The Stringers, page 32
I winced and jumped back, but they were indifferent to it—or acclimated, as Port had said.
I knew by now no questions would receive answers, at least none which I could comprehend. The group stopped at a metal banister overlooking a flight of steps leading into a pitch-black abyss. There, I insisted to Port that he tell me why it was necessary for us to be there.
“It’s not,” he said. “By all means, go to the street and let the drones get you. They will. They got these guns on them that can shoot a man one thousand yards away without hitting the dog they’re walking. I know. I saw the pieces afterward. Ain’t pretty.”
“I thought you paid the drone controllers not to do that.”
“Not all the time,” one of the writers said. “We can’t afford to pay them all off. Just when we need clear skies. What we have is a list of those who we can rely on when we need to pay them off.”
I sighed and nodded in concession and we began to descend the stairway. The writer with the flashlight went first. The steps were filthy, but dry, and the air grew cold as I put my coat on, fidgeting in my clothes. I had hoped time would help me ease into them, but they itched just they had when I had first tried them on.
“Do we have to wear these clothes?” I asked Port.
“Nope.”
When it became apparent he had nothing further to add, I nudged him.
“So why do you?”
“Because we want to live, kid,” another writer answered for him. “These things, in case ya didn’t notice, ain’t exactly in vogue right now. I mean, nobody gonna be seen wearin’ em. So this means we knows who is on our side and who ain’t. Friendly fire is nasty. I don’t mind gettin’ shot at by another newspaper, which don’t happen ’cause I work at a desk and let my stringer partner take that risk. But I don’t wanna eat the big one ’cause I got mistaken from the wrong side, right?”
“But doesn’t that mean the police can identify you more easily?”
“Sure, I guess, but that’s why we take precautions. That’s why we’re crawling through this tunnel underneath the road that smells like somebody just took a shit in here rather than walk the street and risk a drone or another newspaper or some bent cop working the other side. Believe it or not, there’s also something about these clothes that makes it harder for them to identify us with their scanners from a long distance, but I really don’t understand it.”
I must have given him a doubtful look, for he clapped me on the shoulder and assured me I’d learn to love them or I’d go crazy. Neither prospect cheered me up.
“By the way,” he added. “Good goin’ with Olan. That son of a bitch’s eyes were as big as a flies’.”
I blushed, but said nothing. There was nothing to say, and I wasn’t fully comfortable with what I had said to him. A part of me wondered if I had lost it for a moment. The last time I had gotten that angry had been during a playground argument in grade school. A bully had teased me relentlessly for a month and I had finally ignored my father’s pleas to behave. After he pushed me, I had responded by throwing him up against a wall and delivered a long list of things I wanted to do to him if he didn’t stop, most of them ridiculously impossible. But it had worked. The bully never bothered me again.
Ideally, the same effect would apply to Olan. Ideally, all he had wanted was to test the waters, see what he could get away with.
The steps ended and we stood in front of large double doors with a bolt on them. Port approached them and removed the bolt, then two writers opened the right door, albeit with difficulty, as the hinges had been reduced to a dark orange tint from rust. On the other side, the environment changed dramatically. The wet cement was now pristinely stained wood and modern lights shone down from the ceiling and the air carried a slightly sweet flavor.
Ahead of us a man sat at a booth. There was another stairway to his right, but it was blocked off by a thick red rope. The man was small, dark skinned, wore a modern simplistic suit, no hat. Judging by his large smile, it was obvious he had a lively countenance, an easygoing air about him. Yet his demeanor was professional, his back stiff and voice firm as he called to us.
“You’re early today, friends,” he said. “Something happen?”
“Something always happens, Jamal.”
“Right. No disclosure amongst you, gentlemen. I understand.”
Port whispered in my ear, saying I was to keep my mouth shut about anything I saw in the newsroom or what happened or anything of that sort.
“The place free for us, Jamal?” he asked. “Or do we need to come back later?”
