She stepped into Stephen Shay’s spacious office as smoothly as she stepped into the living rooms of millions of Americans on Thursday nights.
Shay rose from behind his desk and moved away from it, grasping Sandy’s hands and kissing her lightly on the cheek.
“Perfect timing, San,” he told her. “I just got the nationals from last week. Up four share points.”
Shay was a dapper, elegant man with perfectly groomed silver hair waved over his ears and a measure of his forehead. He preferred three-piece suits to all other forms of clothing, and not one person at network headquarters could ever recall seeing him without his jacket on during business hours. His face looked as soft as a baby’s, his Lagerfeld aftershave applied in just the right quantity to last the entire day without being too strong.
“That’s great,” Sandy said honestly. “Steve, I’d like you to meet my assistant T.J. Brown.”
Shay took T.J.’s extended hand. “Thomas James, isn’t it?”
“Er, yes. But how did you know?”
“You’re in my department, son. I make it my business to know. Heard good things about you, damn good things.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Don’t thank me. Just keep it up.” Shay’s eyes moved back to Sandy. “Since you brought your assistant up with you, I gather you want to discuss a story.”
“On the money, Steve.”
“Coming to me direct for any special reason?”
“Do I need one?”
Shay smiled. “Not at all.” He extended his hand toward a leather couch and set of matching chairs surrounding a table, drenched with sunlight from a nearby window. “Let’s sit over here.”
A pair of phones was perched in the table’s center. Men like Shay seldom strayed far from the Touchtone.
“Coffee?” he offered when they had sat down. Sandy and T.J. both declined. “I suppose you want to get right to the point. What are you on to, Sandy?”
“Nothing earth-shattering. I’d just like to do a piece on Randall Krayman.”
“Billionaire and recluse?”
“That’s the one.”
“Tough to interview a man who hasn’t been seen in public in five years. Got an in with somebody?”
“No.”
“Any of our rivals got the story on their dockets?”
“60 Minutes started to put one together, then abandoned it.”
Shay nodded. “As I remember, we tossed a Krayman piece around here as well and rejected it, probably for the same reasons. Interviews without a subject are tough, San, even for you.”
“That’s why I brought my case direct to the fifteenth floor, Steve. I think we can put a damn good piece together on Krayman without the usual interview. Make a conceptual picture of him based on interviews with others and background material.”
Shay looked away skeptically. “That kind of story isn’t your specialty, San.”
“You mean, that kind of story isn’t why you’re paying me two million a year.”
“No,” Shay said defensively, “that’s not what I mean. One on one with a subject, you’re fantastic, the best I’ve ever seen. I don’t care how Joe or Joan Hollywood reconcile their personal life with their professional life, but you make even me care. You bring these people to life and you do it in a way that doesn’t demean you. There’s no way anyone can put a price tag on that kind of gift.”
“Don’t tell that to my agent.”
“I’m serious, San. Conceptual stories are great when they work, but they’re boring as hell when they don’t. Stick to the media, San. That’s your beat.”
“But Randall Krayman is the media,” Sandy insisted. “Just hear me out. T.J.’s been doing some research, and his findings have got me thinking Krayman falls right into my beat.”
“I’m listening,” said Shay reluctantly.
“T.J.,” Sandy cued.
Brown cleared his throat and opened the manila folder he’d been fondling since the conversation began. “I’d better start at the beginning. Krayman was born in Boothbay Harbor, Maine, in 1940. His father was a moderately successful businessman who got in on the ground floor of plastics and made a fortune during the war. It looked like he had taken the business as far as it could go when he died in 1957. On paper the company was taken over by old man Krayman’s wife, but in reality all the decisions were made and the managing done by Randall, who had just turned eighteen. Randall gave up his plans to go to college and ended up quadrupling the company’s profits in only two years, turning it into perhaps the largest plastics producer in the country. Not one to rest on his laurels, Randall Krayman invested every cent of the profits he was responsible for in millions of acres of land across Wyoming, Montana, and thereabouts. Scientists knew there was oil under it somewhere, but back then, this is fifty-nine remember, no one could envision the technology needed to bring it up.”
T.J. flipped to the next page. “Except Krayman. Within ten years his wells were spouting as much crude as the best Texas had to offer and he owned every ounce of it lock, stock, and literally barrel. He made another fortune, this one too large to even contemplate. But once again he didn’t sit still. He took all his profits and launched massive investments into a new and mysterious field, something called the integrated circuit.”
“Computers,” muttered Shay.
“The beginning of the explosion thereof,” T.J. continued. “The integrated circuit laid the foundation for the computer chip, the microchip, micro-circuitry — the whole shooting match. Krayman made another incredible fortune. Some called him the first landlord in Silicon Valley.”
“Hell of a crystal ball he must have,” Shay noted. “First plastics, then oil, then computers. You can’t do much better than that.”
“And Krayman didn’t stop there either. About ten years ago his computer researchers came up with something called the Krayman Chip, an advanced ultra-density memory chip with unheard-of storage, tailor-made for computers used to control television and radio signal switching, telephone routing, radar screens — anything that qualifies as data transmissions. And most incredibly this new chip was produced through a process so cheap that Krayman was able to undercut the entire industry.”
“Yet another fortune,” concluded Shay, his interest growing with each flip of T.J.’s notes.
“That’s what I meant about Krayman being such a great part of the media,” Sandy interjected. “People should kneel and bow twice to the Krayman Tower in Houston every time they turn their televisions on.”
“That doesn’t mean they’ll turn them on to watch a story about it,” Shay said softly.
Sandy kept her calm. “Howard Hughes’s death sent the networks scrambling to scoop each other. People ended up fascinated by him because they’re fascinated generally by power and wealth, the more immeasurable the better. Well, Krayman makes Hughes look like a business school dropout. They’ll watch. Believe me.”
Shay weakened. “Any chance of getting in to see the man himself?”
Sandy shrugged. “There’s always a chance, but I doubt it. I’ve set up an interview with Francis Dolorman for a week from today. Dolorman’s the man who’s been running Krayman Industries since his boss’s extended vacation began five years ago. If anyone can set up a meet, it’s him.”
Shay’s eyebrows flickered. He hesitated. “I can spare you for a week, San. No more. And no cameras either, just the preliminary stuff. We’ll put everything you come up with together at the next staff meeting and see if there’s a story here or not.”
“Fair enough,” said Sandy.