Jan Burke - Bloodlines

John’s hearing is never so attuned to anything as a lack of noise in the newsroom. He came to his door, glanced over at us, then turned to the rest of the room and shouted, “What the hell are you being paid to do?”

It broke whatever spell had frozen the others, and work resumed.

Ethan said, “Thanks,” as Stuart and Mark went back to their desks. Otherwise, he still hadn’t moved or spoken.

“Let’s get out of here for a few minutes,” I said.

“I can’t.”

“Sure you can. Meet you downstairs in five. Don’t forget your umbrella.”

“I don’t have one.”

“We’ll share mine, then.”

I stood up, grabbed my purse, jacket, and umbrella, and left.

He met me in the lobby just when I thought I might have to go back up into the newsroom and haul him out by his ear.

I started walking, and to stay dry, he had to keep up. “Where are we going?”

“Lucky Dragon Burgers. Serves a great breakfast.”

“I’m not hungry, really.”

“I am,” I said.

He didn’t say anything more until we were seated in a booth. I asked him if he was a vegetarian. “No.”

I ordered two Lucky Dragon omelets and a pot of coffee.

He was staring down at the table.

“I was trying to remember an acronym a friend taught me,” I said. “Maybe you can help. It was the word H.A.L.T.-the H stood for hungry, the A for angry. The T was for tired. The L?”

“Lonely,” he said. He looked up. “Your friend was in AA?”

“Yes.”

“How’s he doing?”

“She. That one is doing fine. Not always the story. But she remembers to do little things like taking care not to let herself get too hungry, angry, lonely, or tired. Like a lot of things in AA, that’s not a bad idea for anyone, really.”

“Are you-?”

“In AA? No. But try not to hold that against me.”

“Actually, I’m glad to have a chance to talk to you. I need to apologize to you.”

“Working your steps?”

“No-I mean, I am, but it isn’t that. I’m not at that step yet. I’m-this is on my own. I just need to do this.”

The long apology that followed wasn’t something I needed, but I was fairly certain he had to get it off his chest. He spoke slowly and haltingly, in a manner far removed from that of the glib young manipulator who had put himself forward so often in recent months. The omelets arrived just as he was getting to the part about how he knew he had caused embarrassment to everyone on the whole newspaper.

“We’ll get over it. Don’t let that food get cold. Oh-thanks, and you’re forgiven, and don’t let any of this keep you from moving on from here.”

“That’s it?”

“No. Can I have your sour cream?”

He laughed a little nervously and dished it onto my plate. “It’s not good for you.”

“Oh yes it is. Hair shirts, on the other hand, are really bad for you.”

“Hair shirts?” he asked, puzzled.

I sighed. “I should make you look it up, but-people used to wear them as penance.”

“Oh. Okay.”

We ate in silence for a few minutes. He was, I noticed, starting to tuck into his breakfast with earnest.

My cell phone rang. I apologized to him-I usually turn it off in restaurants.

His mouth was full, but he motioned me to go ahead and answer it.

The call was from Frank. “Lydia didn’t know where to find you, so I worried a little,” he said.

“I’m having breakfast at the Lucky Dragon. What’s up?”

“I’ve been thinking about what you said about Maureen O’Connor. Harmon worked for Eden Supply of Las Piernas. Ring any bells?”

“Eden Supply? No, and there’s nothing about it in O’Connor’s notes that I can recall. Was it owned by some other company?”

“Haven’t had a chance to look it up. It’s not around now, though.”

“I’ll see if I can find anything about it in the newspapers from the 1940s. Maybe they advertised with the Express.”

“Okay, but don’t run anything in the paper yet-I’d rather Yeager didn’t know we were looking in this direction.”

When I hung up, Ethan said, “That was about O’Connor?”

I felt a little rise of anger.

“I didn’t mean to eavesdrop,” he said quickly.

“You could hardly help it. That’s not what’s bothering me. It’s that-”

“That you were close to O’Connor and I stole from him.”

“Yes.”

“That was wrong, I know. You probably won’t believe this, but-the reason was-I mean, I should never have done it, but-but I love the way he wrote.”

“I do believe that.”

“It makes it all worse, really.”

“Ethan, if we could go back in time and pull all of O’Connor’s writing out of your articles, believe me, I’d jump into the time machine right now. We can’t. You have to live with that. But I knew O’Connor really well, and I know what he’d tell you.”

“ ‘Why’d you steal from me, you stupid son of a bitch?’”

I laughed, which surprised him. “No. He’d tell you to keep your head up.”

He looked down at the table, caught himself, and met my gaze. “Why are you being nice to me? You hated me.”

“When I first came to work for the paper, I hid in the men’s room of the Express one day, and eavesdropped on O’Connor insulting the hell out of me.” I told him about some of my early troubles with O’Connor.

“What I’ve done,” he said, “is pretty different from that.”

“Yes, it is. But you aren’t the first reporter to get off to a rough start at the Express, Ethan. You have talent. You’ve just got to show people what you’ve got, that’s all. Never mind trying to impress them any other way-just use your own skill. Let it speak for itself.”

“What if that’s not enough?”

“If that isn’t enough, nothing else ever will be. You’ll need to find another line of work.”

“No-this is all I want.”

I smiled. “You’ll be all right.”

“I don’t know. They’ll never forget about this.”

“You think you’re so important that they’ll remember your mistakes more than anyone else’s?”

He smiled back a little. “When you put it like that, no.” He drank some coffee, then said, “Thanks.” After another few sips, he said, “It’s going to be hard, because…I really fucked up. I’m not too proud of myself. And it’s also going to be hard because…well, because until lately, it’s been so easy. I know that doesn’t seem to make sense, but what I mean is, no one ever stopped me before. I know how to get away with things, but now…I can’t do it that way. Even if I know I won’t get caught.”

“You have to catch yourself.”

“Right. So…I kind of have to reinvent myself. You know what I mean?”

“Yes, I think so.” I stared out the window of the Lucky Dragon, watching a steady stream of downtown workers, panhandlers, shoppers, and others walk by. Each one a little bundle of troubles on legs, determined to make it through the day. I looked back at Ethan. “I’ve got a project for you. Something to do with O’Connor, so maybe it will be a way of paying him back.”

“What?”

“A little background work for a story-nothing we can run with yet, but maybe it will go somewhere if you find a connection. Go down to the morgue…” I stopped, seeing his face go pale. “You can’t avoid going in there forever, Ethan.”

“No.”

“All right, use the public library, then, but be careful not to mention to anyone else exactly what it is you’re looking for. Find out if a company named Eden Supply, which was operating around here in the 1940s, was owned by anyone else-a larger company, for example. The city might have a record of it, although only with luck would that still be available. Try the ads for it first.”