“Nope. The place is all yours. Just not expecting you so early, that’s all. We’re still setting up, if it’s all right with you.”
“It’s never too early for your library, is it?”
Jamal laughed and left the booth and approached a door adjacent to him. As he did, the faint sound of music resonated from inside. As he opened it, the music grew louder, but still subdued. Jamal spoke with someone behind the door and then came over to us and shook Port’s hand as well as those of the other writers. When he came to me his large smile grew larger and his hand engulfed mine.
“First time here?” he asked.
“Yes, sir.”
He chuckled. “Sir. I liked that. I like a young man who knows respect. One thing’s for sure, he didn’t learn it from you, Port!”
“I ain’t no gentleman,” he replied. “Never said I was.”
“Just making sure you know. Now come on in. I told them to sit you at the regular tables, over by the stage.”
“Appreciate it.”
Jamal stepped aside as we walked past him into the room. For a brief moment, I envisioned a traditional library, its rows and shelves of books and computers and librarians with gray hair pulled into a bun and those stringent looking glasses. How the music fit, I did not know.
I was immediately stunned, however, as I entered and gazed around at the long breadth of the room, which was nearly the size of a theater or music hall. The ceiling was low, only a few feet above everyone’s heads, but the other end of the room went back so far I couldn’t see. Round tables were arranged on the right side of the room, while a bar of some kind was situated at the back wall to my right. A plush red velvet carpet lined the floor, and the furniture was oak, glistening with a brilliant golden sheen. A perpetual mist of tobacco smoke created a thick haze, leaving an admittedly pleasant aroma.
On the left was a stage, where a quartet comprising a pianist, a violinist, a cellist, and a saxophone player quietly crooned a slow number at a near-hypnotic pace. Port waved to the saxophone player, a tall lanky man, who also waved back, and the writers settled at a table in the center of the room that gave them a full view of the stage, the quartet, and the bar.
They tossed their fedoras on the table and called out to the bartender for their regulars. The bartender, a thin Hispanic with a shaved head and a tattoo resembling tears on his neck, brought a tray of unmarked bottles and set them on the table. He then eyed me, muttered someone indecipherable in Spanish. Port nodded at him and asked me what I wanted to drink. Not knowing the full list of beverages, I struck to a small glass of brandy, but Port snorted and told the bartender I’d get a regular, too.
“What’s a regular?” I asked.
“What every man needs at the end of a long day.”
“Which would be?”
“God Almighty, Roy, whadya think? Ginger ale? No, it’s ale, good dark ale.”
“Why doesn’t a brandy cut it?”
“Cause brandy is for a smartass in a smoking jacket with a Monte Cristo sticking out of his mouth as he looks at his girlfriend twenty years his junior. That’s why. Unless you’re into robbin’ the cradle, and in that case it’d be literal, and sick, ya gonna be a team player and not hurt our feelings and drink it.”
The bartender came back with the beers, and as I tasted it cautiously he asked what we wanted again. Thinking he meant food, I listened to Port and the others instead rattle off the names of newspapers I had never heard of—the Spokane Tribune, the Eastside Chronicle, the National Report, the Wall Street Examiner, Libertas—and the bartender nodded as he wrote them down in his small notepad before he flipped it shut. I looked at Port, but he was busy guzzling his ale, smacking his lips as he and writer next to him insisted how much they hated the triggermen. Security Officer was their official title.
Listening to one of them describe an encounter with one yesterday, my attention drifted over to the stage, where the pianist performed a solo. The diminutive girl with dark hair was extremely talented, as she produced a wondrous sound at a mezzo piano, and although I couldn’t name the song, I knew from its optimistic melody the writer had penned it while in an upbeat mood. The smooth, agreeable sound somehow mingled well with the bitter taste of hops, though it had trouble mixing with the writers’ graphic description of encounters they had had with certain women from Pike Place. The pianist continued to play as though inviting guests in, and surely enough as time passed others began to fill the room and more bartenders appeared, some carrying drinks and others holding stacks of newspaper against their chests.
