Read Charm City for Free Online

you
wouldn't tell me about last night."
    Feeney picked up his fork and began stabbing
the happy hour ravioli, until little spurts of tomato sauce and cheese
freckled the tablecloth. "Well, I can tell you now. In fact,
the only way anyone is ever going to hear this story is if I tell it to
'em. Maybe I could stand on a street corner with a sign,
offering to read it at a buck a pop."
    "How good is it? How
big?"
    He slipped back into his singsong poetry
voice. "Wink Wynkowski, Baltimore's best hope for
luring a basketball team back to Baltimore, has many things in his past
he prefers no one know about, especially the NBA. His business is a
house of cards, perhaps on the brink of bankruptcy, beset by lawsuits,
from ambulances to zippers. He may be able to get up the scratch for a
team, but he isn't liquid enough to keep it going."
    "Then why buy it if it's
going to make him broke?"
    "Good question. Two answers.
He's a fool—doubtful. Or he plans to unload the
team pretty quickly, as soon as the city builds him that brand-new
arena, which will double the team's value
overnight."
    "That seems a little
far-fetched."
    "Hey, remember Eli Jacobs? He
bought the Orioles for $70 million in the 1980s. When his business
collapsed in the recession, he sold them for almost $175 million and it
was Camden Yards, paid for by the state, that made the team so
valuable. If Wink can keep all his spinning plates aloft for a couple
of years and sell the team before his creditors come calling, he stands
to see a huge profit."
    "Is there more?" Feeney
scowled. "Not that there has to be," she added
hastily. "You connected the dots, and I can see the
picture."
    "But there is more. Much more. Dark secrets. A rancorous first marriage. Bad habits,
the kind professional sports can't abide. How much would you
pay for this story? $39.95? $49.95? $59.95? Wait, don't
answer—what if we throw in a set of ginsu knives?"
He began to laugh a little hysterically, then caught himself.
"Trust me, Tess. It's solid. I wish my house had
been built on a foundation half as good."
    "Then why won't the
paper print it?"
    "All sorts of reasons. They say we
don't have it nailed. They say it's racist to cover
an NBA deal so aggressively when we let football, which appeals to a
white fan base, slip into town without a whimper. They say we used too
many unidentified sources, but some of the people who talked to me
still work for Wink, Tess. They have damn good reasons to want to be
anonymous. One guy in particular. The top editors told us this
afternoon we had to turn over the names of all our sources before they
ran the story. They knew I couldn't do that, I'd
see my story spiked first. Which was the point. They want an excuse to
kill the story because they don't trust us."
    "Us?"
    "Me and Rosie. You met her.
She's good, for a rookie. You ought to see the stuff she dug
up on Wink's first marriage."
    "It's probably her they
don't trust, then. Because she's new, and
young."
    Feeney shook his head. "New and
young is better than old and old at the Beacon-Light these days. Her. Me. Both of us. I don't know and I
don't care anymore. I'm tired, Tess. I'm
so tired, and it's such a good story, and all I want to do is
go to sleep right here on the table, wake up, and find out
they're going to print it after all."
    "Feeney, I'm sure
they'll do right by you, and you'll have your big
scoop," she said, pushing his water glass closer to him,
hoping to distract him. He seems to be settling
down , she thought. Maybe
the evening can be salvaged .
    Feeney lurched to his feet, martini glass
still firmly in hand. "This isn't about me, or my
big scoop!" he shouted. The other people in the bar looked
up, startled and apprehensive.
    "Okay, it is about me," he hissed, bending down so only Tess could hear
him. He had drunk so much that gin seemed to be coming through his
pores. "It's about my career, or what's
left of it. But it's also about all that important stuff
newspapers are suppose to be about. You