Read Online The Dog by Jack Livings - Free Book Online Page B

Youth Daily ’s dotcom operation and taken it out of the kid’s hide—he didn’t have to be told who’d stolen this story from him. He already knew. But he had a bigger problem, which was how to explain himself to the chief.
    â€œHey, no shame, no shame,” said the chipper young reporter in the cube next to Ning. He was wearing a necktie and had a pencil tucked behind one ear. He’d been on the job exactly one week, and he’d been a constant annoyance to Ning for the full length of his tenure. “I’m sure this happens to everyone from time to time,” the reporter said, his voice expectant.
    â€œWhat a comfort,” Ning said. His phone was ringing but he ignored it. With some effort, like a man feeling his way through a blacked-out room, he located the story on the Youth Daily ’s site and printed it before turning his attention to his neighbor. “To think. All these years without you. It’s a miracle I’ve been able to find my own dick without your sage counsel.” The reporter shrugged and rolled back into his cube, unfazed. It was perhaps the least offensive thing Ning had said to him all week.
    Ning didn’t much care about good stories anymore, not his own or anyone else’s, and he’d given this one about as much thought as he would have the purchase of an umbrella during a downpour. It was about a security guard who’d acted courageously and had been stabbed nearly to death. The doctors had sewn him up, and he was on the mend, but because he’d refused to tell a white lie that would have harmed no one, his case was tangled in red tape and the hospital was refusing to discharge him. Ning had visited the guard, and as he’d listened to his story, he’d felt himself leaning in at one point, eager to hear more, but he’d lost interest again almost as soon as he’d left the hospital. Instead of filing the story, he’d burned the rest of the week doing research on thoracoabdominal penetrating injuries, and now he was going to hear about it.
    Sure enough, before Ning had even had time to finish reading the story, the chief’s assistant arrived at his desk. Her blue cotton dress had red flowers printed on it, and atop that she wore an apple-green sweater buttoned up to the neck.
    â€œMercy,” he said. “Is it mating season for your species?”
    â€œDon’t start with me, old man,” she said.
    â€œSo you’ve come down from your lofty perch just to subject me to this thing,” Ning said, pointing to her outfit. “I’m nearly blind as it is.”
    â€œYou don’t think I called first?” She had the face of a middle schooler, and though she claimed to be twenty-five and a college graduate, Ning had his suspicions. She was someone’s niece, or her father was in real estate.
    â€œI didn’t hear it,” he said, his chair creaking as he leaned back.
    â€œYou didn’t hear it,” she said.
    â€œWho can hear anything in here?” he said, waving a hand at Li Pai’s table.
    â€œIf you read your e-mail—” she said.
    â€œI don’t read e-mail.”
    â€œOf course you don’t,” she said. “How inconsiderate of the rest of the company to communicate in such a manner. I’ll draft a memo immediately and have a copyboy rush it down. Shall I have the little urchin rinse your inkpot and wash your brushes while he’s at it? Ning Wang’s wish is our command.”
    â€œTell me,” he said, “how exactly did you avoid becoming an infanticide statistic?”
    She flashed her eyeteeth. “Please, at your convenience, grace us with your presence. I’m sure the chief will be happy to wait,” she said, and walked away, her dress cutting around her legs.
    â€œI’m sure he will,” Ning yelled after her. He put up his feet to make clear that he didn’t take orders from anyone, least of all her,