Charm City

Colleen didn't have any bourbon, but she did have good Scotch and an unopened bag of Mint Milanos. Whitney broke the seal on both with great glee, then selected two mismatched glasses from one of the kitchen cabinets.

"We've earned it," she said to Tess, as they sat in the carpeted area where the dining room table might have been, if Colleen had gotten around to buying one.

"I guess you can put it on your expense account. Another favor for Lionel." She turned the phrase over in her mind. It was suddenly rich with meaning. "What was the first favor, anyway?"

Whitney studied Tess. They knew each other so well. Tess could see her mind working, trying to calculate how much Tess had figured out, which would determine how much Whitney had to admit.

"Getting you to come work for him, of course."

"And the second? There was a second favor, too, right?" Whitney didn't say anything.

"I'm guessing the second favor was leaving the envelope on my car, the one with Rosita's perso

"Something. Anything." Whitney went into the kitchen and came back with a steak knife, which she used to slice open a Milano as if she were shucking an oyster. She then licked the chocolate from the inside. "He didn't know you'd do as well as you did, though. He was quite pleased at how quickly you got the goods on her. Lionel always suspected Rosita was trouble." She put the licked-clean cookie aside, then opened another one and began reaming the chocolate out of it. "I told him you would do a good job."

"So this didn't have anything to do with Feeney's story, did it? That was just an excuse, a way to go after Rosita. Mabry wanted to be rid of her, wanted to do an end-run around the union, and he saw this as an opportunity. Nail her for the story, or something else equally egregious, and he could fire her, or scare her out."

"Rosita was trouble, Lionel figured that out early on. He tried to put her back on the copy desk, but she screamed racism and sexism and every other ism she could think of. So he let Colleen pair her with Feeney, figuring she couldn't get in too much trouble working with another reporter. But she managed to. You've heard of rogue cops? Rosita's a rogue reporter. She'd do anything for a Page One story. Lionel had to get her out, and he didn't have time for her dismissal to grind through the union process. It was only a matter of time before the Beacon-Light ended up with a major libel case on its hands. Jesus, it almost did, Tess. If Wink hadn't killed himself, he could have sued the paper over that first story."

"But he wouldn't have. Wink paid his ex-wife hundreds of thousands of dollars never to tell anyone what had happened. He was humiliated."

Whitney shrugged. "He might have been willing to come forward now, because it would have undermined everything else the paper said about him, even the true stuff. I'm surprised he didn't think about that before he killed himself."

"Rosita says he was murdered."

"If Rosita said nice day, I'd check it out. She lies all the time, about little things, just to stay in practice. I swear, I've caught her in the most idiotic inconsistencies. What she majored in, for example. What part of Boston she grew up in. Who lies about stuff like that? She's crazy."

"Crazy," Tess agreed, but she wasn't going to allow Whitney to distract her so easily. "So does being Lionel's favor buddy guarantee you Japan? Was that the deal?"

Whitney lifted her chin, which had a smear of chocolate on it. "It doesn't hurt. Look, I kept you pure in all this by not telling you everything. You did your job beautifully and you made good money doing it. What's your problem?"

"The problem is you told me some lies as well."

"Not really. I just left out a few details here and there."

"What about Feeney's alibi?"

Again, Whitney waited Tess out to see what she knew, or had guessed. She picked up a third Milano, but was rattled enough to eat it as a normal person would.

"Did Feeney really tell you that he was with me that night, or was that your way of ensuring I would take the job, because I'd be so worried about him I'd want to protect him?"

"I did ask Feeney where he was that night, and he did say he had been with you." But Whitney could no longer make eye contact. In fact, she couldn't even face Tess, shifting her body so it was a three-quarters turn away from her. "He didn't remember what time he left you. In fact, he doesn't remember much about that night at all. He more or less blacked out. I knew if you thought he needed you as an alibi, you'd be hooked. You've always had a soft spot for him."

Tess saw Feeney walking north on Eutaw after their last angry conversation. He had been furious with her, absolutely enraged.

"What did you tell him? I mean, you had to make sure that Feeney and I didn't compare notes, right? How did you arrange that?"

Whitney's voice was almost inaudible now. "I told him you were hard-up for cash and he should keep his distance from you, because you had denied knowing him to the bosses. I also told him you said you were keeping an open mind about who had done it, and you wouldn't cut him any slack if you thought he was the one. But he wasn't, so what was the big deal?" She finished off her Scotch. "I think my confession slate is clean now. Am I forgiven? Do you want to assign me some form of penance?"

Tess felt dizzy, the way a child feels after turning in endless circles, staring up at the sky. Bad enough to have been used and manipulated by Lionel. But Whitney had been his willing agent, playing friend against friend in order to get the Tokyo bureau. It was one thing to use the elevator technique, quite another to have taken everyone for a ride.

"Why did you call me tonight? You could have handled this alone."

"Maybe I figured it was my last window of opportunity between boyfriends. Or are you double-dipping now, keeping the little boy at home while you let Sterling take you out on the town?"

"You're jealous."

"Of Sterling? No, losing to him at squash was as far as I was willing to go to advance my career. Not that he ever asked. But don't worry, Tesser, I'm sure you'll have another date with him. You always have another date. Me, I have my job. If I'm lucky, I'm going to have a foreign assignment, then come back to an editing position. Very few women run newspapers. I plan to be one of them."

"Why? So you can end up like Colleen in there, passed out on your sofa on a Saturday night, in an empty apartment, with no friends, no family?"

"Colleen is sui generis. The other editors have families, lives, outside interests."

"The other editors are men. Look around you, Whitney. It's not just Colleen. It's you, it's Rosita. Work is all you have. Jesus, you're still living at your parents' place because you've never taken the time to find an apartment of your own. Most of your relationships last about two weeks, when the guy realizes Friday night is reserved for Washington Week in Review, while Sunday mornings belong to Meet the Press. What are you going to do if you want to have a baby-ask Tim Russert to be the sperm donor?"

Whitney stood up, dusting cookie crumbs from the lap of her tweed trousers. "Look, I have to go. Do you want a ride back to your place, or do you want to walk?"

"I'll walk."

"Any more flaws of mine you want to enumerate, failings you want to catalog? I said I was sorry."

"No, in fact that's the one thing you haven't said this evening."

"Well, I'm saying it now. I'm sorry. Isn't there something you'd like to say in return?"

"Yes, yes, there is." Tess fluttered her fingers. "Sayonara, Whitney."