Kill Fee (3 page)

"All right," she said amiably enough, and left.

Walsh dropped his head into his hands, elbows on the desk. He'd reacted to bad news like any manual laborer: when things get rough, go out and get drunk. He'd really tied one on the night before. Dumb. And how had he allowed himself to get trapped into that childish argument with Fran? He wasn't thinking clearly today.

How could he, after yesterday? He never read the
Wall Street Journal
himself. But, oh my, he had a lot of
"
friends" who were quick enough to call the day before and tell him about that little item tucked away in the inside pages.

He should have known something was up. He'd gone ahead and published the anti-electronics-industry story and Jerry Sussman hadn't said a word. That should have told him right there. Then Mueller Electronics withdrew its advertising, just as Sussman had predicted . . . and still he hadn't said anything.

And Simple Simon congratulated himself on having won a victory,
Walsh thought bitterly.

Sussman had stopped coming around to
Summit's
editorial offices. At first Walsh had thought nothing of it; his partner had a business office elsewhere and
Summit
was only one of Sussman's "projects"—albeit his most important one. A year or so ago Sussman had acquired a bike-racing magazine, and rumor had it he was buying into one of the supermarket tabloids. Sussman was a busy man, driving himself with the kind of energy Walsh sometimes envied. So a prolonged absence of the majority owner wouldn't attract any particular notice.

But then Walsh realized he hadn't seen Sussman at all since he'd published the electronics story.
Count your blessings,
he told himself nervously. Yet he couldn't help worrying; Sussman was not a man who tolerated opposition quietly. Walsh had called Sussman's office a couple of times.
In conference,
the secretary had said. Then the answer had appeared in yesterday's
Wall Street Journal

Suddenly Walsh had to get out of the office. It was too early for lunch, but he just couldn't sit there any longer. "I'll be back," he called to his secretary as he rushed by.

"When?" she asked. "Where are you going?"

He left without answering. Secretaries hated bosses who didn't keep them informed of their whereabouts, but
this
time they'd all have to plug along without him for a while.

He'd vaguely had it-in mind that a hair of the dog was what was needed to cure his hangover. But the elevator's swift descent brought out the wave of nausea he'd managed to keep suppressed so far.
Walk it off,
he told himself.

He turned left and headed uptown. The air was still nippy—it was April—and he had to move along at a fast pace to keep from getting cold. His near-jogging stride jarred his headache, and for some reason all of Sixth Avenue seemed to be permeated with the odor of frying onions that morning. Feeling worse, he hurried across Central Park South and went into the park. He veered off to the right, toward the Pond. Looked for a place to sit. Found it. Sat.

After a while the throbbing in his head began to ease. And he seemed to have found a relatively odor-free corner of the city. He hadn't gone far enough into the park to escape the traffic noise—but the sound was muted, tolerable. He was chilly, sitting still; but the nippy air was starting to brace him up. He decided to live.

To live, but not to go back to the office. No—he changed his mind immediately; that was cowardly. He shouldn't let his staff see how defeated he was. He shouldn't even have let Fran Caffrey see he was hung over. They all knew what was happening—they must know, it was in the paper. Yet no one had said a word to him, although they had to be talking about it among themselves. Other than that, it had been business as usual. Waiting for him to make the first move? Well, he'd made it. He'd run away.

Leila. He wanted to talk to Leila. Needed to,
had
to talk to her. He got up and left the park, looking for a phone.

Leila
had been his second wife, the one he kept in touch with. She'd remarried after their divorce—a little too soon to please Walsh. He'd once tried to rekindle the flame. It had been a time he was in special need of comforting—another instance when Sussman had made his life miserable, come to think of it. So he'd gone to Leila.

She'd turned him down flat. "You'd just love that, wouldn't you?" she'd said. "You'd like me to cheat on Jack with
you
—that'd make you the big man after all. Sorry, love. I'm not interested in making you feel big."

They hadn't spoken for three months after that.

But something had gone sour in the marriage to Jack; Leila was once again an unmarried woman and swearing to stay that way. For once she and Walsh were agreed: two marriages were enough. Leila and Leon didn't see each other often—lunch every month or so. It suited them.

