Grief Street

ask.”
    So it went for half an hour at his desk: Slattery and myself in the eternal back-and-forth.
    He was relatively unsurprised that I had badged my way into the building and then the city room, where I found him in a fedora, feet propped up on his desk next to his trusty Speed-Graphic, and smoking a Camel under a bilingual sign on the office wall: NO SMOKING/PROHIBIDO FUMAR. In a room full of hatless, obedient nonsmokers who never heard of a Speed-Graphic and who looked more like insurance agents who belonged to health clubs than newspaper reporters, Slats was a refreshing sight. I had to give him that.
    “Kind of early for interrogations, isn’t it, Hock?” Slattery did not gloat—not too much at least. Also I had to give him that. He looked as if he had been up all night and through the tiny hours, which of course he probably had, feeding facts into his story from early edition to this morning’s latest. “Being the crack-of-noon type, you must have hated the rousting you got this morning.”
    “Until now I thought I was the low-profile type, too. Thanks for nothing.”
    “Hungry?”
    “That’s one of the things bothering me.”
    We left the city room for the cafeteria on the fourth floor. Which has always been a dump, though never so bad as it is now that it has been modernized—by means of a lot of employee downsizing, as they say. Slattery made his usual bleak joke about an eventual outbreak of cholera in the place. The steam tables were full of precooked mush best identified by color: a brown thing, a green thing, a gray thing, and so forth. Nobody was there to actually serve any mush. Instead there were cracked plates and ladles under a plastic sneeze guard, over which a cheery cardboard sign declared: WE PUT THE SERVICE BACK IN SELF-SERVICE. A cashier sat on a stool down the end of the line, offering no cheer whatever.
    Since he had sandbagged me with the cover story, and even seemed a little embarrassed by it, Slats treated. He had Pepsi, which he perked up with rye whisky from a pocket flask, along with no food. I had a brown thing that looked like a hot roast beef sandwich drenched in gravy and a Dr. Brown’s celery soda, unperked.
    “How come you never called me for comment in your story?” I asked him. “Or my wife for that matter?”
    “Sorry about that. I really am. You know how it goes, sometimes your source lays down conditions.”
    “Conditions. I see. What you did, Slats, it’s not smart.”
    “Get over it.”
    “Oh, that’s what I’m supposed to do? For years, I’m tipping you good stories. Now you blow me off for a two-day wonder.”
    “I’m not going to debate the merits of an exclusive with you.”
    “You disappoint me, Slats.”
    “How? I make you out an ace cop, I publicize Ruby—”
    “You got no idea, do you?”
    “About what?
    “Cop egos and cop resentments. Cops are no better than actors when it comes to gracious reaction to good press notices about somebody else they know in the trade.”
    “So?”
    “So I have this IAD complaint going against a big cop. I guess you didn’t know that. The resentment from all over the department is about all I can handle. This story of yours, it can push everything over the top. Ego, resentment, and a certain know-how for making a crime of passion neat instead of sloppy. Which is the difference between unsolvable and solvable. So thanks loads, good buddy.”
    “Who are you beefing about to IAD?”
    “You’ll find out, Slats, in due time. Only you won’t find out from me, and you won’t be getting my side of the story.”
    “Why not?”
    “You don’t bother calling up Ruby or me about today’s headlines and you’re asking why not? You got some brass knockers, Slats. But just remember, you’re not the only reporter in New York.”
    “Come on, Hock, that’s not your style.” For just a moment, it looked as if Slattery was worried I would cut him off. But then he cooled down, which irritated me.
    “Just tell me if your source is a cop,” I said.
    “Did you read the paper or not?” Slattery drank down half his spiked Pepsi. “The story says ‘sources within the police department and elsewhere.’ ”
    “Elsewhere? Meaning your playwright caller?”
    “Elsewhere means elsewhere.”
    “How many people are you talking to on this, Slats? One, two, three—more than that?”
    “Sources is plural. Plural means plural.”
    “By the way, what do you mean not my style?”
    “What’s with all the