Private Affairs

by Judith Michael

  Tm still considering it The resort area covers over a thousand acres. You decided to destroy Elizabeth's reputation so that Rourke wouldn't lose a hundred of them. Is that correc:

  "WdL no, that's not—I wouldn't put it that—"

  "I would And so will our readers when I tell them the

  "You won't do that.' Christ, you can't —! Mr. Rourke told you not to! He fired you! Said you wouldn't get a job anywhere in the world! I knew that would happen, you know. He liked you best, but I knew I'd outlast

  you because I know him better than you. Better than anyone. Now look; we can work together. I'll talk to him—there's a technique to it—and he won't stand in your way when you look for another job. I can even promise a reference . . . //you give me that tape. Now. Then I'll take care of things upstairs and you'll find a job in no time . . . you've made a nice reputation for yourself. I hear about you wherever I go; people talk about you. ..."

  Matt contemplated him. "Last year you gave me a stack of reports to use in our series on land use. Where are they?"

  "On file. In Santa Fe; the state legislature."

  "I'll ask it once more, since you're having trouble. There's a stack of reports, including one on resettlement help for the people of Nuevo. Where are the originals, and where are the copies?"

  "I don't know."

  "Goddam it, do we have to go through this farce every time I ask a question? Stop this bullshit or I'll give in to my worst instincts and beat the hell out of you." The thought flashed through Matt's mind that the real farce was that he had never struck anyone in his life and doubted that he'd have the stomach to beat the hell out of anyone, even Chet. "I want those reports. Where are they?"

  Chet sat still for a moment, his face blank, his eyes glazed, then shrugged one more time. "It's not my fault," he mumbled. As if he were sleepwalking, he moved to one of the black file cabinets, unlocked a drawer, and pulled out a folder. He began to leaf through the papers inside it.

  "Don't bother," Matt said, lifting the folder from his hands. "I'm interested in all of it."

  "Look." Chet's shoulders slumped; his voice was dull. "Nobody's supposed to see that stuff; it's my job to keep it safe. You're creating a situation I can't handle. Let's be reasonable. What about my offer to speak up for you with Mr. Rourke? This is your future we're talking about! You want to protect it, don't you? I'm not asking much. Go ahead and read that stuff—I can't stop you—read it here and give it back, and give me the tape—you've got to give me the tape!—and then I'll go to Mr. Rourke and get him to change his mind about you; I promise I can deliver on that!"

  There was another knock at the door. "Cleaning!" the woman's voice cried. She opened the door and peered around it. "I'm sorry, sirs, but we get in trouble if we miss an office, and we have the other floors to do—"

  "It's all right," Matt said. "We're finished."

  "We're not!" Chet cried. "Goddammit, Matt! Those papers! The tape—!"

  "They're safe," Matt said shortly. "I hope I won't have to tell anyone about the tape. It will help if you don't tell Rourke I have the papers. Take heart, Chet; I'm more trustworthy than you are."

  "Nobody is!" Chet scurried into the hallway behind Matt as the cleaning woman went into his office. "Nobody's trustworthy; you know that! Matt, goddammit, if he ever finds out—"

  "Yes, that would be a problem, wouldn't it?" He looked with contempt at Chefs bulging eyes, thinking how amazingly consistent it was that rats never had the guts to face their own tricks turned against them. "You were the one who wanted to be reasonable and make a deal, Chet. I'm making one. I don't want Rourke to know I've taken anything from the office. It's in your interest not to tell him. I'm aware that it's hard for you, after twenty years of getting dirt on other people, to know that someone has something on you, but you'll get used to it. And after a while I may give serious thought, again, to returning your tape."

  With a few long strides he reached his office, where he picked up his briefcase and the cardboard box heavy with files and memorabilia. When he returned, Chet had not moved. "You'll be all right, Chet. And if you cooperate, you may even do some good for once, even if it's against your better judgement."

  He walked to the elevator a few feet away and pressed the call button. "You'll be hearing from me."

