As Wallace leaned back in his chair and relit his cigar, he was also feeling a surge. Only it was admiration, for himself, for having pegged Dena Nordstrom. Damn, she was tough. She never flinched for a second while he was firing Sidney. She had not backed down an inch from him, either. He may have made some mistakes about people in the past, but he had always suspected that behind that innocent face was someone he could use to push all those sanctimonious types over at the other network—the types that looked down on him—right out of the business. Especially their lordly newscaster, Kingsley, who Wallace would love to knock off his pedestal. Howard Kingsley had once refused to work with him, costing him a big job at Howard’s network, and he had not forgotten it. He reached over and buzzed Sidney Capello’s new office. Capello picked up.
“It’s me, Ira.”
Capello started to curse him and to issue threats and Ira said, “Hey, hey, hold on … hold on. I know what I said but listen to me.” He yelled. “Listen, for Christ sakes! You ain’t gonna sue anybody. I called to tell you not to take this thing seriously. I just needed to clear up a little temperament problem so don’t get excited. We can work your contract out, no big deal. So you just won’t come into the office. What’s so terrible? You stay home, you send your stuff in, you get paid. She don’t know the difference. You’re happy, I’m happy, she’s happy. I know I promised to get you in the door here, but what can I do? She hates your guts. Look, you’ll get paid and at the end of the year maybe a nice bonus, OK? It’ll be better in the long run. Trust me.”
Capello was bitterly disappointed. This was his chance, maybe his one chance to get into big-time television and he knew it. Wallace was the only one who would ever have hired him and now, thanks to that blond bimbo, he was right back where he started. Still nothing more than a paid informant working out of some seedy hotel room. There went the office, his producer title, everything, all because of some bitch who thought she was better than everybody else. Goddamn her.
As he packed up the office he had had for only a few days, he pacified himself somewhat by reading the plaque he kept on his desk. REVENGE IS A DISH BEST SERVED COLD. He smiled.
Life is a long time.
My Hero
New York City
1973
Two weeks after the Hamilton piece ran, Dena and almost everyone else of any prominence in television, except Ira Wallace, attended the Heart Fund dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria. The Heart Fund man of the year was Howard Kingsley, the grand old man of news broadcasting and one of the last really great newsmen in the country. He was introduced as the man whose face and voice had become the one the country depended on in any crisis for the past thirty years, to calm us down, to reassure us that all was well, or to share our sorrow. That was certainly true for Dena; his face and voice were as familiar to her as if she had known him all her life.
Kingsley was now sixty-four years old and still a handsome man, distinguished for his thoughtfulness and balance, and beautifully spoken. His acceptance speech was gracious. He thanked his wife of forty years for sticking with him through thick and thin (“mostly thick”) and said that without her he most likely would have wound up selling insurance in Des Moines, Iowa. That she and his daughter, Anne, had always been “his safe harbor on the rocky and stormy sea of broadcasting.” After his short speech he received a five-minute standing ovation, and as professional and sophisticated as Dena thought she was, she was thrilled to be in the same room with him. As dinner went on she tried to figure out what he had that was so different from most of the TV people she had met. Then it came to her: integrity, that’s what it was. It wasn’t really anything he did or said but you just had the feeling that he was a decent and honorable man who could always be trusted to tell you the truth. He wasn’t really different than most men, but in the television news business, integrity was slowly becoming a rarity, more and more like a light in the dark. Dena looked over at his wife and daughter and felt that old feeling whenever she saw a father and a daughter, a sadness tinged with envy. All she had ever seen of her father was a photograph. She was even envious of Ira Wallace’s little girl. He might be one of the most despicable human beings she had ever met but at least he did adore his daughter.
After the dinner, as they were walking out, J.C. said, “By the way, we have an invitation to the reception for Kingsley upstairs.”
“What reception?”
“It’s a small, private reception that Jeanette Rockefeller is having for a few friends.” J.C. was a fund-raiser and knew a great many people. She did not want to go.
“Why not?”
“I won’t know any of them. I’m not a friend of his; he might think I’m too pushy or something.”
“Oh, come on, don’t be silly. Jeanette is a friend of mine. Come on.”
“You go and I’ll wait for you.”
But J.C. would not take no for an answer and five minutes later she found herself upstairs in a suite, at a party with the heads of all three networks, including Julian Amsley, the man who ran hers. She was horrified when he looked over and saw her. Oh, God, she thought, now he’s going to think I’m some gate-crasher, but he nodded pleasantly at her. After about thirty minutes of trying to hide in a corner, Dena watched Jeanette Rockefeller approach and start to pull everyone over to meet the guest of honor. Now Dena stood in line with J.C. and wanted to drop right through the floor. She watched as Howard Kingsley came closer, shaking each person’s hand and saying a few words, and at last when Dena was introduced, she had an almost uncontrollable desire to curtsy. But she managed to look calm and say, “Congratulations, sir, I enjoyed your speech.” Howard looked at her with a slight little smile, and with a nod of his head said, “Thank you very much, young lady.” As she started to move away he said, “Oh, by the way, Miss Nordstrom, I caught the Hamilton piece. Good work. Let’s have lunch sometime.”
Dena managed an “Oh, thank you,” just as the hostess steered forward another guest.
Had she heard right? Had he actually said, “Good work, let’s have lunch,” or was she hallucinating? Maybe she misunderstood; he had really said, “Bad work, hated it a bunch.” J.C. was still behind her and Dena grabbed him by the arm. “Did you hear him say, ‘Let’s have lunch’?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. I was standing right there.”
“Oh, my God … what do you think he wants?”
J.C. laughed. “What do you think he wants? He wants to tell you, you are the most talented and brilliant woman in New York.”
“Don’t be silly. Did he really say, ‘Good work’?”
“Yes.”
“What do you think that means?”
“It means he thought you did good work.”
“And he really said it?”
“Yes, Dena. Am I going to have to carry a tape recorder around to gather all these little kudos from now on?”
“No, it’s just that you never figure that someone like him would be watching me. I mean, I’m a silly little fill-in interviewer.”
When they got into the cab Dena said, “Oh, let’s don’t go home, I’m too excited to go home. Let’s go to Sardi’s.”
All the way across town, Dena kept talking. “I still can’t believe it. You know, J.C., I never told you but he’s been sort of a hero of mine.”