Chapter 49
“—some kind of stomach bug or something,” a reporter was telling Frank as we reentered The Digest building after lunch.
I glanced at Jack, and he gave me a half smile.
The ipecac had worked its magic. If Florence told anyone, I would still be in trouble for poisoning a managing editor, but I had used ipecac to get out of school before.
He would be miserable for a day and then fine.
“How long do you need?” Jack asked me quietly by the elevators.
“Not long. Twenty minutes at most with a second copy as security.” We got into the elevator, and a few people stepped in after us.
Jack slipped his hand into mine, squeezing it.
I hadn’t realized quite how nervous I was until that gesture.
The doors opened on three, and I slipped past the reporters going up to the newsroom, feeling Jack’s eyes on me as I walked toward my desk, papers in hand.
Jack appeared at my desk. “Ready?” he asked. I nodded, handing him the pages, our names together as a joint byline on the top of the first. The slug was “assassination plot.” For date of publication, we had put “immediate.”
I wished I could go with Jack to turn it in and watch his editor’s face change as he read.
I also wished I could hide under my desk like a school-style bomb drill.
My stomach rumbled angrily, and there was a distinct chance I’d go the way of Mr. Pullman .
. . While it would lend credence to the stomach flu story going around, I would rather not join him.
“When will we hear anything?”
“I’ll come down and tell you as soon as I know,” he promised.
I reached out and touched his arm as he turned to go. “Whatever happens, thank you.”
He nodded, then shook my hand off, and I turned to see Miss Kelly watching us. They had better hire me to write, I thought. Because I was definitely getting fired for fraternizing otherwise.
But Jack headed to the elevator, Miss Kelly said nothing, and I went to the board for an article that I needed to retype four times because I couldn’t focus.
The minutes ticked by interminably. Then the hours. Miss Kelly went marching through the typing pool at three, jabbing impatiently at the elevator button until it arrived.
Beads of perspiration began to creep down my back, having nothing to do with the oppressive heat of DC in July. Where was Jack? Something was wrong. Had we misjudged Pullman? Was he a line of defense against someone higher up? What could possibly be taking this long?
I couldn’t hear the clock across the room ticking. I rationally knew that. But each move of the second hand thudded in my chest like something from an Edgar Allan Poe story. Tick. Tick. Tick. Each time the elevator doors opened, I jumped, thinking it was Jack.
But he never came.
Instead, just after four, Frank walked out of the elevators. Everyone stopped typing and stared. I had never seen him away from his post.
And then he slowed to a stop at my desk.
“Miss Greenberg,” he said crisply. Gone was the friendly tone of the man who had told me about his grandparents and taught me Spanish. No winks of approval or telling me I was his favorite typing pool girl today. “Come with me.”
“Frank,” I said. It came out too squeaky. I tried again. “What’s this about?”
His face didn’t soften. “Bring your things.”
That was it, then. I was out. Whether it was because I knew too much, because I had poisoned Pullman, or because I had been “fraternizing” with Jack, I didn’t know.
And from the hard set of Frank’s face, I wasn’t finding out from him.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, my dreams evaporating right in front of me.
My stomach churning, I pulled my purse from my desk drawer and walked, Frank holding my arm like I was some kind of criminal, with my head held high through the typing pool as everyone stared.
Patricia threw herself in front of the elevator door as we reached it.
I shook my head to ward her off. She shouldn’t get fired too over me.
That congressman was never going to leave his wife and support her.
She needed this to avoid going back to her parents’ farm in disgrace. “What’s this about, Frank?”
He shook his head stonily. “Mind your business, Patricia.”
“Judy is my friend and therefore it IS my business.”
I reached out to her with the arm Frank didn’t have a vise grip on. “It’s okay. I—I knew what I was getting into.” We held each other’s eyes for a long moment. “Don’t lose your job over me,” I whispered.
She opened her mouth to say something, then closed it and nodded, pulling me in for a quick, tight hug. “You have my number,” she said.
I did. I also didn’t trust myself to speak right then. So I offered her a half smile, the most I could muster, and she stepped aside, letting Frank push the button for the elevator.
He didn’t let go of me, even once we were inside. But we didn’t go down to the lobby, where he would eject me. Instead he pushed the button for the top floor. I looked to him in surprise. I didn’t even know what was up there. But he stared straight ahead.
“Frank,” I said pleadingly. He still didn’t look at me. And suddenly, I was afraid. This wasn’t right. Something was very, very wrong. Beyond me being fired for whatever infraction they had decided on based on my sex. Something else was happening here.
The elevator opened into a waiting room of sorts, with two sofas, potted plants, and breathtaking views of the White House and beyond it the Washington Monument. A woman sat at a reception desk, but she didn’t look up as Frank frog-marched me past her, knocking on a closed door down a hallway.
“Yes?” a male voice asked, and Frank opened the door.
John Worthington, the newspaper’s publisher, sat at a polished mahogany desk in front of a gigantic picture window.
Photographs of him with celebrities and politicians lined the shelf behind him.
The president and vice president, Cary Grant, Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, Martin Luther King Jr., and more.
The man sitting opposite his desk turned. It was Jack.
I had no idea what was going on.
Frank released my arm, and Worthington indicated I should sit in the seat next to Jack. I did, crossing my legs demurely at the ankle.
“You two,” he said, pulling a cigar from a box on his desk and cutting the end off with great care before continuing. “Are in a lot of trouble.” He removed the band from his cigar and left it on the desk, facing me. The writing was Spanish, and the word Havana was clearly visible on it.
I looked at Jack, inclining my head slightly toward the band. A Cuban cigar. He was part of this. We had to do something. But Jack didn’t look at it. His shoulders were down, and he wore a hangdog look of defeat. Worthington said we were in a lot of trouble. Whatever this was, it wasn’t good.
I looked at the cigar band again. We had to get out. To run. We may have failed, but if we could make it out of the building, we could go to Duke’s. He would know how to find J. Edgar Hoover himself. I might not get a writing career, but we could still stop this from happening unless—
“Enough with the dramatics,” a woman’s voice said from the corner behind us.
I turned, fully expecting to see Alejandra de Bernal pointing a tommy gun, like something out of an old gangster movie.
But it was Miss Kelly.