Killer ratings, p.21
Killer Ratings, page 21
“This is a disaster,” he moaned.
A large high definition television screen decorated one wall of the long boardroom. On the screen, Governor Konrad Scheissenhauser battled rioters as if he were back in his 1980s silver screen glory days. There was already talk of million-dollar offers wooing California’s governor back to the movie business even though his actions during the riots had already prompted more than a dozen civil lawsuits.
Scheissenhauser had come out of this with his image burnished. There was even renewed talk of amending the Constitution to allow foreign-born citizens the right to become president of the United States.
And what did BCN have to show for it?
“Freeze,” Uriah ordered.
Down the table, someone punched the remote control.
The image paused. There was Kitty Coughlin, BCN’s answer to the tough-as-nails reporters of yesteryear, clinging to Governor Scheissenhauser, Botoxed face frozen in terror, mouth open wide as she screeched for her life.
“A disaster,” Uriah repeated, closing his eyes on the TV, as if the image of Kitty screaming caused him physical pain. “Shut it off.” The TV winked off and Uriah moaned. “Fifteen million dollars. We’re bleeding here. We’re a hair from dead. What can we do for damage control? I want ideas, no matter how far-fetched. We’ve got to fix this.”
An eager young executive suggested they hire back BCN’s most recent full-time anchor, the man who had anchored their newscast for twenty-five years.
“You’ve got to be kidding me. He’s nuts.”
“It doesn’t have to be permanent. Just temporarily, as a stopgap until we can find a replacement for Kitty.”
“We can’t bring him back,” Uriah argued. “Not only has he been bad-mouthing us ever since we fired him, he’s been in and out of nuthouses the past two years. They found him just last week in the men’s room of a Bed, Bath & Beyond in El Paso. He’d shaved his head in the sink and kept asking employees ‘What’s the frequency?’ ”
“How about Grandfather Clarence?” the young executive said. “We got him to do that voiceover for Kitty’s newscast. He was up for that, he might be up for this.”
Clarence Wenthall was the dean of American television journalism. In his early career he had been a radio broadcaster who had moved into TV in the medium’s infancy. Because of his grumpy, jowly face and somber delivery he had been dubbed “Grandfather Clarence.”
He was also a petty, bitter tyrant who terrorized the staff at BCN for twenty years. Far from his benign grandfatherly image, he was the man most responsible for transforming the evening news from a simple accounting of daily events to a nightly half-hour of poisonous bias. The old-timers at BCN knew Wenthall well.
Uriah nodded as he considered the suggestion. “Do you think he’d do it?” he asked. “Just for a few months even?”
“No way you can bring him back,” a white-haired executive said, shaking his head firmly. “He’s nearly a hundred. We’ve got a youth problem as it is, that’d kill us demographically. Besides, I was on his boat up at Martha’s Vineyard last summer. The galley was stocked with nothing but Pepto, Viagra, Seagrams and Depends.”
“He’d be sitting,” Uriah said. “No one would see him from the waist down. This would just be temporary.”
“I think he’s gone senile,” the old executive said. “He was calling his captain Rosalinda all day and kept trying to stuff dollar bills down the poor guy’s pants.”
“We can work around that,” Uriah insisted.
“At one point he burst into tears, shouted ‘That’s the way it was,’ stripped off his clothes and jumped naked into the ocean. When they fished him out of some lobster nets he was yelling about how Vietnam was a lost cause.”
Uriah considered for a long moment. “Okay, let’s put him in the maybe pile. Anybody else? Anybody at all?”
“I hate to mention her,” a female executive said, “because I worked with her when she was coanchoring here but there’s always Cheeta Ching.”
There were more than a few groans around the table.
“Cheeta,” Uriah said, nodding even as he raised a questioning eyebrow at the naysayers. “I was over in sports when she was here. Was she really as bad as her rep?”
“Even nastier than Kitty,” insisted one man.
“Yes, but if we’re talking a temporary fix while we look for a permanent replacement, Cheeta might work,” the woman said. “She knows the job, she can read from the teleprompter and she’d kill to get back on network. The first ratings dip of Kitty’s in her first week on the air, Cheeta smelled the blood in the water and faxed me over her résumé. She’s sent it a few times since then.”
