Star Time (56 page)

"Without Annette there's no
Luba
.
"

"That really seems a shame. It's such a successful show. And this year was really your big break. You were totally in charge.
Important salary.
A chance to make a name for yourself in television."

"You're telling
me
."

"I guess you'll have your hands full here at home, taking care of Annette as she becomes an invalid.
By her side night and day."

Johnny's mouth showed the glimmer of a grimace for an instant; he was not the nursing type. Sally moved her chair closer to his. Her hand fell lightly across his knee.

"It really doesn't have to be that way," she said. "If FBS knew the truth about Annette's condition, they wouldn't want
Luba
to end. Monumental wouldn't want it to end. There's a lot of money at stake here. They'd probably be very grateful to someone who could save the show for them."

Johnny shifted to face Sally more directly, her hand slipping down and onto his thigh. She left it there.

"You have something in mind," he said.

"I wouldn't want to hurt Annette for the world, you understand. I'd cut off my arm before I'd act against her. She's my dearest friend. But she's too distraught to think properly now, to think about what's best here. We have to do that for her."

"I'm listening."

"Johnny, have you ever heard Annette and me when we're joking around together with Russian accents? Even she says how well I do her."

"You don't expect to go in and make people believe you're Annette?"

"No, of course not.
There's only one Annette. You know how much I admire her."

"Hey, there's no one like Annette," he repeated.

He shifted more toward Sally, until he faced her directly and the backs of her fingers lay atop his fly.

She said, "I heard when Valerie Harper was locked out of her show, they brought in Sandy Duncan.
As a sister or an aunt."

Johnny stared at her, assessing the idea. "If Annette were well, it would be a different thing."

"But she's getting worse. You, me—her best friend, her husband—it's up to us to think things out for her when her thinking's not quite, you know, sensible."

Sally gently stroked the bulge climbing between his legs. "To keep straight what's best for everyone at a time like this."

"Exactly."

"We wouldn't want to shatter that wonderful will of hers by telling her what we have in mind."

"Let's see how it works out first."

"Annette will be asleep for a couple of hours. Why don't we call Mickey
Blinder.
Right now.”
Johnny nodded, already thinking out possible deal terms.

"Tell him this is urgent," she added, and gave a little tug to hold his interest.

Ev
Carver had become anxious in recent months. Instead of discrediting himself as CEO, Greg
Lyall
seemed to be doing well at the job
Ev
believed an act of gross nepotism had snatched from him. Greg was making friends among the company's directors and maybe, if he got lucky, laying the groundwork for the beginning of a turnaround in the fall.

As crazy as it seemed to
Ev
, that weird show
What's
the World Coming To?
had
become hot during the summer, when the established shows were just sliding by with reruns and bored viewers were more willing to spin the dial in search of new diversions. A change of focus on
Hot Time
had improved the ratings, and it was now a solid second in its time slot. Raising the fall ad rates hadn't discouraged media buyers for clients that might benefit from some of the oddball shows FBS was going with in the fall. Even the sports division had won a few packages of regional college football and basketball games.

Because of their rivalry,
Ev
anticipated he would likely be terminated as soon as Greg’s "probationary" year ended. He had between now and then, he figured, to find a way to toppled Greg.

He entrusted an associate who had moved to Finance with the task of going through Greg's expenses and all the deals he had approved since taking over. But
Ev
had little confidence that something negative would turn up—Greg wasn't the greedy type and the couple had all the money in the world.

Ev's
opportunity came through a powerful investment banker on Wall Street, who arranged for a meeting at his office with Basil Markham, a billionaire who had constructed a worldwide communications empire in print and television. The largest gap in an empire that included newspapers, book publishers, broadcast companies, satellites, and cable facilities in a dozen countries was a television network in the United States. In the city for a single day, Markham had given the visitors precisely one-half hour of his time.

Ev's
friend presented a hostile-takeover plan under which Markham would bid publicly for all the FBS stock. Markham would retain eighty percent of the company.
Ev
would run the company and receive the other twenty.

Markham had studied FBS and been watching the company for many months. He knew
Ev's
background and was interested, but only if the price of FBS's stock price
fell
sufficiently. With stock market conditions unstable right now and a fall season about to start that might depress FBS's prospects further, he preferred to watch and lie in wait until something, anything, sent the stock lower.

The meeting restored
Ev's
spirits. He now had a real shot at taking over FBS. Dusk was graying the daylight as he stepped out onto the street. He had made no plans for the evening and was in the mood for company. He thought about whom he might call up. He had not seen
Hedy
in a few weeks, what with both of them traveling and his having other plans. But there was no better companion for a good time than
Hedy
.

Hedy
was alone in her tiny office at FBS News when
Ev
arrived.

"Hello,
Ev
," she said indifferently.

"Is that all the greeting I get after all the time we haven't seen each other?"

"What do you want,
Ev
?"

"I want to take you to dinner. I've missed you,
Hedy
."

"It's Friday night. People usually call beforehand to make plans for Friday night."

He stepped to the side of her desk. "I've been really busy."

