The old-time weathermen and sportscasters looked at the whole business differently. They didn’t think of themselves as stars, never had. Most of them were genuinely surprised that some piece of luck put them in such an easy job.
At The Best, it was John Devlin on weekday sports and Art Novak on weather, older men. Behind them, if they had been the type to sniff the air like the older reporters did, they would have smelled that coy scent of youth, cologne and hairspray.
Devlin and Novak were a dying breed, guys who had been there, who knew the game and didn’t overdo the science. But, for right now, they were enjoying every surprising minute of where they found themselves.
Tom Carter wasn’t worried about any sweet, sticky smell. He knew the young punks were taking over. Hell, he was hiring them. He put them right close on the necks of Devlin and Novak. He liked it, waiting and watching for that moment when the old dogs knew it was over. For their backups, he hired pampered models of men. He got the ones with the glittering black eyes and white teeth. Slightly seedy in the newsroom with their looks of used car salesmen, they somehow fit the camera perfectly at night. They had no aspirations for anchoring or even reporting. They had it made, a little smile, a little tooth glitter, and the bucks rolled in.
Youth couldn’t carry the evening anchor slot. Only Carter could do that and he knew it would be at least ten years before anyone would even dare suggest they find a backup for him. Carter also knew that when the time came he’d pick the man. He’d find him out there in Fresno or Bakersfield and he’d watch as the balding, aging reporter boys in his newsroom died a little each day, knowing if he ever left his seat they wouldn’t be the one to sit in it.
He earned seventy-three thousand a year plus a brand new Chrysler, top of the line, every two years. He read one newspaper a day, starting with the sports section and working his way quickly through the rest of the paper. He subscribed to one magazine, Sports Illustrated. He did check the wires twice a day and he kept in touch with the men who ran the city from their downtown clubs and restaurants.
He never watched a television documentary from start to finish. He did not watch public television. He went to no art or charity event unless it was to be in a front table seat with the men who ran the state. He did not own a tuxedo. He dressed down. He was, after all, a humble man, a man of the audience, a mean, racist, sexist, son-of-a-bitch man of the people. And, thought the salivating male reporters, if that son of a bitch could do it, so could they.
“Hell, he doesn’t even know where to wipe his ass,” Jack Benton shook his head.
“They love him. They sure love him,” said Richard Ferguson. “Damn.”
It was Tom Carter who coined the phrase The Best in the West. By that he meant his station first, his news team second, and himself a humble third.
*
On her first story for The Best, the construction foreman asked her, “What do you think of television people?”
Debbie Hanson smiled, slowly winding the mike cord in the prescribed manner, from hand to elbow and over again in neat gray circles.
“They’re great,” she said.
“I don’t know,” he said wiping the sweat off his forehead. “I once was at this party with a bunch of TV people and they all acted like they thought they were real important, you know? Like they were better than everybody else.” He hesitated.
“I mean …”
“I know,” she smiled, her blue eyes pained in the sun. “I guess we can be like that. But, we’re really like everyone else.”
SEGMENT ONE
“A major fire in our valley tonight,” Tom Carter told them. “Jack Benton is live at the scene with that story. Jack?”
Behind Tom Carter and Jean Ann, Jack Benton appeared on a large screen. Behind him were flashes of red lights and the movement of passing figures.
“That’s right, Tom, Jean Ann. I am standing here at what’s left of the Allied Tire Warehouse.”
With a punch of a button, he was full screen and Jean Ann and Tom Carter were gone. As he spoke, the words Allied Tire Warehouse materialized beneath him. Beneath them was an address.
“The fire broke out at about three o’clock this afternoon and may have been the largest and smokiest fire in this city in many years.”
Then, he too disappeared but his voice continued as the tape shot that afternoon rolled. The fire at the Allied Tire Warehouse at Desert Way Industrial Park was dead but on tape it burned bright.
Jean Ann searched her script. Wasn’t there a question she was supposed to ask? What was it? She bit her lower lip. Didn’t she write it down here somewhere? Arson, that was it. She was supposed to ask it if was arson.
She had to ask the question the right way. There had to be that note of care and interest, like she didn’t know the answer. Well, she didn’t know the answer but she could guess. Why else would they tell her to ask the question? The producer always gave them the questions to ask. It was safer that way.
4
Ellen liked Debbie Hanson right from that first day. She liked the tallness of her, the innocence, the laughter. Right from the first day in her flower-print dress with the bared arms, Debbie had been fine. The blue eyes, cornflower blue, Ellen imagined, were
