Read Faces of the Gone: A Mystery for Free Online

presses,” Hays said, then announced to no one in particu lar, “Hey, Ivy boy here says two of the Ludlow Four were drug dealers ! Can you imagine that? Drug dealers! In Newark!”
“Dammit, Hays, this guy—”
“Look, Ivy, let me explain a little something to you,” Hays interrupted in a condescending manner, peering at me over the top of his reading glasses. “Just because someone who sold drugs is involved in a crime, it doesn’t make the crime drug related, okay?”
“Well, I know that, Hays, I just think your cop sources may be throwing this bar-robbery theory against the wall to see if it sticks,” I said, sounding whinier than I wanted to.
“Tell you what, Ivy, you get someone credible to say this thing is drug related, I’ll put it in tomorrow’s paper.”
“And who, in your mind, is credible?”
“I dunno. Why don’t you call the National Drug Bureau?” he suggested with a smirk.
The National Drug Bureau was a federal agency that targeted international drug smuggling. Every so often, we’d quote them crowing about another big bust at the airport, along with a picture of NDB agents preening in front of a pile of controlled dangerous substances. But they didn’t really concern themselves with street-level drug trafficking. Hays telling me to call the NDB for a story about Newark homi cides was like phoning the Democratic National Committee and asking for comment on the Barringer High School student council race.
Then again, if I could convince some bored federal flak to give me a line or two, it’d be fun to throw it back in Hays’s sneering face.
“You know what, Hays? Fine. I’ll call the National Drug Bureau,” I said.
“Have fun wasting your time.”
“Yeah, well,” I said, groping for something to put Hays in his place. “It’s my time to waste.”
R
etreating from the Dinosaur’s Den, I stomped back to my desk, all the while stewing that I hadn’t come up with a snappier rejoinder. It’s my time to waste ? Dammit. Couldn’t I have at least managed some kind of comeback that involved him filing his stories on an IBM Correcting Selectric II?
I hauled up the National Drug Bureau’s Web site, which fea
    tured whole photo galleries of agents posing in front of large piles of powdery junk, then clicked on their “For the Media” link. After about sixteen more clicks—government efficiency at work—I found a number for their Newark Field Office and the contact name L. Peter Sampson, Press Agent.
    Agent Sampson’s voice mail informed me he was in the office today but currently unavailable. I looked at the clock. Five thirtytwo. No way a federal bureaucrat was still hanging around. Luckily for me, his recording concluded by saying that if I was a reporter on deadline, I could call his cell phone.
    “Why, yes, I just so happen to be a reporter on deadline,” I said out loud, to no one in particu lar, copying down the number. I hung up and immediately dialed it.
    “Agent Sampson,” an enthusiastic, Boy Scout–sounding voice answered.
“Hi, Agent Sampson, Carter Ross from the Eagle-Examiner .”
There was a long pause on the other end. It has been explained to me that low- and mid- level PR people live in constant fear they’ll be fired because of something a miscreant like me puts in the newspaper. It turns them into sad little creatures, analogous to any timid, furry animal of your choosing. With few exceptions, they’re not all that smart, startle easily, and don’t like leaving their holes for long. Above all else, they hate surprises. And a reporter calling unsolicited after hours qualified as a surprise.
“What, what can I do for you?” he said cautiously.
He sounded very much like a guy who didn’t want the world to know his first name—L. Peter Sampson, indeed. I wondered what his friends called him. L. Pete? L. Peter? Or just plain L.?
“We’re working on a follow-up story about this quadruple homi cide in Newark, the one down on Ludlow Street,” I said.