She shrugged.
“You know the difference between ‘that’ and ‘which.’”
Without an instant’s hesitation: “‘That’ is restrictive and necessary for the sentence to achieve the writer’s meaning. ‘Which’ is nonrestrictive and adds parenthetical information to the sentence.”
“It’s like music, your writing. Your phrasing, your syntax are beautiful.”
Dottie said, “Star Wars Yoda, a butcher of syntax is.” Drawing a rare smile from his bearded face.
He scanned the monitor again. A dozen windows were open. Made him dizzy.
She said, “I heard you’re retiring?”
A tip of his head.
“To do what?”
He thought:
Not writing a damn memoir, which would be like swimming in quicksand.
And not teaching students, because students irritated him.
And definitely not fishing, which was both barbaric and boring.
“Don’t know.”
His eyes were on the screen. “Is this satisfying?”
“What?”
“Writing this stuff.”
“Stuff.”
“Oomec. Or whatever you call it.”
“Me? I call them articles or pieces or stories or blog posts. I’m big enough to step over corporate crap.”
But not too old to kiss the ass of algorithms.
“One of your pieces? It was almost poetic. Really. It was about animal videos on YouTube. Monkeys in costumes. Baby goats in pajamas.” He’d tried to rein in his tone. He guessed he wasn’t successful.
Her eyes were cold. “You ought to check them out. They’re cute. Oh, and that piece had three hundred thousand views.”
He decided not to back down. Fitz noted other ExaminerOnline staffers nearby. The oldest appeared to be twenty-five. He leaned down so no one else would hear. “Don’t you want to do real reporting?” he whispered. “You don’t need this.”
“Oh, don’t know why I would, Fitz. After that YouTube piece ran? I got a gold star pasted on my forehead by my boss and an extra helping of kibble at dinner. The only thing I don’t need is your condescension.” She spun her glitzy chrome chair toward the monitor and began to keyboard at the speed of light.
II
JULY14
9
He awoke, trading pure dark for lesser dark.
Trading peaceful oblivion for despair.
Jasper Coyle recalled where he was.
Shivering, he crawled to the hole he’d pounded in the brick and peered into the other room. All he could see was another brick wall about fifteen feet away. But there would have to be a door or window, because of the light.
Get back to work.
Six bricks were done.
The more bricks Jasper Coyle removed, the more easily the surrounding ones could be pounded out.
He had air but the thirst was growing worse.
Though the chamber was cold, he was sweating from his effort. Dry-mouthed, he found his muscles cramping and he grew disoriented even with the air streaming in from the next room. That had to be the thirst.
What if he found standing water there? Would it be safe to drink? The smell, though. The fumes. Any puddles would be contaminated with oil, or diesel. But they’d rise to the top, wouldn’t they? Maybe he could swipe the surface and suck up a fast sip or two before the toxic scum flowed back.
Or would the water itself be tainted? Would he poison himself and die, screaming in agony?
What the hell’re these crazy thoughts?
Forget water. Dig.
Another brick down, then another.
Almost big enough.
Coyle, slim by nature and slim from exercise, thought: Go for it. Hands and arms first through the hole, then the head. If you could get your shoulders through an opening, he’d heard, you could squeeze your body through too. A little squirming, pushing.
But what if you got stuck?
The worst way to die.
Panic rose.
No . . .
He managed to tamp down his horror.
Concentrate . . . Push, push.
Then finally he tumbled into the next room, and collapsed on the floor, breathing hard. He rolled onto his back and looked toward the light, a horizontal slit high in the brick wall—like a narrow cellar window. Now he just needed to find a door . . .
He rolled to his feet and looked around.
Oh, Jesus Christ! No, no!
Jasper Coyle had just escaped into a fucking jail cell.
The chamber was small, about fifteen by fifteen. Brick on three walls, thick iron bars on the fourth. The window? It measured eighteen inches across and six inches high.
He staggered to the door and found what he knew he would: a rusted lock, frozen tight.
Dropping to his knees, Coyle uttered a low howl.
He rose and stumbled back to the wall he’d broken through, reached in and retrieved his caveman ax. He’d remove more bricks; light would flow into the first room and maybe he could see a way of working open the wooden door he’d found yesterday.
He began pounding.
One brick out, then another.
A third.
Which is when the entire wall collapsed, bricks the color of dried blood cascading down upon Coyle, compressing his lungs, breaking bones. He struggled for breath.
He gave a futile scream, soft as a whisper. Complete darkness returned.
10
Pounding pavement.
Trying to find the anonymous witness Trask had mentioned.
Hard work. Pain radiated through Fitz’s feet and legs. His breathing was labored, and the damn coughing gripped his chest from time to time.
Journalism is a young man’s game.
He laughed. A young person’s game, picturing Dottie Wyandotte’s tattoos and piercings.
Baby goats in pajamas . . .
Then he forgot his body’s complaints. The hard work paid off.
He found a contractor working on a building directly across from where Coyle’s car had been parked. The tradesman was on the job the day of the kidnapping but hadn’t been back to the site since, so the investigators hadn’t spoken to him. He hadn’t seen the Gravedigger or Coyle but he had seen a man sitting outside a café for an hour or so around lunchtime. He pointed out the table; the man lunching would have had a good view of Coyle’s car.
Had this contractor seen the witness who’d called 911? Maybe, maybe not. But something definitely worth following up on.
Fitz asked, “Did he look like anyone famous, an actor, a politician, musician?”
This was Fitz’s form of the Identi-Kit—the device used by police to render images of suspects based on witnesses’ observations.
“Oh, I’m not sure . . .” Then he was frowning. “Well, there’s an actor . . . Yes, you know . . . Training Day. The movie?”
Fitz had never seen it.
“I can’t think of his name . . . The young guy.”
Fitz looked up the movie on his iPhone.
Ethan Hawke.
The worker looked at the screen. “Yeah, yeah, that’s him.”
He downloaded the picture, thanked the man, and suggested he contact Special Agent Trask.
Back to pavement pounding. A cough. Lozenge. They didn’t do much good. But they tasted nice.
Up and down the street, showing his press credentials and flashing the picture of the actor. No sightings.