“Yes, get with it.” Karsh was still looking at Terrell, but his manner was business-like and impersonal. “Bridewell issued a statement half an hour ago — owned up to all his crimes, including not curbing his dog several years back. The mayor can’t last much longer than it takes city council to get in session. They’re licked, Sam, really smashed.”
“And I’m supposed to write the big, hot story,” Terrell said. He lit a cigarette and flipped the match aside. “The works, eh? All stops out?”
“Certainly. Chicanery in high places will sell more newspapers than faithful dogs and kindly old schoolteachers.” Karsh spoke with his characteristic incisiveness, and nothing in his manner indicated that this was more than a routinely important story. “Get started now,” he said. “We’ve got about half an hour before the edition goes in.”
“And how do I handle you?” Terrell asked him coldly. “How do we tint and shade the image of Mike Karsh? Are you portrayed with an arm around Ike Cellars’ shoulder, and a hand reaching for the public trough?”
Karsh winced slightly. “No metaphors, please. Never oversell a good story. Play my part for what it’s worth. No cover-ups — but don’t get off on a tangent. Stick to the straight line. Eden Myles was murdered by a hoodlum named Rammersky.” Karsh’s voice rose and fell with the monotonous insistence of a metronome. “Rammersky was hired by Ike Cellars. Caldwell was framed. Here’s how and why. Bang that home and forget about subtlety and a graceful prose style.”
Tuckerman looked up then and covered his phone with a huge palm. “Mike,” he said. There was an unmistakable significance in his tone and as Karsh turned to him, a silence settled around the immediate area of the city desk.
“What’s up?”
“Ike Cellars,” Tuckerman said. “For you.”
Karsh smiled complacently, and began to screw a cigarette into his holder. He glanced at the clock above him, and said, “I expected to hear from him before this.” He touched Terrell’s arm. “Now look: you get on an extension and take down our talk. This may be good.” He waved to the switchboard operator sitting behind the police speaker. “Nell, put Tuckerman’s call through to me here and hook in one of these front desks. All right, Sam. Ready?”
Terrell said, “Yes, let it fly.” He sat down and put on earphones. His reaction was compulsive; he had been trained by Karsh and he responded almost instinctively to the excitement in Karsh’ s voice.
Karsh picked up a phone and leaned against the city desk. “What’s up, Ike?” he said. His voice was almost respectful, but an ironical little smile twisted his lips. Standing there he winked down at Terrell, and he seemed completely strong and confident, framed against the night, his bold, handsome head outlined against the shining glass windows. “Something wrong?”
“I hope you’re not being cute.” Terrell heard the suppressed anger in Cellars’ voice and the harsh sound of his breathing. “Photographers from your paper are hanging around my house. They say you sent ’em.”
“That’s right,” Karsh said. “You’re going to look nice on page one.”
“I pay you to keep me out of the paper. You cross me, and you’re through.”
“What do you want me to keep out? That you paid a killer to strangle Eden Myles? That you framed Richard Caldwell to keep the city in your own pocket?”
Cellars said softly, “I’ll settle with you, don’t worry.”
Karsh began to laugh. “You’re heading for the front page of our next edition. Murderer, perjurer, pickpocket, pimp — have I forgotten anything?”
“Just your good sense, Mike.” And then Cellars broke the connection.
“Okay, okay, let’s get going,” Karsh said, putting the phone down and slapping his hands together like a ringmaster.
The tempo picked up again and after another look at the clock, Karsh came over and read Terrell’s notes. “Put that conversation in a box for page one. Now get started on the main story.”
Terrell couldn’t make him out. He stared up at him for a few seconds, and then said, “You’ll look bad in my version, Mike.”
“So I look bad,” Karsh said. “It’s part of the story. I’ve cleared my end of it with the publisher. No cover-ups. The truth. And he’s agreed to handle it my way. I want the whole story — I told you that once. And we’ve got it.”
“Okay,” Terrell said sharply. He lit a cigarette and rolled a sheet of paper into his machine. Dramatics, he thought as he rubbed his hands together in a nervous, ritualistic gesture. Deadline, the big story, and Terrell telling all. Karsh was steel that could bend in any direction. And snap back as good as new when the pressure was off. Quite a trick. But not my hero, Terrell thought. Not the man I thought he was...
