Managing Editor Frank Sanders hurried past with a bulging file envelope, his vest open and his stiff white hair a usual disorderly tangle. He whirled as though Bryan's presence had only then registered on him.
"Terry! Where the hell have you been?" He jerked a thumb. "My office. Right away."
Bryan finished a paragraph and then followed Sanders into his glass-enclosed cubicle. He slumped into a chair and waited.
Sanders tried without success to light a clogged pipe. He dropped it back into the ashtray and said abruptly, "That Holzheimer story, Terry. You did a nice job clearing the kid, but your copy was pretty rough on the district attorney. Too rough, Terry."
"I should have thrown a street-car at him," Bryan said. "Trying to frame a kid and build up a record."
"Circumstantial evidence and re-election, Terry. It happens all the time--you ought to know. And you ought to know we're politically on the D.A.'s side of the fence. Stories like the one you wrote about the Holzheimer case will only hurt the campaign this paper is putting on."
"Sometimes there's too much incompetence to whitewash--even if it comes from the right side of the fence."
Sanders shook his disorderly thatch. "You ought to know better than that, Terry. You've been around long enough. This is no time to get a rush of ideals to the head."
"I've never pulled my punches," Bryan returned quietly.
"I know. But we just can't have any more stories like the one on the Holzheimer case." Sanders leaned forward at his desk, his eyes suddenly shrewd. "What's eating on you, Terry?"
Bryan shrugged. "Things like the Holzheimer business."
"It's all part of a system," Sanders said slowly. "You can't change that system any more than you can change human nature, Terry. All you can do is make the best of it. I hope you'll look at it that way. I've seen too many good reporters go sour over what they keep running into."
A telephone jangled on the desk. Sanders spoke into it briefly and returned his attention to Bryan.
Bryan explained about the three weirdly afflicted men who had been found in Grant Park. "I'm planning to look into it," he finished.
"Sounds like something big is involved," Sanders approved. "Go ahead with it, Terry.... And take things easy, will you?" he added as Bryan started toward the door.