We shared a hollow laugh. Then he continued: “Working here, you and me, we’ve got to be on one of those lists. So Amy and I, we’re just gonna … we’re taking a little vacation and seeing how it all shakes out. Who knows, Rol, maybe we’re overreacting.” And then he broke into a big Frankie B. Goode smile. “Maybe those soldiers in the street really are there to protect us.” He cleared his throat, then pointed at his desk. “I gotta … you know.” He threw a few final items into his backpack and zipped it closed. He looked around at the mostly empty desks. “Well…” he started, inhaling deeply, his shoulders rising as if the breath had filled them. Then he caught his emotion and brought it under control. Unable to speak, he shrugged, waved, and started toward the door. Then stopped. He had one more thought. He walked over to me, leaned down, and kissed me on my cheek. “It’s been great, Rollie. I’m proud of us. We did some really good stuff here. Be careful, huh?”

He stood tall and forced himself to smile. The last thing he did was pick up an empty Dunkin’ cup and add it to the tower. A dribble of cold coffee snaked down the tower and pooled on my desk. I didn’t bother cleaning it up. The tower was eight cups tall, and we both knew it would never get any higher. “You too, Frankie,” I said, forcing a smile even I didn’t believe. “Give Amy a kiss for me, please.”

As I packed, several other people trickled in and out, but the background music of a newsroom at work was gone, replaced by a muffled silence interrupted occasionally by whispered conversations as people said goodbye or made last-minute phone calls. I shook hands, kissed back, said goodbye, made vague promises to maintain contact, and offered optimistic predictions, but even as I did, I couldn’t help feeling like I was in the middle of one of those overly dramatic movie scenes in which government personnel are racing to clean up files as the enemy reaches the gates of the city. The Pro was done.

I finally ran out of things to do. The truth is, I had been stalling, waiting, hoping that Howie would come in. He would have been there if it was possible. “Cher,” I said, dreading this, “call Howie’s home phone.” It rang several times and I was ready to hang up when Karen answered. “Are you okay?” I asked.

I liked and admired Karen, but she had never struck me as an especially tough person. So the resolve in her voice surprised me. “Yeah, I am.”

“Where is he?”

I heard her take one deep breath. “We don’t know.” There were three cops, she said. Howie asked to see their warrant, and they laughed at him. “They were polite, Rollie. It wasn’t any tough guy stuff. One of them even apologized to me and said he felt really bad about this, but he had to follow orders. They let him pack a bag.”