The Henderson Equation (28 page)

"Beauties," Nichols said. Nick studied them. The
photographer had concentrated on mutilation.

"They're pretty raw," Nick said.

"They're good, Nick. The boys got turned on to
it."

"The poor bastards." He weighed the emphasis he
would give them, remembering the Mayor's words. He set aside those where the
faces were clearly visible, showing expressions of pain, horror, impending
death.

"That would have been my choice, too, Nick."

"I'm rejecting them."

"You're kidding."

"Too inflammatory," he said, bracing himself for
an argument.

"These are one in a million, Nick. Better than a
thousand words, as the saying goes."

"That depends on the message we're trying to convey."

"I thought we were just reporting the facts. These
pictures tell the facts." He paused. "Accurately!"

Nick knew Nichols was sneering at the wordsmiths, part of
the natural competition.

He put an arm around Nichols' shoulder. "The buck
stops here, kid," Nick said, an echo of Charlie. God, he missed Charlie.

"I think you're wrong, Nick."

He moved the pictures about on his desk, picking a group in
which the faces were hidden, although the puddles of blood were quite visible.

"You've killed the best of the lot, Nick."

"I want them laid out on five columns on the front
page." He handed Nichols the chosen pictures. Nichols gathered up the
rejects and tucked them solemnly under his arm, walking out of the office,
crestfallen.

As the deadline for the street edition neared, the copy
rolled over his desk like an avalanche. Reading every word, black pencil in
hand, he cut and refashioned, correcting even the most inconsequential typo.
Was it a measure of his word greed, he wondered? He would brook no philosophical
intrusion from himself, the years of training assuring his discipline.

Madison's gruff voice and his heavy form standing over him
destroyed his concentration.

"I've sent her back to the well twice," Madison
said, dropping a sheaf of copy paper on Nick's desk. "She's getting pissed
off at me." He looked at the name of the writer, the slug on the upper
left-hand corner, Atkins. He visualized a black face, chocolate-toned, fierce
Afro cut, belligerent expression, dark soft eyes.

"Carried away, eh, Ben?" he asked, his eyes
beginning to read the copy. The girl's emotion spilled out, an avalanche of
white-hatred. "Jesus," Nick whistled. "She's really pushed it.
'He had found his own personal solution to relieving the white man's burden.'
My God. 'His lily-white fingers pressed the instrument of death.' We can't
print this."

"I know, Nick. I think you better handle it. She
thinks I'm nothing more than a prejudiced honky bastard."

When she came in, he could feel her outrage. A tall woman,
with delicate long fingers, the knuckles wrinkled in the special way of black
hands, she refused his offer to sit down, as if her full stature was needed to
fend off intimidation. Nick consciously sought to choose his words carefully.
But time was pressing.

"This story is inflammatory, Virginia."

"I can't write it any other way."

"You're a professional, Virginia. You've taken the
racial thing and spread it over the story like butter. The man was
unbalanced."

"His motives were quite clear."

"You're being superficial, making assumptions based on
your own fixed attitudes."

"I can't forget that I'm black."

"You asked us to forget it when we hired you. We don't
use racial references, nor do we identify reporters by race."

"I was hired because you were forced to do so."
Even beyond her anger, he felt that she knew she had over-stepped. She blinked
away a mist from her eyes.

"I'll let that pass, Virginia," he said gently,
knowing that she was partially correct.

She stood, awkwardly erect, facing him. Was she taunting
him?

"You're a professional, Virginia," he repeated.
"We haven't got time to fool around. Either you take out the inflammatory
racial references or I kill the piece. If you make the white race responsible,
you'll have to accept the blame for any consequences. Am I making myself clear?"

"Perfectly." She was not going to compromise.

"You're putting pride and emotionalism before your
sense of duty, your professionalism. Don't you see that?"

She stared at him, the hatred burning beyond reason.

"I wish you would see me as a person, not a
delegate," Nick said. He picked up her copy and tore it in two, flinging
it in the wastebasket.