Walsh had to walk all the way to Columbus Circle before he found a phone that worked. He dialed the television production company where Leila worked.

"Leon? How are you? Haven't heard from you for ages."

He couldn't wait for the amenities. "Leila, Sussman is selling
Summit."

There was a small pause on the other end, and then she said cautiously, "Couldn't that be a good thing? You've been wanting to break with that man for years."

"He's selling to UltraMedia."

"Oh. Oh, my god. Oh, Leon—I'm so sorry!"

As well she should be. UltraMedia Corporation was an ultrabuck conglomerate that had grown (astonishingly, to Walsh) out of a single acid-rock bimonthly that had been considered hot stuff back in the sixties. Now Ultra-Media had fingers in just about every aspect of pop
entertainment—
gossip magazines, music videos, record albums and tapes, TV production, a dozen other things Walsh couldn't even guess at. UltraMedia had pioneered the one-issue magazine. A personality would capture the public interest, and UltraMedia would put out a one-shot magazine devoted solely to that personality. They'd started off in the sixties with Jackie and Elvis and Liz and moved through the seventies with Farrah and Burt and Liz and into the eighties with Bo and Prince Charles and Liz. And that was the outfit that was buying
Summit.

"
Maybe they've decided to go straight," Leila said wryly. "Do you know what their plans for
Summit
are? What does Sussman say?"

"I haven't seen him for over a month. And he won't come to the phone. It's still in the negotiation stage, but the
Wall Street Journal
says they're close to an agreement. That's how I found out about it, Leila. From the goddam
new
spaper."

"Sussman didn't tell you he was selling?" The astonishment in her voice was real, indignant.

"No, he didn't tell me he was selling," Walsh said bitterly. "I'm only the minority owner—but I
am
his partner, damn it." Walsh knew why Sussman hadn't told him, but he didn't want to say so to Leila. Sussman was punishing him again. For being a naughty boy. "He should have let me know."

Leila agreed. "Have you talked to anybody at Ultra-Media?"

"No." He hadn't even thought of it.

"Seems to me that's your next step. Jerry Sussman may be ashamed to face you, but the people at UltraMedia can hardly refuse to talk. Maybe you can find out what their plans are."

"
That's a possibility."

Another pause. Then: "Leon—maybe UltraMedia won't interfere with
Summit.
You might end up just going on doing what you're already doing."

"Hah."

"No, listen—
Summit's
a major periodical, a paying proposition. Why would they want to meddle with a winning formula?"

Walsh thought of Mueller Electronics. And a few others. "We've had a little advertiser attrition lately."

"Oh. Well, I'm sorry to hear it. But they still might not want to change the magazine. Talk to them, Leon," she urged. "Find out what their plans are."

Yes, that was what he should do. Find out from the enemy what his own partner wouldn't tell him.

Rain pounded New York's streets and buildings for three days, the three days it took Walsh to set up an appointment with UltraMedia. Finally someone by the name of Hartley Dunlop agreed to meet him. What kind of name was that,
Hartley Dunlop?
Walsh didn't even know Dunlop's position in the firm. He supervised publications, the secretary had said. That could mean anything, Walsh muttered under his breath. What rank? Manager, vice president, department head?
A supervisor,
said the breathy, girlish voice on the phone.

Through the secretary Walsh had invited Dunlop to come to the
Summit
offices; no dice. Then he'd tried for a meeting on neutral ground, a restaurant for lunch. That didn't work either. So Walsh was going to have to go into Dunlop's turf, hat in hand, begging for a crumb of information.

He shouldn't be treated this way, Walsh told himself uncomfortably.
Summit
was
his
magazine, he'd created
it
out of nothing. And yet people he didn't even know were deciding the magazine's future. No one had consulted him, no one had asked his opinion. He'd never heard of doing business this way; simple courtesy dictated that at least a telephone call be made.

