Night Extra

1

The Call-Bulletin’s first deadline was at nine o’clock in the morning and by eight fifty-five everyone in the long brightly lighted city room was working under the insistent pressure of time. Reporters and rewritemen paused every now and then to check the clock above the city desk, pacing themselves by the steady sweep of the illuminated second hand.

Sam Terrell didn’t look up from the typewriter when the phone rang; he finished the item for his column, then lifted the receiver.

The voice in his ear said, “I’ve got something for Terrell. Is he around?”

“This is Terrell.”

“Answer your own phone, eh? Keeping the common touch?”

“Who’s this?”

“It doesn’t matter, Sam. What matters is I got something for you on Caldwell, our lily-white reform candidate.” The tipster’s voice was husky, and his inflection was heavily ironic. Terrell’s interest picked up; with elections two weeks off, almost anything on Caldwell had a priority value.

The edition was only seconds away from deadline now; a bell rang warningly and rewritemen began shouting for copy boys. The atmosphere of noisy confusion was deceptive; beneath that the. work went on with routine skill and precision.

“Okay, let’s have it,” Terrell said, holding the receiver tightly against his ear.

Ollie Wheeler, whose desk was beside Terrell’s, chose that moment to say, “Sam, a bank wouldn’t lend this paper a nickel. It’s nothing but organized hysteria. Look, we’re on deadline and they’ve got a head-on collision with both cars travelling in the same direction. Neatest trick of the week, eh?”

Terrell covered his phone and stared at the old man. “For God’s sake, shut up!” he said. Terrell was tall and nervous, and when he was working he usually looked mad; now his cheeks were flushed and his eyes were sharp with irritation. “Can’t you knock it off for a second?”

Ollie said, “Judah Priest, temperament yet,” and turned angrily back to his newspaper.

Terrell said into the phone, “I’m sorry, but this connection is bad. Could I call you back?”

“I’m at a drugstore, so calling back wouldn’t tell you much. Be content with the tip, Sam. Don’t worry about me. Now: you know Eden Myles?”

Terrell did, slightly; she was a singer, the friend of a minor hoodlum named Frankie Chance. “I know the lady,” he said.

“Lady?” The tipster made a clicking noise with his tongue. “Okay, have it your way. Well, she’s been huddling with Richard Caldwell for the last month or so. Five or six times, all on the quiet. But somebody saw her easing into his hotel suite. Somebody always does. You run this down and you got a story.”

Terrell reached for his cigarettes, feeling a pleasurable excitement growing in him. “Anybody else know about this?”

“Just you and me, sweetheart.”

“I’d like to buy you a drink,” Terrell said. “Thank you formally.”

“Never mind. I’m off the sauce anyway. Good luck, Sam.”

“Wait a minute,” Terrell said, but the phone was dead. He jiggled the hook automatically, then put the receiver down. Rich Caldwell and Eden Myles — it was an incongruous combination. Caldwell was the high-minded idealist, called to politics by duty and conscience. And Eden Myles was a smalltime tramp. Singer, hostess, model, all of it small time. Even Frankie Chance was small time.

“Ollie,” Terrell said. “Ollie, what do you think of Rich Caldwell?”

“You have a moment for the peasants, eh?” Wheeler was hurt, Terrell saw; the old man was staring straight ahead, giving him the benefit of a hard, severe profile. Terrell wondered how to coax him into good humor. Wheeler was a souvenir of the paper’s more vigorous days, a cynical old man who drank too much and was in debt to half the men in the building. Mike Karsh, the Call-Bulletin’s managing editor, kept him working out of a perverse and inconsistent sentimentality. Ollie took one or two stories a day, a local fire or a service club luncheon, and spent the rest of his time picking out examples of bad writing and sloppy reporting from the paper’s news columns. Williams, the city editor, had shifted his desk into the comparative tranquility of Terrell’s corner. This kept him out of everyone’s hair but Terrell’s.

“I’m sorry I popped off,” Terrell said. “But my connection was bad.”

“The column’s the important thing,” Ollie said. “Don’t let such trifles as courtesy or good manners ever come first. Remember that. You’re young but in time you’ll be like everyone else on this rag — one of Mike Karsh’s journalistic thugs, literary bully boys, ready for—”

“Say, that’s good,” Terrell said, with a perfectly straight face. “Literary bully boys!” He repeated the phrase in a soft, respectful voice. “Using typewriters instead of machine guns, you could say. How do you toss off gems like that, Ollie?”

“Go to hell, you sarcastic sonofabitch.” Ollie grinned at him, a frail old man with gray hair and sharp aristocratic features. “What was the call that got you excited?”