"Sorry, kid," he said, watching her turn to hide
her tears. She rushed from the room, past his window, sweeping through the city
room. Angrily he pushed the buttons on Madison's extension.

"I saw," Madison said.

"Put someone else on that piece, Ben. We'll use it in
the next edition."

When the front-page proof came in, he looked it over
carefully, satisfied that it was a reasonable facsimile of what he had suggested
to his editors. His eye roved over the headlines, the pictures, the captions.
The report of the disaster seemed balanced, honest but restrained. He was
rather proud of himself. Not that they had achieved perfection. There was never
enough time for that. But pride quickly dissipated when he saw the lower-right
story on the results of the Harris poll. Had Henry Landau sneaked it in on the
front page, a deliberate confrontation? His fingers started for the phone, then
stopped, caressing its coldness instead.

He let himself calm down. After all, he had approved the
insertion. But the front page? Perhaps Henry had seen it as an act of
protection, a sop to the Henderson troops who, by now, were spreading into the
tissue of the
Chronicle,
probing for soft spots. Moving his hand from
the telephone, he completed the front-page proofing, then he called for a news
aide. As the young man left the room, he stopped him.

"Bring me another copy," he said. The young man
looked awkwardly at the sheet in his hand, then hurried off, coming back
quickly with another copy of the front page which Nick shoved into the inside
pocket of his jacket, hanging on its hook on the clothes tree.

"Shall I get Mrs. Henderson?" Miss Baumgartner
asked, seeing him stir toward his coat.

"No," he answered sharply, then softening,
"not yet."

Watching the still frenetic activity in the city room, Nick
saw Gunderstein come into the room, walking quickly, his jacket thrown over his
shoulder, held there by a single finger in the hanger loop. He walked to his
desk, looked over a sheaf of messages, then, perhaps feeling Nick's eyes on
him, looked up. Nick waved him in. As he waited a news aide came in with
additional copy on the bus murders. He looked them over. No recognizable names.
Random victims, he sighed, feeling the horror of the act. Five of the victims
were children, their single-digit ages glaring beside the neatly typed names.
His fists tightened in anger. Please, no emotion, he begged himself,
remembering Virginia Atkins. It was then that he felt the vibrations of the big
presses seeping through the floors and walls. He put his hands flat on his
Lucite desk, feeling the coolness and the vibrations through his fingers. The
feel of it gave him comfort.

"Well?" he said, as Gunderstein came closer,
searching his face.

"Phelps is flying in. He'll be at my apartment
tonight."

"What was his reaction?"

"Odd," Gunderstein said. "He said he had
waited thirteen years for my call."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"That's what I asked him. He said he'd talk about it
when he got here."

"And Martha?"

"She says she's also onto something. She said she'll
call if she can pin it down."

Gunderstein stood over him awkwardly, picking at his face.

"Henderson's wife called," Nick said.

"She's a mess. Insecure. Maybe even unstable."

"Do you think she wants to blow the whistle on her
husband?"

"I doubt it."

"What could she tell me?" Nick asked.
"Defend her husband. Make an emotional appeal. Try to work herself back in
her husband's good graces."

"She's been avoiding me," Gunderstein shrugged.
His concentration seemed elsewhere. "I've been down more blind alleys on
this story than anything I've ever tackled. That's why I know I'm right. It's
something you can feel."

"We've had quite enough feeling around here for one
day," Nick said, remembering Virginia Atkins. Gunderstein looked tired,
edgy. He moved toward the door.

"Let me know," Nick said. Was he suddenly
pressing? Were their roles being answered? What was this new compulsion to
know? The reporter's sixth sense in operation? The telephone jingled on his
desk. He looked up, saw Miss Baumgartner forming words with her lips:
"Mrs. Pell." He picked up the phone.

"Are you coming up, Nick?"

"Yes, Myra. I'm on my way."

"All right, Nick." She hung up, her tone urgent.

As he came into her office, Myra got up from behind her big
desk and moved toward the bar, where she fixed martinis, a ritual she had
mastered. Nick noted that her fingers shook as she lifted the cocktail glass
and passed it to him. Sipping, he smacked his lips, the expected compliment
dutifully proffered.

