The Deadline Read Online Free

newspaper stuff,” he said.  He smiled but wasn’t in the mood to make excuses for his indolent reporters.  “Anyway, can I get you anything?  Coffee?  Water?”
    The old man turned around and glared at him.  If his body was slowly decaying, the fire in his eyes was not.  He ignored Morgan’s offer.
    “Where’s the old guy who used to be here?” Gilmartin asked.
    “Bell Cockins?  He retired about a month ago.  You know him?”
    “Yeah, a long time ago.  I been away.”
    “Things change pretty quick, even here, I guess,” Morgan said.
    Gilmartin pointed at the newspaper on the wall.
    “You read this shit?”
    “Some of it,” Morgan said.  “There’s a lot of local history up there.”
    “Fuck that,” Gilmartin scoffed.  “Some of it is bullshit.”
    Morgan was a little surprised.
    “How’s that?”
    Gilmartin put his finger on one of the front-page photos, the one he’d studied so long.  In it, a young man, an accused killer, glared banefully at the camera over his tattooed shoulder.  The look was malignant and cold.
    “That’s me,” Gilmartin said.
    Morgan didn’t believe it, or couldn’t.  This old man, a killer?
    He studied the photo and looked at the old man.  The body had wasted away, but the eyes were the same.  The old man wasn’t lying.
    Gilmartin patted down a pack of Camels, searching for one more.  It was empty.
    “You got a smoke?” he asked.  Morgan shook his head.  Exasperated, Gilmartin tossed the crumpled pack on the pile of unfiltered butts in the ashtray beside him.
    “I need a smoke bad,” the old man said, scowling.  He sidled stiffly past Morgan to the front door.  Hot air boiled off the sidewalk as he held it open.
    “I gotta get outta here.  The place stinks,” he said impatiently.  “You comin’ or just breathin’ hard?”
    Morgan looked around the empty newsroom.  Cal Nussbaum leaned against a doorway, watching them.  When Morgan caught his eye, Cal shook his head in disgust and disappeared into the back.
    They walked a block down Main Street to the Conoco, the nearest cigarette machine.  It was midday in late July, hot enough to curdle the asphalt were the street met the gutter.  Gilmartin shuffled along, sweating.  Morgan could hear him breathing hard before they’d taken a dozen steps, but he persisted.
    “I ain’t got no silver,” the old man said, patting his pockets.  Morgan had just enough change for two packs.  Gilmartin hastily stripped off the cellophane, peeled back the top of one pack and whacked it against the heel of his palm.  He clamped his lips around the cigarette that stuck out farthest, then lit up.
    Gilmartin took a long drag and exhaled slowly, letting the smoke seep out of him in devilish blue curls.  He stuffed both packs safely in his breast pocket, which now bulged against his cratered chest.
    “I been smokin’ all my life and it ain’t killed me yet.  Ain’t gonna get a chance to kill me neither,” Gilmartin said, then paused while he took another long draw at his cigarette.  “You ever come close to dyin’?”
    “Maybe once,” Morgan answered.  He shoved his hands deep in the empty pockets of his khaki slacks and studied Gilmartin’s face.  He was reluctant to share personal information with the old man, but it sounded to him as if a door might be opened.
    “I was just a kid, maybe seven or eight.  I was playing alone on an inflatable raft out at Rochelle Lake.  The wind came up and blew me out farther and farther into the deep water.  Nobody heard me screaming.  I was afraid the raft would spring a leak or tip over and I’d drown.  I held on for dear life until a fisherman came by and pulled me out.”
    Gilmartin looked even paler and more pinched in the harsh sunlight.  He avoided looking at Morgan as he spoke, just peered down into the gutter, where a thin drool of muddy water trickled almost imperceptibly toward the storm drain.  He flipped an ash into the tiny stream, where it