Anything Goes

He knew, too, that another widow, who claimed her husband had been dead for a year, made irregular visits to Sing Sing to visit him. But he kept this sort of information to himself.
    And in this case he couldn’t answer because he didn’t know. Yet. He just shrugged.
    “Sounds hoity-toity to me,“ Jack grumbled. “Betcha that girl decided on a new name. She looks the type.“
    “The type to change the names of things?“ Mr. Buchanan asked.
    “No, the type to be hoity-toity.“
    “You appeared to admire her yesterday.”
    “Admire? Okay. I admit she’s a looker, even if she is on the skinny side. But that doesn’t mean she has brains to go with it. Those rich girls are usually as stupid as a red brick.”
    Mr. Buchanan pretended to be examining some paperwork so Jack couldn’t see his smile. “You know a lot of them, huh? Rich girls?“
    “Just because I live in a hick town doesn’t mean I’m a hick,“ Jack said. “I’ve been to New York City.“
    “Yep, that day you went to look for a job with a big-city newspaper. I remember. You looked real spiffy.”
    Jack strutted to the edge of the tracks, as if looking for a train coming. He didn’t like to be reminded of that day. He hadn’t known he needed appointments to see real New York newspaper editors and in spite of his neatly slicked back hair, the new suit he’d borrowed from a cousin and the spit and polish shoes he’d spent the last of his meager money on, he never got past the front desk of any paper until the late afternoon.
    It was a crummy paper. And he only got through to an underling. “You’re trying to see the boss for a job?“ the editor’s male secretary said. “Got experience?“
    “Not much in newspapers, but I’ve written a lot of short stories and I’ve got a good education,“ Jack said. “Two years of college. I’d make a good reporter.”
    The secretary looked a bit like an amused fox, pointy-faced and hungry, when he replied, “Listen, boy, you go back to whatever burg you’re from and you work for their paper. For nothing, if you have to, just to get some bylines. Keep clips of every story you’ve done for three years. Then, if you’re really, really good, you might get a job at a sleazy outfit like this. I know you don’t like hearing it, but it’s a tough business to get into. Nobody starts as a reporter, even here, let alone at the good papers. You get your clips together, you might get to be a janitor for a year or two, then move up to apprentice typesetting before you get to write a word.”
    Jack resented being talked down to this way and was about to tell the secretary where to put his advice, when he suddenly had an insight. “You...?”
    The secretary nodded. “College degree and two years in the boondocks and here I sit.”
    Still pretending he hadn’t heard the stationmaster, Mr. Buchanan refer to that humiliating day, Jack went back to the window. “Guess I’ll have to take my bike up the hill then. Sure you don’t know anyone going up?“
    “Nope. Why you going if you don’t like the new folks?“
    “Assignment,“ Jack said. “Mr. Kessler told me to write up a new-neighbor piece. Hell, I wish something would really happen in this town. A good story I could get my teeth into.“
    “Things happen,“ Buchanan said. “Like that boat wreck a couple months back.“
    “Right, but Mr. Kessler did the story himself. I need something of my own to investigate. Something he doesn’t even know about.“
    “Good luck, boy,“ Buchanan said. He was going to add some witticism about moving up from new-neighbor stories to the inside gossip of the Bake Sale Club, but decided Jack wouldn’t find it funny.
     
    “He looks like James Cagney,“ Robert said. “Who’s that?“ Lily asked.
    “Oh, you remember. He was in that moving picture I made you go to last year. Sinners’ Vacation? No, Sinners’ Holiday.”
    They were standing in the front yard, watching the workmen cut down a grotesque juniper tree, and had noticed Jack Summer toiling up the hill.
    Lily studied Jack for a moment. “Yes. He does, I guess. He’s got that same sort of rooster strut, hasn’t he? Robert, we’re not going to talk about why we’re here, are we? I mean, not admit we were practically starving before this windfall.“
    “I don’t see how that’s anybody’s business. Especially a reporter’s. I figure anybody who pays attention will quickly realize how utterly incompetent we are, without being