DEATH’S MEMOIRS

                               PROLOGUE

Matt stood at the vast window overlooking the downtown skyline, hands on his hips, standing in his accustomed posture that hinted of arrogance.  The skyline was lit up in all its splendor, spotlights shining, exterior lights bright.  The Arch gleamed
from the lights of the city and off in the distance, the lights strung across the Eads Bridge were reflected below on the black surface of the Mississippi River.

In a few minutes he would leave his company’s office on the top floor of this, at 43 stories the tallest building in the state, to join the party downstairs in the lobby in his honor, to celebrate his winning of the St. Louis Award, the city’s most
prestigious award given to community and civic leaders.  He’d come up here to be alone for a moment, before plunging into the evening’s festivities, despite his wife Jacqueline’s protests.

“Matt, it won’t look right for you to be late to this party.” Jacqueline’s voice carried an extra measure of steel in it for this prounouncement.

“There isn’t a party till I arrive, my dear.” Matt’s voice matched hers for steel. “I’ll see you later.” With that, he’d taken the express elevator to the 43rd floor, leaving her standing at rigid attention in the lobby, glaring at the elevator doors
as they whooshed shut. As always, she looked regal, with diamonds sparkling at her ears and throat, her jet black hair gleaming, her long white gown sweeping behind her as she moved acorss the lobby’s marble floor.

Twenty years I’ve been married to that woman, he had thought on his way up. It was her family’s money that had started him in business, it was her family’s connections to the city’s power structure that had kept him in business. He liked to think
that it was his own innate abilities and business acumen that had enabled that business to grow and develop and thrive and prosper.

Adjectives describing Jacqueline tumbled through his wordsmith’s mind—stunning, spectacular, tough, demanding, selfish. With a slight grin to himself, he thought, “Most of the those could also be apliced to yours truly.”

As Matt took one last look at the city’s panorama, he thought he heard a noise in the outer office. He turned and as he did, saw the outline of a figure in his office doorway.  The lights were off in his office and only one faint lamp glimmered in
the outer lobby and all he could see was the vague shadow of a person.

“Who’s there? Jackie, is that you?” He had slipped in calling his wife Jackie—she detested the diminutive nickname and refused to answer whenever he absent-mindedly used it. There was no answer from the outlined figure as it moved towards him.

“Jacqueline?”

Still no answer.

When the figure had come within a few feet of him, Matt recognized it.

“Well, hello there.”

The figure didn’t answer,just rushed toward Matt and gave him a mighty shove, thrusting him out the window and to the city street, 43 stories below.

Several months prior, a group of St. Louis power brokers met over lunch to select the recipient of the St. Louis Award. The meeting took place in the boardroom of one of the group’s corporations. By mid-mmeting, the room was hazy with smoke, even
though only three of the group’s 12 members  smoked. But two of those three smoked fat, odiferous cigars that generated smoke equivalent to five cigarettes.

Predecessors of this gathering had begun meeting over half a century ago. Once a backroom, behind the scenes organization, the group had now become an official, established part of the city. It was a well-known secret that this group called Community
Enterprise Organization or CEO for short, completely controlled the corporate and political arenas of the city.

This year’s selection of an award winner was particularly difficult because the front-runner had recently drowned in a boating accident at the Lake of the Ozarks. Patrick Monahan, ceo of the city’s largest independent advertising agency, had been the
unanimous choice of CEO.  With his death, they were now faced with selecting a replacement winner. In each man’s mind, the newly selected winner would clearly be second-rate. For the time being, the heart had gone out of the group. Pat had been a
recent addition to the group and had brought to it new life and vitality. His death had caused an amazing void in their gatherings.

The president of the city’s electric company suggested the Mayor as the award recipient.

The rest of the group debated the pros and cons of giving the city’s youthful, ambitious political leader the city’s highest honor.

“Let’s vote,” said the head of a mining and engineering monolith.

The vote was 5 for and 7 against.

The ceo of the world’s largest brewery then nominated the superintendent of the city’s public school system but no one would second the nomination—repeatedly, the educator had become embroiled in controversy and had lost the confidence of CEO.

“This is ridiculous.” This from the head of one of the city’s two major aerospace firms. “Just because we were all so sold on Pat doesn’t mean that there isn’t another deserving award recipient left.”

“That’s right,” concurred the chancellor of the city’s private university. “What about Matt Thompson?”

“Well, that’s a possibility,” said the chief executive office of the telephone company. “In fact, Thompson’s public relations firm is affiliated with Pat’s ad agency and my impression was that they were fairly good friends.”

The chancellor of the university said, “Yes, they worked very closely together. When Thompson first started his company, he was officed with Pat’s ad agency.”

The telephone company head who was currently chairing the group, said “Let’s take a vote on the nomination of Matt Thompson as the award recipient.”
The vote was 9 for, 2 against, and 1 abstention.

The telephone company head asked if the nay votes or the abstention wished to make any comment.  All three members of the group who had not voted in favor of Thompson, murmured variations of “No, just let my vote stand for itself.”

The group was less than jubilant over this turn of events. Evidently they were honoring someone who lacked the full support of the group, but the rules governing CEO number one did not require a unanimous vote, and number two, did not require
dissenters to explain their negative or abstaining votes.

The telephone company head asked the group for a volunteer to notify Thompson of his selection. At first, no one volunteered. Then the head of the other aerospace firm said he would.

“Matt does our public relations work and I know him fairly well—I’d be glad to do it.”

“One other thing.” This from the university chancellor. “I’d like to propose a special posthumous award to Pat. In fact, I’d like us to set up an endowed scholarship in his name in my school’s mass communications program. We’d need at least $100,000
from each of you.  What do you say?”

The group discussed the posthumous award and the scholarship briefly and then voted yes unanimously to both proposals.

“Well, I guess that does it for this meeting, gentlemen,” said the chairman. “See you all next month, same place, same time.”

The twelve men left quietly, exchanging only cursory comments with one another.

About a month after the CEO meeting, a different group of businessmen gathered for a meeting in a different boardroom, but one of the topics of discussion was similar—Matt Thompson.  One other similarity was the absence of any women.

The meeting was held in the penthouse boardroom of The Times Building, a glistening black glass high-rise that soared above the city, reaching almost as high as its famed Arch.

The men, six of them, sat clustered at one end of a massive, gleaming mahoghany conference table. The air in this room was clean, not hazed with smoke. The publisher of The Times was fanatic anti-smoking proponent and had been known to fire on the
spot employees who dared to smoke in his vicinity.

Four of the six men were from the top management of hte Times, including the publisher, the managing editor, the editorial page editor, and the head of the legal department.  The other two men were from the local television station, WWK-TV, owned by
The Times conglomerate—the station’s general manager and its programming director.

The publisher opened the meeting with an abrupt slap of his palm on the tabletop. The individual conversations and various murmured comments came to an immediate halt.

“Gentlemen, we all know why we’re here today so let’s not waste any of our valuable time. Unfortunately, we were unable to stop the selection of Matt Thompson as the award recipient. But I want to make sure that man is destroyed and I want it to
happen before he receives the award.  There’s even a chance, if we go about things in the right way, that the award will be rescinded.” The publisher paused briefly, then continued.

“As managing editor of The Times, Carl, I want you to assign an in-depth profile article about Matt Thompson to Hank Travis and Emily Harris. They are both former employees of Thompson and they both left under very unpleasant circumstances. I have
strong reason to believe that they still hold rather definite grudges against Thompson.”

The managing editor nodded slowly, started to speak, then stopped.

“What is it, Carl?” the publisher asked.

“I guess I just need to know how negative article you want.” The managing editor’s voice squeaked slightly at the end of the sentence.

“As negative as possible. In fact, I want to see drafts of it as we go along—and you can be sure that I’ll have my input.”

The managing editor nodded, as did the editorial editor. The publisher turned to the head of his newspaper’s legal department and said, “Josh, I’ll keep you apprised of the situation. We’re going to need your best legal advice and opinion on this
one. Thompson is known for his litigious attitude—which is fine with me—I expect to be sued. I want this article and the television program that we’re going to discuss next to totally destroy Matt Thompson and Thompson & Associates in this town. I
want him out of business and I want him out of this town.”

For a moment, the room was silent, echoing with the forcefulness of the publisher’s last comment.

“Now, to you Jeff.” The publisher turned to the general manager of WWK-TV. “I want a program about Matt Thompson, scheduled for the same weekend that the newspaper article comes out, that does the same destruction of his reputation. I want to shred
whatever standing that man has in this community.”

To himself, the newspaper’s editorial editor wondered why the publisher didn’t just put out a contract on Thompson—why mess around with these half measures if he wanted so badly to destroy the man.

“Any questions?” The publisher asked the question perfunctorily, knowing that he owned these puppet men—he’d bought and paid for their souls—and there would be no questions, at least none of any substance.

In each of the five men’s heads echoed a resounding “Why?” but none had the balls to ask it. And besides, they knew the answer or at least parts of it.

For years, Matt Thompson had been a severe irritant to the Times and its ego-maniac publisher.  Matt had delighted in debunking the myth of the man on the mount image that the publisher tried to project and had refused to kowtow to him the way most
public relations people in the city did .

The final blow had come during the past year when Matt put his considerable influence and ability behind the push for a second daily newspaper in the city. For almost five years, the Times had been the sole paper, having successfully bankrupted its
only competition.
                              CHAPTER 1

As he smashed through the window, Matt felt time slow to a halt. He fell only a short distance when his fall was broken by the massive, intricate window-washing mechanism parked just below his office window.  The riggings and the platform grabbed his
body and held it tight.

For many moments, Matt was too stunned for conscious thought. He lay unmoving amidst the tangled cabling, almost afraid to breathe. His heart thudded against the pleated white tuxedo shirt and in just seconds, his body had thrown off enough frantic
sweat to soak and further slicken the already slick tuxedo jacket.

Around him, the cool evening air swirled. Below, cars flashed up and down the street, one of the city’s few two-way thoroughfares.  Finally, tentatively Matt moved his arms, then stopped at the agitated swaying of the mechanism. He stayed still,
barely turning his head to get an idea of the layout of this monster that had so fortuitously saved his life.

It was made out steel, already dirty and dusty even though he knew it had only been in operation a couple of weeks.  He remembered the hassle outide his office window when the building’s maintenance staff had installed the mechanism. And he also knew
that there was some problem with it—one of the window washers had lost his balance or had lost his footing and had come close to toppling the 500 feet to the sidewalk below.

The mechanism’s cabling in which Matt lay was a combination of steel link chain and heavy braid nylon rope. The contraption was operated by motors and ran along the building’s balconies. It was attached to the top of building just above Matt’s top
floor/penthouse office suite.

He lay there panting, more from terror than for any physical reason.  He knew who had thrust him out the window and he knew why. What he didn’t know yet was what he, Matt, would do about it, if indeed he survived to do anything. There was still the
danger involved in trying to get off this beast. Perhaps it would be best just to stay put and wait to be rescued. But then again perhaps not, he thought, as lighting streaked across the black sky, followed by a long drawn-out rumble of thunder.

He reached out his right hand and grabbed hold of the nearest cabling. Carefully, slowly, he pulled himself up to a sitting position and looked aroung to survey the situation.  The mechanism hugged the building on one side and stuck out about three
feet. All together, it was about a dozen feet long.  There were no actual sides, just cabling and chains and a heavy mesh grid that encircled three of the sides—the side hugging the building was open.

The wind was picking up and was causing the mechanism to sway  from side to side. Matt gripped the cabling tighter, afraid that he might somehow tumble off and complete his would-be murderer’s plan.

When he felt the first drop or two of rain, he knew his go-or-stay decision had, in effect, been made for him.

There were two balconies close by: one about ten feet above the mechanism and one about 15 or 20 feet below. As far as Matt could tell, there were no possible footholds for climbing up the side of the building to the balcony above. So it would seem
his only option would be to somehow drop down to the balcony below. He pondered for a bit and decided to take as many precautions as possible.

First he slowly and carefully stood up. As he did so, the mechanism swayed wildly in the wind but he held on tight, determined not to panic and determined to save his life. Then, still moving as cautiously as he could, he undid one of the chains from
the mechanism so that there was about 20 feet of loose cahin. He then undid his belt and looped it through the chain and then re-buckled it.

Next, he found a loose coil of rope which seemed to be close to a hundred feet in length. This is wound round and round one of the tall, slender metal rods that connected the mechanism to the engine arrangement. Then he carefully dropped the rope
over the one end of the mechanism, the end that seemed closest to the balcony below.

Taking a deep breath and rubbing his sweaty palms down the sides of his tuxedo, he gripped the rope and, leaning against the webbed sides of the mechanism, swung his legs out over 500+ feet of empty air.  Gritting his teeth, he swung his whole body
free of the mechanism.

He climbed down the rope, its fibers burning his hands, the muscles in his arms screaming with pain. Thank God for that silly-ass rowing machine I’ve been working out on, he snorted to himself.

The rain started to come down in earnest, sheeting in torrents. The wind blew against him as he slowly lowered himself on the rope to the balcony. The rain had quickly wet the rope, making it slippier than ever. Once his hand slipped off and he was
hanging on by one hand, dangling 500 feet in the air, connected by a nylon rope and a steel chain that might or might not be dependable.

Down, inch by inch, it seemed. Finally, after an eternity had passed, he felt the balcony’s edge with the toe of his black leather dress shoes. He tried to put his foot down on the ledge but the slick sole of his shoe kept sliding off. He lowered
himself a foot or so more and tucked both feet inside the ledge of the balcony. Then inch by inch he lowered himself another foot. Taking a deep breath, he let go of the rope and dropped himself onto the concrete block floor of the balcony. As he
fell, his right arm twisted under his body and he fell heavily on it. He heard more than felt the bone crunch and knew he’d broken it.

The rain was coming down in torrents now and the balcony afforded no protection from its drenching. Matt sat up, then bracing his left hand on the floor, he stood. The balconcy had windows into the building—this particular balcony on this particular
floor looked in on one of the areas that still was unleased. It was black inside but Matt knew it was all concrete and steel beams and left-over debris from construction workers—just as his office space had been before the tenant build-out work was
done.

Weak and out of breath, Matt pushed and shoved against the windows with his left arm but with no effect. He took off one of his shoes and used it to try to break the glass but nothing happened.

What to do now? The sheets of rain were slanted toward the building and Matt was drenched. With his left hand he awkwardly drew out his handkerchief from his right pants pocket and wiped his face off so he could see better. There was a dim glow over
one part of the balcony from the building’s decorative lights. Matt stooped down and tried to see what if anything there was on the floor of the balcony. Then, amidst the old trash of fast food bags and cigarette butts and plastic drink cups left by
the construction workers Matt spied something that looked like metal. He reached down and grabbed a round steel bar that was two inches in diameter and two feet in length, wondering what it was and why it was there, but not really caring.

With the bar grasped firmly in his left hand, he swung at one of the windows. It cracked a little and Matt shouted for joy. If only he could swing at it with his right arm instead of his left. Time after after he swung as hard as he could, pausing to
catch his breath and regain his strength. Slowly, the window cracked, pane by pane. It must be made out of some new heavy-duty, shatter-proof safety glass, Matt thought to himself as he rested. Just his luck that in this particular case they’d used
high quality materials instead of dreck.

Finally, enough of the glass had broken so that Matt could knock it out and reach inside and release the locked catch on the window. The window was over ten feet tall and heavy, especially for someone using just one hand and his less-strong one at
that. Matt shoved the window until there was a wide enough opening for him to squeeze through.

Once inside the building, he leaned against the damp concrete wall and heaved a sigh of relief.  Then straightening up, he looked around the massive emptiness, trying to locate the elevators. Off in the middle of the cavernous, dimly lit space he saw
the bank of elevators and headed towards them. But when he got there and pushed the button nothing happened. Over and over again he jabbed his left thumb at the button but still nothing. Evidently, the elevators were programmed to not stop at this
floor because it was vacant—a great idea for building management but sure as hell not for him.

Now what?

Just beyond the bank of elevators was the emergency exit sign directly one of several stairways that wound their way up and down the 43 stories of the building. The problem with the stairway was that once inside the stairwell the doors at each
landing were locked—they could only be opened from the floor side, not from the stairway side. Usually, the Thompson & Associates staff kept the emergency exit door on his office floor open in some jerry-rigged manner so that they could use the stairwell as a fast way down to the graphic design studio on the floor directly below. T & A did a constant business with the studio and the elevators weren’t all that speedy in doing the quick back and forth trips.

Matt debated with himself whether or not to try walking down 40 or so floors and trying to attract someone’s attention at the lobby or basement level or whether to chance the jerry-rigged door on 43. He himself had never used it and he knew that the building management consistently complained about his staff’s behavior in this regard and routinely fixed it so the door would once again lock.

Obviously, his best bet was to try the up option first—if the door was locked, then he would try the down option.

As a precaution, he used one of the heavy-duty containers discarded by the construction workers to prop open the emergency exit door—so that in the worst case scenario, he wouldn’t be trapped in the stairwell itself.

He started up the steps, taking it easy, still shaky and weak. His right arm was throbbing now and the pain was nauseating and severe enough to cause him to break out in a cold sweat. At the 42nd floor, he snorted in relief to see the doer to the
design studio slightly propped open. Up the stairs, one more floor, this last one more quickly—but at the top the door was closed. Matt groaned, then reached out and turned the door knob. To his surprise, the door opened at his pull. He opened it
and saw tape holding the dead bolt in. It seemed as though his guys were getting more clever.

Inside his office suite, he sagged against the first wall for just a moment, so relieved to safe and nearly okay.  Straightening up, he switched on the lights in the reception area. The wall behind him was a mirrored one and he snickered at his
appearance—drenched, his hair slicked back, his right arm hanging limply and uselessly at his side.  The tuxedo jacket was ripped, as were the knees of the pants. He certainly didn’t look like an award winner at the moment.

What to do?  Call the police? Call building security downstairs? Get Jacqueline up here? Or none of those. Matt thought for a moment, trying to get his bearings and to understand what had happened to him and what he wanted to do about it. It had been
a century or more, it seemed, since all this mess started, but a glance at the clock showed him that only a half hour had passed since Jacqueline had left him standing looking out his office window at the city’s panorama.

Still undecided about what to do, Matt went into the private lavatory adjacent to his office. First he wiped his face and hair with a thick bath towel. Then, rummaging through the medicine cabinet, he found some extra strength Darvon and took two to
help the pain in his arm.

He started to remove his soaked clothing—it was slow going because of the pain and uselessness of his right arm. As he took off each piece, he threw things in a sodden heap in a corner of the bathroom.  In the small closet there, he took out the
extra clothes he always kept in the office—a clean white shirt, a dark suit, a tie, dark shoes and socks.  Dressing was just as slow as undressing, he had to stop several times and rest. The Darvon had hit and had eased the pain but had also caused
some dizziness and lightheadedness.

Finally dressed, he ran a brush through his still damp hair and examined himself in the mirror. Not bad, he could still pass for an alive human being.

As he’d undressed and dressed, his mind had chewed over what to do and now he had his answer. He wasn’t going to call the police or building security or Jacqueline—none of them. He was going downstairs to the party and confront his would-be killer.

                              CHAPTER ONE

Emily Harris dropped the stack of mail on the hall table and went into the den with her jacket. Even though it was May, the weather had turned chilly and she’d had to drag out a jacket from its storage place in the attic.

Passing back by the hall table on her way into the kitchen, she picked up the mail and took it with her. She poured herself a glass of milk, grabbed an apple from the basket of cold fruit in the refrigerator, and sat down at the table in the dining
alcove.

Most of the mail was junk mail—she seemed to be getting more and more of it every day. There was a depressing reminder from her dentist that she was due for a check-up. The letter from her mother she would save and savor with her dinner. Her mother
was a delightful letter writer, the perfect correspondent. Emily thought they’d never been closer than during these past two years that her mother had been living on the West Coast.

One envelope with no return address had her puzzled. It was a large, creamy-white square, of heavy, rich-looking paper. She held it up to the light but the envelope was too heavy for anything to show through.  She ripped it open and found a formal
invitation to an award ceremony.  Matthew Thompson was being honored with the St. Louis Award and she’d been invited to the presentation four weeks from now, on June 10th.

Slowly, Emily laid the invitation down on the table and absently rubbed her fingers over the raised embossed type. Someone had invested a great deal of money in these invitations.

She hadn’t seen or heard from Matt in three years. Now, two reminders of him in one day.  Eerlier that day, one of her fellow reporters on the city’s daily newspaper had sat down in her cubicle and started talking about a series of articles he wanted
her to co-author with him on Matthew Thompson

“Trav, I’m not interested. Thanks for thinking of me, but I’m just not interested.” Emily smiled to take the sting out of her flat refusal.

Hank Travis shook his head slowly and said, “Sorry, Emmy, you can’t get out of it that easily. Actually, this assignment is coming from somewhere on top. We’ve both been assigned to do an extensive backgrounder on Matthew Thompson and I don’t see as
how we have any choice.”

Emily looked closely at Trav, taking in his usual scruffy appearance, his disheveled clothes.  HIs tousled hair and bushy mustache added to his generally unkempt aura. Of all the newspaper’s writers, he was the most sardonic and the most irreverent.
The big brass used him when they wanted a “kill” piece done. She, on the other hand, did the “think” pieces for the paper, those in-depth analyses of public figures that purported to reveal the real person behind the headlines.  Combining the two of
them on one story didn’t make any sense—their approaches and their end results were diametrically opposed.

Enily tried to express her puzzlement to Trav: “It’s a crazy idea
to put the two of us on the same story, Trav.  We wouldn’t be able to co-author anything, at least not anything any good.  You know that.”

Trav nodded his head in agreement. “I know that, you know that, but try and tell it to the guys up on mahogany row. Ours is but to serve.” Trav unwound himself from the chair at the side of her desk and walked off, trailing his words behind him.
“I’ll see if I can get any more info and get back to you.”

Once upon a time, years ago, Trav and Emily had both worked for Matt’s fledgling P.R. firm. Their respective stints at Thompson & Associates had overlapped by about a year.

During that time, they’d both been involved in marriages that were collapsing. On several occasions, they’d stopped in a bar after work and consoled each other on their misfortunes but nothing had ever come of it.

Emily had gotten the house, which she’d wanted, along with the divorce, which she hadn’t wanted. It was a small 2-story bungalow (with attic) on a quiet street on the outskirts of the city.

Trav had left Thompson & Associates first, taking a reporting job on the West Coast.  Emily had stayed a few months longer, then The Times had hired her away as a human interest feature writer.  Her educational background was psychology and she wrote
from that perspective. Thompson & Associates and the newspaper had both utilized her understanding of the human mind to good advantage in the projects she did.

“I wonder if Trav got an invitation to this shindig,” she said out loud, a habit she’d developed in her five years of living alone since her divorce.  Kitty had strolled into the room at the sound of her voice, leaped up to the table and started
licking very delicately with her tiny pink tongue at the rim of Emily’s empty milk glass.

Sitting at the table, Emily shooed Kitty away from the glass with a flick of her hand, then absent-mindely ran her fingers through her prematurely gray hair.  Altough only 32, Emily’s hair was almost white, in contrast to her bright blue eyes.

Things hadn’t ended well between her and Matt. They had parted company three years ago on bitter terms—which was the way that Thompson seemed to end all his relationships. The turn-over at the agency had been horrendous, and from what she read in
the personnel announcement seciton of the paper, continued to be so.

Trav’s leaving, a year before Emily, had been the worst of all—he and Thompson had gotten into a fist fight over some petty disagreement.  Hank Travis was 10 years younger and 25 pounds heavier than Matt and got the best of the fight. But Thompson
had won the war by firing Trav.

As she put the invitation back in its envelope, Emily wondered why the St.  Louis establishment was honoring such a controversial figure—usually they stuck with middle of the road do-gooders who had no skeletons in their closets.  Matt’s closets
were crammed with past mistakes, as Emily well knew.

She put a frozen dinner in the microwave and poured herself another glass of milk. Should I call Trav and see if he got an invitation? And maybe he found out more about this assignment. I have to do something about that. There’s no way I’m going to
interview Matthew Thompson.  It would be a fiasco to have Trav and me do this story on Matt—especially right when he’s being honored by the powers that be here in the city.

Emily looked up Trav’s phone number in the directory she kept next to the kitchen phone. It rang four or five times and then Trav’s answering machine clicked on.  Emily frowned, waiting for the message to end. She hated these things and had refused
to buy one. Actually, Trav’s message was kind of fun. He had rock music playing in the background and his voice was low and growly, saying “I’m tied up right now—I’m into that kind of thing, you know.  At the tone, leave some indication of what
you’re calling about and I’ll get back to you when I’m untied.  Bye.”

                                  # # #

Trav stood by the answering machine waiting to see if the caller would leave a message or hang up. At the sound of Emily’s voice, Trav started to pick up the receiver, then thought better of it when she mentioned the invitation. He, too, had received
one in the mail and hadn’t known what to think about it. Neither she nor Trav were on Matt’s Christmas card list, so to speak, so it was weird that they were being invited to a ceremony honoring him.

“I wonder if some of the others were invited also,” Trav mused to himself.

In her message, Emily had also asked if Trav had found out anything more about what she termed the “asshole” assignment and left her phone number at the end of the message.

Trav grinned, thinking that Emily’s oh-so-proper vocabulary had certainly deteriorated since starting to work on the paper.

He popped the top on a can of beer he’d retrieved from the fridge before the phone rang and took a long drink. Setting the beer down beside the phone, he called Emily’s number and let it ring about ten times before hanging up.

“Where on earth did that broad go in two minutes?” He dialed again and again let it ring a long while. Finally, on the twelfth ring, a breathless voice answered, “Yes?”

“Em?”

“Yes, who is this?”

“It’s me, I’m untied now.” Trav laughed as he said.

“Very funny, clown. What if some kid called your number—or the police?  or your minister?”

“Two out of three would never call,” Trav answered. “Now, where were you?”

“Oh,” Emily squeaked. “I was in the shower and now I’m dripping all over the floor.”

“Hmmmmm, very interesting.” Trav tried to put a leer in his voice but didn’t think it came across very well.

“Oh, cut it out, Trav. Let me call you right back—I have to get a towel or something.” Emily hung up the phone before she heard Trav’s next comment of “Even more interesting.”

Trav sat down on the sofa by the phone, kicking off his shoes, propping his feet up on the hassock, and leaning back into the sofa cushions.  He was just draining the last drop of beer from the can when the phone jangled gently at his elbow.

“Yo,” he answered, never doubting for a moment that it was Emily calling back.

“Yo, yourself,” replied a strange male voice. “Is this the late and great Henry Travis, Esquire?”

Trav didn’t answer for a moment, searching his vast reporter’s data bank that stored thousands of voices and names and faces and tried to make a match.

Bingo!

“Dave? Dave Shaw?”

“Right on the money, old buddy. How the hell are you?”

“At the moment, surprised as hell to hear your voice.”

“Why?” asked Shaw.

“Well, it seems that one of the guys on the news desk told me he’d heard you were killed in an automobile accident a couple of years ago, in some godforsaken town down South.” Trav grinned to himself, unable to resist the prank.  He and Shaw went
way, way, back, all the way back to the beginnings of Thompson & Associates where they’d once worked together.

“Travis, is this your idea of a joke?” Shaw’s voice had risen in pitch, as it always did when Trav tried one of his tricks.

“Oh, forget it, Shaw. You never could take any kidding. Where are you, by the way?”

Shaw answered, “Still here at Dynatron, moving and shaking things in the world of aerospace and defense contracts. And, by the way, still very much alive, thank you.  How’re things going with you?”

Trav chuckled before saying, “Fine, great. Now let’s cut through the crap. Evidently, you also got one of these high-toned invites to the ceremony for good old Thompson, the world-class bastard.”

“You got it. Either someone has a sick sense of humor or someone doesn’t know the history between Matthew Thompson and his thousands of former employees.” Shaw paused, then asked, “Anyone else we know get one?”

“Emily Harris is the only other one I know of.” Travis stopped there.  Both of them knew the name that was echoing through both their heads—China Smith.

They both started talking at once, then stopped. Shaw finally asked, “Have you heard anything from China?”

“No,” Trav answered. “Have you?”

“Nope, not since that last day when she stormed out.”

At one time or another, it seemed as though everyone had been in love or half in love with China Smith—Shaw, Matt, Trav himself.  Even Emily and Jacqueline were drawn to China, mesmerized by her charmisma and charm and personality.

“As far as I know, she’s still here in the city, working for one of the television stations. I just heard she was offered some high muckety-muck PR position at one of the networks, CBS, I think but I don;t know if she’s going to take it or not.” Trav
added, “Anyway, more power to her.  She didn’t deserve what she got.”

“Trav, none of us deserved what we got.”

Trav didn’t answer. To himself, he said, You did, you dirty old so and so. Actually, you deserved worse.

“Well,” Shaw continued, “Aren’t going to ask me if I’m going to the ceremony?”

“Are you?” Trav asked perfunctorily, already knowing that Shaw’s answer would be yes.

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world, old buddy. What about you?”

“That all depends,” said Trav.

“Depends on what?”

“A lot of things, mostly whether or not it’s a serious invitation or someone’s weird idea of a joke. You know how things ended between Matt and me. There’s no way he’d want me at this bash.”

“I’ll bet Jacqueline sent the invitation—I always thought she had the hots for you.”

“Don’t be an ass.” Travis was glad Shaw couldn’t see the color rising in his face as he the thought of that brief affair he and Jackie had had that indirectly led to the fist fight fiasco.

Before hanging up, Shaw gave Trav his home and work numbers and said to be sure and call if he found out anything else.

Trav sat there with the receiver dangling in his hand, thinking about China—he thought about China a lot. Once that broad got into your blood, she just didn’t get out.

“I wonder who she’s doing her number on now.” Giving his head a shake, Trav slammed the receiver down and sat there waiting for Emily’s return call.

The invitation was crammed, almost stuck in the back of China’s mailbox in the lobby of her West End condo. Pulling it out, she ripped open the misshapen envelope and hooted with laughter when she saw what it was.

“What a blast!”