  And then, as the vacuum cleaner started up again, the elevator arrived and he stepped in. His last sight before the doors closed was of Chet, eyes wide and staring in the empty reception room, with the whine of the vacuum cleaner filling the air.

  In the study in his apartment, he opened the folder and fanned the papers on the desk, like playing cards. He recognized the reports Chet had given him—saying they'd come from the legislature in Santa Fe—on job opportunities created by the Nuevo Dam and State Park, tourism and increased business in the entire valley, flood control, irrigation, and a reservoir for future water needs. He'd only skimmed them the first time; ten different projects were included in the series on land use and there'd been no reason, or time, to study all of them closely before passing them along to the editor who was writing the series. This was the first time Matt really had looked at how the Nuevo Dam got approved.

  And how the people were compensated. He found the report headed "Compensation and Resettlement" and pulled it out, And with it came

  another, just beneath, with the same title: a draft version of the resettlement report peppered with typing errors, phrases crossed out and rewritten in Chefs precise handwriting, penciled comments in the margins, three versions of a resettlement budget scribbled across the bottom of the second page, a note at the top of the third page saying "Check time schedule with Bent," and, at the end, the notation, "Mallard Typing Service," with a telephone number.

  The little bastard wrote it himself. Typed it himself, edited it, then sent it out of the office for final typing.

  And brought it to me with other reports supposedly from the New Mexico state legislature, as research background for our series on development.

  Research.

  How many of the "research" documents we used in that series were written fifty feet from my office?

  His telephone rang and he picked it up, "Yes," he said absently, looking at the report before him.

  "It's Elizabeth."

  Caught by the iciness of her voice, he looked up from his desk, at the starlit sky behind his windows. "How are you? I was going to call you later to—"

  "Were you. I can't imagine why. You couldn't possibly want to hear anything I have to say; it might interfere with your faith in that simple-minded smear you published."

  "I published? Elizabeth, you can't believe I had anything to do with that garbage?"

  "Of course I believe it. What did you think I'd believe? That your minions are running the Rourke papers themselves? That they'd try to destroy the reputation of their publisher's wife on their own? That they're slipping stories into your papers behind your back?"

  "Artner did that once before, if you recall."

  "Yes, Saul made the same point. And I told him I couldn't believe that you'd let Artner, of all people, work without supervision after he'd pulled that trick once. You don't need two lessons, Matt; you've always learned very quickly from one. I hope I can do the same. I don't want your explanations or excuses; I can't think of anything you could say that would soften what you did. It was so destructive I couldn't believe you'd do it to anyone, much less to me. It had only one purpose: to make me seem venal and unreliable, and it worked; Markham has stopped syndicating Trivate Affairs'—"

  "Oh, my God."

  "You can't be surprised; you're an expert on the power of the press—

  Private Affairs All

  your power with your press, to get what you want. And you want progress, don't you? I read your series on land use—someone else wrote it but it was in all your papers, so the direction came from you; I do remember how you work. Bigger and better resorts, ski areas, timbering, mining— and the hell with the people."

 
"I never said that or felt it; I always—"

  "When did that series mention the people who live in all those areas you want to develop? Once in a while there were a few words about compensation; that was it. The rest was progress, and the people be damned. And your family, too, for that matter"—he heard her voice tighten—"there are things happening here because of what you've done, what I've done—"

  "What? What's happening? No one's called me—"

  "Because you're not part of it anymore. I shouldn't have said anything; it just came out; it shouldn't have. You left me with this family and I'm dealing with it. You don't care enough; you haven't talked to me about your work or anything personal for months. And the one favor I asked you got ignored, because you'd lied. You said you had a report on helping the people of Nuevo and you'd send it to me. In December. This is the end of March and I still haven't—"

  "I couldn't find it. I have it now—"

  "Do you? How convenient. It doesn't matter anymore. All you care about is having the power to change the shape of the land and push your privately chosen people into office to run it, and you'll do anything to get what you want. You and Keegan. I said that once before, didn't I? You make a good pair. Like a married couple. Like partners in crime. I haven't—"

