Author's Note: I keep forgetting what the actual name of Arthur's boss is, so I've been fluctuating between Al and Lou. I don't why! But anyway, I think I'll stick with Lou for now, at least until I can do some research. The minute I know for sure, I'll get back here and refine the story. Sorry about that!
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There wasn't a story in the reactions to Brian Slade's new emergence on the scene. That news died down in a week or so, replaced by more important international affairs. Slade himself seemed to disappear for a little while.
Arthur had taken a week off work, more because his boss had insisted he might throttle him if he tried to come back before then, and the week was up.
The man couldn't help but wonder if Brian had returned to Los Angeles. Or England. Or Sweden, where he had apparently been very happy for a little while. A Swedish waitress had come forward with the story that Bertrand Thomas had frequented her little shop every day of his two years in the country. There was brief conjecture about her four-year-old son.
The pin, too. What had happened to the pin? Arthur had never worn it, but now that it was gone, some indefinable sadness seemed to take its place. Some sense of vague loss. As though the pin symbolized everything he most treasured.
Yet Arthur Stewart was not prone to flights of fancy, and he washed his face and looked at himself in the mirror and mused that for all his various issues and troubled nature, he was a singularly simple man. An unfulfilled one, perhaps, but simple. He even put one of his old records on as he drank his coffee and tried to wake up. The old, bouncing music didn't sit well in the small enclosure. Not for anything more than its skewed perspective from the time and place in which he sat.
It was peculiar. People said New York was the place where anything could happen, where anything could find a home. Arthur didn't agree with that. He switched off his lights and locked his door and pondered about the inalienable fact that New York didn't want to know unless it was of some use to it.
Strangely enough, the last thing Arthur expected to see when he walked into his office was the long appraising stares from other people. After the anonymity of the streets, it was a wet fish in the face. He slowed down and looked around. "Wha'?" he demanded.
Carl held up his hands in disavowal and got busy with something else entirely. The rest of the office followed suit.
Arthur tossed his bag under his desk with a last dark look at Lou's door and grabbed the telephone. He called the Mayor's office about something to do with the sewage system and rambled through a worthless hour or so of work. There was very little else he could do.
"Hey, Art?"
He looked up and Shelley smiled nervously and held out an envelope. "You got mail." She stood back as though his disgrace was contagious.
"Ta," he said absently, not bothering any more.
The missive was short, to the point, and Arthur stormed into his editor's office less than five minutes later.
"Like hell I'll do this," he snapped, shaking the crumpled letter in his hand, "You can't ask me to do this."
"You're a reporter, Arthur. You get an assignment and you do it." Lou didn't even get up from his chair.
"Not again!"
"Sure, again. I'm your boss. What I say goes."
"I won't do it."
"You don't get a choice." Lou said it without a smile on his face, barely moving a muscle beyond clasping his hands on the desk. "You're a good kid, Arthur. But you're not thinking straight about this."
Arthur dropped into a chair. The chair was like everything else in the office- small and grey. Grey walls, grey metal filing cabinet, grey metal desk, and grey upholstered chairs. The only bright spots of colour were the potted plant in the corner and the papers scattered around.
The room was exactly like the man who used it. Lou had no need for colour, too caught up in language. The little man was perpetually untidy, perpetually vocal, and perpetually ready to start on about how the new age of cinema was ruining the satisfaction of a good book.
"You know," Lou continued, softening his voice and leaning forward, "Maybe you should take a few weeks off. Go somewhere."
Arthur glared at the interfering older man.
"Seriously, Arthur. When the last time you went away?"
"Few months ago," Arthur supplied helpfully, "Went off to England, remember, with Tommy Stone?"
Lou didn't like talking about that. It was a sore point. Woundingly embarrassing. "Not like that," he said impatiently, "Like a vacation. You're burning out, kid, and I don't need another burn out with Geoff still chugging bottles of vodka."
Arthur was most indignant. "'M not burning out, you daft bugger. I'm having a fucking awful time with personal issues."
"Oh," Lou grinned suddenly, "The usual, then."
"Yeah. The usual."
"Well, who's it this time?"
Arthur didn't say. He looked at the toe of his shoe and brooded.
"Christ, tell me she isn't married!"
Arthur looked up only long enough to roll his eyes in frustration.
Lou sat back in his seat and folded his arms, the old chair creaking beneath his weight. "Then he's married?"
"No!"
"Look, you don't have to tell me. It's none of my business. But when it affects your work, it's my problem too, Art, so you better make sure it doesn't affect your work. I hope you know I'd have kicked anyone else to the curb for doing what you did. The story comes first. I've always said so and I'll say it again. The story… comes… first. Numero Uno. Top priority. Got that?"
