Chapter 48
Jack laid the article wordlessly on my desk at ten. It was heavily marked up, his cramped handwriting in pencil all over the margins. “High priority,” he said, bouncing slightly on his toes.
I glanced left to see Miss Kelly watching us. “Yes, Mr. Fields.”
“I’ll be back for it myself,” he said, louder than he needed to. Miss Kelly’s left eye twitched in annoyance.
“Twenty minutes,” I said.
“You’re usually faster than that.”
“You usually don’t have this many changes.” She was still watching us. “Better lead though.”
He turned and walked away, and I could tell, even from behind, that he was trying not to laugh.
Miss Kelly stopped him at the elevators, his posture straightening as he sobered.
I could only catch a few words, but “follow proper protocol” was definitely part of what she was saying.
He gestured around the typing pool, then made a point of looking at his watch.
I realized I had better get to work. The majority of his edits were improvements, tightening for conciseness and clarity, though I did stet a couple of changes.
Twenty minutes later, he returned as I was pulling the last sheet from the roller.
I handed the pages directly to him. He nodded briskly, then left.
I watched him go, my heart beating faster than I wanted to admit.
The story was good. That was all. And we might just change the course of history with it.
The elevator opened, and Miss Kelly nearly bowled Jack over, knocking the papers out of his hand in the process. He bent to retrieve them, and Miss Kelly glared. “I don’t have time for your nonsense today, Fields.”
“Sorry, Miss Kelly. Is everything all right?”
“No,” she said brusquely. “We’re down a managing editor, and the newspaper needs to run. So whatever that story is, get it done and turned in and stop wasting time bothering Miss Greenberg.”
“Might need one more round of edits,” he said.
She threw her hands up and stormed back to her office.
Down a managing editor. Jack and I made eye contact across the room, and I could have sworn he was just barely restraining himself from kicking up his heels. Duke’s, he mouthed. I nodded.
We sat on the same side of the table this time, poring over the article together, settling on three more tweaks.
“Don’t we look cozy,” Duke said, bringing over an order of knishes. “I heard there’s a congratulations in order too.”
I looked at Jack, horrified. What had our mothers done? He shrugged at me.
“Your sister,” Duke said, and my shoulders dropped in relief.
“Oh. Betty. Yes. She gave us quite the scare.”
Duke chuckled. “I’ll cater it when there’s something for you two to celebrate.
” He walked away, greeting Anna Wainwright, who was at a table with—I squinted—Mildred Gelman, the wife of the former Speaker of the House, whose daughter, Beverly, was making waves as a campaign manager for a Senate candidate.
I would love to interview her when this was all over.
My eyes drifted to the next table, and my breath caught as I recognized the man sitting there, watching me and Jack.
I elbowed Jack sharply, and he looked up from the pages he was studying. “What—?” He followed my gaze, and I felt him stiffen next to me.
Then a waiter brought his order, and J. Edgar Hoover directed his attention to the sandwich set down in front of him.
“You don’t think he knows, do you?” I whispered.
“There’s not much he doesn’t know.”
“But they’d have stopped it, right?”
“I think so. They took oaths.”
I shook my head. “This feels like a bad omen.”
Jack looked over, amused. “Do you go in for all that? He eats here all the time. It’s a coincidence.”
Coincidence or not, we were going to be on Mr. Hoover’s radar when this story ran. I wondered if he would remember us from the restaurant. Then again, there was no way he would be interrogating us himself.
I took a deep breath and blew it out forcefully. “Okay. I’ll type these changes. And then . . . I think it’s ready.”
Jack agreed, though neither of us had an appetite for the food that was then placed in front of us. Mr. Hoover didn’t look back as we watched him tear into his food, completely unaware that we were about to make his men extraordinarily busy very soon.