The Jewel and the Key (29 page)

They were approaching the ship canal and getting closer to her own neighborhood. And now the strangeness hit her hard. It was so bare! So few houses, so few trees, and where was the bridge? The towering span of I-5 was gone. Well, of course. She knew it would be. But so was the University Bridge. That was what threw her. Suddenly she was lost and began looking around in panic for familiar landmarks. The canal seemed so freshly dug, the houses so rough-hewn. And then, farther east, they approached another bridge, one she had never seen before. It was low and flat, with a trolley car trundling along one side. The noise was unbelievable as the Model T clattered across. Addie looked down over the side. The water seemed so close.... And then they were off the bridge, on the north shore of the canal, and Addie's heart skipped a beat as they crossed Fortieth—
her street.
She twisted her head to look west, where she knew her house was already standing. But somehow, it was a relief when they turned east instead and began climbing a steep hill.

Those wide lawns and scattered buildings she saw rising ahead of them must be the University of Washington—what else could it be? But where were the trees? The towering cedars and hemlocks? All she saw were little saplings. The university neighborhood looked as if it had been clear-cut. The houses were so new that some of the lots were just dirt. As they swung onto the campus and followed the twists and turns of Stevens Way, she searched for the huge fountain in the rose garden that sent cascades of water into the air in front of the ghostly silhouette of Rainier. It wasn't there, either. Just a sort of pool.

“Here's the office.” Reg parked the car next to a building that Addie thought she remembered from her own time. The windows were opaque green glass, with moss already clinging to the moldings.

In a daze, she got out and followed him up the steps.

“Tom!” Reg knocked on the big double doors. “You still here?”

No one answered. “Probably ran out for a pint at that speakeasy in Lake City,” Reg grumbled.

“A
speakeasy?”

“Sorry. Didn't mean to shock you.” He actually looked shamefaced. “I shouldn't have mentioned that.”

“I'm not shocked!” Addie snorted. “You can tell me about a speakeasy. I won't faint or anything.”

“Oh, all right.” He laughed. “If you're so worldly, I'm amenable to corrupting youth.” He knocked again. “The speakeasy used to be a medium's house. We've laid bets on who makes more appearances there, Tom or the medium's ghost.” He knocked yet again. “Tom was winning until the Theosophical Society had a meeting in town. Then you couldn't walk down the street without tripping over someone who'd had a spiritual sighting over a few highballs.” He began fishing around in his jacket pockets. “I
think
I've got the keys somewhere.”

A moment later he produced a key ring and unlocked the door.

The office was one big open room with a door in the back wall marked
DARKROOM
. There was a smell of something like new paint—printers ink, probably. Piles of freshly printed newspapers tied with heavy string cluttered the floor, while others hung on lines across the room, the ink drying. Hulking typewriters sat atop heavy wooden desks. Addie shuddered, thinking of the time it would take to type an essay on one of those things. Wooden cubbyholes for mail lined one wall, and what she guessed was a printing press loomed against the other.

“Now let's see,” Reg began, and broke off suddenly, a startled look on his face. Addie spun around to see what had surprised him.

Someone was in the office after all.

Leaning back in an imposing wooden chair, his perfectly shined shoes resting on top of a desk, was an old man in a herringbone suit. The man's silver-rimmed glasses rested far down on his nose, and strings of fine white hair straggled over his high, bony scalp. His eyes, as he fixed Reg with an unfriendly stare, reminded Addie of the eyes of the fish on ice at Pike Place Market.

No way is this Tom,
she thought.

“Greetings, Mr. Powell.” The mans voice hit each syllable like a bullet hitting a clay pigeon.

“Hello, sir,” Reg said, suddenly very formal. From his tone Addie couldn't tell if this man belonged in the newspaper office or not. “May I introduce Miss Addie McNeal?” He pushed Addie slightly forward.

“Delighted.” The man swung his feet off the desk and rose, offering Addie his hand. “I have the honor of being the provost of this great university. You may call me Professor Hanson—no need for the full title.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Addie said.

