Outside, another dark, snowless Scandinavian day tapped on the sixth-floor newsroom windows and invited suicides to jump. Inside, Tom struggled to keep from grinning. Call Rush Limbaugh and spread the word. Another overforty, not-quite-dead white male was getting a second wind.
He imagined Caren Angland in a black dress. A tight black dress. With blond hair and wet red lipstick. A Raymond Chandler fantasy. Very much in trouble. Coming to him.
In real life, Tom had to read his e-mail. Sometimes he read Ida’s e-mail. Figuring out passwords was a little game he played.
First message. From Ida Rain, being fussy and vertical on the job. Much different from horizontal Ida. Real earth-shaking stuff. Re: yesterday’s school lunch program story, which you missed. I never got anyone out to cover it so make a call and do it on the phone.
Another great assignment. Out to lunch by Tom James, staff writer. He disliked his name. Tom and James. Like two first names, as if he didn’t have a proper last name. His middle name was Shelle, no help there. He’d changed his byline to his initials, T.S. James, for a while.
His colleagues started calling him “Tough Shit James,” so he tried Thomas, but it sounded stuffy. Tommy came off weak.
So he was back to Tom.
He checked his wristwatch again. She’d be out front in about half an hour. His briefcase was ready to go. Pads.
Pens, tape recorder, and cell phone all charged up.
Look busy. No distractions, then, just get up and make his move. The only reason to be in the office was in case she called with a change. Ida’s back was to him, perfect as a page out of Vanity Fair; herringbone belted jacket over black slacks. She’d kill him if she knew. God. The FBI. International crime ring.
Keep busy. He drummed his fingers on his desk and turned to his keyboard. His cursor pecked through the files and selected the one titled Names. He scrolled through notes and pages, revisiting old lists of outlaws. His eyes strained the words for textures. The power of the sounds we call each other.
Take Jesse James…if his name had been Tom, he’d probably have been a bank clerk. But Jesse-see, it all changed.
William Bonney.
Ma Barker.
Clyde Barrow.
John Dillinger.
Cole Younger.
Pretty Boy Floyd.
Those people knew from childhood they would lead dangerous lives. Just the sound of their names was like hearing a dare and a taunt.
And what about Charles Starkweather. No office job kiss-ing politically correct ass for that bad boy. That name had big wrists and big shoulders and was plain scary as an ax handle stained with blood and left out on the frozen prairie.
Starkweather would cut Ida Rain in half and throw the top away. Tom paused. He conjured the image of Caren Angland’s top on Ida’s bottom. Ouch.
After outlaws came monsters. He put the name Donner at the head of this list: a place, a family, a particularly evoc-ative American moment. He’d never met anyone named Donner. Just as he’d never met anyone named Hitler.
But Bundy was a common enough name.
The monsters didn’t have the statuesque phonetics of the outlaws. Ted Bundy sounded normal. Dillinger sounded like bare knuckles.
Charles Manson.
The monsters did not answer to their names. Their directions came from a chat room on the moon.
He’d studied his lists of names until he created one for a fictional hero and alter ego: Danny Storey; gambler, lover.
Private eye. He whispered it out loud. The sound fit magically in between the outlaws and the monsters. It sounded decisive.
A good name for today. That’s when the shadow blocked the overhead fluorescent light, fell across the screen, and a violent kick jarred his chair.