Rough Justice Read online

  Someone has to pay.

  I opened my eyes. The clock by my bed said 10:15. It had been nearly six by the time I got home from the precinct house. Nearly seven by the time I’d fallen asleep. First there had been the phone. The press calling. The wire services, the radio, some idiot from the Post. For a while, I took the calls. Told them Morgenstern wouldn’t let me talk. Told them to try Morgenstern themselves. After a while, though, the night, my sleeplessness—the whole thing—just sapped me. I lay back in the bed, my clothes still on, and fell asleep.

  I was still wearing the clothes. I sat up and pulled at the collar. I pulled at the collar and felt the groove in my throat. I rubbed my hand over it, swallowed hard.

  A man is dead. You killed him. Someone has to pay.

  I got out of bed, changed my clothes. For a while, I managed not to look at the spot on the floor. At the tape outline that still marked the place where Thad Reich had lain, where he’d died, struggling for breath. But when I went into the kitchenette to make some coffee, I could feel it there, that spot. I could feel it no matter where I looked. Measuring the coffee into the percolator with my back to the living room. I could feel him there behind me, knee bent, back arched, eyes staring.

  I went out to the Greek diner on the corner. Had a coffee and a couple of eggs.

  I rode the subway to work. An uncrowded car. A mother with her baby on her knee. Two women students on their way to Hunter, clutching books, talking. A working guy in jeans and a sweatshirt, reading the sports section of the Star. I looked at each of them as the train jogged downtown. My hand rose to my collar, tugged it up over the mark. My gaze came to rest on the guy with the paper. He was traveling over the back pages slowly, chewing his lip a little. Looked like a decent guy. Pleasant lines on his big, heavy face. A nice guy. Tomorrow, the paper would carry it. A Yalie killed by a reporter. Might even be the front page. Then he would know.

  A man is dead. You killed him.

  It was good to come out of the subway into Grand Central. Good to be moving in the vast space with the fast crowd. From there, I stepped outside through a door onto Vanderbilt. Crossed the street to the concrete tower that houses the Star.

  When I pushed in through its glass doors, I felt the rhythm of the city room miss a beat. I heard the clicking of computer keyboards falter, then go on. I heard the murmur of conversation fade, then rise again. I felt eyes turning toward me—then turning away.

  Someone has to pay.

  Rafferty glanced up at me. The others around the table—editors and reporters both—watched him, waiting for him to speak.

  “Okay, John?” he said.

  “Yeah. Yeah.” I walked over to him. Rested an elbow on the top of his computer terminal. I shook a cigarette out of the pack into my mouth. I didn’t much feel like a cigarette. My throat hurt. I lit it anyway.

  Rafferty tossed a gesture toward my neck. “Looks bad.”

  “Who’s on it, Raff?”

  “It’s not your story, John.”

  “Yeah? You hear they’ve got Watts after me?”

  “You oughta take the day off. Take two. They’re small.”

  “Who’s on it?” I said. I lifted my eyes a moment. Six other pairs of eyes sank down quickly.

  I looked at Rafferty. He rubbed his nose. He blinked. He fiddled with some papers he was holding on his lap. “Wally Wilkinson,” he said.

  “Christ.” Wally was a Cambridge holdover. A man who once volunteered to dress up as a dancing raisin and write about what it was like. “Who picked him?”

  “Word from on high. They’re afraid we’ll look biased. They wanted a reporter who hates you.”

  “They’re halfway home. He hates me, all right.”

  “Walsh got them to let us use McKay for your profile. He has about four column inches to prove you’re a saint. We’ve got art of you sleeping with Mother Teresa.”

  “Oh yeah, from the Christmas party.” I straightened. Dropped my cigarette in his wastebasket, hoped it went out. “All right, then. Where is he?”

  “Who?”

  “The dancing raisin.”

  “John.” Rafferty’s voice never changed its level. His mouth hardly opened. His expression never changed. “This isn’t your story. Go home.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “The lawyers don’t want you talking until the investigation’s over.”