"Yeah, Lou."
"Take your long face outta here, then." Lou pointed him to the door.
Arthur pointedly stayed in his seat. "Why do I 'ave to go interview Slade?" he questioned.
Lou looked at the defiant young man over his glasses and knew why the dropped 'aitch' worried him. Arthur never dropped his 'aitches' unless he was verging on upset.
"You'll clean up your own messes," Lou said firmly, "What's the problem with Slade anyway? Did he make a pass at you that I don't know about?"
"The world doesn't revolve around sex, Lou. No, he didn't make a damned pass at me," Arthur huffed.
He wasn't going to say it was personal because Lou was fully capable of getting someone else in the office to interview him for his two night 'affair' with Brian Slade. And wouldn't that just let the cat out of the bag!
"Then stop acting like a goddamned school girl and interview the guy. Shut the door on your way out, eh?"
"Lou, why me? Get Shelley. She does the interviews."
"You're going, Arthur…"
"This isn't my field, Lou!"
"It's out of my hands," the editor shouted back. This time he pushed to his feet, placing his large hands on the desk and leaned forward on them, deadly intent on getting the point through the young man's head. "I'm telling you to go and do that interview. You'll do it. Or you'll resign."
Arthur had heard this happen before. He hadn't expected anything less. He'd lost the story in the first place and Lou was right to demand that he pay the paper back somehow.
His boss sighed and straightened up, scrubbing his hands over his face. "Arthur, there are three reasons here. One, I'm telling you as your boss. Two, I'm telling you as your friend. Three, the guy asked for you."
"What?"
"He asked. I went to him, said I'd send someone around, didn't say who; he said you or no one."
Great, Arthur considered it, truly a great time in his life. He'd never felt more like a piñata than with those words echoing in the tiny office. Whoever managed to beat him to a pulp wasn't going to find anything more than angst and guilt.
Arthur hung his head. "I'm going to kill him," he said despairingly.
"Get the interview first," Lou said, sitting down again and putting on his glasses. "You got the details? Good. That's all then."
Arthur knew a dismissal when it dropped like a brick on his head. He nodded, muttered something vaguely suggestive of a resignation and left the office, no longer fuming but still appalled by this new twist in his tale.
Carl tossed him a sympathetic look from across the room and Arthur offered a tight smile of acceptance.
Then he went to lunch. An hour early. He stayed out an hour late.
Shelley noticed he was gone and commented to Carl that he was looking really ill. "It must be rough," she remarked, glancing at his empty desk.
Carl nodded and scribbled at the typed up pages. "Yeah, I feel bad for him too. Arthur's a nice guy."
"He seems so sad," Shelley said, a hand plucking nervously at her throat, "All those black clothes! Did you notice he doesn't smile so much any more?"
"He's distracted, sure. Can you blame him? The guy's committed the cardinal sin of journalism. Well, one of the sins. There's a few and at least no one's suing us. Man, can you see Lou's face if there was?"
"He'd be fired."
"Probably. You know Lou."
"We all know Lou," she countered, "Hi, Abby. How's Denizen?"
"The bastard's got millions somewhere, I'm sure of it," Abby babbled, "Absolute millions!"
"Insider trading?"
"You bet, the shifty fat pig." She looked at the both of them and refocused her brain. Abigail tended to be more obsessive than most about her work. That, combined with her brains, got her high profile assignments. "What're you two talking about?"
"Arthur."
"Ah! The Stone stuff, right?" She leaned forward and dropped her voice. "You know what I heard? Lou's got him to do another interview with the guy. To get the skinny on Brian Slade and everything in-between. Arthur had a fit."
"Shell, that's your department. Why Arthur? I mean, it's not like he's a bad journo, but he's not got the head for interviews," Carl complained, "That weekender piece was bland as white cottons."
"I wear white cottons," Abby grinned naughtily, "Doesn't mean I'm bland, Carl."
"Hey, you're a different league, Abby," Carl laughed.
Shelley clicked her tongue and made her excuses. It was no skin off her nose if she got one interview less. She wouldn't have minded the thing in itself but Slade gave her the creeps. She'd read some of the stuff the other papers were digging out of the past and she wasn't sure that she could handle him.
Arthur- She remembered Arthur's face when Carl foisted that Brian Slade anniversary piece on him. He'd been panicked, but not exactly averse to it.
She planned to keep a close eye on one Arthur Stewart… when he got back from lunch.