"I have plans for the evening,
Ev
."

"Break them."

"That isn't possible," she answered carefully. She feared his temper.

"Hey, this is for me,
Hedy
. You're my girl."

"It's over between us,
Ev
."

"I don't brush off that easily!" he hissed with sudden vehemence, his jaws tightly clenched. "You were nobody when I found you in Chicago. I made you. I can break you, too."

"I'm grateful for your help, but I don't intend to spend the rest of my life paying you back. I've built a reputation on my own now."

He grabbed her wrist, twisting her to her feet. "Who are you fucking? You've got to be getting it somewhere—I know you. Who's the guy?"

"It's over,
Ev
. Leave it at that."

He released her wrist, smiling again, trying another approach. "
Hedy
, you've done great. But with Chris
Paskins
ahead of you, you'll never get the big job. I know you want her job. I can help."

She slipped past him and out the open door before he could stop her.

Goddamn cunt! Goddamn ingrate cunt! He had made her, and she was welshing. No woman did that to him. He was the one who decided when it was over. Whoever she was fucking, he would find the son of a bitch, and if he was in television, he'd destroy him. She'd crawl back begging.

Chris sat all morning in their connecting hotel rooms with her crew and Technical Sergeant Benjamin Craig, the soldier she had met in Germany. Often he would go to the window to look out on the jumble of streets squeezed between pine-covered bluffs that comprised this Maine town. Near noon, with everyone growing increasingly anxious that something had gone wrong, Ben Craig received a phone call from his brother. The latter's replacement had taken ill, and his pass had been canceled. He would try to get there tomorrow.

Chris repressed her disappointment and invited everyone out for a lobster lunch. Thousands of dollars and many hours had been expended over the last two weeks. She still had no story, only suspicion. For all she knew this soldier had no brother and had turned a large weather station into a large hoax.

That afternoon, when Greg phoned her, she told him they would have to postpone tomorrow's tryst. Down deep she wanted to hear him say that he was immediately dropping all his plans and flying up to be with her. That was ridiculous to expect, she knew, and of course, he didn't. She felt spurned and resentful the rest of the day.

"It's the most up-to-date missile base I've ever seen, but from what I understand about our treaties with the Russians, it's illegal."

A man's black silhouette was centered on the television screen. His electronically altered voice was describing the base he was recruited to work at: how it was constructed and operated in utmost secrecy in contravention of treaty terms. Despite the disguising measures, the man's distress at violating orders by revealing the truth came across.

"That just doesn't sit right with me," he said. "Everybody wants peace so badly, I just don't think our country should be trying to sneak one over that breaks the agreement. We hear more bases might be planned."

The video ended. Chris and the field producer, Hannah Rafael, turned to Greg, Alan Howe, and Hugo Ramirez, who had all crowded into the editing room. The Maine material had included shots of the military helicopter swooping over the cliff road and military trucks entering the access route to the alleged base. A road-construction project had been set up there to block off the road from unwanted vehicles. Chris explained that, once, the TV news crew had raced past the barriers, as if failing to understand that they were not permitted to enter. A car quickly caught up with them and forced them to turn around and leave. In the distance they could see what appeared to be the guarded entrance to the base, but were unable to get a shot of it.

"The interview sounds pretty strong," Greg concluded.

"An eyewitness," Alan Howe agreed. "I wish we could get pictures inside the base itself."

Chris reminded him. "We flew over and saw nothing. You heard the sergeant: The reason it looks like forest from above is because everything is either built below ground or camouflaged on top to evade detection." The man had described silo covers and a helicopter pad with bushes planted on them that swung aside at the press of a button.

"I guess we go with what we have," Greg declared, looking to the others for their opinions. "Pass it by our general counsel."

"There's one more thing I'm trying to get hold of to put the last nail into the coffin. I hear there's a top-secret document from the Defense secretary himself that authorizes these bases. I've got my Pentagon sources trying to find it."

"How long do you want to hold off broadcasting the story?" Hugo asked. One mustache end was turned quizzically up, the other aggressively down.

"Till the end of the week."

"A lot can happen between now and then," Greg observed, more presciently than he could foresee. "The more we have, the better we can stand up against the firestorm. It's sure to hit."

Gus Krieger's enthusiasm was once more at a high, Marian noted as he bounded into her office accompanied by a couple of slim young men on his production team. The men around him, she discerned, were getting younger and wearing heavier makeup the older Gus became. She could expect adolescent drag queens in another few years.

"We've narrowed it down to two actors," he said. "The second is the one we want to go with. Marian, let me tell you, we saw dozens of actors to find someone who could handle the part and looked right—and we'd already seen dozens the last go round. We're really cutting it close with the schedule. We have to work out this guy's contract and start shooting by Monday or else there's no way we can meet the air dates."

Marian slid the disk into her DVD player and took a chair beside Gus.

The first candidate was a former child actor named Manning Miller. His test wouldn't win any Emmys, but he could carry off the role in a solid way. She was startled when the second actor's face appeared on the screen.

"His name's Derek Peters," Gus told her. "We're really high on this guy."