The Henderson Equation by Warren Adler Read Free Book Online Page B

allocation of news, feeding on
each other, ladling out the soup of the day, to be poured into the Chronicle vat.
    It was the moment of his day when suspense began, absorbing
his thoughts. He was already beginning to cast about for news priorities,
building the front page in his mind from the grab bag of hard possibilities. It
came to him almost by instinct, a built-in sensor embedded in his journalist
brain. He had long ago ceased to bend with the weight of the responsibility.
Years of trusting his judgment had made a friend of it, a confidant, and when
it was activated, it cast aside all extraneous elements.
    As he worked he was conscious of the impending impact of
his product. Millions of eyes were watching, waiting, all over the world. In
foreign, as well as domestic minds, friends and adversaries alike, the Chronicle 's
words were weighed, the sentences dissected, the subtleties and nuances
pondered, little cells of intelligence microscopically analyzed. The Chronicle, along with the Times, revealed the cutting edge of America's direction in that one pinpoint of time. The idea of it no longer left him
humbled, awestruck. Somehow his mind had merged with the ink, a private
knowledge. He wouldn't have dared to express it but he had often thought of it
as a measure of immortality, his stamp on future generations, the yet unborn
who would see it as enlarged pieces of microfilm in the world's archives. Often
he would rail against his own flaws, the hodgepodge of personal emotions that
threatened his judgment, the frailties that could be corrosive, perhaps the
very same concerns that had ultimately destroyed Charlie. The telephone rang,
recalling him.
    "Lunchtime," Miss Baumgartner's cheery voice
said, intruding.
    Remembering, he wondered what Myra had in mind, his
curiosity whetted again, a tug of uncertainty strained for attention. He got
up, straightened his tie, and smoothed down his hair. He looked at a reflection
of himself in the glass wall. Then, putting on his jacket, he passed through
the door into the city room clamor which the glass room had partially
deflected. As he walked toward the elevators, he caught a glimpse of of Gunderstein,
his head pressed against the telephone, a gangling, ear-flapping bloodhound
absorbed in the scent. Had he been fair with Gunderstein? Annoyed at his own
questioning, he waited briefly for the elevator, nodding to others who waited,
conscious of the nervousness his presence created.
    As he waited, he was tempted to push off to the Life-style
section, tucked away down a long corridor in what was once the old building. If
Margaret weren't the editor, he reasoned, a simple excuse might cloud the
transparency: the yearning for Jennie, a brief look at her. Even though
Margaret carefully concealed the ex-wife relationship with an attitude of tough
professionalism, well deserved, he would see her accusing contempt, a brief
flicker in the eyes, an arched brow, an uncommon movement of the head. They had
lived together for nearly ten years, an eternity, which sometimes seemed so
brief. Some mornings he would awake and sense her sleeping beside him in that
curled way, buried beneath the covers. It was not a longing, he conceded, just
a brief memory of an old habit. She had, after all, shared the years of his
youth and their union had produced Charmagne, troubled Chums, misplaced in the
generations.
    "Don't call me a hippie, Dad, that's absurd, a decade
old," Chums had said to both of them.
    "Well, what do you call it? You've left school. You're
rootless, unmotivated. God knows what garbage you're putting into your system
and, not that it matters, you're worrying your mother and me to death."
She was lying on a bare mattress in a room in a big old San Francisco house, a
commune. "Even this whole scene is passé."
    "Not to me," she said.
    "There's no logic in it," he argued.
    "There is to me. I see no logic in your life."
    "I'm not being self-righteous, Chums," he said,
softening. There was a