can think of." A few days later, I visited Marimow at the Inquirer , where he recently returned as the top editor. He hotly defended Carroll as a gentleman and a stellar journalist. "He owes John an apology," Marimow said. "He really does." Marimow didn't find the Stoop story self-effacing. "At the end," Marimow said, "where he says, 'Well I really feel sorry for Bill because he had prostate cancer, and I don't want him to die'....To me all that stuff is utter, unmitigated bullshit. It's cowardly, it's dishonorable, and it's nettlesome. I'd never say that about anybody." I passed along Simon's assurance that he had exaggerated and that the show is fictional, and Marimow suggested I talk to Mike Leary, a new managing editor at the Inquirer who had just left the Sun . Leary, he said, was in the room with Simon when he had negotiated with the Sun for rights to the name and facilities. Leary told me that in those conversations, Simon disclosed that the upcoming season would indeed feature characters based on Carroll and Marimow. Many other former colleagues of Carroll and Marimow -- including admirers of Simon's work -- went on background to warn me of Simon's bitterness. One former Sun editor praised Marimow and Carroll and then warned me: "You don't want your name on a story you're going to regret five years from now." In October, I met again with Simon at a coffee shop in Manhattan. Regarding the portrayal of former