Night Extra

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

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

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

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

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

“You can’t—”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“None of that strikes you as newsworthy?”

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

“We can manage, thanks.”

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

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