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  “So you’ll visit, bring him back here to see her? Because when you tell her what you’re planning, she’s going to think she’ll never see that kid again. And that’ll get her really upset.”

  Jamie was moved, nearly compelled to affirmatively respond with physical affection. He began to feel like he’d backed himself into a corner. This was certainly no time to confess that the move, at least his part of it, was at best still based on a foundation of whimsy.

  “Brooklyn is home,” he said. “And even if it winds up being on Long Island, I’ll make sure Mom—you guys—get to see Aaron. I’ll make sure he knows his cousin.”

  He felt a twinge of regret, a moment of self-recrimination about the timing of his semi-fabricated disclosure. Yet the longer he sat on the barstool, and not coincidently the more beer he drank, the more he began to believe he could really make the leap. He could pick up and move to a city he only knew for its spritzing, space needle and basketball’s SuperSonics.

  Seattle? Sure. Why not? What the hell. He could do it. What was left besides a sudden onset of fear-driven inertia to keep him here?

  Then the front door opened and into the bar walked Cal Willis, with Carla marching right behind him.

  Jamie straightened up on his stool. His eyes followed her as she strolled across the room, right past him without so much as a smile, a wink or a glance.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  She couldn’t have missed him. He didn’t see how. Jamie and Morris, perched at the far end of the bar, opposite the front door, were in Carla’s direct line of vision.

  The snub—if that’s what it was—deflated Jamie. He wondered, Couldn’t she have just winked? Smiled? Raised an acknowledging eyebrow? Was she embarrassed by having spent the night with him? Or was this her way of restating her terms?

  In any event, here he was, trying again to figure her out. Jamie was never much good at deconstructing women in general but Carla was a special case, something entirely different. By now he should have known it was nearly impossible to know what she would say or do next.

  “I need to take a piss,” Morris announced, breaking Jamie’s concentration. He lowered himself from the bar stool and headed to the men’s room.

  Sports highlights filled the television screen. Patrick Ewing was being interviewed following the Knicks’ victory, so doused in perspiration that he looked like he could use an umbrella. Around the bar, Trib reporters and editors were toasting their return to work, sharing their own theories on what had happened to get them back in the building. Jamie refused an offer for another round—he had promised Morris a ride home and the two beers were already taking their toll on his late-night acuity. His plan was to grab a few hours’ sleep in his old bedroom and drop in downstairs in the morning to give his sister and brother-in-law a congratulatory hug.

  On the way back from the bathroom, Morris bumped into one of the printers and stopped to chat. When Lou joined them, Jamie wondered if his father was consoling his uncle about Steven or informing him that they were about to be the only remaining Kramers at the Trib. Ah, Steven. Jamie couldn’t seem to summon the anger he’d unleashed on the telephone. He actually hadn’t so much as considered his cousin since he’d become preoccupied with his own potential life makeover. Strange, Jamie thought. Before the strike, he wouldn’t have contemplated this decision without consulting Steven. But why would he bother at this point?

  Carla—now there was someone to confide in with the candor she deserved. She would listen. She would care.

  Damn, this is stupid. Jamie slid off the bar stool, turned around and bumped into her.

  “Whoa, stranger,” Carla said. She fended him off with two hands, Jamie close enough for a blast of spearmint. It reminded him of the first night of the strike when he’d regained consciousness with his head on her thigh.

  “I was coming to say hello,” he said. “Saw you walk in a few minutes ago.”

  “I saw you too,” she said. “I wasn’t ignoring you, if that’s what you were thinking. It just looked like you and your dad were burying the hatchet. And it’s about time!”

  Jamie nodded, impassively. He had somehow failed to consider that as a reason. But he also didn’t want to let on to her that he had taken her blow-by as a snub.

  “We’re trying,” he said. “It’s a start, I guess.”

  “Didn’t I say that he’d be happy to see you and welcome you?”

  “Well, actually…”

  “I meant for tonight. I already heard you’re not coming back to work.”