  “Yeah, but I can slip him a few things, some details. Besides, I gotta write up the Watts story. I got his no-comment last night. In spades.”

  Once again, Rafferty did his routine: blinked, studied his papers, rubbed his nose, the works. When he looked up, everyone at the city desk was watching him.

  “John …”

  “Wells!”

  I turned around. Lansing was hurrying toward me out of the maze, her long legs flashing from her short skirt, her long hair flying out behind her.

  “Wells,” she said again. She reached me, put her hand on my arm. “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.”

  “You must be so upset.”

  “I’m not upset. Why should I be upset?”

  “Oh God, it’s so awful.”

  “Yeah, well, it could’ve been a hell of a lot worse.”

  She shook her head at me. Those blue eyes of hers were wide and a little damp. “And I think it stinks what they’re doing to you. We all think it stinks.”

  “What, you mean Watts?”

  “I mean Bush. The People Upstairs, the way they’re—”

  Rafferty cleared his throat. Lansing stopped talking, glanced down at him. I glanced down at him too and I felt that gush of fear go through me again, the heat beneath my skin, the chill inside my belly.

  “The way they’re what?”

  Lansing’s lips twisted, her eyes flashed. “Rafferty …”

  “John.”

  This time the call came from across the room, the other side of the maze. I looked up and saw Emma Walsh standing at the entrance of the hallway to manager’s row. Now, all around me, the city room’s rhythm dipped again, like the power from an overloaded line. The managing editor’s soft, slightly southern voice reached me easily.

  “Could I see you in my office for a moment, please.”

  I didn’t look left or right as I went to her. I passed by the cubicles without turning. I felt the eyes follow me, though. I heard the tapping at the terminals cease. And I heard that whisper in the back of my mind: Someone has to pay.

  Emma Walsh stayed where she was as I came toward her. In her pleated green skirt, her snug green sweater, her brown hair spilling long down her back, she looked like a former prom queen waiting for her husband at the kitchen door. But when I reached her, I saw the gray eyes were grim, the red lips pressed tight.

  “Come on in,” she said. She said it gently, sympathetically.

  I wiped my dry mouth and went past her into her office. I stood in the center of it, and looked out through the window at the edge of the Pan Am Building. I heard the door close as she came in. I turned to find her leaning against it, her hands behind her, her eyes on me.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Perky,” I said. I stuck a fresh cigarette in my mouth.

  “John …”

  “They killed the Watts piece, didn’t they?”

  “They didn’t kill it … Christ!” she said suddenly. “You’ve been practically strangled, how can you smoke those …” I looked at her. She stopped. “They want to hold off on it. Until all this is over.”

  “You mean in twenty-five years to life?”

  “When the investigation’s over, they’ll—”

  But the anger flashed out of me. I shouted at her: “Watts is on the investigation, Walsh.”

  She came off the door at once, pumping her finger at me. “I’m your goddamned managing editor, Wells, don’t you talk to me like that.”

  She halted midway toward me. I looked at her through a drag of smoke.

  “You learn quick
,” I said.

  The breath shuddered out of her. She ran her hand up through her hair.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You said you’d fight for me.”

  “I did. I will. Ach!” She threw her hands up, moved away from me. Moved behind her desk. But she didn’t sit down. She stood there, her fist resting on the blotter.

  “Mr. Bush feels,” she said to the floor, “that the situation is tricky. Because of his … association with the commissioner, our relations with the cops have been very good. And he feels that would be jeopardized if we … seemed to be waging war with them. As in: You bust our reporter, we bust your lieutenant. That kind of thing.”

  She did not look up. She did not see me lift my cigarette to my lips. She did not see my hand trembling.

  “Watts is on the fucking case.” I said it softly this time.

  “The cops won’t admit that. They say Derringer’s got it.”

  “Derringer? He’s on short time. He hasn’t got anything. Emma …” I reached a hand out toward her. I didn’t care if she saw it shake or not. “I don’t know what that guy was doing in my apartment. I don’t know why he attacked me, what he wanted, but I …” I had to force the words out. “I killed him … in self-defense.”

