Perfect. She had all she needed.
In the booth, the assistant director was counting out of the sports slot. ‘Okay... ready Max ... and three, two, one... and roll tape and kill camera three, kill Wally’s mike ... and camera three on Liza. Jeez, look at her — she’d look great in a garbage bag...’
‘She’s got the best ass in Boston,’ Tubby said wistfully.
‘I’m talking about her face, Tubby — Thirty seconds, get in a bit tighter on Jackson . . . camera one on the weather map.
lookin’ good— You can’t even see her ass, she’s sitting down.’
‘You can sure see it when she stands up,’ Tubby said.
Liza was still scribbling notes to herself, changes she would make from the crib sheet she had already rewritten twice, part of it after she had turned the story in to be typed for the monitor. Her adrenaline was roaring. The AD’s voice crackled in her ear: ‘Ready three on Liza and let me have a voice check on Liza.
‘Hi, my hair is green and my eyes are—’
‘Good, and we have a one-minute cutaway and then back to you, Liza, and you have five minutes before the editorial. We’re running about two seconds ahead right now . .. lookin’ good ... and okay, camera three... and four, three, two, one
you’re on, Liza... and ready Liza’s tape...’
She looked straight into the camera, leaning forward just slightly. ‘Good evening, this is Eliza Gunn with Hotline Report. At five-fifty-eight today, two minutes before we went on the air, Jonathan Caldwell, president and chairman of the board of the nation’s second most powerful banking institution, fell or jumped to his death from the thirty-second floor of the batik his father started sixty years ago. At three o’clock this afternoon, two hours before his death plunge, I interviewed Jonathan Caldwell in a garage in Boston’s North End, talking with him about the scandal that has brought his bank close to failure, and has brought disgrace to one of this country’s most powerful business and political families -..‘
In the control room, the monitor girl said, ‘Man, she’s nowhere near the script. She’s really straying.’
Tubby got restless. ‘Buck, tell the floor director to give her four, three and two minute time cues. If she goes over we’ll lose the editorial and the Old Man’ll chew my ass off.’
‘He’d die of old age before he could finish,’ Buck said and speared his finger into the floor director’s mike button.
‘Very funny,’ Tubby said. He walked to the control board and pressed the loudspeaker button: ‘Liza, cut your close in half ... you went almost twenty seconds over on the intro.’
Buck’s voice came on again as Caldwell’s interview rolled on the monitors: ‘Okay, we’re coming up on thirty seconds on the tape. Remember, keep it short, Liza, we’re very tight. .. And coming up on end of tape ... four, three, two, one. What the hell, the tape’s running long—’
‘Cut it,’ Tubby cried.
‘I can’t cut it now, he’s right in the middle of talking about— Wait a minute, here we go: Ready three ... and ready...’
‘Goddammit, goddamn,’ Tubby bellowed. ‘We’re already forty seconds over! I told her five minutes. Four for the tape and a thirty-second live shot going in and coming out. Pull the plug on her. Get her off there.’
‘I can’t do that, she’s right in the middle of her closeout,’ the AD said.
‘I don’t believe her,’ Tubby boomed.
‘Kill the editorial?’ the AD asked.
Tubby scratched his head frantically.
‘Kill the goddamn editorial. I don’t fucking believe her!’
‘It’s a good shot, Tubby.’
‘I don’t give a doodly fuck if she’s breaking World War III, I gave her five goddamn minutes and look at her.. . she’s acting like she’s doing a thirty-fuckin’-minute sitcom, for Chris- sakes.’
‘She’s closing out now,’ the AD said. He shoved a button. ‘Chuck, we’re right on it, so get out fast. And there she goes
now, four, three, two, and out... and take three, Chuck’s mike...’
In the studio, Graves gave his usual confident smile. ‘And that’s the news,’ he said. ‘Charles Graves, see you at eleven.’
The AD flipped switches and sagged in his chair. ‘That’s a wrap,’ he sighed into the mike.
‘Goddammit!’ Tubby Slocum bellowed. ‘I told her five minutes. Did you see the floor director give her a minute and then thirty seconds? She went right on. A minute and twenty-two seconds over. Goddammit!’ He stormed out of the control room.
Liza gathered up her things and winked at Graves. ‘Nice,’ she said.
Graves smiled. He had been a newsman for twelve years and he knew a good news break when he saw one.
Tubby was waiting for her when she came out of the studio. He waddled along beside her as she took giant steps down the hail toward her office.
‘Dammit,’ the fat man snapped, ‘I told you five minutes. I stretched to give you five minutes. Five ... not six plus.’ His face was the colour of a boiled lobster ‘From now on when I tell ya—’
She stopped and Tubby had to catch himself to keep from running over her.
‘Tubby?’
Yeah?’
‘Was it a good shot?’
‘What’s that got to—’
‘Was it good or not?’
‘That ain’t the point. The point is, I’m the producer of this goddamn show. I can’t have the talent running all over me—’
‘Tubby?’
‘What, for Chrissakes?’
‘Was it a good shot?’
‘So it was a good shot. You know it was a good shot.’
‘Gave you a good show, didn’t it?’
‘Lizzie...’
‘It’s Eliza... E-liza. Bye.’
She blew him a kiss and went into her office, kicking the door shut behind her.
‘Ah, damn,’ Tubby said forlornly. As he turned toward the studio, he yelled back at her door, ‘Being a producer around here is like trying to direct a Broadway show full of deaf-mutes.’
The phone was ringing when she entered the office. She dropped her clipboard and notes on the desk, took a deep breath, stared at the phone and lit a cigarette.
Well, shit, she thought, I can’t avoid it.
She snatched up the phone. ‘Gunn here,’ she snapped.
‘Very nice,’ the voice said. Howe’s voice was a deep, quiet, paternal rumble. He never raised it and he rarely showed anger. He didn’t have to.
‘Look, Mr Howe, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude...’
‘My dear, I have been a newsman all my life, I didn’t inherit this business, I started it. Myself. I know a good news story when I see one. Although I must say I am deeply sympathetic toward Johnny Caldwell. He was a good friend. That’s not why I called, however. I have an assignment I’d like you to consider.’
She tried to remain calm. Charles Gordon Howe, calling her. ‘An assignment?’
‘Not in your regular line.’
‘You mean it will take me away from the show?’
‘Yes.’
‘For how long?’
‘That really depends a lot on you. Are you free right now? I’ll have my car bring you over.’
‘Look, Mr Howe, I’ve been doing investigative reporting for almost three years and I’ve got a good reputation. To leave the show now...’ She let the sentence hang
‘Mmmm.’ The deep rumble. Seconds of silence. She was getting uncomfortable.
‘I’ve been watching you very closely.,. May I call you Liza?’
‘It’s E-liza, but everybody does.’
‘All right, Eliza. I think you may be the best television reporter I’ve got. That’s why I want to discuss this with you. Of course, there’s a bonus in this—’
‘It’s not the money,’ she said quickly. ‘Well, I mean, of course money is important. It’s just that, people forget you fast. Three months and they won’t know who I am. How long will this take?’