Death's Echoes by Penny Mickelbury

Author:Penny Mickelbury [Penny Mickelbury]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781612941127
Publisher: Bywater Books
Published: 2017-12-20T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

“Well if it isn’t JJZ! Where’s the Queen B? Somewhere making beautiful music with the lieutenant who can do no wrong, leaving you to do all the work?” Ian had spoken loudly enough that everyone within a ten-foot radius heard him, which, Joe thought, was his intention. To call the man clueless was to grossly understate. Joe stepped around him and headed for his desk. Mimi had stopped in the loo. He hoped Ian would vanish before she appeared, but it didn’t seem likely that would happen as Ian continued his high-decibel trash talking.

“That guy is an idiot,” said Carolyn Warshawski, one of the weekend editors. “I don’t know why they keep him.”

“The guy is an asshole,” said night editor Henry Smith, “and he’s still here only because his probationary period isn’t up yet. The Exec’ll let him get right up to the edge, let him think he’s got it made, then dump his dumb ass.”

Carolyn looked at Henry, into rheumy eyes set deeply into sockets rimmed with equally deep wrinkles and bags, and knew that he was correct. He’d been around longer than most, including the Exec, and he knew how the place worked. “The sooner the better, Henry,” she said.

“I just wish Patterson had been around to hear what he said, the little fuck. She’d have cleaned his clock and left the pieces on the floor.”

Carolyn made a sound and Henry looked at her, then to where she was looking, to see Mimi headed toward them. Well, not really toward them as much as toward her desk, but they were in her path. So was Ian, but Mimi gave no indication that she saw him. She spoke to and nodded at several people along the way, and she was about to speak to Carolyn and Henry, both of whom she considered friends, when Ian spoke to her.

“Patterson! A little afternoon delight with the lovely lieutenant?” he said, speaking even louder than he had before.

“Oh, shit,” somebody muttered as Mimi stopped walking and stood as still as a post in cement.

Ian apparently had no sense of peril because he kept talking. “Give me an hour with her and I’ll make her forget all about that wanna-be plastic dick you dykes use. Or is it rubber? I’ll slide nine inches of the real thing in her—”

Mimi’s fist met his jaw with such speed and power that witnesses weren’t sure he’d been hit until he was spiraling backward, yelling at the top of his lungs, arms flailing in a futile attempt to grab and hold something to break his fall. Everyone who could have provided that cushion, that safety net for Ian, quickly moved out of the way, leaving the wall of army-green, old as dirt, metal file cabinets at the back of the room the only option. He hit them hard, and fell to the floor, hitting it just as hard.

The Exec had come out of his office at the sound of Ian’s yelling to find the newsroom staff surrounding Mimi Patterson, and cheering her.

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