  She lifted her head finally. She looked at me. “I know that. We all know that.”

  “And Watts is gonna try to nail me for it. He has to. He knows what I’ve got. It’s him or me.”

  There was a pencil holder on her desk. An elegant gold cup. She reached out and toyed with the yellow pencils in it.

  “Wells …”

  “The commissioner called him, didn’t he? Bush.”

  “John, I’m doing everything I can. I won’t leave you to twist in the wind.”

  “That’s what happened, though, isn’t it? And maybe Bush sees a chance to dump me without my going to the competition.”

  She sighed. She toyed with the pencils. “The commissioner apparently feels you’ve had a grudge against Watts because he beat some drug rap a while back.”

  “So send someone else to interview D’ Angelo.”

  “We can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Guess.”

  I threw my cigarette into her wastebasket. “Shit!”

  “Services are tomorrow at St. Patrick’s. Noon. Without him, we couldn’t even slip it to another paper.” She tapped a pencil against the inside of the cup. “But lookit. The lawyers are working full time …”

  “Oh great. Can’t anyone stop them?”

  “Damn it!” The pencils flew in a yellow spray as she knocked the holder over with a swipe of her small hand. She looked up at me and the flint was in her eyes again. “There’s more at stake here than just your bloody Watts piece.”

  “Hey. You’re telling me.”

  “I am telling you. You don’t understand what I’m up against.”

  “That’s your job, sister. You don’t like your job? Go back and sell dog biscuits.”

  She leaned across her desk at me. Her cheeks were bright red. “He wants to suspend you.”

  “And as far as I’m concer … What? Who does? Bush?”

  “He can cut you off completely. Without backing, without pay. Without even a lawyer.”

  “The hell he can. He cannot.”

  “Read the contract, John. You’re under investigation for a felony. He can.”

  I stared at her. I knew I was doing it, but I couldn’t stop myself. She might just as well have hit me. Without thinking, I even fell back a step. I even ran my hand up over my jaw.

  “He wants to,” said Emma Walsh. “And the way the cops feel about you now, they’d be on you like dogs.”

  For a long moment after that, I didn’t speak. I couldn’t. After the night, after watching that boy die, after answering the cops’ questions, after going at it with Watts—to hear this now … Something just bottomed out in me, it felt like. My throat, already sore, felt tight. My head felt thick and muzzy. I stood, feeling the heat in my face, wiping at my face with my hand. I thought of that kid lying on my floor. I thought about his parents, his wife, the woman he worked for …

  What a loss, is what she said, we all loved him so much.

  … and somehow it all made sense to me suddenly. Watts being on the case. Bush dumping me. It seemed like it was what I’d expected, maybe what I deserved. I felt tired, too tired to fight it, now that it seemed so inevitable. I felt I had no choice but to just sit back and let it happen. Let it happen the way it had to, the way it should.

  When Emma Walsh spoke, her voice was quiet again, gentle, sympathetic. “Just get out of here for now, okay?” she said. “Go to the movies. Go to the races. Go away. Go home. Let me work on this for you. Let me do what I can.”

  I looked up at her absently. “What?” I hadn’t been listening.

  “Go home,” she said. “Get some sleep.”

  I nodded. I walked slowly to the door.

  “John,” she said to my back. “It was self-defense. Watts can’t change that.”

  But a voice answered her silently: A man is dead. Someone has to pay.

  It was a long walk back across the city room. The place seemed to have stopped cold now, gone silent. On the far side of the cubicles, the people at the city desk were watching me openly. Rafferty screwed up his face as I came on. Lansing stood beside him, her arms crossed, her eyes on the floor.

  McKay came toward me out of a cubicle. He had a sheet of paper in his hands. He walked along beside me. “How’s this?” he said. “‘Even before his discovery of penicillin, Wells’s reputation as a journalist was secure …’ Sings, doesn’t it? And you should see the Mom Teresa shots. Wow.”

  I forced a smile at him. Slapped him on the shoulder. We’d reached the city desk.

  “Wells …” said Lansing.

  “I’ll see you guys later,” I said. And walked past them.