She stuffed the invitation into a side pocket of the briefcase hanging on her shoulder and quickly shuffled through the remainder of her mail.  A lot of bills, a letter from a friend who’d moved onto greener pastures in New York, and something from
one of her ex-husbands—a check, she hoped.

China strode towards the elevator, her long legs covering the short distance in half the time it took women, and the same amount of time it took men. As she waited for the elevator, she flipped her head back to get the strands of long blond hair away
from her forehead.  Always alert, always observant, her eyes darted back and forth, checking out the other apartment building tenants in the lobby.

She was one of those energetic people whose motor raced at double time.  The problem with her high energy approach was that it was accompanied by an extremely low boredom threshhold.  Consequently, she made sure she was juggling a dozen different
projects and interests at any one time.

The elevator glided to a stop and the two men waiting with her both stepped aside to allow her to enter first. Even in this day and age of reverse chauvinism, China brought out a man’s chivalry.

Wherever she went, she attracted attention—her heighth (5 feet 10), her long blond hair, her stylish clothes, her exuberant manner of walking and talking and taking in everything.  Even now, in her mid-thirties, her attractiveness created an aura of
excitement about her.  Emily used to call it her “vibrating” which China found flattering.

Even her name had flair. Whenever she was asked about it, she delighted in telling the story of how her romantic, flighty mother had sought to name her something exotic to offset the ordinariness of “Smith.” Had she but known that even with the
simplest and plainest of names, China would have dazzled the world.

China was the last off the elevator—her apartment was on the top floor and flattered itself by calling itself a penthouse. Off her living room was a balcony that housed a small rooftop garden with plants and trees and patio furniture.

She fumbled in her briefcase/purse for her keyring, pulling out that mysterious invitation in the process of her key search. She held the envelope between her teeth while she unlocked the door.

Inside the apartment, she put her things down, took the envelope out of her mouth, and went over to the bar for a glass of wine. She stretched out on one of the long beige matching couches that flanked her fireplace and looked more closely at the
invitation.

No word from or about Matt for years and then this invitation. What a puzzle, she thought to herself.

She and Trav had tied for the worst leaving of Thompson & Associates.  Trav’s departure had turned in to a free-for-all watched by a dismayed office staff. Her leaving, coming shortly on the heels of Trav’s, had been less physical but even more
explosive. She had threatened to kill Matt or herself or both if he tried any retribution against her for leaving.

Matt and China had been best friends for over five years—speculation had it that their relationship transcended friendship but neither of them had ever indicated that.

China had wanted a promotion to vice president of the PR firm—she knew how good she was and she wanted some recognition, and not incidentally, a significant ownership in the agency, accompanied by a lot more money.

Matt, being almost criminally fiscally conservative, had told her she’d have to wait—but that if she brought in additional business on her own that would speed up the waiting period.

China had gone into a rage, ranting about all her valuable contributions to the company.  She detailed her impact: She had been responsible for bringing in several of their clients; some of the collateral materials she’d produced for clients had won
awards in local competitions; she’d been selected to participate in one of the city’s leadership programs for women. All in all, she knew her worth and wanted recognition for that worth, both monetarily and status-wise.

Because they’d been such close friends for such a long time, the epithets and accusations Matt and China hurled at each other hurt worse than if they’d just been employer and employee. China had lost control and had threatened to push Matt out of the
window or to jump out herself.

That threat was the final straw for Matt. Very cooly, he reached for the phone, dialed 911, and reported a potential murder/suicide.  Enraged, China had thrown a heavy glass paperweight at Matt, who’d ducked but not quick enough to avoid the corner
of the paperweight nicking his cheek.  To this day he bore a tiny, almost unnoticeable scar as a brand from China’s departure.

China had stormed out of Matt’s private office and out of the office suite, not wanting to wait around for the police hassle. She’d not seen nor heard directly from Matt since that day. Emily had arranged to get all of China’s personal possessions
out of the office. She’d also arranged for China to get the back pay and vacation pay to which she was entitled.

Following the break-up, China had gone into a deep depression. At one point, she’d made a serious suicide attempt and was hospitalized for several months as a result. She’d gone into therapy and still continued to see a shrink regularly. About six
months after leaving Thompson & Associates, she’d gotten a job at one of the television stations through a friend of hers who worked at the station.  Over the years, she’d progressed up the career ladder to the point where she now was vice president
of public relations for the station, which was one of the major affiliates of the largest network int he world—a major coup for someone of her age and sex.  Along the way she’d marrried and shed two husbands, suffering emotional losses but profiting
financially.

Emily and China had stayed in touch sporadically through the years, especially after Emily left Thompson & Associates.  But eventually, China’s fast-lane life held little appeal for Emily.  The drinking and the drugs and the partying were not her
style and even made her feel squeamish and prudish.  Finally, Emily understood that China’s main concern was looking out for number one, and that usually didn’t leave much room for real friendship.

Since, neither of them were quite sure why they’d maintained the semblance of a relationship, it was fairly easy and painless to set the friendship adrift.  Perhaps it lasted as long as it did because their past history together was so strong and
compelling that for awhile the ties maintained themselves with little or no cultivation.

China propped the invitation up on the mantel of the fireplace, looked at it for a moment, then walked out of the room.

                              CHAPTER 2

The ringing of the phone brought Matt out of a deep sleep. He fumbled in the dark for the lamp, lit it, and reached for the phone.

“Yes?” his voice sounded harsher than usual, showing his anger at being awakened at the ungodly hour of 4 a.m.

“Mr. Thompson?” a faraway-sounding man’s voice asked.

“Yes, and who the hell is this?”

“This is police sergeant Michael Cavanaugh,” came the reply, without the barest hint of civility in the voice.

Matt hesitated, debating whether to smart off and further alienate the authority figure on the other end of the line or whether to play it straight and find out immediately what this Cavanaugh wanted.

“Yes, officer, what can I do for you?” Matt decided to get to the heart of the matter without any games.

“We have your son in custody at the 3rd precinct station.”

“My son? Which one? I have two.” But Matt knew who it was.

“Well, this guy has a driver’s license that says he’s Matthew James Thompson, III.  He’s so drunk he hasn’t been able to tell us anything.”

“Was he in an accident?” Matt asked perfunctorily.

“No, we picked him lying in an alley a few blocks from the station, passed out, and we threw him in the drunk tank. Would you be interested in coming down and getting him?” The officer sounded as though he already knew that the answer would be no but
he had to ask.

“Actually, no, Cavanaugh, is it?”

“Yes, Michael Cavanaugh,” came the response.

“But I will call my attorney and arrange for him to retrieve Jim—that’s what we call him. My lawyer’s name is Taylor Brevard and I’ll give him your name as a contact person.” With that, Matt hung up, not bothering to say good-bye to the officer.

The door to Jacqueline’s adjoining bedroom had opened shortly after the phone rang and she had stood there in the doorway, listening to Matt’s side of the conversation.  “What is it this time, Matt?” she asked.

“It’s Jim again, drunk as usual, and in jail,” Thompson answered.

“What? An accident?”

“No, not this time. He’s just under arrest for being drunk. I have to call Taylor to get him out.”

Matt started to dial his attorney’s number and then stopped. “What the hell, why should I wake him up out of sound sleep to go get that no-good, ingrate out of jail. I’ll wait till I get to the office.” With that, Matt turned off the light and laid
back down.

Jacqueline closed the door and went back to her own bed. Jim Thompson was Matt’s son from his first marriage. Jim had been a trial for as long as she could remember. He’d left home right after high school and had proceeded to cause trouble everywhere
he went—drunk driving, petty theft, drug busts. And Matt continued to bail him out, trying all the while to keep it quiet so as to protect his good name, which in the public relations business is as important as a positive cash flow.

Jacqueline had just barely tolerated Jim. Her own two children with Matt, a son Todd and a daughter Erica, occupied what little maternal instinct she could muster.

Jim’s mother, Beverly Thompson, was a hopeless case. Matt had disposed of her after only three years of marriage, had left  her, in fact, once he’d met the rich and beautiful Jacqueline Jerrome.

Beverly still lived in the city but had given up on Jim long ago, turning custody and responsibility over to Matt and washing her hands of her son. The former Mrs. Matthew Thompson managed to eke out a living as the owner of an arts and crafts shop
down on the riverfront. Matt had been overly generous in the divorce settlement in his haste to get out of one marriage and into another. From time to time, circumstances brought Jacqueline and Beverly together and it was always a case of instant
animosity. The two women couldn’t be in the same room together for five minutes without quarreling. The hatred was hard and heavy on both sides.

Secretly, Matt enjoyed observing their encounters, although he complained bitterly to their faces about their abominable behavior.  Matt’s whole approach to life was to make it as exciting and alive as possible. Unfortunately, his results were more
negative than positive.

Later that morning, from his downtown office, Matt called Taylor Brevard and tersely explained where Jim was and what he’d done.

“Matt, this can’t go on. One of these days the press is going to get hold of this and your reputation is going to be shot to hell. Can’t you ship the little shit out of town?” Taylor had less patience with Matt’s son than Jacqueline did.

“I’m sure as hell going to try. And Taylor, thanks for your help, as always.”

“Sure, Matt, that’s what attorneys are for. I’ll call you later.”

Jim sauntered out of the police station two or three steps ahead of Taylor.

“So long, Taylor,” Jim waved a two-finger salute and strode off down the street.

Taylor stopped, and watched Jim’s progress, losing sight of him as the young man turned the corner. He’d known Jim almost from birth and hadn’t the slightest inkling as to what made the kid tick.  Bright, handsome, personable when it suited his
purposes, he should’ve had the world in his hands. Instead, he lived from day to day on the edge of disaster, stoned out of his mind. Taylor’s daughter Julie, was just a year younger than Jim and the contrast couldn’t have been greater. Julie was in
her first year of medical school hereat Washington University, and her grade point average was high enough that she hovered near the top of her class, as usual.

Julie and Jim had been friends since childhood and she was as puzzled by his erratic behavior as her father and Matt. They still saw each other from time to time, whenever her busy schedule permitted.  She refused to have anything to do with him
unless he was sober and in his right mind. For her, Jim made the effort. He had a special soft spot in his heart for this pint-sized spitfire who could always outlearn, outswim, outrun, outthrow, outhit, outeverything him.  She was a competitive
overachiever and he was a languid spectator.

In his 22 years, Jim had found and kept two friends: Julie Brevard and Emily Harris. Now, after his release from jail, he hailed a cab and gave the cabbie Emily’s address.  Several years ago, shortly after her divorce, she had given him a key to her
house and told him to come and go as he pleased.

Emily’s little red Mustang convertible was sitting in the driveway.  How she loved that car, Jim thought to himself. It was her pride and joy and she kept gleamingly spotless. The few times, after assuring herself that he was totally cold sober,
she’d let him drive it, he’d known how deep was her trust and faith in him.

He rang the doorbell and waited a minute or two, then rang it again.  Finally, Emily came to the door, still in her pajamas and robe, looking as if she’d been asleep, although it was ten a.m.

“Hey, lady, sorry if I woke you,” Jim said as he followed Emily through the living room and into the kitchen.  Emily just grunted in response and poured them each a cup of coffee from the waiting pot, brewed in a coffeemaker with a timer perpetually
set to 7 a.m., Emily’s normal arising time.

“It’s a good thing you did—I must have turned off the alarm.” Emily winced and rubbed her head. “I have a horrible headache—excuse me a sec while I get some Excedrin.”

“That bad, eh?” Jim grinned, wondering if he should tease her about a hangover and decided not to, considering his current circumstances.

Emily came back into the room and joined Jim at the table in the dining alcove.

“Hank Travis, you remember him, don’t you?” At Jim’s nod, she continued. “He came by last night and I had two glasses of wine and you know how I can’t drink well and it really knocked me out.” Emily shook her head and groaned softly at the resulting
pain. “I think maybe I’ve finally learned that alcohol and I are just not a good combination.”

“Em, I think I know what you mean. I’ve gotten myself into another mess over booze and I’m sick of the whole thing.”

“Jim, what’s wrong?” she didn’t say ‘this time’ but both of them could hear the unspoken words.

In a few terse sentences, Jim told her about his drinking binge last night with some supposed friends who’d dumped him in an alley and gone on their merry way. He lowered his eyes when he told about being picked up by the police and dumped in jail.
“And then good old Taylor came down and bailed me out and here I am—in need of a friend and that’s surely what you are.”

Emily reached over and gave him an awkward hug. “Oh, Jim, I’m so sorry that things are such a mess for you—and for me and Trav and everyone else.”

Momentarily diverted from his own problems, Jim asked, “What’s wrong with you and Trav?”

Emily paused, not sure how or even if to answer Jim’s question.  Her and Trav’s problems stemmed from Jim’s father and perhaps it would be better not to confide in him. Then she thought, oh what the hell, he’s my friend and I trust him.

“It’s sort of confusing,” Emily began. She reached over to the stack of mail still lying on the corner of the table and handed the large invitation to Jim.

After seeing what it was, he gave her a quizzical, questioning look.

“I know, I know,” she answered. “It doesn’t make any sense for me to get an invitation to an award presentation to your father. And what’s even crazier is that Hank Travis and Dave Shaw also got invitations.”

“No way!” Jim interjected. “What about all the bad blood and bad history between Dad and Trav and Shaw?”

Just then the phone rang. Emily gave an expressive shrug of her shoulders and got up to take the call. Jim could hear murmurs of her side of the conversation and it sounded as though she was explaining why she wasn’t at the office. He overheard her
say as she hung up, “I’ll be there in an hour or less.” To Jim, it seemed that she hung up the phone fairly forcefully.

Emily came back to the table but didn’t sit down.

“Jim, I’m really sorry to leave your pleasant company, but duty calls. Please stay—crash here for awhile, as you say. I’ll be home by six and we can fix something interesting for dinner.”

“I accept your generous invitation, kind lady. In fact, I’ll even buy some fixins’ for this dinner. That is, if you can loan me some money—I seem to be broke.”

Emily shook her head in mock ruefulness and went to get money from her billfold.

Matt had just hung from a rather heated phone conversation with one of his more difficult clients, when Teresa buzzed him with another call. This time it was his attorney, reporting on Jim’s release.

“After I bailed him out, the kid just strolled off like nothing in the world had happened. I wish you could wash your hands of him.”

“Taylor, you know that’s next to impossible. I am going to try and buy him off—send him away somewhere on an extended vacation.” Matt pulled at his right earlobe, one of his mannerisms that indicated how upset he was.

One of Matt’s many tricks that he’d cultivated over the years was the art of looking serene, no matter how upset he was. He had an actor’s mobile face and emotional control.

Matt thanked Taylor once again before he ended the phone call. It was time to deal with Jim, once and for all.

Teresa buzzed him again and said, “That newspaper editor, Vic Washington, is on line 2.”

“Teresa, after this one, hold my calls for awhile.”

“Yes, boss,” she replied, wishing she could recall the ‘boss’, one of those words Matt detested. “Sorry.” But Matt had already gotten on the phone with the editor and didn’t hear her quiet apology.

“Well, Matt, what’s your answer?” Vic Washington and Matt went way back—to Vic’s first days with the paper and Matt’s first job with a PR firm. Right off, they’d become friends—one of Matt’s two lasting friendships—his only other friend was Taylor
Brevard.

Vic had called him yesterday about the paper doing an in-depth profile of him in conjunction with him receiving the St. Louis award.  Matt had promised to think about it over night and let Vic know his decision today.

“Well, old buddy, I guess it’s a go. I don’t suppose it can hurt anything and, fact, it might help business.”

“Oh?” Vic asked. “Are you having business problems.”

“No, of course, not,” Matt replied quickly and firmly. “I don’t know why I said that. Just my usual demeanor of false humility, I guess.”

Vic laughed and said, “Most people would think you’re kidding but I know you’re telling the truth. Well, anyway, thanks for agreeing to the article. For some reason, the big brass upstairs is really pushing on this one. I honestly don’t know what I
would’ve done if you’d said no.”

“That’s probably why the so-called big brass had you ask me to do it—they know I wouldn’t turn down one of my best and oldest friends.” Matt didn’t see the incongruity of having a best friend who was black and whose profession was the diametric
opposite of public relations.

“I’ll have my reporters call your secretary to set up the first interview.  It’s going to be a series, one of those in-depth character profiles, so there’ll probably be a couple or three interviews. Plus, talking to your colleagues, employees,
relatives, friends, and so on and so on.” Vic made his voice sound very matter-of-fact but in reality he was panicked that Matt would ask which reporters were assigned to the story but he didn’t.

“Thanks, again, Matt—I owe you one.”

“Listen, you ungrateful so-and-so, you owe me more than one.”

As he hung up, Vic said, “I know, I know.”

Emily made it to the newspaper in 55 minutes, and she was proud of her speed. Trav and Vic were waiting for her in Vic’s office.

Vic motioned her to one of the ugly old brown chairs that he’d inherited from one of the higher-ups years ago. Word was that Vic had asked for the chairs because they were so painfully uncomfortable and he wanted to discourage anyone, particularly
his reporters, from lingering too long in his office.

“Well, guys, it’s a go. I got the word from Matt Thompson just awhile ago. One of you should call his secretary and set up the first interview. By the way, he didn’t ask which reporters were assigned to the story and I didn’t volunteer. I think once
the interviews start, you all will be able to cooperate in an adult manner.”

Trav shot an evil grin at Vic and turned to Emily, “Well, kiddo, can we be adult about this?”

Emily ignored him and focused her full attention to Washington.  “Vic, I’ve got to tell you, this is a major mistake. Matt is not going to cooperate with this story when he finds out who’s doing the interviewing.  You know there are monumental bad
feelings between the three of us.”

“Emily, I know all that. What you don’t seem to know is that I have no choice in this matter. I’m just following orders from my boss, who’s following orders from his boss, and so on.  For whatever reason, someone upstairs is demanding this story.”
Vic rose from behind his desk, a signal that the meeting was over and further protests would be futile.

Trav and Emily went out and sat down in her cubicle.

“Shall we flip a coin to see who calls the secretary and sets up the appointment?” Trav asked.

“Nah, I’ll do it—isn’t that what women are good for?”

“Do I detect a nuance of bitterness there?”

“Nuance, nonsense. That’s full-blown 24-carat shout-it-from-the-housetops bitterness. This newspaper is the most chauvinistic place I’ve ever worked. In fact, I’ve been thinking about. . .” Emily let her voice trail off, suddenly uncertain as to how
much she really trusted Trav, a surprising thought.

“No, ma’m, you can’t leave—I won’t permit it. Who would I hassle?  Who would laugh at my stale old jokes? No way, nosirrreee. You’re here for the duration, and that’s that.”

Emily waved a dismissing hand in Trav’s direction as she dialed
the phone number of Thompson & Associates but Trav didn’t take the hint.

“Yes, this is Emily Harris, I’m a reporter with the St. Louis Times.  I’d like to schedule an interview with Mr. Thompson at his earliest convenience.” She waited a moment and then said, “Just a moment, let me check with my colleague.” Emily placed
her palm over the receiver and hissed at Trav, “Is tomorrow at 3 p.m. okay with you?”

“Sure, I think so, just a second, I’ll check.” Trav reached in his back pocket and drew out a small black notebook that doubled as an appointment calendar.  “Yep, I’m clear.”

Emily told the secretary that tomorrow at 3 was fine for both of them and hung up before the secretary could ask for the name of her colleague. Harris was her maiden name, which she’d eventually took back a few months after the divorce, after leaving
Matt’s company.  Hopefully, Matt wouldn’t recognize the name and she and Trav could get in to see him and somehow convince him that the story was a good idea, despite the reporters.

                             CHAPTER 3

At the TV station the next day, whenever there was a lull in her continually chaotic schedule, China’s mind would puzzle over the invitation to Matt’s award ceremony. It brought back old memories and old emotions, all of which she thought she’d
gotten past long ago—but evidently not. What an amazing impact that man and that time had had on her!  She found herself alternating between anger and sorrow, much as she’d done when the break had first occurred.

“China, how about grabbing a bite of lunch?” Ted Howard, the news director and a spectacularly sexy man with an equally spectacular mind stopped by her office around noon several times a week with the same invitation. Whenever China was free for
lunch, she would join Ted, enjoying his sense of humor and his wry outlook on the way they earned their living.

At times, China felt a real attraction towards Ted but there was no reciprocity on his part—he was the most married man she’d ever known. Although she was dating several guys sporadically, at the moment she wasn’t serious about anyone. Her current
manless state was an unusal one and she wasn’t liking it much.

“Sure, give me a minute—or two. I’ll meet you down in the lobby.”

Ted agreed and China turned back to the folder on her desk that had been absorbing most of her attention that morning. One of the program directors had given her an outline of a personality profile he was planning to do on Matt Thompson and wanted
her opinion. The folder was crammed with newspaper articles about Thompson and about clients of his public relations firm. The proposed TV program was not going to be particularly flattering to Thompson.  Jack Weber, the program director, was
posturing Matt as one of the city’s preeminent power brokers. But according to several sources, the power Matt wielded had ties with the city’s political machine and there were even hints of a connection with organized crime in the city. The main
focus of the story and the hook on which it hung was Thompson’s role in the establishment of the city’s new daily newspaper.  Evidently, Matt had been instrumental since its inception and his firm was agency of record for the paper.

All in all, not a very savory situation. China shut the folder with a determined snap and locked it in her bottom desk drawer. She quickly ran a brush through her long blond hair and put on fresh lipstick.

Ted was leaning against one of the marble pillars in the lobby, tapping his foot in pretended impatience.

“Finally,” he sighed.

China started to apologize for her lateness but stopped when she saw Ted’s grin.

“I just got here myself, kid,” he confessed.

“I should know better,” China said. “You get me every time.”

They decided to walk over two blocks to one of their favorite restaurants, a small, dark, quiet place that served thick, juicy hamburgers and fat but crispy French fries. Regulars of the restaurant never told anyone but their closest friends about
it, part of an unspoken conspiracy to preserve it as a well-kept secret.

There was a rumor that once the restaurant reviewer for the Times had eaten there and had written a rave review that never saw the light of day. He was so badgered and bullied by his newspaper colleagues who wanted to protect their “special” place
that he’d deleted the review from his computer.  Now, the reviewer always ate there when he was “off-duty,” so to speak.

After they’d ordered, Ted and China sat in a companionable silence.  One of the many things they’d liked about each other was that there was no need for them to keep a constant chattering conversation going between them.

Finally, China broke the silence with a deep sigh accompanied by a frown.

“What’s the matter, kiddo?” Ted’s perpetual cheerfulness never grated on China, because she knew it reflected his upbeat outlook on life.

China hesitated before answering, debating whether or not it would be telling tales out of school to share with the Ted the proposed “hot seat” interview with Matt.

“Have you heard anything about plans to do an on-air profile/expose of Matt Thompson?” China asked the question very tentatively.

“Hmmmmmm....,” Ted’s face lost its usual smile as he considered how to answer China.

“China, we’re getting into dangerous waters here.  First, let me ask you a question. How did you hear about this?”

“Jack Weber gave me the program outline and an informational file on Thomspon. Jack wanted my opinion—he knows I used to work for Matt.”

“I’d forgotten that. I guess I’m surprised that Jack is showing the file around—not that you can’t be trusted—I don’t mean that at all.  It’s just that this is such a hot potato. Street talk is that the show will never get made—that Thompson will
use some of that influence he supposedly has so much of to kill the program.”

“From what’s in the outline and the file, if it ever airs, it could destroy Thompson’s reputation.” China paused, then added, “You might as well know that’s my fondest wish, my fondest dream. Matt’s and my relationship ended extremely badly and I
only hope someday that that man gets what he deserves. I’m not the only person who’s been trounced by Thompson—this town is full of us—and I’m happy to say that most of us have gone on to bigger and better things.”

“Does Jack want you involved in the program?”

“I think he wants me in some kind of capacity, but I’m not exactly sure what. I welcome the chance to have a part in bringing down Matt Thompson. It would give me such enormous pleasure.” China smiled widely but it was not a nice smile.

Bith of them stopped talking while the waitress served their hamburgers and fries. Then Ted resumed the conversation where they’d left off.

“If you want my advice, you’ll stay as far away from this one as you can. I think anyone connected with this show is going to get real dirty and real hurt.  I’ve been going around telling everyone involved not to do it but so far no one’s paying any
attention to me.”

“Part of the problem, Mr. Howard, is that you’re known as Mr. Nice Guy and they don’t take your warnings of dire results seriously. But I understand what you’re saying. It’s just that I’ve waited too long for Matt Thompson to get his. Now that it’s
payback time, I want a front row seat.” China ended her statement with a firm nod of her head and turned her attention to her hamburger and fries, which had just been served.

Later, back in her office, China closed and locked her door, sat down at her desk, and took out the file on Matt Thompson once again. She had to give it back to Jack by the end of the day, along with her decision as to whether or not she would
participate in the production of the show.

With trembling hands, she lit a cigarette and opened the file for one last look.

Matt Thompson had completely charmed her at their first meeting, a late afternoon cocktail party hosted by one of his clients who happened to be China’s current employer/lover. China had reached her usual boredom threshhold very quickly in this
particular relationship and had started looking around for a new job and a new romance.

For the past several years, after her divorce, China had steered clear of marriage—preferring the safety of relationships with married men. She also found it extremely convenient and rewarding to also work for the man in her life—it added a certain
spice to any job.

Her current lover/boss owned a small market research firm and she was his Jill-of-all-trades—managing the office, handling the accounting, doing marketing for the firm, and doing some of the market research projects herself.  The firm had just
recently landed a major contract with a medium-sized aerospace firm and her boss, Brad Williams, had hired Matt Thompson’s public relations firm to create a publicity hoopla to captialize on the expansion of the business.

China found herself fascinated with Matt; she felt a sizzling chemistry toward him and halfway suspected he was feeling the same thing.  He corroborated her suspicion when, as the party petered out, he asked her if she were free for dinner. she had
smiled slightly and said, well, she and Brad had plans, but Matt was certainly welcome to join them.

Matt had been somewhat taken aback at that, not realizing that China and Brad were a “thing.’

Just then, Brad had come up behind them and had seconded China’s invitation.  Matt started to beg off, but caught a long, searching look from China that changed his mind.

China could remember every detail of that dinner. The air between her and Matt was charged—even Brad was aware of the attraction between them but just assumed it was professional friendliness and told them how pleased he was that the two of them
were hitting it off so well.

As they were leaving, Matt offered to give China a ride home and she immediately accepted, despite Brad’s protest that he had planned to take China home.

“It’s right on my way, Brad. Don’t worry about it.” China hid a grin because she knew Matt had no idea where she lived—for all he knew, she could live at the opposite ends of the earth from him.

Brad hadn’t been happy about this turn of events but didn’t know how to reclaim China without revealing their relationship, which he didn’t intend to do.

Outside the restaurant, Brad had turned one way, and Matt and China turned the other. When they rounded the corner and thought they were out of Brad’s earshot, they both started laughing.

“I hope what I did was all right with you,” Matt gasped between bursts of laughter.

“I think you know it is,” China answered, turning serious.

They walked slowly down the street towards Matt’s car, almost but not quite touching—which was to be the story of their relationship for its duration.
                              CHAPTER 4

Jacqueline got up earlier than usual that morning—she’d never really gone back to sleep after the phone call from the police about Jim.  She lay in bed, furious at Jim’s continual interruption of their lives. There weren’t many things that
Jacqueline felt this helpless about. She hated the feeling of powerlessness.  Her whole life had always been geared toward being in control of everything all the time.

In those rare circumstances when Jacqueline was not able to control things, she ignored the situation or escaped from it. She’d never been able to control Matt but was determined to keep trying, no matter how much energy it took or how frustrated it
made her. Part of the attraction she felt towards him was based on her inability to control him.

She skipped breakfast, threw on a pair of casual slacks and a summery short-sleeved overblouse—both of which had cost what some people earn in a week. It was her hair appointment morning—no point in doing anything with her hair but run a brush
through it. Because she also planned on getting a facial today she didn’t bother with make-up except for lipstick and eyeliner—her two essentials.

She thought her dark blue Mercedes convertible was looking a bit dusty—it was time to ask the condo’s handyman to give it a wash and wax job.  She put the top down but didn’t bother with her usual scarf because of the hair appointment.

The beauty salon was just a few blocks over from the condo but Jacqueline never walked anywhere. She and Matt had a minor gym set up in one of the condo’s bedrooms and both of them worked out irregularly. But actually walking somewhere was beyond
Jacqueline’s understanding.

She was going to have her facial before her trim, wash, and set
so Jacqueline went directly to the facial booth at the back of the salon.  She loved facials as much for the relaxation they provided as for the benefit they gave her face. She had been debating the pros and cons of a facelift for a few months now.
At 40, she still looked 35, but to her looking 30 would be better.  Perhaps she’d wait a few more years.  She’d heard that the earlier one started having facelifts, the sooner they no longer were effective.

Miriam, her favorite operator, had wrapped her head in a wonderfully soft chamois scarf the color and texture of buttery doeskin.  After steaming open the pores of Jacqueline’s face, Miriam applied thick pink goo with an instrument that looked like a
plastic putty knife but which was made out of plastic. Once Jacqueline’s face and throat were covered with goo, Miriam switched on a classical music tape, tilted the beautician chair as far back as it would go, shut the curtain of the booth, and left
Jacqueline to abosrb the facial for an hour.  Slowly relaxing, Jacqueline had started to drift off to sleep, but came completely awake when she overheard the conversation going on in the next cubicle.

“I swear to God it’s the truth—no lie!” The voice was a young-sounding one, full of exuberance.

“I still don’t believe it, no matter what you say.” The second voice sounded older, tireder, more world-weary.”

The young voice came back with, “I know for a fact that Win Prescott has filed for divorce. My boyfriend is an associate with the firm that Prescott hired to represent him. And here’s the best part of all—Prescott’s charging his wife with adultery.
And not just one charge but multiple instances with—get this—multiple participants.”

“My dear, the older voice interrupted, “why does this sad, albeit expected, news give you such apparent pleasure?”

