Time and Chance (10 page)

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Winston and I hit
slick I-24 at 50 mph and we flowed over the wet asphalt, tires hissing the
water away. Rain pummeling Winston pretty good, wipers flapping, I thought
about Peggy. Smarter than she pretended, Terri wouldn't approve but I'm sure
she would understand.

Not wanting to think
about the Peggy-Berry-Snakebite connection, I picked up my two-way microphone
and spoke to the newsroom: “Anybody home?”

After a moment the
familiar voice of assignment editor, Sam Hill: “Well, good morning, Mr. Carr,
we've been expecting you.”

“Everything under
control?”

“Except for this
bleeping rain, Berry Frazer, and….” She paused.

“And what?”

“Is this an asylum,
sanatorium, or funny farm?”

“All the above. Berry
and what?”

“Galbo.”

“Super, so what's up?”

“Well, Berry was down
here, slamming doors, G.D.'ed everything under the sun, looking for you. Wants
to know what we're doing on the weather … paged you to his office couple of
time, upset, mean, ugly, kicked a chair … and ah, ah….”

“What?”

“Galbo called in, he
wanted to talk to you, about our weather coverage, sounded like he was upset.”

“Where is Galbo doing
all his calling from?”

“Camp Lejeune bunker.”

Joe often telling of
his duties as a sergeant at the Camp Lejeune Marine boot camp, I said, “Is he
under fire?”

She chuckled, “No, his
car … stuck somewhere in traffic.”

“If he calls again,
tell him I said he can take the day off. Working too hard. Tell him he should
turn around and go home, flood coming, take the month off.”

She chuckled. I said,
“Tell me about the weather.”

“Old Hickory Lake is
over the spillway, flash flood watch for the whole viewing area, emphasize
watch, not a warning.”

“Until when?”

“2:00 P.M. Luther
called in, said he had checked with St. Louis radar, clearing to the west, he
didn't think there was anything to worry about, you know, his left shoulder is
fine … and ah….”

“What?”

“Luther said Galbo
called him, told him this was an emergency, ordered him to come in and do
weather updates. I guess Big Joe told him that he, Big Joe, is second banana
now … said Luther is our main weather person, should be in doing reports.”

“What did Luther tell
him?”

“You don't want to
know.”

“Anything else?”

“Berry told us to dump
the story on Mike Walker Enterprises, the demonstrations by that Rev, no stories
on any of it, said it's a holy roller PR stunt.”

“Besides Joe and
Berry, any other patients out of their cages?”

“Nope.”

“Okay, see you in a
few minutes.”

I threw the mic on the
seat, swerved around a small lake of water, and flowed onto I-24 north.

Settling into the
right lane at a steady 65 mph, fifteen miles to go, I rubbed my chin and
remembered I had to shave. I reached for my Norelco. Working the whirling
blades under the point of my nose, thoughts whirled: the inmates are out; it's
Monday; flash flood watch; a second banana who doesn't know rain from snow;
Berry is looking for me; Peggy is Snakebite's number one hum; gambling trade deals;
Peggy's name up in lights….

Finished shaving, I
threw the razor on the passenger seat, pushed a hand through my hair, and
lowered my window. Honeysuckle air flooded Winston's cockpit and cool rain
pelted the side of my face. I tasted the dryness in my mouth, lit a Salem, and
exited the expressway.

CHAPTER 7

Real Time

9:35:15 A.M. CDT

Behind his desk,
scanning the Wall Street Journal, Berry swung to his credenza, grabbed a hand
towel, and wiped oily sweat from his neck. He threw the towel into a wicker
basket that sat on the floor next to his desk. Before turning back to the
newspaper, he reached to the opposite side of the credenza and straightened the
silver framed pictures of his wife and daughter.

Satisfied with the
angle, he swiveled back to the Journal, flipped to the market page then
suddenly smashed the paper closed. He looked at his Rolex, 9:37, and shouted,
“Son of a mother bitch.”

He started to snatch
the phone receiver but instead walked to his office window. He looked down
through the mist and rain. A white Jaguar approached TV12's parking lot.

CHAPTER 8

Jack’s Time

Rain and gusty wind
molesting Winston, I downshifted and turned into the TV12 parking lot. Berry's
white Humvee sat in its reserved slot next to the station's main entrance.

I shifted to second
gear and looked, next to Berry's Hummer. Joe Galbo's reserved slot was empty.
The orange on white sign,
Reserved—Joe B.
Galbo
, looked lonely absent Joe's green behemoth Chrysler. So me, a sucker
for loneliness of any kind, I clutched, downshifted, raced Winston's throaty
engine, and parked in Joe's space.

Winston's engine off,
the rhythm of the rain droning on the canvas top, I paused to look, through the
water rivulets streaking Winston's windshield, at the white brick exterior of
TV12. The two storey edifice, named Broadcast House by Lamar Frazer, was
roughly half the length of a football field and half again that wide.

I looked at Berry's
much ballyhooed addition to Broadcast House: a twenty foot orange neon sign
protruding over the entrance that proclaimed:
TV12 THE SIZZLE.

Lightning smacked
directly above. I counted one, two and thunder crawled off over the hills like
some wounded animal and the rain intensified to a downpour.

I put Salem out, waiting.

Waiting for what?

The sky groaning, I
looked at Blancpain—little after 9:40. I squirted three shots of lime Binaca in
my mouth, snugged my trench coat collar, and stepped out of Winston. Standing
for a moment, feeling the rain on my face and hair, likening what I felt, I
thought of the time I was in. The changing time. Thinking of the rain, listening
to the rain. Spring, dogwood blossoms time, Aunt Jane's homily.

Couldn't be.

I closed Winston's
door and, walking to the entrance of TV12, I felt eyes on me. I glanced up and
noticed Berry looking down from the window of his second storey office.