“Someone trying to peddle a story on Caldwell. What do you think of him, Ollie? Seriously.”

“Seriously? That’s damn near impossible.”

“What’s funny about him?”

“He’s a reformer. He’s given up a highly profitable law practice to run for mayor of this benighted town. And he’s got about as much political savvy as a sophisticated girl scout. The machine will eat him alive and not even spit back the bones. Is that funny enough?” Wheeler grinned but his eyes were melancholy. “Or do you want bladder comedians, yet?”

“Supposing he wins?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I’ve covered his rallies,” Terrell said. “He draws a crowd.”

“College kids. They can’t vote. Seriously, Sam, it can’t happen. Men like Ike Cellars, Mayor Ticknor — do you think they’ll let this piece of cake fall into somebody else’s fingers?”

“You’re a cynic.”

“I have a capacity to see what’s under my nose. If that’s being cynical, fine.”

Terrell leaned back in his chair and lit a cigarette. Eden Myles and Rich Caldwell... The pressure had eased now that the first edition was in. Reporters and editors drifted down the long room toward the lavatory or water coolers. Only one or two typewriters pecked with a virtuous sound against the comparative silence. Copy boys went from desk to desk taking orders for coffee, bacon and egg sandwiches, cigarettes and aspirin. The tension would start building again in half an hour or so, as stories and pictures for the next edition, the Postscript, were phoned and wired into the city room. In the welcome silence Terrell smoked his cigarette in peace. From his corner he had a view of the rewrite section, the copy wheel, and Mike Karsh’s huge, glass-walled office, which dominated both arms of the L-shaped city room. He was still thinking about Eden Myles and Rich Caldwell, and he knew he was after something good. He didn’t bother to analyze or question his intuitions; he just accepted them as facts. They stemmed from his experience as a reporter, his awareness of the significant differences and alliances within the framework of men who ran the city. One set of shiftings and regroupings might leave him cold, another would alert him instantly. And he was alerted by the combination of Eden Myles and Rich Caldwell. Because Eden Myles had been Frankie Chance’s girl friend. And because Frankie Chance worked for Ike Cellars...

Terrell walked down the room and took a chair at the city desk. Williams nodded to him and said, “How’s the pundit business?”

“Haven’t sold a pundit all week. Must be the seasonal lag.” Three other men were seated at the long rectangular desk: Nelly, a youngster with brush-cut hair, Poole, Williams’ top assistant editor, and Frank Tuckerman, a huge and gentle man who dispatched the paper’s legmen and radio cars. Now he was hunched close to the police speaker at the end of the desk, his ear automatically selecting significant data from the welter of reports, orders, and code numbers that spluttered endlessly through the air. A fire in the Northeast was developing into something important; the battalion chief had called for an ambulance, and the gas company was ordering out its emergency equipment to handle a leakage in the adjoining building. Williams caught the last order and glanced at Tuckerman. “Where is it?”

“Corner of Olney and the river,” Tuckerman said. “A warehouse with a convent across the street. I’ve got two men on the way out there.”

“What kind of a convent?”

“Sort of home away from home for wayward girls,” Tuckerman said.

Poole looked at Terrell. “I read your piece on Caldwell’s neighborhood rallies. You think the crowds are on the level? The college kids, the housewives, the quote little people unquote — are they sold on Caldwell, or do they go out just to lose themselves in the commotion and noise?”

“They look sensible to me,” Terrell said.

“Nobody who stands listening to a politician is sensible,” Nelly said.

“Don’t qualify everything so much,” Terrell said. He had always known Nelly was a jerk. “Have the courage to generalize.” He turned to Tuckerman, who was idle for a moment. “Do you know Frankie Chance, Tuck?”

“Just not to speak to,” Tuckerman said in his soft whispering voice. “He’s a snotty little punk. Does odd jobs for Ike Cellars. Runs Ike’s zipper when Ike is tired. But he’s no clown.”

“How about his girl, Eden Myles?”

“I heard they had a row, a month or so ago. She’s been working in Ike’s club, The Mansions. Still is, I guess. But she had a split with Frankie. She’s a pretty cute dish, Sam. She was arrested a few years ago for driving her car along the sidewalk on Astor Place. We used a picture of her taking a swing at old Jim Corrigan down at the Twenty-Sixth District.”

“How the hell do you remember all those details?” Poole said.

