“And the New Republic,” Edgar pointed out.
“The rest of these seem to be law review. How much do you know about the National Record?”
“I’m a regular reader,” Edgar lied; once he’d scanned for Falconer’s byline he generally tossed the rag, since its sports section sucked. “I appreciate that the Record filled a void. For this country’s only national newspaper to have remained USA Today would have been a scandal.”
Wallasek still looked expectant; Edgar hadn’t yet laid it on thick enough. “The Record also embraces America’s post–Cold War global leadership. Your international coverage is at least as thorough as the New York Times. In assuming that readers care about the rest of the world, you don’t condescend to your subscribers.” Edgar had to stop; his inflection had developed the lilt of implausible enthusiasm employed to retail panty shields.
“Of course we condescend to our subscribers,” Wallasek dismissed with a wave. “International coverage is a sop to their vanity. Only a handful read that stuff. With one exception: when our American everyman tucks the Record under one arm and trundles into a seven-forty-seven and one of those filthy little foreigners blows it up. Those articles get read, my friend. Every column inch.”
Edgar found railing against terrorists the height of tedium. The issue invited over-obvious moralizing, since who’s going to contend that wasting those two kids with a trashcan bomb in a D.C. shopping mall in April was a profound political statement? Presumably Edgar was now obliged to chime in with hearty indignation over the Soldatsies Oozhatsies, or whatever those sorry-ass crackpots called themselves, clenching his fist in we-shall-not-be-moved solidarity with his fellow Americans, who will never capitulate to terrorism. Or maybe he should small-talk about how amazing it was that the FBI hadn’t collared a single one of these dirtbags, to demonstrate that he was on top of the story. But this interview wasn’t going well, the application had been a long shot to begin with, and Edgar passed.
“You aware of how the Record managed to establish a reputation for quality journalism in so few years?” asked Wallasek.
“Astute editing, a clearly defined remit—”
“Balls,” Wallasek cut him off. “By paying better than any paper in the country.”
Edgar smiled despite himself. “I know.”
“What I’m getting at here is that, well, you’ve got a few nice clips—”
“Those are only samples, of course.”
They both knew that Edgar had furnished every semicolon he’d ever published.
“Still, Mr. Kellogg, aren’t you aiming a little high?”
“I explained in my cover letter—”
“Yes—you ‘quit the law to become a freelance journalist.’ That caught my eye.”
“I left a top Wall Street firm where I was about to make partner,” said Edgar. “Until a few months ago I was making two hundred grand a year and rising. The Record may pay well, but that well? Seems to me that, however you slice it, I’m not ‘aiming high,’ but asking for a whopping cut in salary.”
“So I should hire you because you’re nuts?”
Edgar laughed. “Or what’s the latest prissy buzz phrase? Learning-delayed.”
Wallasek squinted. “What possessed you?”
Edgar paused. He’d rehearsed his explanation in the taxi on the way here, the cab itself an extravagance left over from the Lee & Thole days—a habit he’d have to break. Despite his designer slouch, Edgar must have been nervous; the glib rationale fled. Only overwrought snippets from college D. H. Lawrence classes flitted back to him, like “inchoate yearning.” He could not emote to some bovine newspaperman about “inchoate yearning” any more than he could assert to Toby’s own boss that he was driven to become “a Falconer.”
Lately he’d had to wonder, was he crazy? Papaya King again for lunch, when six months ago he might have dined on a client’s tab at The Cub Room. Had he been asked to go to Syracuse on short notice, he could have charged the firm for a new shirt and sent a messenger to pick it up. If he stayed past 7:30 p.m. (like, until 7:31), a Dial-car would drive him home. How could he ever explain to Guy Wallasek that privilege might have enticed an overworked paralegal, but that when Edgar was finally able to overbill clients himself the practice had seemed abruptly low-rent? Or that for no self-evident reason Edgar was meant for something finer than drafting turgid briefs? Or that he wanted to “say something,” when the very ache to say “something” and not something in particular must have put Edgar in the same boat as every other flailing schmuck in the country?
“I got bored,” Edgar telescoped lamely.
“Writing for Amtrak Express amuses you more?”
“Gotta start somewhere. And the law felt, I don’t know, passive. We’re parasites.”
“Journalists are parasites,” Wallasek countered, “on everyone else’s events. Plenty of scribblers spend their workdays merely recording what you just walked away from: mergers and acquisitions, transfers of money and power. The worst thing that can happen to a correspondent is to start thinking of himself as a player. The hack who fancies himself a mover-and-shaker gets slipshod—thinks he’s covering his own story. Reporting is a humble profession, Mr. Kellogg. Journalists—” Wallasek shrugged—“are History’s secretaries.”
“Better History’s secretary than Philip Morris’s lawyer,” Edgar ventured. “At least hacks get bylines. Law’s an anonymous profession, behind the scenes. Attorneys are paid so much because the work is drab and thankless. A predictable calling for runners-up. But I don’t want honorable mentions anymore, Mr. Wallasek. I’d like to distinguish myself.”
“You want to see your name in print,” said Wallasek skeptically.
“I want to see anything in print that isn’t solely composed to help some suit who already has more money than he knows what to do with make a little more.” Edgar pressed on with a willful geekiness refreshingly unlike him, “I want to get at the truth.”
“The ‘truth’ most reporters get at is pretty pedestrian: the secretary of state left the White House at five forty p.m. and not at six o’clock. As for the big-picture sort …” Wallasek seemed to take a moment to reflect, and ran a dirty nail along the stitching of his jacket. “I didn’t used to camp behind a desk, Mr. Kellogg. Funny, I don’t miss pounding the pavement much as I might have expected. I cut my teeth in Vietnam, hung up my hat after Grenada. I can’t say for sure if I’ve a better understanding, of anything, than the folks who stayed in bed. Damnedest thing, but you can be right there in the middle, two armies tearing each other apart, and afterwards have not one thing to say about it. Not one thing. Way it should be. A reporter’s not supposed to chip in his two cents. But this—failure to achieve perspective. It can be personally discouraging. There’s no overarching ‘truth’ out there. Only a bunch of menial, dissociated little facts. And the facts don’t often add up to much. Lotta trees; not much forest. Oh, once in a rare while you trip over an All the President’s Men, and get to play the hero. But for the most part you just find out what happened, and what happened is depressing.”
“No more depressing than Lee & Thole.”
“I only wonder if your expectations aren’t a mite steep. Not only of getting a staff job at this newspaper, but of what the job would entail if I were rash enough to offer a post to an inexperienced, middle-aged cub.”
Edgar could skip the fatherly advice, as well as being classed at only thirty-seven as “middle-aged.” Before he could stop it, his hand was tracing his forehead, as if his hairline might have receded another half-inch since he checked it this morning. On the way back to his lap, Edgar’s fingertips traced the deep V-shaped runnels of a scowl so habitual