Chapter VI

"Enough snow for you?" Overman asked jovially as McLeod removed his jumper the next morning in his office at the _Star-Times_. "We're ready to stop it now because the _World_ weather bureau finally owned up to its red face. Thirty-two inches."

McLeod nodded. He'd had trouble reaching the slidewalk through the drifts and more trouble struggling through the few yards of high-piled snow to the _Star-Times_ building.

"Rewrite showed me the story you sent in last night, Darius. Wonderful. Someone over at the _World_ must be biting his fingernails. They've got to be ready for split second changes in the newspaper business, though. If they don't, they're lost."

"What's that little bit of homely philosophy leading up to?" McLeod wanted to know. Overman rarely made his point without prefacing it with some mundane generalization. The more important the point, McLeod knew from experience, the triter the generalization.

"We've done a little G-2'ing these last few weeks, Darius." Overman seemed almost on the point of prancing nervously like an anxious racehorse at the starting gate. "I couldn't tell you until it was certain. Harry Crippens is a member of the Anti-Newspaper League." Overman grinned like a yawning owl. "Close your mouth, Darius. Stop gaping. It's the truth."

"But that doesn't make sense, chief." McLeod figured it made very good sense if Overman said so, but he needed time to collect his thoughts.

"Dirty doings at the _Star-Times_," preached Overman. "It's frightening, isn't it? If you can't trust your fellow reporters, just who in the world can you trust? You see, it's not merely Crippens. There's an Anti-News cell here.

"They usually work in pairs, Darius. One to get the information, another to see that editorial policy is not carried out. Don't ask me why they do it. Mis-guided anarchistic tendencies, I suppose. The first member of the pair very often poses as a turncoat with some other newspaper."

"I don't get you."

"It's simple. That way, he can play two papers against each other and try to make them both wrong. In this case, _she_ can. You see, Crippens' confederate is our number one co-respondent, Tracy Kent," Overman finished melodramatically.

"Tracy! That's incredible." _Don't think_, McLeod told himself. _Don't think and let it show on your face. Just listen._

"At this moment, the _World_ believes Kent is on their payroll. Kent keeps them informed of what's going on over here and draws two salaries. Crippens is her executioner. Crippens, for example, sees to it that Congressman Horner doesn't commit suicide."

* * * * *

Tracy had put two and two together with a blithe ease which had left McLeod wondering. Tracy had seemed to be aware of the alternative which Weaver Wainwright had offered him at the Fourth Estate. But Tracy hadn't balked because she was a loyal member of the _Star-Times_ staff. She should have favored the plan, anyway, since it meant saving Crippens' life. But she hadn't favored it at all.

Because she'd held out hope for McLeod?

"How did you find all that out?" McLeod demanded.

"We suspected someone. We didn't know who. We planted television receivers and let them talk. Darius, I think you know my position. I'm a newspaperman because I think the public is so muddle-headed and mediocre it can't make its own decisions. Democratic governments try to make those decisions and fail because the people play too large a role and mess things up. Totalitarian governments fail because they're too obvious, especially when the guy next door happens to live in a democracy.

"The answer is the obvious evolution of the newspaper to policy-making journalism. People don't associate us with policy-making any more than they think short story writers or television script writers develop schools of psychology. We're both before the fact and after the fact, but they wouldn't believe that if we ran it in banner headlines.

"That's what the Anti-Newspaper League is after. They don't want us to look forward. They don't want us to predict the future and then make it happen. They make inane pronouncements about the essential dignity of man and the necessity for him to work out his own destiny. They sneer at Ortega y Gasset and deify Tom Paine. They shun authoritarianism in any form and blandly forget that Mr. Average Citizen has always yearned for his little niche in a totalitarian system because he actually wants decisions rained down on him like manna.

"I hate them, Darius. It isn't logical, but I hate them. Between you and me, I would like to strangle them with my bare hands, slowly, forgetting I am a civilized man, forgetting even that we can still use them. But the opportunity is a magnificent one. You could spend all your life G-2'ing after Anti-News people and come up with nothing but wrongos. From now on they'll be playing their little game where I can watch it."

"What about my obituary?" McLeod demanded. "It's the first of the week. I thought you said we were going to substitute Crippens for me."

