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Chapter 26

“So what you're telling me,” Keyes said, trying for the second time to repeat what Eddie was telling him, “is that you want to do a story on Cambodia?” He crunched his lollipop, an amber one. “This is the Lowell Empire. This isn't the Cambodian, uh, well, whatever they call their papers over there, if they even have any.”

Eddie laughed, a cheery little laugh that hid the homicide in his heart. He had to play this encounter just right—he needed Keyes to get to Sok.

He explained again, “What I mean to say—and believe me, Frank, I can imagine how annoying it must be that I keep saying it wrong—” He laughed again. “—I mean to say I want to write about the Cambodian community here in the city. There's a large population, and other than covering the Cambodian water festival, I don't think we've made an effort—and I'm really talking about myself here, not you or the paper—
I've
not made the effort to shake more stories from that important community.”

Keyes tapped a pencil against his desk a dozen times.

Was he thinking? Or just tapping a pencil? Was he thinking about tapping a pencil?

Eddie thought about the threat Keyes had made to Phife. Was it just bravado? Or could somebody as obtuse as Frank Keyes really have had something to do with Danny's death? The threat clashed with what Keyes had already told Eddie—that he didn't believe Danny had been murdered.

“I don't see it, Bourque,” Keyes said. “Let's be honest. The immigrants, they don't buy the paper and they don't advertise. Why should we waste the resources on them?”

Eddie nodded earnestly, buying time to edit the sarcasm from his gut response. He said, “Maybe we should break new ground in newspapers and cover the community first, so then they'll start reading the paper and buying some ads.” He didn't edit
all
the sarcasm, but he nipped enough to get it over Keyes' head.

The boss was not convinced. “Those people are not our readers. We'll cover their water festival and nice stuff like that. But we can't be missing a story in Wilmington to cover a Cambodian story in Lowell.”

Keyes meant, of course, that The Empire couldn't miss a story about middle-class white people in suburban Wilmington to cover a Cambodian story in Lowell.

“I think I'm getting your meaning,” Eddie said. Faking reverence to Keyes was hard enough, but Eddie had to sound like he respected his opinion, too. “You're saying we need to concentrate on the real political players who affect life around here.”

Keyes brightened. “That's right,” he said. “Tell me what the players are doing. They make everything go.”

Eddie grabbed his chin and looked thoughtful. “Wouldn't it be great if the Cambodian community had a player.” He let the suggestion sink in a moment. “Then we could do both.”

Keyes shrugged. “They don't have players, except Sok, and he's been out of touch for years.”

“Hmm,” Eddie said. “That's a great idea, Frank. I'll touch base with Sok.”

Eddie had shown a little too much enthusiasm. Keyes eyed him with suspicion, but quickly let it fade in the aura of his great new idea. “Nobody's talked to Sok directly in a while,” Keyes said. “But I don't think we've tried too hard. You know how lazy reporters are.”

“We're slugs,” Eddie agreed. “Could you call Sok's office and set it up?” Keyes grimaced. Eddie quickly added, “Sometimes it takes one political player to get to another.”

It was true. Lowly Eddie Bourque could not get an audience at the Sok estate without a ticket from a real player in city politics. Keyes was such a player because of his job at the paper. Should he ever lose his post, he'd be out, and then not even directory assistance would take his calls. That would be one fine day.

“I'll handle Sok,” Keyes said. He leaned back and plunked his feet on the desk the way important men are supposed to. He stared vacantly at Eddie, who had not left his office. Eddie looked at the phone. Keyes got the idea. “Right now?”

“Why not set your plan in motion?”

Keyes took his feet from the desk and reached in slow motion for the telephone.
Just make the goddam call, Frank
. He picked up the receiver and dialed the in-house switchboard. He spoke into the phone, “Joanne? It's Frank. Could you look up the number for Samuel Sok? No, not the publicist. Yes, call me back.” He hung up.

And so began an eternity of uncomfortable silence as they waited for the number. The red second hand on the clock above Keyes' head scraped past twelve and hit the brakes. Keyes tapped the pencil some more. Eddie looked for a similar toy within reach and found none. No books to inspect, no newspapers to read. He looked out the window into the newsroom. Phife had left; Melissa was hidden behind her computer monitor. Nobody else dared make eye contact with him. There was nothing to do but sit and wait with the editor who probably wanted to fire Eddie as much as Eddie wanted to throttle the editor. The second hand passed six and struggled to climb against gravity. The pencil went tap, tap, tap. Eddie couldn't stand it anymore. “How's business?” he blurted.

“Business? Like ad revenue?”

“I suppose. Anything.”

