The Game of Love and Death(71)

She spread the newsprint on the ground and used it to wipe the rest of the paint off of her hands. It was somehow worse that Henry’s own people had published it, that Henry’s hands had been on the press that joined ink and page. Surely he’d seen it. Surely he would lose his job if he continued playing. And then how would he pay his rent — especially if the city shut down the Majestic next?

“What is it, baby?” Glo returned with Doc, who carried turpentine and more rags.

“Nothing,” Flora said, wadding the paper.

“Don’t seem like that.”

“It’s a letter to the editor. Stupid and vile. Nothing worth thinking about, Glo. Really.”

As Glo swept the glass, Flora went outside with the brick, halfway wishing whoever had thrown it had stayed around. She wanted to toss it back. See how he liked it. She checked her watch. The set would start in a few hours. But it would have to be without Henry.

She’d send word, or better, let him know in person. It had been foolish to let down her guard and let him get that close. As if it hadn’t been embarrassing enough in the diner, now Henry’s people and everyone else in town was turning against them. Worse, Glo and Doc were suffering too. Flora knew better. She’d known better. She wouldn’t let herself make that same mistake again.





ETHAN parked near the stone Inquirer building. The world around him felt sharp, as if someone had cranked up the sun a notch. He noticed everything: cracks in the sidewalk, the missing toes on the pigeon hunting food scraps, the dot of mustard on the leg of the doorman’s pants.

“Afternoon, Mr. Thorne.” The doorman tipped his hat.

“Afternoon, Mr. Bowles,” Ethan said, remembering the man’s name just in time.

In his briefcase, he carried his article on Hooverville. Words that had found the page only because of Henry’s help. Never again. It wasn’t that he wanted the world to know he struggled to write. He no longer had the strength for the charade. With Henry out of the house, with college just a few months away, the strategy that had worked thus far felt like a road that ended in a cliff.

The air inside the building was a warm accumulation of breath and body heat. It smelled of sandwiches, stale coffee, and cigarette smoke, three scents he’d always associated with his destiny. Now, though, he wasn’t so certain. He could not see beyond the present.

He rode the elevator accompanied only by the operator, aware of his damp palm on the handle of the briefcase. He licked his lips, wishing for a cold glass of water. The elevator dinged, the doors opened, and the sounds of the newsroom burst forth: jangling telephones, shouting men, the clatter of typewriter keys.

“What’ve you got for me?” The city editor, Roger Gunner, wasn’t much for small talk.

“The piece on Hooverville.”

Gunner adjusted his green visor and rubbed his palms together. “Finally. And you found proof they’ve been brewing liquor without paying taxes?”

“Nothing to that rumor. I found a different angle,” he said, surprised at how smooth and calm his lie sounded. But then, he’d had years to practice.

“Oh?” Gunner leaned back in his chair, removed his visor, and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “Let’s have a look.”

Ethan snapped open his briefcase and removed the sheets of onionskin. He’d charmed a girl in the steno pool into typing up Henry’s handwriting. It was amazing what you could get a person to do with a compliment and a smile. If his father had ever tried the technique, perhaps his mother wouldn’t have turned into such a brittle thing.

Gunner snatched the pages, and Ethan considered leaving. Going for a malt. He never liked watching someone read his work, not just because he feared their opinion but also because it reminded him how easily other people could make sense of words. Watching someone’s eyes move over a page was like poking a wound.

Gunner looked up before he made it to the second page. “This is what you want to run with?”

Ethan knew what he was really asking. Are you sure you want to pick this fight with your father?

“Yes.” How little this all seemed to matter now.

“It’s good,” Gunner said. “Your old man will hate it, but it’s good stuff, kid. Important.”

Gunner’s praise meant everything. “Thank you.”

The editor had already returned his attention to the pages, scribbling notes in the margins with a red pencil. After a moment, he paused. “Scram, Thorne. Make yourself useful. You’re blocking my light.”

Ethan smiled as he walked toward the elevator, taking one last good look at the shabby wreck of the place, the men in their rolled-up shirtsleeves, dropping ashes from their cigarettes all over their desks. It was a messy wonder, the most exciting place in the world sometimes. A place where men shouted and pounded the table, and ferreted the truth out from where it liked to hide. A place where history was written on the fly, along with a fair share of heartbreak.

Ethan had never belonged there, or in the thickly carpeted executive offices upstairs, where his father and other brokers of power nudged the world where they wanted it to go. They’d always made Ethan feel like a chip of glass: small, transparent. He belonged nowhere, to no one. If it hadn’t been for Henry’s loyalty and discretion, Ethan would have been written off by his family long before. He knew it, but he was not ready for the reality of it. He had to get James’s book before anybody else did. He had to find out what was inside, and, if necessary, to destroy it before his sham of a life was laid bare.