For a few moments, there was no response from the young voice and Jacqueline wondered if they’d moved somewhere else or if they’d realized their conversation could be heard.

Then the young voice answered. “I grew up with his wife, the oh-so-imperfect Laura Prescott. She always acted holier-than-thou and much better than everyone else when really she was a tramp then and she’s a tramp now. I’m glad she’s finally getting
what she deserves.  Besides, Win Prescott is devastatingly handsome, indecently rich, and about to be back among the eligibles.” The young voice laughed and then Jacqueline could hear the women going down the hall and out into the main part of the
beauty salon.

Jacqueline was wide awake now, all sleepiness routed by the news about Win. Once upon a time, for the only time in her life, Jacqueline had been in love with Win Prescott.

They’d met almost twenty years ago. Jacqueline had been the new girl in town.  At the time Win was already been engaged to Laura Manning.

Win and Laura had grown up together, part of the same social group.  They’d drifted into an engagement, because it seemed to be the thing to do and not because of any great passion on either side.

Jacqueline’s family had moved St. Louis when her father bought a controlling interest in Dynatron, the mid-sized aerospace firm owned by the Prescott family. Jacqueline, just finished with her bachelor’s degree, accompanied her family, thinking that
she’d work on her master’s degree in interior design at the university in St. Louis.

Jacqueline’s father, Boyd Walters, was an aeronautical engineer and an inventor. Several of his inventions had earned him a fortune, enabling him to fulfill the lifelong dream of owning his own company.  He’d heard through the aircraft industry
grapevine that the aerospace firm owned by Win Prescott’s family was going through rough fiscal waters and badly needed an infusion of capital and new management.

Boyd Walters felt he could meet both of those needs and arranged, with the full cooperation and compliance of the Prescotts, to purchase 51% of the company’s stock.

Jacqueline first saw Win at a company picnic. They’d met at the ice cream booth, where Jacqueline was trying to carry cones for herself, her father, and her mother and had ice cream dripping down both arms.  Win came to her rescue, taking two of the
cones in one massive hand, giving her a wad of napkins to wipe the ice cream off her arms.

Thanking him as he followed her, she led him over one of the umbrella tables where her parents were relaxing.

“Say thanks to this man for helping me with your cones.” Jacqueline gestured towards Win.

Boyd Walters half stood up, reached out and relieved Win Prescott of the two ice cream cones. “Thanks, Win, we appreciate your help.”

Jacqueline looked questioningly at her father. “You two know each other?”

Mr. Walters answered, “Yes, this is Win Prescott—he just came to work in Dynatron’s legal office.” Walters looked toward Win Prescott as he said this and Win nodded and said, “Right you are.”

Boyd, “Let me introduce you to the two ladies in my life—my wife, Marsha, and my daughter, Jacqueline.”

Win smiled widely and said, “I’m pleased to meet both of you. May I join you for a few minutes?”

“Of course.” The three Walters said the words together and then burst into simultaneous laughter.

And that was the beginning. Win and Jacqueline began a whirlwind romance that continued throughout the summer. Both of them were dazed by the depth and heat of their love. Laura Manning was away in Europe for the summer, doing one of her final
semesters of college work. Win acted as though there were no Laura, no tomorrow, and only Jacqueline. They kept their love affair, which it quickly became, a secret from family and friends. Boyd and Marsha Walters thought Jacqueline was working extra
hard at the summer internship they’d wangled for her at one of the city’s leading interior design firms and Win’s family thought he was spending every available hour in the legal offices of the corporation.

They both lived in the present moment, as if there were no tomorrow.  Laura’s name and the engagement were never discussed. They felt as though they were soulmates, destined to live out eternity together.

One night late in August, Win received received a frantic middle of the night phone call from Laura. She was practically hysterical as she told him that somehow their rather lackadaisical birth control methods had failed and she was pregnant.  She’d
just gotten the news from the doctor and was taking a plane home the next day.  Laura said they would have to elope immediately.

Win was devastated. He’d ignored the reality of his situation, too immersed in Jacqueline to think straight. Now reality had hit him smack in the face and the awakening was rude and ruthless.

The next morning, Win had called Jacqueline as early as he dared and arranged to meet her at their favorite place in the woods, beside a rocky creek.

Win broke the news quickly and brutally, with no sugar coating.  Jacqueline was as distraught as he was.

“What are we going to do?” she cried, tears streaming down her face.

“Laura thinks we’re eloping as soon as she gets home. She has no idea that there’s you and that I’ve fallen completely in love with you and out of love with her.”

Jacqueline looked away from Win and said hesitatingly, “I don’t suppose she would consider...not having the baby?”

“You mean an abortion?” Jacqueline murmured yes and Win said, “No, I`m sure not. She’s Catholic and she’d never have an abortion.”

“What about giving it up for adoption?” Jacqueline tried again.

“That’s our only hope. If I can convince her to go away somewhere and have the baby, and then give it away—we might have a chance then.”

“Win, darling, you’ve got to try to convince her. I can’t bear the thought of life without you.”

“Or me without you. We’ve got to work this out.”

They held each other tightly for a long while, then Win gently took his arms from around Jacqueline and looked into her eyes.  “My dearest one, I won’t be able to see you for a day or two, till I get this settled. Laura’s plane gets in late this
evening and I’ll meet her at the airport. I’ll talk to her right away and I’ll call you as soon as I can.”

They hugged each other again and then reluctantly got into Win’s car for the drive back to the city.

Jacqueline spent the next two days at home all day, right by the phone, but Win didn’t call. Time after time, she picked up the receiver to call him but then put it back, afraid to try. He said he’d call and he would. She had to believe him and trust
him—her life and her future depended on it.

But Win had never called. A couple of days later at the dinner table, Jacqueline’s father had said, in an offhand way, that the boss’ son had eloped instead of waiting for his fancy society wedding.  Jacqueline had hidden her dismay and had quickly
excused herself. Up in her room, she started crying and couldn’t stop. She was frantic and didn’t know where to turn. She didn’t even know how to get hold of Win.

For the next couple of weeks, Jacqueline kept to herself and away from her parents and her friends. She would go to their place in the woods and cry and cry.  Within a month, she knew that she too was pregnant and this added to her despair. Her
parents had noticed her strange behavior, and coupled with her loss of weight and the dark circles under eyes, were starting to badger her, trying to find out what was wrong.

She finally told them, enduring their shock and their shame with a stoicism that surprised her. Somehow she’d managed to distance herself from her emotions as the only survival technique she could muster.

Jacqueline had always been very self-contained and self-sufficient, from childhood on. Now, in desperation, she turned even more inward with no thought for anything but regaining control of her life. She detailed her already well-thought out plans to
Boyd and Marsha.

“I’ll leave the city within the next few weeks, saying I’m going to graduate school in California—which I will eventually do. First, I’ll go somewhere and have the baby and give it up for adoption and then I’ll go to graduate school.”

Try as they might, Boyd and Marsha were unable to change Jacqueline’s mind or to get her to deviate one iota from her plans. She was adamant about not telling them who the father was, saying only that it was impossiblefor her to marry him.

Jacqueline could afford to be so independent from her parents because she had her own money. Her father had established a trust fund for her when his inventions had made him wealthy, which was more than sufficient to support her for a few years.

Jacqueline followed through with her plans but did finally agree to let her parents know where she was living and to stay in touch with them. It broke their hearts to think that their first grandchild would grow up with strangers. As the time for the
birth of the baby drew nearer, Marsha Walters became increasingly distraught at the thought of losing her grandchild. She finally convinced Boyd that the two of them must fly out to San Diego and convince Jacqueline that somehow the child must not be
given up for adoption.

But by the time they arrived in San Diego, it was too late.  Jacqueline had had the baby and had turned her over to the lawyer who was arranging for a private adoption by a couple who were unable to have their own children.

The Walters were devastated at the loss of the baby girl child and Marsha, especially, refused to accept its finality. She convinced Boyd to hire a private detective to trace the couple. When he found them, Marsha and Boyd had gone to them and had
begged them for their grandchild. In return, Boyd offered them $100,000, a great deal of money 20 years ago.  He also offered to pay the attorney’s fees for locating another child for them to adopt.

Although the Walters had been very careful to keep their names out of the proceedings and the attorney had never let the Martins know Jacqueline’s name, somehow the Martins had discovered the Walters’ identity, but had not revealed that knowledge.
Sam Martin was a hustler, wheeler-dealer type and thought he recognized a gold-plated opportunity. He didn’t care one way or the other whether or not they ever had a kid but Diana was determined to have a child and she wanted it to be this baby girl.
He told not to be a fool, “A kid is a kid and giving this one up can make us rich.” He finally convinced her to return the baby to its grandparents.

Over the years, Sam Martin had unrelentingly blackmailed the Walters, extorting from them almost a million dollars for their continued silence.

Marsha Walters devised a clever scheme to account for baby Lisa.  She and Boyd returned to the city, temporarily entrusting their granddaughter to the care of an expensive, highly recommended nanny in San Diego.  Jacqueline had remained in San Diego
but ignored Lisa’s existence, refusing to even see the baby.

Marsha invented a distant cousin and her husband who were killed in an automobile accident, leaving a baby with no family to care for it.  Conveniently, Lisa was a large baby for her age, so Marsha added six months to her age. Marsha eventually had
Mrs, Westcott, the nanny, accompany little Lisa to the city. Marsha prevailed upon Mrs.  Westcott to remain with them to care for Lisa.

Marsha and Boyd had thoroughly spoiled Jacqueline from infancy on and tried to do the same with Lisa. But this time, Mrs. Westcott’s childrearing tactics and practices prevailed.

Because of the way her parents had catered to her, Jacqueline became a selfish, self-centered, controlling, vain individual.  But she was bright and had a certain superficial charm and sparkle, so most acquaintances never saw the depth of her
egotism. Only her parents, and eventually her husband and children, were exposed to her total self-immersion.

Lisa was almost two years old when Jacqueline finally returned to the city. She’d grown lonely and bored with being lonely on the West Coast. Her plan was to do free-lance interior design work. She bought a condominium in one of the downtown high-
rises and had transformed it into a stunning showcase of her work.

Boyd and Marsha were pleased and impressed by what Jacqueline was achieving in her career and had high hopes for her future.

But Jacqueline still refused to have anything to do with Lisa.  Whenever she socialized with her parents, it was always without Lisa.

One evening, the Walters had invited Jacqueline to join them for dinner at the opening of an upscale West County restaurant. The public relations firm that handled Dynatron’s publicity was also staging the restaurant’s debut. Boyd was being
supportive of Thompson & Associates and its bright young, owner, Matthew Jebediah Thompson.

During dinner, Matthew joined them for a few minutes and was immediately overwhelmed by Jacqueline’s beauty and charm. Boyd and Marsha sat back beaming as the two young people chatted and then moved into a preliminary flirtation.

As Matt got up to leave, he said to Jacqueline, “What would you say if I called you sometime for dinner?”

Jacqueline had given him a smile but said, “I guess you’ll just have to call and see what I say.”

Matt had said an amused, “I see,” then waved to the three of them as he went back to working the room.

Once Matt was out of earshot, Boyd and Marsha both pounced on Jacqueline.

First, Boyd said, “My dear, that is one of the nicest, brightest young men I’ve met in a long while. I should think you’d be delighted to go out with.

Then Marsha added, “Even though he’s divorced and has a child, I think he’s eminently eligible and you ought to be thinking about your future.  You’re not getting any younger, you know.”

“Mother,” this with impatience. “I’m only 25—you make it sound as if I already have one foot in the grave. Anyway, I fully intend to go out with him when he calls. It just wouldn’t do to sound too eager.”

                              CHAPTER 5

Drew stayed at Emily’s house for a short while after she left for the office, then decided to try and contact Rick. If that didn’t work, he’d try Annelise, but that might be touchy. She was Taylor Brevard’s daughter and Taylor discouraged her from
continuing her friendship with Drew.  Rick Prescott, Annelise Brevard, and Drew Thompson had been close friends since early childhood. They’d grown up in the same neighborhood, attended the same schools and the same church. The three of them had
banded together, forming the Three Amigos. Their close-knit comradeship had kept the friendship an exclusive threesome that no one else tried to intrude upon.

When Drew started having so much trouble with his life, Annelise and Rick stood by him. They defended him to their parents and to his father. They gave him money when he needed it and a place to stay—although they managed to keep the lodging a
secret from their parents.

Drew had been in and out of college for the past two years, while Annelise and Rick had each completed their first two years with a 4.0 GPA. Of the three, Rick was the most intelligent, with the highest IQ and the highest scores on all the
standardized achievement tests.

Both Rick and Annelise were following in their fathers’ footsteps and had decided to study law. Drew wanted to do everything and didn’t want to do anything.

Annelise and Rick held long, ongoing critiques of Drew’s life and personality and adjustment problems. They loved him dearly and would have done anything to help him get on with his life. Gradually, they’d come to trust Emily Harris and her caring
for Drew. At first, they’d suspected that her reaching about to Drew was based on some ulterior motive, that she wanted something from Drew.

Their concern for Drew had drawn Annelise and Rick closer together.  They spent a great deal of time alone together and had started thinking of each other as man and woman in addition to friend to friend. They were just on the edges of a man to woman
relationship and were feeling their ways toward it very tentatively. They were each unconsciously resisting romance, feeling that somehow romance would betray Drew, would shut him out.

Drew had noticed a change in the way Annelise and Rick acted toward each other and at first it puzzled him. Then he began picking up the tension between them and that tension translated itself to him as male/female attraction. He was astounded at his
reaction to that attraction. He was furious, livid, out of his mind with anger. He felt deserted and betrayed and abandoned. Worse, he felt an incredible jealousy of both of them. He felt that Annelise had stolen Rick from him and that Rick had made
off with Annelise.

He tried to analyze his tumultuous emotions and found that the strongest one was jealousy towards Rick. Drew hadn’t realized that he himself was attracted to Annelise. He’d only had a few passing flings with a girl here and there—nothing serious or
of any depth.

But his feelings for Annelise were deep and strong—and very frightening. He stood to lose his two best friends, no matter what he did—or didn’t do.

Matt stood in front of the wash basin in the private lavatory that adjoined his office, looking at himself in the mirror  He would be fifty in a few weeks but certainly didn’t look it. His hair was still a thick and wavy dark brown with only a few
gray hairs showing at the temple.  His skin was a naturally dark color and it always appeared as though he had a tan.  Because he worked out regularly, he looked fit and energetic.  He’d finally managed to quit smoking last year and although it was a
struggle, had done so without gaining the seemingly obligatory 10 pounds.

Lately though, he’d been feeling tireder than usual and was thinking about a visit to the doctor for a check-up. Normally very healthy, hardly ever sick, it had been years since his last visit to the doctor and that was only for an insurance
physical.

Well, I’ll give it awhile longer, he thought. No use wasting my time and the doc’s time. Maybe I’m not getting enough sleep. I’ll just go to bed earlier.

Back at his desk, Matt picked up one of the engraved invitations to his award ceremony and read it for the twentieth time. Nothing had ever excited him as much as receiving the St. Louis Award. This meant that he had finally arrived. He’d cracked the
power structure of St.  Louis and had made it his own. He had them eating out of his hand and what an ego trip that was.

Walking back to his desk from the private lavatory, Matt thought to himself, God, life was better than it had ever been.  His business was prosperous, he and Jacqueline had a convenient marriage, and now, finally, this award was the culmination of
all his frantic ambitions.  His only problem was Jim and there didn’t seem to be any answer to that one other than writing him off as a bad debt.

Teresa buzzed him on the intercom to tell him that the two reporters from the Times were here to interview him. He said to send them in in five minutes. He got up from the desk and walked around his large office, trying to see it through the eyes of
a reporter.

It had been decorated in a stark, modernistic way, by Jacqueline.  The colors were black, white, and gray with a few red highlights here and there. Matt liked it a lot. He thought it had a feeling of strength and power. In front of the broad window
that comprised one wall of the office was a conversational grouping of chairs and a long white sofa facing an all-glass coffee table. He decided that he’d have the two reporters sit on the sofa and he would sit across from them in the red chair. The
sofa was extremely soft and one tended to sink down into it, which tended to put one at a disadvantage—which is exactly where he wanted to start off with the reporters.

Teresa tapped lightly at the door, waited for his answering “Come in.” and opened the door wide and let the two reporters in past her.

When Matt saw who it was he couldn’t contain his outcry of “My God! I don’t believe it!” He quickly regained his composure and stretched out both hands to Emily and Trav.

“Emily—Trav—it’s been years—how wonderful to see you both.” Only someone who knew Matt Thompson as well as Emily and Trav did could’ve detected any note of falsity in his effusive greeting.

Emily and Trav both managed to avoid shaking hands with Matt. He gestured for them to sit down—Emily took the red chair, Trav the black one, which left the sofa or the gray chair for Matt. He unhesitatingly chose the chair, even though it put him at
some distance from Trav.

“Well, well, I had no idea that it would be the two of you interviewing me. This is really something.” Matt’s hearty tone was accompanied by a wide smile that didn’t extend to his eyes.

“How have you both been?” Matt continued talking, without seeming to notice that so far neither Emily nor Trav had said a word other than their initial murmurs of greeting.

Trav looked at Emily and nodded, as though indicating that she should speak first.

She said, “I’ve been just fine, Matt, better than fine really.  I love working for the newspaper. I had no idea a job could be this much fun.” She said the last sentence softly but defiantly, as if challenging Matt to try and remind her that once
she’d said the same thing about her job with him.

Trav cut in, “I guess I can’t say I love working for the newspaper, but it’s okay. It pays the bills and it keeps me out of bars, at least some of the time.”

Matt laughed a sort of forced laugh. “I still can’t get over the fact that the paper sent the two of you to interview me. I wonder if the powers that be realize our history together. It’s not that I don’t think the two of you wouldn’t do a wonderful
story on me—it’s just that I wonder how detached and objective you’ll be able to be.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that, Matthew, old boy. I imagine we’ll be
as detached and objective as the newspaper would want us to be.” As Trav said this, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his notebook. Emily followed his lead and took a tape recorder out of her briefcase, along with her mini camera, and her own
notebook.

She smiled sweetly at Matt and said, “I guess we’re all set to go.  But first, why don’t I just lay out the ground rules and timelines and everything like that.

“We’re going to need a couple of hours today and then we’ll need another session tomorrow, preferably at your home with your wife, if possible. The paper wants this to be one of those in-depth articles.  We’re planning on it being the cover story for
the weekend magazine the week before the award ceremony.”

“I see,” Matt said slowly. “I guess I hadn’t realized it was going to be such a major story. That really pleases me but...” Here he stopped and didn’t seem to know how to finish the sentence.

“But what?” Emily asked.

“I suppose I’m surprised at this kind of major league treatment from the Times, considering my connection with the Tribune.” Matt looked from Emily to Trav and then to the dead space somewhere between them as he waited for a response.

Emily glanced at Trav, her eyes communicating that she wanted him to answer Matt.

“Matthew, old man, the Times tries to keep its internecine wars separate from its unbiased reporting of the news. The St. Louis Award is news and doing a profile on the awardee has been pro forma since the inception of the award.” Trav grinned,
pleased at the sound of his speech.

“Hmmmm,” was Matt’s only reply.

Emily picked up the thread of the conversations. “In addition to two interview sessions with you, we’ll also be talking to current and past employees, clients and other business associates, family and friends.  Also, if we could have access to any
previously written biographical information, photographs, anything that would help us create a picture of the complete Matthew Thompson.” Emily used her best professional voice and could see a dawning respect in Matt’s face as she detailed the manner
in which she and Trav would go about creating the cover story on Matt.

“As for the cover photo, we’ll bring a photographer with us tomorrow to your home and try to get a cover photo then.” Emily finished her explanation and waited for any response or reaction from Matt.

“That sounds fine. I’ll have Teresa check with Jacqueline about
her schedule tomorrow before you leave today.”

The three of seemed to realize that all of the necessary preliminaries had now been dispensed with and it was time to begin the actual interview. They each moved around in their seats, finding the most comfortable position. Emily reached towards the
tape recorder, flicking a glance at Matt to see if he was ready. At his nod, she switched on the recorder. She and Trav both held their pencils poised over small black notebooks; Trav asked the first question.

                         THE FIRST INTERVIEW

TRAV:  Let’s begin at the beginning. Where and when were you born?

MATT:  You always were direct, Trav. I was born fifty years ago in a small town in southern Missouri—Johnston—you’ve probably never heard of it. I was the oldest of six children. My father was a combination farmer and cabinet maker. He was one of
those craftsmen who takes inordinate pride in their work but never made much money.  My mother and I and my brothers and sisters did most of the farming, except on weekends when Dad did the heavy work.

I had two brothers and three sisters, and I was the first in our family to ever go to college. I’d been a good student in high school and a fair baseball player. I won a combination baseball and academic scholarship to Mizzou. For lack of anything
else to study, I started out in the Ag school—I guess I thought I was going to take over the family farm and make it into one of the showcases of modern agriculture.

TRAV:  But somehow you got sidetracked and ended up in the J school.

MATT:  Well, I’m not sure that “sidetracked” is the most accurate word. While I was still studying agriculture, I was dragged into editing the ag school newspaper. I’d done some work on my high school paper and I was about the only one with any kind
of editing background. It turns out that I was really good at it, sort of a natural is what one of the Journalism School professors called it.  It all just came about kind of easily—I transferred out of agriculture and into journalism and felt at
home, really at home, for the first time in my life.

EMILY:  Why do you say that, Matt?

MATT:  That’s right, your’re the “why” reporter, the prober who uses the psychology angle. Well, the reason I say I felt at home for the first time in my life is that I felt comfortable with what I was doing—it felt like me. I specialized in the
advertising and public relations curriculum, although of course I got the full dose of reporting and editing.  As it turns out, I never did do any reporting or editing—I’ve spent my whole career in PR and advertising.

TRAV:  What was your first job out of college?

MATT:  I went to work for a small 500-watt radio station in Johnston, my hometown. I was their ad salesman, PR guy, marketing person, I wrote the newscasts, I even did some on-air work. The guy who owned the station—the call letters were JKBQ—was
good friends with the general manager of one of the major stations in St. Louis, WWK, which had a talk/news format. WWK was looking for a PR director and my boss suggested me. I couldn’t understand why he would do that and I asked him why. He said he
knew I was too good to stay much longer with him and he’d just as soon be helpful to me and to a friend of his. This way everybody benefited.

TRAV:  So you were off to the big city.

MATT:  Yeah, and boy was I a scared little country boy. Even after four years at Mizzou, I still felt like a hick and I was sure
people could see the hay in my hair. Don’t laugh, Em—country boy feelings die hard.

EMILY:  I’m sure they do, Matt. How did you finally overcome your feeling of being a hick?

MATT:  Who says I have? Well, I guess I have, pretty much. And the only thing that did it was time. Year after year, I watched people, listened to them, copied them. I read all the time and learned as much as I could about as many things as I could.
I always felt I had to be twice as good as the next guy because of growing up on a farm in a little one-horse town. I didn’t exactly go barefoot all the time but that’s the way I felt.

EMILY:  How did you make the transition from a PR job at WWK to starting your own PR firm?

MATT:  Well, that came about in kind of an involved, roundabout way.  I’ll try to simplify it as much as possible.

(Emily and Trav exchanged a quick glance, both of them hearing a note of hesitation and uncertainty in Matt’s normally forceful voice.)

MATT:  It was right at the time my first marriage was breaking up. I had a young son, Andrew Jebediah, and things were pretty rocky for me.  Jeb Donovan was still with WWK at that time and he was as supportive as any boss could be. Somehow he knew I
was teetering on the edge of some kind of breakdown and he suggested I take a sort of a sabbatical and figure out what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.

So I did that. I did a lot of soul searching and a lot of talking to people in all different lines of work. Jeb had me talk to one friend of his in particular, Clarence Prescott, who started Dynatron. At that time, 20 years ago, Dynatron was pretty
much a start-up defense contractor, not the monolith it is today.  Old Clarence and I really hit it off—sort of an instant friendship. Right off the bat, he offered me the opportunity to work in his PR department. But somehow that didn’t feel right
to me and I put off giving him an answer. He then came up with the idea of me starting my own PR firm with him as my first client. That seemed more like it, to both of us, in fact. So that’s what happened. As soon as Jeb Donovan heard about it, he
asked me to do the public relations work for WWK also, which gave me two major clients for a non-existent business. Pretty good for a hayseed, country boy, wouldn’t you say?

TRAV:  More than good, Matt. Sounds pretty terrific.

MATT:  Actually, at first, it was unbelievable. I went around pinching myself, I was so sure it was some wonderful dream and any moment I’d wake up.

Having my own business didn’t make the divorce any easier and it didn’t give me custody of Drew, but at least it made life worth living.

And things just sort of grew from there. Dynatron and WWK are still my two largest clients—unfortunately, though, now without Jeb and Clarence.

EMILY:  Tell us about your second marriage.

MATT:  I married Jacqueline Walters just a little less than 20 years ago.  I’d met her through Clarence Prescott. A year or so before we met, her father, Boyd Walters, had become one of the major partners in Dynatron at a time when the company was
having some serious financial difficulties.

EMILY:  You and Jacqueline have never had children?

MATT:  No, we haven’t but we we have my son Drew.

(Here, Matt stood up and went over to the coffeemaker  at the opposite end of his office. He brought back coffee and cups and the three of them busied themselves with getting coffee.)

MATT:  There’s one thing that I’d like to see included in the article, if possible, and it has to do with Jeb and Clarence. They both instilled in me the belief that you have to pay back what you get.  So based on that, I’ve become more and more
involved in civic affairs, in the past few years. I can’t tell you how much I miss those two men. They were my mentors and my supporters and there’s no way to express how much they gave to me.

EMILY:  What about Win Prescott? How do you like working with him?

MATT:  Win’s a fascinating man in his own right but very different from his father. Clarence was of the old school—he was an engineer and approached the business from that viewpoint. Win is an attorney by education and a consummate businessman by
choice.

Win is very much a man of today, very pragmatic. He knows when to follow the most expedient course and he’s tremendous at negotiating.

EMILY:  Matt, somehow we’re going to have to deal with some of the negative things about you and your business. It’s common knowledge that Thompson & Associates has an extremely high rate of turnover in personnel. One of the quotes in the columns
calls it your revolving door policy.  What comments do you have on that?

MATT:  If that’s the roughest question you guys are going to ask, this interview will be a piece of cake.

Yes, Thompson & Associates has a high turnover. Number one, this is the norm in the fields of both public relations and advertising.  Whenever you’re dealing with creative people in creative positions, you’re going to have constant movement from job
to job or from person to person.  So what looks like high turnover in any other field is more acceptable in the marketing communications area.

Second, and this is probably the most pertinent. I’m a perfectionist.  I set high standards for myself and for the people that work for me.  I know what I want and what I don’t want. Unfortunately, this sometimes means that I have to let people go.
That’s part of the game. I’m not ashamed of the way I run my business—I’m doing what I think is best.

Now, I’m not a handholder and I’m not willing to settle for second-rate. I expect ability and professionalism and dedication and commitment. When I find those attributes in an employee, I compensate that employee well.

So that’s my answer to the “revolving door” controversy. By the way, Thompson & Associates is the second largest public relations company in the city—we must be doing something right.

TRAV: Interesting defense, Matt.

MATT:  But you’re not convinced?

TRAV:  That’s not relevant.

EMILY: I think this might be a good stopping point, Matt.

                              CHAPTER 6

Emily and Trav maintained a rigid silence as they walked out of Thompson & Associates.  Once in the elevator, they both started laughing.

“Save it, darlin’,” Trav said. “Let’s stop in Joey’s for a beer and we can say it all then.”

“Okay, you’re the boss.” They both started laughing again.

Under one arm, Emily carried a thick packet of background information that Matt’s secretary, Teresa, had prepared for them. Teresa had also arranged the next day’s interview (which would include Jacqueline) for 3 p.m. at the Thompsons’ Central West
End condo.

Joey’s was a tavern a block from Matt’s office, one which Thompson & Associates employees used as a home away from home. Just inside the door, Trav stopped at the bar and picked up two beers while Emily found a booth towards the back.  They made
themselves comfortable and settled in for a critique of the interview with Matt.

Trav said, “Well, what’s your bottom line impression?”

Emily thought a moment before starting to answer. “He’s changed, I think, and I’m trying to figure out in what way.  He’s even more polished and glib than when we worked for him.  Besides being so articulate, he seems very much in control of himself-
-no rough edges, no anger seeping out, that kind of thing.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty much my impression, too. I will say his answer to the turnover question was a plausible one and would probably convince anyone who didn’t know him as well as we do.” Trav took a long swallow of his beer and continued.

“We’re going to have to try and interview one or two of his current employees and that’ll be difficult. We may have to do the thing about ‘According to so and so, who spoke on the condition that his/her name be withheld.’ I don’t like those non-
attribution interviews but I think that’s all we’re going to get from current Thompson & Associates employees. As for past employees, we’ll have
a field day.”

“Who do you think we should go after?” Emily asked.

“For sure, China and Dave. I’m also trying to think of how to include you and me without muddying the waters. One way might be for you to interview me and vice versa and to use those two pieces as sidebars to the main article.”

Emily shook her head slowly. “Trav, the deeper we get into this, the more worried I get. These award winner profile pieces are always laudatory, no negatives at all. This piece we’re doing is going to end up fairly negative, I think. Matt is too
controversial for it to be anything else.”

“As I told you when we first talked about this, I think a negative article is what the big brass wants, God knows why. And the puzzler is that everyone knows that Matt is ballsy enough to sue the paper if the article has a negative slant. Why would
management want to risk a for-sure lawsuit?”

Emily answered, “I don’t know, but that part of it doesn’t really worry me.  Matt wouldn’t have much of a case and the newspaper would welcome the publicity that a court trial would bring. Especially considering this war the Times and the Tribune are
waging.”

Trav interrupted, “Excuse me, but that reminds me of a great piece of gossip I heard just this morning.  Bennett has jumped ship—he’s leaving us to go work for the Trib as its man-about-town columnist.”

“You mean gossip columnist, don’t you?” Emily said.

