The Dog by Jack Livings Page A

waited for Ning to elaborate, and when he didn’t, Li Pai leaned in close, as if to speak in confidence, and said, “I heard the desk editors were after your hide. You know the chief’s lost all his leverage. There’s nothing he could have done.”
    â€œHe begged me to stay,” Ning shot back. He didn’t know anything about this business with the desk editors. He got along fine with them. They respected him.
    â€œOf course he did.” Li Pai looked away stoically, with the air of a long-suffering mother whose sons had given her a lifetime of trouble. “A sad day,” Li Pai said, patting him on the forearm.
    â€œIf you say so.”
    â€œYou’ll come later?” Li Pai said as he walked toward the elevators.
    â€œI’ll be along,” Ning said, fixing his eye on something beyond his cubicle wall. “As soon as I’m able.”
    The chief was making his way across the newsroom, and Ning watched as though tracking a slowly accelerating avalanche, calculating the time until his imminent obliteration. When he got to Ning’s desk, he banged his fist on the laminate surface hard enough to make the keyboard jump, and loomed over the reporter like he had a load of brick on his back he was dying to drop right on top of him.
    â€œLet’s go,” the chief grunted.
    â€œI’ve got to get my affairs in order,” Ning said, gesturing at his desk.
    â€œYou’re not arranging a funeral,” the chief said.
    â€œYou’d think not,” Ning said.
    The chief took in the wreckage of Ning’s desk—reporter’s notebooks piled high against the cubicle’s flimsy partitions, boxes of files, printouts of stories stacked like shale deposits on every available surface, newsprint melting over stacks of books, the plunders of a reporter’s raids on his fellow man. He drew a deep breath.
    â€œManagement defined by its unwavering dedication to mediocrity?” the chief said.
    â€œToo much?” Ning said.
    â€œEvery time I let someone go, Personnel gets the same letter. It’s a terrible shame I’m never informed of the depths of my moral and ethical insolvency until one of you geniuses gets the boot. Think of the heights we’d reach if only someone would step forward and struggle against my incompetence.”
    â€œI’m just a guy in the business forty years,” Ning said, “what do I know?”
    â€œFunny how you didn’t mention your own contributions to this journalistic morass you accuse me of running.”
    â€œI thought that went without saying. As you pointed out, it’s been years since I’ve written anything worth reading.”
    â€œAnd now we know all along you were only saving yourself for a final shot.”
    Ning shrugged.
    â€œSort yourself and get over to the Green Room,” the chief said.
    â€œOr what?” Ning said. “You going to fire me?”
    â€œYou’re a real piece of work. You know what? If you don’t show up and give Li Pai the finest send-off in history, I’ll strip your pension, everything.”
    â€œHere it is. My punishment for speaking the truth.”
    â€œNo one would ever accuse you of that,” the chief said as he shuffled off, leaving Ning alone in the bleached fluorescence of the empty newsroom.
    Two of the TVs over by Metro were tuned to all-news channels, and the first thing Ning did was change one to a poker tournament from Macau. He put his feet up on his desk and leaned back into the posture of an untroubled man.
    To hell with the chief. If he wanted a speech, Ning would give him one. But he wasn’t going to get in any hurry. No one rushed Ning Wang.
    Ning shifted in his chair and crossed his arms. On the TV, the poker players wore sleek wraparound sunglasses. Some had hats pulled low over their eyes and wore beards like bandits’ handkerchiefs. Ning supposed he’d hold his own at the table with these men.