note.
Eighteen, do you read .. I don't know, give her an aspirin ..." assault
with a knife, not serious. where the hell have you been, Eighteen
Herbert's attention strayed to the photograph on the mantelpiece above
the boarded-in fireplace.
The picture was flattering: Herbert had known this, twenty years ago,
when she had given it to him; but now he had forgotten. Oddly, he did
not think of her as she really had been, anymore.
When he remembered her he visualized a woman with flawless skin and
hand-tinted cheeks, posing before a faded panorama in a photographer's
studio. ii ... theft of one color television and damage to a plexiglass
window ..."
He had been the first among his circle of friends to "lose the wife," as
they would put it. Two or three of them had suffered the tragedy since:
one had become a cheerful drunkard, another had married a widow.
Herbert had buried his head in his hobby, radio. He began listening to
police broadcasts during the day when he did not feel well enough to go
to work, which was quite often. Grey Avenue, Golders Green, reported
assault.1
One day, after hearing the police talk about a bank raid, he had
telephoned the Evening Post. A reporter had thanked him for the
information and taken his name and address. The raid had been a big one
quarter of a million pounds and the story was on the front page of the
Post that evening. Herbert had been proud to have given them the
tip-off, and told the story in three pubs that night. Then he forgot
about it. Three months later he got a check for fifty pounds from the
newspaper.
With the check was a statement which read: "Two shot in 250,000 raid"
and gave the date of the robbery. "leave it out, Charlie, if she won't
make a complaint, forget it..
The following day Herbert had stayed at home and phoned the Post every
time he picked something up on the police wavelength. That afternoon he
got a call from a man who said he was deputy news editor, who explained
just what the paper wanted from people like Herbert. He was told not to
report an assault unless a gun was used or someone was killed; not to
bother with burglaries unless the address was in Belgravia, chelsea, or
Kensington; not to report except when weapons were used or very large
amounts of cash stolen. proceed to twenty-three, Narrow Road, and He got
the idea quickly because he was not stupid, and the Post's news values
were far from subtle. Soon he realized he was earning slightly more on
his "sick" days than when he went to work. What was more, he preferred
listening to the radio to inking boxes for cameras. So he gave in his
notice, and became what the newspaper called an earwig.
better give me that description now After he had been working full-time
on the radio for a few weeks the deputy news editor came to his house-it
was before he moved to the studio apartment to talk to him. The
newspaper nan said Herbert's work was very useful to the paper, and how
would he like to work for them exclusively? That would mean Herbert
would phone tips only to the Post, and not to other papers. But he would
get a weekly retainer to make up for the loss of income. Herbert did not
say that he never had phoned any other papers. He accepted the offer
graciously. sit tight and we'll get you some assistance in a few minutes
Over the years he had improved both his equipment and his understanding
of what the newspaper wanted; He learned that they were grateful for
more or less anything early in the morning, but as the day wore on they
became more choosy, until by about three P.M. nothing less than murder
in the sbt or large-scale robbery with violence interested them. He also
discovered that the paper, Like the police, was a lot less interested in
a crime done to a colored man in a colored area. Herbert thought this
quite reasonable, since he, as an Evening Post reader, was not much
interested in what The wogs did
Rebecca Hamilton, Conner Kressley