A Scourge of Vipers Read online

  I tore my eyes away from her and took a look around. A couple of tables away, an elderly gentleman, dressed for dinner in a tailored black suit, was eating alone. He glanced at us, saw that I’d caught him looking, smiled warmly, and turned back to his pasta. To his right, two young people on a date were stealing furtive looks at us and whispering to each other. A few yards to our left, three men in suits, probably here for a business meeting, couldn’t keep their eyes off Yolanda. Halfway across the room, a middle-aged couple dining with their three preteen children were staring with open hostility. Nobody else seemed to be paying us any attention.

  “The old guy over there approves of us,” I said. “The young couple, the ones giggling now, are just curious. And the three businessmen to our right aren’t looking at us. They’re looking at you because you’re beautiful.”

  “What about the couple with the three kids?”

  “They think we’re an abomination.”

  Yolanda turned in her seat and locked eyes with them. The woman averted her gaze, but her husband didn’t look away. I pushed my chair back from the table, strolled over to where they were sitting, and loomed over them.

  “Got a problem?”

  “What? No,” the husband said.

  “Because if you do, I’ll be happy to drag you outside and teach you some manners.”

  His face reddened, and his hands curled into fists. I’d embarrassed him in front of his family. Now he was trying to decide whether he had the stones to do something about it.

  “Honey, don’t,” his wife said.

  He started to get up anyway, then thought better of it and settled back into his seat.

  “Wise move,” I said. I stood over them for another ten seconds. Then I turned my back and returned to our table.

  “What did you say to him?” Yolanda asked.

  “I asked him if he had a problem. He assured me he didn’t.”

  “They’re not looking at us anymore.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “If we keep seeing each other, this is going to keep happening.”

  “It’s just two assholes in a restaurant full of people, Yolanda. Don’t let them get to you.”

  “Doesn’t it bother you?”

  “I’m having dinner with the most beautiful woman in New England,” I said. “I couldn’t care less about what a couple of morons think.”

  “That’s because it only happens to you when you’re with me. You’ve never felt the whole attitude of a room change just because you walked into it. Store detectives follow me around when I shop. Cashiers call my bank to check on my credit card because they think I probably stole it. People look astonished when I open my mouth and actually speak the King’s English. They expect me to sound like Prissy from Gone with the Wind.”

  I didn’t know what to say about any of that. I just reached across the table, took her hand, and caressed her palm with my thumb. She took another sip of her cappuccino. Then she looked at me over the rim of her cup, and something inside of me melted.

  “You’re getting to me, Mulligan. I think about you all the time now.”

  “And you’re stuck in my head like a wrong song.” I stroked her palm again. “So what are we waiting for?”

  “You know.”

  “Didn’t I tell you? I’m black Irish.”

  “Not the same thing.”

  “Then maybe you could just close your eyes.”

  “Stop with the jokes.”

  “I’m not joking. Close them, Yolanda. Do it right now.”

  She looked at me curiously, then did as I asked.

  I rose from the table, went to her, and kissed her mouth. Her eyes flew open, and she pulled away. Then she put her hands behind my neck, closed her eyes again, and tugged me back down. Our lips met, and this time they parted. I’m not sure how long the kiss lasted, but I didn’t stop until she pulled away again. Everyone was staring now, and this time we’d given them a reason. I think I was actually blushing as I sat back down across from her.

  “Damn,” she whispered.

  “Was that a good damn or a bad damn?”

  “Good,” she said, her voice slurring a little.

  “I could kiss you like that every day.”

  She picked up her cup, stared out the window, and finished her cappuccino. Then she leaned forward and gave me that look again.

  “Mulligan?”

  “Um.”

  “Finish your coffee and take me home.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then you can help me out of this dress.”

  34

  Johnny Arujo had been a newspaper security guard for a dozen years. Each morning, he’d always greeted me by name when I entered the lobby. But Monday morning, he rose from behind his desk to give me a high five.

