Laura Lippman - Charm City

"You disappoint me, Tess," Feeney said balefully, gnawing on one of the toothpicks from the pile in front of him. "You're as literal minded as my dumb-fuck editors."

Tess took a second, more generous sip from her glass, relishing its chill and the tiny tongue of heat behind it. Truly a lovely drink.

"It's nice to see you, too, Feeney."

"Nice to see me? You can't even bear to look at me."

Lost in his own private pity party, Feeney had spoken an unwitting truth. Tess was avoiding his eyes, squinted tight from bitterness, and his turned-down smirk. Feeney had always been gray-gray-blue eyes, gray-blond hair, even a grayish-pink pallor, only a few shades lighter than the undercooked hot dogs he bought from the sidewalk vendors outside the courthouse. But tonight, everything looked a little ashier than usual, as if he wasn't getting enough oxygen. Against his drained face, the broken blood vessels on his cheeks were stark blue road maps leading nowhere. Gin blossoms, the one flower you could count on finding year-round in sodden Baltimore.

"What's wrong, Feeney?"

"My career is over."

"You make that announcement once a month."

"Yeah, but usually it's only free-floating paranoia. Tonight, I got the word officially. I don't belong. Not a team player." The last sentence came out so slurry it sounded more like "Knotty template."

"They couldn't have fired you." The Beacon-Light was a union paper, which made it difficult for them to dismiss employees, although far from impossible. But Feeney was good, a pro. They'd have a hard time building a case against him. Unless he had done it for them, by ignoring an editor's orders. Insubordination was grounds for immediate termination.

"Suppose you had written the story of your life, Tess?" he asked, leaning toward her, his face so close to hers that she could smell the gin on his breath, along with the undertones of tobacco. Strange-Feeney had given up smoking years ago. "The best story you could ever imagine. Suppose it had everything you could ask for in a story, and everything had at least two sources? And suppose those goddamn rat bastard cowardly pointy-head incompetents wouldn't publish it?"

"This has something to do with that basketball rally, doesn't it? The story you wouldn't tell me about last night."

Feeney picked up his fork and began stabbing the happy hour ravioli, until little spurts of tomato sauce and cheese freckled the tablecloth. "Well, I can tell you now. In fact, the only way anyone is ever going to hear this story is if I tell it to 'em. Maybe I could stand on a street corner with a sign, offering to read it at a buck a pop."

"How good is it? How big?"

He slipped back into his singsong poetry voice. "Wink Wynkowski, Baltimore's best hope for luring a basketball team back to Baltimore, has many things in his past he prefers no one know about, especially the NBA. His business is a house of cards, perhaps on the brink of bankruptcy, beset by lawsuits, from ambulances to zippers. He may be able to get up the scratch for a team, but he isn't liquid enough to keep it going."

"Then why buy it if it's going to make him broke?"

"Good question. Two answers. He's a fool-doubtful. Or he plans to unload the team pretty quickly, as soon as the city builds him that brand-new arena, which will double the team's value overnight."

"That seems a little far-fetched."

"Hey, remember Eli Jacobs? He bought the Orioles for $70 million in the 1980s. When his business collapsed in the recession, he sold them for almost $175 million and it was Camden Yards, paid for by the state, that made the team so valuable. If Wink can keep all his spinning plates aloft for a couple of years and sell the team before his creditors come calling, he stands to see a huge profit."

"Is there more?" Feeney scowled. "Not that there has to be," she added hastily. "You connected the dots, and I can see the picture."

"But there is more. Much more. Dark secrets. A rancorous first marriage. Bad habits, the kind professional sports can't abide. How much would you pay for this story? $39.95? $49.95? $59.95? Wait, don't answer-what if we throw in a set of ginsu knives?" He began to laugh a little hysterically, then caught himself. "Trust me, Tess. It's solid. I wish my house had been built on a foundation half as good."

"Then why won't the paper print it?"

"All sorts of reasons. They say we don't have it nailed. They say it's racist to cover an NBA deal so aggressively when we let football, which appeals to a white fan base, slip into town without a whimper. They say we used too many unidentified sources, but some of the people who talked to me still work for Wink, Tess. They have damn good reasons to want to be anonymous. One guy in particular. The top editors told us this afternoon we had to turn over the names of all our sources before they ran the story. They knew I couldn't do that, I'd see my story spiked first. Which was the point. They want an excuse to kill the story because they don't trust us."

"Us?"

"Me and Rosie. You met her. She's good, for a rookie. You ought to see the stuff she dug up on Wink's first marriage."

"It's probably her they don't trust, then. Because she's new, and young."

Feeney shook his head. "New and young is better than old and old at the Beacon-Light these days. Her. Me. Both of us. I don't know and I don't care anymore. I'm tired, Tess. I'm so tired, and it's such a good story, and all I want to do is go to sleep right here on the table, wake up, and find out they're going to print it after all."

"Feeney, I'm sure they'll do right by you, and you'll have your big scoop," she said, pushing his water glass closer to him, hoping to distract him. He seems to be settling down , she thought. Maybe the evening can be salvaged .

Feeney lurched to his feet, martini glass still firmly in hand. "This isn't about me, or my big scoop!" he shouted. The other people in the bar looked up, startled and apprehensive.

"Okay, it is about me," he hissed, bending down so only Tess could hear him. He had drunk so much that gin seemed to be coming through his pores. "It's about my career, or what's left of it. But it's also about all that important stuff newspapers are suppose to be about. You know-truth, justice, the first amendment, the fourth estate. We're not suppose to be cheerleaders, going ‘Rah-rah-rah, give us the ball.' We're the goddamn watchdogs, the only ones who care if the city is getting a good deal, or being used by some scumbag."

He swayed a little as he spoke, and his words were soft, virtually without consonants, but he wasn't as drunk as she would have been on five martinis. His melancholy had a stronger grip on him than the liquor.

"Feeney, what do you want me to do about it?" Tess wasn't the best audience for a speech on the glories of journalism.

"Why, drink to the end of my career!" he roared, toasting the room with his now empty glass. The crowd, mostly regulars, raised their glasses back in fond relief. This was the Feeney they knew, acting up for an audience.

"What are you so happy about?" a white-haired man called out from the bar.

"Am I happy? Am I free? The question is absurd! For it is a far, far better thing I do now than I have ever done before!"

Feeney smashed his ratty cap onto his head and swept out of the bar, the tasseled ends of his plaid muffler flying behind him, martini glass still in hand. Tess was left behind with a half-finished martini, Feeney's tab, and no company for the tortellini she had planned to order. Feeney knew how to make an exit, credit him that. Only the Tale of Two Cities allusion was the slightest bit off-too recognizable for Feeney's taste. He preferred more obscure lines, like his penultimate one, Am I happy? Am I free ? It was tauntingly familiar, but she couldn't place the source.