"No, that's his whole name. Loreal."

"Like Sting or Bono-"

"Very good, Jack."

"Except this chowderhead named himself after a shampoo."

"Can you believe it?" Carla squeaks.

"So what does Messr. Loreal do for a living?"

"He's a record producer, is what I heard. Very hot." Carla's watching me scribble in my notebook. "I asked who he's produced and somebody said the Wallflowers but then somebody else said no, it was Beck. I never really got it straight, but everybody says he's hot."

"And they say he's bonking Jimmy's wife?"

"More like she's bonking him."

I drum my pen on the table.

"See, the difference is," Carla says, "like, Cleo's in total charge of the program. She calls, he comes running. The sex is at her convenience, not his. He's the boy toy, just like you said."

I prod Carla for more dope about Loreal and she says he's twenty-nine or thirty, has recently moved here from Los Angeles, drives a motorcycle and, based on firsthand observation, has a fondness for Ecstasy. He tells everyone within earshot that he's producing Cleo's new album.

"I want to meet this guy," I tell Carla.

She beams. "You gonna kick his ass? Jack, I'd pay good money to see you punch somebody."

"What's so funny?"

"I can't picture it, that's all. I just can't!" She pops a batter-fried squid into her mouth. "This dickbrain who busted into your apartment-was he bigger than you? God, what if he had a gun! You ever think a that, Jack?"

"Hook me up with Loreal. But please don't tell your mother you're helping me out."

Carla snaps her fingers. "That reminds me!" She hoists a voluminous crotcheted handbag onto her lap and takes out a thick shiny book. With a flourish she passes it across the table, annoying the waiter who is attempting to deliver our salads.

"What's this? "I ask.

Carla raises an eyebrow. "You heard of him, right?"

"Sure."

The novel is called The Falconer's Mistress. On the jacket is a drawing of (naturally) a falcon, wings flared. The bird is perched on the velvet-gloved fist of a woman wearing a sparkling ruby bracelet. Only her bare Corfu-tanned arm is shown. The author of the book, whose name is displayed in raised gold lettering, is Derek Grenoble. His secret-agent novels sell millions.

"Your mother is marrying this person?"

"First I wasn't gonna tell you," Carla says, "but then I figured you'd find out sooner or later. I never read anything the guy wrote but he seems nice enough. Seriously."

I turn the novel over and study the retouched face in the photograph. "He looks like Ann-Margret in an ascot."

"He's British," Carla volunteers. "Or maybe it's Australian."

"In the first place, that can't possibly be his real name. 'Derek Grenoble'? No way. Your mom knows better. Second, he can't possibly be forty-four."

Carla frowns. "You're taking this worse than I thought."

"I'm disappointed, that's all." Heartsick is more like it. And jealous and petulant and furious at myself for driving Anne away.

"Jack, she's really happy. I'd tell you if she wasn't."

"Swell. Lady Anne Grenoble-is that what she'll be calling herself from now on? When's the big wedding day?"

"Next Saturday."

"You're shitting me."

"Derek's leaving for Ireland to start another project."

"That's my birthday," I say emptily.

"Oh, man. I forgot," Carla says. "How old now?"

"A hundred and seven."

I open Derek's latest masterpiece to a random page in the middle. "Listen to this: 'Duquesne turned to the section chief and eyed him with revulsion, as if he were a worm in a bright red apple. Incompetence was one thing, reckless ego another. Kincaid was dead because he'd left her out there too long, much too long, with no way out. That Duquesne could never forgive. From a pocket he drew out Kincaid's empty Walther and placed it on the section chief's desk. Then he spun on his heel and stalked out of the building. By the time he reached the airport, he had decided precisely where to go and whom to kill.' For God's sakes, Carla, tell me he's kidding."

To my horror she puts down her fork and says, "Keep reading, Jack, go on. What happens next?"

