“You really shouldn’t smoke at the dinner table, Hakeem.”
“This is my house and it is a designated smoking area in its entirety! Now, what did Puri want?”
Sanjit was getting a grip on himself — or as much of one as could be expected.
“He has grave concerns about the Orient Love Express. He wonders if perhaps it may be perceived as immoral.”
Jinnah choked on his cigarette. He almost wished Sanjit had told him he’d embezzled the entire start-up fund than hear this.
“Immoral?” Jinnah squeaked, his deep voice tightening and reaching the range of a teenager’s. “All we’re doing is selling a service!”
“Mister Puri is concerned over the appearance of the services we are selling, Hakeem. He thinks they may reflect badly on the community.”
“Was he serious?”
Sanjit looked at his cousin with a watery, wobbly face.
“He called us Islamabad pimps. He said we would burn in hell! Is that serious enough for you?”
It was serious, all right. Jinnah chewed his finger-nails and muttered to himself while Sanjit fought back a fresh round of tears. One had to be very, very careful in such situations. Jinnah and Sanjit were hoping to raise much of their money within the community. A word from Puri could drive business almost entirely away. Was he really morally offended? Or did he simply want in on a good thing?
“Did he really say we would burn in hell?” Jinnah asked.
“Apparently he feels there is a special circle in hell for those people who sell flesh for illicit purposes,” said Sanjit.
Jinnah finished his scotch. He thought hard. His faint sense of morality fought desperately with his business instincts. His business instincts, as usual, won.
“Sanjit,” he asked. “Did you offer Mister Puri any shares at a preferred rate?”
Sanjit sat up straight, his tear-lined face hardening, his tone indignant.
“Hakeem! Don’t be ridiculous! Mister Puri’s principles cannot be bought!”
“No, no, of course not,” said Jinnah soothingly.
But, Jinnah thought to himself, his scruples might be assuaged if I dropped off a prospectus and explained in person there is no sin in buying and selling introductory services for a lot of Asian infidels. Surely I can persuade the old man of that.
“I will talk to Mister Puri tomorrow, Sanjit,” he said gently. “Now, come on! Stop blubbering like a baby, for God’s sake.”
It took coffee and two helping’s of Manjit’s tapioca pudding to calm Sanjit enough to say goodnight and drive home in his golden chariot. Jinnah watched from the living room window as the Buick lurched away into the night. Manjit was behind him.
“What will you say to Mister Puri, Hakeem?” she said quietly.
“I will tell him to get on board the Orient Love Express, Manjit,” Jinnah replied, watching the red tail-lights of Sanjit’s car fade into the night. “I suspect a piece of the action will ease any moral guilt Mister Puri feels.”
“I think you may be misjudging him,” said Manjit softly.
Jinnah turned and closed the drapes. He put his hand on his wife’s shoulders.
“Don’t worry, darling. I will let my inherent instincts guide me. The last thing I need is a fatwah against me and my cousin.”
“I know you’ll be careful.”
Manjit hugged him and suddenly Jinnah felt very, very tired. It had been a long and challenging day and the morrow looked just as demanding.
“I think I’ll let my instincts guide me to bed,” he said.
“Perhaps you will allow your wife to assist you?”
Manjit pushed Jinnah upstairs to the bedroom and got his nightshirt and toiletries ready while her temperamental husband undressed. Jinnah was asleep almost as soon as he hit the pillow. His last conscious thought was how nice it would be to bask in the glory of everyone chasing him after the paper hit the streets. And then sleep took him.
Chapter Three
Everyone was indeed chasing Jinnah over his stories the next day. Unfortunately for him, most of them had long, sharp knives they wished to plunge into his back. One of the nastiest shivs was wielded by none other than the Publisher.
“Interfering with an investigation. Gaining access to a witness recovering in hospital under false pretenses. Wildly speculative near-fiction. Jeopardizing the investigation. Refusing to speak with a senior officer who knew of the story and was attempting to give the reporter information that would have resulted in a more balanced article,” the Publisher recited from his notes, frowning.
Blacklock’s face was impassive. He was sitting in the Publisher’s office on the other side of a massive oak desk. He had sat there many times and listened to similar complaints from three other men in his tenure as the Tribune’s editor-in-chief. While listening to the litany of lamentations from aggrieved parties, Blacklock had always told himself that one day very soon it would be him sitting on the other side of that desk and woe to the poor bastard who occupied the chair he was currently in. But he had been passed up — again — and this time by a man who was proving to be even more unsuited than usual to the task of leading the newspaper. During the harangue, Blacklock glanced about the office. It was in the transitional state. The nearly bare walls still had light squares and patches on them where the previous publisher’s personal paintings had been hung. One or two pieces of corporate art, like the 1950s rendering of the Tribune building, remained, but the new man had yet to put a personal stamp on the space. If Blacklock had anything to do with it, the Publisher would have an even harder time putting his personal stamp on the Tribune itself.
“At least they didn’t say we were wrong,” he said when his boss was finished.
The Publisher looked at Blacklock over the top of his glasses. He was clutching a copy of Jinnah’s front-page article. Several words and paragraphs were marked and there were hastily scrawled notes in the margins. Blacklock sighed inwardly and adopted the “experienced editor showing the rookie publisher the ropes” routine he’d perfected some two management generations ago.
“Sir, if I may explain: the police always say these things when we print something they don’t like. It’s not that we’re wrong, it’s just that the police like to work in secret and they don’t like it when a reporter employs their own tactics against them.”
“But calling this man at the scene a suspect,” said the Publisher. “There’s nothing to suggest he had anything to do with Sam Schuster’s death.”
“No, but then, there’s no suggestion he isn’t the man police are looking for either,” said Blacklock firmly. “You see sir, in the broadest possible terms, the police consider you and I suspects as well until we convince them of our innocence.”
The Publisher sat back in his chair. His look was one of total bewilderment mixed with a certain harassed consternation.
“But everyone is considered innocent until proven guilty,” he said.
“It may work that way in court, but believe me, sir, it’s the other way around in a police investigation. I wouldn’t worry overly about it.”
The Publisher picked up the offending article once more and stared at it.
“So there’s no need for a correction? What about Jinnah? He deliberately defied you. He should be suspended or something, shouldn’t he?”
Blacklock smiled inwardly. Now he had the Publisher where he wanted him: asking for advice, using the editor