  Jamie shook his head, pretending to be surprised that she already knew about what he’d told Willis.

  “Cal doesn’t waste any time, does he?” he said.

  “I told you—no secrets, like family.”

  Her dimpled smile made her seem less the woman on a mission than she was when she had found him half-conscious outside the Trib. Of course, now that he shared a few of her secrets—a mother to support, a child to rear, a sister to mourn—he could also understand why the strike’s conclusion, complicated as it was, would make her more relaxed, more playful. And, yes, he could see in her eyes a touch of sheepishness. He took it as her recognition that their night together had meant something to her too.

  Jamie wanted to tell her how much he wanted to be with her again. But it was more than lust that he felt. “I just want you to know that I really admire your character and strength,” he said. “I wish I had half of it.”

  “You have more than you think,” she said. “But like I told you the other day—you don’t have a clue. Maybe you’ll find one in Seattle.”

  “So Cal told you where I’m moving?”

  “He just said west. It wasn’t hard to figure out exactly where.”

  “Just a short six-plus hours plane ride away, in case you’d care to come visit,” he said.

  “Seattle? Oh, sure. Love to. But I’m guessing that little Robbie may have to be in college before I have the time and maybe the money to get out there. You’ll keep a light on for me in the window?”

  “Well, we’ll see how long I can actually last out there myself or if I can go through with it at all,” Jamie said. It was as close to the truth as he was going to get.

  “You’ve got a job, I hear. That should help,” Carla said.

  “I’ve been told that, except I’m not really sure what it is. I suppose as long as they tell me I don’t have to join a union and go on strike, I’ll be okay.”

  She playfully punched him on the shoulder.

  “I don’t get it,” she said. “This one didn’t bring enough excitement into your life? You didn’t have any fun?” She feigned a pout. Before Jamie could abort his response, he felt himself blush.

  How many times could she knock him off stride? Seemingly, whenever she had the time and the urge.

  “The last part, definitely,” he said.

  “Good, because it was fun for me too,” she said, nudging him again, this time a light elbow to the ribs.

  He was tempted to lean over and kiss her, though the cheek would have to do in the current setting. He had just about summoned the nerve when they were distracted by shouting nearby.

  “TURN IT UP!”

  “SOUND, QUICK!”

  In an instant, Kelly found the remote and pointed it above her shoulder at the television, her thumb frantically working the volume button. On the screen, Debbie Givens was hoisting a copy of the Trib, running an index finger across the front page as the camera closed in on the tawdry sub-head:

  Feds Say Trib Captain Brady Has Hookers On Board

  There it was, just as Morris had previewed for Jamie upstairs. The bar crowd at first was dumbfounded by the report before erupting in pandemonium. The story had clearly, and somewhat miraculously, been safeguarded right up to publication.

  “…Nobody from the Trib has yet explained how this incredible story managed to land on the front page of Leland Brady’s own newspaper. Sources tell me that the publisher left the building earlier this evening, ac
companied by his son Maxwell, after presses rolled with the first edition. Which, as I said, had a very different front-page story…”

  Jamie turned back to Carla, whose shit-eating grin confirmed that she had been party to the scheme all along—Carla and Cal and of course Patrick Blaine, who had proved once and for all and even under the most outlandish conditions that there was no one better at the tabloid game.

  “Another TV exclusive for our gal Givens,” Carla said.

  “I don’t understand why she would have this one alone though,” Jamie said.

  “Because Cal and…”

  “Blaine?”

  “What makes you think he had anything to do with this?”

  Of course he was involved, had to have been, but Carla was apparently not going to let on, not even to Jamie. She had almost slipped but Blaine had his contract and Carla had her limits on what she would divulge.

  “Cal didn’t want the other television people around,” she said. “Too much risk of it getting out early enough for Brady to find out and do something to stop it. The other stations were here earlier, but they all left after the first edition. We just needed someone to put it on air in case something went wrong with the trucks getting out. We told Givens that if she hung around, she could count on something really good.”