“Ad revenue is stable,” Keyes said. “The problem is all these expenses. This high tech newsroom was supposed to save money. High tech, my ass.” He backhanded a messy pile of papers on his desk. “Invoices, all of them. I'm paying correspondents to write what the staff doesn't want to cover, and freelance photographers to shoot what the photo room can't get to.”

“That's a shame,” Eddie said. And Joanne was taking forever to find that goddam number. Did she know the phone book was
alphabetical
?

Keyes swirled the pencil in the air like a conductor's baton. “I'm paying consultants out my asshole. I got consultants telling me how to lay out a news page. I got them telling me what people want to read. I'm paying an outside computer expert, I'm paying an engineer who plans our truck routes on a big map, and I'm paying for the big damn map.” He fanned the pencil back and forth until it blurred. “Don't get me started.”

But Eddie had already gotten him started, and the expenses that were cutting into the manager's profit-sharing plan were in for a tongue-lashing. “The truck drivers—there's a greedy bunch. Not one goes a week without filing for overtime. Overtime? Why should it take longer to drive the route one day out of five? Every one of them sons-of-bitches has the Labor Relations Board on speed dial. I'm juggling a dozen complaints at a time.”

The telephone rang. Sweet mercy.

Keyes frowned at the interruption, and then answered it. “Yeah? Uh-huh.” He wrote down a number and hung up. “What really burns me is the newsprint prices. Through the roof. Canadian paper mills are screwing me. They're too lazy to make the paper any faster. Goddam Frenchies need to turn off the hockey game and get to work. You French, Bourque?”

Eddie nodded, his gazed fixed on the seven digits Keyes had written. “French Canadian,” he said.

“Well get on the horn and tell your cousins that Gretzky needs a new hockey stick, so start chopping some trees.”

“I'll see what I can do,” Eddie said. “It's getting late. Maybe we should—”

“Mandatory recycling is a white elephant if I ever saw one,” Keyes continued. “Some dumb state legislator wants to force me to take back old newspaper. This guy should be shot. He'd have me save trees by opening a recycling center down there in the lobby. Have you ever heard of anything so stupid? Canada is nothing
but
trees—”

And on he went.

Eddie tried to interrupt with body language. He slouched. He rested his chin on his fist. He rubbed his eyes, even yawned. Nothing could offend Keyes into stopping. The red second hand had staggered fifteen laps before Keyes talked himself out.

When Eddie could finally speak, he said, “It's amazing that with all you have to do, you still have time to call Samuel Sok for me.” He glanced at the telephone.

“Didn't I call him already?”

“No sir.”

Keyes was paralyzed for a moment, and then he dialed the number. His voice dropped an octave, “This is Franklin Keyes from The Empire—the editor. Give me Samuel…. What? He's not? Then give me one of the boys.” He put his hand over the mouthpiece and said to Eddie, “The secretary is getting one of the sons.” He barked into the telephone, “It's Keyes. Which one is this? Matthew? Okay, Peter—whatever. Look, I got a reporter here who needs a word with the old man…. No, not the publicist.”

Keyes listened to a lengthy explanation, occasionally nodding and making listening noises, “Right…right…uh-huh.”

Finally, Keyes said, “Then how about you and your brother talk to him? Well, you just said you're handling things right now. Fine, eight o'clock tomorrow morning.” He hung up without saying goodbye and warned Eddie, “They got some religious thing happening at nine-thirty, so don't be late.”

Eddie left before Keyes could trap him with another diatribe.

Back in the newsroom, Boyce Billips shouted into his telephone, voice wavering, “You're going to sue me? Ha—I'll sue you first.” He raised the receiver above his head to smack it down, but wimped out half way and returned it gently to place.

Eddie tapped his shoulder. “You all right?”

Boyce shrieked. He whirled around. “Eddie—it's you.”

Eddie nearly shrieked himself at the puffy red scratches on Boyce's cheeks and the soot smear on his forehead. His yellow tie was shredded.

“What the hell happened?” Eddie asked. “You dance with the burning bush?”

Boyce quivered and took a deep breath. He explained, “I went to do a story on Milton, the library cat.” His voice squeaked. He paused to collect himself.

“Where's Superdog?” Eddie interrupted.

“Animal Control took him away.” Tears welled in Boyce's eyes. “It was a horrible scene, Eddie—the blood, just horrible. I tried to break it up, but I was afraid he might try to kill me too. It took three officers to pry open his jaws.”

“Oh no, don't tell me—Superdog killed Milton the library cat? Now Animal Control will think he's vicious. They'll put the fat old mutt to sleep!”

Boyce gave Eddie a funny look, like he was deciding if he had forgotten to unplug the iron. “No Eddie, Animal Control took Superdog to the vet,” he said. “They took Milton into custody.”

