Private Affairs

by Judith Michael

  She leaned back and gazed out the window at the dark sky. Lightning flashed on the horizon and as she watched it she recalled an electrical storm one night when she and Matt were driving home from Taos. They had stopped the car at the side of the road while thunder rolled about them and they watched the spectacular display of jagged streaks leaping

  through the sky, illuminating every rock and clump of sagebrush on the desert. Mart's arm had been around her, Elizabeth's head on his shoulder; they had watched in silence, and when the last drumroll of thunder died away, and the sky and desert were again dark and still, they had kissed, a long kiss as intense and lingering as the lightning.

  Where did we go wrong? When did everything change? Was there one single moment when we could have said, No, we won't take this step, make this turn, go this direction? Couldn't we have seen what was happening before everything got away from us?

  The plane had left the lightning behind. Elizabeth bent down and retrieved the crumpled letter at her feet. She held it in her clenched hand, then, as it was, still wadded up, she put it in her briefcase and after a moment pulled out her appointment book to go over her schedule for the next day.

  The "Today" Show. Interview with Sam Burnell of the New York Times. Interview with Rose Ulmer of Newsweek. Lunch at the Four Seasons with three network executives anxious, so they said, to give Elizabeth her own show. A "Private Affairs" interview with the floor maid in Elizabeth's room at the Mayfair Regent. Cocktails with Paul Markham. Seven-thirty plane to Albuquerque, where she'd left her car.

  It was the kind of schedule she preferred these days: the hours crammed so full there was no room for memories of Matt or Tony or the violence of that night in Boyle's living room, that still haunted her dreams. She forced herself to concentrate on everything she was doing at the moment she was doing it, shutting out everything else, and so, when she was alone in her hotel room late the next afternoon, writing a "Private Affairs" story on the hotel maid, the ring of the telephone was an intrusion, and she frowned as she picked it up.

  "Elizabeth!" Isabel cried. "You can't imagine what you've done! Letters—money—offers of help! Volunteers —can you imagine?—wanting to come to Nuevo to help move the houses and the church! You should hear Saul! He's in ecstasy; he roars, "They wanted a flood! They got a flood!" And no one will be able to stop it, he says. You should be here to share it; when will you be home?"

  "Tomorrow night. Money, too? And volunteers? There was some money after the Los Angeles Times ran my story on you, do you remember? But—volunteers! Isabel, it might work!"

  "Might! It will! I believe everything Saul says!"

  "When are you going to make your speech? I want to be there to hear it."

  "In a week, I think. Give me time to buttonhole everybody and wave

  your column at them—and now I can tell them about the letters, too!— and I guarantee the legislature will take a new look at Nuevo. And for a change, condemn somebody else's land instead of ours. But you must be here for all of it! Can you stay in town for a while?"

  "I'll try." In her mind she saw all of them at her dining room table— Saul and Heather, Isabel, Luz and Cesar, Maya, Holly, perhaps Lydia and Spencer, and herself—reading the letters forwarded from newspapers all around the country, putting the money aside for depositing in a special account for the new town. Her favorite people: her family. "I'll definitely see you day after tomorrow, Isabel. And if you don't mind, I want to be lurking in the corridors of the statehouse when you buttonhole the legislators. It just occurred to me that seeing one of my columns in action may be as exciting as being in front of a camera."

  The newspaper was open on Keegan Rourke's desk, with Elizabeth's picture and "Private Affairs" in the upper left corner. 'Tour — hundred — papers," he said, each word a hammer blow. "And every one of them getting mail?"

  Chet Colfax spread his hands. "Most of them, it looks like. Mail and phone calls. I'll know more when my friend at Markham Features calls again."

  Rourke nodded. He stood tautly beside his desk, keeping his rage clamped down with an effort that made him grind his teeth. He did it from habit—he never showed his feelings unless there was a benefit to be gained from it—but he also held his control because rage would have seemed a peculiar reaction to a story about a resort in some valley in New Mexico, and he couldn't afford to have people wonder about him and Nuevo these days.