  “Hell of a story yesterday,” he said. “I didn’t think The Dispatch did that kind of thing anymore.”

  “Neither did I.”

  “Gonna be more where this one came from?”

  “I’d like to think so,” I said, “but I doubt it.”

  I rode the elevator to the third floor, punched the newsroom time clock, and saw Twisdale beckon me from his office door. He looked glum. I dropped into the chair across from his desk and said, “What’s the damage?”

  “Herald Price Beauregard, one of the five corporate vice presidents for news, called me at home Sunday night. Sounded mad as hell.”

  “I’m not sure I heard right. Did you say Harold?”

  “It’s Herald. As in “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing.”

  “There’s an actual person named Herald Price Beauregard?”

  “There is. He’s flying in from corporate HQ in Tulsa tonight, and he’s bringing a company lawyer and a VP for advertising with him. They’re meeting with me and our advertising director in the boardroom upstairs at eight tomorrow morning. Beauregard ordered me to bring you along, so be on time for a change.”

  “Swell.”

  “And for God’s sake, behave. Let me do most of the talking. Don’t speak unless you’re asked a direct question. And please, none of your wisecracks. Oh, and wear a jacket and tie for a change, okay?”

  * * *

  Later that morning, my buddy Mason rang me up.

  “Great story yesterday,” he said.

  “Thanks.”

  “I’m calling to thank you. You just made me a nice piece of change.”

  “I did that how?”

  “That super PAC, Americans for the Preservation of Free Enterprise? The one your story says is funded by New Jersey gambling interests?”

  “Yeah?”

  “They dropped their account with The Dispatch and started running a banner ad on The Ocean State Rag site this morning.”

  “I figured they’d be dropping us,” I said, “but why’d they turn to your little website? I thought they’d just start spending more on local radio and television.”

  “Because we’re growing like crazy,” Mason said. “As of the first of this month, I’ve got more eyeballs than the four local broadcast TV affiliates combined.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Good for you.”

  “The super PAC will probably pull its ads from us, too, once they get a load of the coverage I’ve got in the works,” he said. “But for now, I’m delighted to take their money.”

  * * *

  Tuesday morning I got up early, showered, shaved, and put on a white dress shirt, my blue blazer, and my best black Reeboks—the pair without any holes or bloodstains. I punched the newsroom clock at a quarter to eight and stepped into Twisdale’s office.

  “Didn’t I tell you to wear a tie?”

  “I’m sure I’ve got one around somewhere,” I said, “but I couldn’t find it this morning.”

  “You only have one tie?”

  “One is usually more than I need.”

  “Couldn’t find your hard shoes either?”

  “When you gave me the dress code,” I said, “you didn�
��t say anything about footwear.”

  He scowled and shook his head. Then he reached into a desk drawer, pulled out a red-and-black checkerboard tie, and threw it at me.

  “Here. Put this on.” After I knotted it, he shot his cuffs and glanced at his watch. “Time to head upstairs.”

  When we arrived, the boardroom was dark. Twisdale flicked a switch, illuminating twenty carved chairs arranged around an enormous meeting table. The furniture was as old as the newspaper and was said to be the only thing the Mason family had salvaged when they sold their crumbling Victorian headquarters on Washington Street and moved to these new digs on Fountain Street in 1934. For a century and a half, generations of Masons had gathered around this slab of Ecuadorian mahogany to talk business, politics, and public service. I wondered why the family had decided to abandon it here. Perhaps the castles they lived in weren’t spacious enough for a table that could serve as a landing strip for military aircraft. Or maybe they just weren’t as sentimental about mahogany as they were about power and money.

  Twisdale and I took adjoining chairs, our backs to a row of high windows that looked down on a McDonald’s restaurant and a shuttered strip club. Across from us, dusty glass trophy cases lined the wall. Inside were scores of plaques, framed certificates, and medals the newspaper had won for its journalism over the decades. Five of them were Pulitzer Prizes. Since our new owners took over, nothing new had been added.