“They arrested the cat?”

“He pounced on Superdog from a stack of science books—astronomy and space, I think. I remember trying to fight him off with Yuri Gagarin's biography.” Boyce paused and gave a far-off look. His voice dropped to a husky whisper, “The cat was ferocious. Like a little lion, nothing but claws and fangs and little-bitty rippling muscles.”

Eddie cautioned, “Take it easy, Boyce.”

But Boyce would not take it easy. “He sprang like a ninja,” he said. “Right on Superdog's head, and he wouldn't let go. The noises they made—the growls and these high-pitched screams.” Boyce shuddered. “Superdog ran around the library with Milton on his head. They knocked down books and bowled over the children. And those little claws just
raked
.” Boyce scrunched up his face and made little raking motions with his hand. “I never knew they had razors on their feet.

“When I tried to save Superdog, he knocked me into a stack of paperback fiction—L through M, by author—but he was just trying to get away from Milton, you gotta believe me! The bookcase fell over on a computer. It made some sparks. We think that's when the fire started.”

“There was a fire?”

“They lost everything from Clancy to Updike, but the firefighters saved Vonnegut. They were so brave.”

Keyes bellowed from his office, “Booooyce!” The newsroom fell silent. “The librarian is on the phone. Get in here!”

Boyce swallowed and slowly stood. “Dead man walking,” he whispered.

That reminded Eddie. “Speaking of dead men, Boyce, I wanted to talk to you about ghosts and email—that sort of thing.”

“The least of my problems right now,” he said. “The very least.”

Chapter 27

The subconscious is an amazing instrument. It runs dreams, and works all the time at the job, collecting ideas while we're awake. At night it bounces those ideas off a funhouse mirror and onto the movie screen inside our eyelids. Sometimes, during the day, the subconscious notices things we'd otherwise miss. If it's not A-plus material for dreams, and if the subconscious is so inclined, it may whisper what it knows to the conscious side, though the messages are never tidy.

As Eddie wrestled the Mighty Chevette to the curb outside his house, his subconscious passed along a tip:
Something here is wrong.

Eddie slammed the car door and looked around. The street was quiet. Windows around the neighborhood glowed yellow. His mail was safe in the mailbox—a credit card offer and three pieces of campaign literature, which City Council candidates were spreading throughout the city like pollen.

His shoes scraped slowly up the cement steps.

The door to his home was six inches ajar. Its frame had splintered around the spot where the deadbolt had been kicked in. Eddie pushed open the door, reached in and flipped on the light.

Like the door, the apartment had taken a beating; it had been ransacked by somebody in a hurry to find something, or maybe just trashed by people interested in sending a message. Eddie's recliner was on its side, slit open and hemorrhaging foam stuffing. The coffee table had been flipped over, the television screen smashed. Eddie bent and picked a chess piece off the floor. The black king.

The General!

Eddie rushed inside, shouting, “General VonKatz? General?” He tore through the debris in his living room. The General was not there. Into the kitchen. The silverware drawers had been yanked out and emptied onto the floor. The cabinet doors were open. Cereal boxes and canned food were tossed about. The refrigerator hummed, its freezer door wide open. Eddie checked the ice cubes. Wet, but still mostly ice. This hadn't happened long ago.

He raced to the bathroom. Somebody had pried the medicine cabinet off the wall, shaken the contents over the floor and smashed the box through the shower door. No sign of the General.

To the bedroom. His blankets were balled on the floor, his mattress slashed, the guts yanked out. Books were scattered everywhere. Four dresser drawers had been pulled out, emptied, and discarded into a stack like firewood. He yelled desperately, “General? Are you here?”

Okay—try to be positive
. The General was a shifty individual. And he could read minds. When Eddie even
thought
about a veterinary appointment, General VonKatz disappeared. And just try to catch the General for a flea bath. He'd lead you through a household obstacle course that would make your shins purple. If he made it outside he'd probably still be in the neighborhood. Eddie would walk the streets, knock on doors and get some kids to help him crisscross Pawtucketville. He would put posters on telephone poles. He could get a lost-and-found ad in The Empire, and offer a reward.
Somebody will find the General
.

His closet door was closed. Closed? That door was never closed. Eddie ran across the bed and ripped open the door.

On the closet floor, beneath trousers still on their hangers, behind golf clubs still in their bag, two greenish-yellow eyes blinked in the light.

***

It was the first thing the two cops wanted to know. Was anything taken?

These cops were from the same embryo, big-shouldered types, with crew cuts and all sorts of fancy equipment dangling from their Batman belts. They were in their late twenties, still young enough to be forced under the seniority system to ride the four-to-midnight shift, but old enough that a tossed Pawtucketville apartment didn't inspire the adrenaline erection that had pointed them to the Police Academy in the first place.

