Free Only the Hunted Run by Neely Tucker Page A

is
this
about?” Looking at him like he was falling apart.
    â€œWhat, woman, what’s wrong with it?”
    â€œIt’s got a tic. The right one. Your other right.”
    He pulled his hand back and looked at it, like it might have blood on it. “Been doing that since yesterday.”
    â€œYou’re lucky that’s the only thing wrong with you.”
    â€œOne pursues the news of the day.”
    â€œFrom what I
read
, you certainly pursued.”
    â€œWhat does that mean?”
    â€œYou didn’t run in the opposite direction.”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œHe had a gun, Sully.”
    â€œMost people in America do.”
    She rolled the papers in her hand into a tube and leaned back against the wall. “You weren’t playing cowboy in the Capitol?”
    â€œLook,” he said, standing in front of her, a little off balance at the direct line of inquiry, “you said you wanted me to go back to being a foreign correspondent. So I act like one yesterday. Now you giving me flack about it.”
    â€œI didn’t say be reckless.”
    â€œGosh, I had forgotten.”
    â€œDon’t try me with that attitude you give everyone else around here.”
    â€œLook,” he said, trying to reign this back in, “you, missy, have come back from being a foreign hack to riding a desk job. I don’t know that you—”
    â€œWe’re not talking about me.” A hair flip. Ah sweet Jesus, the hair flip. Now he was buggered. Now she was pissed. “And I wouldn’t say I’m riding the desk. It’s a promotion I’m thinking about accepting. You understand there’s an upward trajectory to this business, that you don’t always have to be out in the field eating dust?”
    â€œCertainly not what I heard from you this spring, when we were eating at Jimmy T’s. You were preaching at me to get off my arse and get back in the field with badasses such as your adorable self.”
    â€œThey hadn’t offered me the gig this spring.”
    â€œSo how much more money is it?”
    â€œEnough to think about,” she said. “My mom’s not getting any younger. It’d be nice to be on the same continent with her for a while. And, I’ve discovered, editors get stock options. Plus, you know, the business isn’t overrun with women in management.”
    â€œSo now you wanting to be on the masthead? Commencement speeches at the alma mater, all that?”
    â€œPossible,” she said, ignoring the jibe. “But it’s not locked in, my side or theirs. I do it till December 31 and then Eddie and I sit down. If it’s good, I’ll take it. If not, I’ll take the posting in London or Beirut, wherever they want me.” Here she looked up at him. “And I’ll be looking for you in the field. With shit like you did yesterday. That was great. Really sensational. I’m not riding you about it. And I didn’t exactly expect you to return my call last night—”
    â€œI had turned the phone off,” he said.
    â€œâ€”but, wait, listen.” Her voice softened, dropped a half key, making him almost have to lean forward. “I thought you would have called me. After deadline.”
    She looked at him evenly. Nothing about their physical relationship in those eyes, just a depth that spoke to their friendship. That stemmed back to Johannesburg, after Mandela’s release from Robben Island. She, who had been posted in Central and South America, got sent to South Africa as part of the media mob on the only story in the world anybody wanted to read. He had met her at Jameson’s on Commissioner Street. He saw a group of South African photographers he knew at a table toward the back and headed that way. She was sitting with them, this olive-skinned chick with thick black hair, all of them bellowing to be heard over the band.
    She was drinking a gin and tonic and they were all laughing and