  A couple of minutes later, Butch Martin, our advertising director, trudged in. He’d supplemented the dress code with a pocket handkerchief and a funereal expression. Martin was trailed by a cafeteria worker who wheeled in a cart full of pastries and jugs of coffee. The three of us sat in silence as the guy set the table.

  The three emissaries from corporate, each toting a leather briefcase, strode in fashionably late at quarter past eight. They took a moment to run their eyes over the trophy cases, claimed the seats directly across from us, and introduced themselves. Twisdale, playing host, poured the coffee. Then Beauregard, the VP for news, opened his briefcase, removed a copy of the Sunday paper, and angrily slapped it on the table.

  When he spoke, his voice startled me. Subconsciously, I’d been expecting a man named Herald Price Beauregard to speak in the manner of an effete southern patrician. Like South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, maybe, or actor Will Patton: “Ah am so disappointed in these heah goin’s-on. And ta think ah had such high regahd fo you fine gentlemen.”

  But when he growled, “You three douchebags got some splainin’ to do,” he sounded more like a character from Goodfellas. I couldn’t help myself. I laughed out loud.

  “You think I’m funny? I’m talkin’ ta you, jerk-wad.”

  “Yeah, I do,” I said. “Ever done any stand-up? That Joe Pesci impression would knock ’em dead at the Comedy Store.”

  Beauregard gave me a hard look. I returned it with a disarming smile. Twisdale frowned and dug an elbow into my ribs. Martin fussed nervously with his tie. For what felt like a full minute, no one spoke. Then Martin plucked the handkerchief from his jacket pocket, wiped a sheen of sweat from his brow, and broke the silence.

  “Mr. Beauregard, I didn’t know a thing about any of this until I read the paper Sunday morning.”

  “Why the fuck didn’t you?” Beauregard snapped.

  “It’s not his fault,” Twisdale said. “I never told him about the story.”

  “That right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How many times I gotta tell ya, Twisdale? Any story affecting an advertiser has gotta be run past the ad director.”

  “The story was written before the super PAC became an advertiser,” Martin said.

  “But it ran three days after they placed their first ad,” Dwight Freeley, the corporate advertising VP, put in.

  “I realize I should have consulted with Mr. Martin at that point,” Twisdale said, “but I was distracted by the work required to prepare the story for publication.”

  “You were distracted?” Beauregard said. “That’s your fuckin’ excuse?”

  “I’m not making excuses,” Twisdale said. “I’m merely telling you what happened.”

  This is where Pesci would have pulled a revolver and started blasting. Beauregard wasn’t packing, but his dark eyes drilled us with hollow-points.

  “So what’s the bottom line, here?” Freeley asked. “How much is this fuckup going to cost the company?”

  “The super PAC, Americans for the Preservation of Free Enterprise, called me yesterday afternoon to announce they were dropping us,” Martin said.

  “They were running daily, four-color, full-page ads?” Freeley asked.

  “That is correct,” Martin said. Again with the tie.

  “We get eight grand for a full page, is that right?”

  “And ten thousand for the Sunday edition,” Martin answered.

  “How long were they planning to continue the campaign?”

  “At least another two weeks,” Martin said. “After that, I’m not sure.”

  “So this lack of communication between news and advertising will cost us”—Freeley pulled an iPhone from his pocket and worked the calculator—“at a minimum, we’re talking one hundred and sixteen thousand dollars.”

  “Only a hundred thousand, actually,” Martin said. “The Dispatch doesn’t publish on Saturdays.”

  “Only?” Beauregard said. He raised an eyebrow and turned to Freeley. “Did that fucking toad actually say only a hundred thousand dollars?”

  Martin slumped in his chair and tried to make himself smaller. Freeley started to ask another question, but Beauregard raised his hand for silence, wanting the enormity of the dollar figure to sink in.

  “Okay, then,” he finally said. “Let’s turn to our legal department’s concerns about this piece-of-shit story.”