"I did. I still do. Cripp we will have to sacrifice. But--I apologize in advance, Darius, because I know you won't like this--our G-2'ing was thorough. We received in your apartment, too."

"Don't tell me you can't trust me?"

"Calm down. That's just it, I can. The cell is spread thin at the _Star-Times_, so thin that we'll have to watch our step until it's uncovered. You see, Darius, you are going to take Crippens' place in it. When Cripp dies Tracy will turn to someone for sympathy. If it looks like you tried to save Cripp because you believed as he did--well, I'm sure you see the possibilities."

* * * * *

McLeod nodded vaguely. Anti-News. He was playing the game, almost, the way he felt. But he lacked the name. It was strange how you could amble cheerfully through life accepting or ignoring certain things until you woke up one morning and everything looked different. Whoever had decided leopards don't change their spots was all wet.

"... sorry if this sounds cloak-and-daggerish," Overman was saying, "but don't tell anyone. I can trust you. If the conspiracy is as big as I think, the good people at the _World_, the sensible ones, can probably trust a man like Weaver Wainwright. The rest must be suspect."

McLeod grinned. "Why trust me, chief?" he said easily, "I've never been a bug for ideology either way."

"That's precisely why. Newspapering is a job with you, but a good one. You're our highest-paid reporter. You have a reputation to maintain. A man gets muddle-headed if he starts delving too deeply into ideologies. He's afraid to see black-and-white because the other muddle-heads insist there are such things as grays. You follow?"

"Yeah," said McLeod. He followed, all right. It was all right if you thought for yourself, according to Overman, provided you didn't think too hard. You could attend all the high-brow confabs you wanted, safe in the security of your tailor-made answers. Never doubt. Never guess. You know. You just know. This is so and this is not so and there's never any in-between. The insistence on shadings of opinion between truth and error was a stumbling-block in the path of knowledge. Gray was for people who didn't know the truth about black-and-white.

"Yes, I can trust you. Thank God for that."

"I ought to get a raise," said McLeod, smiling and playing the role Overman had selected for him.

"Very funny. You ought to get a move on. We still have to worry about Wainwright and his men. There's no telling when they'll strike."

"So I have to strike first, at Crippens."

"Naturally. Have you filled out an application on him?"

"No," McLeod said easily, and raised a hand for silence when Overman was about to start yelling. "It's too important. I want to do the job myself. It's my life we're playing around with."

"I don't know if I approve. There's something to be said for professional efficiency. The gunmen know their work."

"I don't care if you approve or not. It's my life."

"You see, Darius. That's what I like about you. You always know where you stand."

"Thanks. I'll need some security, though."

"Now I don't follow you."

"Some bargaining power. In case I'm not as efficient as your gunmen. The proof that Tracy Kent and Harry Crippens are Anti-Newspaper."

"It's safe."

"I've got to know more about it."

"On the contrary. Simply carry this weapon with you: if there's trouble, have them contact me. Or contact me yourself. But that would ruin everything, Darius. I suppose if you have to bargain for your life, you wouldn't care."

"That's right. I wouldn't."

Overman chuckled. "You're a good man."

"And one who knows black from white, remember? Let's be honest with each other, chief. You're lying to me. You really figure if I fail, I fail. You wouldn't be willing to bargain in my behalf with what you have, and you know it. If I can kill Crippens and give Wainwright his substitute story and win Miss Kent's confidence, you'd love it. If I can't, you'll try to find another way. Sure, you think I'm good. But you know I'm expendable."

Overman thumped him soundly on the back. "Darius, we should have been brothers. Is there anything else?"

"Yes. How long would you want me to play this Anti-News game?"

"Until we get all the facts."

"Too dangerous," said McLeod. "Unless you make it worth my while."

Overman hadn't stopped grinning. "Maybe you will get a raise, at that."

"Not maybe. Definitely. Twenty per cent."

"Twenty?"

"Twenty."

"All right, Darius. Twenty it is. You'd sell your mother, wouldn't you?"

"Don't have to worry about it. The Anti-Newspaper League hasn't that kind of money. You're safe."

"I knew it," Overman said. "I couldn't have picked a better man."

"I'll keep you informed," said McLeod, and put on his jumper. He walked out congratulating himself on the way he'd convinced Overman.

Only trouble was, he now knew there was more than black-and-white in the world but wasn't sure he knew what to do about it.