But the worst nightmares had been newsroom generated. The morning blow jobs had rarely climaxed. Bobbie Anne Pace and Neil Harpster didn’t think they mattered. Or maybe they didn’t think they mattered enough. And both assistant managing editors had requested separate meetings with Claudette X and Stanley Geld this morning. The gaping mouth that haunted her dreams appeared in her mind. She trembled.
“Claudette, hurry up please. It’s time,” Geld said.
Claudette X shook off the hallucination, nodded morosely, and trudged after the city editor to Harpster’s office. The Assistant Managing Editor for Form and Content was blowing his nose.
“Bad cold,” Harpster said. He rubbed at his rheumy eyes. “But that’s what you get sitting out in the ocean air all night.”
“Bonfire on the beach with some friends, Neil?” Geld said.
Harpster shut the door to his office. “There are many things afoot, some of which I cannot inform you. But I’m here seeking your advice and, well, your loyalty.”
Loyalty? thought Claudette X. In a newsroom?
“Well, we respect you if that’s what you mean,” she said, unsure if that was enough to get her the hell out of the Glasshole before Harpster’s red nose appeared above the mouth in her dreams.
“It’s a beginning, I suppose,” Harpster said. He wheezed into a Kleenex. He tossed his head from side to side like a horse trying to rid itself of a persistent fly. “Oh, I’ve got to tell someone. I’m being harrassed. Or Lydia is actually, but that means me, too.”
Geld curled his finger in the locks of his latest perm. “Who’s harassing you, Neil?”
Harpster laid his forehead in the palms of his hands. “If I knew I wouldn’t feel so defenseless. I could sue the bastard or have him arrested or shoot him.”
He jerked his head up. “Ten thousand dollars worth of plants have been destroyed at my house in the past month. Tulips. Azaleas. Hydrangeas. A Japanese maple. Ten different types of violets. All dead. Plants are like kids to Lydia. The doctor’s got her on Valium. The cops say they can’t sit around protecting a garden from vandals, so I’m out there with a shotgun on sentry duty all night.”
“That’s good, right?” Geld asked soothingly. “I mean, you kept the plants safe.”
A perceptible tremor began in the lower lip of the Assistant Managing Editor for Form and Content. “Everything seemed so perfect at dawn this morning, even the new spirea I put out as bait. Then we went in the greenhouse. Lydia has four Bog Rein orchids she’d bought from a specialty shop in New Mexico.”
Claudette X thought Harpster might cry. “What happened, Neil?” she asked.
Harpster said, “It looked like someone had chewed them, bitten them in places on the stalk, maybe even eaten the flowers! Lydia had to be sedated.”
Harpster hunched low at his desk and let his eyes wander beyond the city editor and his chief assistant through the glass of his hole. He whispered, “It’s somebody in this newsroom. I’m sure of it.”
“Oh c’mon, Neil,” Claudette X said. “It’s probably just kids.”
Geld said nothing. He was engrossed in thought.
“Explain these, then,” Harpster said. He tossed two pieces of paper across the desk. They were copies of the latest tax assessment on his home and land in The Ranch. $785,000. Scrawled across the bottom of the page in red Magic Marker ink were the words: “Not to mention extensive landscape improvements.”
Harpster said, “We found one in the greenhouse. Another was in my office mailbox when I came in this morning.”
Claudette X tried to appear concerned, but all she could think was $785,000! How the hell could he afford that kind of place on an editor’s salary? Lydia must be loaded.
Geld said, “I’m sure there’s no one here out to get you. Even Bobbie Anne wouldn’t stoop this low.”
“Bobbie Anne?” Harpster’s forehead knotted. “What does she have against me?”
“I’m sure it’s nothing,” Geld said.
Harpster glared out the glass walls of his aquarium. “What do you know, Stanley? C’mon, we’ve been friends … well colleagues anyway … a long time.”
Geld paused a moment. “Neil, it’s probably nothing, just that she mentioned something the other day after the daily blow jo … I mean after the morning meeting, about Form and Content being, well … slightly flaccid these days.”
