Page 39 of By Any Means

Geez. “Lads. Shove off, shove off. Keep it decent and between the lines, will ya? He wasn’t detained. He’s got nothing to say. And I shouldn’t be able to see the whites of your eyes, so fuck off.”

In one corner lounged Hiram, discreetly withdrawn from the crowd, hat cocked jauntily, pencil twirling between his fingers. He saluted as they passed.

They made it to the street. The temperature difference between the press of bodies and suits and hot breath and the bright summer day was extreme. Chary seemed to breathe at last.

“Jesus,” Laurie muttered. “You wanna run for it or get a cab?” Practically a rhetorical question; Chary was paper-white and looked about ready to fall over.

“Cab,” he whispered.

After the cab ride, Laurie couldn’t just leave Chary Wright to his own devices, so he practically stood guard for the man that whole afternoon. He was a journalist, not a bodyguard, but he could see where after the events of the morning, a man might not want to be alone. Laurie liked to think he wouldn’t’ve left anyone alone after something like that, rich man or not; it’d shaken him up more than he wanted to admit.

He also never turned down free lunch, and Chary had offered one: a soup and sandwich at a caf outside Grand Central.

“Where’s home?” Laurie asked, putting down his spoon. “Fifth Avenue? Newsmen will follow you there, too, you know.” There were still two reporters who had managed to follow, visible outside the caf through the big plate window, their caps drawn down low.

Chary swallowed his tea. He seemed as aware of the reporters as Laurie. Almost as though he’d been aware of them his whole adult life. “No. Home is… Berryfield.”

Of course Maine. Why was he disappointed to hear it? He already had one gaffer for a source, didn’t he? One that wasn’t a rich man?

“Good idea. It’d might be good to leave the city for a bit, ’til it dies down.”

Besides the press hounds, someone had tried to kill Chary, and might try again. Retreat did seem wise. Laurie would’ve offered his own 37th Street apartment—they could shake the newsmen if they really tried—but it disallowed visitors entirely, and he did want to keep his spot. Anyway, he justified, it wasn’t Chary’s home, and after the police-station ordeal, all Chary wanted, he’d said, was home.

He did wonder—again—why Fifth Avenue wasn’t.

The blood-puffed bruise on Chary’s brow looked tight and hard and round in the caf’s electric lights.

Laurie gestured to his face. “Make sure you have someone take care of this, yeah?”

Chary nodded.

“I’ll walk you to your train, just to be sure.”

Chary nodded again. “To the train and no farther. Don’t follow me anymore. Please.”

Laurie, stung, said, “Is that what I’m doing?”

“‘He’s a source,’” Chary quoted.

“Chary, c’mon. You were almost killed. I told you: I don’t out queers. I don’t write that society bullcrap they’re going to plaster everywhere with dashes and Mr. Blanks. I just want the truth.”

And… he couldn’t help but feel somewhat responsible for this morning, too. Nobody had targeted Chary until Laurie had shown up, asking questions and yanking him around the Bowery. Unless it was just coincidence—and Chary had always been meant to be attacked, and it had been meant to be this morning—but that was unlikely.

There was plenty of plausible why.

“Why do you think you were targeted this morning? Any ideas?”

Chary looked, suddenly, resigned. Resigned toward his half-full soup bowl, sure, but it was for Laurie. It stung almost as much as the man’s plea to leave him alone—as though all along, he had expected Laurie to use him for further interview. For story.

“I have no obvious common denominator, then, with the others?”

“Beyond posing as a gaffer? I don’t know yet if you do. But: either the culprit doesn’t know you’re the boss—or they do.”

“… It must be one of those,” Chary said slowly, “yes.”

Laurie waved what was left of his sandwich. “I’m saying that it matters how much the culprit knows about you. Informs their motivation.”

“I have read Conan Doyle. My guess is that my name has nothing to do with it, either way.”