  A few minutes later, I was standing on the corner of Vanderbilt and Forty-third, my hands in my pockets, my nose lifted to the spring breeze. The business suits were striding up and down the sidewalk. The sweatshirts were pushing dollies. The messenger bikes raced past. The rags sat in the sun against the wall. It was almost twelve. The day seemed to stretch out a long way before me. I shook my head, took a breath. I wandered away from the office, from the terminal. I went down Forty-third to Flanagan’s.

  The place was empty. The sports figures on the wall swung their bats and passed their balls and posed at the ready, waiting for the lunch crowd to come in and admire them. I sat at the long wooden bar. Michael was on duty. He was standing at the bar’s far end, reading his paper. Nice kid, Michael. Tall, round-faced, sharp-eyed. From Dublin originally. Very friendly. Usually comes over with a big smile, a word on the day’s news. Likes to hear the inside story and so on.

  Today, when he noticed me, I saw him hesitate. He looked at the floor as he came over. When he raised his eyes, he was wearing a small, lopsided half-smile. He looked embarrassed.

  “Michael,” I said.

  “Mr. Wells,” he said. Then he stood silent, tense. He seemed to be waiting for something.

  “A cup of coffee,” I told him. “And turn on the noon news.”

  The television was hung high in one corner. He turned it on with a control under the bar. All he had to do was switch to the right channel and there it was. The face from my living-room floor. Thaddeus Reich. Only he’d been alive when they’d taken that picture. He’d been ready to graduate from college, it looked like. His light hair was wavy and gleaming. His eyes were wistful and bright. His smile was broad and eager. He gazed out of the television screen as if at the future. He seemed to like what he saw.

  And then there was Molly Caldwell. Standing in front of my apartment building with a microphone in her hand.

  I groaned. “Fucking Molly,” I muttered. She never liked me.

  She peered at the camera with her great big brown eyes. The breeze toyed with her short black hair.

  “… until la
st night, Thaddeus Reich’s life was a success story. A story of hard work and dedication. And finally, of commitment—a commitment to ease the plight of the homeless.”

  “Oh, gimme a break, Mol,” I said. But there was no spirit in it. I already knew what she would do. I expected it.

  Michael glanced over at me, then back at the TV. He craned his neck to see the picture. He seemed transfixed.

  There was another woman now on the screen up there. An older woman with gray hair falling free to her shoulders. Gretchen Reich, the caption said, Thad’s mother. She was standing in the doorway of her house, as if the TV guys had tracked her there, coaxed her out. She looked disheveled, her hair windblown, her blouse wrinkled. She looked like she’d been crying.

  “No, I … don’t know why this would happen,” she said faintly into the mikes thrust before her sagging face. “I can’t … Nobody hated Thad. He cared so much for people. Nobody …”

  She couldn’t continue. They cut back to Molly.

  “Reporter Wells has refused to comment on Reich’s death,” she said. “Police say the investigation is continuing. Bob?”

  As they cut back to the anchorman, I laughed out loud. Helplessness squatted on my shoulder like a demon. I shook my head and laughed sourly. Then I stopped laughing.

  Michael was staring at me. His mouth was open. His Irish eyes were wide and grim.

  A man is dead. You killed him, those eyes said. Someone has to pay.

  I wanted to answer him. I almost did. I almost said: I had to do it. It was self-defense.

  But I didn’t say it. There didn’t seem to be much point. He was right, after all. A man was dead. Someone did have to pay. The mind has its own rough justice.

  So instead, I said: “Forget the coffee, Michael.” I lit a cigarette. Forced the smoke down past my sore throat. “Make it a Scotch. Make it a double.”

  9

  Then it was Saturday. Someone was shaking me. Back and forth, back and forth. My stomach heaved and dipped on acid waves. My head felt like a bowling ball with a bolt of lightning trapped in it.

  “Wells! Goddamn it! Wells!”

  Someone was screaming at me, too. Right in my face. I could feel the hot breath of it. The noise made my teeth ache. And there was a smell. A pretty, delicate smell like lilacs. It was making me sick.