After lunch I did it again.
"Now you've gone too far. You've made me miss the one o'clock," Emma declaimed after we'd caught our breaths. "You're fired, Jack."
"Thanks. I'll see you tonight."
Charles Chickle, Esq., had the trust documents ready to sign when I arrived. Race Maggad III was stewing outside, so Charlie and I took our sweet time. I commended him on prolonging the probate of MacArthur Polk's estate until the Stoma story ran its course. Then we talked bass fishing and Gator football.
Finally, Charlie said, "You ready?" He'd already spent an hour with Maggad, tenderizing him.
"Bring in the sulky young mandrill," I instructed.
Presently a secretary escorted the chairman of the Maggad-Feist Publishing Group into the lawyer's office, and barrister Chickle excused himself.
"Master Race, sit down!" I bubbled.
He wore a peerless wool suit but otherwise he looked terrible, drawn and sleepless, with scrotal bags under his anxious green eyes. Even his hair refused to shine.
"Good afternoon, Jack," he said tautly.
"You never told me how you liked the old man's obit."
"Didn't I? I thought it was fine."
"I'll pass along your compliments to the writer."
Maggad scowled. "But I thought youwrote it."
"At my right hand was a college intern named Evan Richards. Bright kid, too. He's not coming back to the Union-Registerbecause he noticed that you've run it into the shitter."
I reminded young Race that it had been several months since we'd last spoken, and that significant events had occurred in the interim. Maggad-Feist lost a costly antitrust suit in upstate Washington, and had been forced to sell two profitable radio stations. The price of company stock spiraled from 40 1/4 to 22 1/4, a five-year low. Two competing media conglomeratesone German, one Canadianhad initiated hostile attempts to take over the chain.
And MacArthur Polk, one of the largest individual shareholders, had passed away.
"Tell me something I don't already know," Maggad grumbled.
"How about this, hoss? As of tomorrow, you'll no longer be paying my salary."
"Whoopee-do. Where's the champagne." Young Race was in a tough spot, so I let him blow off steam. "Newspapers are in the business of making money, Tagger, so don't be so naive and self-righteous. Journalism can't exist without making a profit."
"Well, you damn sure can't have goodjournalism when you're milking the cow for twenty-five percent. We might as well be working for the Gambinos," I said. "By the way, how are the Porsches enjoying that dreamy Southern California climate? No more slush in yourtailpipes, I'll bet!"
For a moment it appeared that Maggad was sucking his own cheeks down his throat. I'd touched a raw nerve with that California jabForbeshad recently done a snarky article about the obscene cost of relocating Maggad-Feist's headquarters to sunny San Diego. Shareholders were seething.
Stonily he said to me, "We publish twenty-seven very good papers. They win awards."
"In spite of you, yes, they do."
The Race Maggads of the industry have a standard gospel to rationalize their pillaging. It goes like this: American newspapers are steadily losing both readers and advertisers to cable TV and the Internet. This fatal slide can be reversed only with a radical recasting of our role in the community. We need to be more receptive and responsive, less cynical and confrontational. We need to be more sensitive to our institutions, especially to our advertisers. We can no longer afford to shield our news and editorial operations from the pressures and demands that steer the business side of publishing. We're all in this together! In these difficult times we need to do more with lessless space in which to print the news, fewer reporters with which to cover it, and a much smaller budget with which to pursue it. Yet even as we do more with less, we must never forget our solemn pledge to our readers, blah, blah, blah ...
It's an appalling geyser of shit and nobody with half a brain believes a word, not when polo-playing CEOs can confidently talk of twenty-five percent annual profits. Like most publishing tycoons, Race Maggad III is oblivious to his own vulgarity. On the positive side, he has (unlike the Hearsts and Pulitzers of their day) no hidden political agenda to peddle, no private vendettas to promote on the pages of his newspapers. Maggad cares about one thing only.
"What, you want me to grovel?" he said. "You know we need to repurchase Mr. Polk's shares, and you know why. Try to put aside your petty personal bitterness, Tagger. Think of all your friends and colleagues whose jobs would be jeopardized if one of these hostile entities gained control of our company."
"You're implying things would get worse in the newsroom? How's that possible? Are you suggesting these people have less interest in decent journalism than you do?"
Maggad desperately longed to kick out my front teeth, but the task at hand required civility. Lord, I'd have loved to see his expression when Charlie Chickle broke the news that Old Man Polk had put his Maggad-Feist stock holdings in a trust. A trust to be managed by methe same wise-ass who'd insulted Maggad in front of his investors, the same impertinent prick whose career he had conspired to destroy. "The irony is delicious, isn't it, Race?"
"Fuck irony. How much do you want for the stock?"
"Mr. Polk left very specific instructions," I said.
Maggad steepled his manicured fingers. "We're flexible, up to a point."
"Flexible won't cut it," I told him. "You need to be whorishly compliant, prompt and unquestioning. The price of the shares is simple market value, averaged during the preceding thirty days."
"That's doable," Race III allowed coolly.
"But before the stock changes hands"here was the kill shot"Maggad-Feist must divest itself of the Union-Register."
My natty visitor went rigid. "Horseshit," he snapped.
"Aw, don't look so blue."
"No deal. No way."
"Fine," I said. "The more you stall and fart around, the richer I get. Did Mr. Chickle happen to mention what they're paying me to bust your balls?"
"Sell the Union-Register?"
"Yes, but not just to anybody."
Maggad gripped the arms of his chair as if he was about to eject himself from an F-16. The trunk of his neck turned florid, pulsing like a fire hose.
"Who?" he asked. "Sell it to who?"
"To whom.'"I was unable to conceal my disappointment with his grammar. "Really, Race."
"To whom," he sneered. "Tell me, goddammit."
"Ellen Polk. The old man's wife."
"The nurse?"
"The heiress," I said.
"Christ Almighty. This was your idea, wasn't it, Tagger?" I didn't deny it, which was tacky of me. The old man himself dreamed up the scheme. But Maggad looked so wretched and beaten that I couldn't bring myself to set the record straight. "For how much?" he asked.
"A straight-up trade. She gets the newspaper, you get Mr. Polk's stock."
"That's asinine." He was doing the math in his head. "The Dow is in the toilet right now, so the Union-Registermust be worth ten, twelve times the value of the old man's shares. Easily."
"As you wish, Master Race. Tomorrow I'll be lunching with the Canadians."
"Jesus, hold on."
"By the way, that's a gorgeous suit," I told him, "but it's eighty-four fucking degrees outside. And you were born for khakis, my friend."
In the end, Race Maggad III chose to give up one newspaper so that he might keep twenty-six others, God help them. The deal was signed one week before young Race's favorite polo pony attacked him in the stall, stomping on his cranium. With therapy he seems to be recovering steadily, though doctors doubt he'll ever drive a five-speed transmission again.
Last month, Ellen Polk became the first woman publisher of the Union-Register.The first thing she did was expand the news hole by twenty-five percent. The second thing she did was order Abkazion to fill the empty desks in the newsroom. Today separate reporters are assigned to Palm River, Beckerville and Silver Beach, blanket coverage which has compelled the politicians there to quit running their council meetings as weekly bazaars.