  Chet, of course, knew he was angry, and why, but even Chet, who'd been watching and imitating Rourke for years, didn't know the depth and destructiveness of his anger. "Money, too," he said. "I don't know how much; I'll try to get that. The craziest part is the people volunteering to help move the town. That I can't figure—"

  "Because you're a fool," Rourke lashed out, but immediately drew back into cold rigidity. "You don't understand, even after all this time, the emotional pull of that woman's writing. She can be very dangerous."

  His intercom buzzed and he answered it. "Mr. Boyle insists you want to see him," his secretary said. "He says he flew in from Los Angeles on your orders—"

  "He'll wait; I'm in conference." Rourke turned back to Chet. "Where's Ballenger?"

  Private Affairs All

  "Montana, looking at property. I called him earlier; he'll be here tomorrow."

  "Call him again. Tell him to meet you in Santa Fe."

  "All right. Of course."

  Rourke drummed two fingers on his desk. "The two of you will make sure the legislature holds the line until the end of March, when they adjourn. That's all we need: three more weeks. By the next session the dam will be finished, the flooding will have started, the town will be gone. Those people will be gone." He forced his fingers to be still. "You've dealt with the key ones down there . . . Thaddeus Bent and Fowles—Jim or John—who else?"

  Chet read five names from a pocket-size spiral notebook. "Those are the main ones."

  "Not too many; you and Ballenger can take care of them in a few days. How much will you need?"

  "Twenty-five thousand, fifty at the most, depending on whether they want cash or campaign contributions from the PAC we've set up there. Since the next election is a year and a half away, they'll probably want cash, in which case five to ten thousand apiece will be plenty. They tend to be less greedy than in other states."

  Rourke shrugged; he was interested in taking advantage of greed, not measuring it. "You'll make it clear: no changes. We spent five years making sure the committee would vote an entire package and the legislature would approve it and no ragtag mob of agitators is going to interfere with that."

  "Right. Absolutely."

  "You'll call in every day. Do it from your own room; I don't want Ballenger to hear your reports."

  Chet nodded; his face was flushed.

  "I don't need to tell you to stay in the background; I don't want you to run into that woman or the Hispanic one. ..."

  "Isabel Aragon. She doesn't know me."

  "Must I repeat myself? You will stay in the background; you will see no one but those six men. You and Ballenger divide them up or each of you will see all six, whichever is best. You know all this; I shouldn't have to go through it." He turned away. "That's all; I'll expect to hear from you tomorrow evening. Call my home number."

  "Right." He went to the door. "Thank you."

  Rourke nodded absently. He was looking down at his desk, reading the column on Jock Olson. The fiftieth time, Chet thought with a flash of

  contempt. One fucking woman, one whining construction worker. Small potatoes.

  As the door closed behind him, Rourke picked up the telephone. "Get Ballenger on the phone," he said. "He's in Montana; his secretary will have his number." He waited, gazing at Elizabeth's picture, until his secretary buzzed him. "Terry," he said without preamble, "Chet will be calling you about spending a few days in Santa Fe. I want your reports, every day, and I don't want him to know you're making them. Call me from your room and keep it to yourself. Any problems with that?" He listened, smiling thinly
. "Of course he's going to be calling me; that's what he's paid for. But I want you to tell me how he's doing. I'll talk to you tomorrow night. Have a successful trip."

  Hanging up, he found himself skimming Elizabeth's column again. He almost knew it by heart, but still, when he came to the last line, he could feel the bile rise in his throat. While it was there, his anger at a pure and perfect pitch, he told his secretary to send in Boyle.

  "Knocked myself out to get here," Boyle said cheerfully. He felt powerful and poised for the future. He'd kept the Olson interview off the air and cowed Tony into submission. And Rourke had called him to Houston for a private meeting. He smiled as he took a seat on the couch, ready to discuss his new position as miniseries producer. "Don't want you to think I'm late; your dragon of a secretary kept me cooling my heels out there for half an hour."

