albey Riley, one of his neighbors on the South Side directed me to Manny's Deli on Roosevelt Road.

“Do you mind?” Riley said when I approached him, giving me a look of disgust while he tucked his napkin into his shirt collar. “I'm eating here.” He was even bigger than I remembered and more than filled his half of the table.

“I just have a few questions for you,” I said, slipping into a chair across from him.

“Who the hell are you?”

“I'm Jordan Walsh. I'm with the
Tribune
.”

He grunted. “And what's this about?”

I told him that I was looking into the incident with Scott Trevor and began asking questions, some of which he answered truthfully: Yes, he was a lawyer. Yes, he knew Scott Trevor. But the rest of the time he was playing games with me.

“Gotta tell you,” he said, in between bites, “I was sorry as hell to read about what happened to him. But I'm glad this city's finally doing something to clean up the court system.”

“So you were aware of the corruption?”

With each bite, the guts of his sandwich leaked out, chunks
of corned beef landing on his plate. “I'm not saying that I was personally, but you know, you hear things here and there.”

“What sort of things?”

He dabbed his mouth. “Nothing specific. You know, just talk.”

I backed up and tried a different angle. “You were at Fitzpatrick's the other night when Scott Trevor was attacked. And you made a phone call before you left. Who did you call?”

“Huh? What are you talking about?” He acted as if I were mistaken.

I scooted in closer and squared my elbows on the table, looking at him head-on. “You went to the phone booth in the back that night and made a call right before you paid your tab and left. I was there. I saw you do it.”

That's when he made a show of checking his watch and said he was late for a meeting. It was probably the only time he'd ever left half a sandwich on his plate.

Before the day was done, I had spoken to nearly a dozen lawyers, bar patrons and cops. I even spoke with Ahern and some other people at Adamowski's office. What I needed now was a source inside the FBI. Although given that I'd interfered with their investigation, I was probably the last person they wanted to talk to. Still, I wasn't giving up.

“Hey, Henry,” I called to him when I returned to the city room. “Who's your guy at the Bureau on Operation K?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“I just need to verify a few facts.”

Henry grabbed the pencil from behind his ear and threw it down on his desk. “You've got to be kidding me. You want my contact at the Bureau? You've got a lot of nerve, Walsh.”

Walter rolled his chair over to Henry's. “We're busting our asses on this investigation,” he said, “and the whole time you've been holding out on us, going behind our backs and—”

“Hey—” I stopped him right there. “First things first. I did not go behind your backs. I wasn't holding out on you. I had no idea that Scott Trevor was an informant. Read what I wrote in my article and you'll know exactly how the whole thing came about.”

Henry waved me off. “Aw, forget you. I don't trust a damn thing you have to say.”

“You got some balls, Walsh,” said Walter, stuffing his pipe in his mouth before he rolled his chair back to his desk.

Peter adjusted his eyeshade and kept his head down, refusing to look at me. Randy avoided me, too, keeping his back to me while he chattered away on his telephone. Even Marty was decidedly cool toward me, telling me he was busy when I stopped by his desk with a question. M, Gabby and the other girls didn't really care, since I'd done nothing to infringe upon their territory.

And then there was Benny. He came over, leaned in and whispered, “I think it was a great piece that you wrote. I really do.”

“Benny!” Henry snapped. “Did you get that quote for me yet? You're holding up the whole piece.”

Benny's ears turned almost as red as his hair. “I—I gotta get back to work. But maybe we could get a drink?”

“Benny! I need that now!”

He practically sprinted across the room, and I went back to the notes from my interview with Albey Riley.

About an hour or so later, Mrs. Angelo stopped by my desk. “Here”—she plunked a sandwich down in front of my typewriter—“ham and Swiss on rye.”

I shook my head. “Thanks, but I can't eat.”

“Okay, then, fine.” She reached down and picked up the sandwich. “Grab your coat and come with me.” She gestured with a tilt of her head.

I got up and followed her into the hallway, onto an elevator and down to the lobby. “Where are we going?”

“Someplace where we can talk. This is where I go to get away from those clowns upstairs so I can think.”

We went out the back door and down one more level to the loading dock on Lower Wacker Drive. Hidden beneath Michigan Avenue, Lower Wacker was the underbelly of the city. If you didn't know this underground world existed, you'd never find it. It was dark and dank down there, with water leaking through the ceiling. I looked up at the dripping pipes and cracks, wondering what would happen if the street above collapsed. We could hear the traffic rumbling overhead while the cars on Lower Wacker turned on their headlights, speeding and swerving around the curved streets, barely slowing at the stop signs. Flatbeds on the dock were piled high with stacks of newspapers bundled together with twine, waiting to be loaded onto the
Tribune
trucks and sent out for delivery.

Mrs. Angelo paused before the white brick wall and a wooden milk crate. Dozens of lipstick-kissed cigarette butts littered the ground. “Sorry I don't have an extra chair.”

“
This
is where you come to think?”

Mrs. Angelo pulled out a pack of cigarettes. “It's the one place where no one comes looking for me.” She lit her cigarette and offered me one.

