Blood and Oranges by James Goldsborough (top 50 books to read .TXT) 📕

knew everything about Maggie’s affairs either, while conceding there was more to know.

She stopped woolgathering and smiled for Asa. “You liked the metro desk hours more than I did.”

“I thought more regular hours might help us—well, you know.”

Her back stiffened. “I don’t think it was my work hours that kept me from getting pregnant.”

“What do you mean by that?”

She wished she hadn’t said it but didn’t like Asa passing the buck. With Joe, who’d left the Times to become a screenwriter for the studios and now was her husband, she’d had no trouble becoming pregnant. Asa knew it and resented it.

“If you’ll allow me to go back to the previous question—what are you supposed to do about it?” She had trouble concentrating on Asa, always had. “I worked for Pat Murphy, you worked for Pitts. Murph never let me go near Pitts. The Pitts file was his alone. Even McManus didn’t know what Pat had. He would have had to tell management.”

Asa was still sore. “And you want me to . . .?”

She looked around, recognizing some Times people and a couple from the hall. She’d been out of the flow too long. At some table would be someone who worked for Fritz Singer, the new DA, maybe someone who had worked for Pitts, maybe even someone who knew who killed Pat Murphy. Everything flowed through the bazaar, the aorta of city hall life. She looked at her ex and tried a smile again. She’d hurt him and hadn’t meant to. He wasn’t going to help. He resented her, particularly resented Maggie who he knew had opposed the marriage.

“Who owed Pitts?” she repeated. “Who killed Pat Murphy for him?”

“It’s been years since I’ve been up there, Liz. Before the war.”

“I’m going to do it, you know, with your help or without.”

“If Pitts got Murphy he’s going to get any reporter who comes after him.”

“Pitts is in Folsom.”

“He still has friends down here.”

“Oh? How about naming a few.”

“Why doesn’t McManus put some fearless young go-getter on it?”

She leveled hard hazel eyes on him. He’d never understood newspapers—or liked them for that matter. He’d been Pitts’s lead guy on the search for Uncle Willie, but never gave her anything. She’d found Uncle Willie on her own, though too late. She and Luis Ortega, killed snapping pictures on Saipan.

“They’ve been on it.”

“Pitts remembers you, you know. You covered his trial.”

“Three to five for corruption. If we can tie him to Murphy, he’ll get the chamber.”

Asa finished his tea and paid the bill. Old habits. “Say hello to your sister for me. And to Cal. He still seeing that preacher?”

“I’m not sure I’d call it ‘seeing her.’ They go back, you know.”

“Unlike your sister, Cal seemed to like me. What’s he doing these days?”

“Lawyer for Pacific Electric.”

“You coming?”

She kissed him on the cheek. “You go on ahead. I see someone I know.”

“Don’t get involved, Liz, not good for your health.”

“Thank you for your concern.”

McManus was downstairs with the publisher when she returned from lunch. She left a message with Rosa, his secretary, that she’d like to see him. She walked to her place at the metro desk and sat down to go through the afternoon schedule. Most of her reporters were already out on assignments, a few already writing at their desks. She went quickly through the day’s line-up so far: warehouse fire on Figueroa, ten-car crash on Sepulveda, body parts dug up in Griffith Park that could be human, hold-up at a jeweler’s in Beverly Hills, naked man running through the streets in Pasadena, chased by a woman. The usual stuff, nothing for the front page except possibly the naked man. It was a hot day and she felt a little sweaty under her flowered silk blouse. Her bra pinched. Lunch with Asa was still annoying her.

She surveyed the vast room that had been her home for close to ten years. She saw Miss Adelaide Nevin looking her way and waved, though Miss Adelaide, who hated wearing her glasses, didn’t wave back. She had great affection for that woman, as good an editor as she’d ever known, maybe even as good as McManus but destined by her sex to stay on the society pages. It had gotten better for women during the war, but newspapers were back to being a man’s world. McManus had given her a break in hiring her, taken a risk in assigning her to Murphy and a bigger risk in making her metro editor, even during the war when men were scarce. She’d turned him down at first, insisting she was a writer, not an editor, but Miss Adelaide changed her mind. “It’s a step forward, Lizzie, and I don’t mean just for you.”

She took it and now was going to end it. Rosa was waving across the room.

He was smoking, collar unbuttoned, tie loosened (though he’d buttoned up to go downstairs), sweating, the creases running from his cheekbones down past the mouth darker than ever, shirt in need of changing though he was not even halfway through his day. He was too thin, probably from drinking more than he ate and smoking more than he drank. He wasn’t sallow, just dark, Indian red dark, though certainly not from the sun. He didn’t say a word when she entered, just watched her closely, as he always did. Nobody knew much about Larry McManus: came out from Detroit sometime in the twenties, married, divorced, had a son who disappeared. He’d been hired by Harry Chandler himself, the prince, which still meant something on the Times, especially to Harry’s son, Norman, who now ran things.

As far as anyone knew, newspapers in general and the Times in particular were the only things that Larry McManus cared about. He knew the city inside out, had been city editor forever and didn’t aspire to anything higher. He handed out awards to the staff when there were any and joined them at the bazaar to hoist a few when there was something to