Raising her glass, she began to say something, then,
stopping, sipped her drink instead and walked toward the sofa. Primly she sat
down and placed her glass on the cocktail table. Nick knew she was winding up,
feeling the temperature, toes in the water. He kept silent, refusing to make it
easy for her with small talk.

"I feel I'm handling this Henderson thing badly,"
she said. "You may think I'm trying to shove things down your
throat." He had to hand it to her. She had struck right to the heart of
the matter, the frills gone. He shrugged, determining to prolong his silence.

"I want to make my position clear," she
continued, her voice constricting, betraying emotion. She seemed to try to
cover the weakness with a cough, as if she had swallowed badly.

"What I mean to say, Nick, is that I don't want you to
react as though I'm telling you what to do." He persisted in his silence,
knowing it was a growing annoyance. "This man does not deserve to be
destroyed." He continued to watch her, waiting for her to unwind.
"Henderson is a good man," she said softly. "He stands for those
things that we believe in. I've talked to him. I've watched him. This is the
kind of leader that we have got to have. He stands head and shoulders above any
other candidate on the horizon. Really, Nick. Burt Henderson is our kind."

"A news source has made serious allegations about him
that deserve to be checked out," he said firmly.

"Since when do we run down every flimsy
allegation?" she asked.

"We did it when we went after the President."

"That was different."

"How so?"

"He was an enemy. We knew what he was: a liar, a
cheat, and a fraud. He deserved what we gave him." She flushed. Her upper
lip quivered.

"Myra. We committed ourselves. We put everything we
had behind it. We made it happen."

"He deserved it."

"We hung him right here, Myra. Long before the
end."

"We were right, Nick."

"But we didn't know it in advance."

"We were sure."

"...and he deserved it. In our view. From the
beginning. Right, Myra?"

"Right." She paused. "Surely, Nick, you're
not having second thoughts?"

"Not at all," he replied. "I'm merely
comparing."

"There is no comparison."

"We're dealing here with the same basic ideas. The
credibility of a public figure."

Her eyes narrowed as she pulled herself straight.
"Well, it's about time we drew the line, then."

"Where?" he pressed. He knew he was baiting her
now.

"Damn it, Nick. On our friends!" The words had
been hissed through clenched teeth, her jaw jutting defiantly. Watching her, he
knew he had goaded her to her outer limits. A confrontation now, he was sure,
would impel an action for which he was totally unprepared. Forcing himself to
smile, he held up his hands.

"Myra," he said, disgusted at his fawning,
"I haven't advocated that we go after Henderson." He hesitated.
"I merely want to be certain. He could be a liability if we go too
far."

"I'm prepared to take that chance."

"And there's always the problem of credibility among
our own people. Gunderstein, for example. We can't just shut off the tap
without adequate, rational explanations." Would she see that he was
stalling?

"It appeared strange, Nick. As if you were moving
backward." She made two more martinis and poured them out, handing him a
fresh glass. "You've got three reporters on it. You've killed Stock's
column. You've shut Henderson out from the editorial pages. Even a lousy
Lifestyle story. Really, Nick."

"You've got one helluva spy system, Myra," Nick
said, feeling the anger rise. "You're worse than the CIA."

"I don't need a spy system, Nick. It's going through
the paper like a disease. Henderson's extremely upset. Frankly, I can't blame
him."

"I think you're making a mistake, Myra," Nick
said, conscious of his caution. "Suppose there is an involvement?"

"I don't think I'm making myself clear."

"On the contrary."

"Come on, Nick. If you look hard enough you're bound
to find something."

"I assume you think he's clean as a pin."

"Probably."

"I don't understand."

"Yes you do, Nick. Every public figure has something,
some skeleton that we can dredge up." She paused. "We all have."

"We're not fishing. Merely investigating."

"Even Charlie knew when to stop," she said
suddenly. She could always invoke Charlie. "He was no saint either. He
could look the other way when he wanted to." What is she trying to say? he
wondered.