  "My secretary does what she is told."

  The cold words jolted Boyle's aura of good feeling, but he was too absorbed to let it do any damage. He was pulling typed pages from an envelope—a list of proposed films, two to ten hours long, based on novels, newspaper scandals, and foreign intrigue—and he was still smiling as he held it out to Rourke.

  Rourke did not move; he stood beside his desk looking expressionlessly at Boyle. Half a minute of silence went by; then it dawned on Boyle that he had sat down while Rourke was standing. Hastily, he stood. "Ideas for movies," he said, holding out the papers again. When Rourke's silence dragged on, Boyle dropped his arm. "Of course I'll leave them with you so you can go over them at your leisure."

  "It occurs to me," Rourke said at last, "that you do not read newspapers."

  "Never," Boyle said. It was an odd question, but Rourke was wealthy and powerful and therefore had a right to be odd. "I read Polly Perritt, of course, since I plant items with her, and once in a while I read Lizzie Lovell, but I don't have to anymore, since she's gone—"

  "Not quite gone. She wrote a column on Jock Olson, which, obviously, you did not read."

  Boyle's face underwent a series of transformations. "Jock Olson?"

  Rourke indicated with a tilt of his head the newspaper on his desk and Boyle went to read the story, standing over it, leaning on his hands. "Jesus Christ," he muttered. "Jesus. What a shit. To go behind our backs and put it in the paper after I told her—"

  "Told her what? You stupid, half-assed prick, what the hell did you think she'd do when you killed her interview?"

  "Now just a minute; I have great respect for you, but let's not get confused here; you specifically told me to kill that interview and that's exactly what I did."

  "And made her furious."

  "Well, you wouldn't expect her to dance for joy."

  "What I expected, you damned idiot, was that you'd mollify her, coddle her, make her feel smart and beautiful instead of kicked in the teeth. Do you know what you've done? Do you have any idea what your amateurish bungling has done? You had enough sense to call me about that interview—you knew I wouldn't like it—why the fuck couldn't you use a little of that sense when you killed it? Read that line again: For unknown reasons it was canceled. . . . What the hell did you say to her? Did you take her to dinner and give her the reasons the Olson interview wasn't right for the show? Did you ask her suggestions on what to replace it with? Did you bribe my son to buy her a fur coat and take her back to Amalfi for a week so she'd forget that one of her gems was pulled off the air? Did it occur to you that her column appears in four — hundred — newspapers? Are you aware that television is not her only means of communication with the world—that she's a powerful writer with a huge and adoring following? You empty-headed son of a bitch, what the hell did you do to make that woman so angry she wrote that column and made it clear that it was canceled by 'Anthony' so everyone would pay even closer attention to it?"

  Boyle shriveled. The sheaf of papers fell unnoticed from his hand. His cheeks were hollow, his eyes blank, his mouth slack as he watched his future disappear, swept away in the torrent of Rourke's rage.

  "And what did you do to make her quit the show? What did you and Tony do to make her walk out? The best talk segment on television; you had it in the palm of your hand, Tony had his cock in it, and the two of you threw it away. WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO TO HER?"

  "I don't know! We had a fight. . . ."

  "Who had a fight?"

  "Tony and me. I. Not Lizzie; she stayed out of it. She got mad at Tony and told him off, but it didn't have anything to do with me. The truth is, I don't remember too much about any of—"

  "You and Tony had a fight and Elizabeth told you off and walked out and you don't remember it."

  "Told Tony off! Not me! And that's right, I don't remember! It was late —they woke me up—and I was drinking—I was very upset! And I don't remember! And what the fuck difference does it make anyway? She's off the show and we have enough tapes for the rest of the season—almost, anyway, we'll re-run two or three from last fall—and if we line up a couple of sponsors we'll be fine for next year. I'll put off the miniseries, since you'll need me to keep Tony going for another season—that's getting harder, but I have him under control now—I really do know how to handle him, you know, and get him to do his best—no one knows him the way I do, no one could produce him better than—"

  "Stop whining. You're through and you know it. I hired you for two simple jobs: to keep an eye on Tony and to keep his ratings up until I was ready for him to do something else. You bungled both of them. I gave you an even simpler job—to keep one interview from the light of day—and you fell apart. You're a useless piece of shit and you're through. Get out. And get out of your office by tonight; I'll have someone else in it tomorrow morning."

