Intelligence

Megan scanned the newspapers for intelligence about drug wars. She subscribed to three newspapers, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The New York Times, and the Chicago Tribune, and she was sure that one of them would report the news. But there were no stories about drug wars in the U.S. Apparently they only took place in South America, where drug warriors burned buses in the suburbs. What was with that? Who was on those buses?

Megan knew two reporters, her son Jason and an old friend, Sid, who would obviously know more than her friend, Betty, the editor of a regional magazine. Betty was busy with the March issue, all about horticulture. Megan called Sid.

Sidney Poole, he said.

Sid, this is Megan.

Megan, I haven’t seen you in a long time. Jason says you’re doing all right.

Yeah. I’m fine. I miss you, Sid. But I have a question. You’re the only one I know with the shrewdness to answer this. Do you hear anything about gang wars in Philly?

No, that’s not my beat.

Do you know anything about a dealer who sends out goons to intimidate people?

Megan, Megan. Who do you think I am? I’m just a lowly Metro reporter. We don’t report on drug dealers.

Why not?

It’s not done. Talk to my editor.

I can’t talk to your editor. I really want to know why it’s not done.

Reporters don’t want to get blackballed by a publisher who may be a mobster who has dealer friends.

Oh. Really?

No, I made that up. But it might be true. And we don’t want to get ourselves killed. Who do you think we are?

Well, I don’t know. I thought you did investigative reporting.

Very little and not if you want to stay alive. The investigative reporters usually get assigned to special projects after a while. The projects never get printed. They write up files on people whom the publisher or editor may decide to go after, properly twisted, you understand, for revenge. They’re hardly in the confidence of gangsters. Will I get a dinner invitation out of this? I miss your apple cobbler.

Soon, Megan promised. After I get rid of Dreary.

Oh no. Not Dreary.

You know her?

I may have slept with her once.

Sid! Then talk to her. Get her to leave me alone.

I would if I could. She wouldn’t remember me. But I’ll make some calls.

Thank you, Sid.

When she got off the phone, she thought about her conversation with Rose. Rose thought she had a boyfriend. Well, she kind of did. Until Dreary was gone. She twisted her hair into a mess at the back of her neck with a rubber band. Not very becoming. It kept her hair off her face, though. She went downstairs to clean the house.

As she cleaned, she thought, I have to have something to do. It had taken two years to write her ‘60s book. She needed something new to research. Not gangsters. Apparently that was dangerous. She was interested in history, personal history, and personal history was a no-no. People sneered at memoirs. The public was so naive that they believed memoirs were literally true and they raged at writers who fictionalized parts to save their ass. Who was the guy on Oprah? She hadn’t read the book. But honestly did people think the dialogue in memoirs was true? That every word was true? Didn’t they know anything?

Writers told yarns. Some were conscientious and others made it up. The Romans considered history to be moral stories about the past. Oh, that Livy. Did people get to send in their scrolls for refunds?

She ate a million cookies with her coffee in the middle of the day. Fasting? How had she done that? Now that she wasn’t stoned, she couldn’t fast. And she found herself longing to go outside. No more agoraphobia?

She put on her coat and went outside. She decided to walk to the bookstore she had gone to with Bird. It was easy. No problem. The cold air made her squinch her face up. She wasn’t paranoid, though. The SUVs tooled by, with the usual vicious people driving them. They did not stop at the pedestrian crossing.

Megan finally made it to the bookstore and took off her sunglasses. Inside she found the perfect book: a cookbook she’d been looking for for a long time. She bought it, trying to make conversation with the cranky owner, who looked at her as though she were a trespasser. Good God, did he want to sell books or not? She remembered that Roald Dahl story, the one in which the used bookseller sends receipts to rich widows claiming the deceased owed money for erotica. Maybe this bookseller...but no.

He finally said a few grumpy words. It’s very cold. You look as though you froze to death out there. Do you need a scarf? I give scarves and hats to my regular customers. They’re in the lost-and-found and nobody claims them. See?

He nodded at a pile of winter things behind the counter.

Megan burst out laughing. She couldn’t help herself. I’ll take a scarf.

She wound a green scarf around her neck. Before she left, he said, Take care.