Our bartender came to our table with a handful of newspapers and plopped them in front of us. Port licked his lips as he picked up the copy of the National Report. He opened it up and held it close to his eyes, and as he smiled a ring of smoke slipped out from his lips.
“Whadya know?” he said. “Housing prices gone up in this lousy state by five percent!”
“Since when did ya give a shit, Port?” someone asked. “Ya ain’t gonna get no house.”
“Shut it!” He kept reading. “Appears like the tobacco crops ain’t doing so hot. Looks like I’m gonna be goin’ back to those damn e-cigarettes. Ain’t the same.”
“I thought ya said those things were for losers.”
“Yeah, whatever.”
Someone called for me. Curious, I set my ale down and saw Tom waving his hat by the door. I left the table and went over to him, noticing he had a large smile apparent. We shook hands briefly and he pushed against my head in jest.
“Survive?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Good. Let’s get a table.”
“I’m already sitting with Port,” I said.
Tom looked over at Pot, and the two stared at one another for a while. Tom rolled his jaw, his eyes growing small. He set his jaw at a certain angle as he led me by the wrist over to an empty booth on the right side of the stage. Two newspapers were there folded neatly, along with two glasses of brandy.
“This is my reserved table,” he said as he sat down, yanking at his tie as he lowered it. He leaned his head back, let out of a sigh, and then smiled even more. He picked up one of the newspapers and handed it to me.
“It’s yesterday’s issue of our paper,” he said. “Nothing of mine in it, but it’s still worth your time.”
As I scanned the front page, splashed with big headlines and photos of local politicians, he pushed one of the brandy glasses over to me, raising his in the air.
“Here’s to day one,” he said. “Now if you can get through day two, you’re set.”
He threw back his head and let it go down his throat. I maintained my manners and sipped on it as I read a story about the Port of Seattle and its newly elected commissioner. I got through the first paragraph or so, and then I put it down and gazed at the room, now packed with men all wearing the same dark brown trousers, white shirts, coats and ties as I. Some of them wore suspenders or waistcoats as well. The tables filled, the men sat with one leg crossed over the other, a newspaper in their lap as they drank either ale out of the unmarked bottles or took shots of hard liquor, slamming the empty glasses on the wood surface. The voices rose and fell, conversations grew passionate, but each time the air grew tense the quartet played just the right song to soothe their rough demeanors and keep them docile.
“Quite a ‘library,’” I remarked. “That’s what you call them, right?”
Tom grinned. “I figured you’d appreciate that. It’s our gentlemen’s club, as it were. It’s where we get to come and relax and see what’s going on in the rest of the world. Some places don’t seem far, but when the only facts really come out once a day, it can seem a lot farther than that used to be.”
“Why don’t we sit over there with Port and the other writers?” I asked.
Tom gritted his teeth, forming a half smile that turned into a frown. He sighed, took out his lighter, and flicked it open and shut before he put it away after discovering his cigarette case was empty.
“Port’s a good guy, for his kind,” he said. “We ain’t friends, mind you. But that don’t mean much here. I don’t know, kid.”
“Roy,” I said.
“Huh?”
“I told Port to call me ‘Roy,’ and I’m telling you the same thing. I’m twenty-two, not a kid.”
Tom smiled and remained mute. He clearly didn’t take my protest seriously, but knew I demanded respect.
“Ah…sure, that’s fine,” he said. “You are a kid in my book, but nobody reads it, so who cares? Anyways, I’m trying to look out for you.”
“That’s nice of you,” I laughed.
“Yeah, no charity or nothing. Just want to help you.”
“That’s what Port said, too.”
Tom suddenly grew somber. “Right…but he doesn’t mean the same thing.”
“How so?”
