A God in Ruins - Leon Uris [70]
“Ah, but your colleagues will chastise you. They will squirt you with witch’s bile for denying the public’s right to know.”
“After which we’ll hold panels on all channels about media overkill and media responsibility…until the next big story comes up. Yeah, bud, but try to have democracy without us.”
“So, when does the public learn about the Urbakkan raid?”
“Day after tomorrow.”
“What’s going to happen to RAM Company?”
“They’re trying to decide whether to disband RAM, integrate it into a larger strike force, or just continue to keep RAM at the ready. There will probably be a congressional investigation. Anyhow, Quinn, you’re above it all. We got us a genuine American hero.”
“Everyone on the raid was a hero.”
“Aw, shucks, gee whiz, ma’am,” she mocked.
“Greer. You were born with a cynical hair up your butt. I couldn’t even try to make you understand.”
“Yeah,” she said, “boys’ bonding stuff.”
“All right, we have established the following: You are a big hitter with Crowder, multi-global double universal, simultaneously broadcasting twenty sporting events, including inline-skate cliff jumping. What I want to know is why you returned to me eight months of unopened letters and why you fled New York when I came to see you.”
“You know why, dammit!”
“I’ll tell you what I know. A broken heart is not a metaphor. That whack I got in the back of my head never gave me the pain I had over you.”
“Baby…” she whispered, and touched his cheek. He reached out to grab her hand, but she took it away.
“Okay,” Quinn said. “You’ve shown me how clever you are and how you have filled your responsibility to our president by giving up the scoop of the year. Anything else?”
“You son of a bitch,” she snapped.
“That’s more like Greer.”
“You son of a bitch. If I had opened a single letter from you—if I had seen you in New York—Quinn, I opted not to spend my life baking cookies for the St. Patrick’s Day church supper. I’ve done what I set out to do.”
“Why are you so fucking happy, then?”
“I don’t know what happiness is supposed to mean. I love the money, I crave the power, I adore my Fifth Avenue apartment, I sweep in to chauffeured limos. But I don’t know what happy is. I don’t know. I don’t know.”
“What is it you don’t know?”
“It ain’t your body that’s in my bed anymore, man, and I pay that bill every day of my life.”
It was getting to be vintage Quinn vs. Greer. Did they adore it or what?
“Did you nail Crowder?” Quinn asked.
“To the cross,” she answered. “He never had a chance. Nor could he dust me off like I was one of his bimbos.”
“Warren Crowder’s moll.”
“The one who came to stay, and let me tell you, buddy, he needs one.”
“Why, he’s just like a wee little hapless puppy if you peel back that veneer of crusted tycoon. He’s a little lost soul when he hasn’t gobbled up a competitor, closed down a factory. He’s destroyed and pained when the government doesn’t let him pull an end run around a monopoly.”
“He’s no puppy,” Greer said bluntly, “but neither is he some sort of latter-day phenomenon. He was in a toga in Roman times and led a Mongol horde across the steppes. Power men like Warren have been running the show since the beginning of time.”
“The two of you must set off volcanos.”
“Yeah, yeah, that’s right.”
“And you’ve got control of the monster.”
“I see a future in it.”
“Well, drop by again if you’re in the neighborhood.”
The bell gonged, and he went to his corner and she to hers, and they snarled across the ring at each other.
“It still hurts, baby,” he rasped at last.
“It still hurts,” she whispered. “Quinn, I flew here to talk over another matter with you. It’s about your father.”
Quinn reacted as she knew he would, in tightlipped, tight-jawed, teeth-clenched confusion.
“It’s been five years since you contacted them. Isn’t enough enough?”
“This is weird,” he answered, “Greer speaking on behalf of Dan O’Connell.”
“You haven’t been out of their sight. They read every letter you’ve sent Rita and Mal. They have spent enough tears