“Whatever. Supposedly, the Trib offered him more than $100,000 and free rein in what he writes, plus more staff. Sounds good to me,” Trav said emphatically.

“What would you do if the Tribune tried to hire you away?” Emily asked.

“I’ve thought about it and I’m not sure what I’d do,” Trav answered.  “I don’t have any great loyalty to the Times. In fact, it’s no secret that I have some problems with the way the paper does a lot of things.”

“I know what you mean,” Emily said. “I guess I think the competition between the two papers will be a good thing for everyone concerned.  The Times was getting too complacent, being the only game in town. I think having the Tribune nipping at our
heels will be good for us.”

“What about you?” Trav asked.  “Would you go to work for the Trib if they offered you a good deal?”

“Of course, who wouldn’t—you included. Unfortunately, they haven’t.  I don’t have much loyalty to the Times, either. And I agree about the complacency. But that’s probably all in the past now. All indications are that management is running scared.”

“Scuttlebutt is that the Times legal staff is drafting personal services contracts for all of the columnists and some of the reporters,” Trav added.

“What kind of personal services contracts?” Emily asked.

“It’s sort of a good-news/bad news scenario. The good news is that whoever is offered and signs a personal services contract gets a signing bonus plus guaranteed increases that are higher than the Guild minimums. There are also some perks like
additional support services, more generous expense account allowances, things like that. The bad news is that the contracts have a non-compete clause which prevents whoever signs one from working at a competing newspaper for a period of two years,”
Trav said.

“Wow, that’s a real kicker!”

“Yeah, well, so be it. Now, back to the Matt piece. How are we going to go about collaborating on the writing of this damn thing?” Trav frowned and tapped his fingers on the table.

“How about if I rough out the first draft, after we’ve done all the interviews, and then you take a crack at the draft?”

Trav said, “That’s just fine with me. I like rewriting better than writing any day. Now, let’s divvy up the auxiliary interviews.  I’ll take China and you can have Dave.”

“Gee, thanks, Trav. You’re a real buddy. Actually, that’s okay with me. China and I are not really on the best of terms.  We tried to stay in touch at the beginning, but that fell by the wayside soon enough. She was too self-centered, as far as I was
concerned.  She didn’t seem to have anything left for anyone else because all her energies were concentrated on good old China and the hell with everything else.  As far as David Shaw is concerned, thank God, I never had to have much to do with that
man.  I always thought he personified evil.”

“Don’t you think that’s a little strong?” Trav asked.

“No,” Emily answered slowly. “You know, it’s funny I guess I’ve thought more about David Shaw and what kind of person he is or was, than I realized. He had an aura of pure evil about him that frightened me, to be honest about it.”

“Would you rather not interview him?” Trav asked.

“No, that’s all right. It might be a real challenge for me—to try to deal with him objectively.”

David Shaw had worked at Dynatron for almost 20 years. He’d started out in its personnel division but had tired of personnel work in just a few years. He’d pulled what strings he could and had ended up as Director of New Business Development, a fancy
title attached to rather nebulous responsibilities. In this position, he had the free run of the company. He was based at the St. Louis headquarters but also maintained offices in Washington, D.C. and on the West Coast.  Because he’d once worked for
Matt Thompson, he was also assigned as Dynatron’s liaison with Thompson & Associates.

Shaw’s main thrust was handholding power wielders and power brokers.  He was the wheeler/dealer, deal-maker of the Dynatron corporation.  Defense contracts were tricky, slippery things—you thought you had one nailed down, you blinked, and it was
gone.  Shaw greased the skids, so to speak, using massive amounts of corporate cash to earn allegiance from those who carried decision-power: legislators, lobbyists (domestic and foreign), overseas customers, prospective customers without portfolio.
Shaw’s slush fund was a well-hidden stash of unmarked bills that he judiciously doled out. Matt was one of the few outsiders who was aware of the full extent of Shaw’s activities and who knew about the slush fund.

Dynatron’s founder, Clarence Prescott, in his time and before his death, had not allowed any payoffs to obtain defense contracts.  Dynatron had only surged to the forefront of aircraft and missile production following his death.  Win Prescott was
peripherally aware of Shaw’s position and responsibilities but preferred to remain ignorant of the full extent of what he did.

Shaw was mephistophelian-looking. He had dark brown wavy hair, balding on top, worn longish, curling at the neckline and around his ears. His sharp pointed beard and small moustache gave him a definite satanic look. He eyes shone with an inner,
knowing gleam. His voice was silky and deceptive.  When it suited his own purposes, David could charm snakes and other associated beasts.

One evening, a long, booze-filled one, Trav and Matt and David had sat in a bar, talking for hours.  David had left first, leaving Trav and Matt looking after him, bemusedly.

Trav spoke first. “This is a real cliche. But that’s my stock in trade, I guess. That man, that David Shaw is evil incarnate.”

Matt hadn’t responded to Trav’s observation in any way. Somehow that bugged Trav and he pushed his point. “Wouldn’t you agree that Shaw personifies evil?”

This time, Matt answered, but in a faroff, distant way that puzzled Trav. “So? How can you have good without evil? If there weren’t a David Shaw, how could we recognize the devil?”

That had stopped Trav cold. As far as he’d ever noticed, Matt was certainly no philosopher and with that statement he was coming perilously close to philosophy.

“He gives me the creeps, that’s for sure. For starters, he’s slimy and dishonest and deceitful. I don’t see how you can do business with him.” Trav stopped there, wondering if Matt would answer the question implicit in that last statement.

“Maybe I have no choice, kid.” Matt said the words slowly in a weary way. “God, have you got a lot to learn. This world is not what you think it is. It’s not what you think you see.” At that, Matt had gotten up, thrown a handfull of bills down on the
table, and left without another word to Trav.

Later that afternoon, back in his cubbyhole at the Times, Trav called the TV station where China worked. The receptionist said that Miss Smith was in a meeting but took Trav’s name and number.

It had been three years since I’ve talked with China, Trav thought. I wonder if she’s still the same. She was one hell of a woman—more than I could handle, despite how much I wanted to.

China and Trav had been an item for a brief while, right around the time of his divorce. He’d been vulnerable and she’d been charming and one thing had led to another. Their affair had ended when China left Thompson & Associates and walled herself
off from the world. It was as though she’d dropped off the face of the earth.

In his heart, Trav had known he was in over his head with this broad and eventually he was able to breath a sigh of relief when she dropped him.

What odd contortions and convolutions the bunch of us have gotten ourselves into over the years, Trav thought. I’d bet heavy money that both Matt and Shaw also had a go at China at one time or another.

While he waited for China to return his call, Trav strolled over to Emily’s cubicle and silently peered over its five-foot wall.

She was sitting there with the telephone receiver in one hand, staring at the opposite wall of her area. Trav watched for a few moments, then exaggeratedly cleared his throat.

Emily jumped at the interruption, then glared at Trav. “How long have you been watching me, you old peeping Tom?”

“Not long, 5 or 10 minutes at the most,” Trav lied.

“Liar! I only came back from the john a couple of minutes ago. Well, what do you want?”

“Whew! Talk about unfriendly. What’s wrong with you?”

“I’m sorry, Trav, I shouldn’t take it out on you. I’ve discovered that I’m having a hell of a hard time calling David Shaw about an interview. I’ve never had this happen to me before and it’s weird.”

“Come on, kid, I’ll do this interview, no sweat.”

“Thanks, I sure wish I could take you up on your generous offer, pal, but it’s a matter of principle now. I can’t let that man throw me.”

Emily shook her head in disgust. “It’s truly bizarre to let this bother me so much.  But no matter what, I’m going to do it.”

With that, Emily emphatically punched in the digits of a phone number and sat waiting for an answer with lips pressed together and frown lines between her eyes.

Trav started to leave her in privacy but she motioned for him to stay.

“May I speak with David Shaw please?” Emily’s voice was firm and serious.

“Yes, I’ll hold.” Emily grimaced up at Trav and covered the mouthpiece before saying, “He’s on another line, of course.”

Just then, David Shaw came on the line and Emily turned her attention to the phone. Trav backed off a little so that he was no longer within her line of sight but so he could still hear her side of the phone conversation with Shaw.

“David, this is Emily Harris with the St. Louis Times. We’re working on an article on Matt Thompson and I’d like to set up a time to interview you about your experiences in working with Matt.”

“Emily Harris—don’t I know you?” Shaw asked.

“Yes, we met several years ago while I was working for Thompson & Associates,” Emily answered.

“Well, of course. Now I remember.” Shaw’s voice took on a certain insider tone.

“When would be a convenient time for an interview, Mr. Shaw?” Emily ignored his cozy tone.

Shaw evidently heard the chilliness in her voice and dropped his warm approach.

“Well, Miss Harris, that’s difficult to say. I’m a very busy man, you know. I probably can’t spare any time in the foreseeable future for an interview about good old Matt.”

“I see. I had understood from Paul Prescott, who as you probably know is our managing editor, that you would be willing to make time for good old Matt.”

There was dead silence at the other end of the line for a few moments and Emily wondered if she’d gone too far in using the Prescott name and if Shaw had hung up.

Then he said, “All right. I can give you half an hour at 4 this afternoon.” There was a ‘take-it-or-leave-it’ tone in his voice that really angered Emily. She thought to herself, Do I really have to take this kind of shit?  And the answer came right
back, Yep, it certainly is, if newspaper reporting is what I want to do for a living.

“I’ll be in your office promptly at 4, David.” Emily couldn’t resist the familiarity but then quickly hung up the phone before she could hear what Shaw’s rejoinder might be.

Trav looked at her, waiting for some comment, and finally said, “Well? Come on, give.”

“Okay, Mr. Nosey, come sit down.” Emily cleared off the papers and magazine stacked on the chair adjacent to her desk and motioned for Trav to sit.

“All I can say is that David Shaw does not want to participate in this interview and boy, do I intend to find out why. I think he’s going to be what you might call an antagonistic interview.”

“You want company?” Trav offered.

“My normal response would be, Hell, no, but in this case that might not be a bad idea. I think a witness to the interview could be a smart thing to have.”

Trav nodded and said, “It’s almost 3 now. Let me go deal with some of the paperwork that’s accumulated over the past couple of days and we’ll leave about 3:30. We can take separate cars so we don’t have to come back downtown.”

Emily agreed and Trav went back to his own cubicle.

Dynatron was located in the county, about 20 miles from the newspaper’s office downtown, and adjacent to the city’s major municipal airport. In fact, one of Dynatron’s buildings had once been the city’s first airport terminal.

Emily and Trav drove out to Dynatron in tandem on the highway, sometimes with Trav leading the way and at other time with Emily in the lead. At one point, as they drove along side by side, Emily glanced over at Trav and found him watching her with
what she thought was a bemused expression on his face. Emily found herself thinking that this business of driving together down the highway was an amazingly intimate experience.

She wished she and Trav had car phones so they could talk with one another. She was surprised at how much she enjoyed talking with Trav.  Somehow in the past couple of days, her old feelings about Trav had surfaced again, from the depths in which
she’d buried them years ago when she discovered he was having an affair with China.

Trav never knew that China had gone out of her way to make sure that Emily was fully aware of their affair and had even shared some of its more intimate details with her.

One thing Emily didn’t know was how and why the affair had ended. It just was over and China moved on to greener pastures. Trav had seemingly not moved on anywhere. Since China, he hadn’t had anyone serious in his life, just a series of brief
encounters.

As she drove, Emily heard two voices badgering her simultaneously in her head.

One was telling her to steer clear of Hank Travis, now and in the future. “Remember how you almost let him know you were falling in love with him and then he turns up with China?”

The other voice was quiet but firm: “If you never take a risk, you’ll never win the brass ring. No pain, no gain, and all that stuff.”

Out loud Emily said, “Enough, enough. I’ll flip a coin or something.  Now leave me alone.”

Just then they reached the airport exit and Emily had to quickly maneuver into the exit lane behind Travis. She could see him checking his rear view mirror to make sure she was right behind him. Somehow that tiny indication of his care and concern
caused a tight feeling in her throat and an ache in her chest.

Once again out loud she said, “I really don’t want or need this complication right now.”

                               CHAPTER 7

Several minutes later, seated in the outer office of Shaw’s impressive executive suite, Emily and Trav exchanged raised eyebrows and conspiratorial grins. Shaw’s receptionist had greeted them in a coolly professional way, saying Shaw would be with
them shortly. In sharp contrast to the austerity of the rest of the Dynatron building, Shaw’s area was decorated elegantly, almost ostentatiously.

After a half an hour wait, during which time Emily and Trav had flipped through the corporate literature stacked on tables around the room, Shaw opened the door of his office.

“Hello, there. Trav, what a surprise to see you. Come in, both of you.” Shaw was in his shirtsleeves and had his tie loosened. But Emily spotted it as an expensive tie and what looked like a custom-made shirt.  Evidently, Dynatron was treating Shaw
well.

Shaw ushered the two reporters into his office and watched their faces for any reaction to its decor.  Antiques, oil paintings, Turkish rugs, created an oasis of beauty in Dynatron’s otherwise utilitarian workplace.

With interest, Emily noted the fact that Shaw had avoided shaking hands with either of them. She remembered some tidbit from the past that Shaw suffered from a morbid, obsessive  fear of germs and supposedly never shook hands with anyone and spent an
exorbitant amount of time washing his hands.

After she and Trav sat down in the two Queene Anne chairs upholstered in a pale blue raw silk arranged in front of Shaw’s desk, Emily took the lead.

“Thank you for agreeing to the interview, David.” Once again she used the familiar term of address and lookeD to see if Shaw had any reaction but if he did, he hid it well.

Shaw made no reply, and Emily continued. “As I told you on the phone, Trav and I are doing an in-depth article on Matt Thompson in conjunction with his receiving the St. Louis Award. In addition to interviewing Matt, we’re also talking with his
family and friends and employees, plus other colleagues, past and present.”

Still Shaw made no comment. Emily reached into her briefcase and pulled out the tape recorder and her notebook. Trav also got out his notebook.

Turning on the tape recorder, Emily plunged into the interview.

                      INTERVIEW WITH DAVID SHAW

EMILY:  When did you first meet Matt Thompson?

SHAW:  Matt and I met 20 years ago next month. I worked for him for a short while, doing all the administrative and budget work for the agency.  Matt was great at public relations but lousy at administration. I did the accounting—including
profitability projections, the personnel matters, things like that.

EMILY:  When and why did you leave Thompson & Associates?

SHAW:  I was there about a year or so. I’d met Clarence Prescott—he was one of Matt’s first clients. Prescott was a shrewd old cookie and I wanted the opportunity that working for him at Dynatron would offer.  Prescott wouldn’t even talk to me at
first, until Matt finally assured him that I was ready for bigger challenges than Thompson & Associates could offer. I started out as Dynatron’s personnel director and eventually became the company’s Director of New Business Development.

EMILY:  Exactly what are your responsibilities in that position?

SHAW:  Excuse me, but isn’t this interview about Matt Thompson or did I misunderstand.

TRAV:  No, Shaw, you didn’t misunderstand. But that kind of question is necessary to give some background to you as part of the article on Matt.

SHAW:  Hmmmm. Well, as Director of New Business Development I have to keep on top of the potential future aircraft needs of various military forces, both ours and foreign countries. I act as a liaison between prospective customers and Dynatron’s
various design components. We work together in a partnership, sometimes with me telling them what the needs are going to be. Sometimes our designers tell me they’ve developed such and such new equipment or a new deisgn idea for an airplane or a
missile and I go out and try to interest one of our past, current, or prospective customers in that new item.

EMILY:  Thank you—that background information will add to the reader’s understanding of your relationship with Matt.

EMILY: How did you first meet Matt Thompson?

DAVID:  I was the accountant at WWK when Jebediah Donovan hired Matt to do public relations for the radio station. At that time, the staff wasn’t all that big so all of us got to know one another fairly well.

EMILY:  What induced you to leave WWK and go to work for Matt?

DAVID:  Money—what else? Matt had fumbled around with an assortment of bookkeepers and ditsy female office managers for about a year and a half when he finally wised up and offered me the whole administrative ball of wax for the agency. Matt is
fairly tight with a buck and he had thought he could get away with hiring cheap support help. But it didn’t work.  He has no head for figures and no understanidng of the financial side of a business. He’s a whiz-bang PR guru but a financial whiz he
ain’t.

EMILY: When you say “money,” what amount are you talking about?

DAVID:  Well, that’s not public information. But I will say that Matt agreed to double what I was making at WWK and to offer me a percentage of the agency’s profits. I wanted an ownership position but Matt had and still has a real obsession with
being totally in control. That’s why he’s so upset now.

EMILY:  Why do you say that?

DAVID:  Well, being forced to sell 51% of his stock is driving him up the wall. He’s stalled around for months now trying to find a loophole in the deal but so far no luck.

TRAV:  I guess I’m lost here—what deal?

DAVID:  Don’t you know about Dynatron taking over Thompson & Associates? I assumed that was the main reason you all were interviewing me.

EMILY:  Of course we’ve heard rumors but nothing official.

DAVID:  It’s still in the unofficial stages but the bottom line is that Dynatron is acquiring a majority ownership in Thomspon & Associates as part of our diversification program.

EMILY:  I can’t believe that Matt Thompson would agree to be bought out. That’s totally against the grain for him.

DAVID:  You’d be right on the money except for one important thing: 20 years ago when Matt established the agency, he borrowed money from Dynatron through Clarence Prescott. Part of the collateral arrangement was a legal agreement that contained a
buy-out clause that Dynatron could exercise with a 30-day notification. This was the only way Clarence could get the Board to authorize the loan.

EMILY:  Why didn’t Clarence just loan Matt the money personally?

DAVID:  The way I understand it, Clarence was cash-poor at that particular point in time—he’d just bought back a whole shitload of outstanding Dynatron stock and couldn’t put his hands on the kind of money that Matt needed.

TRAV:  Why is Dynatron exercising a twenty-year old purchase option and why now?

DAVID:  I guess you could say that that was my advice to the Board of Directors. Our plan is to demobilize our own public relations and advertising divisions and turn those functions over to Thompson & Associates. In addition to saving us hundreds of
thousands of dollars a year, we’ll have the opportunity to make money on our investment in the agency. As you well know, it’s an extremely profitable company and will be an extremely lucrative investment for Dynatron—particularly once the Dynatron
power and deep pockets get behind it.

TRAV: I can’t believe Matt is going to let this happen.

DAVID:  Trav, Emily, don’t you understand? He doesn’t have a choice.  This is being done to him totally against his will. And he isn’t very happy about it, to say the least. I’m really surprised that he didn’t shout it to you in the first five
seconds of your interview with him.  Evidently, he still thinks there’s a way out of this trap and he’s keeping his mouth shut in hopes of finding an escape. But there’s no escape. Even his own attorneys and accountants say he has no choice.  And
here’s the kicker. The original loan agreement he signed 20 years ago requires him to stay as chief executive officer for a period of one year after the acquisition.

TRAV:  But there’s no way...

EMILY:  He’ll never go along...

DAVID:  I do seem to have punched your hot buttons. Let me assure you, boys and girls, he has to go along.

TRAV:  You’re getting a lot of pleasure out of Matt’s predicament, aren’t you, Shaw?

DAVID:  Of course, I am. I engineered it. I am its raison d’etre.

EMILY:  But why?

DAVID: The answer to that is so obvious I’m surprised you even bother to ask the question.  Over the years, Matt has done his best to destroy me. I won’t share the gory details with you, but suffice it to say that at every conceivable opportunity,
Matthew Thompson has stuck it to me with a vengeance.  Now it’s my turn and revenge will be like the nectar of the gods to me.

Trav, Emily, that’s the end of the interview. I would suggest that you pass along to the Times legal staff any portion of my comments that you include in your final article. I am not above initiating litigation on Dynatron’s behalf. And you must
remember that Dynatron is the Times’ largest advertiser by far.

Goodbye and I hope this has been as interesting for you two as it’s been for me.

Trav and Emily walked out of Shaw’s office and out of the Dynatron corporate headquarters in total silence. Outside, standing on the parking lot between their cars parked side by side, they looked at each other in shock.

Trav broke the silence. “Emily, I don’t understand what’s going on here. Shaw is out to get Matt and he’s doing it in the only way that can really hurt Matt and that’s taking away his business.”

“I had no idea that Shaw hated Matt this way.” Emily shook her head slowly, bewildered by what she and Trav had just witnessed. “I guess I’m really surprised that Shaw was tell us all this stuff. He has to know we’ll print it.”

“Will we?” Trav asked, an odd note in his voice.

“What do you mean? Of course we’ll print it. It’ll be the juiciest part of the article—we can lead with it. ‘Matt Thompson Wins Award and Loses Business.’

“Emily, you always were a lousy headline writer but I always thought your judgement was okay. Now think this through. Shaw and Dynatron’s legal staff will never let us print those things—even if we do have them on tape. Besides, Win Prescott and our
top boss at the Times
go way back together. We’re caught right in the middle of the old boys network and believe me that’s not a good place to be.”

“Well, kimo sabe, what do we do now?” Emily looked up at Trav as if for divine guidance.

“Well, kid, I guess we punt. But in the meantime, let’s get out of here. I’m going to go home and call China for an interview. I’ll let you know what happens.” With that, Trav made a half-hearted salute, got in his car and drove off, leaving Emily
standing there staring off in the distance after him.

Late that same afternoon, China was surprised to receive a phone call from Hank Travis. She’d just been packing up her briefcase to go home when her secretary buzzed her.

“There’s a reporter from the Times on line 1—he said his name is Hank Travis. Do you want to take the call?”

China smiled to herself and said “Sure—I’ll talk to him.”

“Hank Travis, a voice from my past. How the hell are you, fellow?” China used her low-pitched seductive voice.

“China, hi, I’m fine. What about you?”

“Can’t complain. What can I do for you?”

Trav switched to his best reportorial style. “Emily Harris and I are working together on an article about Matt Thomas, in conjunction with him receiving the St. Louis Award. We’re in the process of interviewing people who’ve played a role of one kind
or another in Matt’s life and I’d like to have a few minutes of your time for an interview.”

China had started chuckling halfway through Trav’s pitch. When he finished, she said, “Surely you jest, my friend. None of what I would say to you in an interview about Matt would be printable in a family newspaper—you know that. What’s this really
all about?”

Trav thought to himself, she hasn’t changed a bit. She’s just as sharp and perceptive as ever. Now the question is, do I level with her? How much honesty can I afford with good old China.

When Trav didn’t respond immediately, China said, “Hmmm. Well, let’s see if I can figure it out on my own.”

Trav said, “Go ahead, give it a shot.”

He heard some faint humming over the phone line and had a memory flashback of China sitting at her desk in the Thompson & Associates office, concentrating on a project, and humming away.

“How about this scenario? Fact # 1—We all know that Matt Thompson has been one of wheeler/dealers involved in the establishment of the Tribune which, Fact # 2, is now giving the Times a run for its money.  Fact #3 is that Now old Matt has been
awarded the city’s most prestigious honor.  Fact # 4 says that tradition has it that the Times does a splashy love letter to the city about its newest award recipient.  And my conclusion, based on the facts, is that except in this case, the man in
question is going to be roasted rather than toasted by the Times.  I love it!  That’s exactly what’s going on, isn’t it?  Come on, ‘fess up, Trav.”

“I don’t believe it, China. You’re still seeing goblins and gremlins and bogeymen behind every door.” Trav was astonished that she hit on the truth as he saw it so quickly.

“Trav, don’t try to bullshit a bullshitter. The Times is out to fry Matt’s ass and you might as well admit it. Why else would you want to talk to his worst enemy?”

“Okay, you’re right on the money, but don’t tell anyone I said so.  Actually, all I’m doing is surmising the same as you are. The powers that be have played this straight with me. But by assigning Emily and me to the story, two people known not to be
part of the Matt Thompson fan club and by giving us a loaded list of suggested interview candidates, it’s transparently obvious what kind of article they want Em and I to do.”

“Well, how can I help? You must know that I want to be the one holding Matt’s head under the water as he drowns.”

“God, China, do you have to be so gruesome about it?”

“What’s wrong, paper boy, weak stomach after all these years?”

“You’re just as tough and hard-hearted as ever, Miss China Doll.”

“Nobody’s called me that in years. I sort of like it. Well, when do you want to interview me? How about now? I was just on my way out the door. Where are you calling from?  I could meet you at my condo in half an hour or so and give you a drink and
spill my guts, all for publication with total attribution.”

“I’m at my apartment in Soulard.  Do you still live in the Central West End.”

“Yep.” China gave him her address in case he’d forgotten (he hadn’t) and said she’d be home in 30 minutes or less.

Trav hung up the phone and sat there for a few minutes going back over the whirlwind conversation with China. Talking to her was like hurtling through a tornado—it left you breathless and winded and shell-shocked.

Gathering his wits back together, Trav patted his pocket to make sure he had his notebook and then set off for China’s condo.

Once he and China were settled in the condo’s living room in front of a small but brightly burning fire, Trav proceeded to ask questions of China in his best reporter mode.

                      INTERVIEW WITH CHINA SMITH

TRAV:  When and how did you first meet Matt Thompson?

CHINA:  Oooh, Mr. Serious Reporter.  Okay, buddy, that’s how we’ll play—for the time being, at least.  I met Matt Thompson about 6 years ago. He had just been hired to do public relations for the market research firm I was then working for. Within a
couple of weeks, Matt had hired me away to work for his firm. I didn’t have much public relations background but I turned out to be a natural at it.  Took to it like a duck to water, so to speak. I was single and hungry at the time and pretty much
the workaholic. I guess you could say I’d found the place to get the strokes I wanted and needed.
For three years I was the bright and shining star at Thompson & Associates, not meaning to denigrate you and Emily. But I think you will concede that I was top dog, for a few brief shining moments.

TRAV:  Of course, I’ll concede that. There was never any question that you were the best—with the exception of Matt, of course.

CHINA:  I beg to differ with you, Mr. Reporter. I could out-PR Mr. PR any day. Even Matt said I had a genius for public relations that he’d never seen in anyone anywhere.

TRAV:  All right, China. I see your monumental ego is another one of your endearing traits that’s just the same as ever.

CHINA:  Cool it, Trav, if you want me to continue this interview.

TRAV:  Truce, truce. I need the interview. Now, where were we?

CHINA:  Talking about my genius. I’ll continue from there.  Things were going along just peachy-keen till I started getting antsy. I have an abnormally low boredom threshhold so I always need to stir up the water. I decided I wanted some things at
the agency—things like more money, more responsibility, more credit, more everything.  Matt is not known for his employee relations or for playing high salaries or for even giving simple credit where credit is due. He an I started a series of battle
royal, that culminated rather nastily in me making some kind of unthinking threat to jump out the window or to push him, one or the other. That was it, as far as Mr. Matthew Thompson was concerned. I was out and out for good. He even called the
police, but I didn’t stay around for that.

TRAV:  Then what?

CHINA: That’s it as far as Matt is concerned—and as far as the interview goes. Now, off the record and I’ll continue.

China got up and poured a glass of straight Scotch for herself and a Scotch and water for Trav. He smiled slightly to see that she’d remembered what his drink was. China was full of surprises. He’d closed his notebook but had clicked on his memory so
that he could record there China’s subsequent reveleations.

China handed Trav his drink then curled up on one end of the sofa Trav was sitting on and sipped at her own.

“Okay, boy reporter, where were we? Ah yes, what happened to me after I left the august presence of Matt Thompson.  Before I go into that, let me make it clear that that part of my life has no part in the article about Matt Thompson. You can write
whatever you wish up to and the including the point where I left the agency. After that, it’s all verboten.”

China paused and waited for Trav’s agreement. “Sure, China, whatever you say—you’re the boss.”

“Now why is it that I don’t really believe you. Oh well, I can always sue you or the Times if you print what I’m telling you not to print.”

“Trust me, China, trust me.” Trav’s voice was high-pitched and scratchy.

“Sure, old buddy, and the check’s in the mail. Well, whatever, here goes. I went into a first-class tailspin after I left Thompson & Associates. I’m a real workaholic and to be unemployed was anathema to me. I had no identity, I had no purpose. I
quickly found out that at that particular point in time, bright young public relations professionals were a glut on the market. And I had very few contacts other than those from Thompson & Associates. And you remember those wonderful hand-tying
employment contracts that good old Matt had all of sign—practically in blood. The contract prevented us from contacting any past or present clients of the agency for any reason.  That pretty well eliminated the majority of any networking
opportunities I had.”

“What did you do, kid?”

“Well, first I cried—a lot. Then I had a fullblown breakdown, including the requisite hospitalization—the whole nine yards.  Fortunately, my parents were incredibly supportive. I honest to God don’t think I would’ve made it without them. And Em was
super. She was always there for me. I’m afraid I never returned the favor. She and I have totally lost touch and I know it’s my fault. I feel too ashamed now to try and get in touch with her.”

Trav made no comment, well aware of Emily’s negative attitude towards China.

China picked up on Trav’s lack of response to her last statement and understood from that that Emily wouldn’t be interested in hearing from her.

“When I was through being broken down, my dad helped me find a job with his company—he’s comptroller for Dynatron. He got me a job as a project manager. I stayed there about six months. Then at a company party, I met Jebediah Donovan from WWK and
WWK-TV. We hit it off right away and after a few lunches he hired me to do PR for the TV station and that’s where I’ve been ever since.”

“And you’re being phenomenally successful, according to the grapevine that runs between all the various media outlets in town.”

China smiled widely and said, “Yes, I’ve done well. There’s even a possibility that I might move to the network in New York. They’ve offered me a fairly cushy berth there and they’re waiting for an answer—which is way overdue, by the way.”

Trav asked, with a faint note of astonsihment in his tone, “What on earth are you waiting for? I’d think you’d jump at the chance!”

“So one would think. I don’t know what’s holding me back. I think it might be cold feet. I’m the proverbial big frog in a small pond here at WWK-TV. There I’d just be one of a million or so PR professionals.  So there you are-China Smith in a
nutshell.”

Trav gave her some mock applause and drained his drink.

“Now what about Hank Travis? What’s going on in your life since last we spoke? God, that must be at least three years—right when I left Matt.”

