The Righteous Men (2006) Read Free

, homicides were rarer fare and not to be wasted on novices like him.
It was a pity because there was one detail which had caught Will’s eye
but which he had put out of his mind almost immediately. The other hacks were
too jaded to have noticed it at all, but Will saw it. The trouble was, he
assumed it was routine.
    He did not realize it at the time, but it was anything but.

CHAPTER THREE
Saturday, 12.30am, Manhattan
    A t the office, he hammered the
‘send’ key on the keyboard, pushed back his chair and stretched. It
was half past midnight. He looked around: most of the desks were empty, only
the night layout area was still fully staffed — cutting and slicing, rewriting
and crafting the finished product which would spread itself open on Manhattan
breakfast tables in just a few hours’ time.
    He strode around the office, pumped by a minor version of the post-filing
high — that surge of adrenalin and relief once a story is done. He
wandered, stealing a glance at the desks of his colleagues, bathed only in the
flickering light of CNN, on mute.
    The office was open plan, but a system of partitions organized the desks
into pods, little clusters of four. As a newcomer, Will was in a far-off
corner. His nearest window looked out onto a brick wall: the back of a Broadway
theatre bearing a now-faded poster for one of the city’s longest-running
musicals.
    Alongside him in the pod was Terry Walton, the former Delhi bureau chief who
had returned to New York under some kind of cloud; Will had not yet discovered
the exact nature of his misdemeanour. His desk consisted of a series of meticulous
piles surrounding a single yellow legal pad. On it was handwriting so dense and
tiny, it was unintelligible to all but the closest inspection: Will suspected
this was a kind of security mechanism, devised by Walton to prevent any snoopers
taking a peek at his work. He was yet to discover why a man whose demotion to
Metro meant he was hardly working on stories sensitive to national security
would take such a precaution.
    Next was Dan Schwarz, whose desk seemed to be on the point of collapse. He
was an investigative reporter; there was barely room for his chair, all floor
space consumed by cardboard boxes. Papers were falling out of other papers;
even the screen on Schwarz’s computer was barely visible, bordered by a
hundred Post-it notes stuck all around the edge.
    Amy Woodstein’s desk was neither anally neat like Walton’s nor a
public health disaster like Schwarz’s. It was messy, as befitted the
quarters of a woman who worked under her very own set of deadlines — always
rushing back to relieve a nanny, let in a childminder or pick up from nursery.
She had used the partition walls to pin up not yet more papers, like Schwarz, or
elegant, if aged, postcards, like Walton, but pictures of her family. Her
children had curly hair and wide, toothy smiles and, as far as Will could see,
were permanently covered in paint.
    He went back to his own desk. He had not found the courage to personalize it
yet; the pin-board partition still bore the corporate notices that were there
when he arrived. He saw the light on his phone blinking. A message.
    Hi babe. I know it’s late but I’m not sleepy
yet. I’ve got a fun idea so call me when you’re done. It’s
nearly one. Call soon. ‘
    His spirits lifted instantly. He had banked on a tip-toed reentry into the
apartment, followed by a pre-bed bowl of Cheerios. What did Beth have in mind?
    He called. ‘How come you’re still awake?’
    ‘I dunno, my husband’s first murder perhaps? Maybe it’s just
everything that’s going on. Anyway, I can’t sleep. Do you wanna
meet for bagels?’
    ‘What, now?’
    ‘Yeah. At the Carnegie Deli.’
    ‘Now?’
    I’ll get a cab.’
    Will liked the idea of the Carnegie Deli as much as, perhaps more than, the
reality. The notion of a coffee shop that never slept, where old-time Broadway
comedians and now-creaking chorus girls might meet for an after-show