“Cheeta’s credibility is too damaged after that disaster on the piano,” the white-haired executive insisted. “If she hadn’t set fire to herself, maybe. But we can’t go from a catastrophe like Kitty clinging to Scheissenhauser to an embarrassment like Cheeta in that burning gown of hers. We’re still the Diamond Network, for God’s sake.”
Uriah nodded reluctantly. “You’re right, Bill. Of course, you’re right.” He took a deep breath and exhaled loudly. “Anybody else, people? Anyone at all?”
“What about you-know-who?” someone suggested.
There was a collective gasp around the room.
Everyone knew who you-know-who was. The man had been a high profile reporter at BCN for years until the bias of the Diamond Network’s news reporting became too much for him to bear. He’d had the temerity to suggest that maybe their newscast could be improved by introducing a smidgeon of fairness and a scintilla of balance to the lopsided single-party dogma that BCN nightly gussied up and paraded across America’s screens as impartial news. For sounding a wakeup call at the network, you-know-who had first been marginalized and finally fired, and employees of the Evening News were forbidden to speak his name within the hallowed halls of BCN ever again. This became an even greater imperative once you-know-who began to spin himself a very successful post-BCN career penning best-selling books detailing just how corrupt and politically motivated the BCN Evening News had become.
“Hire back you-know-who? Are you out of your mind?” Uriah demanded of the middle-aged executive whose suggestion had paled faces around the gleaming table and had caused one female executive at the far end to faint outright.
“Um, it’d shake things up,” the executive said.
“We shook things up when we hired the first solo female anchor and look where that’s gotten us.” Uriah groaned and buried his face in his hands. “That’s it. We’re sunk. We’re stuck with Kitty for now.”
“What do you mean ‘stuck with Kitty’?” a furious voice screeched from the doorway.
Uriah, his face in his hands, had not seen the door burst open. Kitty stormed into the boardroom, accompanied by Remo and Chiun. The appearance of Kitty Coughlin was the equivalent of shouting “fire” in a crowded movie theater. There were a dozen rapidly muttered excuses as the other executives abandoned ship and raced for the two exits. In a flash they were gone, the doors slammed shut and Uriah was forced to face down BCN’s irate star anchorwoman alone.
“Kitty, welcome back,” Uriah said, his lips pulling back into the best facsimile of a smile he could manage under the circumstances. He made a mental note to chew out his secretary for not warning him that Kitty was in the building.
“What’s all this?” Kitty snapped.
Uriah suddenly noticed all the papers and publicity head shots that were scattered on the table before him. He made a mad grab to gather them up but was too slow for Kitty.
“Cheeta Ching? Clarence Wenthall?” she said, spying the photos even as Uriah clutched the files to his chest. “Clarence Wenthall! You’re actually thinking of replacing me with that old fart? The day we had him here to do the voice intro for my first newscast, he felt me up, crapped his pants and fell asleep all within a span of two minutes. You think people will tune in for that?”
“Actually, I’d probably watch that,” Remo said.
“That is because you have no respect for the elderly,” Chiun said. “At least not those who matter.”
Remo had had enough. “Dammit, Chiun, I have respect for you,” he snapped. “More respect than I guess you’ll ever know.”
The old Korean took in his pupil’s words and, finding only deep sincerity, turned his attention to Uriah and Kitty. “Please, Remo,” Chiun admonished, unable to keep the brush of a smile from his thin lips, “stop jabbering. This is an important meeting.” He nodded to Kitty. “Carry on, most beautiful lady.”
“Uriah—” Kitty began.
“Listen, Kitty,” Uriah pleaded. “You’ve got to understand the position we’re in. They’re laughing at BCN news. Have you seen the Wall Street Journal editorial today? ‘What’s Happened to the Diamond Network?’ It’s brutal. I hear Newsweek is giving you the cover next week. They’ve dredged up everything, all the way back to the monkey-shit incident. Now don’t worry. As you heard, we’re not pulling you off the air for good. But it’s probably a good idea to take you off for a week while we retool. If you feel threatened, we can pull up someone from one of the affiliates to anchor. Hell, a weatherman or a sports guy if that makes you happy. No competition in-house. How’s that sound?”