Trav noticed that she’d said left Matt not left Thompson & Associates and wondered what significance, if any, that had.

“Same old Trav, not much has changed but the location. Obviously you know I’m a reporter for the Times. It’s good to be back in the newspaper ratrace—PR was just not for me. I’m not getting rich but I do okay. I’m still working on my novel but I’m
not much further along on it than when we...” Trav paused, then continued, “than the last time I let you read it.”

“What about your love life, Travis?” China said it with a leer.

“What love life?” Trav returned the leer. “I’m the original love ‘em and leave ‘em kid. Seriously, or as serious as I’m gonna get, my marriage was enough to permanently scare me off any long-term commitment.”

China nodded, saying, “I know what you mean—boy, do I know what you mean. I’ve been married and divorced twice and I came close to doing it again several times. I don’t know what it is about love and supposedly bright people. You’d think we’d learn
our lesson somewhere along the way. I’ve sworn off marriage but not off men.”

China got up and re-filled their glasses. When she brought back a fresh drink to Trav, she sat down beside him at his end of one of the long beige sofas.

“A toast, Trav. To us and the past and the present and the future?” China put a question mark after future, looking at Trav for any reaction.

“To the future, China.” Trav looked straight back at her and neither of them could mistake the charged message they exchanged.

Trav set his drink down on the glass coffee table and did the same with China’s. He took her in his arms and gave her a gentle hug and feathery, faint kiss.

China leaned her head on his shoulder and whispered in his ear, “Ah, Trav, it’s been such a long time.”

China was wearing a brightly flowered silk caftan which Trav slipped off her shoulders. Underneath she was naked and Trav gasped as he felt her cool skin against his bare arms. He kissed her again, this time with a breathless passion. She responded
and kissed back deeply and with a soft moan. He cupped her breasts gently, feeling once again their firmness and fullness and marveling at their perfect shape.

China stood up slowly, letting the caftan fall to her feet. She stood before him, shimmeringly naked. Her breasts pointed proudly upward, the nipples hard and dark. She reached out her arms to him and as he stood, she pressed her vulva against his
groin and ground herself against his body. This time it was Trav’s turn to moan. They moved together, gasping and panting, hands all over each other, touching each other all over.

Trav tore his clothes off. China whispered, “The bedroom’s in there.” But Trav said, “No, here, that’ll take too long.” He gently lowered China to the sofa and spread her legs with his left leg. He kissed her mouth once more then moved his head down
between her legs and kissed her there. She moaned again and pushed herself up to his tongue. In and out he moved his tongue, its roughness rubbing against her clitoris. Just as China started arching her body, he gently withdrew his tongue and entered
her with his cock.

“God, Trav, you’re enormous—oh, that feels so goddam good.” China wrapped her legs around him tightly and they moved together frantically. In just moments, they came together, exploding in a convulsive burst, crying out.

They lay entwined, their slightly sweaty bodies sticking together.  The living room darkened as dusk fell and still they lay together.  Finally, China unwrapped herlegs from Trav and slid out from under him. She sat for a moment on the floor by the
sofa and looked at Trav in the dim light. He had a small smile on his lips and in his eyes.  She brushed his hair off his forehead and moved her hand slowly down the length of his body to his quiescent cock. Slowly she rubbed it between her fingers
till it grew back to life.

“China,” Trav drawled, what do you think you’re doing?”

“You know very well what I’m doing, my fine cocksman. I want it again and I want it now—but this time I want it in bed. This damn sofa is too damn narrow for decent fucking.”

Trav laughed and got up, following docilely behind China’s wigglingly beautiful ass as she led him into her bedroom.

                              CHAPTER 8

After Trav and Emily left his office, Matt told Teresa to hold all his calls till further notice. Pouring himself a Scotch at the bar hidden in an antique armoire at one side of his office, he sat down on the red chair that faced the window with the
spectacular view of the city. He propped his feet up on the coffee table, leaned back into the chair, and thought to himself what an ordeal that seemingly simple interview had been. Going back over it in his mind, he assured himself that he’d handled
it well, that his answers were straightforward and apparently open and honest.

When Trav and Emily had turned out to be the reportorial team sent to interview him, Matt had been shocked but thought he’d hidden it well.  Of all the staff members on the Times, these were the only who knew him personally, the only ones who’d ever
worked for him.

Matt let his thoughts drift and tried to relax, tried to throw off the tension that gripped him across his shoulders and up his neck.  All his life Matt Thompson had controlled himself, controlled his reactions, and now was no time to abandon the
tools he’d worked so hard and long to craft. He’d perfected the techniques of mind and body control far beyond what most people achieved and prided himself on the fact that he’d created himself, had molded what he was into what he wanted to be.

When Matt was a boy, growing up in the mountain country of Oregon, he learned many lessons from his father, not so many from his mother, and nothing from his sister. She was three years older than Matt and he had despised her then and despised her
still. She had bullied and belittled him from the day he was born, all the while pretending love for her baby brother.

Matt’s father had been a master carpenter. With his hands, George Thompson could create magical wooden cabinetry and could even build a certain kind of elegant furniture that the tourists delighted in.

From the time Matt could walk, he became his father’s constant shadow. Matt learned how to be a man from his father. George had only a chauvinistic tolerance for women. He was firmly convinced that men of course were the superior sex and that God had
put women on earth to serve men. He treated his wife, Luella, with courtesy and kindness but with no respect for her as a person—to him she was only an appendage of him. His daughter, Vera, he practically ignored, assuming that she was Luella’s
responsbility.

But Matt was his pride and joy. He was determined to pass along to the boy his accumulated years of wisdom and the skills he’d developed over the years. He taught the boy carpentry, hunting, fishing, plumbing, driving, how to swim, how to pitch a
baseball, how to ski.  George felt that his life was finally justified, that he could bestow on his son all that life had given to him.

George also passed along to Matt a self-belief and an arrogance that served Matt well in a few ways but betrayed him in most. This arrogance and self-confidence was re-enforced when Matt, as a teenager, left home to attend a well-known military
academy several hundred miles away. At this particular time in the history of the academy, the headmaster imbued in the cadets his own philosophy—you’re the best. Whatever you are, is the right thing.  Whatever you do, is the right thing. You’re
right, no matter what.  For four years, Matt had it drilled into his head that whatever he said or did or had or believed was the right thing, the way it ought to be.  During summer vacations, his father also adhered to this same program of
convincing Matt that he was right.

In college, Matt continued his record of success.  He became editor of the college newspaper, and was elected class president each year.  However, his pride and joy was his high achievement on the debating team. Early in his college career, Matt was
bitten by the debating bug. the debating coach could recognize a winner when he saw one, and proceeded to groom Matt to the point that he became All-American debating champ by his senior year.

Matt’s studies dismayed his father. George couldn’t understand why the boy had chosen to study English and Psychology. Surely these were not the subjects that George would’ve expected his son to choose.  George had anticipated the boy picking
engineering or even law or medicine. The college Matt had chosen was a Catholic one and the young man also developed a strong interest in theology and Church history. The summer between his junior and senior years, he attended a pre-seminary course
that explored whether or not the attendees might have a vocation for the Church. At the end of the session, Matt felt no strong calling and abandoned all thought of becoming a priest, much to the dismay of his devout mother but to the relief of his
non-believer of a father.

Matt had never developed much of an interest in women—attending an all boys military academy and an all-male college didn’t afford much contact with the opposite sex. But one of his sister’s friends had enthusisastically introduced him to the
mysteries of sex and he participated in that particular activity with her whenever and however he could.

In the first semester of his senior year, he took a graduate level psychology course dealing with the psychology of religion, taught by a young nun named Sister Elise. She was a practicing therapist at the college and taught some of the graduate
psychology courses.  Matt was fascinated with Sister’s vocation and devotion to her religion. She wore the white and blue habit of her order, with the wimple exposing only her face.

Matt used to wonder what color her hair was and what she would look like in street clothes. Her face was beuatiful, even in the absence of make-up, with its wide, cheerful smile and eyes that sparkled with life.  He thought she was probably the most
alive person he’d met yet.  Her class was stimulating and he left it each day with his mind racing and thoughts swirling around so fast he could barely remember them.

Even though he’d made an irrevocable decision not to enter the priesthood, Sister Elise’s course engrossed him. She presented logical, well-thought out reasoning behind man’s embrace of religion and the ultimate lifelong embrace of becoming a priest
or a nun.

Halfway through the course, Sister assigned research papers, letting her students choose their own topics. Matt found himself stumped, unable to come up with a topic that interested him and seemed challenging.

One day he stayed after class, waiting for a chance to talk with Sister Elise. Evidently, his classmates found her as interesting as he did. Everday they clustered around her, asking questions, giving opinions, arguing the points she’d discussed that
day. This was the first time Matt had ever joined the group that gathered around her desk. Somehow in the back of his mind he’d decided it would be demeaning to himself to hang around like some sophomoric, star-struck nerd, which is how he viewed the
hangers-on that Sister Elise attracted. But now, as he listened to the lively discussion raging around him, with Sister Elise at the eye of the hurricane, he got caught up in it and found himself wanting to participate. But he forced himself to
remain aloof and waited silently for the group to dissipate. Slowly, one by one, the other students drifted away, having other classes to attend or a job to go to.

Matt had no immediate commitments and could afford to wait as long as necessary to have a moment alone with Sister Elise. Finally, there was just one other student left besides himself. It was someone he didn’t know, not a regularly enrolled student,
just someone who was taking a course here and a course there.

Sister Elise had started gathering up the books and papers strewn across the desk and was stuffing them into a well-worn navy blue backpack. Matt started fidgeting, trying to will the other student on his way. The man finally left, and Matt and
Sister Elise were alone in the classroom.

She looked up at Matt, and said quietly but with a smile on her lips and in her eyes, “What can I do for you, Matt?”

“Ah, Sister Elise, I’m having some trouble coming up with the right topic for my paper. Everything I think of seems too boring or too sophomoric or too overdone. I’ve wracked my brains and now time is getting short and I’ve got to get started on
this. I thought perhaps you might be willing to give me some suggestions or at least get me headed in the right direction”

Still smiling, Sister Elise, said, “Of course I’ll help—you should have come to me sooner.”

Matt hesitated, then replied, “Yes, I know. But it seemed like failure or a defeat if I couldn’t do it on my own.” He caught Sister’s Elise’s appraising, assessing look and responded to that, although she hadn’t said a word.

“All right, maybe that’s an overreaction on my part or too perfectionistic an approach but that’s the way I am.”

Still Sister Elise didn’t say anything and Matt started to feel uncomfortable. She seemed to suddenly realize that she was making him uncomfortable, both physically and mentally, and gestured for him to sit down in the chair at the side of her desk.

“I’m sorry, I was thinking about possible topics for you. You’re one of the best students in the class and I want to make sure we find an area that’s going to interest you and prove to be a challenge. Why don’t you tell me a little bit about
yourself, what you’re studying, what career you plan to go into, that kind of thing. That would help me get a better idea of what topic would be most stimulating for you to tackle.”

Matt hesitated, unused to anyone wanting to know, really know things about him. He was so used to everyone else’s self-absorption that the idea of another person asking him to tell about himself took him by surprise.

“Well, I’m a senior here, majoring in English and minoring in psychology. At one time, I flirted with the idea of entering the priesthood but decided at camp last summer that that wasn’t the right thing for me. I haven’t decided exactly what I’m
going to do when I graduate although I have a couple of ideas—I could always teach English. I’ve taken a few marketing courses here and there and I think I could get into advertising or public relations.”

“Why did you take this course?” asked Sister Elise.

“I’m interested, no, make that fascinated with psychology and the way the human mind works. After having gone through the potential of entering the priesthood, I thought perhaps studying the psychology of religion could tell me why I decided not to
become a priest and why some of my camp-mates decided to.”

“And have you gained any insight into that?”  Sister Elise’s question gently interrupted Matt.

“I think I have, I think...”

Once again sister Elise gently interposed herself between Matt’s words. “Excuse me for interrupting again,  but perhaps that insight, that knowledge would serve as a good topic for your research paper.”

Quickly, Matt thought over Sister’s suggestion, and broke into a wide grin. “Of course, that’s absolutely perfect—that’s why I’m taking the course, anyway. And I could interview some of my camp-mates, both the ones who’re entering the seminary and
those who’ve, like me, decided the priesthood is not for them.”

Matt and Sister Elise walked out of the classroom together and both headed outside.

“Thanks so much, Sister. That’s such a burden off my mind.”

“I’m looking forward to reading your paper, Matt. And please, if you have any more questions or problems, don’t hesitate to talk to me.”

“I certainly will! I should’ve talked to you weeks ago.” Matt gave Sister Elise a jaunty half-salute and walked briskly off campus, leaving her standing by the nun’s quarters at the edge of campus.

Over the next few weeks, Matt developed the habit of staying after class and participating in the lively post-class discussions swirling around Sister Elise’s desk. He also was generally the last to leave and usually was the one to walk Sister to her
quarters. They’d developed an easy, comfortable way with one another, one thinker to another, without regard to student, teacher, nun, man, woman—just one mind communicating with another.

Matt’s paper easily earned an A+ and Sister Elise submitted it to the college council for publication consideration in the school’s annual anthology of the top ten research papers, covering all the subjects taught, and derived from the entire student
body.

As a freshman, Matt had had one of his papers included in the anthology and felt honored to be considered once again.

When the course was over and Matt was on his way home for Christmas break, he thought a lot about the course and Sister Elise. In his final semester, he’d signed up for another of her courses, this one on the psychology of creativity and achievement.

One of Matt’s secret hobbies, known only to himself, was writing. For his own pleasure and gratification, over the past couple of years, he’d written several short stories, some poetry, a few essays, and had started keeping a journal on a fairly
regular basis.

During the three weeks between semesters, Matt wrote a short story built around Sister Elise. He allowed himself to fantisize about her and her personality and life—all things that he didn’t have the vaguest notion about. She had never talked about
herself personally, only about her thoughts and beliefs, but nothing about her background or who she was personally.

Matt created a whole life for her, a past filled with life and love and people, ending in a tragic loss of lives and loves that led her to become a nun.

The plot of the story revolved around one of her students falling in love with her and her refusal and inablity to recognize and acknowledge that love. She ignores the young man, who eventually takes his own life. Still she ignores the part she
played in the tragedy and goes on her way, seemingly so caught up in her religious vocation and her secular teaching vocation that she’s out of touch with reality and with the world. The story ends with another young male student becoming attracted
to the nun and her giving him the same treatment she gave the young man who committed suicide.

The tone of the story was somber but the words jumped off the page at the reader. Matt had a raw unformed talent for fiction—he had the kind of language and writing skill that drew the readers in and captured their interest and their concentration.
The story was transparently clear to anyone who knew Matt and Sister Elise. He didn’t show it to anyone, just kept it in a desk drawer in his dorm room.

One day when Matt was out, his roommate, Jeff Layton, had run out of pens and was rummaging through Matt’s desk looking for one to borrow.  He found the story, and being a curious sort, quickly read through it. Being late for class, he shoved it back
in the drawer and left the room. But the story stayed in his mind. He and Matt were fairly close and it bothered Jeff that his friend was evidently involved with a nun, one of the college’s teachers, and one who obviously didn’t return Matt’s
interest.

Over the next few days, Jeff debated what if anything to do. He tried to subtly raise the subject with Matt but got nowhere. Matt was enthusiastic about the class with Sister Elise but that seemed to be the extent of anything. Jeff wavered, thinking
perhaps the story was total fiction, with no basis in fact or reality.

Then one afternoon, Jeff happened to see Matt and Sister Elise strolling together across campus coming from the classroom building and heading toward her quarters. Jeff followed some distance behind them, watching closely, trying to discern what they
were to each other. The discussion between Matt and the nun was lively, Jeff could see that easily despite the distance. He could also see the intense expressions on each of their faces, a total engrossment and absorption seldom seen between two
people.

The two of them stood outside the nun’s quarters, continuing their conversation. Finally, Sister Elise raised her hand as if to wave good-bye to Matt and Matt reached out and took her hand in his. He held only for a brief moment but at that instant,
Jeff was convinced that Matt and Sister Elise were somehow involved with each other.  Shocked and upset, Jeff turned back and headed toward the dormitory.

Back in the room, he once again took out Matt’s short story and sat down on his bed to read through it again. Coming on the heels of what he’d just witnessed between Matt and Sister Elise, Jeff started to get really worried.

Hearing Matt whistling outside in the hallway, Jeff frantically stuffed the story under his mattress and lay back, trying to look as if he were napping.

Matt came boisterously through the door, then paused as he saw Jeff apparently sleeping. He gently closed the door and went into the bathroom and shut that door. Slowly and carefully, Jeff raised and pulled the story from under his mattress and put
it in his briefcase and slid the briefcase under the bed. Time enough tomorrow to decide what if anything to do.

The next day, Jeff fretted and stewed, determined to help his friend but not knowing what would be the best thing to do. He could take the story to the dean and let him deal with it. Or he could confront Matt with it and demand that Matt stop his
involvement with Sister Elise.  Or he could take the story to Sister Elise and insist that she back off from Matt.

In the end, Jeff decided on the latter option. That evening he took his briefcase out from under his bed and left the room, mumbling words that Matt interpreted as “going to the library.”

Jeff walked from the dormitory across campus to the nun’s quarters, walking quickly and decisively to prevent himself from chickening out.  He didn’t want to do this. It wasn’t going to be an easy or pleasant thing. If there were any other way...

Outside the Mother House as the nun’s quarter’s were called, Jeff stood looking up at the dusky red brick building, feeling awkward and unsure of himself. Bracing his shoulders, he shifted the briefcase to his other hand and strode purposefully
through the heavy steel and glass double doors.  Inside, he gazed around, trying to figure out how he could summon Sister Elise. Just as he had about given up hope, a young novitiate came into the foyer and said in a soft, meek voice, “May I help you
please?”

Jeff breathed a sigh of relief and replied, “Oh yes, if you could. I need to see Sister Elise.”

“Of course,” said the novitiate. “If you’ll wait just one moment, I’ll fetch Sister.” She hurried away, her long blue skirt swishing against the hardwood floor.

Jeff waited what seemed like an eternity. Finally, a tall, extremely attractive nun walked into the foyer.

She smiled, extended her hand, and said, “Hello, I’m Sister Elise.  What can I do for you?”

Jeff mumbled, “I’m Jeff Layton.” Sister Elise interrupted, saying, “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you.”

Jeff repeated, “I’m Jeff Layton. I’m Matt Thompson’s roommate—he’s one of your students.”

“Is there something wrong with Matt? Is he all right?” Sister Elise frowned as she asked.

“Well, he’s all right physically, if that’s what you’re asking. But I guess I’m here because I’m afraid he’s not all right in some other ways.”

“What do you mean?” Sister Elise’s voice had lost its friendly, helpful tone and had taken on a serious firmness.

Jeff didn’t answer. He set his briefcase down on a small table next to him, opened it and took out the short story Matt had written.

“Sister, I have a story here that Matt wrote and that’s really upset me. He doesn’t know I have it—he doesn’t even know I know about it.  I’m really worried about Matt and I just don’t know what to do. I thought about going to the dean but decided
that perhaps if you were able to do something, that would be better.”

“I don’t understand. What does a story Matt’s written have to do with me?”

“You’ll see when you read it.”

Sister Elise moved over to one of the hard-backed chairs in the foyer and sat down to read the story.

Jeff watched her closely as she read. Her face paled and her breathing became heavy. Jeff noticed that her hands had started trembling and that she was frowning as she turned the pages.

Finally, as she finished, she looked up at Jeff, who was still standing across the foyer from her.

“Jeff, surely you must know, you must realize, this is totally fiction. None of this story is true. The only part that bears any resemblance to the truth is that Matt is a student in one of my classes. All of the rest is just his imagination.”

“That’s sort of what I thought but it still scares me—the part about suicide. I don’t want to take the chance that Matt’ll do something stupid.”

“Jeff, didn’t you hear me? Didn’t you understand what I said? This is all fiction. None of it true. And that means there isnt’ the remotest chance that Matt is going to take his own life.” Sister Elise’s voice held a strong undertone of anger. She
could feel the anger surging through her and one part of her mind probed for the cause of that anger.

Jeff heard the anger and it puzzled him. He didn’t know how to respond to Sister Elise’s reaction.

“Well, what can you do?” he asked.

“There isn’t any need to do anything, as far as I can see. Matt has written, very well I might say, a short story that’s total fantasy.  You’re overreacting, to put it mildly. I think you should put this story back where you found it—and I think you
should hope that Matt never finds out that you took it and that you brought it to me. I would assume that he would be furious at your betrayal and lack of trust.”

Jeff cleared his throat and tried to speak but couldn’t. He felt that something was very wrong here, and he felt it very deeply. Sister Elise’s reaction was a total surprise to him. He had expected her to share his fear and dismay and for her to take
some kind of immediate and definitive action. Instead she was arguing with him about whether or not a problem even existed.

Sister Elise stood up and walked over to where Jeff stood. She thrust Matt’s short story at him, and said, “Now, put that back where you found it and forget this whole thing.” Her expression was one of barely contained fury. She turned briskly on her
heel and strode out of the room, leaving behind a bewildered Jeff.

He left the nun’s quarters and wandered around campus for awhile, oblivious to the beautiful spring night. Now what, he thought to himself. Part of him wanted to abandon the whole thing, to say he’d done his best and there wasn’t anything else he
could do.

But Jeff had a strong streak of controlling in his personality and it went against the grain for him to abandon his efforts when he knew he was right about something. This had gotten him into deep trouble many times in the past but he’d never learned
his lesson. In fact, once before he’d interfered in Matt’s life, about a girl Matt was dating that Jeff considered unsuitable and unworthy. Matt had blown his stack at Jeff’s interference and had ordered him to never involve himself in Matt’s private
business again. So Jeff knew there was no way he could talk with Matt about the Sister Elise situation.

His only recourse was to take the short story to the administration.  But he didn’t want to do it in person so he decided he’d send the story with an anonymous letter giving the tru-life identities of the story’s characters.

The next morning he typed a short letter, detailing the background of the story and giving Matt’s and Sister Elise’s names. Rather than trust the document to the post office, he went to the administration building and hung around until he could slip
the envelope on the dean’s secretary’s desk without anyone seeing him.

Heaving a sigh of relief at having done his duty, he went back to the dorm, feeling as though a mighty burden had been lifted from his shoulders.

Matt was in class and Jeff had the room to himself. He stretched out on his bed, hands behind his head, feeling very virtuous at having dealt with his friend’s problem.

He was just starting to doze off when Matt charged into the room, yelling, “What the hell do you think you’re doing, Layton?”

Jeff jumped up, startled into instant wakefulness. “What’re you talking about?” he asked.

“You know very well what I’m talking about. You stole my short story and showed it to Sister Elise. How dare you do that! How dare you go behind my back—I’ll make you pay for this, old buddy, if it’s the last thing I ever do.”

“But...but how did you find out?” Jeff stuttered.

“Sister Elise confronted me after class today, you dumbo, how do you think I found out. You really upset her and scared her. I’m going to beat the living daylights out of you, turkey.” Matt doubled up his fists and moved towards Jeff. Jeff put up his
arms to ward off any punches Matt might try.

“Now wait a minute. I only did it for your own good. You were getting yourself into deep shit and it was up to me to do something about it.”

“No, it wasn’t.” Matt screamed. “I’ve had it with you messing in my life. I’m getting out of here and I’m getting out now. But first I’m gonna teach you a lesson you’ll never forget!” With that, Matt punched Jeff point-blank on the jaw and sent him
reeling backwards onto his bed.

Jeff lay there, dazed, rubbing his jaw and staring at the madman standing in front of him.

Matt whirled around and started piling his books and papers in the middle of his bed. He got a suitcase and an empty cardboard box out of the closet and threw his things in them.

Without a word, Matt picked up the box and the suitcase and stalked out of the room, not bothering to shut the door behind him. One of their next door neighbors tentatively stuck his head around the doorjamb and asked, “You okay, Layton?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jeff mumbled. “Shut the door, will you guy?”

“Sure.”

Jeff lay there for what seemed like hours, his head throbbing from Matt’s punch. Finally he got up and went into the bathroom for some aspirin. Matt had gone through the bathroom like a tornado, grabbing up all his toilet articles and leaving the
place in mass disarray.  Jeff took a couple aspirin, then tried to create some semblance of order out of the chaos in the bathroom and on Matt’s side of the room.

“I wonder where he went,” Jeff thought to himself.

Jeff never talked directly to Matt again. All hell broke loose for Matt when the dean read the short story. He called in Matt and Sister Elise separately and talked to both of them.  Both denied any impropriety.  Matt insisted that the story was
total fiction, that none of it had any basis in truth. Sister Elise was just as adamant.  But the dean didn’t believe either of them, being of the mind that where there’s smoke, there’s fire.

The dean arranged for Sister Elise’s immediate transfer to another location of her sisterhood; her classes were assumed by one of the other psychology professors on the faculty.

Matt was put on academic suspension; he would not be able to graduate with his class that May and would have to spend the ensuing summer in residence at the college doing make-up classes.

Months later, Matt heard that Sister Elise had entered a restricted convent and had taken a life vow of silence. For Matt, that was worse than hearing that she had died. For such an alive, vibrant human being to never again share that life and that
vibrancy with the world seemed to him a fate worse than death.

                              CHAPTER 8A

The next afternoon Emily and Trav drove out together to Matt and Jacqueline Thompson’s country home in far west county. Matt’s secretary had called that morning and told them Matt wanted to hold the interview at the Thompsons’ country place rather
than at their Central West End condo.

According to Teresa, Matt’s long-time secretary/right arm, “The Thompsons spend about half their time at Cedar Grove and the other half at the condominium.”

The weather was sunny and cool, one of St. Louis’ few beautiful spring days.  As they drove, Emily and Trav, both native St.  Louisans, laughed together, remembering the parting remark of one of their newspaper colleagues, transplanted from the East
Coast.

“I don’t understand St. Louis weather,” Craig Houseman, the paper’s TV critic, had said to them for perhaps the umpteenth time.  “According to my best calculations, the city averages 5.5 days of spring weather and 9.5 days of fall weather—otherwise
it’s winter or summer. What a place!  And besides that, you’re just as apt to have spring in the middle of winter and fall in the middle of summer.  Whatever—,” he had paused there and then continued even more vehemently, “Oh, and the weather
changes on a moment by moment basis, with no predictability.  No wonder there’s such a huge turnover in on-air weather forecasters.  After a week on the tube here, tyring to forecast the bizarre St. Louis weather situation, they lose whatever
credibility they brought with them.”

Expounding on St. Louis’ lousy weather was only one of Craig’s several ongoing diatribes, all of them aimed at what he termed “this uncharming provincial outpost of my exile.” No matter that the Times was paying Houseman in excess of $100,000 plus an
assortment of related perks. He had assumed an unrelenting posture of constant, unremitting complaining—which carried over into his ascerbic, bitter, carping column on the current state of television.  However, Houseman was the second-most-read
Times columnist and, in management’s judgement, worth every penny he cost the newspaper.

Emily glanced around the interior of Trav’s 10-year old sedan,
which looked just as scruffy as its owner.  He’d made a perfunctory gesture of cleaning and straightening as she’d climbed in, throwing the discarded fast food bags and soft drink containers into the back seat, which already boasted stacks of
newspapers and some empty grocery bags.

It was a 45-minute drive out to Cedar Grove, and for the most part, Emily and Trav were each lost in his and her own thoughts. As they neared the Thompson’s place, Trav started musing about the Thompson marriage, a relationship he’d never been able
to figure out.

“You know, kid, once upon a time, way back when, Jacqueline did a real come-on with me. It never amounted to anything but Matt started suspecting something was really going on and that’s when things blew up between us,” Trav frowned and then
continued.  “I guess Queen Jacqueline was going through one of her bored phases and just wanted to stir up the natives.”

A few minutes later Trav said, “I never could see the two of them together. Jacqueline is the most selfish, self-centered bitch I’ve ever known. Thompson’s not Mother Teresa but he’s at least human. I don’t think Jacqueline’s ever drawn an
uncalculating breath in her life...”

Emily interrupted Trav with, “Come on, Travis, isn’t that a bit heavy, even for you?”

“Nah, I don’t think so. Just watch her during the interview this afternoon. You’ll see right off what I’m talking about.”

They rode the last few miles in silence. The scattered houses had given way to mile after mile of farmland and woods. Matt had found himself an isolated paradise to which he could retreat at a moment’s notice.  To himself, Trav thought, there’s no
way Jacqueline Thompson spends half her time here, no matter what Teresa says. It’s too country and too off the beaten track for her tastes.  Knowing her, she wants to be where the action is.

The turnoff to Cedar Grove was marked by stone gateposts at the entrance to a black-topped drive, bounded on either side by sparkling white wooden fencing which wound up the gentle slope to the hill on which the Thompson’s house sat.

Trav came to a loud stop in the circular driveway. The house was huge—stone and glass mixed with cedar siding and a cedar shake roof, sprawling here and there.  Matt had made it a practice to not mix home with work—none of the people from Thompson
& Associates had ever seen either his city or his country home—with the glaring exception of China Smith.  China had spent many weekends here at Cedar Grove, according to her Monday morning reports to Emily. It hadn’t been clear whether Mrs. Matthew
Thompson was in residence during those country weekend idylls. Emily had surmised Jacqueline’s absence but hadn’t directly asked China.

As Trav and Emily were getting out of the car, a large golden retriever came bounding from the side of the house towards them. He greeted them with much barking and wagging of his tail. A moment later, Matt, too, came from around the side of the
house, laughing at the exuberant welcome his dog was giving the two reporters.

“Paulie, quiet down,” Matt called. He walked up to the dog and took hold of his collar, holding him back from Emily and Trav.

“Welcome, to Cedar Grove,” Matt said. “Excuse me for not shaking hands but if I don’t hold on to Paulie he’s liable to lick you to death.”

“Nice dog, nice place,” Trav offered.

“Thanks,” Matt said. “Why don’t you two go on in—the front door’s open—while I put Paulie back in the kennel.”