  “Good doesn’t begin to describe this story,” Jamie said. “I guess the couple of years she spent in our newsroom paid off big-time. She’ll wind up on the network.”

  Carla nodded and suddenly stepped forward and placed her hands on Jamie’s shoulders. She lifted up on her toes, leaned forward and pressed her moist lips gently against his cheek. She held them there purposefully, before whispering in his ear.

  “You’re going to be better than okay, no matter where you end up, Jamie. You just have to believe in yourself.”

  Did she know that he still didn’t know what he was actually going to do? Was she sending him an obsequious message, leaving the light on for him to stay behind and be with her? Before Jamie could respond, before his heart could resume beating at anywhere near its normal rate, she turned and retreated to the back. Jamie watched her disappear around the wall. He ran a finger across the spot of his cheek she had kissed.

  The NY1 report on the Trib ended, but Kelly’s was bursting with the kind of energy that seizes a newsroom at one of those moments when the unforeseen erupts and brings change to the world. In the midst of the clamor, Jamie turned back to the bar to find Morris nudging the twenty a few inches forward, leaving it all just as Kelly had predicted.

  “The story is out—mission accomplished,” he said. “I guess we can get the hell out of here. It’s been a long day.”

  Amen to that, Jamie thought. He zippered his jacket, shoved his hands into the side pockets and followed his father outside.

  “I just want to go in the building to pick up a paper,” Morris said.

  “Get me one too,” he said as Morris stepped away into the street.

  Jamie stayed behind, looking up at the starless, perfect sky. He closed his eyes and let the light-falling rain freshen his face.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Morris took his sweet time inside while Jamie waited in the street, imagining his father being hailed as the conquering working man’s hero. Not that Morris was likely to enthusiastically admit to being the conduit of the story that exposed Lord Brady. He was never the self-promoting type, scoffing whenever Uncle Lou claimed he had single-handedly preserved their printers’ shop during the post-Ryan years without proper credit. But in the aftermath of Brady’s heavy-handedness and the front page that humiliated Morris and family, Jamie wondered if his father would have the urge to take an overdue bow.

  Jamie had to wince at the implausibility of Morris retiring to doting grandfather-hood, of spoon-feeding a toddler in a highchair and making inane baby talk. Since he could remember, Molly had told domestic tales of Morris’ revulsion to child-rearing. “All he had to do was get a whiff of a dirty diaper, and he’d grab the newspaper and run for the bathroom,” she’d say.

  For all Jamie knew, that’s where Morris was now though he didn’t mind the delay. There was no rush getting to Brooklyn. After being inside the bar for a couple of hours, the night air was invigorating. Jamie watched with growing curiosity the proceedings across the street at the loading docks. The trucks were being loaded with bundles, being readied for what was destined to be a memorable delivery.

  At the front of the drivers’ picket line, Givens and her cameraman had Gerry Colangelo backed against the wall for interrogation. Jamie was especially pleased to see Pat Blaine nearby—his notepad open, cigarette dangling, eyeing the clusters of drivers. A handful surrounded one guy holding a last edition, contributing boisterous and unabashed commentary to the inspection of the front-page blockbuster:

  “Look at the rack on Ms. Annie.”

  “How come we never got any pussy in our benefits package?”

  Jamie stepped into the street, leaning a shoulder against a red Volvo with a badly dented rear end. From this position he could see the back of the trucks being shuttered. Bodies were stirring. Something was happening. Cops were moving toward the side door and the platform, reinforcing the barricades between the trucks and the picket line. The door opened, bringing forward a burst of replacement drivers scurrying for the trucks. They flicked away cigarette butts, the brims of their baseball caps pulled so low that they couldn’t have noticed the striking drivers paying them no mind, preoccupied as they were with Brady and Ms. Annie.

