City of Endless Night (Pendergast #17)(90)

He turned and gathered his own clothes and equipment, which had been piled in a corner. Pausing, D’Agosta watched as Pendergast gazed at Longstreet’s remains, making a slow, sorrowful gesture, almost a bow. He then turned back to D’Agosta. “My dear friend, I almost failed you.”

“No way, Pendergast. Ditch the modesty. I knew that bastard didn’t stand a chance against you.”

Pendergast turned away, to hide from D’Agosta the expression on his face.





65

BRYCE HARRIMAN THREADED his way through the vast, busy newsroom of the Post and stopped at the far end, before Petowski’s door. This was the second unscheduled meeting to which he’d been summoned in as many weeks. It was not only unusual—it was unheard of. And when he’d gotten the message—summons, actually—all the relief he’d felt at being suddenly, unexpectedly released from jail had evaporated.

This couldn’t be good.

He took a deep breath, knocked.

“Come,” came the voice of Petowski.

This time, Petowski was the only person in the room. He was sitting behind the desk, swinging his chair from side to side and fiddling with a pencil. He glanced up at Harriman for a minute, then glanced back down at the pencil. He didn’t offer the reporter a chair.

“Did you read about the news conference the NYPD gave this morning?” he asked, still swinging back and forth.

“Yes.”

“The killer—the Decapitator, as you branded him—turned out to be the father of the first victim. Anton Ozmian.”

Harriman swallowed again, more painfully. “So I understand.”

“You understand. I’m so glad that you do…finally.” Petowski looked back up, fixing Harriman with his stare. “Anton Ozmian. Would you call him a religious fanatic?”

“No.”

“Would you say that he was killing as a way of, quote, ‘preaching to the city’?”

Harriman cringed inwardly as he heard his own words being flung back at him. “No, I would not.”

“Ozmian.” Petowski snapped the pencil in two and threw the pieces into a garbage can with disgust. “So much for your theory.”

“Mr. Petowski, I—” Harriman began, but the editor held up a single finger for silence.

“It turns out Ozmian wasn’t trying to send a message to New York. He wasn’t singling out corrupt, depraved people as a kind of warning to the masses. He wasn’t making a statement to our divided nation that the ninety-nine percent wouldn’t take anymore from the one percenters. In fact, he was one of them!” Petowski snorted. “And now we all here at the Post look like damned fools, thanks to you.”

“But the police also—”

A choppy gesture silenced him. Petowski scowled for a moment. Then he went on. “Okay. I’m listening. Now’s your chance to explain away the pieces you wrote.” He stopped swiveling, sat back in his chair, and folded one arm over the other.

Harriman thought frantically, but nothing came to mind. He’d already been over it, again and again, since he’d first heard the news. But there had simply been too many shocks thrown at him recently—getting arrested; being absolved and released; learning that the Decapitator theory was wrong—leaving his brain a dazed blank.

“I don’t have any excuse, Mr. Petowski,” he said at last. “I came up with a theory that appeared to fit all the facts, which the police also embraced. But I was wrong.”

“A theory that caused an outlandish disturbance in Central Park, for which the cops are also blaming us.”

Harriman hung his head.

After another silence, Petowski fetched a deep sigh. “Well, that’s an honest answer, anyway,” he said. He sat up briskly. “All right, Harriman. Here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to put that imaginative brain of yours to work, and you’re going to recast your theory so that it fits Ozmian—and what he was actually doing.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“It’s called spin. You’re going to massage, pummel, and knead the facts. You’re going to push your original theory in a new direction, speculate on some of Ozmian’s motives that the cops might not have spoken of at today’s presser, add some stuff about that riot in Central Park, and roll it all into a piece of reportage that will make it look like we had our finger on the pulse all along. We’re still the City of Endless Night, with the boot of the billionaire class still on the neck of our town. Okay? And Ozmian’s the very embodiment of the greed, entitlement, selfishness, and contempt the billionaire class has for the working people of this city, just like we’ve been writing all along. That’s the spin. Got it?”

“Got it,” Harriman said.

He began to turn away, but Petowski wasn’t quite finished. “Oh, and Harriman?”

The reporter glanced back. “Yes, Mr. Petowski?”

“That hundred-dollar-a-week raise I mentioned? I’m rescinding it. Retroactively.”

As Harriman made his way back through the newsroom, not a single eye rose to meet his. Everyone was studiously at work, hunched over notebooks or computer screens. But just as he reached the door, he heard somebody intone, in a quiet, singsong voice: “Ye one percenters, mend your ways before it’s too late…”