6
Paulina Cole sat at her desk, holding a warm cup in her hands. She took a sip. Coffee and Xanax. Better than toast and a runny omelet. She'd squeezed Dr. Shepberg's name into an article naming the best psychiatrists in NYC and ever since then the prescriptions arrived in her mailbox once a month.
Behind Paulina's desk were half a dozen picture frames containing front pages pulled from the New York Dispatch.
Stories she'd broken, papers so hot they'd sold out their print runs and been dissected on blogs around the world. Since she'd joined the Dispatch, the paper's circulation had grown
1.5 percent, a number many tried to attribute to a new marketing campaign, but those in the know knew it was solely because of her. Ted Allen, the Dispatch' s publisher, had said as much during the last shareholders meeting, and promptly given her a ten percent raise. He said Paulina Cole represented the bold new direction the Dispatch would be taking into the twenty-first century, that despite all the perils facing the print industry, technology simply couldn't compete with an oldfashioned nose for news. According to Allen, the Dispatch was tired of being the number two newspaper in New York.
And come hell or high water (possibly both) they would eventually best their number one enemy. Even if it meant simply hiring away their top reporters.
That's how he phrased it. Their enemy. This wasn't business, this was war. The longer you stayed satisfied being number two the more likely you'd fall out of the race completely. Nobody remembered the guy who lost the election, the ex before meeting your soul mate. The second-best were forgotten, pulped. If you weren't willing to kill to grab the lead, you deserved to get trampled.
That was Paulina's job; to do the trampling, to sell newspapers.
And for all the battles waged between the two newspapers, the coverage of Athena Paradis's murder could be the Dis patch' s Gettysburg. Athena was the most recognizable woman in the world, more than the president's wife, more than Princess Diana (hell, most of Athena's fans were too young to have even heard of Lady Di), even more than that lucky gal who scribbled the words Harry Potter on a notepad.
The battles lines had been drawn. More newspapers were going to be moved during the Paradis investigation than any event save a terrorist attack. Of course Paulina could argue that more people had seen Athena's reality show than had voted in the last election, so by sheer volume alone this was the biggest news story of the decade. Besides, the Lindbergh baby had never posed on the cover of her self-titled album wearing stockings and wrapped in a fire hose.
Until three o'clock this morning, Paulina had been digging into the personal life of David Loverne, congressional candidate, philanthropist, father of Henry Parker's ex-girlfriend
Mya, and alleged keeper of somewhere in the vicinity of four mistresses. It was a cover story in the making. David was beloved. Tall, handsome, the kind of man other men looked
up to and women wanted to look down upon. She was going to blow the whole thing wide open, expose the creep for who he really was. His fans and supporters would be demoralized.
His detractors (yes, there were some) would eat it for breakfast. And every one of them would fork over their fifty cents to read it.
Over the past week, Paulina had interviewed two women who claimed to have slept with Loverne, both within the past year. One dalliance occurred in a limousine after a stump speech, the other in an airplane flying to Dubai. Taking
Loverne down would sell papers. Getting in another dig at someone close to Henry Parker was just icing on the cake.
There was a knock on her door.
'Come in,' she said. In walked Terrence Bynes, the
Dispatch' s Metro editor. Paulina's direct boss. The fact that he would lick between the subway railings if Paulina asked him to was implicit in their relationship.
Bynes was wearing suit pants with cuffs an inch too long, and a blue work shirt that looked like it had been fermented with starch. His eyeglasses were too big, not to mention unnecessary, considering Paulina knew his last eye exam produced 20/19 vision. And she'd be willing to bet there was a rolled sock (or two) down his trousers as well.
'I assume you read the Gazette this morning,' Bynes said.
'Fucking online edition,' Paulina said, taking another sip, feeling that delicious warm tingle. 'Read only by cheapos and kids without the attention span to click the 'Next Page' button.
Their print edition didn't have anything we didn't, that's all we should be concerned about.'
'Tell that to Ted Allen,' Bynes continued. 'The man is pissed.
He thinks we got scooped, and he's looking to point the finger.'
'We did get scooped,' Paulina said. 'But that's like saying we got stabbed by a toothpick at the start of a knife fight. What
Henry Parker wrote this morning won't be a blip on the radar tomorrow after Perez's press conference. So tell him if that finger goes anywhere near me I'm cutting it off.'
Bynes smirked. 'Why don't you tell him that?'
'Well, it's your job, but I'd be happy to. I'll e-mail him right now.' She pulled out her keyboard and began typing.
Bynes placed his hand over the keys.
'That was a hypothetical question,' he said.
She stopped typing. 'Don't ever ask me a hypothetical question again, or I'll hypothetically strangle you with your shoelace. I call every bluff I see. Remember that.'
Bynes swallowed, flicked his eyes down to his wingtips.
'So what do I tell Ted Allen? He's pissed this Parker kid got to the cops before we could.'
Paulina leaned back in her chair. She closed her eyes. This
Parker kid. This Parker kid.
Her eyelids flew open.
'This Parker kid is a good reporter. Give me pages four through seven tomorrow for coverage of the murder.'
'That's a lot of copy. Are you sure you'll have enough to fill that space?'
'Don't ask me that again. I could give a rat's ass what you do with pages eight, nine and sixty-nine. Oh, and get Tamara
Finnerman to do a write-up of David Loverne's speech at the
Alzheimer's event last night. When my story runs, I don't want people thinking we've had it in for him. Tell her to use prose so syrupy and purple I'll be able to see the Crayola logo.
Tell Allen that between these two stories, the Gazette will be limping within weeks.'
Bynes laughed, then wiped a loose dribble of saliva from his mouth.
'I'm not going to tell him that. What, you think covering a story we've already been scooped on will suddenly have
Wallace Langston quaking in his Doc Martens?'
Paulina smiled at him, crossed her legs.
'Every war begins with an opening volley. Parker's scoop this morning was the Gazette' s opening volley. I'm not simply returning fire, I'm coming back with a Howitzer up their ass.
You know my ex-husband was a state prosecutor. One thing
I learned from him, other than that men are as useful as dirty bathwater, is that nobody remembers how you won, they remember if you won. We simply take what Parker has, know what he's going to know, and make it our own. Henry's a great reporter, but after last year he's nervous, twitchy, and doesn't want to rattle the cage any more than he already has. I have someone who'll shadow him closer than his beard stubble, and I'll be waiting to lay down the copy.'
Bynes smiled. 'I thought you said Finnerman was the one who wrote purple prose.'
'Trust me,' Paulina said. 'It'll look better on paper.'