“Flaccid!” Harpster blustered. He jumped up, grabbed today’s Post, and waved it at them. “Flaccid! Why this paper’s never been so … so turgid!”
His cheeks flared a brilliant red. Beads of sweat popped out on his forehead. “It’s that crazy series she’s talking about with that holier-than-thou columnist of hers. That’s what it is, only she’s turning it into a power play, trying to drive me nuts!”
Geld said, “Calm down, Neil. You’ll give yourself a heart attack!”
Harpster took a silk handkerchief from the top pocket of his suit coat and mopped his brow. He loosened his tie. “Heart attack? I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction. Who would have thought that fashion plate could climb garden walls?”
“Now, now, Neil,” Claudette X said. “There’s no way Bobbie Anne Pace is behind those attacks on your wife’s garden. She’s too …”
“Feminine,” Geld agreed. “Now … Margaret you’d never know about.”
Claudette glared at Geld. What the hell was he up to?
Harpster’s breathing slowed. His chin stopped quivering. His posture shifted to angular. “So Bobbie Anne’s not content with News and Information. Her trajectory’s too steep for that. She wants Form and Content, too. And who knows what else? Well, we’ll just see how flaccid Neil Harpster really is.”
An awkward moment followed during which Harpster sneered at some unseen apparition.
“Neil?” Claudette X said sharply. “We’ve got another meeting.”
“Go, go.” Harpster was deep in thought, writing on a yellow legal-size pad.
Geld closed the door behind him. Claudette X waited until they were around the corner, out of Harpster’s sight, and almost to Bobbie Anne Pace’s office before she said, “What’s going on, Stan?”
Geld merely whistled before knocking.
“Come in, come in,” Pace said. Margaret Savage perched on the edge of a chair.
“Sit, please,” Pace said. “We’d like to talk with you about a series of columns Margaret has begun. We think they’re groundbreaking and should get marketing attention.”
“That’s Neil’s decision,” Claudette X said.
“True,” Pace said cautiously. “But he’s been acting, well—between us—strange, of late. I wanted to make sure I had your support for this.”
“We’re listening,” Geld said.
Stan’s beaming, thought Claudette X. Stan doesn’t do beam. Stan does mope.
Savage said, “As a columnist I have freedoms that other reporters here don’t. I can call the kettle black even if I don’t have it on someone else’s authority.”
Claudette X counted backward from ten; the idea of someone with thirteen months in journalism lecturing her on the news business made her blood simmer.
“It’s a big responsibility,” Geld observed.
“One I take very seriously,” Savage said. “I choose my subjects well, try to stake out the correct ground. I can’t tell you how many nights I lie awake.”
“Nor I,” Pace said. She smiled at Savage.
“I’m sure,” Geld said.
Savage went on. “I’m preparing a series of columns about the disparities of pay between men and women. I plan to name names, use my contacts to get actual salaries and compensation packages for men and women holding the exact same job.”
“Then you publish them,” Geld said in a way that made Claudette X think he already knew about all this. She eyed him suspiciously. Geld was still talking. “It will take a lot of support to get the go-ahead.”
Pace said, “I know. I messaged the rest of the senior editors earlier this week. Several are su
pportive. Others are, well, lukewarm to the idea. How do you view it?”
Claudette X looked at Geld again. That’s how he knew about the series. He’d been snooping in the computer system.
“I’m for it,” Geld said. “Count on my support. Claudette’s too; am I right?”
Savage yawned. Claudette X stared deep inside the P.C. Oracle’s mouth.
“Claudette?”
Claudette X felt as if a thick fuzzy lens had been placed over her eyes. She wondered whether this was what the other assistant city editors felt like. “This is out of my league, Stan. Your call.”
“Then we’re for it,” Geld said. Then, slyly, “Now, Neil, I don’t know about.”
“Why’s that?” Pace demanded.
Geld made a show of appearing restless and on the spot. “I’d rather not say.”
Savage said, “I’m new at newspaper politics. Your insight would be a big help.”
Geld nodded conspiratorially to Savage and then to Pace. “It’s something I heard.”
