True-Life Adventure

Because I don’t give a shit, that’s why.”
    He left without saying good-bye.
    I figured this round was mine. He got to be nasty about whether my life was at stake, but he was so mad he forgot to ask for Koehler’s address. That meant he was going to go to Jack’s office, look for the file, and fail to find it. Then he was going to have to call me to find out how to find Koehler. And that would be a conversation I could have some fun with.
    I did type up my notes on the case. It gave me something to do while I was waiting for Blick to call. It occurred to me that one of the folks I was setting down facts about was a murderer, maybe. Probably not the Timothy A. Hearnes, and almost certainly not Sardis, since she’d been away during the whole snatch, investigation, murder, and everything. It might be one of the other four and it might not. All it had to be was someone who knew about the investigation, which let in Jacob and probably his wife, and probably Steve Koehler and who knew how many other people at Kogene. Swell.
    The phone rang.
    “Mcdonald? Who’s this Jacob Koehler, anyway?” It was Blick.
    “You mean you don’t know?”
    “How the hell would I know?”
    “I thought everybody did, that’s all.”
    “Goddammit, Mcdonald, who is he?”
    “Why don’t you look him up in Birnbaum’s files?”
    “I did, dammit. He’s not there.”
    “Oh.” I let a little time pass, waiting for him to ask me again. He did.
    “Who is he, dammit?”
    “He’s a Nobel laureate, Howard. Just about the hottest scientist in the country.”
    “Oh. Well, how do I get hold of him?”
    “That’s your problem, Howard.”
    I hung up, feeling the score was getting pretty close to even. My conscience was clear, because anybody, even Blick, could track down one of the hottest scientists in the country. But I could have saved him a few phone calls, which I had failed to do, and I had also had the pleasure of making him admit his ignorance.
    So much for revenge. Now I had to work on the case. I mean, the story. I was getting carried away with this detective business.
    Blick would be getting to Jacob pretty soon, and Jacob would turn over the one remaining copy of the reports, and Blick would start hitting the people on the list. I already knew who they were, so I could get to them before he did. Brissette was far and away the most promising.
    I changed into a sports jacket and tie, fed Spot, and drove to City Hall. I went into the supervisors’ collective office, across from the second-floor pressroom, and asked to see Brissette.
    His administrative aide was named Janet, a plain, pleasant girl I knew from my days with the Chronicle. She said he’d just stepped out, probably to the men’s room. “Mind if I wait?”
    “Of course not.” She showed me into his cubicle.
    I waited fifteen minutes, maybe, and Brissette didn’t turn up.
    A million things could happen to a supervisor on the way to the men’s room— he could run into loquacious old pals or pleading supplicants. Or angry constituents, or nosy newsmen. Any of these would slow his progress.
    Or he might drop into the second-floor pressroom for a chat, or pop down to the cigar stand for a candy bar. He could even duck into a phone booth and call his girlfriend. But Brissette was divorced, so he wouldn’t need privacy for that. Well, he could call one of those ladies who talk dirty and put their fee on your credit card. I didn’t have anything to read, so I just let the possibilities run through my head.
    But since I have a short attention span, pretty soon I started thinking about how to improve the quality of my waiting life. I could go buy a magazine, but that would cost a buck and a half or so. I could walk across the hall to the pressroom and renew old acquaintances, but that would be depressing. It might remind me that I might have to apply for a permanent job in a pressroom if things didn’t get better.
    Kathy Wong wasn’t depressing, though. She covered the courts for the Examiner and she worked out of a different pressroom— the one on the fourth floor. She kind of had a way of lifting a person’s spirits just by being alive. I wondered if she was dating anybody. And then I remembered that I was currently employed by her competition, which meant I couldn’t tell her my troubles even if I could lure her out for a drink. So much for Miss Wong.
    On the other hand, the fourth-floor pressroom was the one broadcast people worked out of on the rare