Remember Me, Irene

Well, as far as I’m concerned, Allan can say “fuck” every fifteen seconds if he wants to. What mattered to me was knowing he doesn’t say it so often; he says it only when he’s close to freaking out. I make it my business to know things like this about Moffett and other officials. In his case, I learned these habits of speech because I’ve listened to him for a dozen years-in meetings and interviews-and during that time had so little cooperation from him, I had to learn to read whatever clues his habits gave me.

“So you have no plans to return?” I asked.

“None.”

“Then why insist on being off the record, Allan?”

No reply.

“I think you do plan to come back. Resignation is sort of like marriage-resign in haste, repent at leisure, right?”

Silence, but I could hear him breathing, and he was breathing almost as hard as Joshua Burrows.

“You probably had a moment of panic the other day,” I went on. “You resigned, lived to regret it, and now you figure once you’ve tied up some loose ends, you’ll be back. But you should get used to it, Allan. This time, the mess is too big. And someone’s screwing up the cleanup, don’t you think?”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about Lucas Monroe,” I replied.

“I don’t know any Lucas Monroe!”

“You used to go fishing with him.”

“I’ve been fishing with lots of people.”

“He even took your picture on a fishing boat.”

“Lots of people have taken my picture.”

“He was in your office last Wednesday-a week ago today. I’ll bet the cops have already talked to you about it.”

“A black guy insisted on seeing me on Wednesday. I didn’t know his fucking name. Wanted help with the homeless shelter. I explained to him that I was pla

“Some nameless, homeless, African American man was the first person to get the a

“Fu

“No. I don’t think it’s so fu

“I don’t know a thing about that.”

“I suppose you don’t know anything about what happened to Roberta Benson?”

“Roberta Benson…the shelter lady?”

“Don’t play dumb with me, Allan. It’s in today’sExpress.”

“Never read the rag.”

“Even if you haven’t read it, you know exactly who she is. Someone attacked her in her office last night. She’s in a coma.”

“What in the fucking hell is going on?” he said vehemently, then catching himself, added lamely, “I mean, it’s sad, but what does it have to do with me?”

If I had been sitting across from him, I would have been able to pick up other cues from his posture, his eyes, what he did with his hands. As it was, I couldn’t be certain, but it seemed to me that Allan didn’t know who hurt Roberta, but was scared all the same. Why would he be? Because he was afraid it was someone who could be co

“No idea who might be taking care of your potential enemies, Allan?”

“What the fuck are you talking about? No fucking way is the fucking shelter director my fucking enemy! I’m not going to sit here and listen to this kind of fucking nonsense!”

He hung up. Didn’t matter. I’d hit the mother-effing lode.

I scrolled through the story on my screen, typed “Contacted by theExpress, Moffett declined to comment on the allegations,” and hit the keys that file a story on the computer. I called Murray, having made a promise, and told him he might be interested in the story I had just filed.

John had asked me to let him know when I filed it, so I went into his office and watched as he pulled it up. He read it, keeping his face expressionless, which is something you get used to when you work with John.

His comments to me were strictly along the lines of follow-up, and I told him that I had already talked to Murray. “Moffett thinks he’s out of reach,” I said, and repeated a few of Moffett’s off-the-record ratings on the subject of the Brown Act.

John grunted in disbelief. “Moffett might be beyond the reach of the law,” he said, “but he’s not beyond the reach of public opinion. No politician in this town is going to want to be tarred with the same brush-they’ll all steer clear of him. And even if he tried to get hired somewhere else, a scandal here would make him too risky to touch. Scandal’s worse than a lawsuit to a guy like Moffett.”

“At least Moffett deserves his damaged reputation,” I said, thinking of Lucas. “And I’m not done with him. This isn’t why he resigned.”

We talked about my progress on that part of the story. John seemed less irritated with me now, probably because I had handed something in. Not just any something-we both knew that Wrigley would quickly calculate how many papers a “Secret Meetings” headline would sell.

As if Winston Wrigley III-“Duck and cover, here comes WW III,” the staff would say-had crossed his mind, too, John said, “Kelly, would you happen to know anything about Mr. Wrigley’s pager number being widely distributed?”

“Why, now that you mention it, he did ask me to give it to a good-looking rich widow. Is he being pestered by gangs of them now?”

“No, but he’s been paged by several funeral homes, pet hospitals, psychiatric facilities, and other establishments in the last twenty-four hours. And surprisingly, they always seem rather a

“A pager would hardly seem worth it, would it?” I said.

“He just might be seeing it that way himself, Kelly.”

IWENT BACK to my desk and checked my voice mail. There was a message from Lisa Selman, sounding forlorn, asking me to call. I did and got her father’s machine, and left a return message with my pager number. In spite of my glee over Wrigley’s torture, I had to admit the pager had been handy. Still, I bridled at the thought of being forced to carry one at all times.

I called Keene Dage and left a message on his answering machine. “Keene, you’d be surprised at what I’ve learned lately. I know you can tell me more. Let’s get together and talk.”

He’d probably ignore it, but you never know when being a pest will pay off. I called Jerry Selman’s number again, this time leaving a message for him to call me. I was hoping he could shed some light on his father’s ex-girlfriend. I thought of calling Corbin Tyler and leaning on him, too. Because I chicken out sometimes, I convinced myself I had better things to do.

I took a few pages of Ben’s calendar out of the envelope I had stuffed them in-end of July and early August. The pages were filled until August 8. That day was blank. So was the one after it. And the one after that.

When looking through the pages of the earlier months of 1977, I had found other blanks, but only one here or there. August 9, August 10, August 11. On and on, nothing. Claire had said Ben wouldn’t write if he felt depressed. This must have been a major blue funk. I went as far as August 16, the last of the pages I had pulled out, without seeing another entry. I was going to try to pull out the next set, but Ivy called to say she was about to send Nadine Preston’s records by fax.

I hastily put the calendar pages back into the envelope and carried it with me to the fax machine. The fax chirped, and the transmission began.

It was a long one, about fifteen pages, which caused complaints from a couple of people who wanted to use the fax machine. But bigger problems came from those who were curious about my hovering over it, shielding the pages of the fax so they couldn’t be read as they were received. I eventually grabbed a copy of yesterday’s late edition and propped a tent of classified ads over the receiving tray. The fax wasn’t important to any of them, but some of my coworkers seem to think that if we aren’t pesky with each other, we’ll get out of practice for the job.