That was Ed’s way of giving the kid a big pat on the back. One didn’t just blurt out, “Great story, Smith!” That wasn’t the real newspaperman’s way.
“I knew where they would dock the Safe Boat when they brought Camacho back. Over at Jungle Island. So that’s where I went.”
“Nobody else figured that out?”
“I guess not, Mr. Topping,” said the kid. “There was nobody else there.”
Since he had finally gotten a few words out of him besides yes, sir, Ed slogged on. “How did you know about it?”
“From covering police, Mr. Topping. I’ve been on Safe Boat runs a couple of times.”
“What about El Nuevo Herald? Why wouldn’t they figure that out?”
John Smith shrugged. “I don’t know, Mr. Topping. I never see anybody from El Nuevo Herald out on stories.”
Ed leaned back in his swivel chair as far as its universal joint would go, swiveled away from John Smith and City Editor Stan, cocked his head back, and closed his eyes, as if deep in thought. His ebullient grin returned. The rosy balls of fat regrouped upon his cheekbones, and his eyebrows rose way, way up, although his eyes remained closed. He was back at Broadway and York. It was noon, and freshmen were walking in and out of the Old Campus… He was tempted to stay longer.
But he swiveled toward John Smith and City Editor Stan and opened his eyes again. He was still smiling. He was conscious of that. Why he was smiling he wasn’t sure… except that if you’re smiling, and nobody else gets it, you appear knowing, possibly even sophisticated. He only halfway admitted to himself that this was for the benefit of Yalie John Smith.
“John, I see by your bio”—he nodded toward the computer screen—“that you went to Yale.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What did you major in?”
“English.”
“English…” said Ed in a certain significant way. He broadened his smile, making it seem more inscrutable than ever.
“Was Theory still a big deal in the English department when you were there?”
“There were some professors who taught Theory, I guess,” said John Smith, “but I don’t think it was a big thing.”
Ed maintained his I-have-a-secret smile and said, “I seem to remember—” Axxxx he cut that sentence off at the neck. In the next split second, if he hadn’t already, Stan would spot this I seem to remember talk for what it was: a labored way of letting John Smith know that he, Edward T. Topping IV, was a Yale man, too. Bango! He dropped the smile, rigged up a scowl, and started talking in a business tone that implied John Smith had been wasting his, T-4’s, time.
“Now… Okay, let’s get down to cases. Where do we stand with this Coast Guard thing?”
He made a point of staring first at Stan, then at John Smith. John Smith stared at Stan, and Stan stared at John Smith and motioned toward Ed with his chin, and John Smith stared at Ed and said to him:
“Oh, they’ll send him back to Cuba, Mr. Topping. They decided last night.”
He showed no particular excitement, but Stan and Ed were a different story. Both spoke at once.
Stan: “You didn’t—”
Ed: “How do—”
“—tell me that!”
“—you know that?”
John Smith said to Stan, “I didn’t have a chance. I’d just gotten off the phone when you said I should come into Mr. Topping’s office.” He turned to Ed. “There’s a… a person at ICE I know very well. I know he wouldn’t tell me if he wasn’t sure. But I have to run it by Ernie Grimaldi at the Coast Guard to see if they’ll corroborate it.” He looked at Stan. “I had just called him and left a message when I came in here.”
“You say they made the decision last night?” said Ed. “Who makes the decision? How do they do it?”
“It’s pretty simple, Mr. Topping, and it can happen very fast. If it’s a Cuban, they give hihh—the person… a hearing right there on the Coast Guard cutter. They’ll have some officer who does these hearings all the time. If they can convince the hearing officer—”
::::::Aw, shit, the kid is PC… the way he almost said “him” and switched it to “person” on the edge of the cliff… and then gave up “person” for “they,” so he wouldn’t have to deal with gender in the singular, the “hims” and “he’s.”::::::
“—that they’ve fled from Cuba because of a ‘credible threat’—that’s the term they use, ‘a credible threat’—then they’re given asylum. This man says his name is Hubert Cienfuegos and he’s