UltraMedia's corporate headquarters were in Los Angeles (naturally), but there was a New York office, on Lexington. The rain was still pouring from a livid sky when the time for Walsh's appointment approached; he got water down the back of his neck as he bent to climb into the cab. Visibility was poor and the driver swore all the way during the short trip from
Summit
to Ultra-Media.

UltraMedia's reception area looked like a set for a science fiction movie—colorful, futuristic, and boastfully plastic. Music from Jupiter filtered through invisible speakers. Walsh was directed through a tunnel of rotating lights (an ordinary hallway when the plug was pulled, he was sure) and emerged at the other end with a slight feeling of nausea. And waiting for him there—well, she was either a fashion model or a movie star or the Queen of Venus, at least. But no, it was only Hartley Dunlop's secretary—she of the breathy voice.

She was an absolutely stunning young woman, and Walsh stared in open admiration. She noticed (in fact, she was waiting for it), and she gave him an open, sweet, professionally shy smile in return. "Mr. Walsh?" she whispered. "This way, please."

She was an expensive-looking young woman: clothing, haircut, make-up—all reeked of money. Walsh followed her down another hallway and wondered how long it took her to get ready in the morning. But it was her personal style that was most disconcerting. Her manner was soft, friendly—but with just a touch of hesitation in it.
As
if she were saying:
Here I am, a great beauty, but I'm still vulnerable. You won't hurt me, will you?
Walsh didn't buy it, but it was obviously the pose UltraMedia liked in its female employees. He had half a notion to send Fran Caffrey over here on an errand so she'd see how well off she was at
Summit.

Having found a reason to feel superior, Walsh was able to enter Hartley Dunlop's office in a fairly self-confident mood. But that good feeling began to evaporate the second he caught sight of his new surroundings. From a science fiction set he had stepped into one of those display rooms of fine period furnishings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. His own office was a paper chase: desk and work tables piled high with manuscripts, galleys, layout pages, paste-up boards, all the accouterments of putting together a magazine. It was a
working
office. This, on the other hand, was the office of a man who sat in luxury and thought big thoughts, made big plans—which others would implement at the flick of a finger.

Walsh sat down gingerly on a Louis Somethingth chair and stared at an ornate tapestry on the opposite wall. Miss Vulnerable Beauty whispered something in his direction and disappeared through a door. This wasn't even the inner office. This was an audience hall where the King entertained petitions from the peasantry.

Hartley Dunlop came in; Walsh found himself standing up to meet . . .
a little boy.

Well, he looked like a little boy. He had to be in his twenties, but he appeared even younger than that. Clean, all-American features; dark hair in an ostentatiously youthful cut—he would have looked at home in a Boy Scout uniform. But Dunlop's "uniform" came from Savile Row; the expensive clothing and his half-closed eyes gave him an effete air, a poise far beyond his years.
"
I'm Hartley Dunlop, Mr. Walsh. Let's sit over here, shall we? So much more comfortable than those." He dismissed the Louis Somethingth chairs with a graceful wave of his hand.

Walsh lowered himself on to the indicated settee and found himself staring at Dunlop's suit, wondering if UltraMedia gave its people a clothing allowance. He sat admiring Dunlop's tailoring until Dunlop asked what he could do for him.

Walsh roused himself and said, "You can tell me what the hell is going on. Why do I have to read in the newspaper that you're buying
my
magazine?"

Dunlop tilted his head back and looked at Walsh through his eyelashes—easier, Walsh supposed, than opening his eyes all the way. "I would have thought your partner had kept you informed," Dunlop said.

"Do you know Jerry Sussman?"

"We've met, yes."

"Then that's your answer—you know the kind of man he is. He's been negotiating with UltraMedia behind my back—and you know it."

"Do I?" Dark eyebrows raised a fraction. "What goes on between you and Mr. Sussman is not our concern."

He wasn't getting anywhere. "Look," Walsh said, "I've been in the magazine business longer than you've been alive. There's no way you can understand what creating your own magazine means. I did donkey work in periodicals you never heard of, and then twelve years ago I started
Summit
—from nothing I started it. Sussman came along with the money when I needed it, but
I
built the magazine. And yet you don't even bother to consult me when you negotiate a purchase?"