I wrote back that no, I was going. Then I booked a flight to Los Angeles and knocked on the door of Mort’s office. He had two TVs on mute and was taking his red pencil to the proof of a story. Riveting stuff, he told me. The Bystander’s London correspondent had gained remarkable insight into the Iraq debate as it was playing out in Downing Street. Sources indicated that British intelligence was highly skeptical of any Iraq–Al Qaeda link, as well as Saddam’s WMDs, but it seemed Prime Minister Blair was willing to accommodate Bush at any cost.

I remembered Dr. Kriss’s remark about military funding. “Sounds like war,” I said.

“They’re going to walk all the way up to that line, but will they really step over?”

I handed him an envelope of receipts and asked him to authorize my expenses. Mort signed off, but not before inquiring into the status of the story. I told him it was still far from finished, and he seemed displeased.

“Is something wrong?” I asked.

“No,” he quickly said. “It’s just that we’ve invested about ten thousand into your reporting already.”

“The story will be worth it.”

“I know it will. More importantly, I hope it’s worth it for you.” He waved at my face.

“This is nothing.”

“Would you be more comfortable if I assigned someone else to work with you?”

I immediately said no, and after a moment’s contemplation Mort said alright.

“But if you could try to wrap it up with this California trip,” he said, “it would really help us out. I’m trying to siphon as much as possible to foreign correspondents. I hope you understand.”

“No problem,” I said, though I felt oddly embarrassed as I left, as if he’d called me wasteful.

7.

At home in Lakers sweatpants on Saturday, I was eating cranberry pistachio bark and trying to read Bethany McLean’s Enron reporting in Fortune while construction workers hammered on my building. They’d made an incredible amount of progress, so to speak, in a very short time. Already they’d removed the moldy wood, replaced the crumbling bricks, reframed the oriel windows. One of my neighbors, whom I’d never spoken to until the restoration started, informed me that the whole facade would be painted white. The news signaled a truly ambitious new era of building maintenance that shocked and frightened us both.

The phone rang. To my surprise, it was Lane Porter.

Other than a few curious remarks about my injuries, he’d been ignoring me, maybe something to do with the incident at Englander’s. The office felt much more spacious without his pressing attentions.

“Whitney,” he said over the phone, “sorry to bother you on the weekend, but I had some thoughts about the story.”

“No problem,” I said. “What’s up?”

“Do you want to get together?”

“Can you tell me on the phone?”