Emily and Trav made sure they had all their various paraphernalia—tape recorder, 35mm camera, video camera, notebooks—from the car.  They walked slowly up the stone walkway leading to what they assumed was the massive house’s front door. Just as
they stepped onto the broad veranda that seemed to encircle the entire house, the door opened and Jacqueline stood there.

“Emily, Trav, how good to see you again.”  She took a step forward, both hands outstretched in welcome. Her long dark hair was pulled back from her face and tied with a black chiffon scarf at the base of her neck. Dressed in black silk trousers, a
long-sleeved, plunging neckline white silk blouse, black hose, and black heels, she was an attractive blend of country casual and city elegance.

“Hi, Jackie,” Trav deliberately used the nickname he knew she detested.

“Jacqueline, how are you?” Emily smiled widely, more in amusement at Trav’s use of the hated name than in pleasure at seeing Jacqueline again. Emily and Jacqueline had never gotten along when Emily worked for Matt.  Jacqueline had played “Lady of the
Manor” and “Boss’ Wife” once too often for Emily’s ego. Their relationship was one of a cool and polite distance and a studied avoidance of one another.

Trav and Emily followed Jacqueline into the house and then into a large, glass-enclosed room encompassing what seemed to be the entire rear portion of the house. The room was two stories high and had a ceiling studded with skylights. At one end of
the room was a stone fireplace tall enough for a man to stand in. The room’s decor was stunningly spectacular, obviously another of Jacqueline’s decorating projects.  Done in earth tones with pale blue accents, the room seemed to bring the outdoors
inside. Its wall of windows overlooked a wooded hill located just fifty feet or so from the back of the house.  Tiny spring flowers covered the slope, a mass of color amidst the delicate green of the trees’ new leaves.

As Trav and Emily were setting down their equipment, Matt came in from a door off to one side of the room.

“Well, guys, what do you think of my—our country hideaway?” he asked.

“Very, very impressive, man,” Trav answered.

“Do we get a tour?” Emily asked, knowing there was no way the Thompsons could resist displaying their showplace of a country home.

“Of course,” Jacqueline answered.  “We’ll do that right now. But may I get you a drink first, before we start?”

Trav and Emily looked at each other questioningly, then both answered no. “Maybe something after we finish the tour,” Emily added.

Matt, dressed in khaki slacks and a light blue, soft-looking terry-cloth shirt, said, “I’ll let Jacqueline give you the decorating details and I’ll give you all the construction goodies—I designed the house myself, you know.”

“Oh?” Trav said. “Somehow I never thought of you as an architect.”

“I would imagine there are a lot of things about me that would surprise you, Travis.”

Emily was surprised at Matt’s brisk tone and his unaccustomed use of Trav’s full last name and wondered if that was a sign that this afternoon’s interview would not be as friendly and smooth as the one yesterday.  She hoped that would be the case—in
the previous interview, Matt’s pose as the syrupy charmer hadn’t rung true.

Emily’s mind kept wandering as the four of them toured the Thompson’s magnificently rustic country home. Rather than concentrating on Matt and Jacqueline’s tour spiel, she found her mind working overtime in speculation about their marriage. This was
the first time she’d ever spent any appreciable time in the presence of both of the Thompsons and they were a fascinating combo to observe.

Not once did the Thompson’s touch one another, not even accidentally.  Nor did they ever see to look one another directly in the eye.  As they walked in and out of rooms and up and down stairs, Matt and Jacqueline’s comments and explanations acted as
a counterpoint to her mind’s busy antics.  They said all the right words about each other in regard to the house, but somehow to Emily’s prejudiced ears, the words rung false.

Equipment slung around his neck, Trav alternated between taking pictures with the 35mm camera and shooting video as they walked around, while Emily concerned herself with jotting down notes about the house and its construction and decoration.  Trav
had debated whether or not to do the photography for the article himself and had finally decided it would be less complicated and less distracting for the Thompsons if he were the photographer.  His background included a lot of photography work for
the paper and with Emily along to take notes and handle the tape recorder, shooting some pics would be a snap for him.

The video camera was a last-minute brainstorm: a couple of times before, he’d used it to provide background reminders for articles and because it had worked amazingly well, Trav decided to try the technique with today’s interview.

When the tour was finished, the four went back into what Matt called the “Great Room,” and settled themselves in the seating area that looked out towards the woods.  Gesturing to the  bar off to one side of the seating area, Matt had offered drinks
or coffee. Emily and Trav chose coffee, which Jacqueline brought from the kitchen.

Emily wondered where the Thompsons’ servants were hiding out. Surely they had help out here. Deciding that was an appropriate question for the interview, she asked, “How many servants do you need to keep this place running?”

Matt and Jacqueline exchanged a quick glance and then Matt answered.  “Well, that varies. It really depends on how long we’re out here and whether we’re doing entertaining, that kind of thing. Obviously, we need someone to do the yard maintenance
work and the pool work, but we use a service company for that.” Matt stopped there and looked at Emily, as if to see if his rather vague answer had satisfied her. It hadn’t but she let it go.

As the interview progressed, Emily, remembering Trav’s indictment of Jacqueline as the most self-centered person he’d ever known, watched for signs of her ego.  Over and over again, Emily was struck by
how on-target Trav’s assessment was.  At every opportunity, albeit subtly and unobtrusively, Jacqueline interjected a remark or a comment or an opinion.  To hear Jacqueline tell it, she had been
an integral part of Matt’s success, had been closely involved in his company, and involved with Matt’s being honored with the St. Louis Award.  She even went so far as to say she felt deeply grateful for being able to share in Matt’s award.

Matt seemed oblivious to Jacqueline’s intrusion on the interview, but made sure to follow up every comment or remark she made, and his follow-up comments clearly outdid hers, posturing him as King of the Hill.

After awhile, Emily tired of their ego-serving answers to her questions and decided to have some fun with these two. She started playing one off the other, deliberately baiting them. Each of them kept trying to top the other, to the point that they
were raising their voices louder and louder. Eventually, they stopped directing their remarks toward Emily and started shouting at each other.

Emily and Trav sat back, smiling benignly, watching, letting the tape run, capturing this battle royal between the Thompsons. Finally, Matt intercepted one of the smug glances Trav and Emily exchanged and stopped in mid-shout.

As if suddenly realizing what fools he and Jacqueline had made of themselves, Matt tried to recoup some lost ground and regain some lost credibility.

“Well, as you can see, both Jacqueline and I have extremely strong opinions on a variety of subjects. I’m sure much of that wouldn’t be of interest to anyone—what say we start the tape over and get some good stuff on it.” Matt reached over towards
the tape recorder, as if to stop it.

Trav reached out and pulled the recorder closer to him, obviously guarding it from Matt’s interference.

“No, old buddy, what we’re getting is just fine—right, Emily?”

“Right!” Emily agreed emphatically.

Matt frowned, stood up, and paced a few steps to one side and then the other. Trav and Emily could almost see the wheels turning inside Matt’s head, as if he were debating with himself whether or not it was worth making a real issue out of the tape.
Evidently deciding against pushing the point, Matt went over to the bar and poured himself a drink.

“Sure I can’t get something stronger for you two?” he asked. Both Trav and Emily said no but Jacqueline asked for a Bloody Mary.  Matt quickly threw together the semblance of the drink she’d asked for and joined them again.

Emily and Trav started taking turns asking questions, going back over ground they’d previously covered, especially Matt’s connections with Dynatron and the part he’d played in starting up the Tribune.

“How exactly did you get involved with the Tribune—I’m not real clear on how that came about?” Trav asked.

Matt hesitated, almost imperceptibly, before answering. “That’s a fairly long, involved story but I guess one that’s key to this article.

“My initial involvement goes way back—maybe as long as ten years ago when I established ADNEWS—you both remember that?”

ADNEWS was a weekly tabloid Matt had published, targeted towards the advertising and public relations community in St. Louis. It had contained a variety of information on marketing communications concerns—personnel notes (promotions, new-hires,
firings, etc.), account information ( who had waht account, what account was up for grabs).

“Eventually, ADNEWS evolved into the St. Louis Business News Weekly.  From there, the next logical step was a daily newspaper to compete with the Times. I had always been a vociferous believer that a city the size of St. Louis needed two daily
newspapers in order to give people a fair and accurate representation of the news.

“I found some investors—venture capital people, actually—who agreed with my assessment and thought another daily paper would be a profitable investment. It took about two years for me to put the whole package together. What make it easier was the
progression from ADNEWS to the Business Weekly to the Tribune—each one just sort of led to the next step and a lot of the same people came along—the whole thing was unbelievably easy and smooth.”

Trav interjected, “Now, Matt, that’s not exactly the way I heard the story told.”

Matt looked Trav straight in the eye and challenged, “What did you hear?”

Trav said, “Well, the street version is that you couldn’t find legitimate investors and that you finally had to go to guys that supposedly have mob connections. The Tribune is said to be funded with syndicate money, not venture capital.”

Matt’s face reddened as he responded, “That’s a goddam lie, Travis, and I resent your saying that.”

“Thompson, you know as well as I do that’s what the talk on the street is—this is not some lie of mine—this is what the rumors are.  I just wanted to give you the opportunity to refute what some knowledgeable people are saying about the way the
Tribune is being funded.”

Matt visibly made an effort to pull himself together and to control his anger. “Well, that may be what ‘they’—whoever ‘they’ are—are saying on the street—but it’s still a goddam lie and not worthy of my attention.”

All during this confrontation between Matt and Trav, both Emily and Jacqueline had been silent, each listening intently but not saying a word. At the pause in the interview, Jacqueline stood up and said, before striding out of the room, “You’ll have
to excuse me for a few moments.”

Matt had started to protest her departure but swallowed his words.  Emily thought to herself, ‘What an odd thing for Jacqueline to do in the midst of a heated interchange.’

The silence continued, as though Matt and Trav had reached an impasse and didn’t know how to pick up the threads of the interview.

In the midst of the silence, Emily reached over to change the tape on the tape recorder and in the process spilled her half-full cup of cold coffee onto the coffee table and the carpeted floor. Matt and Trav both jumped up to help her clean it up, as
if grateful for the distraction. As the three of them were crawling around on the floor, mopping up the table the carpet with tiny paper napkins from the coffee server tray, Jacqueline returned to the room.

For a moment, she stood in the arched doorway, confused at what was going on. When she finally surmised what had happened, she started laughing. The three others looked up, startled at the sound, pausing in their activity. They all looked at one
another and started laughing also.

Jacqueline said loudly, in between chuckles, “Don’t worry about it—someone will take care of it later.” She strolled back over to the the seating area, eyes bright, head held back in a more arrogant pose than previously. She seemed to exude more
energy and vivacity than before.

Emily, puzzled at Jacqueline’s absence and the difference in her aura now, asked, “Are you feeling all right, Jacqueline?”

“I’m feeling great—but why do you ask?”

“Oh, no reason in particular,” Emily replied slowly, realizing
that the difference she had perceived in Jacqueline’s behavior probably was due to some kind of drug use.

“Hmmmm—well, anyway, what have I missed?” Jacqueline asked brightly.  “Other than the spilling mishap, I mean.”

For a few moments, no one answered. Jacqueline looked at each in turn and said, teasingly, “Oh my, it looks like I really did miss something? Were you all talking about me?” She seemed to preen as she said the words.

Emily, fed up to the gills with Jacqueline’s egocentricity, said acidly, “No, Jacqueline, strange as it may seem, we were not talking about you. At least I don’t think we were. The topic under discussion was the supposed funding of the Tribune with
syndicate money. What do you know about that?”

The smile on Jacqueline’s lips faded away and a tiny frown appeared on her forehead.

“Syndicate money? Why on earth would you think the Tribune was funded with syndicate money?” The shrillness of her voice contrasted with her normal low-pitched, perfectly controlled tone.

Matt stood up abruptly, standing between Jacqueline and Emily and Trav, and effectively blocking their view of his wife.

“Trav, Emily, I really think that’s enough interviewing for the day.  Can I get you anything else before you leave?”

Trav and Emily were speechless, shocked at this abrupt dismissal.  There was something really weird going on around here and it looked like they weren’t going to have the opportunity to find out what it was.

Both Trav and Emily murmured negative replies to Matt’s offer and started gathering up their things.

“I’ll see you to your car,” Matt said. “Darling, would you check on Paulie, make sure the kennel gate is shut tight so he doesn’t get out?”

Jacqueline started to protest, then stopped. She said a brief goodbye to Trav and Emily and went out the side way to the kennel.

Matt accompanied Trav and Emily to Trav’s car. He kept his hands in his slacks pockets and made no effort to help them with their things or to shake hands goodbye with them. As soon as they were in the car, Matt turned abruptly and walked off towards
the back of the house, leaving Emily and Trav staring bemusedly after him.

“I’d say we’ve been well and truly dismissed by Mr. High and Mighty,” Emily said. “Wouldn’t you agree?”

“And how,” Trav concurred. “Boy, Em, there’s something weird going on there. First Jacqueline leaves to go take a snort of something, then Matt stonewalls on the syndicate money thing. I think Jackqueline was about to blurt out something he didn’t
want us to know—I think that’s why he got us out of there so quickly and without letting Jacqueline spill the beans.”

                              CHAPTER 8B

As soon as Trav and Emily were on their way, Jacqueline whirled on Matt in utter fury.

“How dare you humiliate me that way,” she hissed. “That’s the last time you ever do anything like that. I’m through with you and I’m through with this marriage.”

With that she stalked out of the great room down the hall to her bedroom. Gathering up her overnight bag and her purse, she gave the room an angry final look and left by way of the room’s French doors which led to the garage at the rear of the house
where her 560SL was parked.  She got in, slammed the door, started the engine, and roared off down the winding driveway. In the rear view mirror, she saw Matt leaning casually against one of the posts of the front veranda.  As she sped off, he raised
one arm in a sardonic, lazy wave and disappeared into the house.

“Bastard,” Jacqueline thought to herself. “He didn’t even try to stop me from leaving—he didn’t even want me to not leave.”

Jacqueline and the little car careened along the twisting, narrow secondary road that led to the interstate. Her mind was racing as fast as the car, as she thought about the scene with Matt.

She and Matt had been heading for this kind of showdown for years and now she’d finally had it with the whole situation. For a long while, they’d each been living their own separate lives, spending time together only when absolutely necessary.  She
assumed there were other women in Matt’s life, just as there had been one or two other men in her own life.

Her current involvement was with David Shaw, Matt’s arch enemy. She’d started the affair as a kind of secret revenge against Matt.  Someday, somehow, after the divorce was final and she had attained a hefty financial settlement from Matt, she would
make sure that he knew, firsthand, about her affair with David. That would really frost his cake, she laughed to herself.

As she drove along, Jacqueline tried to blank out the worrisome topic she’d kept stuffed in the back of her mind for the past several days, not knowing how to deal with it.  Now, her mind skirted and skittered around the edges of it. Finally, she
plunged back in memory to the time a few days ago when she’d made one of her rare visits to her parents at their condominium in west county.

For years now, Jacqueline had made sure that she spent as little time with the Walters as possible.  About a year ago, Marcia Walters had developed Alzheimer’s disease and was a pathetic shell of her former formidable presence.  Most of the time she
didn’t know Jacqueline, either ignoring her completely or confusing her with one friend or another.  Even though Jacqueline had never gotten along well with either of her parents, she hated seeing Marcia’s tragic debilitation.  Boyd Walters did his
best to care for Marcia, with the help of three shifts of practical nurses to do the nitty-gritty bathing and dressing chores.

During this particular visit, Boyd had gone outside for a short walk while Jacqueline sat in her mother’s room. The day nurse had gone to fix some coffee for them, leaving Jacqueline alone with Marcia, something that seldom happened.

Jacqueline got up from the tapestry-covered love seat where she’d been sitting and started pacing back and forth across the room.  Her mother was sitting in a rocking chair by one of the windows overlooking the condo’s park-like common ground area.
The chair squeaked softly as Marcia rocked to and fro.  She was murmuring to herself, as she often did, and as usual, Jacqueline at first paid no attention to her words. But because they were alone, the murmuring seemed louder and more attention-
grabbing.

“Annelise, Annelise,” Marcia repeated the name slowly, again and again. Jacqueline looked at her mother, a puzzled frown on her face.  Why would her mother be talking about Annelise Brevard?

“Mother, are you talking about Annelise Brevard?” Jacqueline asked, walking over to stand beside her mother.

Marcia answered, but without looking at her daughter. “Annelise, but not Brevard. It should be Annelise Walters.” Marcia’s words were faintly slurred from the tranquilizers prescribed by her doctor to keep her calm and manageable.

“I don’t understand,” Jacqueline said impatiently. “Why should Annelise’s name be Walters instead of Brevard?”

Again Marcia responded as if to the air, not to her daughter.  “Because she’s a Walters, not a Brevard. She even looks like her mother.  Such a beautiful girl, the most beautiful granddaughter I could have.” A small smile flickered across Marcia’s
papery lips and her sad eyes were softly glowing. “So beautiful.”

Jacqueline felt a chill up her spine. What could Marcia be talking about? Not knowing what to say or do, Jacqueline stood staring down at her mother. Marcia’s words kept running back through Jacqueline’s mind—”granddaughter, granddaughter,
grandaughter”—the word echoed over and over again.

Jacqueline resumed her brisk pacing, her mind racing faster than her steps, remembering back to that horrible time almost 20 years ago.

Over the ensuing years, she’d done her damnedest to block out and black out the pregnancy and the birth of the child—How strange, she thought now, I never even knew if it was a boy or girl—I didn’t want to know—I made sure I never knew.

Could it be...is it possible that...Jacqueline shook her head abruptly, in an attempt to dismiss this ridiculous speculation of hers.

She glanced around her mother’s room, in an effort to distract herself. The room served as a combination bedroom/sitting room and was decorated with some of Marcia’s favorite furniture from the Walters’ previous home. There was a green and gold Queen
Anne chair Jacqueline remembered from the foyer of her parents’ former home.  And the canopied bed had been hers as a girl. What a wrench moving must have been for them, especially Daddy, Jacqueline thought, surprising herself with the empathy she
felt for her parents.  Funny, she thought she’d succeeded in totally distancing herself from Boyd and Marcia but evidently not.

The morning sunshine streamed through the sheer white curtains covering the windows, shining on Marcia’s now-white hair. Jacqueline could remember once upon a time when her mother’s hair had been as dark and glossy as her own.  I suppose someday my
hair will be snow-white, too, she thought.

Another shake of the head dismissed that thought.

Jacqueline leaned against the mantel of the fireplace her father had had specially installed for Marcia, looking across the room at her mother who now sat silently, folding and unfolding her hands.

God, I hope my mind never goes—I couldn’t bear that, Jacqueline thought. At least the doctor says mother isn’t aware that anything is wrong with her mind—she lives her own special world, with her own brand of time. She doesn’t even know I’m here,
she doesn’t even know she has a daughter,

I wonder what it feels like to have a daughter—or a son, Jacqueline mused.  Well, I’ll never know. That’s a choice I made long ago.

Just then, her father and the nurse returned to the room at the same time. The four of them had coffee, and Jacqueline chatted desultorily with her father.  After a few more minutes of conversation, Jacqueline stood up to leave.

“Daddy, could you walk me out? There’s something I want to ask you.” Jacqueline was surprised to hear herself say ‘Daddy’ instead of her customarily formal ‘Father.’

Boyd leaned down to brush his lips against the whiteness of Marcia’s hair, then followed his daughter out of the room.

Jacqueline led the way into her father’s book-lined study on the first floor of the condo, just off the entrance hall. She perched on the edge of her father’s long mahogany desk, transplanted from his Dynatron office following his retirement from the
aerospace monolith.

Boyd stood a short distance from his daughter, a quizzical expression on his face.  Jacqueline’s normal behavior on her infrequent visits here was a brief stint with her mother, then quickly out the door.  She never spent any time alone with her
father.

“What is it, my dear?” Boyd asked.

“Mother said something very puzzling while you were out for your walk. She said the name ‘Annelise’ over and over again. And when I asked if she was talking about Annelise Brevard, she said her name should be Annelise Walters. What did Mother mean by
that?”

After a brief hesitation, her father said, “Oh, Linny,” using her childhood nickname, “you know your mother doesn’t know what she’s talking about—you can’t pay any attention to what she says.”

“Daddy, she said something else after that. She said Annelise was a beautiful girl, the most beautiful grandaughter she could have had, that she was as beautiful as her mother. What on earth was she talking about?” With each word, Jacqueline’s voice
grew louder.

Boyd stood silent, covering his eyes with his hand.

“Father, answer my question,” Jacqueline demanded, then added “please.”

Her father’s voice was soft, so soft Jacqueline could barely hear his words.

“It was all your mother’s idea. I tried to talk her out of it, but you know how stubborn she can be when she gets her mind—or in this case—her heart set on something.”

As Jacqueline waited for her father to continue, she felt her heart begin to pound in fear of what he was about to say. Part of her wanted to say, ‘Forget it!’ and walk out. But another part forced her to stay and hear.

Boyd walked over to the window, his back to Jacqueline. Again his words were so soft she had to strain to hear them.

“Your mother couldn’t bear it when you gave your baby up for adoption. She kept saying over and over again that we couldn’t lose our granddaughter, our own flesh and blood.”

The word granddaughter echoed in Jacqueline’s mind once again.

“Your mother insisted that we hire a detective to find the baby and that’s what we did. We convinced the adoptive parents, for a price, to give the baby to us.  Then we arranged for Taylor and Ruth Brevard to adopt the baby. They’d desperately wanted
children but had been unable to have any so the baby was an answer to their prayers.  And their adopting her became the answer to ours. We were Annelise’s godparents and surrogate grandparents—it was a godsend for all of us.”

“What about me?” Jacqueline hissed. “How could you do this to me?”

Boyd turned to face Jacqueline. She was surprised to see tears on his cheeks. But the tears quickly disappeared in the face of his anger.

“How dare you ask that! Sometimes I wonder if you have a decent, human bone in your body.  You abandoned that child—to unfit parents as it turned out. We saved her from god knows what kind of life.”

Boyd shook his head slowly, sorrowfully, then started walking out of the room.

“Wait!” Jacqueline order imperiously. “We haven’t finished.”

“Oh, yes, we have. We certainly have finished,” Boyd answered.

Jacqueline stood by the desk, leaning on its polished top with one hand supporting her. Eventually, she let herself out of the condominium, wondering if she’d ever come back.

That evening, needing to talk about what had happened, she’d gone tosee David. He’d been shocked, both at learning about her long-ago affair with Win Prescott and about Annelise being their daughter. For a long while, he said nothing, deep in his own
thoughts. Once he’d asked her tell him everything again, and as she did, he interrupted a couple of times to ask for more details or to ask for clarification.

Then, gently, for David, he’d asked her what she planned to do.

“Do? Why, I’m not going to do anything,” Jacqueline answered.

“You’re not going to tell Win—you’re not going to tell Annelise?” David asked.

“No, never! I just want to forget this whole thing!” she cried.

Now, days later, as she drove back to the city from the Thompsons’ country home, her heart was pounding again, just as it had done that day in her father’s study. Somehow she had a premonition that she wouldn’t be able to forget the whole thing. She
regretted having shared her knowledge with David. Knowing David and his Machiavellian tendencies, God knows what he would do with the information.
But surely he wouldn’t tell Win—or God forbid—Annelise.

Oddly enough, Jacqueline thought, since hearing last week about Win’s impending divorce from Laura, she had toyed with the idea of calling him, just for old times’ sake.

Right girl, she thought to herself as she drove. Is it possible I still have the hots for old Win? Nonsense, she answered herself. But then again, why not?

Then, unexpectedly, in her mind’s eye danced an image of Annelise at her high school graduation party a year ago, the last time Jacqueline had seen the girl—young woman, really.

Annelise had been wearing a white, pencil-slim silk dress. Her long dark hair had been gathered back into a bouquet of curls and tied with a white silk ribbon.  She’d been all smiles, pleased at her success at one of St. Louis’ best private girls’
schools and eagerly anticipating going away to college in the fall.

Taylor and Ruth Brevard had hovered ever near their daughter, pride in Annelise shining aura-like around them.

The graduation party, held at the Brevard home, had been a huge affair, with people spilling out onto their veranda and patio and from there out to the swimming pool.  Hundreds of friends and relatives milled around in the warmish spring evening.
Boyd and Marcia, who had just begun to show signs of deterioration, were there and their present to their goddaughter was the hit of the evening. It was parked in front of the Brevard home, a red convertible, with a huge white bow on the windshield.

Matt and Jacqueline had remarked to each other at their mutual surprise over the extravagance of the gift, even though the Walters had always been very close to Annelise.

It certainly makes sense now, thought Jacqueline as she neared the Thompsons’ central west end condo.

With an abrupt shake of her head, she dismissed any thought of Annelise from her head and turned her mind towards the Matt dilemma.

While she was throwing thrown her tantrum and making her dramatic exit, Jacqueline had forgotten all about the upcoming award ceremony.  There was no way she was going to miss the event of the year just because her marriage to Matt was over.

Well, I guess I’ll just have to smooth things over temporarily. He never takes my threats of leaving seriously, anyway.

Jacqueline smiled and turned her thoughts to more pleasant topics—such as the elegant and shamefully expensive evening gown she’d purchased for the award ceremony.

                               CHAPTER 8C

David Shaw sat in his Dynatron office, leaning back in his leather swivel chair, feet propped up on his desk.  He was savoring the events of the past few days, trying to determine how to put all of them to the best use.  The interview about Matt
Thompson had triggered anew his hatred for the man that always simmered beneath the surface of Shaw’s consciousness.

David’s amorality and no longer latent dishonesty had served him well at Dynatron.  Win Prescott preferred to know as few details as possible of Dynatron’s pay-off activities and David had been more than willing to handle all the dirty work himself,
exclusively.  Someday he would call in all his markers, all his chips, and he’d have the wealth and power he so desperately wanted.  He knew that no one at Dynatron, nor in the business community, knew of his true position on the corporate structure
of the company. He was just beneath Win Prescott in terms of power and influence. There were times when Shaw positively yearned for public recognition and acknowledgement of his strength and the role he played in running the country’s largest defense
contractor.

Ever the wheeler-dealer, Shaw had carved out a comfortable niche for himself at Dynatron. Win Prescott had tired of the man long ago but knew of no way to get rid of him. David’s knowledge of and participation in the various kickback/payoff
machinations of the aerospace firm made David simulataneously too valuable and too dangerous to fire.

David had never married, preferring unattached liaisons of varying lengths and intensities. The one woman who’d ever gotten under his skin was China Smith.  They’d had a brief fling together during her nervous breakdown period.  As soon as China had
gotten herself straightened out, she had dumped David, fast.

David had been furious—he preferred to do the dumping. Besides, somehow China had really gotten to him.  Even now, as involved as he was with Jacqueline Thompson, David knew he wasn’t over China—would never be over China.

David’s father had disappeared before he was born. After his mother’s death when he was eight, he’d been raised by his stepfather, an abusive alcoholic who hated the sight of the kid.  David had run away when he was fourteen and had been on his own
ever since. He’d worked at a variety of fast food places to support himself and had managed to put himself through college. Along the way, he’d been involved in some questionable but very profitable deals, with no compunction at their illegality.
He’d adopted his stepfather’s conviction that honesty was a commodity that only the rich could afford.

David’s stepfather, Bert Shaw had managed to flail out of David any common human decency left in the kid. David had borne the beatings with as much stoicism as he could muster, getting stronger as more detached as the years passed. But to this day
the smell of Old Spice, Bert’s aftershave, nauseated Shaw.  Matt’s proliferate use of Old Spice was one of the many reasons Shaw despised the man. Matt’s arrogance and superior attitude were also reminiscent of Bert Shaw and added to David’s hatred
of Matt.

David’s considered his affair with Jacqueline as the ultimate triumph over Thompson. Even the thought of how Matt had belittled and humiliated over the years, at every opportunity, caused the bile to rise up in David’s throat. He knew someday he
would get his revenge—someday he’d  have the opportunity to destroy Thompson.

For the moment, David knew he’d have to put his plans for revenge on hold. He had more worrisome matters to attend to.

Jacqueline’s information about the true parentage of Annelise Brevard was still shocking to him. That the gir was really the offspring of Jacqueline and Win was beyond belief.  Ever since Jacqueline had confided in him, David had been debating
whether or not to share this unbelievable turn of events with Win. David had no idea what Win’s reaction would be. Despite the close proximity in which the two men had worked for the past decade or so, David had no notion, not an inkling, of what
made Prescott tick. Shaw knew he could in no way predict what Prescott would do if he learned Annelise was his daughter.

Jacqueline had sworn him to silent secrecy but to David that was as nothing. “I think this is the big one,” Shaw chortled. “I think this is the one that sets me up for life.”

David grabbed his tweed jacket and empty briefcase and hastily left his office, bound for home and some serious cogitating.

                                   8D

China propped the St. Louis Award invitation up on the bronze duck paperweight in the center of her desk at the station. she wondered who else of Matt’s rejects would be attending the ceremony. David Shaw was one you could count on to be front and
center. that bastard, she thought. Even now, in total absentia,  he has the ability and the capacity to totally piss me off. I must’ve been really off my rocker to have had anything to do with him, otherwise I would’ve never given the man the time of
day.  David Shaw a snake, she hissed to herself, a reptile of the lowest order.

As soon as China had gotten back on her feet and had come to her senses, she dumped David faster than she would’ve a loaf of moldy, week-old bread.

After the dumping, he’d hung around her apartment, trying to see her but she became adept at avoiding him. She changed her phone to an unlisted one and had her calls screened at her new job.  Eventually, as she prospered at the TV station, she moved
out of her old 2-room apartment into her new high-rise living quarters and thought she’d seen the last of David Shaw.

Unfortunately for China, with her new status at the TV station, she was thrown into social and business situations with David Shaw. She managed to be civil and polite to him, considering the power he wielded in the business community. But she had no
intention of letting him back into her life.

Ted Howard, China’s colleague at the station, had once asked her why she hated the fellow so much.