I leaned in to the flame she produced, exhaling into a gust of wind that blew the smoke back into my face. “I didn't go behind Henry's and Walter's backs. I wasn't trying to do anything underhanded.”

“Oh,
pffft
. Don't sweat it, kid.” Mrs. Angelo unwrapped the sandwich she'd bought for me and broke off a piece of bread, tossing it to a group of pigeons. “The others are just good and sore because you stole their thunder on Operation K.” She tore off some more bits of the sandwich and sprinkled them on the concrete. “And they're extra sore because they were upstaged by
a woman.” A pigeon landed at the pile of crumbs, pecking at the offerings.

“But you know as well as I do that given the chance, they would have done the same thing.”

“Oh, they would have, and without a shred of remorse,” she said, drawing down on her cigarette as a flock of pigeons arrived on the feeding scene. “So don't sweat it. Besides, you take your marching orders from Mr. Ellsworth and Mr. Copeland now. And I'll back you on that.”

“You will?”

“Why wouldn't I?” She looked just as surprised as I was. “I'll do anything to help a woman trying to make her way in this world.”

I could have cried. All this time I thought Mrs. Angelo resented me for wanting off society news, but now I could see that in her own way, she'd been rooting me on.

“It's hard enough in this business,” she said. “We women have to look out for each other. I got further ahead than most, but it was a fight every step of the way. I'm getting too old for this game now. I'm tired. But you—you've got what it takes to give those men a run for their money. I know I was tough on you in the beginning. I didn't encourage a lot of your stories. But you've made a believer out of me, kid. And someday you'll be in a position to do the same for a young girl who comes to you wanting to be the next Nellie Bly.” She gave me a wink, took a final drag off her cigarette and pitched it to the ground. “You're a woman, but you're also a reporter, and you're one of the best I've seen.”

•   •   •

A
fter Scott's identity was exposed—or rather, after I had exposed him—Operation K came to an end. But the FBI continued pursuing their case because Scott had already given them enough crucial evidence. My mother had been right. The Bureau had the information needed to either arrest and convict
or at the very least investigate and ultimately ruin the reputations of twenty-seven members of the Cook County judiciary system, including lawyers, cops and judges. One of whom was Judge Patrick Casey.

So Operation K wasn't over for the FBI and it wasn't over for me, either.

One night, about six months later, while I was in the middle of making spaghetti, I heard a knock on the door.

“Just a minute. Coming.” I pulled open the door and almost dropped the colander.

Mrs. Casey was standing on my threshold, glowering at me. I noticed a letter in her trembling hand and I knew exactly what it was because I had written it. I recognized my handwriting on the envelope. It was to Mr. Casey.

“Now, you listen to me,” said Mrs. Casey. Her voice shook with anger. “I want you to stay away from my family. No more letters to my husband. Or to my son. They want nothing more to do with you.”

“Mrs. Casey, please come inside so we can talk.” I opened the door wider and stepped aside. “Please give me a chance to explain—”

“Explain? You can't explain what you've done.”

I heard the spaghetti boiling over, the water hissing as it hit the burner. I resisted the urge to go turn off the stove.

Mrs. Casey didn't budge. “You've done enough damage to my family. You've broken my son's heart and ruined my husband's reputation.”

“I had nothing to do with Operation K. I wasn't even—”

“You knew that rat, that mole. You knew him. You knew what he was up to. And my husband has done nothing wrong. You had him trapped.”

“I didn't have—”

“And I don't want you writing any more letters to my husband
or my son.” She fisted up the envelope and raised it to my face. “Leave us alone—you hear me? Leave my family alone!”

She stormed off, and I stood there staring at a fly swatter resting inside the baby carriage across the hall. I heard my spaghetti continuing to boil over, and by the time I could move, there was starchy water and strings of noodles strewn across the stove.

I turned off the gas and went out to the living room. I sat on the sofa until the sun went down, taking the light out of the room with it. The only time I got up was to get a bottle of wine. After that I sat in the dark, thinking about the letters I'd written to Jack, to his father. Neither one of them had bothered to reply. I'd written to Scott, too, but he'd never answered, either. I could scarcely think about Scott without tearing up. The only other person I had ever missed with such intensity was Eliot.

I was hoping the wine would make me sleepy, make me pass out, but it only made me sadder. The seasons had changed twice since I'd last spoken to Scott. I missed the sound of his voice, missed talking to him, hearing what he had to say because I loved the way his mind worked.

I didn't even know what time it was when I snapped, reached for the phone and dialed his number. I had nothing to lose at this point. The worst he could do was hang up on me.

He answered on the fifth ring, sounding groggy.

“I'm sorry,” I said, realizing that I'd woken him up. That's when I looked at the clock. It was after midnight. “I'm sorry,” I said again, but this time the apology was for everything else. “I miss you, Scott.”

He sighed.

I kept talking, afraid to let the silence build.

“I know you probably don't want to hear from me, but you have to believe that I never meant to hurt you.”

Another sigh, deeper, louder. I could almost picture him lying
in the dark, his hair rumpled from sleep. I wanted to be there, beside him. I wanted to hold him until he couldn't deny me. My eyes started to tear up.