Charm City

On the sixth floor, the publisher's secretary, one of those strangely proprietary women always found hovering at the elbows of powerful men, ushered Tess into an empty conference room adjacent to the publisher's office. It was a subtly opulent room, a place to wine and dine-well, coffee and croissant in these leaner, more abstemious times-the city's powerful. Mahogany table, Oriental rug, a silver tea set on a mahogany sideboard, the inevitable watercolors of nineteenth-century Baltimore. What must it be like for the top editors, the ones who traveled back and forth between this glossy dining room and the chaotic newsroom below, all the while trying to reconcile this realm of commerce with all those romantic ideas about journalism? How did they bridge these two worlds, the corporate and the cause?

Amnesia, Tess decided. Editors quickly forgot whatever they knew about reporting. If a man named Smith drove his truck into a local diner, killing five people, editors couldn't understand why you didn't call him up and ask for all the details. "Just look it up in the phone book," they would say, as if there were only one Smith, as if he weren't in jail, out of the reach of any phone. And if by some miracle you did find Smith and get the full story, the editors would say, "Well, that's what we pay you for." Or, "We're tight tomorrow, it might have to hold."

And now Tess had to face three of these amnesiacs at once, plus the publisher. The executive editor, the managing editor, and the deputy managing editor.

"Three editors," she said out loud, staring out the window to the north. "Well, Hercules slew the Hydra."

"And it had nine heads."

A man had slipped into the room behind her, a man with high color in his face and shiny brown hair falling in his eyes. In blue jeans and a T-shirt, he might have passed for 25. In his gray wool trousers, red tie, and blue-and-white striped Oxford cloth shirt, he looked closer to the 45 he probably was. But a cute 45, Tess decided, checking out his muscular forearms, the wide grin, the boyish way he kept pushing his hair out of his eyes.

"Jack Sterling," he said, holding out his hand. "Deputy managing editor."

"Tess Monaghan." Out of habit, she grasped his hand hard, the way she had pinched Rosita's when they'd met. But Jack Sterling just squeezed back even harder. Flustered, she broke the grip, feeling something she did not want to put a name to.

He sat on the edge of the gleaming table, openly appraising her, rotating the wrist of his right hand as he massaged it with his left.

" Baltimore mick," he pronounced, talking to himself as if she were on the other side of a one-way glass. "Something else blended in, though. Something solid, good peasant stock. About twenty-seven or twenty-eight. Athletic. Doesn't like pantyhose or diet soda. How am I doing?"

"Midwesterner," she replied. "Corn-fed Protestant, a onetime wunderkind who is still wunder, if no longer kind. Probably plays racquetball-note how he flexes his wrist and rubs his forearm as he speaks, something an athlete might do. How am I doing?"

Sterling laughed. Good, he had a sense of humor about himself. "Close enough. Only my game is squash, when my back isn't out, and my wrist hurts because twenty-two years in this business have bestowed on me a chronic case of carpal tu

He began to massage his wrist again, then dropped his hand abruptly, suddenly self-conscious about the gesture. "Midwesterner? Well, I guess Oak Park, Illinois, is about as Midwestern as it gets. How'd you figure that out? I like to think I've acquired some East Coast polish over the last few years."

Tess smiled noncommittally. Whitney had given her thumbnail sketches of everyone she would meet today, but she saw no reason to divulge her inside information. " Baltimore isn't the best place to come if you're looking for polish. In fact, if you're not careful, your nice, bland accent will start adding Rs to words like water and wash."

Jack Sterling leaned toward her. His eyes were even bluer than the stripe in his shirt. "Then what is Baltimore the best place for?" Before she could think of a clever reply, the other editors began filing into the room. A little guiltily, as if he had been caught consorting with the enemy, Sterling took his place among them.

They looked more alike than they knew, this quartet. All white. No one younger than 35, nor older than 60. Two suits-gray pinstripes on the shortest man, obviously the publisher, Randall Pfieffer IV, and a flashy turquoise one on the sole woman, managing editor Colleen Reganhart, who had the kind of dark hair-fair skin-light eyes combination that the Monaghan side of Tess's family would call black Irish.

The last man was dressed as Sterling was, but his blue-striped shirt was just a little better made, his red tie heavier and silkier.

"Lionel C. Mabry," he said, offering a limp hand to Tess. The hair, of course. How could she miss the hair? It was thi

"Take a seat, Lionel," Colleen Reganhart ordered. She gave his name an extra syllable and feminine lilt. Li-o-nelle. He smiled at her, as if thankful for direction, and slipped into one of the large leather chairs alongside the table, Colleen to his left and Jack to his right. That left Tess and the publisher at either end, creating a strangely lopsided table.

Pfieffer's chair, she noticed, was hiked up slightly higher than the others, perhaps to give him an advantage he didn't have on dry land. Behind his back, Randall Pfieffer IV was known as Five-Four by his employees. The nickname, while not affectionate, was generous, granting the publisher two inches above what nature had given him, maybe three. But the thronelike chair was a miscalculation: his feet swung above the floor, drawing attention to his diminutive stature. Fortunately, his high, hoarse voice had no problem filling a room. He had been a cheerleader at Dartmouth, according to Whitney's dossier. ("If it comes up, say yell leader.")

He began the meeting. "Miss Monaghan, we have asked you here today because we have a job that requires discretion, tact, and a certain sophistication about our business. We've been assured you have all these qualities."

Whitney had really laid it on thick. "I'd like to think so, Mr. Pfieffer."

"I want to stress to you that as far as we're concerned, no crime has been committed here, no errors of fact have been made. We're distressed because we pla

Thirty seconds into the discussion, and the first lie had already clocked in. "Of course," Tess agreed, adding from sheer perversity, "Isn't computer tampering a federal crime? If you really want to find out who did this, I think the FBI is better equipped to solve your mystery."

The editors exchanged glances. Jack Sterling began to speak, only to be cut off by Reganhart.

"As Randy said, we stand by the story, although we won't be surprised if that asshole Wynkowski files a lawsuit. Let me stress, he has no fucking grounds for a libel suit. No errors have been brought to our attention to date, and we think he meets the test for a public figure. He'd have to prove actual malice. Still, we prefer the general public not know the story ran by-ran early. It could erode readers' confidence in our product."