“It isn’t so much hate as fear, I guess,” China had replied thoughtfully. “He really frightens me. I don’t think the man has a soul—and I know he has no conscience.” China had changed the subject abruptly and had never spoken of Shaw again.

Now, she realized she did actually hate and fear David Shaw. He had gone out of his way to see her at the various social functions they each attended. Whenever he came near her, she, Miss Cool, Calm, and Collected, broke out in goosebumps, followed
by a cold sweat. He was the creepiest person she’d ever known and it took all her willpower not to run away whenever he approached.

She’d heard a delicious rumor that he and Jacqueline Thompson were immersed in something hot and heavy. “Those two deserve each other,” she’d said to Ted when she shared her gossipy tidbit with during one of their lunches.

                              CHAPTER 9

Once again, Emily sat at the computer terminal, fingers resting on the keyboard, eyes closed, trying to summon inspiration. It was almost 10 at night and she was one of a handful of people here at the newspaper office and the only one in her
particular section.

Outside the rain tap-tapped against the window panes, sounding like fingers typing on a keyboard. “I wish my fingers were making that kind of sound,” she thought to herself. But so far no luck.

She’d been sitting here for upwards of an hour now and had managed to write and discard hundreds of words, with nothing to show for her efforts but a polyglot of disconnected notes.  She’d so blithely volunteered to Trav to rough out the first draft
of the article and now she was stuck—and sorely tempted to call Trav and dump the whole first-write duty on him.

Why was she finding it so difficult, so impossible, to write a personality profile of Matt Thompson? She’d thought sheknew him better than almost anyone—they’d been an important and almost intimate part of each other’s lives for several years. Even
after they parted company, she’d made it a point to keep track of him—which seeing as how he was one of the most visible men in the city, hadn’t been hard to do.

To get herself started writing, Emily had tried every trick in the book—first using her old standby—brainstorming ideas, willy-nilly into the computer—that hadn’t achieved anything. Then she tried one of those psychological trick techniques called
“invisible writing” where you turn off the computer monitor so you can’t look back at what you’ve written—you just forge ahead and do your editing and re-writing when you’re finished. But that hadn’t worked either. It was as though her brain, her
fingers, and her creativity were all frozen, or worse, non-existent.

Another tack she took was to write as many potential headlines as she could think of, in hopes of clarifying her thoughts and getting her creative juices running. But nothing was working.

Once again, she looked back through the file folder crammed with clippings on Matt that the morgue librarian had sent up to her at her request a couple of days ago.  The clippings were in reverse chronological order—on top the most recent one
announced him as the winner of this year’s St.  Louis Award and then the clips progressed backward through his twenty-plus-year career in the city.  Most of the information Emily already knew but there were a few surprises.  One shock was a clipping
about the suicide of Matt’s sister—Emily hadn’t even known he’d had a sister.  Her name was Evian Roberts and she’d been a writer of mainstream fiction who’d had a few minor successes.  Emily made a mental note to herself to find and read Evian’s
books.  Years and years ago, long before Emily had gone to work for Matt, Evian had shot herself. At the time, according to the clippings, Matt and his sister were sharing a townhouse in a re-habbed section of the city and he had been the one to find
her body.  Supposedly there was no note and only speculation as to a motive.  According to the police reports, Matt had postulated that she’d shot herself accidentally, perhaps getting the gun out because she’d heard a prowler—the neighborhood had
suffered a series of break-ins in the weeks preceding Evian’s death.  But the coroner had ruled the death a suicide, based on the trajectory of the bullet and the location of the Evian’s body—lying on her bed, fully clothed even though it was past
one in the morning.

Evian’s agent had said the writer been depressed and despondent because her writing wasn’t going well. In fact, Evian had said over and over again to anyone who’d listen that she was afraid she’d never be able to write another novel.  In the middle
of her desk in the study, the police found a stack of half-dozen incomplete manuscripts—novels begun and abandoned—with many of the pages ripped into halves and quarters and others shredded into tiny bits.

“Whew,” Emily said out loud. “How horrible for Matt—and none of us knew anything about it.”

Flipping through more clippings, Emily was surprised at the amount of publicity Matt had generated about himself over the years. One of the cardinal, ordinal rules for PR practitioners was get the ink and the inches for the client, not for yourself.
Evidently that rule was not a major part of Matt’s lexicon.

Here was a clipping about Matt’s marriage to Jacqueline—the event of the summer several years ago. Despite the fact that it was Matt’s second marriage, they’d had a huge church wedding, complete with half a dozen attendants each, and a dinner
reception followed by dancing at one of the area’s poshest, most exclusive (also read that as most expensive) country clubs.

The photos with the article about the wedding showed a grinning Matt elegant in a tuxedo—a white jacket and slim black trousers—with his arm around a beautiful Jacqueline, all white satin and lace flounces spread out around her, a wide smile
complementing Matt’s grin. In the background of the photo, behind the couple, you could pick out a mob scene of St. Louis movers and shakers dancing and drinking and partying.

Emily thought about the wedding—she’d been there with her then-husband, Tom. Ironically, their own marriage had been on its last legs, with both of them clinging desperately to it, like two people drowning and hanging onto a raft for dear life.

Matt had been a good strong friend to her around the time her marriage was breaking up. Emily had been devastated by the feeling of failure, by the loneliness, afraid of being by herself, on her own.  She and Tom had been so incompatible, so wrong
for each other. Even sexually it was a mismatch—Emily had wanted holding and cuddling and Tom’s approach was wham-bam, thank you ma’m.

Emily didn’t know how she would’ve made it through the divorce without Matt’s help and his understanding shoulder. Years before, he’d been through his own particular hell of a divorce from Beverly and knew first-hand and up-close the anguish and
terror Emily was experiencing.

For a short while, Emily had fancied herself in love with Matt, despite his recent marriage to Jacqueline and despite the fact that he’d never encouraged Emily’s attachment to him. Now, thinking back, she realized she’d never really gotten over that
infatuation with Matt till after she left Thompson & Associates.

And unfortunately, when Emily finally left Matt’s company, it had been under incredibly bad circumstances.

What had happened, three years ago next month actually, Emily mused, was that Matt had needed a scapegoat for a project that had gotten screwed up and Emily was convenient and expendable.  The mistake had actually been Matt’s but there was no way he
could take the blame or assume the responsbility and still retain the client’s business. And sizable business it was—from one of the country’s major manufacturers of dog food.

Matt had told the client that it was Emily who had placed the unfortunate newspaper article about the marvelous rejuvenative and recuperative powers of the company’s new dog food product when actually Matt was the one who had released the story. The
information he gave to the newspaper reporter was premature and was based on preliminary data from some trial tests that turned out to be erroneous and inaccurate, and in some aspects, downright fraudulent.

As a sop to the client, Matt had fired Emily outright, in the client’s presence. Emily, dumbfounded and speechless, had wanted to protest her innocence and point the finger in the correct direction but knew she couldn’t do that. She’d murmured an
apology to the client, then briskly walked out of Matt’s office with her head held high and a determined look on her reddened face.

She’d already swept the contents of her desk in to a couple of raggedy cardboard boxes by the time Matt showed up in the doorway of her office.

“Listen, kid, I really am sorry. But I had no choice.” Matt’s voice sounded sincere but Emily could detect beneath his seeming sincerity Matt’s ever-present self-servingness.

“You bastard, of course you had a choice. You just made the wrong one, that’s all. I hope you rot in hell, you dishonest son-of-a-bitch.” Emily slammed the second to last desk drawer and yanked open the final one.

Matt frowned, unused to hearing Emily swear—she had the only routinely clean mouth in the agency, giving her ephithets a vigor and an impact that no one else’s would’ve had.

By now, word of the altercation had spread through the agency and one by one, the other account executives and the various support staff gathered in the hall outside Emily’s door.

When Matt tried to help her with the box, she screamed at him to take his hands off her things. He threw up his hands in despair and stalked out of her office, glaring at the gaggle of his employees clustered in the hallway.

“Get back to work, all of you,” he growled and went into his office, slamming the door behind him.

No one paid any attention to Matt’s directive. They just waited there for Emily to finish gathering up her personal possessions.  One by one, people hugged her or patted her on the back, and more than a few of them had tears glistening in their eyes.
Two of her closest colleagues walked out with her, helping her with her briefcase and the box of her belongings. They rode down in the elevator with her and walked her to her car.

One of them had even volunteered to drive her home but Emily declined the offer, wanting only to be alone so she could cry. Finally, she was on the street driving towards her little house when the tears started pouring down her cheeks. She was
sobbing so hard she could barely breathe. At the first available spot, she pulled off the street and parked in a deserted vacant lot overrun with scraggly weeds interspersed with discarded applicances and a couple of old abandoned cars.

“That’s what I am,” Emily sobbed to herself, “an old abandoned wreck.” Her self-pity made the tears flow even faster. As usual, she couldn’t find a handkerchief or a Kleenex and settled instead for using a couple of pink inter-office memos retrieved
from her box of belongings to blow her nose and wipe her eyes.

It was dark by the time she’d pulled herself together enough to continue her journey home. When she finally got there, who found good old Trav sitting on her front steps, lounging back against one of the brick porch pillars.

“Well, Em, welcome to the club,” Trav said as he stood up and gave her a rough bear hug, then helped her carry her things in from the car.

Trav had spent the night, uncomplainingly sleeping on the hard-as-a-rock sofa bed in her study. He’d fixed her an omlette and forced her to eat at least a few bites of it. While he did the dishes, he had her pour each of them a snifter full of
brandy. They took their drinks into the living room and he built a low fire, all the while listening intently as Emily ranted and raved and sobbed and cursed Matt Thompson.

Every once in awhile, Trav would interject one of his own horror stories about when he left or bits about China leaving, to let Emily know that she wasn’t alone. Trav kept repeating that Matt was just being his usual bastardy self and that all of
this had absolutely nothing to do with her as a person.

Trav finally got her undivided attention and interest towards midnight and after a fair amount of brandy when he started telling her the story of Dave Shaw, something she’d never heard before but had wondered and speculated about.

It seems that Dave had worked for Matt when Matt first started his own PR agency. In fact, at one point Matt and Dave were partners.  Then there was a major falling out. Dave accused Matt of cheating on the distribution of profits and lying on the
firm’s income tax statements and Matt accused Dave of padding his client billings and expense acccount.  Dave had withdrawn from the agency and had filed suit against Matt. Eventually, the suit was settled out of court but both men swore revenge.
Over the years, they’d each managed to do damage to one another, nothing major just skirmishes here and there.

Afterwards, Emily had been forever grateful to Trav for his kindness to her that horrible night. She had been surprised to discover a streak of gentleness and love in Trav that surpassed anything she’d ever experienced from a man and then was ashamed
at her surprise.

Over the next few weeks, Trav had stayed close by. He helped Emily whip her resume into shape and gave her all kinds of leads to follow up. And in the end, it was Trav who was finally responsible for her being hired at the Times.  He put his own
reputation on the line with his boss, pushing “this terrific broad who can outwrite any of us bozos around here.”

Emily was bowled over by Trav’s loyalty and friendship. Every once in a while she’d felt towards Trav a fleeting flicker of some emotion that might be love. But being gun-shy and many times burned, she turned away from the flickers and concentrated on her new feature writing position, never wanting to feel anything ever again.
Now, sitting in her cubicle, unable to write even the lead sentence on the Matt Thompson profile, Emily gave up in despair. Cramming a few of her notes and file folders into her battered old briefcase, the same one she’d used since working at Thompson & Associates, she turned off her computer and her desk light.
On her way out of the darkened building, she decided to stop off in the ladies room.
Inside the rest room, she discovered that the powers-that-be were in the midst of some kind of rest room renovation project—one of the towel dispensers had been removed from the wall and the opening was covered over with a thin sheet of plywood—in stark contrast to the room’s dignified high ceilings and grey marble floors and walls.
As she stood trying to dry her hands on toilet paper—of course they’d neglected to leave any paper towels at all while they worked on the dispenser—Emily heard a door open next door and a couple of men’s voices. The men’s room was adjacent to this one and Emily could hear a conversation going on right next to her. She immediately recognized the two voices as belonging to the assistant publisher and his administrative aide.  Each of the men had very distinctive voices—the assistant publisher, Jack Bradshaw, had a low-pitched Southern drawl while his aide, Billy Longworth, had almost a squeaky voice.
Emily stood very still, barely breathing, not wanting them to know she stood only inches away and could hear their every word, in fact, even their breathing.
Emily tried her best to ignore the sounds of their assorted bodily functions while concentrating on the topic under discussion—namely Matt Thompson and the article she and Trav were doing on him.
“Well,” squeaked Billy, “have those two reporters turned in a draft of the article yet?”
“No,” said Jack, dragging out the word. “Not yet they haven’t. But it’s early yet—there’s still a couple more weeks till that puppy is scheduled to run—plenty of time, plenty of time.”

“Do you want me to get anything they’ve done so far off the computer?”

“Now, Billy, that’s a right good idea. Why don’t you just do that very thing—then we’ll know what they’re  writin’ as we go along.  Yes, boy, you do that pronto.”

Emily held her breath, trying not to let her fury explode through the wall at the two men. She was so glad now that she’d been unable to write anything yet about Matt. For sure, she wouldn’t store it on the newspaper’s computer—at least not until
the entire article was done and she and Matt had passed a draft by their immediate editor.

She stood there, listening intently as the two men prepared to leave the restroom.

“Sir, do you think a detrimental article will really harm Thompson?”

“Billy, I think the right kind of article can destroy the bastard.  And the right kind of article is exactly what we’re going to publish. Now, it’s time to go home.”

“But I should go get whatever there is in the computer...” Billy’s voice trailed off as Bradshaw interrupted with a brusque “Time enough for that in the morning—let’s get out of here.”

Emily could hear the tap-tap of their shoes on the marble floor as they left the rest room and walked toward the bank of elevators at the far end of the hall. She waited till she heard the clang of the elevator doors and then waited a few minutes
more, to make sure they were really gone. It certainly wouldn’t do for them to see that she was anywhere around.

Sure that the two men were indeed gone, Emily cautiously left the ladies room and returned to her cubicle, turning on the desk lamp and the computer.

Her first act was to copy the few notes she’d entered into the computer onto a floppy disk and then to delete the notes from the central memory. Then she gathered up her few remaining notes and file folders pertaining to the Thompson article and
stuffed them into her well-worn briefcase with the other things. Finally, she picked up the phone and dialed Trav’s number, snorting in frustration when she got his machine with its ridiculous “tied-up” message. Waiting impatiently for the tone, once
again she turned off her desk lamp and computer, ready to be out of there as soon as she left a message for Trav.

“Trav, this is Emily and you have to get rid of that message. I’m on my way home and it’s absolutely vital that you call me as soon as possible.”

She put down the receiver none too gently and stomped out into the hallway, frustrated at being unable to reach Trav. Maybe, she thought, reporters should follow the lead of management and wear those damn beepers—but then again, maybe not. Can’t you
imagine in the middle of critical interview when the interviewee is about to respond with some crucial fact and the beeper goes off?

Emily strode briskly to the elevators and waited what seemed an inordinately long time for the ancient machinery to crank itself up from the bowels of the building to the sixth floor. Inside the elevator, she smelled the familiar, faint aroma that
clung to the building—remnants of almost a hundred years of the residue of newspaper publishing.

As she pressed the elevator button for the basement garage, she blinked her eyes, surprised to find tears in them.  She loved this ridiculous old newspaper and she loved her job here.  It hurt to hear things like that conversation between Longworth
and Bradshaw.  Emily knew she was way too idealistic and romantic for the hard-headed newspaper business, and Trav routinely reinforced that belief. But that’s the way she was.

The elevator slowly descended down to the basement garage, and just as slowly the masive wooden doors opened.

The garage was dimly lit and dank-smelling and far from being one of Emily’s favorite places. Its dark corners and mysterious scratching sounds frightened her and she avoided coming here alone at night whenever possible. Quickly, she scurried across
the mostly deserted parking areas to her car on the far side of the basement. Carefully, she stepped around the puddles of blackish water or some other dark liquid that stood here and there. Only a few cars were left, the paper’s night shift. She
unlocked the door and tossed her old briefcase onto the back seat of her little car. Inside, she first locked the door then fastened her seat belt. Finally, she put the key in the ignition and turned it, praying that the engine would turn over. The
little car had been going through some moody periods, expressing its recalcitrance in frequent refusals to start, accompanied by a continually dying engine.

As Emily tried to start the car, there was only a faint whine instead of the reassuring sound of the engine. Time and time again, Emily turned the key but still just the whine. She paused, afraid of flooding the engine or running down the battery.
Flustered and frantic and verging on panic, she pondered what to do. Obviously, she was going to have to go find a phone and call the auto club. But for some reason, the parking garage was particularly terrifying to her this evening, probably because
of her eavesdropping episode a little while earlier.

She leaned her forehead against the steering wheel, wondering in the back of her mind whether it would be sacrilegious to pray for her car to start. Deciding it would be okay, she sent up a swift silent plea.

Whether her request was heard and answered or whether it was just one of those flukey things, the next time she turned the key, the engine turned right over and didn’t falter and die. Before turning on the lights, Emily shifted into reverse and
backed out of the narrow parking space. Still she hestitated about turning on the lights, afraid that the extra drain on the battery would cause the little car to die. Slowly and carefully, she drove around the pillars toward the exit area, still
without lights.

As she neared the exit, which was in a separate extension of the parking garage and not visible till you turned a corner, she saw two men standing between two cars, concentrating on what seemed to be an intense conversation.

At the sound of Emily’s car, they looked up, peering off in the distance at her. They were standing under one of the few dim bulbs that served as lighting for the garage and Emily recognized Bradshaw and Longworth. Emily turned her face to the side
and drove quickly into the garage exit, barely pausing to flash her garage pass at the sleepy-eyed guard.

Out on the street, she finally flicked on her headlights and sped off toward the interstate. She glanced in the rearview mirror but didn’t see any sign of Bradshaw or Longworth following behind her.

Once on the highway, with no familiar cars near, she leaned back in the driver’s seat, took a deep breath, and wished she hadn’t quit smoking two years ago.

Twenty minutes later, she pulled into the blacktop driveway that led to into the separate garage at the back of her little house. There on the patio, sitting at her umbrella table was Trav. He had a half-finished six-pack in front of him, seemingly
content, just lolling around her back yard.

Emily stopped the car outside the garage and hurriedly got out and headed toward Trav.

“So here you are! I left a message on your machine for you to call me—did you get it?” Emily spoke briskly, a heavy seriousness underlying her words.

“No, darlin’,” Trav drawled. “I was just on my way home from my...interview with China and thought I’d stop by for a nightcap.”

“At midnight, you’re just finishing the interview with China?” Emily gave Trav a quizzical look.

“Well, you know how long-winded China can be, or have you forgotten?

“I don’t forget much, Trav. One thing I’ve always remembered is what a crush you had on China.

“Crush?” Trav hooted. “Where did you get that little girl’s word from?”

“You know what I mean, silly.” Emily was glad that the darkness of the back yard hid her blush.  “Anyway, I have something more important to talk to you about.” She gave him a quick rundown of her experience at the newspaper office, trying to be
objective but still retaining her impressions and intuitions. Trav knew Longworth and Bradshaw better than she did and she was anxious to get his opinion.

“Wow,” Trav exclaimed. “That’s heavy duty stuff.”

“That’s what I thought, too,” Emily said. “What do you think it all means?”

“Hmmmmm, well, one thing that’s obvious is that they’re expecting a real killer of an article about Matt from us.”

“I got the impression that no matter what we write, one of them was going to edit it—and by edit, what I really mean is trash it up so it destroys Matt’s reputation.”

“And would you mind if that happened?” Trav asked, head down, not looking at Emily.

Emily hesitated a moment before answering. “I wouldn’t mind if Matt’s reputation were destroyed legitimately, with facts. But if they’re going to add lies and slander and libel to our article, I don’t want that and I won’t let that happen.”

“Emily, I don’t know as if we’ll have any say in the matter. It sounds as though this thing is bigger than we thought and pretty much out of our hands, out of our control.”

“I refuse to be part of a conspiracy to destroy someone unfairly.  Hell, I refuse to be part of any conspiracy to destroy any body, fairly or unfairly. This is where I get off.” Emily reached over and grabbed one of Trav’s two remaining beers,
vigorously popped the top in emphasis of her last pronouncement, and took a long swallow.

“I guess I’m with you a thousand per cent, as someone once said. So what do we do?” Trav opened the last can of beer and sipped at it, figuring four beers were more than enough to guzzle—this one he would nurse.

The two of them sat silently drinking beer. Finally, Trav said, “The only thing we can do is to go to Washington tomorrow and tell him what’s going on—tell him what you heard, what we’ve got as far as interviews, how the article is shaping up,
everything—and let him decide what to do.”

“I guess that’s what senior editors are for, all right,” Emily concurred. “Vic’ll know what to do.”

Once again, they sat in silence. “By the way,” Emily interjected into their silent ponderings, “the article’s not going well at all. I haven’t got word one down on paper yet. I sat there at that damn computer terminal for hours tonight and couldn’t
write zilch.”

“That’s not like you, kiddo. You’re the original prolific, crank it out writer, known and loved by all. What’s the matter this time?”

“Trav, I don’t know. I tried every trick in the book and couldn’t write about Matt. I guess maybe there’s just too much personal history there. The old fellow may have been right about my or our lack of objectivity on this one.”
 
                               CHAPTER 10

The next morning Trav sat in a booth off in one corner of the coffee shop down the street from the Times Building.  The night before, he and Emily had decided to convince Vic Washington to meet them here for breakfast.  Before leaving his apartment,
Trav had called Vic at home, catching him just as he was going out the door.

“What’s this all about, Travis? Why can’t you tell me what you want to tell me in my office?” Washington was his usual irritable morning self.  It took several hours and several cups of coffee to get him into a decent running mode.

“Just trust me, Vic,” Trav said, trying not to snicker as he said those infamous words.

“Yeah, sure, that’ll be the day. Well, what the hell, you can buy. I’ll see you and Harris there in about an hour.” Washington hung up abruptly, leaving Trav holding a mute receiver.

Trav tapped his fingers on the black and white table-top of the coffee shop’s booth and took a long drink of coffee. The street door opened and Trav waved Emily over to the booth.

“Is Vic colming?” she asked.

“Yeah, he’ll be here in a few minutes. It takes him a while to get going in the morning. I think he was going by the paper first and God knows what he’ll get into there.”

Emily poured herself some coffee from the thermal carafe on the table and looked around for a waitress to order some food. Trav, seeing her look, offered, “I ordered one of those breakfast trays with muffins and bagels and junk—is that okay?”

“Great,” Emily said. “But where is it? I’m starving!”

Trav laughed as he stood up and got out of the booth. “You’re always starving. With the way you eat, it’s a wonder you don’t weigh 200 pounds—or maybe you do.”

Emily reached out a foot in an attempt to kick Trav but he moved too quickly.

“I’ll be right back with madam’s food,” he said.

Trav picked up the tray from the counter in front and was walking back to the booth just as Vic Washington walked in the door. Vic was shaking his head and grumbling.

“What’s up, boss?” Trav said as they both sat down in the booth.

“Those damn kids are out there skateboarding around the Times’ entrance against. And they had the nerve to follow me up here. It’s enough to drive a man to eat.” With that, Vic grabbed a cherry mini-Danish off the tray and popped the whole thing in
his mouth.

“Help yourself, Vic,” Emily said demurely as she broke off tiny pieces of a croissant and ate them very genteely.

Vic, mouth full, just grunted.

Trav took a bagel, sliced it in half and slathered it with cream cheese and strawberry jam.

For a few minutes, the three of them spread and chewed and crumbled and poured and creamed and sugared and buttered and jellied, with no conversation other than a ‘pass this’ or ‘pass that.’

When there was nothing left on the tray but some crumbs and one loan oat bran muffin, Vic brushed his hands together, took a sip of coffee, and said, “Okay, guys, what’s up? And what’s so damn secret that we have to talk here instead of my office?”

Trav nodded to Emily sitting across the table from him and she started their story.

“Obviously, it concerns the Matt Thompson article. We’ve run into some problems and some puzzles and wanted to get your opinion.”

Vic looked at Trav and then back at Emily as she continued.

“The interview with Matt went okay. No surprises. He stonewalled on all the tough questions—painted himself as a semi-saint, actually. I came across some questionable stuff in the items from the morgue. And the interview with Shaw was unbelievable.
David hates Matt so much it’s scarey. But the biggest thing is what happened last night.”

Here, Emily told Vic about the conversation she’d overheard (or eavesdropped on) between Longworth and Bradshaw. When she’d finished, she and Brad looked at Vic for his reaction. For a minute or so, Vic just sat there, a deep frown on his face. When
he spoke, it was just one word.

“Shit!”

Emily and Trav waited but when Vic didn’t seem inclined to expand on his expletive, Trav said, “Well, that’s the deal. We don’t know where to go from here. Miss Emily and I think we’re in over our heads in something we don’t understand and can’t
handle.”

“You can include me in that,” Vic said slowly. “I don’t know what’s going on here but from what you’ve told me I know I don’t like it. It goes against all I’ve ever believed about newspapers—what I’ve done for the past 30 or so years of my life.”
Vic stirred his coffee, then continued. “Let me nose around and see what I can find out.” He turned to Emily and asked, “Do you think Longworth and Bradshaw saw you or have any inkling that you might have overheard them?”

Emily hesitated before answering, then said, “I’m fairly certain they don’t know I was in the rest room next to them so they probably couldn’t imagine that I overheard their conversation. I don’t know whether or not they saw as I was leaving the
garage—I didn’t have my headlights on and neither of them knows me very well. So I really don’t think they have any idea that I know anything about what they’re up to.”

“Good,” said Vic. “Let’s keep it that way. I think maybe you’d better try writing some innocuous beginnings of an article on Matt just so they don’t get suspicious when they go snooping around and can’t find anything.”

“All right, I’ll give it my best shot,” said Emily. “But I told you I was stuck and couldn’t seem to write anything.”

“Harris, don’t give me that bullshit. You’re a professional, you’re a reporter, and you write on demand, not on inspiration.” Vic said the words calmly but Emily knew he meant them as strongly as if he’d shouted them at him.

“Yes, boss,” she said with a grin at the black man’s look of suspicion at her easy compliance.

“And you, Trav, get busy on the rest of the interviews.”

“Sure, Vic. But tell me, what do you think is going on here?”

Vic gestured that he didn’t know and said, “The only thing we know for sure is that the paper is out to get Thompson. We don’t know why and we don’t know how much ammunition they have. I’d be willing to bet heavy money that there’s much more to this
than we know. I think we’re just the patsies, that this is a set-up.”

“So?” Emily prodded.

“Like I said, guys, just keep on keepin’ on and we’ll see what happens.  I think it would be better if we didn’t meet like this again and also we’d better not talk about it in the office. I’ll call one of you at home this evening and let you know
what I find out. Who’s gonna be home?” Vic asked.

Trav and Emily looked at each other and seemed to reach some kind of unspoken agreement.

“Call at my house, Vic. Trav’s coming over for supper,” Emily said.

Vic gave the two of them a speculative look but just said, “Hmmmm—okay. Talk to you later.”

Vic left the coffee shop with a slight wave. Emily and Trav stayed for a moment, trying to come to some further understanding of what was going on about Thompson.

“I think Vic is right—I think there’s much to this than we know or realize,” Trav said emphatically.

“Yeah, I agree. But it really bothers me—in fact, it scares me. I feel like we’re stumbling around in the dark and that’s not a good feeling.”

The two were silent for a bit, then Emily said, “I hope you don’t mind the supper invitation—if that’s a problem, just tell me.”

“No, that’s good, great, in fact. You read my mind. I wanted to spend the evening with you. I’m so tired of fast food or TV dinners and eating alone.”

“Sure, right, Travis. You are the last the old-time playboys. You never eat alone—there’s always some chick around to keep you company,” Emily kidded.

“Not true, Harris, not true. I’ve taken a vow of chastity and poverty and all that good stuff. I’m turning over a new leaf, you’ll see.” Trav tried for a tone of righteous indignation but it came off as defensiveness.

“I’ll see it when I believe it. And by the way, speaking of chicks, you still haven’t told me word one about your interview with China, the queen of chicks,” Emily challenged.

“That’s a long story, too long of a story for now. I’ll tell you tonight, at dinner.” Trav reached out a hand to Emily, in a gentlemanly gesture of helping her out of the booth. They walked out of the coffee shop with his hand on the small of her
back and Emily marveled how good and warm and safe and secure that made her feel.

Back at the office, Trav found a phone message from China. He sat down at his desk, propped his feet up, and did some thinking.

Last night with China had been every man’s fantasy. She was a super sexy broad, bright and interesting besides. She only lacked one thing.  A heart. Trav knew, as well as he’d ever known anything, that China was incapable of loving anyone—even
herself. He’d been involved with another woman without a heart years ago—his former wife, Caitlin. She had that same brilliance, that same luster that China emanated. But it was a quick-burning flame, a harmful flame. Trav had gotten his heart
broken and stomped on and thrown away once—he was too smart and too old to let that happen again.

With a smile, he wadded up the phone message and pitched it in the waste basket across the cubicle.

Then he realized he had to return her call—it might be about the interview or the Thompson article.

“Shit!” he spit out as he retrieved the crumpled phone message from the waste basket.

He stood by the phone, angrily punching in the digits of China’s phone number at the TV station.

“China Smith,” the clear, crisp voice answered.

“Hi, kid, it’s me—Trav. What’s up?”

A low giggle came across the line, followed by, “Isn’t that what I should be asking you?”

Trav laughed in spite of himself. “Yeah, maybe. Anyway, what can I do for you?”

“Silly, it’s what I can do for you. I have baseball tickets for tonight—in the station’s ritzy private box. Are you interested?”

Trav wondered for a second if he indeed were interested. God, what a mess he was getting himself into.

“Sorry, I just made a...business appointment for tonight. Maybe next time.”

“Trav, I thought maybe we could continue where we left off last night—I mean with the Matt Thompson information. I’ve thought of some more things to tell you—things I left out last night. Is there any way you can re-schedule your...business
appointment?”

