Читать книгу The City Man - Howard Akler - Страница 10

The next day, he leans his head back. Each new angle of the eye offers another storey, a gaze that climbs the spandrels, clambers over a dramatic setback and then a subtler one higher up the shaft. Eli at the corner of King and Bay stares up all twenty-two floors of the Star Building. Motionless on the sidewalk, but his eye wavers and wavers at the top. Tips over. A vertiginous drop all the way down to the main doors. He straightens his tie.

In he goes.

I’m talking about character. I’m talking about temperament. Christ, you know what I’m talking about: the news game is no place for nerves. You got deadline pressure, you got the goddamned Tely boys on your ass. You really take your licks in this business.

Eli shifts in his chair. Takes a deep breath. The entire news-room stuffed into a single moment of respiration: the incessant clack-clack of keys, phones that ring through the blue smoke and blue language. The eyes of all the other reporters landing on him while Bert Murneau, the city editor, sits on the edge of the copy desk and sighs.

We’ve been friends for how long, Morenz?

Five years, says Eli.

Five years. So you won’t squawk when I say this: I talked to your doctor yesterday.

Eli cocks an eyebrow.

He was a little cagey at first, but we managed to cut through a lot of the mumbo-jumbo. He says the rest did you wonders. Says you’re much better. Says it’s time to try the next step. Reintegration at a higher level, or something like that. Can’t remember the exact phrase, but it all boils down to putting you back on the payroll.

Okay.

Of course, the payroll’s just been cut. All I could wrangle for you was some voucher jobs. Nothing steady.

Okay.

Half the town’s on relief, Morenz. You’re lucky they even let you back here.

It’s okay, Bert. Really.

Really? says Bert.

Eli taps his temple. Temperament, he says.