Kitty pulled the files from Uriah’s hands and, with an angry grunt, heaved them at the wall. Headshots and papers fluttered to the floor as Kitty stormed silently between Remo and Chiun and out of the conference room.
Uriah groaned. “That went better than I thought it would,” he said.
“How hard can it be to get someone to read the news?” Remo asked. “You’ve got a good voice. You do it.”
Uriah shook his head. “You’ve got to be able to connect with the audience. There’s a bond of trust between anchor and viewer. Kitty had a hard time with that even before this. We tried to back her up in every conceivable way, but it just wasn’t there. Now this.” He glanced at Chiun. “What did you suggest when we first met? Doing the whole news in Korean? That might pull in bigger numbers than Kitty. Hell, the Spanish channels do their own news.”
“As spokesman for my community, there is no self-respecting Korean who would deign to host your news program now nor would any watch,” Chiun said. “Not after that woman has befouled your airwaves.”
“What about her?” Remo asked. He stabbed a toe at a publicity photo that had fallen face-up on the floor near Uriah. Cheeta Ching was like a grinning barracuda.
Uriah had squatted down and was gathering up his fallen paperwork. He paused to gaze wistfully at the picture. “I watched her demo this morning. It wasn’t bad. She’s matured into the role. Problem is that damned piano. If she hadn’t made a fool of herself on that piano—or maybe if she just hadn’t set fire to herself—we’d probably have hired her back by now. Put Kitty back on mornings maybe. As it is, if we hire anyone new it’s probably going to have to be a man.”
A knock on the door and Uriah glanced up.
“Excuse me, sirs,” said a timid voice. Chiun’s intern stepped hesitantly into the room carrying an OverNite Express package. “It’s addressed to the Master of Sinanju?” the young man asked, wincing when Chiun and Remo turned his way.
Remo reached for the package but Chiun was quicker. The old man plucked the box from the intern.
“You know, I’m technically the Master of Sinanju,” Remo pointed out as the old man sliced open one end of the box with the edge of a fingernail.
“You have entrusted the business affairs of the House to the Reigning Master Emeritus,” Chiun said. “Which is why I must spend my retirement years traipsing around the world with you when I should be watching the children play in the waves of the West Korean Bay while I sit on the shore of my beloved Sinanju and mend fishing nets. Or, Remo, if you are suddenly interested in business, do you now want to sit in that cheerless office and stare down Smith’s gray face when the next contract negotiations come around?”
“Good point,” Remo said. “So what did we get?”
A solid gold bar slipped into Chiun’s palm. Eyes widening, he shook the empty box looking for more. No more gold fell out, but a scrap of paper did. Remo picked it up off the floor but Chiun snatched it from him before he could read it. It was a short note. All Remo had seen was that it was signed “A Friend” in a tiny, painful scrawl.
“Who is that from?” Remo asked.
“Can’t you read? It is from my friend.”
“You don’t have any friends, least of all friends who would send you gold out of the blue.”
“I have you,” Chiun said. The gold bar vanished up the sleeve of his kimono. The note he read again, turning the paper front and back to see if there was any more writing.
“Since when do you consider me a friend?”
“That is not what I meant. I meant that if I have no friends it is because of you always hanging around chasing nice people away. But in point of fact I have many friends including my very good friend who sent me this gift. When I find out who he is I will have to do something nice for him.”
“Yeah, you do that,” Remo grumbled. “Send your good buddy a fruit basket.”
Chiun stroked his thread of beard. “Oranges are always nice,” he said, nodding.
“Could you two please excuse me?” Uriah begged morosely. He was seated at the conference table once more, the publicity photos of several impossible-to-hire news anchor candidates spread out before him. “Aren’t you here to bodyguard Kitty? Can’t you go off and do that and leave me and my ruined career in peace?”
