didn’t have the little bugger in. And it’s not just old age, though I’m a lot sharper than most of these little shits snickering behind their hands because they can work the computers and they think I can’t. I’ll tell you why I’m so tired, you want to know.”
“I want to know, Mo.”
“I’m so tired, John, because I find myself bereft of ideas. That’s a nice turn of phrase, don’t you think? I first heard it from an old editor I had, Bissington, Jonas Bissington, as WASP as they come, but willing to give a Jewish kid a chance if the kid was willing to work and able to write a decent lead. Bissington, he sat me down one day, and he said to me, he said, ‘Mr. Katzen’—he was a real formal guy, John, all the younger men Mr. this, all the women, younger or older, Miss this or Mrs. that. Anyway, Bissington, he says, ‘Mr. Katzen, someday this will happen to you. Someday you will be in need of a column, a story, a bylined article, whatever’—he didn’t say ‘whatever,’ John, that’s just me, giving you the sense of it—and he looked at me and he said, ‘Mr. Katzen, I stand before you, bereft of ideas. Provide me one.’ Not ‘provide me with one.’ Oh no, Bissington was a stickler. But he was dry, John, pumped dry of ideas, and I was so taken back—taken ‘aback,’ Bissington would say—that I couldn’t think of one. Not one idea, and me an energetic young man at the start of a promising career. So Bissington said to me, he said, ‘Mr. Katzen, then I shall have to stoop, stoop, to reading the …’—and Bissington paused, John, and he made a face you wouldn’t want to see over a meal. Then he finished by saying, ‘… the class -i-fieds.’ I tell you, all things considered, it was not a pretty scene.”
“I can imagine. Why—”
“Imagine? Imagi -nation, that’s the problem, John. To get a new idea, you have to have imagination, an imagination, some imagination. Well, I got to tell you, I’m all out. Not that there haven’t been plenty of newsworthy events. Last Wednesday, we had those three honor students killed in the drunk driving thing on Route 2. That night the North Shore woman supposedly lost overboard from a sailboat turns up tied and weighted down next to some lobsterman’s traps. And then Friday, that airliner heading from here to D.C. hits the flock of geese down there, crashes, and kills half the people on board. Picture that, John, a flock of birds. I got a friend on the state police I can call on the students thing, another friend in the Coast Guard on the woman, and a contact over at Logan in the agency investigates air crashes. Great stories all, John, but they’ve been covered, every last one. And now I’m like Bissington. One toe in the grave, and pumped dry of ideas. So I’m stooping, stooping to reading the … class -i-fieds .”
Katzen passed his hand over the pages he’d been holding when I came in, so much like Cross’s gesture with the case file that I felt for him. “I don’t get it, Mo.”
“Don’t get what?”
“How do the classifieds help you?”
“How? How? You just got to read them. Look.”
Or listen, as Mo picked up the paper and traced with his now-dead-again cigar down a column. “Here, here’s one. For sale or trade, four polar-bear rugs. Skins dingy, but all teeth, claws, and’—I love this, John—‘eyes in good shape.’ Now, you see what I mean?”
“There’s a story in that ad.”
“There’s got to be a story. Who the hell has four polar-bear skins? How’d they get them? Where’ve they been? What are the chances of other ones being out there? It’s like that, all through the ads. Oh, you’re going to have ninety, ninety-five percent duds, but then that one comes up for you, and boom, you’ve got your idea.”
“And you’re no longer bereft.”
Mo aimed his cigar at me. “Somehow, that doesn’t sound too good coming from a man your age, John.”
“Sorry, Mo. Listen, I was wondering—”
“I
“I want to know, Mo.”
“I’m so tired, John, because I find myself bereft of ideas. That’s a nice turn of phrase, don’t you think? I first heard it from an old editor I had, Bissington, Jonas Bissington, as WASP as they come, but willing to give a Jewish kid a chance if the kid was willing to work and able to write a decent lead. Bissington, he sat me down one day, and he said to me, he said, ‘Mr. Katzen’—he was a real formal guy, John, all the younger men Mr. this, all the women, younger or older, Miss this or Mrs. that. Anyway, Bissington, he says, ‘Mr. Katzen, someday this will happen to you. Someday you will be in need of a column, a story, a bylined article, whatever’—he didn’t say ‘whatever,’ John, that’s just me, giving you the sense of it—and he looked at me and he said, ‘Mr. Katzen, I stand before you, bereft of ideas. Provide me one.’ Not ‘provide me with one.’ Oh no, Bissington was a stickler. But he was dry, John, pumped dry of ideas, and I was so taken back—taken ‘aback,’ Bissington would say—that I couldn’t think of one. Not one idea, and me an energetic young man at the start of a promising career. So Bissington said to me, he said, ‘Mr. Katzen, then I shall have to stoop, stoop, to reading the …’—and Bissington paused, John, and he made a face you wouldn’t want to see over a meal. Then he finished by saying, ‘… the class -i-fieds.’ I tell you, all things considered, it was not a pretty scene.”
“I can imagine. Why—”
“Imagine? Imagi -nation, that’s the problem, John. To get a new idea, you have to have imagination, an imagination, some imagination. Well, I got to tell you, I’m all out. Not that there haven’t been plenty of newsworthy events. Last Wednesday, we had those three honor students killed in the drunk driving thing on Route 2. That night the North Shore woman supposedly lost overboard from a sailboat turns up tied and weighted down next to some lobsterman’s traps. And then Friday, that airliner heading from here to D.C. hits the flock of geese down there, crashes, and kills half the people on board. Picture that, John, a flock of birds. I got a friend on the state police I can call on the students thing, another friend in the Coast Guard on the woman, and a contact over at Logan in the agency investigates air crashes. Great stories all, John, but they’ve been covered, every last one. And now I’m like Bissington. One toe in the grave, and pumped dry of ideas. So I’m stooping, stooping to reading the … class -i-fieds .”
Katzen passed his hand over the pages he’d been holding when I came in, so much like Cross’s gesture with the case file that I felt for him. “I don’t get it, Mo.”
“Don’t get what?”
“How do the classifieds help you?”
“How? How? You just got to read them. Look.”
Or listen, as Mo picked up the paper and traced with his now-dead-again cigar down a column. “Here, here’s one. For sale or trade, four polar-bear rugs. Skins dingy, but all teeth, claws, and’—I love this, John—‘eyes in good shape.’ Now, you see what I mean?”
“There’s a story in that ad.”
“There’s got to be a story. Who the hell has four polar-bear skins? How’d they get them? Where’ve they been? What are the chances of other ones being out there? It’s like that, all through the ads. Oh, you’re going to have ninety, ninety-five percent duds, but then that one comes up for you, and boom, you’ve got your idea.”
“And you’re no longer bereft.”
Mo aimed his cigar at me. “Somehow, that doesn’t sound too good coming from a man your age, John.”
“Sorry, Mo. Listen, I was wondering—”
“I
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