Dead Man's Song полностью

“However, there is another aspect to my job, one that I don’t always relish, but one that I am bound by both because of my job description and my obligations to the publisher—who, need I remind you, owns this paper—and that sometimes requires me to order either a total rewrite of the piece, reassign it to another reporter, or, in the case of this particular article, shit-can it.” With that he picked up Newton’s article on the deception and political games playing in Pine Deep and dropped it with great precision into his wire-mesh wastebasket.

“You can’t!” Newton cried, leaping to his feet.

“Ah, but I just explained that I, indeed, can.”

“You…you…”

Hangood held up a warning finger. “Watch your adjectives, sonny-boy. What you say now can affect your next paycheck, meaning that it will affect whether you will be getting one.”

Newton clamped his mouth shut but tried to telepathically project the long string of astonishingly descriptive vulgarisms that tingled like pins and needles on his tongue. Hangood smiled benignly around the stump of his cigar, then raised his hand again and stabbed the air with a thick finger, indicating Newton’s vacant chair. “Sit!”

Newton sagged back into the chair, his lungs emptying the unspent words as a long sigh of defeat.

“Good. Now listen to me.” Hangood leaned forward and rested his hairy elbows on the desk. “You are the golden boy of the moment, and I am fully aware of that. You’ve just given the Sentinel the biggest story we’ve ever had, and the sales have gone through the roof. The publisher and I are happy with you, and I think you’ll see an expression of our pleasure come payday. But that, as the saying goes, is yesterday’s news. Today you are sitting on the fence between continuing to be the golden boy and getting your ass bumped down to writing about dog shows and town fairs.”

“What’s going on, Dick? That article is—”

“Is what? Libelous? Incendiary? Needlessly provocative?”

“Isn’t that what we’re all about? Trying to expose the corrup—”

“No, it isn’t. What do you think this is? The Washington Post? We’re a small-town newspaper and that means we live and die on advertising dollars. The advertisers in small towns are almost exclusively local businesspeople, and in small towns the local businesspeople make up the entire body of local political power. Capiche? Not to mention the fact that our town, our sweet little burg of Black Marsh, can’t even sustain us—we get eighty percent of our advertising from Pine Deep. Now, do you really think it is prudent to run an article that attacks, even condemns, the mayor of Pine Deep, as well as the police department and the whole town in general? Especially when said mayor is being quoted and sound-bited by every media on God’s green Earth? Personally, I do not think that’s such a keen idea, Newt. I think that is one of the stupidest ideas I’ve heard in a long time.”

“But it’s the truth!”

“So what? Since when did the truth matter in journalism? We write slanted and biased drivel so we can sell papers.”

“We have a respon—”

“Oh, please! What are you, a Boy Scout? You working on your Walter Cronkite merit badge?” Hangood sighed and rubbed his eyes. “Newt, you are actually a pretty good reporter, better than the average hack working for our little rag, but you’re only good when you stay the hell away from politics. You start writing about politics and suddenly you’re Oliver Stone writing a movie script. Conspiracies, hidden meanings, secret arrangements, black ops, and shadow governments. Christ, Newton, has anyone ever told you that you live in a small town? The extent of corruption around here is that the more taxes you pay the less you have to worry about parking tickets. This is not D.C., this is not Philly or New York. This is Small Town, USA. In Small Town, USA, we do not try to sell papers by smashing down local government and—no, don’t you dare try to give me your patented speech about the truth and the public’s right to know! The public around here wants to know which antique dealer is having a sale on Shaker furniture and what the Corn Growers Commission is planning to do about the newest tax bill. Forget politics, Newton, you don’t have the disposition for it, and I say that for your own good. I know you like to write about politics, and sometimes you are even right in what you say, but you get too worked up about it.”

“This story is the natural extension of the feature on Ruger.”