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I want to. Every instinct wants to fly to her side. We’ve been this way for almost twenty years—it staggers me to think about all that time flown by, so fast, so fast. We’ve seen each other through failed marriages, career troubles, and the verities of the newspaper business. Sometimes sex is involved. In many ways, she is my best and oldest friend. But Pam is hovering over me. Death is in my bloodstream. I’m amazed I can’t smell it seeping through my skin. I’m not healthy for my lovers or friends right now. I tell her no.
“Why not?”
“I just can’t.”
“Break the date. I don’t ask you for much.”
“I know you don’t. I can’t.”
“You’re fucking somebody new, aren’t you?”
I search the faces walking by, the fast-walking Asian woman with a computer case, the plump man in a too-small jacket, a homeless guy sitting on the sidewalk with a violin case open for cash but no violin. None are hard-eyed law-enforcement faces. Melinda pauses only momentarily.
“It’s the little redhead, right? She’s young enough to be your daughter, for God’s sake.”
“I’m not fucking Amber,” I say. “It’s not about anything like that.”
“You are fucking her! I can tell by the way you say a woman’s name if you’re fucking her.” I hear her blow her nose. “I need you. Amber doesn’t. She’ll throw you away in a heartbeat. She’s a little bitch.”
“She’s a good reporter.” I want to throw the cell phone in the empty violin case and be done with it, but I keep talking. “Why did they send her to the East Side?”
“I don’t know. The M.E. did it.”
“And did he stop the coverage of Megan Nyberg?”
“As a matter of fact, he did. Why do you care? You hate that kind of trivial shit. ‘The economy’s in the biggest crisis since the Depression, and we’re playing tabloid.’ That’s what you’d say. The M.E. said readers are bored with it. You’re trying to distract me.”
“It’s been all over television,” I say. “Why would we not cover it?”
“It’s not on TV lately, either. This is not my problem. I haven’t supervised metro in five years.”
“So tell me about the national desk, then. What happened to the big exposé that was supposed to run last weekend? The one from the Washington bureau on the CIA?”
“Kathryn herself stopped it. Said it needed more work. She actually flew back to town from whatever journalism shindig she was attending, called us all in, and held the story. We’d already lawyered it—every source and every fact was nailed tight. She had signed off on it the previous week. Then she changed her mind.”
“And the reason was…?”
“She didn’t give one.”
I could tell my own First Amendment sob story and it would be a doozy. But I may have already put her in danger, just by being her lover. I didn’t need any more proof that they could hurt me. I didn’t need more bodies on my conscience. My voice is sandpaper. “This is very strange stuff. We’ve never backed down before. And this Nyberg girl. What if she were more than just the missing blond teen of the week? What’s going on?”
She doesn’t answer.
“Has anyone been to see you, asking about me?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Have they?”
“No!”
“Have you heard the term eleven-eleven?”
“I lost my job today!” she yells, so loud I hold the phone away. After a long pause, Melinda says my name. “Please come be with me.”
“I can’t.”
After another long silence, her voice is strong and final. “You’re a real son of a bitch.”
