A Knight Of The Word

Andrew Wren stood looking out the window of the Wiz’s corner office at the derelicts occupying space in Occidental Park across the way. They slouched on benches, slept curled up in old blankets in tree wells, and huddled on the low steps and curbing that differentiated the various concrete and flagstone levels of the open space. They drank from bottles concealed in paper sacks, exchanged tokens and pennies, and stared into space. Tourists and shoppers gave them a wide berth. Almost no one looked at them. A pair of cops on bicycles surveyed the scene with wary eyes, then moved over to speak to a man staggering out of a doorway leading to a card shop. Pale afternoon sunlight peeked through masses of cumulous clouds an their way to distant places.

Wren turned away. Simon Lawrence was seated at his desk, talking on the phone to the mayor about Wednesday evening’s festivities apt die Seattle Art Museum, The mayor was making the official announcement of the dedication an behalf of the city. An abandoned apartment building just across the. street had been purchased by the city and was being donated to Fresh Start to provide additional housing for homeless women and children. Donations had been pledged that would cover needed renovations to the interior. The mane,, would bring the building up to code and provide sleeping rooms, a kitchen, dining roam, and administrative offices for staff and volunteers, Persuading the city to dedicate the building and land had taken the better part of two years. Raising the money necessary to make the dedication meaningful had taken almost as long. It was, all in all, a terrific coup.

Andrew Wren looked down at his shoes. The Wizard of Oz had done it again. But at what cost to himself and the organisations he had founded? That was the truth Wren had come all the way from New York to discover.

He was a burly, slow-moving man with a thatch of unruly, grizzled brown hair that refused to be tamed and stuck out every which way no matter what was done to it. The clothes he wore were rumpled and well used, the kind that let him be comfortable while he worked, that gave him an unintimidating, slightly shabby look. He carried a worn leather briefcase in which he kept his notepads, source logs, and whatever book he was currently reading, together with a secret stash of bagged nuts and candy that he used to sustain himself when meals were missed or forgotten in the heat of his work. He had a round, kindly face with bushy eyebrows, heavy cheeks, and he wore glasses that tended to slide down his nose when he bent forward to listen to compensate for his failing hearing. He was almost fifty, but he looked as if he could just as easily be sixty. He could have been a college professor or a favourite uncle or a writer of charming anecdotes and pithy sayings that stayed with you and made you smile when you thought back on them.

But he wasn’t any of these things. His worn, familiar teddybear look was what made him so effective at what he did. He looked harmless and mildly confused, but how he looked was dangerously deceptive. Andrew Wren was a bulldog when it came to ferreting out the truth. He was relentless in getting to the bottom of things. Investigative reporting was a tough racket, and you had to be both lucky and good. Wren had always been both. He had a knack for being in the right place at the right time, for sensing when there was a story worth following up. His instincts were uncanny, and behind those kindly eyes and rumpled look was a razor-sharp mind that could peel away layers of deception and dig down to that tiny nugget of truth buried under a mound of Bullshit. Mare than one overconfident jackass had been undone by underestimating Andrew Wren.

Simon Lawrence was not likely to turn into one of these unfortunates, however. Wren knew him well enough to appreciate the tact that the Wiz hadn’t gotten where he was by underestimating anyone.

Simon hung up the phone and leaned back in his chair. “Sorry about that, Andrew, but you don’t keep the mayor waiting.”

Wren nodded benignly, shrugging. “I understand. Wednesday’s event means a lot to you.”

“Yes, but more to the point, it means a lot to the mayor. He went out on a limb for us, persuading the council to pass a resolution dedicating the building, then selling the idea to the voters. I want to be certain that he comes out of this experience feeling good about things.”

Wren walked over to the easy chair that fronted Simon’s desk and sat down. Even though they had met only ante before, and that was two years ago, Simon Lawrence felt comfortable enough with Wren to call him by his first name. Wren wouldn’t do anything to discourage that just yet.