  "You don't mean that! Mr. Rourke, you need me . . . no, wait, I meant to say, listen, I've lived up to my part; I've watched over Tony, I've reported everything he did, here and in Europe, I've cleared his interviews—and Lizzie's!—with you. I did everything you told me; I had as many politicians on the show as I could and Tony scored points with all of them—if he ever wants to go into politics he has more friends and people beholden to him—" At the expression on Rourke's face, Boyle stopped abruptly.

  "If you're quite through," Rourke said flatly, "my secretary has a check for you. I don't want to see or hear from you again. If you ever repeat any part of this conversation, or decide to write a book about your experiences as Tony's producer, or about anything at all that has to do with Tony or me, I will destroy you. You can get a job tomorrow in any television station in the world—I don't give a fuck what you do—but the day you talk about Tony or me is your last day in television. Is that clear?"

  Boyle's face worked but no words came out.

  "I asked you a question."

  "Yes. It's . . . clear."

  "Then get out."

  Boyle dragged himself to the door, turned back to pick up his lists of ideas for films, then disappeared.

  Rourke picked up the intercom. "Call my son and tell him he's to be at my home tonight. If he asks for me, I'm not here. But first get Nat Pollock on the telephone."

  He stood by the desk, drumming the same two fingers, until his telephone rang. "Mr. Rourke," Pollock said. 'This is a pleasure. Been a long time—"

  "Nat, I need a producer for three months. Nothing fancy; most of the show is already taped. I heard you weren't doing anything right now; can you handle it?"

  "Word gets around. What show?"

  " 'Anthony.'"

  Pollock whistled. "Bo died?"

  "You might say that. He's left the show and Tony needs someone to keep it going for the rest of the season."

  "And Daddy's helping out."

  "That's what we're for, Nat."

  "How did you know I'm not working?"

  "I had someone check around. I don't intend to talk about your private life—you've done a good job of hushing it up—and I'll find you a show next season if you'll do this now, no questions asked."

  "Just three months? To the end of the season?"

  "T
hat's all. The show is being canceled."

  Pollock whistled again. "The ratings were going up. Something to do with the disappearance of the gorgeous lady?"

  "I said no questions asked."

  "So you did. Can I ask when I start?"

  "Tomorrow morning. Twenty thousand for the three months; Tony will do a few live interviews; they're already scheduled. The rest is on tape."

  "Enough for three months?"

  "Close. When they run out, use re-runs. Any other questions?"

  "Which office do I use?"

  "Boyle's. It will be empty."

  "Okay. That takes care of it."

  "Keep in touch; I'll expect regular reports."

  "On what?"

  "Anything that strikes you as interesting. And let me know what kind of show you want for next year."

  "I'll do that. Talk to you soon. And thanks." Rourke did not answer; Pollock heard the telephone click as it was hung up. Slowly he put his own telephone down. "Anthony" had lasted ten years, a long time for any television show. Something peculiar had happened over there and no one had the whole story; even Polly Perritt was frustrated—not satisfied with the official word that Lovell had been let go for insubordination—and poking around town like a beaver, looking for dirt. Maybe we'll never know, thought Pollock. But isn't that something? After all these years. With no warning. No more "Anthony".

  The last light was fading from the sky when Holly walked home after dinner with Saul and Heather. At her front door, she lingered, reluctant to go inside. The evening was clear and perfectly still and in the darkening sky stars were beginning to appear, becoming brighter as she watched. The magic of their appearance, just out of reach beyond the treetops, made her feel crazily happy, but then she caught the scent of pines and it made her feel melancholy, and so restless she thought she would jump out of her skin.