“What?” Pace demanded.
“It’s probably nothing.”
“Out with it, Stanley,” ordered the Assistant Managing Editor for News and Information.
“If you insist. The way it was put to me was, how could Neil possibly afford that house in The Ranch if he was being paid scale? What I mean is, everyone knows Lydia inherited a bundle, but is it enough to cover a place up there?”
Geld let the implication sink in. The only person on the totem pole who should be making a wage at a scale comparable to Harpster was Pace.
“Stanley,” she began, “in strictest confidence … what do you think he’s …”
The city editor drew out a ballpoint pen and scribbled a figure on a slip of paper. Savage and Pace gasped.
“It’s just what you’ve been saying, Margaret,” Pace said.
“We’ve got to fight this,” Savage said. “You can’t stand still for this kind of inequity. Bobbie Anne, newspapers can’t be immune from scrutiny; if this is true, I want to publish Neil’s salary in my series. We’ve got to fight.”
Geld wanted to hug them both. Instead, he said, “Please, keep me out of this.”
“Of course, Stanley. We appreciate your candor.”
“Oh, one more thing,” Geld said.
“Yes,” Savage said, eagerly.
“There’s another possible explanation, just so you don’t go off half-cocked, assuming that the story is what I assume it is.”
“To Assume makes an Ass out of U and Me,” Pace said.
“Basic journalism,” Geld agreed. “And I know I’m out of line here, but honestly it’s bothered me for quite a long time.”
Pace slid forward in her chair. “What is it?”
To Claudette X’s utter chagrin, he laid out how he’d long feared that Harpster was using his position to tout stocks and make a profit on The Post’s sterling reputation.
Geld went on, “Have you ever noticed how Neil goes out at lunch several times a week with this brown satchel? I think he carries files on his investments in there. I’d like to know where he goes and who he meets with.”
Claudette X wanted to crawl into a corner and suck her thumb. She and Geld had long suspected that Harpster went off at lunch for quickies with Connie Mills at a sleazy motel down on State Street. What in the name of Malcolm Little was Geld up to?
“I’ll follow up,” Pace promised. “Stanley, if things turn out as I plan, you will be remembered. You just might be a Beta male.”
“Huh?” Geld said.
“Never mind,” Savage said quickly. “We thank you and urge the both of you to keep this to yourself.”
“I wouldn’t breathe a word,” Geld said. He rose from his seat to shake their hands.
“No … word,” Claudette X said. She walked out of the office, thinking she’d better have her eyes checked. Cataracts were definitely forming. Better get a good sleeping pill from the doctor while she was at it. Blow her mind blank with a strong sedative. She barely made it to her desk, where she laid her head on her keyboard.
“Stanley, please tell me what’s going on?” she moaned.
He pulled his chair up close to hers. “They think Tower’s retiring.”
Claudette X peaked out from behind a massive arm. “Is he?”
“Not that I know of.” He held up the two bogus memos he’d retrieved from interoffice mail before they could be delivered to Tower. He grinned weirdly.
She read enough of one to understand what was going on. She closed her eyes and moaned again.
“Trust me,” Geld said.
“Trust you?” Claudette X snapped, her anger returning. “I don’t even know who you are anymore, Stan. You used to be one of those nice depressed Jewish guys you find in every newsroom. Now you’re a stranger.”
Geld’s expression hardened. “Listen, Claudette, every night for the last four months I’ve awoken in a sweat from a terrible dream.”
“Join the club,” Claudette X said.
He went on as if he hadn’t heard her. “It’s always the same: I trot out into a dance studio dressed in a black leotard that’s too tight up the crack of my ass. Neil’s playing piano. Bobbie Anne’s this wrinkled old doyenne rapping out time with a wooden stick. My feet can’t stop dancing.”
Geld’s weird grin returned. “But given what I just saw in those two Glassholes, I’ll tell you one thing: whatever the future holds, old Stan’s going to sleep tonight without danger of going en pointe!”
The Physics of Quid Pro Quo …
JUST THEN ISABEL PEREZ ran up. “I’m onto a big story.”
