The three of them, Tony, Brown, and Tom Carter went down the list of reporters and photographers, stopping at certain names with comments about stories or output or, when it came to photographers, overtime. George Harding sat quietly to one side.
“Those pricks,” Carter spat, “they’re padding their goddamn time sheets. You bet they are and it’s going to stop.”
“Somebody has to shoot the stories, Tom,” said George Harding.
“Well, find somebody to do it on our time, not theirs,” Carter ordered. “You bring that goddamn overtime down or I’ll do something about it.”
Brown smiled an apology to George Harding. Every Wednesday meeting was the same.
“Who’s low on story count?” Carter demanded. This was the part he loved, the story count. The count showed how these little bastards tried to rip off the station.
“Allen and, I guess,” Brown hesitated as though examining the list, “Debbie Hanson. But, you know,” he seemed to rush to explain, “Debbie’s been down, a little sick, no big deal.”
Carter began to swell with anger. Why was Brown making excuses?
“Allen’s a fucking bimbo so who cares about her but you tell Miss Hanson to get on the stick. She’s been here less than a year. Right, George?”
George Harding nodded. He had no idea.
“And she hasn’t done anything worth talking about,” Carter concluded.
“Ah, she’s done some good stuff, Tom,” Brown argued.
“Not enough, buddy,” Carter spat back. “We ain’t no goddamn nursing home. What do you mean she’s sick?”
“Stomach or something,” George Harding mumbled. No one had said anything to him about her being sick but that sounded harmless enough.
“Maybe the bimbo is preggers,” Carter sneered.
“Well, that’s an easy one to solve,” Tony said without thinking.
“What?” Carter yelled.
“I was joking, Tom.”
“You better be, boy. We don’t put up with that shit in my newsroom. You got that?”
Brown looked at Tony. There was nothing they didn’t find out sooner or later. Even if they only guessed at something, they were usually right. Every newsroom rumor he ever heard turned out to be true.
“I ain’t having no pregnant gashes in my newsroom,” said Carter.
George Harding flinched.
“Tom, Tony was joking,” Brown stated.
George Harding sat like a schoolboy before an exam, all of his papers on his lap, his knees held close together.
“Are we almost done?” he asked. “I should get back out there.”
“Go ahead,” Carter said, “but you keep that goddamn overtime down. Who’s the worst one on that overtime stuff?”
“Ah,” George Harding was on his feet, holding his papers in a tight fist. “Ah, maybe, ah, Clifford Williams. He’s usually high.”
“He’s high, ten, fifteen hours,” Tony commented, then added, “He does good work.”
He made it a practice to balance a criticism with a compliment. Something he learned from Brown.
“Not on my back he doesn’t,” Carter shouted. “You get that overtime down or I will.”
George Harding nodded and left the room.
“That it for me too?” Tony asked.
“Yeah,” Carter said.
“So, what about this Hanson thing?” he asked Brown after Tony left.
He liked a problem with the staff. They hadn’t had any serious problems in a long time and he liked handling them, the overtime, the story count. That was his area. What he didn’t touch was the newscasts. He didn’t have any idea how those things got put together and he admitted it.
“I couldn’t put a newscast together to save my life,” he told Ellen Peters as they watched Chuck Farrell lay out the script on the long table. He put it down page by page, in five vertical rows, each row representing one section of the newscast.
It had all gotten so goddamn complicated, tapes, mini-cams, microphones, earpieces, somebody always waving at you, yelling in your ear. Oh, he could handle it out on the set. Who cared what the director said or the producer or the people on the floor? On the set he was in charge and if all went to hell in a handbasket, he was the man who made damn sure the right bastards got theirs.
He handled the staff and that is what kept it all together, not any goddamn row of scripts. It was The Best because he built the best goddamn team in the state. He built it, from Bakersfield to Omaha to wherever the hell that goddamn Polack Kowalski came from.
“I’m going to have to have a little talk with Miss Hanson,” he told Brown to show him who was really in charge.
“Couldn’t hurt,” Brown agreed.
“Damn right. If something needs to be straightened out with that young lady, we better do it now. And I don’t like this talk about her being pregnant. Who’s she screwing anyway?”
Brown shrugged. He heard some talk that she and Jason were dating but after he tied him into Ferguson and the medical stories, there couldn’t have been much time left for Debbie. It was a hard life, television, a lot of tough choices had to be made. As he once told Ellen, it wasn’t good for relationships.
“Destroys marriages, yes, it can, and relationships,” he told her.
“Doesn’t have to,” she countered.
“It’s tough,” he said, shaking his head. “Nobody understands what it means, nobody who is not in the businesss,”
“Sure,” was her answer.
*
“So, what are you going to do?” Clifford asked as they drove to their story. “You plan to stay here forever?”
“No, not forever,” Ellen said.
“Well, what are you going to do?”
“Clifford,” she warned. She didn’t want the questions today. No more questions.
“Like I said, I’m going to New York,” he told her. “I can make it there. I’m good.”
“A lot of people are,” she said. She wasn’t going to build up his dream today. She was tired of that too.
“Not as good as this nigger,” he replied strongly.
“Well, it’s too big for me. Too many people.”
“Then where?” he demanded.
“I might pack it in and go back to New Mexico.”
“Any jobs up there?”
“Yeah, but they don’t pay.”
“I’m already there in the don’t-pay-me-nothin’ place. I ain’t going to another one.”
She laughed.
“Nothin’ as bad as this place,” he