No place matches a city newsroom for energy, or ennui. Between big breaking stories are droning, brain-numbing lulls that allow reporters to ponder too deeply their choice of occupation. Burnout is common because of the long hours and the crummy pay and the depressing nature of so much of what we write. As the saying goes, they never send us to the airport when the plane lands safely. Those who bail out of journalism usually beeline for law school, a graduate degree or well-paying gigs in corporate public relations. Personally, I'd rather have my nuts nailed to a poisonwood.

Up until a few years ago, I'd never had any doubts about newspaper work, never thought I'd made the wrong choice. I went into the business not because I was looking to get beat up or training to be a novelist, but because I wanted to be Bob Woodward or Sy Hersh, kicking butt on the front page. Reality slowly set in and I came to understand that I wasn't destined for Washington or New York or even Miami, but still there were good stories; good days when I brought grief and misery and the occasional felony indictment upon lowlifes such as Orrin Van Gelder. I believed the job was important, a public service, and as a bonus it was unfailingly entertaining. Every new story was a fresh education in human guile and gullibility. The headlines made a large splash in a small pond, but the ripples didn't last long. That didn't bother me, either, because usually I was already caught up in something new. It's the best job in the business, chasing crooks in Florida, because the well never runs dry. But then the paper was sold, the news hole shrunk, the staff got downsized, I got pissed off and-when the opportunity presented itself-publicly humiliated our new CEO.

Thus sabotaging my own career.

A brief snapshot of Race Maggad III: rangy and blond, with a smooth plump-looking chin, narrow green eyes and a tan as smooth as peanut butter. His long aquiline nose has a permanent hump where he once whacked himself accidentally with a polo mallet. Twice weekly his fingernails are professionally polished to a porcelain sheen, and the tooth whitener of his preference is imported at no small expense from Marseille. He calls his wife "Casey-Coo" and they own four neutered golden retrievers, in lieu of children. They tend homes in Wellington, Florida; East Hampton, Long Island; and San Diego, California, where Maggad-Feist has its corporate headquarters. The man of the house loves sports cars, particularly those of German pedigree. Recently he turned forty-one, the same age at which Bebe the bottle-nosed dolphin (one of seven who played Flipper on TV) passed away.

Fashion-wise, Race Maggad III aims for a look of relaxed self-importance. Today, for instance, he's wearing crocodile loafers with no socks, khaki trousers and a crisp Oxford with the monogrammed cuffs upturned. To hilarious effect he has knotted the sleeves of a navy tennis sweater around his neck. It is August in Florida.

"Good afternoon, Jack," he says.

"Greetings, Mr. Maggad."

I'm camped at my desk, reading an old Rolling Stone interview with Jimmy Stoma that was unearthed for me by young Evan on a mission to the public library.

"Got a minute?" Maggad's tone is one of pained geniality.

"I'm pretty busy, actually."

"Come on. We'll use Abkazion's office."

I scan the newsroom for potential witnesses. It's Saturday afternoon and the place is quiet-Emma's not working, which is just as well.

"So," Maggad begins, settling in behind the managing editor's cluttered desk, "I guess you heard Mr. Polk checked out of the hospital."

"Yes indeed. Another medical miracle."

"How was your visit? How did he seem to you?"

"Feisty and incontinent."

Race Maggad III purses his liver-colored lips. "But mentally how did he seem-alert? Aware of his surroundings?"

"Sharp as a tack. I sorta liked the old bastard."

"Yes, I gather the feeling is mutual. Did he happen to say why he wanted you to be the one to write his obituary?"

It's lame, this fishing expedition of his. What a bumbler.

"Because," I reply, "my unfettered style reminds him of James Joyce."

"Mmmm."

"Or is it Henry Miller?"

I remain the portrait of earnestness, while Maggad gnaws fretfully on the inside of his right cheek. My puffy nose and lumpy jaw have provoked unease and possibly suspicion. He's well on the way to regretting this incursion into the newsroom, where he stands out like the proverbial turd in the punch bowl. He might own the place, but he doesn't belong.

"Jack," he says, "we've never really talked, you know."

"About?"

"About what happened at that shareholders' meeting, I mean. I got your gracious note," he adds, "and I certainly took it to heart."