Tuckerman smiled faintly. “It’s like breathing. Some nights I lie awake and I find names and addresses crowding into my mind — stories going back twenty years. Accidents, fires, shootings, and lots of little stuff. Jennie Edwards, age 9, 2123 East Seventy-Third Street, taken to St. Jerome’s Hospital and treated for dogbite. Hell, Jennie Edwards has kids of her own now. It’s quite a legacy, isn’t it? A handful of local news stories.” The police speaker cracked and another alarm sounded for the warehouse fire. “That’s three,” Williams said, glancing up at the clock. He turned to Poole. “We’ll want as much as we can get for the Postscript. Let’s see how we can make room on page one. That fire is a big one.”

“The foreign aid story can go inside,” Poole said. “It’s served its purpose.”

“Sent the blood pressure up at the Merchants’ Club at any rate. Okay...”

Terrell envied them in a way. They had definite hour-by-hour demands on their skills and energy. They caught the news on the run and packaged it competently for the public’s effortless consumption. Terrell had worked with them for eight years, and then Mike Karsh had called him in to tell him he would take over Kehoe’s column when the old man retired to his farm to raise chickens. Karsh had been at his desk, beautifully groomed as always, and giving the impression that he had a dozen more important things on his mind. Everyone who talked to him had the uneasy feeling he had been squeezed into a very tight schedule.

“It’s a piece of blank paper on page three,” Karsh had said, glancing up at him with sudden intensity. “It’s blank paper, mind you, about the size of your two hands. But multiply that space a half million times — our circulation as of this morning — and you’ve got a piece of paper big enough to sky-write on. Get me? You’ll stand in a pulpit taller than any skyscraper in the city. I want you to do a good job. I think you will. You’ve learned this raunchy trade of ours pretty well.”

“Most of it from you, Mike.”

“That’s right.” Karsh had smiled up at him then, and Terrell had the feeling he was going to say something else. But Karsh changed his mind. Reaching for his phone he had said, “Well, that’s all, Sam. Good luck.”

“Thanks, Mike.” There was a bond between them, but Terrell knew Karsh was far too fastidious to attempt to put it into words.

Now Terrell glanced over his shoulder toward Karsh’s glass-walled office. He would have liked to get his opinion on the tip he had just received, but Karsh was in conference with Max Ryerson, his sports editor, and a professional golfer who had signed to do a series for the Call-Bulletin’s syndicate. Karsh was dominating both men, Terrell could see; he went on like this for sixteen hours a day, more like a battery of pure energy than a fallible human being.

Tuckerman sat down beside Terrell and dropped a huge arm over his shoulder. “When are you coming back to work for us?”

“And give up my freedom? I’m through for the day, and you’ll be pulling that car for another seven hours.”

“You work like a dog, and the column shows it.”

“You mean that?”

“Sure, I mean it. It’s good.” Tuckerman glanced down at the silent police speaker, then lit a cigarette. “About Frankie Chance. He’s strictly bush, but he’s dangerous.”

“I’m not doing a Mafia story.”

“Listen, chum, this big shining toy is going up for grabs on election day. People will get stepped on in the general crush. Make sure you’re on the sidelines.”

“If I need a bodyguard, I’ll yell.”

“Good boy.” Tuckerman winked comically at him, then lumbered back to his chair beside the police speaker.

Terrell picked up his hat and coat, left word at the switchboard that he was going out, and then cabbed across town to the Vanderbilt Hotel, where Caldwell had installed his campaign headquarters. There was something symbolic in this choice, Terrell thought. The Vanderbilt was uncompromisingly plain, innocent of chromium plate or neon signs, an old-fashioned place, true to an honest and straightforward tradition. The city itself had been that way too, decades ago, solid and sturdy, consistent with the characters of the sea captains and merchants who had built her into one of the nation’s major ports. But the city and the old Vanderbilt had damn little in common at the moment, Terrell thought.

Caldwell’s campaign headquarters were on the third floor, in an ornate ballroom with mirrored walls, gold columns and a gilt ceiling that was fantastically cluttered with carved cherubs and cupids. A dozen or so college girls sat at card tables distributing campaign leaflets, lapel buttons and automobile stickers to anyone who wanted them. They might have been stamped from a press, Terrell thought; cashmere sweaters, single strand of pearls, tweed skirt and loafers — and all burning with conviction and self-sacrifice. Mayor Ticknor had called them “Caldwell’s Virgins” and someone else had said, “Ward heelers or round heelers, take your choice.” However you took them, they were a potent force, Terrell knew, these dead-serious college girls.

