Back at the office, Sam filed three takes on the David King story. The boy was not a thief, he reported. His mother was an upstanding woman in the community. The boy was a cripple. The Red Shirts got him and beat him.

He handed it off to the copyboy, who ran it to Clawson. It was five till ten. He stood up and reached for his hat. He’d look for a new suit. After that, he could spend the morning tracking down Manly.

Clawson was rapping on the window glass. He motioned Sam to come in, then slapped the pages of his story. “I sent you for a story about a housebreaker, outraged citizens defending their homes from riffraff—not a bleeding-heart editorial.” He shoved the pages back at Sam. “Give me something I can use.”

Sam stared at him. Surely, he wasn’t saying to fabricate the story. Clawson stood with his back turned, hands jammed in his pockets.

Sam went out. He walked straight to Solly Fishblate’s to pick out a new suit. Located next door to the Orton Hotel, Fishblate’s Men’s Furnishings was a long, narrow, low-ceilinged establishment with warped pinewood floors.

“Any friend of Harry,” Solly Fishblate said. He was a short man with thinning black hair combed in a cloud of frizzy curls. Clean-shaven, fastidiously dressed in a full linen suit with a gardenia at the lapel—mid-fifties, Sam guessed. Hard to believe he had ever been mayor. Didn’t have the force for it.

But then, before Sam even told him why he had come, Fishblate looped a measuring tape around his waist. “Thirty-four,” he said. “Inseam, thirty-three. Very good. Very good.”

He eased Sam’s arms up, and Sam held them there while Fishblate measured his chest. “Thirty-eight,” he pronounced, then stood rocking on his heels, eyeing Sam up and down, rubbing his smooth chin with his big, red hand. “You have a strong build.” He patted Sam’s back. “Your shoulders can carry a longer coat. This is your lucky day. You like silk? I got Chinese silk.”

“I only need—”

Fishblate wagged a finger. “A man needs a change of clothes. A man must present himself in a certain fashion.”

“Well, I—”

Fishblate waved off his objections. “Say no more. Look at the merchandise. Feel the quality.” He steered Sam into a thicket of clothing racks. “For Harry, I give you a price. One must recognize the gentlemen of the press, am I right? Tell me I’m wrong. For Harry.”