A Stone's Throw by James Ziskin (best story books to read .txt) 📗

to be a lady, keep your knees together and your mouth shut. Look pretty, by all means, dear, but fetch me another cup of coffee. And, while you’re at it, Georgie Porgie, here, is going to take credit for all your hard work.

I stopped in my tracks and wrenched my arm from Charlie’s grip. He wheeled around only to receive my gale-force fury face-first.

“I am not sharing anything with George,” I said. “Except maybe a swift kick in the seat of the pants.”

Charlie’s attitude changed. Sometimes when people realize the leash has broken and the mastiff is free, they take a different tack. He tried to calm me, encourage me to lower my voice and listen to reason.

“Take a breath, Ellie,” he said. “I can fix this. But if you don’t work with George, Artie will fire you today.”

“And who’ll finish the story? Georgie Porgie? He doesn’t even know who the sheriff of Saratoga County is. And what about Bruce Robertson? You think he has any idea who that is? Or Dan Ledoux? Mack Hodges? Where did Johnny Dornan come from? What’s his real name? Who was Vivian McLaglen’s first husband? He doesn’t know any of it, and I don’t have time to teach him just so he can steal the credit when he finally reads the ending in some competitor’s newspaper. Does Artie Short know that the Gazette, the Times-Union, Knickerbocker News, and the Saratogian are all hot on this story?”

“Please, Ellie, calm down. I’ll talk to Artie and put things right.”

“Tell him this, Charlie. If he fires me, I’m driving straight over to the Gazette offices and offering my services to them. For free if necessary.”

Charlie’s red face had turned white. He gently urged me into his office where he closed the door and offered me a seat. I felt eerily calm. The catharsis had done me good. The ball was in Charlie’s—and Artie Short’s—court now, and no matter what they hit back at me, I was resigned to accept the consequences for my outburst. It’s a liberating sensation to know that you’ve finally told a dancing bear where to get off.

Charlie’s phone rang.

“Reese,” he barked into the receiver.

I could hear the metallic, strangulated yammering coming through the earpiece, and I knew it was Artie Short, chewing out Charlie and demanding my head. I watched with alarm as the color returned to my editor’s face, rising out of his neck and filling his cheeks like red mercury climbing a thermometer.

“Listen to me, Artie,” he said. “Fire Ellie Stone, and you fire me too. I’m the editor of this paper, and I’ll make the assignments according to my best judgment.”

I gasped. Charlie listened some more, then asked Artie if he really thought he could run a newspaper without him. After a couple of more exchanges, the pitch of the whistling tea spout sank to safe levels, and Charlie showed signs of returning calm.

“All right, then,” he said and replaced the receiver in its cradle with the care of a mother putting a babe down for a nap.

“My God, Charlie,” I said with a gulp. “What did you do?”

“I saved your job,” he answered in a hoarse voice. Then he wiped his dry mouth and sat down. “Artie says you stay on the story. For now.”

“What do you mean for now?”

“He’s trying to save face.”

“And you were really willing to lose your job over me?”

He pursed his lips around a cigarette, which he lit with a trembling hand. “Of course not. One just needs to know when and where to pick one’s battles.”

“I’m going to find this Dan Ledoux,” I said, standing to leave. “And when I do, Artie Short better not try to give the credit to his son-in-law.”

“So you think he’s the one behind all this? This Ledoux fellow ?”

“I think that when I find him, this case will be solved.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

The afternoon edition of the New Holland Republic featured my three stories—two on the front page—along with photos of the Micheline Charbonneau murder scene and the caretaker’s house fire. Sheriff Frank Olney looked fierce in a grainy picture I’d snapped roadside, and the blazing building came out better than I had hoped. Dramatic, with leaping flames and broken windows visible, the photo made me appear to be a better photographer than I was. Still, my double scoop thrilled me, even more so when I noticed that George Walsh’s only piece in the paper that day was another in his series of “Walsh’s Witticisms,” which consisted of groaning jokes and riddles that a fourth grader could solve. The caricature of George that accompanied the byline of this embarrassing column was priceless. I’d made a habit of cutting it out of the paper each time it appeared and drawing different mustaches and beards on the cartoon figure of George. Sometimes I’d add a balloon caption with a “witlesscism” befitting the newspaperman who thought double agent Kim Philby was a woman.

“Let’s see,” I said aloud as I considered the caricature in my usual booth at Fiorello’s. “Maybe some muttonchop sideburns today for Georgie Porgie.”

I drew them on, extra bushy, then shaded the lenses of his thick spectacles to make him look like some kind of pervert on the prowl. But the pièce de résistance was the pigtails I drew sprouting out of the side of his head, just below his bald pate, replete with tiny polka-dot bows. And I blacked out three of his teeth to give him some of that Dogpatch charm. I decided to frame it and display it proudly on my desk the next morning.

“Who are you talking to, Ellie?” called Zeke from the soda fountain. He was filling in for Fadge who was at the track yet again.

“Myself. Mind your own business.”

The phone rang, and Zeke answered it. I noticed how easily he fit inside the booth compared to Fadge, who needed a running start and some 3-in-One oil to squeeze through the folding doors.

“Fiorello’s,” he said into