I had written at least a thousand murder stories in my time. I was going to write one more. A story that would stand as the tombstone on my career. A story that would make them remember me after I was gone.

The weekend was a blur of alcohol, anger and humiliation as I grappled with a new future that was no future. After briefly sobering up on Saturday morning I opened the file that held my novel in progress and began reading. I soon saw what my ex-wife had seen long ago. What I should have seen long ago. It wasn’t there and I was kidding myself if I thought it was.

The conclusion was that I would have to start from scratch if I was going to go this way, and the thought of that was debilitating. When I took a cab back to the Short Stop to get my car, I ended up staying and closing the place out early Sunday morning, watching the Dodgers lose again and drunkenly telling complete strangers about how fucked up the Times and the whole newspaper business was.

It took me all the way into Monday morning to get cleaned up. I rolled in forty-five minutes late to work after finally getting my car at the Short Stop and I could still smell the alcohol coming out of my pores.

Angela Cook was already sitting at my desk in a chair she had borrowed from one of the empty cubicles. There had been a lot of them since they’d started the buyouts and the layoffs.

“Sorry I’m late, Angela,” I said. “It was kind of a lost weekend. Starting with the party on Friday. You should have come.”

She smiled demurely, like she knew there had been no party, just a one-man wake.

“I got you some coffee but it’s probably cold by now,” she said.

“Thanks.”

I picked up the cup she had gestured to and it had indeed cooled. But the good thing about the Times cafeteria was free refills—at least they hadn’t changed that yet.

“Tell you what,” I said. “Let me go check in with the desk and if nothing’s happening we can go get refills and talk about how you’re going to take over.”

I left her there and walked out of podland and over toward the Metro desk. On the way I stopped at the switchboard. It sat like a lifeguard stand in the middle of the newsroom, built high so that the operators could look out across the vast newsroom and see who was in and able to receive calls. I stepped to the side of the station so one of the operators could look down and see me.

It was Lorene, who had been on duty the Friday before. She raised a finger to tell me to hold. She handled two quick transfers and then pulled one side of her headset off her left ear.

“I don’t have anything for you, Jack,” she said.

“I know.