  "That's enough, damn it, be quiet and listen to—"

  "If you interrupt again I'll hang up. I haven't liked what you've been doing for a long time, but I kept thinking one of these days we'd talk about it. Maybe I still thought you'd go back to the way you used to be. I don't anymore. If you can watch Cal Artner drag my name through the mud to turn the legislature against Isabel—that worked too, by the way; you'll be delighted to hear her bill is dead—then you're capable of anything and I don't want to have anything more to do with you. I'm filing for divorce next week. You're hearing it from me instead of reading it in Polly's column, not because I'm doing you a courtesy, but because I had to tell you how I felt and I've been calling you for a week, trying to reach you. I understand you were sailing. I hope it was pleasant; I assume you'll be rich and powerful enough to do much more of it in the future."

  "God damn it—!"

  "I told you I'd hang up, Matt. It seems I've passed the boundaries of whatever courteous behavior my parents taught me. You'll hear from my lawyer."

  The phone went dead in his hand.

  Matt slammed it down. She might have asked him what he knew about the story, what he thought about it, what he was going to do about it, what he—

  But why should she? She'd told him what she thought: the story appeared on the front page of one of Matt Lovell's papers and Matt Lovell runs his empire with a firm hand. It would never occur to her that he ran it at the whim of Keegan Rourke.

  / would have told her the whole damn story if she'd calmed down long enough to listen. She would have understood: she had Chet pegged from the beginning.

  But maybe she wouldn't have understood—or taken the trouble to try. The Elizabeth who had just hung up on him was an Elizabeth he had never known: more assertive, less pliable, not as warm.

  But I can 7 expect . . . how the hell could I expect her to be warm and pliable, when she thinks I did my damndest to ruin her?

  We keep going around in circles, he thought; we don't learn about each other. He'd watched her on a dozen or more talk shows, steadfastly refusing to discuss her sudden unexplained departure from "Anthony," and he'd wanted to ask her about it, and whether it included leaving Tony Rourke. He'd wanted to tell her about Rourke's ownership of Nuevo and the faked report lying on his desk and his resignation from Rourke's company. No longer a power at the press. No longer a power anywhere.

  He reached for the telephone. He'd call her back and tell her she had to listen to him. He wanted to know what she meant about "things happening at home." He wanted her to understand that he intended to write a retraction of Artner's story, with the truth about Nuevo, and publish it, if only in the Chieftain.

  And what else? Do I want her to divorce me?

  In the silence, he heard the sound of a key, and his front door opening. Nicole. Damn, he'd forgotten to phone her. "Matt?" she called. "In the study," he answered, and stood up. Maybe it was a good thing she'd decided to show up; he could use some comforting, and he probably wouldn't have asked for it on his own.

  "Darling, I was worried," she said, brushing his lips with hers. "When you didn't call I thought you and Keegan must be at each other's throats. I could see headlines: power barons found bloody but unbowed. What happened?"

  "One of us bowed," he said with a short laugh. Putting his arms around her, he pulled her close and kissed her, holding her mouth beneath his with an intensity that he knew was not passion but a search for reassurance. He raised his head and took in with a grateful look the perfection of her face; her cool, amber eyes with a shadow of anxiety; the black halo of her hair above a white wool suit and black silk blouse open at the top to reveal her smooth skin and choker of jet and pearls. "Come and sit with me; I need a beautiful woman to tell me I'm better than I think I am and that I have a brilliant future."

  "You know that already, darling." She went to the kitchen and found a bottle of vodka in the refrigerator. Dropping a curl of lemon zest and an ice cube in each of two glasses, she called out, "Have you had dinner?"

  "No. I'm not hungry."

  "You need something besides vodka or you'll pass out and that would make our bedtime extremely boring. Are there any leftovers? Or shall I send out for something?"

  "Nothing. Damn it, Nicole, come sit with me. I need to talk."

