It was quite odd—all of it. Victor Trask, headache forgotten, zooming around the tailgaters in the direction of downtown Kansas City, had the odd sensation of being fairly successful in a job he didn't totally understand. Beginning his thirteenth year in a business that made him, at thirty-six, wonder what he wanted to do for a living "when he grew up." And for all that, it was rather satisfying. He genuinely thought "Inside America" was entertaining radio, and this was at least as much fun—if harder work-than the news gig. The job also paid more, you could come in late, or leave early, if you didn't do it too often, and there was no heavy lifting.
He tuned the band of the radio, flipping across the polluted Missouri air:
"Love thirty and the match. We'll be going to Lion, France, on Monday to bring you—" Trask twisted, with a grimace, reminding himself to tell the news reader he'd mispronounced a word.
"…all you talk about is fish and seafood…"
"…on Power ninety-nine! No showers showing within twenty miles of Kansas City and…"
"…Royals lead. It's two and oh!"
"…Sweet Home Ala-bah-ma!…"
"…I-70 just three miles past the Truman Sports Complex. Come on down and check out this selection. You won't—" He clicked back to FM and got some easy guitar he couldn't identify and filed it all away.
Victor Trask was an observer. He noticed things. He would have made an okay cop or a P.I., he thought. Maybe the investigative reporting part of this research gig was what held such appeal for him. He liked the hunt. The dig. Yet, in personal relationships, he hadn't shown any of the same dedication, or tenacity, or grit. He'd in fact screwed away a perfectly good marriage—boring and dead-end but perfectly good—because it seemed as if he could never get into his home life the way he could his work. He was a workaholic, he supposed. Not for the money. That was obvious enough. He liked to keep his mind occupied.
Now his wife was a memory that would have faded completely but for odd moments when a desire to see or talk to his daughter brought the exes into brief contact again. Neither of them could believe they'd ever been married and had lived together for six years, a couple of lifetimes ago.
He finally made it downtown in one piece and went through the usual ritual of the parking garage. Lower-level employees (and you couldn't get much lower than Trask: a few news readers, apprentice engineers, various and sundry copywriters, purchasing assistants, receptionists and typists, and a couple of security guys shared the lowest plateau) could not park in the postage-stamp rectangles reserved for KCM's "key" employees. These were the executives; anyone with chief, manager, or director in their title; the station controller; Mr. Kidder; Mr. Flynn; the VIP rectangle; and of course the account execs. Even the engineers had two spaces! When contract renewal time came around, if he had the clout and the numbers were still up, he was determined to somehow lobby for a parking space. It would be the equivalent of a raise both in money and prestige, but to Trask the awarding of a space epitomized the tacit acknowledgment of worth. Not to mention the implication of a degree of assured tenure.
Trask came into the station through the big, showy front doors, a massive pair of bronze slabs in "lightning-bolt deco," waved to the guy at the security desk, and walked across the long foyer to the elevator. All you saw here were giant plants and the ultramodern artwork and sculpture that dominated the length of KCM's entranceway. From the front doors only the unobtrusive security post, the front desk—always staffed by a bevy of lovely youngsters who came and went with the tide—and the plush seating arrangements in the first-floor lobby waiting area were visible. If one made it past the guard and front desk and turned left, the richly appointed VIP waiting area beckoned. Beyond that was a door that led to the sales area: the sales manager's offices off to the right, the sales receptionist and account executives' offices to the left. Coming back toward the front of the building one would pass sales lounge and bathroom, the big sales conference room, and what they called no-man's-land. Here, at the front of the building, but inaccessible from the front doors or foyer, was the general manager's huge sanctuary, and sandwiched between various utility and storage rooms was the room that housed the internal closed-circuit internal security monitors, and, some said, the audio equipment. It was generally thought that every word spoken in the building was recorded, and-presumably—monitored.
Inside that room abutting on the visible security desk in the foyer, was an invisible room of which Bill Higgins, head of KCM security, was lord high chamberlain. "Inspector Higgins of the Yard," as they called him outside the station, was a pleasant-looking balding man with a mustache, to whom no one but the G.M. and—rumor had it—Rogers Communications, conversed. While it was necessary to have security because of the controversial nature of some of the programming, the way it was handled added to the feeling of paranoia that helped to keep KCM's employees on their toes.
Trask had his I.D. on his shirt, but neither the front-desk guard nor the receptionist needed to see it. Both of them knew his face as he knew theirs. His ride in the elevator was a solo one, so his first words inside the station were spoken on the second floor when he got out and smiled at the beautiful girl at the desk. "Good morning."
"Good afternoon, Vic." She smiled, and he winked at her. All men winked at her—it was a law. Her name was Monica Bonebreak but they called her Monica Heartbreak, a former Miss Congeniality in the Miss Missouri contest, and if she was a loser, thank the Lord that Vic had never met the winner. He always had to fight to get his breath back as he walked past her.
The "program floor" receptionist sat with her back to a long glass wall that ran the length of the building. Behind the glass, one saw Adam David, if he was at his desk, flanked by all the news editors and news readers/reporters, the wire service room, and the editing facilities. All of this was backed with a display of electronic gear, world maps, and a long bank of clocks that gave the time in Tokyo, London, Paris, Moscow, and so on. Everyone who worked at KCM was very ashamed of the clocks, but so far they had been a legacy that Rogers Communications insisted was "part of the KCM-age." If it wasn't broke, don't fix it, so the hokey Dave Garroway-era clocks stayed.
Free-form seating and more silver and bronze sculptures flanked the artwork at the receptionist's desk. Glass walls were at either end of the long entrance area, and a visitor could see Production Studio C to the right, the back of which contained an impressive library, and the announcer engineer area, and to the left were the double-paned hallways that separated Broadcast Studio A and Master Control from the civilians.
Out front, it was all spacious and artsy-fartsy, but Trask no longer worked out here. He walked around the lounges and stopped at Production where he saw a news reader working at the mike. He cracked the door to Engineering.
"Is he doing anything I can't interrupt?"
"Naw," the engineer grunted.
"Thanks," Trask said. He went in to where the man was getting ready to record. "Hi."
"Hello."
"'Scuse me. Hope I'm not screwing you up?"
"Uh-uh. Watcha need? I'll be done in five minutes."
"No.' I don't need in. I was listening on the way in. It's Lee-ohn. The city in France?"
"Huh?"
"You pronounced it like lion in a zoo—it's Lee-ohn." He gave the word its French pronunciation, the second syllable nasal and thrown away.
"Yeah, so?" The guy shrugged and opened his eyes wider, obviously pissed off.