“I saw it,” the secretary said. “But speaking of Wolf News: May I ask if Mr. Danton is with you?”
“Yes, of course you may, Madam Secretary,” Castillo said, and the green LEDs on the secretary’s CaseyBerry ceased to glow.
[TWO]
It was said, probably accurately, that there were more television monitors in the Wolf News newsroom than there were in the Sony and Sanyo warehouses combined. It was here that Wolf News not only maintained contact with its journalists worldwide but kept its eye on what the competition was up to.
This latter task was normally assigned to the most junior of the newsroom staff, the reason offered being that watching the competition broadened their journalistic horizons. Cynics said it was because somebody had to do it, and better that someone on the payroll who couldn’t find his or her buttocks with either or both hands do it than someone who could be put to laboring on more useful tasks.
And so it was that Miss Sarah Ward, who was twenty-two, a year out of Vassar, and the niece of the Wolf News Corporation’s senior vice president — real estate, was charged to see what the Continental Broadcasting Corporation was up to at midnight.
Specifically, she was tasked to watch Continental’s midnight news telecast, which was called Hockey Puck with Matthew Christian.
The show opened, as it always did, with a hockey player taking a healthy swipe at a hockey puck. The camera followed the puck down the ice as the puck went airborne and then struck a goalkeeper right in his mask, which knocked him off his feet and onto his rear end.
A basso profundo voice, while this was going on, solemnly announced, “It’s midnight, and time for Hockey Puck with Matthew Christian. Let the puck strike where it may!”
The camera then closed in on Mr. Christian, who his detractors said looked like a middle-aged chubby choirboy, sitting behind a desk.
“Good evening,” Mr. Christian said. “Welcome to Hockey Puck!
“My friends, I confess I don’t know what I’m talking about here. You watch, you decide!
“This just in from Sin City, otherwise known as Las Vegas, Nevada.”
The camera showed a crowd of journalists watching a Gulfstream V taxi to the tarmac before a hangar.
“Las Vegas is hosting the fifteenth annual award ceremonies of the adult motion picture business,” Mr. Christian said. “And the word going around is that Red Ravisher is the leading candidate for the best actress award. That much we know. And here she is arriving in Las Vegas in her private jet.”
The camera showed the stair door of the airplane rotating downward as it opened. A huge dog came down the stairs, and then a man started down the steps. The video image went into “freeze-frame mode” and a superimposed flashing arrow pointed to the man.
“Now, and I’m willing to stake my reputation on this,” Mr. Christian said. “That is Roscoe J. Danton, the syndicated columnist who is also employed by another, here unnamed, television news organization. One understandably wonders what Mr. Danton is doing on Red Ravisher’s private jet, but one also recalls that other networks boast that they will go anywhere and do anything to get a story.”
The video image began moving again and the camera followed the man on the stairs to the ground and then as he went to the crowd of journalists. Then the camera went back to the door of the Gulfstream.
“And here is Red Ravisher,” Mr. Christian announced. “One cannot help but note that magnificent head of red hair and… other physical attributes… that make her, so to speak, the Ethel Barrymore of the adult film industry.”
The camera closed in on the redhead’s physical attributes, and then went into freeze-frame mode again.
“Now watch this carefully,” Mr. Christian said, “for we’re about to lose the picture!”
The camera now showed the redhead walking up to a photographer, exchanging a few words with him, and then punching him so hard he fell down. The redhead then kicked him in what sometimes were referred to as a man’s “private parts,” and then picked him up. Next, Mr. Christian’s viewers saw him flying through the air toward the camera.
And then the picture was lost.
Miss Sarah Ward said, “Oh, my!”
And then she saved a digital file of the story to a portable hard drive and took it across the room to the desk of the senior producer.
“What have you got, honey?” he asked.
“Red Ravisher, the porn star, and Roscoe J. Danton,” Miss Ward said. “Miss Ravisher threw a photographer at Mr. Danton.”
[THREE]
When the elevator door opened and Hotelier, Annapolis, and Radio & TV Stations walked off onto the upper-foyer level of the duplex penthouse suite, Max, who had been sampling the steak and eggs of the breakfast buffet on the lower floor, took the stairs of the curved staircase three at a time, put his paws on Radio & TV Stations’ shoulders — standing on his hind paws, Max was taller than Radio & TV Stations — and affectionately licked his face.
Radio & TV Stations didn’t look very happy about it, but Charley Castillo was delighted.
If that’s any indication, coming here was one of my very few good ideas. Max is an excellent judge of character.
Hotelier and Annapolis, and finally Radio & TV Stations and Max, came down the stairs.
“Thanks for meeting with us on such short notice,” Charley said, as he offered his hand to Annapolis.
“You said it was important, Colonel,” Annapolis said.
Castillo turned to Hotelier.
“Good to see you,” he said. “And before I forget it, make sure I get the bill for all this.” He gestured around the suite, which he had been reliably informed was available only to those who could afford fifteen thousand dollars a night or who had been unlucky enough to lose five hundred thousand or more playing blackjack or some other innocent game of chance.
“I told you, Colonel, your money’s no good in Las Vegas,” Hotelier said.
“How about the CIA’s money?” Castillo asked. “I am about the Commander in Chief’s business, and on the CIA’s dime.”
“If that’s the case, I’ll have the fellow who owns this place get me a bill, and forward it to you.”
“Thanks.”
“How’d things go at the airport?” Radio & TV Stations asked. “Any problems? The cars I sent were waiting for you when you got there?”
“Your cars and… some other cars,” Castillo said, and visibly fought laughter.
“What other cars?”
“You had better be very careful, my darling, when you answer that question,” the Widow Alekseeva said.
“Something happen at the airport?”
“Yes, you could say that, I suppose,” Castillo said.
“What?” Radio & TV Stations asked.
“You have been warned, my darling,” Sweaty said menacingly.
“Sweetheart, I have to tell them. I’ll be as discreet as I can.”
“You had better be,” she said, “or the problems I will cause you will make the problems your demented President is causing you seem less than insignificant.”
“Our demented President is causing you more problems, Charley?” Hotelier asked.