“The integrity of our files and our client list is paramount to all we do. That’s why I came here personally.”

That and the strip club McGinnis took you to, Carver thought but didn’t say. He smiled instead but there was no warmth in it. He was glad McGinnis had reminded him of the suit’s name.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Wyeth,” he said. “Your crops will be safe on this farm.”

Wyeth smiled back.

“That’s what I wanted to hear,” he said.

TWO: The Velvet Coffin

Every eye in the newsroom followed me as I left Kramer’s office and walked back to my pod. The long looks made it a long walk. The pink slips always came out on Fridays and they all knew I had just gotten the word. Except they weren’t called pink slips anymore. Now it was an RIF form—as in Reduction in Force.

They all felt the slightest tingle of relief that it hadn’t been them and the slightest tingle of anxiety because they still knew that no one was safe. Any one of them could be called in next.

I met no one’s stare as I passed beneath the Metro sign and headed back into podland. I moved into my cubicle and slipped into my seat, dropping from sight like a soldier diving into a foxhole.

Immediately my phone buzzed. On the read-out I saw that it was my friend Larry Bernard calling. He was only two cubicles away but knew if he had come to me in person it would have been a clear signal for others in the newsroom to crowd around me and ask the obvious. Reporters work best in packs like that.

I put on my headset and picked up the call.

“Hey, Jack,” he said.

“Hey, Larry,” I said.

“So?”

“So what?”

“What did Kramer want?”

He pronounced the assistant managing editor’s name Crammer, which was the nickname bestowed on Richard Kramer years earlier when he was an assignment editor more concerned with the quantity than the quality of news he got his reporters to produce for the paper. Other variations of his full or partial name evolved over time as well.

“You know what he wanted. He gave me notice. I’m out of here.”

“Holy fucking shit, you got pinked!”

“That’s right. But remember, we call it ‘involuntary separation’ now.”

“Do you have to clear out right now? I’ll help you.”

“No, I’ve got two weeks. May twenty-second and I’m history.”

“Two weeks? Why two weeks?”

Most RIF victims had to clear out immediately. This edict was instated after one of the first recipients of a layoff notice was allowed to stay through the pay period. Each of his last days, people saw him in the office carrying a tennis ball. Bouncing it, tossing it, squeezing it. They didn’t realize that each day it was a different ball. And each day he flushed a ball down the toilet in the men’s room. About a week after he was gone the pipes backed up, with devastating consequences.

“They gave me extra time if I agreed to train my replacement.”

Larry was silent for a moment as he considered the humiliation of having to train one’s own replacement.