it to press.
In the meanwhile, he continued to justify his salary by covering basic city assignments, snatching a column inch here and there. Same as most, it was a duty at the paper that largely went unnoticed until marred by an error, like misspelling a star vaudevillian’s name. Or reversing the ages of a mother and son who’d survived a house fire. Or in the caption of a photo, mistaking an ambassador’s wife for his daughter.
Each instance earned Ellis a warning, the last two sterner than the first.
As a direct result, he became hyperdiligent when recording any information, confirming facts at least twice to prevent another blunder. This was precisely how he knew, without a doubt, that he’d correctly transcribed the time Dutch had given him for a council meeting at City Hall. Ellis was sent out to grab a comment from the mayor about a controversial zoning dispute. Yet he arrived to discover that the event had ended hours earlier and the mayor had left for a trip.
Straightaway, Ellis phoned Dutch, who apologized for the gaffe. Ellis therefore had no cause to prepare a defense when returning to the paper, where he was promptly beckoned to the city desk.
“Dutch told me about the mix-up,” Mr. Walker stated. He was never one to yell, unlike old Howard Trimble, but a thread of frustration tugged at his drawl. “We needed the mayor’s response to corroborate. Now we can’t run the damn piece.”
“Sir, I’ll track him down. I’ll get a quote by tomorrow—”
“Dutch’ll handle it.”
From the assistant city editor’s desk, Mr. Tate shot Ellis his usual owlish glower.
Mr. Walker leaned back in his chair. He shook his head with a firm look. “Bottom line, Mr. Reed. This cannot happen again.”
Equally stunned and bewildered, Ellis silently grappled for an explanation. But then he caught eyes with Dutch across the room. When the guy dropped his gaze, the situation gained clarity. He had pinned the blame on Ellis.
In any competitive business, let alone in New York, a man had to look out for himself. Especially in times like these. Ellis just never expected this from someone he considered a friend.
“I understand,” he replied simply, in no position to argue.
All things considered, which of them would Mr. Walker have believed?
• • •
Four or five. No—six. Gently swirling the whiskey in his glass, Ellis tried to recall the number of shots he’d downed since planting himself in a corner booth at Hal’s Hideaway. True to its name, the dim bar was nestled deep in an alley with a nondescript door, just blocks from Ellis’s flat in Brooklyn. Entry required a special knock, which he’d gleaned from the janitor of his apartment building. The elderly man claimed to enjoy a nip of “rye gag” at Hal’s on occasion.
On the low stage, a trio played the blues to a half-filled room, where a mix of tables and booths afforded decent privacy. But what Ellis favored most was that the place wasn’t Bleeck’s, a joint full of Tribune staffers who surely viewed him as a chump, thanks to that damn backstabbing Dutch. The guy actually had the guts to approach Ellis before day’s end. Ellis had walked away, not hearing a word.
Folks in Allentown voiced warnings about his kind. The sneaky, greedy, double-crossing types. Ellis hadn’t listened. And now here he was, on the brink of hightailing it home, washed up. A bum.
Lily was a smart one indeed. Given a choice between him and ace-in-the-hole Clayton Brauer, she’d picked the winner.
Ellis threw back his drink. No longer blazing fire down his throat, it melted away another layer of frustration. He’d need two more shots to dull the pangs of betrayal. Four, maybe, to drown out the sense of defeat.
Squinting toward a waitress—his vision had transformed her into twins—he waved to signal a refill. She nodded, then attended to other patrons. No rush on her part.
Ellis sank into his seat, eyelids growing heavy. He tried to lose himself in the notes of “Embraceable You,” but voices behind him kept seeping over the high-back booth. The group’s volume had been growing with every round of drinks.
With the state Ellis was in, he had half a mind to tell them to keep it down. But he was catching enough of their words—about a recent warehouse raid and a new member of their outfit—to know better. He’d be wise to turn a deaf ear, but the same nosiness that had doomed him to become a newspaperman compelled him to listen closer.
“We bloody need