Caldwell’s photograph, was at both ends of the room, smiling self-consciously down on his busy volunteer workers. He was a handsome man, forty-five or forty-seven, with even features, a good jaw, and mild, intelligent eyes. There was nothing distinctive in this picture; except for a lock of hair that had got out of place, he looked a bit like a bank teller or the high-minded agent in a life insurance advertisement. In person he was more formidable, Terrell knew. Something simple and honest and stubborn went from the man to his audience. Terrell had seen and felt this happen. They should have tried for a better picture, he thought, something more informal and engaging. But Caldwell’s advisers were all dedicated amateurs. They went about their jobs bluntly and awkwardly. They scorned tricks. They were sold so completely on Caldwell that they didn’t bother selling him to the people.

One of the girls came over to him with a button for his lapel, but Terrell smiled and told her no thanks. He gave her his name and asked for Caldwell.

“Mr. Caldwell’s not here right now, but please don’t go away. I know Mr. Sarnac will want to see you. He handles the press for us.”

“Well, good for him,” Terrell said.

“Now don’t go away.” She hurried off, her pony-tail bobbing with excitement, and several of the girls looked Terrell over with what he rather hoped was a new interest.

In a few seconds a small man came through a door at the end of the room, and hurried toward Terrell. They shook hands, introduced themselves, and Sarnac asked him to come into his office. “We can relax out of this traffic,” he said, laughing a bit too quickly. “There’s always a mob up here. Remember that for your story. Good little touch, eh? It’s what you’d call color, I guess.”

Amateurs, Terrell thought, as he followed Sarnac into a cloakroom that had been put to use as an office. Filing cabinets and desks took up one wall and campaign pictures of Caldwell were piled high on a table under the windows. Rolls of election posters were stacked in a corner.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Terrell? Just sit down anywhere.” Sarnac bustled about removing leaflets from a straight-backed chair and piling them on the floor. “Here, sit down, please. We don’t have very formal appointments, I’m afraid. However, we’re not complaining.” He smiled rather wistfully at Terrell, an unimpressive little man with dark hair and a sallow complexion; in his gray sack suit and rimless glasses he could lose himself quickly and effortlessly in any crowded street in America.

“How do you fit into this set-up?” Terrell asked him.

Sarnac seemed somewhat flustered by the question. “Me? Why I’m Mr. Caldwell’s press secretary. And I’ve worked on the campaign booklets, radio and TV announcements and so forth.”

“Are you on a regular salary?”

“No, I’m on leave from Union College for this semester.” Sarnac looked puzzled now. “But I thought you wanted to talk about Mr. Caldwell.”

“Perhaps I was being irrelevant,” Terrell said. There had been nothing accidental in his approach; he wanted Sarnac off balance. “Would you go back to college if Caldwell were elected? Or stick with him?” He took out his cigarettes and looked around for an ashtray.

“I’m not sure — I haven’t really made up my mind yet. Here, use this, please,” Sarnac said, pushing a saucer toward Terrell. “Ashtrays disappear in the most mysterious fashion around here.”

“Thanks. Now tell me about Eden Myles,” Terrell said. “I know she’s been seeing Caldwell. But I’d like the rest of the story.” He smiled at the stricken look on Sarnac’s face. “There are no secrets in a political campaign. Not for long, at any rate.”

Sarnac stood and removed his glasses. “I haven’t the faintest notion what you’re talking about. Not the faintest.”

Terrell smoked his cigarette and let the silence stretch tightly across the dusty little room. Sarnac replaced his glasses and sat down behind his desk. “You heard me! I don’t know where you came across this absurd rumor, but I can assure you it’s completely false.”

“Now, please,” Terrell said in a pained voice.

“I have no further comment. None at all.”

“You deny categorically that Caldwell and Eden Myles have been — in conference?”

“I deny nothing. I make no comment at all.”

“That’s too bad.” Terrell smiled and got to his feet.

“One moment. Would you mind telling me where you heard this story?”

“I would mind very much. However, since it’s not true, what difference does it make?”

Sarnac came around his desk, frowning unhappily at Terrell. “We seem to have got off on the wrong foot. I didn’t mean to antagonize you. But you simply can’t use this preposterous rumor in your column.”

“I don’t think it’s just a rumor,” Terrell said. “And I think it will make a nice item. Incomplete, speculative, but interesting.”

“You can’t—”

“Listen to me, Sarnac. Every fifty dollar a week press agent knows what I’m going to tell you. You can’t keep news out of newspapers. Good, bad, a break for one side, a knee in the groin to the other — it goes in. And all you can do is hope your client’s name is spelled right.”

Sarnac was visibly disturbed; his face was white and there were tiny blisters of perspiration on his upper lip. “This is a very serious matter,” he said. “Could I talk to you off the record?”

“No.” Terrell said. “I’m not a bartender or a cab driver. I don’t listen to gossip for the fun of it. I’m a reporter. What I hear I use.”

