Page 29 of We Could Be So Good
“Guess it depends on what you’re imagining.”
Andy puts the coffee press on the stove top and turns on the gas. “You don’t want to know what I’m imagining.”
“Well,nowI do.”
Andy sighs. “I’m worried that you got hurt by someone who’s trying to stop you from talking to a source. Because if they did that this time, what will they do next time?” He doesn’t even suggest that Nick might be prudent and stop going after the story—that would only be an insult, and Andy would only get his stupid feelings hurt when Nick rightly tells him to mind hisown business. “And I’m worried that if it wasn’t that, then maybe you were hurt when you were doing the other thing I thought you might be doing last night.” He waits for his meaning to register with Nick. Andy knows that sometimes men are attacked after approaching the wrong man, and sometimes people just attack anyone they think might be queer. Andy knows this, and the idea of it happening to Nick makes him want to kick the wall.
“It wasn’t the second thing,” Nick says.
“Okay.” Andy shouldn’t be relieved, because that makes him suspect it’s the first thing: Nick was beaten up because of something to do with a story. But somehow, a journalist being hurt because he’s on to a dangerous story seems less traumatic than someone being attacked for living his life.
“It wasn’t a source, either. I mean, I met with a source. A woman in Spanish Harlem called me at the paper and said that her apartment was robbed a few years ago. The police confiscated a handgun as evidence and she never got it back. They told her it was procedure. She didn’t want to disagree because she didn’t want cops making trouble for her. After talking to her, I got on the subway, got off at Spring Street, and was mugged by a couple kids on the way here. I should have just given them my wallet, but I was tired and cranky and—anyway, I was an idiot.”
Andy blinks. One of the first rules to surviving in the city is that you don’t fight muggers. You don’t run, you don’t fight back. You give them your wallet and move on. The fact that Nick decided to resist a mugger—no, agroupof muggers—is infuriating. Andy just wants Nick to be safe—or as safe as possible for someone whose job and personal life both involve some danger. And here Nick is takingoptionalrisks?
“The next time you consider being that kind of idiot, can youimagine how I’d feel if you didn’t come home? If I learned about your death in a police briefing?”
Nick looks stricken, like he’s never considered the possibility of anyone being sad about his literal murder.
“Did they take anything?” Andy asks, mainly so he doesn’t reach across the table, grab Nick by the shoulders, and shake him.
“Ten dollars and a roll of nickels.”
Andy snorts. Nick always has at least one roll of coins so he never runs out when calling in a story from a pay phone.
“It happens,” Nick says when Andy has been silent for too long.
Ithappens? Andy thinks he’s about to part company with sanity for good. Nick being attacked is not something thathappens. It’s not like rainy weather or a pitcher with a bad elbow. He puts some bread in the toaster and doesn’t turn around until he’s pretty sure he looks somewhat composed, or at least not actively unhinged.
“Thanks for everything last night,” Nick says when Andy brings him coffee and two slices of buttered toast.
“I already told you not to thank me. I’m glad I was here. You would just have made a mess of your face.”
Nick takes a sip of coffee and winces when the cup touches his lip. “I think my face is a mess, regardless.”
Andy’s about to protest but has to concede the point. “Yeah, it’s pretty bad. But I think it’ll at least be less swollen by Monday.”
Nick grimaces. “I hate to go into work looking like I got in a brawl. Half of them already assume that I get into bar fights in my spare time and the other half think I’m the janitor.”
Andy presses his lips together. He can’t deny it. TheChronicleisn’t as snobbish as a lot of papers, but there aren’t many Italian reporters, and none on the mastheads of any of the city’s major papers.
“You know that if my father and Epstein and Jorgensen didn’t think you belonged at theChronicle, you wouldn’t be there,right?” Not to mention the fact that everyone seems to be giving Nick surprisingly free rein with the dirty cop story. “Also, maybe I’m not supposed to know about your pay raise last month, but I do. And I know why you got it.”
“Care to share?”
“So you don’t get poached.”
Nick cracks out a laugh. “Poached by who?”
“If theDaily Newsand theJournal-Americanhaven’t tried yet, they will.”
“You’re crazy.”
“I was in the meeting when your raise was approved.”
Nick scoffs. “TheDaily Newsis even crazier if they think I want to write about actresses in bathing suits and the grisly details of mob crime.” He takes a careful bite of toast. “You know the only reason I have the job I do is that the city desk was short-staffed and the old city editor was batty right before he retired.”
“You came in ’55, right after theBrooklyn Eaglefolded, right?” He already knows Nick’s history. Nick started working at theEagleas a night copyboy when he was a teenager, then climbed the ranks—obituaries, then the dictation bank, then reporting. “There were plenty of reporters looking for work. Nobody was giving away jobs.”