“Hard to say what's missing,” Eddie said. “Nothing seems to be, but everything's such a wreck.”

The cops walked around together, pointing out broken stuff and making little notes in their little cop notebooks. Then they wanted to know if Eddie knew who might have done this.

“No idea.”

“Had any threats lately?”

“Other than two guys throwing me in a canal the other day, no.”

“Got any enemies?”

“Obviously I do now.”

The cops didn't like that. Humor had no place in police work, at least not until they were back in the car and Eddie couldn't hear what they were saying about his crappy three-room shack.

“Frankly, Mr. Bourque,” one of the clones said. “If nothing was taken, this simply looks like a random prank, or like somebody's pissed off at you.” Case closed. He shut his little cop notebook and slid it into his shirt pocket.

“That's it?” Eddie asked.

“We'll talk to the neighbors before we make a report, but nobody ever sees anything in these cases. They would have called us if they did.”

“Shouldn't you be taking fingerprints, or something?”

“Wouldn't find anything,” the other clone said, frowning deeply. “You said you searched through the place looking for your cat.”

“But I didn't touch everything,” Eddie argued. “How about the medicine cabinet in the tub? Didn't touch that.”

The cop sighed, annoyed by the necessity for the truth. “The BCI unit is all tied up.” For the benefit of the civilian in the room, he added, “That stands for the Bureau of Criminal Investigations. They do the fingerprinting.”

“I know what it stands for.”

“And they can't come to every housebreak in the city.”

Eddie was about to begin an argument he absolutely could not win when a knock at the door cut him off. “It's open,” Eddie yelled. To nobody in particular he mumbled, “Not that I could lock the damn thing if I wanted to.”

A familiar voice said, “When I heard at the station what had happened here, I came right over.”

Detective Lucy Orr, in uniform this time, cleared a path through the rubble with the end of her baton. The clones greeted her with deference, and relayed in cop-speak the details and particulars of this criminal-type incident, essentially that the place was wrecked. She nodded and sent them on their way.

“I'd get this door fixed,” one clone suggested on his way out.

Eddie grabbed a handful of his own hair and tugged until it hurt.

The General sniffed around Detective Orr's black high-tops. He pronounced her worthy by sideswiping her ankles.

“Lovely cat,” she said. “He was shut in the closet during all of this?”

“That's where I found him.”

Orr looked around. “I'm beginning to wonder about the type of persons you have been associating with, Mr. Bourque.”

“Could you call me Eddie?” he said. “Mr. Bourque makes me sound like a defendant.”

She smiled over a delicious punchline she would keep to herself. “Okay, Eddie,” she said. “Don't you think it's time to come clean with me?”

“About what?” he protested, without much enthusiasm.

“Come on, Eddie. You've deputized yourself in the Danny Nowlin case, and you haven't told me everything you've found out.”

Eddie didn't bother to pretend otherwise. “Look at this place,” he said. “Somebody's scared. That means I'm getting close.”

“If you mean close to a cemetery plot, I'd agree. And the one who should be scared is you.”

Eddie frowned.
He
was supposed to be the wiseass around here. “Don't you have a little card for me to sign before the interrogation?”

“We're off the record,” Detective Orr said. “You're a reporter. You know what that means. Whatever trouble you've stirred up is only going to get worse. Next time they bust up this place, they might do it when you're home. I can help you get out of this, whatever it is.”

Eddie wavered. Maybe she had a point? He could give her what he knew and let her take over.

No, he decided, not yet.

Detective Orr was a blunt instrument. If Eddie told her he suspected that Nowlin was mixed up in Chanthay's plot to take revenge, and his belief that Sok was involved, Orr would march onto the Sok estate and interview him, face to face, with a dozen lawyers in the room, and no trickery allowed. Eddie was convinced he could learn more from Sok his way—he could take shortcuts around the law that Detective Orr could not.

“Soon, Lucy. I'll call you real soon,” he promised.

She bounced the baton lightly on her shoulder and took thirty seconds to study his eyes, which stared back at her, unblinking. She concluded, “You're either guilty of
something
, or you're in way over your head.”

Eddie nodded. “You got that right.” He looked over the destruction and said, “Any chance you can pull some strings and get the fingerprinting crew over here?”

She nodded. “Maybe early tomorrow morning.”

“I'll leave it open.”

She smiled and retreated through the mess to the broken door. On her way out, she said, “We'll send you a copy of the report when it's done, assuming you're still around to receive it. In the meantime, I'd get this door fixed.”

After she'd gone, Eddie gathered the contents of his toolbox from the kitchen floor and nailed the front door shut.