  Todd Grissom, the corporate lawyer, opened his briefcase, pulled out his copy of The Sunday Dispatch, and laid it gently on the table. I noticed that he’d used a red pen to fill the front-page margins with angry notes.

  “Why didn’t you see fit to have this story vetted by legal, Mr. Twisdale?” he asked. “It obviously presents a number of significant libel risks.”

  “Mr. Mulligan and I went over it all line by line, and we determined that it does not,” Twisdale said. “Therefore, I decided it would be prudent to save the company unnecessary legal expenditures.”

  “You think you possess the legal expertise to make such a determination?” Grissom asked.

  “Sure he does,” I butted in.

  Twisdale gave me another shot in the ribs. I ignored it.

  “The Alfanos are both dead,” I said, “and Mario Zerilli’s reputation as a thug was already public knowledge. The only other people the story potentially libels are the New Jersey gambling interests, but that phrase doesn’t identify them. It’s more than vague enough to protect us from legal action.”

  “Do you have a law degree, Mr. Mulligan?” Freeley said.

  “I’ve been writing investigative stories in Providence for more than twenty years, Mr. Freeley. I bet I know more about Rhode Island libel law than you do.”

  Freeley was briefly taken aback.

  “Well,” he huffed, “I do concur with your assessment of our legal exposure, Mr. Mulligan. However, company policy requires that stories of this nature must be run past the legal department. In the future, I trust the two of you will follow the proper procedure.”

  Beauregard whacked his palm on the table. The sound made Martin flinch.

  “There ain’t gonna to be any more stories like this,” he said. “No more running around pretending you’re the cast of Law and Order. Ya get me?”

  “Now that was inspiring,” I said. “I think Ben Bradlee once gave the same speech to Woodward and Bernstein.”

  For that, Joe Pesci would have put a bullet in my brain. I figured Beauregard would fire me on the spot. Instead, he laughed out loud.

  “You might have a future in stand-up yourself,” he said. “Bu
t you sure as hell ain’t got one in the newspaper business.”

  “Nobody does,” I said.

  Beauregard nodded in agreement. “On my way in,” he said, “I saw your name on one of them Pulitzer medals. I think I saw it on a Polk Award, too. You have my respect for that, Mr. Mulligan. But the economics of the news business have changed, and we gotta change with it. If Ben Bradlee himself walked through that fuckin’ door and begged for a job, I wouldn’t hire the bastard. And if Woodward and Bernstein were working here, I’d fire both their asses. The age of newspaper heroics is over. Today, the only job of the news department is to fill the holes between the ads. Do I myself clear?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Mr. Twisdale?” Beauregard said.

  “Yes, sir. I understand.”

  “Okay, then,” he said. “One last thing.” He picked up his copy of the Sunday paper and waved it in Twisdale’s face. “I’m told you never sent this story to our copy center. Is that right?”

  “It is.”

  “Why the fuck not?”

  “Copyediting this story properly required an extensive knowledge of Rhode Island law and politics. That is something the professionals at our copy center do not possess. Under the circumstances, I thought it best to do the job myself.”

  “You’re the managing editor, pal,” Beauregard said. “I don’t pay you to be a goddamned copy editor.”

  “I understand, sir.”

  I should have left it alone, but as usual, I couldn’t help myself.

  “The clowns you are paying to be goddamned copy editors are useless,” I said. “They edit in more errors than they fix.”

  “Oh, is that so?” Beauregard said.

  “Yeah, it is. If you’re hankering to recoup the hundred grand that’s got your jockstrap in a bunch, the copy center would be the place to start.”

  “I’ll take that under advisement, Mr. Mulligan. Meanwhile, I believe we can realize some immediate savings. When I leave this room, I’m taking somebody’s head with me.”

  He swept his eyes across the three of us, hoping to make us squirm. Only the ad director did.

  “Mr. Martin,” Beauregard said, “get the fuck out and don’t come back. Security will pack up any personal crap in your office and ship it to your home address.”