“I don’t know, China. Let me see what I can do. I’ll get back to you.”

Trav heard the abrupt click as China hung up without saying good-bye—an old habit of hers he remembered from years ago.

“Now what the hell am I going to do?” Trav thought. “I made plans with Emily and I’m about to break that date and go out with China—exactly what I don’t want to do.”

Just then, Emily leaned her head around his cubicle, a big grin on her face.  “What would you like for dinner, kind sir?”

“Um, Emily, I’ve got a problem. Something’s come up and I’m going to have to take a rain check on tonight.”

The grin on Emily’s face slowly disappeared. “Oh? What came up?”

“China called to say she has more stuff to tell me about Matt and she wants to do it this evening.” Trav couldn’t quite meet Emily’s eyes as he answered.

“Oh, China, I see.” Emily smiled at Trav and said, “Stop by or call me if it’s not too late when you and China are finished.”

“Sure, Em—and I meant it about a rain check. What about tomorrow night?”

“We’ll see-I’ll get back to you tomorrow.” Emily walked briskly back towards her desk but made a quick detour to the ladies room.

She locked herself in the cubicle at the far end, then burst into tears.

“This is stupid—this is so stupid. Cut it out, Harris.” The more she told herself to stop it, the harder she cried. After a few minutes, she heard the outside door open and two of the secretaries came in, chattering about their lunch plans. Emily
stifled her sobs and started wiping away the tears and blowing her nose.

When the secretaries were gone, Emily came out of the cubicle and went over to the mirror to survey the damage. Fortunately, she had one of those faces that didn’t show the ravages of crying. Her eyes were a little red and she’d wiped off her
lipstick but other than that she was none the worse for wear. She went back to her desk and quickly put on some fresh make-up. “I might look as good as new but I sure feel like shit,” she said softly under her breath.

“Okay, back to work, troups.” She sat down at the terminal and started the “draft” of the Matt article. There was enough adrenaline circulating in her system to make the words flow smoothly, tripping off her fingers onto the keyboard and onto the
computer monitor.

When the article was finished, Emily printed out a copy to use for hard copy editing. She picked up her red marker, ready to start the editing process, but somehow that first flush of adrenaline has sputtered out and she was left drained and down,
more depressed than she’d been in a long while.

Writing the “article” had brought back one of those memories that seem etched into the brain—there with all its details, visual, aural, even the aromas of the past.

It had been one of the few times that the “gang” had worked together as a team: Matt, Trav, China, and Emily.  At one point, the project even brought Win Prescott and David Shaw into the action, because it involved a high-level crisis at Dynatron.

The memory chain in Emily’s mind was most vivid about that all-night marathon strategy session that resulted in a plan on how to contain some damaging information about Dynatron leaked to the press by a shizoid, disgruntled employee.

At the beginning of the brainstorming strategy session, Matt had lightened the mood and delighted them all with a description of what had preceded their meeting. Some of it was obviously the production of his sometimes too-fertile imagination but it
made a great story.

The Dynatron employee causing the trouble was a female engineer named Rita Paulson who’d been with Dynatron for almost ten years and who’d been repeatedly passed over for promtion in favor of young and hungry male engineers.  Her salary was lower
than some of the engineers hired fresh out of grad school and she resented this more than anything.  Somehow this pocketbook evidence of what she considered to be the company’s lack of proper appreciation for her and her abilities angered her more
than the lack of advancement career-wise.

In her ten year tuenure with the company, she’d unearthed what she termed a pay-off scandal that topped all others, hotter and more dishonest than all the previous ones that had plastered the front pages of newspapers across the nation. Paulson
claimed that she’d been ordered to, as she termed it, ‘co-habit’ with one of the Air Force purchase decision-makers, in order to influence his purchase recommendations on Dynatron’s laser communications system. Her accusations were an amalgamam of
half-truths salted with a lot of imaginative and destructive lies.

Paulson had gone to David Shaw with her accusations, threatening to contact the media unless she received what she called ‘adequate satisfaction and re-compensation consideration.’ Shaw knew a hot potato when he saw one and knew to pass it off to
others as quickly as possible. The moment Rita Paulson walked out his office door, slamming it behind her, Shaw called Win Prescott and quickly filled him in on Rita’s tale of sexual requirements, hundreds of thousands of dollars changing hands,
promises of future employment to military personnel upon retirement from the service, and on and on.

Win lost his cool and ranted into the phone for two minutes without let-up. Then as Shaw calmed him down, Prescott ordered him to call Matt Thompson immediately and get him over to Dynatron within the next hour.

Shaw was not happy about involving Thompson in Dynatron’s dirty laundry problem. There was too much basis of truth in Paulson’s accusations to let an outsider be privy to the inner workings of the nation’s largest defense contractor.  He tried to
tactfully allude to that with Prescott but got no further than suggesting that they handle this “completely internally, on a strict ‘need-to-know’ basis,” when Prescott slammed down his phone and came down mahogany row to confront Shaw in person.

“Shaw, don’t be an asshole. This is deep shit time and we don’t know any of the accepted procedures for containing deep shit.  Get Thompson over here, now!” Prescott stood there while Shaw called Thompson & Associates.
The receptionist told Shaw that Thompson was at a meeting at a client’s. At first she refused to give Shaw a number where Thompson could be reached.

Prescott grabbed the receiver out of Shaw’s hands and barked into it: “This is Winthop Prescott, chairman of Dynatron Industries, Inc. I want a number where I can reach Matthew Thompson and I want it now.” As the girl gave him the number, Prescott
gestured to Shaw to write it down as he repeated the digits after her.

With an abrupt click and not another word to the receptionist, Prescott discconected the call and handed the receiver back to Shaw.

“Now call the number and see if you have any luck getting through to Thompson.” Prescott glared as Thompson, as the red-faced subordinate viciously punched in the phone number.

Once again Shaw found himself getting the runaround from a receptionist but this time he did his own heavy number on her and within minutes Matt was on the other end of the line.

As Shaw launched into a long, convoluted explanation of the problem Dynatron was facing, Prescott once again grabbed the receiver out of Shaw’s hand  and barked into it.

“Forget all that bullshit, Thompson, Shaw and I will be at your office in an hour. Be there.”

Shaw hid a grin, as he imagined how pissed off Thompson must be at Prescott’s proprietary attitude.

Shaw and Prescott drove separate cars downtown—Shaw, always the status seeker, in his shiny gold BMW and Prescott, always his own self, in his mud-splattered International Harvester runabout.

Thompson was waiting for them in his office, with the door wide open.  It was just past five and the support staff had left for the day. The professional staff were still milling about, staying late at Matt’s request.

Matt stood up as Shaw and Prescott came into his office. He motioned to the conference table at one side of the room, by the window overlooking the riverfront with its towering Arch.  As they sat down, he shut his office door.

“Can I get anyone anything to drink?” he offered.

Shaw started to say yes, but Prescott interrupted with, “No, not now.  Sit down. I want to get the ball rolling on this.” As an afterthought, Prescott added, “Please.”

Matt grinned at Prescott’s obesiance and sat down across the table from the two Dynatron executives.

Prescott gestured to Shaw to tell the story but once again interrupted him just as he was getting started. Prescott proceeded to finish the tale in record time and with a record amount of profanity, even for him.

When Prescott had finished, Matt sat silent for a few moments, lightly rubbing his forehead, a sign Shaw remembered that meant Matt was doing some heavy thinking.

Finally he spoke. “Is it true?”

At first, neither Shaw nor Prescott answered.

“Shit, yes, it’s true,” Prescott finally admitted.

“All true?” Matt asked.

Here Shaw spoke. “I don’t think it’s all true. I think Paulsen exaggerated and elaborated. And I think sometimes she’s downright lying. But enough of it is true and provable to cause us mountains of trouble.”

“Are you willing to accede to her demands?” Matt asked the operative question softly.

“Hell, no,” Prescott asserted at the same time Shaw was saying quietly, “Well, maybe.”

“Which is it, fellas? You can’t have it both ways. Either we pay her off or we don’t. It’s like that old saying, You can’t be a little bit pregnant.”

Prescott put his hands together in a steeple configuration and briefly leaned his head on his fingertips. Then, raising his head and looking out the window at the darkening skyline, he said, “We don’t have a choice. If any of her accusations were
made public, it would destroy Dynatron. The government, the military would withdraw their contracts faster than you can say shit.”

“Okay, we know that much. Now how do we go about doing it? And, most importantly, will she keep her mouth shut after she’s paid off?”

Neither Shaw nor Prescott could even begin to address the second question. As for the first, Shaw already had the beginnings of a plan.  Rita would receive a salary increase to the point that she was paid more than her colleagues in comparable
positions; the increase would be done on a retroactive basis so that she would receive a hefty, healthy lump sum upfront.

After the pay portion was put into motion, Rita would be transferred to the California division, ostensibly as a promotion. Actually, she would be assigned to one of the company’s innocuous Research and Development areas, working on new products for
the company.

Matt listened carefully to Shaw’s plan, nodding slowly every once in a while. When Shaw had finished, Matt said, “We’ll have to try and get Paulson to ask for what we’re willing to give her. We want her to think she’s got us by the balls and we’re
afraid of her squeezing.”

“Shaw, you’ll have to be the one to handle her,” Prescott interjected.  Both Prescott and Thompson frowned slightly at this but they both knew that Shaw was the logical choice to do it.

Shaw knew it too and he didn’t like it. He didn’t have many people skills and felt awkward in any situation where he wasn’t otally in control. He’d long ago learned to disguise his lack of friendliness and personality with an aloof aura that turned
people off right away. He wasn’t a good negotiator when it came to feelings and emotions, especially female ones like this situation.

Matt took a yellow legal pad from one side of his desk and started making some notes, reading them aloud as he wrote.

“First, arrange the meeting with Paulson at the end of the day this Friday. That’ll give her time to think over the weekend. Besides that if she gets weepy or angry she won’t have to go back to her office after the session with you or run the gamut
of employees when she leaves.”

Matt was silent for a moment, thinking and then began writing and speaking again.

“Offer her the maximum amount you can, without making it look like a pay-off. She probably has some pride left somewhere and we don’t want to injure that.”

Another pause, then Matt continued. “Tell her she’s being considered for a promotion to a hush-hush project that you can’t discuss till the deal is finalized but that you’ll get back to her as soon as possible.  when she calls on Monday to tell you
she’ll accept the financial adjustment in lieu of blowing the whistle, tell her you’ll let her know about her new asisgnment by the end of the week.”

Matt turned to Prescott. “Now, there’s one role in this scenario for you, small but of crucial importance.”

Prescott frowned but didn’t say anything.

“What you have to do, Win, is to casually drop by Shaw’s office this Friday evening. Just stick your head in, say you don’t want to interrupt. Then make a point of saing hello to Rita, ask her how she’s doing, tell her to keep up the good work, tell
her what a good future she has with Dynatron—that kind of bullshit. But keep it casual and low-key and try to make it sound spontaneous and unplanned. She’ll most likely see right through it. But you carry enough clout and inspire enough awe
(although God knows why) that she’ll at least get a few strokes from the fact that you even know her name.”

Win finally smiled and said, “Matt, you’re a bastard but an effective one.”

Matt laughed shortly and went back to his list.

“Shaw, the nitty gritty details of dollar amounts and reassignment are your bailiwick. Just make sure you do your best to soothe and placate her. She sounds like a bomb ready to explode at the slightest provocation.”

And explode is just what Rita Paulson did, on that Friday evening following the meeting with Shaw, and peripherally, Prescott.

Shaw had been brusque and sarcastic with her, despite Matt’s injunction to give her the old smooth-talk routine. When Prescott poked his head in the door, Paulson was on her feet, ready to storm out the office, mightily offended at Shaw’s attitude
and approach. Prescott had tried his best to calm her down and salvage something from the situation but to no avail.

She shouted, “Bastards!” in their general direction and stomped out of Shaw’s office.

Prescott was beside himself with rage. “What in God’s name did you do?” he demanded.

Shaw, red in the face with anger and self-righteousness, replied indignantly, “I did just what Thompson ordered me to do.”

Prescott shot back at him, “No, you didn’t. I stood outside your door and listened for a minute or two and you certainly weren’t following Thompson’s scenario. Your tone towards her was flagrantly condescending and the sarcasm was so heavy I couldn’t
believe it. You really screwed this up, Shaw.”

Prescott wheeled around and strode out of Shaw’s office, pausing just outside the door to say, “That does it for you. You’re out of this situation and if I have my way, you’re out of this company.”

Shaw stood up behind his desk, shouted after Prescott, “No, I’m certainly not out of this company and you’d best remember exactly what I’ve got on you and why you can’t get rid of me.”

Prescott reddened but didn’t answer. He stood silent for a moment, his back to Shaw, seemingly trying to control his rage. With some semblance of control, he turned and said quietly to Shaw, “We’ll see about that.”

                              CHAPTER 11

China smiled at Trav standing next to the love seat where she was perched, in the TV station’s glitzy private box at the stadium.

“Well, how does this suit you as a way to watch the Cardinals play?” she asked.

“Right on,” Trav replied. He and China were the first arrivals of an expected party of ten and he was awestruck at the elegance of his surroundings. Somehow in all his years as a baseball fan, he’d never made it into one of the private game viewing
rooms ringing Busch stadium that corporations rented by the season.

China was drinking a glass of Chablis and he was almost finished with his first beer. The room had a full bar and was equipped with a small refrigerator stocked with three kinds of wine, six kinds of beer, and an even wider assortment of softdrinks.
On the coffee table, platters of snacks covered its glass top. There were chips and dip, and nuts, and veggies and cheese popcorn. China had warned him not to eat too much of the snacks because as soon as everyone had arrived, a waiter would come in
and their orders for more substantial food, such as bratwurst and hot dogs and steak sandwiches and pizza and nachos.  There were two large-screen color televisions in the room, where the game would be broadcast and watched by those who didn’t want
to use the private room’s outdoor patio fitted with more traditional stadium seats.

The private room was airconditioned, almost too much so, and Trav was glad he’d grabbed a lightweight windbreaker at the last moment. His short-sleeved Polo shirt would have left him shivering in the room’s frosty air.

China looked deligtful in khaki walking shorts that emphasized her shapely, tanned legs.  She too wore a Polo shirt, a light blue one, in contrast to Trav’s red one worn in honor of the Cardinals. But she certainly filled hers out differently, Trav
mused to himself.

Although China’s long blond hair was brushed back into a pony
tail, she still managed to look beautiful, even elegant, despite the casual clothes and hairdo. Even her bare feet looked sexy, darkly tanned, with glittery polish on her toe nails, encased in wispy sandals with a few straps of leather and not much
else.

Gradually, the other members of their party trickled into the box.  Trav realized that there wasn’t going to be any privacy for the two of them, no time when China could tell him whatever else it was she had remembered or decided about Matt. He’d
tried to get her to tell him at her apartment when he went to pick her and then in the car driving to the stadium but she kept changing the subject and veering the conversation in a different direction.

What this meant was that he’d haave to go to up to China’s apartment after the game, which was just what she had planned, probably.

Trav laughed inwardly, wondering if he’d finally really lost his mind. What other red-blooded, healthy American male would be trying to think of some way to avoid going to bed with the alluring, luscious China Smith. He snickered to himself and
ignored China’s questioning look.

She was chatting with the station manager and his wife. She’d introduced Trav to them and the four of them had gone out to the patio to watch the crowd of baseball fans streaming into the stadium from all directions.

Trav watched China, impressed at her poise and personableness. The station manager had already made a few comments that indicated he was one of those macho sports fans who would second-guess the Cardinals manager on every play. Trav hated to watch a
game with one of those around and decided that wherever this guy sat, he would sit at the farthest point from him.

The station manager’s wife, on the other hand, was a tiny little doll, dressed in a long flowered cotton sundress, her hair in a curly upsweep. She smiled her sweet smile and took care to keep her wineglass full and then empty, full and then empty.
Her husband ignored her, his eyes hungrily devouring China, sweat faintly glistening on his forehead as he concentrated on his sexy PR employee.

During the game, which Trav watched from the patio section, China wandered back and forth through the private room, clearly using this event to further her career. She smoozed with everyone, including the station manager’s alcoholic little wife,
Celia. Out of boredome, Trav casually tried to keep track of Celia’s drinking, and by the end of the game, she had consumed almost 2 liters of wine and was glassy-eyed and swaying.  China had also consumed a great deal of wine but Trav was well aware
from past experience that she had a metabolism that burned up alcohol as fast as she ingested it, especially wine.

The Cardinals lost, depressing the kid-like baseball fan in Trav. No one else had paid much attention to the game and didn’t seem to care one way or another about its outcome.

As he expected, Trav found himself in China’s apartment. But before anything else, he intended to see if she really did have any additional Thompson information or if that had been just a subterfuge.

China offered him a drink and he asked for a beer. She brought it to him, along with a tumbler full of Scotch for herself. Trav marveled inwardly at China’s seemingly limitless capacity for booze. In the past she proven she could drink everyone under
the table and barely show she’d been drinking. Matt was the only one who could hold his liquor as well as China. The two of them had matched each other drink for drink on many occasions—the consensus was that they were evenly matched.

Trav was sprawled at one end of the long beige sofa, and China sat down at the other end, kicked off her sandals, and tucked her feet under her. She looked musingly at Trav, as if waiting for him to speak. Trav debated whether to keep his silence or
whether to do what she was waiting for and ask the Thompson question. He opted for asking, thinking it might make her more amenable to sharing whatever it was she knew.

“So, China doll, you said you’d thought of something else about Matt?”

“Yep,” she answered, gulping the last of the Scotch from her glass and getting up for a refill.

Back at the sofa, she sat down next to Trav and leaned up against him. He obligingly put his arm around her and she laid her head on his shoulder. She started talking, in such a low murmur that Trav had to strain his ears to listen.

“You know, Trav dear, I hate Matthew fucking Thompson. He screwed and hurt and humiliated me as no other human being has ever done, or even come close. I want him destroyed and I finally have the chance
to do that.  Two ways, in fact. Your newspaper article and that TV special we’re doing.”

Trav tried to cover up his surprise—he didn’t know anything about a TV special but evidently China thought he did. Maybe her famed capacity for booze didn’t extend to remembering what she had and had not told him during last night’s drinking/sex
marathon.

China kept on speaking, her voice a little louder as she continued.  “I know something about Matt Thompson and Thompson & Associates that hardly anyone else knows—the only other ones that know, besides Matt, are Win Prescott and David Shaw.

David Shaw, Trav thought to himself. How I’d love to get something on that bastard. Win Prescott he didn’t care about.

“There’s one hitch,” said China. “I don’t think there’s any way to print any of this or any way to include it in the show. There’s probably no hard copy proof anywhere, there’s probably not anything except my word.”

Trav was itching for the actual information but he was wily enough not to push China. She’d just refuse to tell him, for the hell of it.  Although she seemed so intent on destroying Matt that she might overlook anything.

China stopped talking to take another drink of Scotch,then continued.  “I always thought the term ‘laundering money’ was really a hoot.  Whenever I heard it, I could just see some little old lady scrubbing dollar bills and hanging them out to dry.”
China gave a short laugh.  “But I guess there’s really nothing funny about it. Well, that’s what Matt was doing—laundering money.”

Trav  interrupted, his tone incredulous. “You’re kidding! Matt?  laundering money?  drug money.?”

“No, silly,” China said, “not drug money.  It was money from Dynatron big bucks that they used to pay off various and sundry people—sometimes it seemed like they were paying off half the world.”

“Dynatron? Payoffs? China, what in God’s name are you talking about?”

“Oh, Trav, don’t be so naive. Dynatron was and probably still is one of the worst offenders of all defense contractors as far as paying off the military—and civilians, too, for that matter. Anyway, Dynatron set up this deal where they supposedly
were paying Thompson & Associates for advertising and public relations services, when really the money was channeled out, ostensibly as dividends, to dummy ‘stockholders’ in the company. Those ‘stockholders’ were really military procurement people.
There were even a couple of Congressmen—you’d recognize the names if I told you but I’m not going to tell you. They’re not the ones I want to get—it’s Matt I’m out to hurt.”

Trav sat silent for a moment, trying to assimilate the bombshell China had just dropped on him. He’d never expected anything like this. What a godawful hot potato to sit here juggling.

“China, are you sure about this?” Trav asked the question slowly.

“Damn right I’m sure,” China replied with a trace of indignation
in her voice.  “I saw what little paperwork Matt personally kept on the scam—and that was very little. I have copies of most of it—I figured it might come in handy someday and that day has finally arrived.”

“But why on earth would Matt do take such a crazy chance?” Trav asked, the incredulity in his voice once again.

“It seems that once upon a time, Matt’s agency was in deep financial trouble—this was before either you or I were involved with him. It was back towards the beginning, shortly after Shaw left Matt to go work for Dynatron. The agency was about to go
belly-up. Matt was in hock to several backs, up to his earlobes in debt. He went around to all his friends and former friends and business associates and former business associates, desperately looking for someone to bail him out.  But no go. At
least not till he got to Shaw and Win Prescott. Those two crooks came up with the laundering scheme—they’d been looking for a way to deal with the pay-off situation and Matt turned out to be perfect.”

“Whew,” exclaimed Trav. “This is dynamite stuff.”

“Yeah,” China concurred. “And there’s more. Year after year, the amount of money being laundered grew larger and larger. And Thompson was taking his 10 percent right off the top. We’re talking millions of dollars.”

“China, I don’t know what to do about this. This is bigger than some little cutthroat newspaper profile article. This is a legal, criminal thing.”

“You mean you won’t write about it?” China’s words exploded in anger.

“I said I don’t know. I’ll have to talk to my editor and he’ll have to talk to the legal department. In the past, when the paper’s come across something like this, legal has always gone immediately to the prosecuting attorney with our information. We
eventually got exclusives on the stories but not until the legal wheels were set in motion.”

“Trav, that’s a crock of shit. I want a big splash in the newspaper, exposing Thompson and Shaw and Prescott.  I want those crooks to pay for breaking the law, for thinking they’re above the law.”

Trav thought to himself, No, China, what we have here is your own very personal vendetta against Matt Thompson. You could care less whether or not he broke the law.  You just want revenge for what he did to you.

Trav didn’t speak any of that aloud. He had a mess on his hands here and didn’t have the faintest idea how to proceed.

China heaved herself up from the sofa and swayed over to the bar, where she poured herself more Scotch. This was the first time Trav could remember China giving any indication that she was drunk. She swayed back to the sofa and carefully sat down.

For a few minutes, they sat sat silent, side by side. Finally, Trav said softly, “Well, China, I don’t know what to say.”

When there was no answer, Trav looked closely into China’s face. Her eyes were closed. He said, “China?” When he received no answer, he reached out and retrieve the still-full glass of Scotch clasped in China’s hand and set it down on the glass-
topped coffee table.  He got up and gently stretched China out full-length on the sofa and covered her with the white and beige Granny square afghan draped over the back of the sofa.

Trav stood looking  down at China as she lay sleeping on the sofa—or perhaps passed out was a more accurate description, he thought.

He was debating with himself whether or not to search for the papers China had mentioned. The newspaperman’s temptation to snoop was
too deeply ingrained in him and was impossible to resist. Giving it a moment’s thought, Trav decided the most logical place to look was in the spare bedroom China used as an office.

In the office, he looked around—there was a large desk, a credenza, a computer and printer on an adjacent workstation, and several file cabinets. The file cabinets were the obvious location—but they were locked. Trav looked around for something to
the jimmy the locks and discovered the file cabinet keys in a small box in the middle desk drawer.

He unlocked all three cabinets at once and returned the keys to the desk drawer. The cabinets were the kind with self-locking push-in locks that didn’t require a key for locking.

Quickly he scanned the file folders in drawer after drawer, but none of them seemed appropriate. The few that had possibilities—Thompson & Associates, Dynatron, David Shaw—had only straightforward, expected information. Trav was surprised at the
dossier-type information China had compiled. She had newspaper clippings, old biographical information, letters, all kinds of interesting tidbits.

When he’d made his first pass through the three cabinets, he was perplexed—it had seemed the easiest and most logical location of the information. He tried to get into the China mode of thinking—on the chance that she’d used some clever file label.

As he’d gone through the files, he’d noticed several that had what seemed to be lines from from Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets as file names—Too, too solid flesh, To be or Not to be. He decided to go back through those unusual ones. But first he
tiptoed to the living room archway to check on China’s status. She was still out like a light and was even softly snoring. How the mighty are fallen, thought Trav and then laughed at himself using a quotation when that was ‘China’s file forte.

Back at the files, he carefully sought out those files with the unusal labels. Sure enough—the files with the quotation labels were different than the others. Most of them contained handwritten notes, in China’s handwriting, Trav thought. It was
gossipy, inuendo information—expose-type stuff. Included were many of the city’s top movers and shakers. China had created interlocking backgrounder files with all the dirtiest and lowest gossip/rumor garbage.

Trav was astounded at the stuff he was skimming through—in the back of his mind he was reminded of J. Edgar Hoover’s much-touted, similar-type files.

China was up to no good with this stuff. Trav wondered if she were into the heavy-duty blackmail business. He couldn’t quite see that although with the elusive, mysterious Miss China Doll, one never knew. Another possibility was that she used all
this dirt as leverage—used it to persuade or coerce people into whatever.

Trav shook his head and thought what a field day the Times’ gossip columnist would have with this treasure trove of dirty information.

About halfway through the third file cabinet, he finally hit paydirt, so to speak. There were a cluster of files, all with clever labels—all on the money-laundering scam. Trav read each one thoroughly, disgusted at the names and dollars laid out
here in black and white.  It was even more sickening to him than when China told him about it.

Trav had always maintained a certain high ethical stance, despite the messy, slightly sleazy impression he sometimes exuded. This garbage offended his beliefs and standards and raised his hackles. He felt an old warhorse’s call to action and knew
that what he was about to do was foolhardy, perhaps even dangerous.

Quickly, he gathered up the files and quietly checked once again on China—still out cold. He tiptoed into the kitchen, unlocked the back service door and went out into the back hall. He wedged a pack of matches between the door and the doorframe to
prevent the door from automatically self-locking itself.

He’d decided to find some all-night place where he could xerox the documents and get the originals back into China’s files without her finding out.

About two blocks from China’s apartment was one of those supermarket super centers, open 24 hours a day, and offering every conceivable product and service imaginable—including a xerox machine. Trav emptied his pockets of change and saw that he had
enough to do the job. He hastily began the copying process keeping an eye out for anyone who might be watching what he was doing. It was almost 2 in the morning and the store was almost deserted—he was the only customer and there were only 3 or 4
employees.

Page after page he ran through the copy machine, wishing for one of those high-speed electronic jobs rather than this slow moving mechanical thing.

He looked up when he heard the automatic door swing open across the way. Just his luck—it was one of the city cops that he knew fairly well. Fortunately, he only had a couple of copies left to make. He hurried through them and jammed everything back
in the file folders.  He was just scooping up his leftover change when the policeman spotted him and came towards him.

“Trav, what the hell are you doing in here at this time of night?” the policeman asked.

Trav had his story ready. “Paul, good to see you. I’m just here making some copies of tax junk. I’ve got an early morning appointment with my accountant...” Trav let his voice trail off, realizing that his guilt was causing him to over-explain his
presence—when actually no explanation was needed.

“The good old IRS—they getcha comin’ and goin,’ don’t they?” Paul said.

“Ain’t that the truth? Say, what are you doin’ in here this time of night—or I guess I should say morning?” Trav asked.

“Just checkin’ things out,” Paul answered. “This particular store has had more than its fair share of 201’s lately so we try to keep an extra eye on it.”

Trav grinned, thinking to himself, at least I still know that ‘201’ is the police code for an armed robbery. He wanted out of here—china could come to any moment and discover both his and the files’ absence.

“Well, fella, I gotta be on my way. Take care,” Trav raised a hand in farewell.

“Right—see ya,” Paul replied touching a finger to his hat and giving his holstered revolver an automatic pat.

Trav resisted the urge to sprint out of the store, restraining himself to what he thought approximated a leisurely stroll but which was in reality a slow trot.

Out on the street and out of Paul’s range of vision, Trav broke into a loping run, covering the two blocks back to China’s place in just a few minutes. His heart was pounding and he was sweating heavily.  When he finally got back to the rear service
door, everything was just as he had left it. He took a deep breath and silently pushed the door open. He swooped down and retrieved the book of matches and then quietly thrust over the dead bolt, starting at the unseemly loudness of the lock’s click.
He panicked when he heard a sound of coughing coming from the living room. He quietly went to the living room’s archway and sighed in relief as he saw China thrashing restlessly back and forth still stretched out on the sofa.
God, if he could only get these files back in the cabinet before China came to.
Back in her office, he flipped through the files, straightening out the papers he’d so hastily jammed back in them and then carefully refiled them exactly where they’d been.  He made two quarterfold packets of his copies of the documents tucked them
into the pockets of his windbreaker. Before leaving the room, he glanced around to make sure everything was back as he’d originally found it.
Out in the hall, he leaned back against the wall for a moment, taking a deep breath and trying to slow down his rapidly beating heart.
I’m certainly not cut out for a life of crime, he thought to himself.  How in God’s name did burglars stand the tension and stress? Maybe they were into meditation and deep breathing or maybe alcohol.
He went into the living room and debated about what he should do now.  China still showed no signs of actually awakening, although she continued to twitch and jerk in her sleep.  Trav decided to leave, but first he wrote China a note using the pad of paper and pen on the entrance foyer table.
‘Bye for now, kid. I’ll call you. T.’ the note read. He laid it on the glass coffee table and left the apartment.
By the time he drove home, his heart had slowed and he was no longer sweating. Back in his own apartment, he dug the packets of paper out of his jacket pockets. Sitting at his desk with them, he unfolded the documents and put them into some semblance of order. He also took the time to read through them more intently and made a few notes as he read.  Finally, at half-past three in the morning, the nadir of any day, he packed it in and went to bed, sure he wouldn’t be able to sleep. But he was asleep almost as soon as he closed his eyes.