  "That must have been quite a meeting," she said lightly. He had moved to the living room and she sat beside him on the couch and handed him a glass. "Give me the details later; just tell me how it ended."

  "I resigned."

  "My God, you didn't! You couldn't! Matt, that's a terrible joke! Now tell me the truth."

  "That is the truth." He drained his glass and went to the kitchen to get the bottle she had left on the counter. "Why did you say I couldn't do it?"

  "Because you'd never do anything to destroy your future; you're the kind of man who'll do whatever you have to do to get to the top by the shortest route in the fastest time. That's why I love you. Now will you please stop playing this silly game? Are you testing me, to see if I'll still love you? Whatever you're doing, I don't find it amusing, and I'd appreciate it if you'd get serious and tell me what you and Keegan talked about."

  He gazed at her thoughtfully. "You'd rather not know."

  "Nonsense, I have to know! I want to know everything you do—it makes me part of you! Don't you like it at the end of the day when you come to me and talk about everything that happened? And I listen and ask the right questions and give you support! I thought you liked that. I work at it, you know. Being what you need."

  "Yes." He was still scrutinizing her. "And I do like it. But right now I'm not sure whether you do it for me or for yourself."

  "Oh, Matt, of course I do it for you!" She took off her suit jacket and leaned back, crossing her legs. Her breasts were outlined beneath the

  sheer silk of the blouse. "What would you like me to say, to convince you?"

  "I want you to tell me whatever I do is all right; that it doesn't matter whether I'm publisher of Rourke Publishing or editor of the Chieftain or a reporter on the Los Angeles Times —you'll still feel the same way about me and be at my side, pouring vodka and showing off your figure . . . even telling me I'm a great success."

  "Don't be silly, darling, you wouldn't be a great success if you were a reporter or just an editor. You wouldn't want me to lie. The man I love isn't content to be third rate; he has to be first." She gave him a small smile. "Matt, you're making me worry. Tell me you didn't resign."

  "I can't do that," he said quietly.

  The smile faded. "You really did it."

  "Yes."

  "You're a fool."

  "You and Rourke agree on that. Is that all you have to say?"

  "Go back to him. T
ell him you made a mistake but you've thought it over and there's no reason for both of you to throw away everything you've built—and a whole future—just because you got upset and lost your head. He'll understand; he knows people get emotional and can't keep things in perspective—"

  "That's another of Rourke's favorite words. Damn it, Nicole, I don't need you here to repeat Rourke's arguments; I need you to give me some support. This isn't easy for me; I've got an investment of time and energy in that company, and a sense of accomplishment and a future with no limits—I thought there were no limits, until tonight—and now I have to pick up the pieces and figure out what I'm going to do next, and I want you to help me do it."

  "Why should I? I liked the way things were. We were having such a nice time! Eight months, Matt, that's a long time for me to stay with a man. We have good times together, you told me yourself I'm a perfect hostess for you, and we have a lovely time in bed. And I've watched you fit into Keegan's group; I've watched you make them respect you and listen to you . . . poor Chefs so jealous, worried about you and Keegan being so close—that alone should tell you how far you've come! It was all there for you; all you had to do was keep on the way you were and nothing could stop you! You and Keegan were a team! There was nothing the two of you couldn't have done! Everything was perfect! Why do you have to go and ruin it?"

  "Everything wasn't perfect. He wanted a front man to run his newspa-

  per chain the way he wanted people like Ballenger to buy land while he stays in the background, pulling strings. But I won't—"

  "Terry Ballenger?"

  "It doesn't matter. I won't be his puppet; can't you understand that? If I'm publisher of one newspaper or twenty or a hundred, I have to be able to run them in my own way. That was my dream; not sitting in a luxurious office looking important while decisions on what goes in them, or what doesn't, are made upstairs, in Rourke's office."

  "What difference does it make? The rewards are enormous! You can't just throw them away because you don't agree with Keegan on something as unimportant as how you define publisher!"

  "Unimportant!"