  The replacement drivers wasted no time getting behind the wheels and their engines started. The disorderly procession was so punctual and rehearsed they might easily have passed for actors on a movie set. Without delay, the first truck inched forward as the police moved alongside, forming a traffic lane with a cordon of blue on two sides. One officer, stationed in the intersection, summoned the lead truck forward with his nightstick.

  He couldn’t see the black limousine coming his way, speeding on South Street and swerving left as it entered the intersection. It narrowly missed the startled officer and came to a halt in front of the lead truck, inches from its front bumper.

  Within seconds, the limousine was surrounded by a half-dozen screaming cops. The officer who had nearly been run down hustled over, wielding his nightstick, crashing it against and shattering the left taillight. Pat Blaine hurried across to where Jamie had stepped forward to watch the spectacle unfold.

  “You’ve got the best view here, Kramer. And believe me when I tell you, this is going to be good.”

  Within seconds the driver was out of the limousine, handcuffed and bent over the hood. An officer approached the back door, pulled it open with his left hand while his right was poised on his holster. A foot in a fire-engine red slipper set down in the street, followed by another, and finally a hulking figure in a silk white robe with an embroidered B over the left breast. He emerged from the car and rose mechanically yet majestically. Much taller than the officer, he looked over the mass of law enforcement.

  “Everyone needs to just be calm.” Leland Brady said.

  The officers looked at each other in bewilderment, thinking—the audacity of this fat fuck in his expensive bathrobe, an accessory to the near dismemberment of a police officer!

  One of them turned back to Brady and said, “Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to step away from the vehicle.”

  Brady smiled benevolently, like an amused CEO deigning to enlighten the company’s new night watchman who didn’t recognize him and who, by the end of the shift, would be folding a check for two weeks’ severance into his wallet.

  “My good man, I own this newspaper and every one of these trucks, and I forbid them from moving another inch.”

  The officers shrugged. Two approached Brady, each grabbing an arm, and escorted him to the sidewalk. They were no more than thirty feet from where Blaine, Jamie and now Givens and her cameraman were standing.

  Blaine nudged Jamie with an elbow. He pointed to th
e cameraman, then to Brady. He raised his index finger to the side of his head and simulated the pulling of a trigger.

  “I must speak to the Mayor,” Brady said. His voice had doubt in it now, a high pitch, more pleading than demanding. His hands were pulled behind his back. His face was contorted with anger at the outrageous reality of his impending arrest.

  “I’ve got news for ya, pal,” the cop on Brady’s right flank said. “The Mayor gave us the order to make sure these trucks get through.”

  “You don’t understand. I can settle this if I can just call him, if I can use the telephone inside the vehicle.”

  Blaine chortled. “What do you think, Kramer? Hizzoner still wants to hear from the Lord now our story is out and that camera is rolling?”

  “About that story, Pat…”

  Blaine took a long drag on his cigarette before dropping and extinguishing it with the toe of his shoe.

  “Damn brilliant reporting,” he said. “What we do best in this business.”

  Blaine fiddled inside his coat pocket for another smoke, nestled it above his left ear and flipped his notebook shut. He held his palm up.

  “You can’t write a fucking thing when it’s wet, you know what I mean? Got to keep your eyes open and make sure it all gets in here.” He tapped an index finger against the side of his head. He winked, shot Jamie a crooked, knowing smile and turned to follow the cops as they led the intruders away.

  The handcuffed Lord unleashed a torrent of profanity as he was forced into the back of a squad car. An officer backed the limousine from the intersection, parking it in front of Kelly’s before radioing for a city towing service to impound it. The Trib delivery truck finally was allowed to turn onto South Street. A dozen of the striking drivers, assembled at the corner, waved the truck on, chanting “Go…go…go.”

  “Strikers cheering scabs—who would ever have thought they’d see this?” Jamie said, shaking his head. Debbie Givens called out to him, “Jamie, I need to talk to you but I have to…”

  She gestured to the cheering drivers and hustled back across the street with her cameraman, enjoying the defining night of her professional life.