“I’m not trying to change who you are,” he answered right away. “I like you. I guess I don’t have a kid of my own, so I’m treating you like one. Or maybe I’d like to think if I had a kid and something happened to me, someone would have the decency to take care of him for me.”
“That’s kind of you,” I said firmly. “But I’m not a kid, as I said.”
Tom folded his arms and studied me intently.
“There’s a lot I can’t tell you,” he said, his voice lowered. “If you’ve got questions as to my intentions, hold it in. I got nothing for it. But you still don’t seem to know what you’re getting into, and to be honest it didn’t occur to me until I was on my way here.”
“What?”
“Working for this newspaper involves a lot of choices. You’ve got to make choices all the time. Like most jobs in life. Unlike most jobs, however, the wrong choice can get you killed. And worse, the smart choice ain’t clean and all that, right? I can do it, and so can guys like Port. It’s all he knows.”
Tom leaned in further, as if to whisper a secret. “But I know what you’re thinking. You weren’t meant for this gig. You got stuck with it, and I can tell that you think you’ve got it all figured out because you spent a few weeks with me. You don’t. Not even close. I heard, for example, what happened with Olan.”
“You did?”
“Yes. First, good for you. Second, don’t ever do it again, ever.”
“Why?”
“Because I told you not to do it, that’s why,” he said. “I told you not to challenge Olan. Aren’t you the one who told me you wouldn’t use it?”
“But he was threatening me. I had to show him he couldn’t do that.”
Tom cocked his head with amusement, studying me with a taut smile before he chuckled.
“Ha!” he exclaimed. “Is that all it takes for you to go from a pacifist to a gunslinger? It was all just a show. That’s it. Olan can’t touch anybody. He’s just trying to seem tough with those security guards he has there. He doesn’t have the balls to shoot anyone, deadline or no deadline, without McCullen’s approval, especially someone like you who McCullen handpicked for this. Half of this job is writing. The other half is knowing when to use that gun of yours and when to keep it holstered where it belongs.”
“Why are they there?” I asked.
“Honestly, they are there to protect the newspaper, which it doesn’t seem like, but they sometimes forget that. McCullen is making sure the building doesn’t get hit. He’s brought them in after one of our editors ate lead with his Wheaties by a turncoat in our own outfit, inside the newspaper building. Happens once in a blue moon. That’s why they brought in the extra muscle.”
“What does this have to do with Port?” I asked.
“All right, you want it straight out?” Tom said. “Port’s a nice fellow, but I don’t trust him, nor do I trust those fellas he hangs out with and works with. I trust nobody because I’ve been here too long. They’re your pals until you become a liability. And believe you me, if they had to do you in to save their own skin, they will do it without flinching. No hesitation.”
My first reaction was to dismiss Tom’s worries, but as he sipped on his brandy, allowing me to think it over, I couldn’t put away that image of Port standing passively as Olan had threatened me, when he and the others could have taken my side. Maybe they wanted to see what I was made of and now they knew. Or maybe Tom was correct.
Settling back into his seat, Tom tapped his cigarette case against his palm, a pensive air about him. He ordered another round of brandy and as he sipped on it he told me the history of the “library” we were in and how it had been converted from an abandoned concert hall into a social scene for their newspaper. Technically, it was open to everybody, but no one from a rival gang would set foot in it. The owner didn’t care for the implied exclusivity, as long as the tables were always filled.
“This isn’t the only library, though,” Tom added. “There are libraries everywhere. Some are small, only for a hundred or so, and some are several floors. There’s one in Portland that I’m told is in an old bookstore that stretches a whole city block.”
“What’s the point of them?” I asked.
“The same point a library has always been, to read. But for us, libraries are places where people can read things they’re not supposed to. You can’t even look at a newspaper, so libraries are where people can go and read them without fear or worry about the ISA or the cops. Hell, sometimes a few cops will show up, but only the ones who we’ve got on our side, and if we’re suspicious we take pictures of them in case we have to use it later.”