The apology was written, signed and sent to Race Maggad III without my knowledge. The author was Juan Rodriguez, who was trying to save my position on the investigations team.

"But I've been wanting to sit down like this, privately," says our polo-playing CEO, "to tell you-to assure you-that I believe as deeply as you do in thorough, hard-hitting journalism. And I believe it's possible to have great local newspapers that are also profitable newspapers. That's our goal at Maggad-Feist."

Young Race is aiming for annual profits of twenty-five percent, a margin that would be the envy of most heroin pushers.

"Were you ever a reporter?" I know the answer but I ask anyway, to make him squirm.

"No, Jack, I wasn't. I took an M.B.A. at Harvard."

"Ever work in a newsroom?"

"Look, I've been a newspaperman my whole life."

I hear myself cackling like a macaw. "You've been an owner of newspapers your whole life, that's hardly the same. Your daddy and your granddaddy were accumulators of newspapers," I say, "just as they were accumulators of waffle houses."

Maggad goes crimson in the ears, for I've touched a sore spot. When Maggad-Feist acquired the Union-Register, the press release mentioned that the family also owned "a chain of family specialty restaurants." One of our business writers, Teddy Bonner, made the mistake of elaborating in a section-front story. Within days a memo came down sternly informing the staff that, when writing about Maggad-Feist, it henceforth was "unnecessary" to mention Wilma's Waffle Dens, or the unfortunate bacterial outbreak that killed nine innocent customers and hospitalized fifty-four others who had dined upon improperly refrigerated breakfast sausages.

"By the way," I say to Race Maggad III, "are any of those pesky wrongful-death cases still kicking around?"

He steeples his long fingers and in a low voice says, "You're trying to get yourself fired, is that it? So you can turn around and sue us for God only knows what. Get your face in the paper, I bet you'd enjoy that."

I hear myself asking what kind of a name Race is. "When you were little, did they call you 'Master Race Maggad'? I bet they did. I bet they engraved it on all your birthday-party invitations."

Glaring hotly, he knifes to his feet. Dark crescents have bloomed in the armpits of his shirt. For a moment I think he's going to lunge across Abkazion's desk to strangle me, and who would blame him.

"Tagger," he hisses through clenched jaws, "what-is-your-goddamn-problem?"

"I suppose I don't like being jerked around. Why don't you just tell me why you're here and then I can tell you to fuck off, and we can both get on with our day."

Taking notice of the sodden half-moons on his Oxford, young Race deftly folds his arms for concealment. "MacArthur Polk's obituary," he proceeds curtly. "I want to read it."

"It's not written yet."

"Bullshit."

"And even if it was-"

"Bullshit. Your editor, Amy, said-"

"Her name is Emma."

"She said she told you to get right on it."

"Indeed she did," I say, "and I will."

"So help me God, Tagger, if you're stonewalling... "

I point out that Old Man Polk is not only still alive, but apparently on the rebound. "Whereas other people are dropping dead every day,"

I add, "significant people who deserve significant obituaries. We are woefully shorthanded, Mr. Maggad, due to severe reductions in our staffing and news resources. I am but one man."

Young Race ignores the dig about his budget slashing. Deep in sour rumination, he fingers the hump on his nose. "I'd like to know what Mr. Polk said at the hospital. Tell me what he asked you to write."

"Oh, I can't possibly do that."

"Why not?"

"Because it's confidential. The Union-Register has strict rules against reporters divulging unpublished information."

"Yes, to outsiders," interrupts Race Maggad III. "But I'm not an outsider, Tagger. I sign the paychecks around here."

"No, you sign the paychecks of the people who sign the paychecks. And if you're not an outsider, why does everybody stop and gape whenever you stroll into the building? I know two-headed carnies who don't attract so much attention."

"Have it your way. I'll speak to your editor and we'll get you straightened out, mister, and pronto."

"A solid game plan. And in the meantime, sir"-I whip the notebook out of my pocket-"I need a quote."