Stained Glass Read Online Free PDF Page B

I thought this was a newspaper.”
    Menteur could have wept. Bartelli’s remark called up the wonderful days of yore when newspaper work had been done in clinging clouds of smoke. “It’s a city law.”
    â€œHow can they enforce it?”
    â€œSpies. Informers.”
    Bartelli shook his head. “You should have picketed the courthouse.”
    â€œYou can smoke in the courthouse.”
    â€œAnd not here?”
    â€œIt’s not as bad as it sounds,” Menteur said, chewing furiously. He rose. “Let’s go outside for a smoke.”
    They went down in the elevator and huddled in a shadeless corner, exposed to a brisk breeze. Menteur lit Bartelli’s cigarette for him, then his own, but the smoke was whipped away before he could inhale it. He turned with hunched shoulders to the wall and filled his lungs with soothing smoke.

    Bartelli was shaking his head when Menteur turned back to him. “How can you enjoy a cigarette like this?” He tossed his into the street. “I’d rather quit.”
    Menteur had brought the sheet Bartelli had given him. He assured him he would get out the news of the formation of Save St. Hilary’s. They actually shook hands, and the triumphant Tuttle led his client up the street.
    Menteur tried without success to derive some satisfaction from his cigarette, then flung it down angrily and started, accelerating as he went, toward the courthouse. He spat out his mouthful of gum.
    He rushed through the revolving doors and then across the black and white marble squares as if engaged in a game of hopscotch to the elevators. From the moment he had entered the building, he imagined that he could smell tobacco. When he got out of the elevator and headed for the pressroom he was shaking a cigarette free. He stopped in the doorway.
    Tetzel sat at his computer wreathed in smoke.
    Rebecca Farmer, at the sound of footsteps, put something in the bottom drawer of her desk before turning. “Mr. Menteur!”
    Tetzel swung in his chair and had to brake it before he turned 360 degrees.
    Menteur busied himself lighting his cigarette. He took a chair and dragged blissfully on his Pall Mall. “You lucky bastards,” he breathed. “Sorry,” he said to Rebecca.
    She made a dismissive wave with her nicotine-stained hand.
    â€œYou two know about the threat to St. Hilary’s? Okay. A group has been formed to protest it.” He gave Bartelli’s sheet of paper to Rebecca. “Write it up. Wring the reader’s heart. Appeal to local pride. More than religion is involved here.” He might have been addressing the shade of his Methodist father.
    Rebecca read the sheet, nodding.

    â€œYou came over here just to tell us this?” Tetzel said in a wondering tone.
    â€œAnd to have a goddamn cigarette.”
    â€œLet’s go over to the Jury Room,” Tetzel suggested.
    â€œCan you smoke there?”
    Tetzel shook his head. Rebecca opened the bottom drawer she had just closed and brought out a bottle of Johnny Walker Red and several glasses. She poured a generous amount and handed the glass to Menteur.
    He took it with tears in his eyes. “Why did I ever want to be an editor?”
    He had another bump and two more cigarettes while Rebecca went to work on a sob story about St. Hilary’s.
    â€œIs it just the seniors?” she asked.
    â€œCall them concerned parishioners.”
    Rebecca turned back to her keyboard.
    He had her first draft when he rose to go. He stood for a moment, looking around the smoke-wreathed room, shaking his head sadly. “You lucky bastards,” he growled.

9
    With Jane Devere, Amos had adopted the attitude of Father Dowling toward the threatened closing of St. Hilary’s. “There is no final list, Jane.”
    â€œA list was published with St. Hilary’s on it.”

    â€œApparently there are several lists.”
    â€œThe Devere family has been in St. Hilary’s