“You’re very tough and shrewd, aren’t you? A typical product of the Call-Bulletin and Mike Karsh.”

“You can forget Mike Karsh,” Terrell said. “And you can skip the high moral tone. You’re trying to make a deal. You’ll tell the truth but only if I don’t use it. Isn’t that your proposition?”

“I didn’t mean it that way,” Sarnac said wearily. “You don’t seem to want to discuss this. You just want to fight about it.”

“I’ll tell you what,” Terrell said, smiling slightly. “You convince me I’ll get a better story by waiting a few days — then we’ll stop fighting.”

“Yes, I can do that,” Sarnac said. “I’ll give you everything, the background, the details. Then you’ll see that the important story is still in the making. Sit down, please.” Sarnac rubbed his hands together nervously. “I’m telling you this on my own responsibility. Mr. Caldwell is speaking in Borough Hall this morning, and I’m not sure I could get through to him. Also, I wouldn’t care to discuss it on the phone.” Sarnac cleared his throat and glanced at the door behind Terrell. Then he said, “Eden Myles called us six weeks ago. She had information concerning the incumbent administration, Mayor Ticknor and Ike Cellars — and she wanted us to have it. We arranged a meeting between her and Mr. Caldwell, in a suite at the Armbruster Hotel. Since then they have had five more conferences. Now, you can see—”

“Just one second. Has he been meeting her alone?”

Sarnac smiled. “We’re naive and innocent people who shouldn’t be allowed out after dark. This is Mayor Ticknor’s idea, at any rate. However, we’re not completely stupid. Every time Eden Myles has talked to Mr. Caldwell there have been witnesses present — men and women of unimpeachable reputation. Also, every conversation between them has been recorded on tape.”

“One other thing. Does Eden want money for her information?”

“No. She seems to want revenge. I gather that she’d had a split with her — steady friend, a man by the name of Frankie Chance. He works for Ike Cellars. Eden wants to pay them off, it seems.”

“And what sort of information is she producing? Anything good?”

“Not at first. And we weren’t too hopeful. It seemed to us she imagined she knew a great deal simply because she had accompanied a variety of notorious characters to the track and to nightclubs. But then, under our questioning, her memory sharpened. She began to dredge up more significant information. This dredging-up process has been going on for six weeks now, and the bucket is coming up with — I seem involved suddenly in metaphor — well, it’s coming up thicker and thicker all the time.”

“And what’s it going to prove?” Terrell asked him. “That Ike Cellars runs the rackets in town, that Ticknor has been re-elected for years by fraudulent registration in the river wards? That there’s graft in high places?”

“None of that strikes you as newsworthy?”

“It’s fairly common knowledge,” Terrell said. He got to his feet. “But we’ve made a deal. If this girl comes up with evidence, I’ll be surprised. But I’ll be glad to use it. And here’s a bit of free advice. Watch out for booby traps.”

“We can manage, thanks.”

Terrell hesitated at the door. Something was puzzling him; this inept and rather pompous little man, the girls outside, the revival meeting atmosphere — it bothered him. He said bluntly to Sarnac, “What are you going to get out of this?”

“I want to live in a clean city,” Sarnac said. “To put it negatively, I don’t want to live under an Ike Cellars — Mayor Shaw Ticknor axis, with the moral deterioration they’ve brought to our community. I don’t want my children to grow up as cynics, sneering at conventional virtues and tolerating the fact that honesty and hard work mean nothing at all in the management of our public affairs.”

“You won’t start any arguments with those ideas,” Terrell said. “I imagine you’re all for displaying the flag on the Fourth of July and keeping marijuana out of the public schools.” Sarnac didn’t answer Terrell immediately. He studied him for a few seconds, a thoughtful little frown on his face. Finally he said, “Yes, I suppose I’m a figure of fun to you. But let me tell you something. I’ve been a professor of history for eighteen years, and I know a little of what happens to societies which come to regard decadence as just a good joke. I spent eighteen years explaining to generally uninterested young women what went wrong with Rome and Athens, how they lost the big things that made their societies not just beautiful but good. Well, I got tired of talking about the evil that flourished a couple of thousand years ago in Athens and Rome. We’ve got the same problems here, now. I didn’t wake up until I heard Caldwell giving chapter and verse on the thugs running this city. That night I applied for leave, and told my wife the trip to Europe we’d planned for a dozen years was off indefinitely.” Sarnac took out cigarettes but his fingers were trembling so badly that he couldn’t manage to strike a match. “I’m sorry for lecturing you,” he said. “It’s a bad habit of mine.”

“Maybe so,” Terrell said. He snapped his lighter and held the flame to Sarnac’s cigarette. “Maybe not.”