Claudette X shook her head to clear the horrors of the last half hour. “Tell me.”
“The company owned by none other than gubernatorial candidate Barnes has been dumping toxic wastes from the making of silicon chips.”
Geld said, “I thought you were supposed to write that political items column.”
“It’s done, Stanley,” Perez said, irritated. “Don’t you listen? Look, I was back there working on my database of the campaign financial records, when, bang, I get this anonymous call about an hour ago.”
“Tell me,” Claudette X said again. She desperately wanted a real story to work on.
“It’s a guy. Says he’s a concerned citizen.”
Geld said, “Probably some dirty trickster hired by the mayor’s campaign.”
“Probably,” Perez nodded. “But you know how it is, Stan. You listen and if they don’t sound loony, going off in every direction at once, you check it out.”
“You did,” Claudette X said.
“With the Environmental Protection Agency and the California Bureau of Water,” Perez said. She flipped open her notebook. “Fourteen separate violations by his company in connection with the disposal of acetone and twelve with another solvent, a known carcinogen I can’t quite pronounce. Polypebbles or something.”
Geld said, “Barnes was running the company when they did the illegal dumping?”
“Chief executive officer,” Perez said. “Now here’s where it gets good. Barnes has made speeches calling for relaxing environmental regulations and he made a speech about it on the same day his company got slapped with the largest of the dumping violations.”
“Very nice,” Geld said. “What does the mayor say about it?”
“I haven’t spoken with Portillo yet, but Arlene is outraged, of course.”
“Of course,” Claudette X said. She whirled in her chair and called up the city desk queue on her computer. “Any chance The Beacon is onto this?”
“Sure there’s a chance,” said Perez, who knew there was no chance.
“Have you got everything you need to write?” Geld asked.
“I could use a little more time to get it fleshed out.”
“All right,” Geld said. “Claudette, slot it for Sunday, page A-l.”
Claudette X looked at Perez. “You tell Kent you’re working on this story?”
Perez threw her hands o
n her hips. “Would he tell me?”
Claudette X scowled. “At least let him know before it runs. I want a draft ready when I get here tomorrow to edit.”
Perez rushed back to her desk, thrilled at the good fortune that embraced her. This was the kind of story that gets attention. This was the kind of story that sets a political reporter apart from the pack. Did it matter that it probably came from Mayor Portillo’s campaign tricksters? She knew it did. She didn’t care.
Talking to Arlene the night McCarthy’s car was bombed outside the Slotman’s, she’d mustered every slippery move mastered in twelve years of hiding her Slavic past. Arlene’s lust was obvious and unsettling. Every time it seemed Perez might be backed into a corner, she attacked or dodged or slid just out of reach of Arlene’s grasp. That two cops had been arrested was a wonderful political angle for a story and an equally wonderful defensive posture. In the end they’d negotiated common ground.
“You beat us up pretty bad in there today,” Troy had said after they’d ordered drinks.
“Part of the job, Arlene. Doesn’t look good for Chief Leslie’s boys to be putting out contracts on talkative hookers.”
“They’re under arrest, aren’t they?” Troy said.
“They are,” Perez admitted. She felt a tickle on the inside of her calf. It was Troy’s toe! Perez swallowed and drew her leg out of range. “Doesn’t mean, though, that this is over, the controversy, I mean.”
Troy laughed. “Where would you dear reporters be without that word?”
“Writing for the food pages,” Perez said. “Conflict makes the news world go round, Arlene.”
“Even if you have to invent conflict.”
“McCarthy didn’t invent this.”
“But it’s being blown out of proportion,” Troy said. “I know how it works: coverage is based on a vacuum. The pages have to be filled, the monster fed, so reporters get sucked toward whatever is happening. There must be some kind of physics equation to explain it, something like: The Size of a Scandal is Directly Proportionate to the News Void that Exists at the Moment. I mean look at Kent this afternoon, ninning around asking secretaries and clerks questions all over city hall. You’d have thought he was Carl Bernstein in All the President’s Men.”
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