Reg began, “We were looking for Tom—”

“Thomas Buchanan is gone,” the old man interrupted. “How fortuitous you arrived, Mr. Powell! I had just been considering the very tedious prospect of returning to my office to put a telephone call through to your house.”

Reg blinked. “You wanted to speak to me, sir?”

“Yes. About your lead article.” The provost held the newspaper he'd been reading aloft for a moment before slapping it back on the desk. “You see, I'm afraid you can't publish it.”

“Can't—?” Reg looked completely dumfounded. “I'm sorry. I don't follow you.”

Professor Hanson shuffled around to the front of the desk and seated himself upon it. “This is the trouble with student publications. So much enthusiasm! So little experience. And young people have such a deplorable tendency to simplify.”

Addie remembered Almaz describing one of her teachers as a person who needed binoculars to look down his nose at her. Suddenly, she knew exactly what she'd meant.

Reg still looked puzzled. “If you mean my article, it's as accurate as I could make it. I double-checked everyone's statements, and the sources—”

“This isn't about accuracy.” The provost's fish eyes fixed on him. “Mr. Powell, since you are clearly a well-informed young man, would you mind giving me the details of the act that the Congress is debating to address the current emergency?”

Reg wrinkled his brow. “You mean the Espionage Act? Why?”

“Because of what you've written here, dear boy. You know that already.”

“No, I don't. I don't know what you're talking—” His eyes widened suddenly. “Wait a minute. The article isn't disloyal. Or useful to spies or enemies of the state or whoever—” He stopped, as if realizing something. “You know that already.”

“Perhaps,” Professor Hanson said evenly. “But in this climate, my opinion doesn't matter. If I can keep the university from becoming a lightning rod, I am going to do it. So, unless you can find another story to take its place, I think it would be better if the
Daily
wasn't published on Monday.”

“But—the bill hasn't even passed the House yet!”

“Do you think there's any chance it won't?”

“You want to
censor
the paper?” Reg had given up trying to sound calm. His voice echoed off the back wall.

The professor's lips went very thin. “No. I simply said that in this climate it would be best—”

Reg raised his hands in an elaborate, sarcastic gesture.
“Best to do what? Keep quiet and let other people do our thinking for us?”

“I hardly think that tone is necessary.”

“But he's right,” Addie interjected, trying to sound calm and reasonable. She had a feeling that Reg was about to get into a shouting match with the professor. “Isn't speech supposed to be free here, at a university, of all places? You can't ask him to throw out an article just because some people might not like it.”

“Excuse me?” The professor looked at Addie as if she were a dog that had stood on its hind legs and begun to speak. “I find it so distasteful when young women trumpet their opinions.”

Addie's jaw dropped.
“What?”

“Now who's being offensive?” Reg said angrily. “She can say what she likes! Can't she? Or is that another new rule?”

The old man ignored this. “If I tell you the article shouldn't be published—”

“But why shouldn't it? It's just a story about those fellows in jail. Giving their point of view. That's been difficult in this ... this
climate!
Miss McNeal is right—shouldn't we at the university try to change that? As far as I can see, this
climate
is all about not letting people say what they think! Isn't that the newspapers' job? To give people a voice?”

“A journalist's job is to
inform,”
Hanson corrected. “Not to incite.”

“I'm not inciting anyone to do anything! I've written about this before. About the vigilantes attacking the Wobbly supporters at the jail. If it's such a dangerous topic, why didn't you stop me from publishing that story?”

“We had only just entered the war. Things have changed.”

A loud knock made Addie jump. “That'll be Tom,” Reg said.

“Allow me.” The professor opened the door and admitted a man in denim overalls and a flat cap. He was middle-aged and had a sort of mournful basset-hound face.

“You got some trash you want hauled?” he asked the provost.

“Yes. Right here. Thank you, Ulleman.” The provost pointed to the bundles of newspapers on the floor. “You can take them to the incinerator.”

Reg spluttered, “Wait a second! You're—you're not going to burn it?”

Addie watched in horror as Ulleman whistled and a younger man appeared. The two of them began hauling the tied-upp ileso ft he
Daily
out the door.