Chiun’s intern was hovering near the door. “Ms. Coughlin?” he said. “She’s gone. She had the desk call her a cab.” When he saw the look on Remo’s face, the young man darted from the room.
“Crap,” Remo said. “We were supposed to make sure nothing bad happened around her.”
“You were worried about her going on the air, weren’t you?” Uriah asked. “Well, that’s not a problem now. Forget what I told her just now about one week. After her performance at the riots we’ve pulled her for at least two weeks, maybe three. We have to try to get the memory of her glued to Scheissenhauser’s back out of viewers’ minds. All ten of them that are still watching.”
“A week is more than enough time,” Chiun announced. The OverNite Express note disappeared up the same voluminous kimono sleeve as had the gold. “Come, Remo, we have business to conduct.” He turned for the door.
“Wait. Whoa. Hold your horses. What business?”
“If you are now truly interested in the business end of our business, I will tell you in the air,” Chiun said, breezing past his pupil and out of the room.
Remo exhaled loudly. “Why is it always such a freaking mystery all the time?” he demanded of Uriah. “Why is it I’m always kept in the dark? Why can’t anything with him ever be simple and straightforward?”
“And bring your credit card,” Chiun’s disembodied voice called from the hallway.
22
Kitty waited inside the Forty-third Street entrance of BCN’s world headquarters and watched the security guard standing out on the sidewalk.
“Uriah, you son-of-a-bitch fruit,” Kitty snarled to herself. A middle-aged couple spotted her loitering as they entered the building and smiled in her direction. “What the hell are you looking at?” Kitty yelled, sending the pair running.
A yellow cab pulled up to the curb outside and the desk guard leaned into the passenger window. When he ducked back out, he waved and nodded at Kitty.
“Pull me off the air, will he?” she said as she hustled out the gleaming doors. “Maybe I’ll just take a vacation. Maybe if they want me back on in a week the whole damn board will have to fly down to Barbados on bended knee begging me to come back. They’ll have to pay me on the air or on the beach. The hell with Uriah, the hell with all of them.”
The guard opened the back door and Kitty hustled past him without so much as a nod of thanks. She was picturing BCN’s board of directors in their French suits standing in the tropical surf begging her to fulfill her contract. She wondered if Uriah liked spearfishing and what that spineless queen would look like with a spear sticking out of his neck.
So distracted was Kitty that she did not notice the man in the backseat until she was already in the cab.
“No-the-hell way,” Kitty said. “I’m not sharing any goddamn cab with any goddamn plebe.”
She suddenly felt a pair of very strong hands on her shoulders. The lobby guard had leaned far into the cab and was pinning her to her seat.
“Are you nuts?” Kitty snarled. “Get your hands off—”
The man in the backseat reached over and slapped a cloth over her mouth and nose. The cloth was damp and smelled vaguely medicinal, like a hospital ward hallway.
And then the veil of night drew down over Kitty Coughlin and she slumped into the seat of the cab.
“Is she out?” the guard asked.
The man in the backseat nodded. Sweat ran down his pale face between the avenues crafted by ravaging acne.
The guard slammed the door and leaned in the window.
“So does this mean he’ll leave me and my wife alone?” the guard begged, glancing from the man in the rear to the nervous driver. “He’s practically destroyed our credit.”
In the backseat of the taxi, Wayne Dwyer shook his sweaty head. “He never leaves you alone,” he said.
The window slowly powered up. Leaving the BCN guard on the sidewalk, the yellow cab pulled into the thick late-afternoon Manhattan traffic.
23
As the boy ran through the living room, a dollop of dripped chocolate slipped from the tip of the sugar cone and dotted the white shag carpet between his bare feet.
Daisy O’Toole leaned forward and with one mighty paw slapped the melting ice cream cone out of the little boy’s tiny hand.
“Whaddaya gettin’ crap all over the goddamn carpet for?” Daisy raged. Tears welled in the child’s big eyes.
As messes went, the drop on the carpet was nothing compared to the shattered cone and splattered chocolate ice cream which, thanks to Daisy’s outburst, now decorated two walls and a piece of erotic lesbian artwork on velvet.
