Brad Parks - Faces of the Gone

But only after you groveled for a bit. And from the self-satisfied grin on his face as I approached his desk, I think he knew he was about to be the recipient of some concentrated groveling.

“Hi, Buster, got a sec?”

“What’s up, Ivy?” he said, practically taunting me.

I told him about The Stuff, about the story that was going in the next day’s paper, and about what I needed done to the heroin samples I had found. As I talked, a change came over Hays’s face. He didn’t belittle me, nor did he try to stick up for his story. He seemed genuinely miffed he had gotten it wrong.

“So the thing about the bar robbery, you think the cops are just making it up?” he asked.

“I bet your cop source probably believes he’s right. I mean, who knows? Maybe Shareef Thomas really did rob that bar at some point? Or maybe he just happened to look like the guy who did? In the absence of any other information, it’s probably the best theory they had to go on. And once they committed themselves to that premise, maybe they overlooked evidence that pointed in another direction. You know how it goes.”

Hays nodded. “I feel like printing a retraction,” he said ruefully.

If I’d wanted to bust Hays’s balls a little bit, I would have said something like, “Oh, we’ll be printing one. It’s thirty-five inches, it’s leading tomorrow’s paper, and it’s got my name on it.”

But I didn’t need to be scoring rhetorical points at the moment. I needed his help.

“So I’m trying to find someone who can run some tests on those heroin samples I got,” I said. “You know anyone like that?”

“You know, it’s funny, but yesterday I got a call from a guy who does that sort of thing,” Hays said.

I looked at him for a long second to see if he was busting my balls, but he appeared quite earnest. “You did?” I asked.

“Yeah, a guy named Irving Wallace. I hadn’t heard from him in a month of Sundays, but he saw my byline on the Ludlow Street story and gave me a holler. He was all interested in it for some reason.”

“You think he’d help me?”

“Maybe. He sure seemed curious about the story,” Hays said. “You’re not going to have to quote him, are you?”

“I guess not. He’s just doing a test for us.”

“Good, because he works for a part of the federal government where they don’t like to see their names in the paper.”

Hays started flipping through one of his Rolodexes. He had four of them-one from each century he had been working here. Naturally, he was one of the holdouts who refused to modernize and put his sources in a computer. He was into Rolodex number three by the time he found what he was looking for.

“Here he is. Irving Wallace,” Hays said as he copied the number onto a piece of paper. “This guy is the best forensic chemist on the East Coast. Drop my name and promise you won’t quote him. He’ll have that test done for you by suppertime.”

On my way back from Hays’s desk, I saw Szanto, who was returning from the three o’clock meeting along with a pack of other editors.

“Everything okay with the story?” I asked.

“It’s fine,” he said.

In Szanto talk, “fine” was a high compliment. If you were waiting for something that actually sounded like praise, chances are you would be waiting a while. He handed out a “good” about three times a year. “Very good” was a biennial event. I’m not sure anything beyond that-great, spectacular, superior-was even in his vocabulary. I was pleased with my “fine.”

Tina Thompson trailed Szanto out of the meeting. She gave me a thumbs-up. “Great work,” she said.

“Yeah, you like it?”

“Well, it’s a bit overwritten, but I would expect nothing less from you,” she teased. “On the whole, it’s a great piece of reporting.”

“How’d it go over in the meeting?”

“Well, Brodie made it clear he liked it, so. .”

So I knew how that went. When Brodie hadn’t made up his mind about a story, he’d be real quiet, which inevitably gave rise to spirited debate. But when he indicated he liked it, all the other editors would pile on to insist they also liked it-with the possible exception of Szanto, who was a notorious contrarian.

“Great,” I said. “Thanks.”

Tina was turning to walk away when something-the way her curls framed her face? the way her sweater hugged her body? — caused me to blurt out, “We should grab a drink tonight to celebrate.”

“Okay,” she said, like it was nothing.

“I’ll check in with you later,” I said.

“Okay,” she said, and gave me a little wave.

It happened so quickly, almost like my subconscious had been doing the talking for me. What the hell was my problem? The woman was less than twenty-four hours from ovulation. Hell, for all I knew that little watch of hers was off and she was ovulating right now. Once we got to the bar and had a drink or two, nature would take over. I might as well have volunteered to be her sperm donor.

Deep down, did I want to get Tina pregnant? Or was I just an incurably horny male who-because of hormones or pheromones or whatever-recognized Tina as an easy mark?

Then again, maybe it could just stay innocent. A drink or two between colleagues. A hearty farewell handshake. A return to the peace and solitude of my Nutley bungalow.

Uh-huh.

I did my best to shelve all those thoughts as I sat back down and punched in the phone number Hays had given me.

“Yes,” a terse voice said on the other end.

“Irving Wallace, please.”

“Yes.”

“Oh, this is Irving Wallace?”

“Yes.”

“Hi, I’m Carter Ross with the Eagle-Examiner -”

“No comment.”

He wasn’t trying to be funny, but I laughed despite myself.

“I didn’t even ask you a question yet,” I said.

“No comment.”

“Look, sir, I’m sorry to trouble you. But I’m working on a story about this quadruple homicide in Newark and I’ve got some heroin samples I need tested. Buster Hays tells me you can help.”

A pause.

“Heroin samples, huh?” he said, sounding intrigued.

“Yes.”

“And it relates to the Newark murders?”

“Yes.”

“And you know Buster Hays?”

“Yeah, I work with him.”

Another pause.

“I’ll call you back,” he said, and abruptly hung up.

“Sounds great,” I said to the empty phone line.

Feds. They were always so paranoid. I placed the phone back in its cradle and checked my e-mail, where there was more of the usual spam from Human Resources. I was just beginning to learn about an important discussion group on peanut allergies when my phone rang.

“Carter Ross.”

“Hi, Carter. Irving Wallace,” he said, sounding like he had undergone a robotectomy and was now human. “Sorry for the runaround. I just wanted to check you out.”

“Do people often call you up and impersonate newspaper reporters?”

“Can’t be too careful these days,” he said. “Buster says you’re okay. Actually, Buster says you’re a smart-ass Ivy League type. But he also said you’re a fine young reporter and I should help you. So what can I do for you?”

“I’m hoping you can tell me the purity and origin of some heroin samples I got off the street.”

“You want just standard GC/MS?”

“Uh. .”

“Because I can do that, LC, FTIR/ATR, IRMS, ICP/MS, Raman, whatever you need. We’re a full-service shop.”

“You’re talking to a newspaper reporter, remember?”

“Oh, right, sorry. GC/MS stands for gas chromatography/mass spectrometry. LC is liquid chromatography. FTIR/ATR is Fourier transform infrared. . I’ve lost you, haven’t I?”

“Thoroughly.”