Cold Type. Harvey Araton

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      “In what?”

      Too late, Steven was gone. He was questioning a dial tone.

      It was a few minutes after ten. As usual, Jamie hadn't been able to relax and fall into a deep sleep. He had battled insomnia since preadolescence. He typically slept well in the morning but invariably woke up feeling he needed more. Today was no different.

      He inspected the discoloration on his face in a wall mirror beside his bed. There was a spot of dried blood that could be washed off but it didn’t look as bad as it felt. Sunglasses would hide the worst of it.

      He brewed coffee, waited in the cramped kitchen, feet bare on the linoleum floor. He returned to the edge of his bed, clicked on the television to catch a report about what had happened at the Trib.

      Drops of coffee, tasteless as tofu, slid off his lips, down his chin and onto his bare chest.

      “Trucks attempting to leave the plant were halted by Trib employees, who smashed windows, hurled rocks and set bundles of papers on fire,” the anchorwoman said. “Three of the non-union drivers attempting to man the trucks were injured. Police estimate about two dozen arrests. By one a.m., Trib executives were admitting that the paper would not be on today’s newsstands. For more, we go to Deborah Givens, who is with the drivers’ union president, Gerard Colangelo, outside the Trib plant in downtown Manhattan.”

      Jamie had run copy at the Trib with Debbie Givens, a diminutive blonde with a pristine complexion and immovable shoulder-length hair. She was from a small town in Iowa. She also had a master’s degree in broadcasting from the University of Missouri—enough to land her a general assignment reporter’s gig at the city’s cable news station.

      When Jamie was still married and living out of the city in a suburb that some wintry nights seemed north of Yonkers and south of Maine, they had gone out for a drink, commiserating the meaninglessness of their work and pondering the prospects of elevation, or escape. For Jamie there weren’t many.

      Gerard Colangelo was almost a foot taller than Givens. His combed-back black hair left a three-inch scar uncovered high on his forehead—a remnant of his days as a boxer who cut too easily. With his lined, angular face, Colangelo bore a fair resemblance to Pat Riley. But he was not exactly giving the kind of corporate motivational primer for which the famous Knicks coach demanded a working man’s annual haul.

      “We tried…we begged the Trib to negotiate with us like human beings,” Colangelo said. His scratchy voice suffered the effects of a long, argumentative night. “Lee Brady doesn’t want to work with the unions. He doesn’t want contracts. He doesn’t seem to believe in them. And our workers, all the unions, have taken enough from this bully who thinks he can come to New York and do what he did to the unions in Dublin and London. New York is not Dublin or London. Now we show this guy what New York is all about.”

      There were cheers and a mix of obscenities from the mob of drivers behind them.

      “Mr. Colangelo, we have reports of injuries to the non-union drivers…”

      “You mean fuckin’ scabs,” a voice from the rear yelled out.

      Givens winced. An irritated Colangelo turned and lifted a resolute index finger to his lips.

      “What happened last night, those were isolated incidents,” he said. “We can’t control every man. But you’ve got to remember that these union brothers have kids to feed, mortgages to pay. We opened our arms to this billionaire when he sailed into our city on his fancy boat to buy our newspaper. We’ve already sacrificed jobs and made other concessions to make it easier for him. He seems to have already forgotten that.”

      Givens began to pull away, phrase another question. Colangelo leaned forward, almost making contact with the crown of the mike.

      “He wants our jobs, our homes, so now we do what we have to do,” he shouted. “Now…now we close Lee Brady down.”

      The pause for dramatic effect set off the drivers behind Colangelo. It was the perfect segue for Givens to throw it back to the studio. Jamie pointed the remote at the screen and clicked it off. He tossed it over his shoulder onto the bed.

      “I need this right now like a damn root canal,” he mumbled.

      He sat for a spell, sipping more coffee, feeling slightly flush from the effects of the sun-drenched room.

      He headed for the shower and let the warming water drench his hair and soak the unblemished side of his face. He wished he could wash away the echoes of Colangelo’s voice.

      Now we close Lee Brady down.

      As if Colangelo’s face were etched into the shower tile, Jamie said aloud, conviction enhanced by the bass echo chamber: “You think you’re the only one who has a mortgage to pay? Child support? A kid to feed?”

      He thought about the stack of bills sitting on his desk—the cable and electric bills, the credit card on which he would have to make the minimum payment. Again.

      And, he thought, Lord knows what Karyn will call and ask for.

      He closed his eyes, took a deep breath and let his forehead rest against the tile.

      Chapter Four

      Jamie checked his watch and quickened his pace through the newspaper-strewn and otherwise filthy outskirts of Chinatown. It was warm for early November, the sky a cloud-pocked blue. He wore his checkered-colored flannel shirt tied around the waist of his jeans. A light corduroy jacket was draped across his right shoulder. His tangle of nappy brown hair was still wet.

      On frigid days, his habit of procrastinating at home and rushing from the shower to make an appointment would create frozen clumps he feared would snap like small pieces of gnarled, uncooked pasta.

      On the train, Jamie stretched his neck—a chiropractic tic he resorted to when it was sore or he was stressed.

      The musty union hall was already jammed by the time he arrived and hurried through the long narrow corridor. Rows of folding chairs were filled, with standing room scarce along the cracked and vomit green walls. Jamie stationed himself near the entrance for what he hoped would be a convenient exit. At the same time, he scanned the crowd for his cousin so he could make eye contact and his presence might duly be noted.

      He nodded to a sports guy who occasionally dropped by Jamie’s desk to talk NBA hoops—the only sport he seriously followed. One of the police reporters casually scanned the Sun’s front page. Dotty, the nice lady in charge of the morgue, flipped open a mirror to check her makeup.

      Jamie suddenly smelled the odor of nicotine breath in his ear, felt a hand on his back.

      “Strike three, yer out.”

      Without turning, he knew it was Patrick Blaine, the Trib’s senior columnist.

      “You see my cousin?” Jamie said.

      Blaine winced at the discoloration around Jamie’s eye that was visible through his glass frame. Jamie cursed himself for forgetting his shades.

      “You piss someone off at the bar?” he said. “As for John L. Lewis, he’s in the back—with the big boys.”

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