He picked up the phone. It wasn’t Matt Drudge. It wasn’t the police. It wasn’t even Annie Ross. It was only Nick Bradenton, sounding exasperated.
“Ryall? Ryall, where are you? You owe me a column. It should have been here an hour ago. Are you paying any attention to what we pay you for anymore at all?”
“I’ve been paying attention,” Ryall said defensively. His chest hurt. This was what was wrong with letting himself get spooked. He got breathless. His voice squeaked. “I’ve turned in the best columns of my career over the last couple of weeks. I’ve even provided you with real news. You can’t fault me for that.”
“You’ve been late four out of the last six days,” Nick said. “I know you like going to New York. And I know you like going to Atlanta. And I know you like seeing your face on the television screen. But if you expect to have a job here when this is over, you’d better get your act together.”
“Of course I expect to have a job here,” Ryall said. That was not strictly true. He expected to have the job, yes, but he did not expect to want it. He was sure it was only a matter of time before CNN would give him a spot in the same way they had once given Greta Van Susteren one. That was how these things happened. Just in case, though—in case something went wrong, in case the universe was as uneven and unfair as it had always been—it was best to play safe. “The column’s done,” he said. “I’ll e-mail it as soon as I get off the phone.”
“Yeah, well. Do that. But there’s something else.”
“What else?”
“There’s some news. Not really news. It’s not for publication just yet, if you know what I mean. We’ve got a source. Can you get to Anne Ross Wyler?”
“Anybody can get to Anne Ross Wyler,” Ryall said. “She lives in that godforsaken settlement house. She doesn’t even have servants.”
“Well, neither do you, do you, Ryall? Our source says that she’s the prime suspect out there in Lower Merion. That she killed her brother and his wife. For money, I presume, although we don’t have any word on that. Maybe she’s another one of those crackpot debutante Marxists. I don’t know. We just want to know if you can go out there and talk to her. Get an interview about how she feels about her brother’s death and that kind of thing, but be cool about it. Don’t say anything that might tip her off.”
“Hard news?” Ryall said, finding it difficult to breathe again. “I can’t believe it. You’re trusting me with hard news.”
“Yeah,” Nick said. “I’m not a hundred percent happy about it, if you want to know the truth.”
“Oh, thank you.”
“Be serious, Ryall. This is not the kind of thing you usually do. But the rest of the guys thought you’d be the best one because you know the territory and you know the woman. She’s more likely to open up to you than she is to a stranger. Although, I don’t know. She’s always been so intensely loyal to Tony Ross. If that’s been an act all these years, she can’t be straight with anybody. Can you get over there right away?”
“To Adelphos House? Of course I can. How do you know she’s there?” “I don’t, but that’s where she usually is, isn’t it? Maybe you ought to call first. There’s a certain amount of hurry. We hear she’s going to be picked up this evening. I have no idea why they’re waiting so long. But there it is. You have to get to her before that.”
“I’ll get to her as soon as I get off the phone,” Ryall said, wondering how long it would take him to get the hint. Get off the phone. Get off the phone. Get off the phone.
“You can get off the phone now,” Nick said. “And send that column, ASAP.” There was a click and then a dial tone. Ryall put the phone back in the hook and stared at it. He didn’t really have a column done. It was only half done. He could get it finished in, maybe, half an hour. He wondered if he would be able to concentrate on it. Maybe he should call Adelphos House first. Maybe he should stop off on the strip on his way to talk to Annie Ross. There were so many options, he didn’t know what to do.
Then, abruptly, he sat down in the nearest chair and burst out laughing.
2
David Alden had always prided himself on being able to stay calm in a crisis. It was one of the things he was known for, even among the people who wanted to find some reason to get him out of the bank. And, truthfully, it wasn’t that he was uncalm, exactly. He wasn’t running around in a panic. He wasn’t having trouble trying to think. It was just that, since Charlotte had died, he’d been restless. It felt to him as if the things he was doing were ephemeral. There was this bank, this pre-war building with its high ceilings and marble floors and chandeliers that had to be cleaned six times a year by a company hired for just that purpose. There was Price Heaven, which was rapidly descending into the morass of an Enron scandal, with half the news stories devoted to the way in which Price Heaven’s middle managers would lose all the money they’d saved for retirement if the company collapsed and its stock became worthless. There was Michael Harridan and his Report, which had been cluttering up his briefcase ever since that last day at Tony’s house and that even now took up more of his time than it should. All he wanted was that people should start out making sense and go on making sense. He didn’t want them to wander off on tangents and confusions. Sometimes it seemed to him that people operated on an entirely symbolic level. The bank was not a temple and it did not house the body of a God, living or dead, no matter what its vice presidents thought. The middle managers at Price Heaven would not be in the midst of losing their savings if they’d taken the sensible advice most of them admitted to having been given and diversified their portfolios instead of keeping everything they had in one company’s paper. And as for Michael Harridan—