CHAPTER 9

Real Time

9:48:55 A.M. CDT

Berry kicked the wall,
went to his office door, and said, “Judy, call Carr, I want him in here, NOW.”

“He wasn't in last
time I called….”

”Goddamn it, he's
here, I just saw him pull in.”

 
Berry noticed one of the wall picture of
himself, arms around two CBS sitcom starlets, was crooked. He walked to the
picture and straightened it. As he touched the frame, Judy interrupted, “Mr.
Frazer, Joy said Jack isn't in his office yet.”

Berry shot back, “He's
in the goddamn building, page him!”

CHAPTER 10

Jack’s Time

I entered Broadcast
House. The lobby, glass enclosed, about the size of a handball court, was forested
with five plastic Ficus trees, the ceramic floor shined from its nightly
buffing and the white leather sofa, three matching chairs, and chrome coffee
table were showroom arranged. A large screen TV featured CBS morning fare. I
glanced to the left at the open staircase. Battleship gray carpeting, thick
mahogany railing, the stairway led to the second floor. Berry's and Big Joe's
command centers were up there. So too were Joe's national sales manager, Kay
Stallings; his local sales manager, Allen Smith; twenty sales associates; and
Joe Galbo's private aide (he preferred aide to secretary, a military thing),
looking like an Egyptian she-king, shapely P. J. Cummings.

Up there also were the
offices of Business Manager Bobbi Overmier. She supervised the accounting and
traffic departments. During intermission in the work day, I like to wonder up
and chit chat with Bobbi. Her world ordered, no matter what the experts said,
two plus two, for her, every time, came out four.

The
Promotion/Programming Department used to be on the second floor, but Joe
insisted he needed the space so Berry moved, just last month, Jay Speaker and
his staff of two downstairs. Berry said it would be better if promotion was
closer to news, production, and engineering. Better is one of those words like
cool or wow or fab as in ‘rap music is fab’ that has real world context in
terms of the word maker.

I approached the
station's sweater-girl receptionist, Marcie Clark. Fresh and young, long brown
hair to her shoulders, flirting hazel eyes, she sat behind a white Formica
counter.

Marcie smiling:
“Morning Jack, Mr. Frazer is looking for you.”

I never could fathom
how Marcie managed to smile like that so early in the morning.

Suddenly a meek female
voice came from the station's paging speaker in the ceiling:
“Jack Carr, front office, please. Jack Carr,
front office, please.”

I recognized the
voice. Judy, Berry's secretary.

Marcie smiled, “Told
you.”

“Marcie, I've always
wondered, how many red lights have you run in your young life?”

“What?”

“Nothing.” I proceeded
down the hall toward my office. The walls, cream-colored, dripped with framed
portraits of CBS Stars, past and present. The buffed ceramic floor ended at the
production control room where dull brown tile replaced it. The walls also
changed to cement blocks painted beige. I walked past the control room and
noted, more than usual, tension in the managed frenzy of the engineering and
production people. Further down the hall, I glanced into the newsroom. Less
frenzy, but somber.

I waved to, talking on
the phone, Assignment Editor Sam Hill.

She waved back.

Another page blasted
from the public address speakers: “
Jack Carr, front office, immediately,
Jack Carr, front office.”

Berry's voice this
time, he sounded out of breath.

Five steps more and I
entered the tiny reception area to my office where Joy was dispatching an
obscene stack of mail.

With Joy, what you saw
is what you got—chestnut eyes, no lipstick, no earrings, a dusting of face
powder. Her hair, once black, pulled loosely back in a neat bun, is now mostly
gray. Silver framed reading glasses rested near the end of her elegant pudgy
nose. A tiny silver chain, attached to the glasses, hung around her neck. This
morning she wore a knit charcoal sweater over a white blouse and looked ten
years younger than forty-nine. Constant, reliable, something different and she
knew it.

She looked over the top
of her glasses at me, and like I had been there all morning, said, “Now we got
two arsonists.”

I knew what she meant.
Joy, some time ago, because of Berry's rash decisions, had labeled him an
arsonist. The staff of TV12 were fire fighters.

I asked, “Who's the
other one?”

“Joe Galbo.” She
smiled and held up a copy of the A.C. Nielsen news overnight ratings. “Our news
is still on top.”

I took the overnights
and, as I glanced them over, Joy said, “Luther called, he's all rattled, said
Galbo ordered him to get his A in here pronto.”

“Galbo said A?”

“Luther said he told
Joe to go to you-know-where. Guess Joe gave him the day off, insubordination.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You believe that?”

“I think I do.”

Slitting an envelope
with a silver letter opener, she said, “You don't look so hot.”

“Rain, flooding, ark
problems.”

“It's me, Jack,” she
said coolly.

I took off my trench
coat and another page blared over the hallway loudspeakers: “
CARR TO THE
FRONT OFFICE! CARR, FRONT OFFICE, IMMEDIATELY!”

Berry again. I still
couldn't figure out why he called his second floor office the 'front office'.
It wasn't by the front door. It wasn't even on the first floor. But then I
couldn't figure out a lot of things. I stepped past Joy's desk to our white
plastic Proctor Silex coffee pot that brewed, or was brewing, or waited to be brewed,
all the time. The aroma heavenly, I poured an orange TV12 mug full and sipped.

Joy said, “Berry's
called, been down here umpteen times, Judy is in a tizzy … want me to call
her?”

“I'll go up.” I looked
at Blancpain, little after 9 something, and walked into my office. I threw my
trench coat on one of two orange-covered chairs that faced my circa-Civil War
gray metal desk, sat, fired up my computer, and it struck me. I called to Joy,
“Did you say Joe gave Luther the day off”