The provost didn't answer. Instead he turned to Reg and said conversationally, “Have you registered for military service by any chance, Mr. Powell?”

“What's that got to do with it?” Reg's eyes followed Ulleman as he carried off another batch of papers and shut the door behind him.

“Imagine those revolutionists out of jail and undermining the war effort while you're in France. One strike in the lumberyards, and there's no spruce to build the airplanes that provide cover for ground troops. You might not feel so tolerant then.” Hanson smacked his hands together and headed to the door. As he turned the knob, he added, “I'm sorry to have to take such drastic steps. Truly. If I'd known earlier, I could have just asked you to pull the story. It's a shame to do away with the entire edition.” A slab of sunlight hit the floor behind him as he opened the door.

Reg leaned against a desk, lost in thought. After a moment, he said, “So you won't object to a reprint of the edition? If my story is gone?”

The provost gave him a distrustful look. “Well ... do you have the budget for that?”

“I—uh—yes. Yes, we have the budget.”

“You're the editor. It's your responsibility.” And the old man turned his back on them and left.

The minute the door closed, Reg burst out with a loud “Aargh!” He ran a hand fiercely through his hair until it was standing on end. “We speak no treason here,” he said bitterly and sank down on top of the desk.

Addie lowered herself next to him and tentatively patted his back. She'd recognized the line from one of Shakespeare's plays. “No, I know you don't, King Richard. Now you're supposed to run out on the quad yelling, A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!'” she joked, and then she added, “I can't believe that old buzzard had your paper burned!”

“Oh, you don't think I'm letting him get away with that, do you?” Reg got up and went to the desk the provost had been sitting at and picked up the edition the old man had left behind. A determined look crossed his face. “Besides, we don't need a horse. We've got the flivver.”

Tom Buchanan was exactly where Reg said he would be: in a seedy speakeasy hidden behind a hardware store up in Lake City. Reg refused to let Addie come in with him, so she waited impatiently amid the shovels and rakes while Reg went and dragged Tom out.

He was a short, whiskery young man with a book called
Thus Spake Zarathustra
sticking out of his coat pocket.

“Did he tell you his plan?” Tom asked Addie once they'd been introduced.

“You mean
my
plan?” she corrected sweetly.

“Ah,” Tom said airily. “I must listen more closely to Mr. Shaw on the cunning of the female sex. But—” He hiccupped, releasing a sour aroma of hops in Addie's direction. “But how exactly will it help to replace our piece of truth-telling journalism with a mildly inspiring jaunt into Mrs. Powell's undertaking to buy socks and bandages for the troops with proceeds from a benefit performance?”

“You'll see,” Reg told him as they reached the car. “When's opening night, anyway?”

“Friday.” Addie glanced at Reg to double-check. He looked up over the hood and nodded as the engine started to splutter.

They stopped at a three-story apartment building long enough for Tom to run in and return with a canvas bag slung over his shoulder and a rectangular leather-covered camera in his hands. Then they roared across town at twenty miles an hour, maximum. It was crazy, the amount of roaring you could do at that speed with no muffler and no windows.

“As I see it,” Tom continued when they climbed out of the flivver near the Jewel, “there are two possibilities. Either Reg is selling out—”

“Or I need a new cover story to fool the provost and we put the Wobbly story on page two.”

“You'll get in trouble,” Tom said mournfully. “Booted out of school, I bet.”

“Don't be ridiculous. The worst that can happen is I get fired as editor. It's nearly the end of the quarter in any case, and who knows where we'll all be next year?”

They walked around to the front of the theater. It was the first time Addie had seen the outside of the Jewel in Reg's time. She fell back, staring. The ticket window was ready for business, the brass on the doors was shining, the doorways were swept, and the early dahlias were blooming in pots by the entrance. The place was positively majestic against the clear blue sky. If only Becky Powell could restore her sad wreck to this! Addie's gaze traveled up to the marquee and she read
MR. FREDERICK HARRISON IN MACBETH
—
RED CROSS BENEFIT OPENING NIGHT
.