A ruling passion : a novel (12 page)

"Okay," he said to his secretary, and picked up his telephone.

"Where'd it come from?" Oldfield demanded. "Who's this 'high-ranking university official'? There isn't one and you know it. You made it up. It's false, it's damaging to the university, and we want to know where it came fi"om and what you're going to do about it."

"It came from an impeccably reliable source," Beauregard said easily. He sat back in his chair, prepared to enjoy himself. He closed his eyes and pictured Laurence B. Oldfield's wife Marjorie lying beneath him, making little sounds of excitement, and then, later, chattering away as they lay together and he asked questions about the university, espe-

cially about the delicious little story she'd gotten from her husband about Ramona Jackson and her apes. ''Impeccably reliable," he repeated to Oldiield. "We're not irresponsible, you know, Larry; we're the best there is." He gave a modest cough. "As for what we're going to do about it, I'd say at the moment not a thing. We might do some poking around for a follow-up, but I'm not even sure of that right now. We're looking into it, of course; that's our job, too."

"Looking into it," repeated Oldfield furiously "You fticking well might have looked into it before you put it on the air."

My, my, thought Beauregard, such language from a university official.

"—legal department," Oldfield was saying. "They're looking at our options. You're all at risk, you know; every damn one of you who worked on that newscast— and whoever broke into my office and stole private papers from my files—but I'm not waiting for the lawyers; I'm telling you right now we're demanding a public retraction and apology. On that same news show, read by the same woman, whafs her name, the blonde, explaining that none of the story was true "

"None of it?" repeated Beauregard slyly "Larry, did she sav fifty million.^" ^

"That's not the issue!"

"Did she say she wanted the university to take care of her apes?"

"Monkeys. It was a joke."

"Monkeys? Well, we'll definitely issue a correction on that; we shouldn't have said apes if it was monkeys. But, a joke? You want us to tell our viewing audience that Ms. Jackson joked about monkeys when making her donation to the university? And drew a cute little cartoon?"

"We're demanding that you tell your viewing audience the story was distorted, parts of it were fabricated, your sources were wrong... you figure out how to say it; you must have had plenty of praaice if this is an example of how you work."

"Well, now, we think we work pretty well around here," Beauregard said comfortably. 'We'll make diat correction about the apes, Larry, but unless you give me evidence of other errors, thaf s about all we'll do, as far as I can see."

"In addition," said Oldfield as if Beauregard had not spoken, "we want to know the source of that story, or sources, assuming there are any. I doubt it, but if you don't give us names we'll take it that you made it up. You and this Morgen woman, the producer, and whoever wrote it. We have a right to those names and I want them now. One of

them broke into my office and I want to know who it was!"

"Hold on there, Larry. You're throwing around a lot of accusations, and I don't want to hear them. How do you know somebody broke in? Your office is open a lot of the time, right? I don't think you want to accuse my staff of illegalities when you don't have any facts. As for your rights, with all due respect, you have no right to any names, not one. We couldn't put on a responsible newscast—"

"There was nothing responsible about that newscast!"

"—if we couldn't promise confidentiality to our sources to protect them from frivolous lawsuits, for God's sake, just because they're courageous enough to tell the truth—"

"It was a He!"

"—so of course you understand that as a dedicated journalist, I could never even consider—"

"Bullshit."

"Well." There was a silence. "I won't give you those names, Larry; you didn't really expect me to. What the hell would you do with them anyway? The story's out."

"Get them to retract it. You know damn well that's what we'd do with them."

'*Well, maybe they would and maybe they wouldn't. Come on, Larry, what the hell, this is a little story, a wrinkle; it doesn't hurt you a damn bit. It maybe shook up your stuffy academics, but that's—"

"She's talking about withdrawing the money!" Oldfield sucked in his breath. "Thafs off the record, God damn it, if you use it I'll nail you on it."

"I don't believe it. Why would she? What's she going to do with all that dough, for Chrisfs sake?"

"Give it to Cal Tech or Berkeley. They were on her list from the beginning, until Lyle Wilson talked her out of it."

"Why?"

"Because some people don't have your thick hide, you bastard! She didn't like being made a fool of!"

"Well, what the hell, she was sweet-talked once, she can be again. Talk to your guy Wilson. Maybe he's screwing her; he can do it in bed."

There was a silence. "I want a retraction," said Oldfield tighdy. "Tonight. On that same newscast."

"Sorry, Larry, you won't get it."

"Then you'll hear from our lawyers," Oldfield snapped, and slammed down the telephone.

My, my, thought Beauregard, a little excitement around here for a change. But his face was thoughtful as he hung up and swiveled his chair to look through the glass wall of his office at the newsroom, and Sybille, at her desk. She'd sounded convincing. She probably had her sources; she knew it was one thing to jazz up a story and a whole different ball game to make something up out of whole cloth, or to steal a document. She'd done a nice job, produced a nice litde story; she'd just better be covered. She was damn good; he'd hate to have to get rid of her.

Valerie and Rob Segal left the theater building and walked across the quadrangle. He took her hand, enthusiastically squeezing her fingers until she jerked them away. "Hey!" he exclaimed as she quickened her stride. "Something I said.>"

She shook her head. "I don't want to be late for class."

"Well, neither do I, but we can be friendly while we walk, okay?"

"I just don't feel like it," Valerie said shordy and kept walking.

"Jesus," he muttered. "How'm I supposed to know what's coming next with you..." They walked in silence to a long, low classroom building fronted by wide steps where students sprawled, reading, eating, and talking in small groups. Valerie threaded her way among them and Rob followed, glowering. "We still on for tonight?"

"I suppose," she said and walked into the cool dimness of the building.

"Jesus," said Rob again, louder this time, but before he could say more Valerie had darted ahead.

"Sybille!" she cried. "I haven't seen you for so long! How are you?"

Sybille's eyes brightened as Valerie ran to her. "Oh, Valerie, I was hoping I'd see you. So many things have been happening... yesterday was the most incredible day of my life, practically..."

"Good, you can tell me all about it. I'm so bored I'd love to hear about something happening. What was it?"

Sybille looked curiously at Rob, hovering nearby. "If you're busy I can tell you another time."

"Of course I'm not busy." Valerie turned to Rob. "Six-thirty?"

He nodded. "Right."

"I'll see you then." She took Sybille's arm. "How about a lemonade, or something?"

"You have a class," Rob blurted.

"Well, actually, not for an hour," Valerie said calmly. "Do you have a class?" she asked Sybille.

"No," Sybille said, erasing her history class from her thoughts.

"Then lefs go."

Ignoring Rob as easily as Valerie did, Sybille turned and they walked back across the square and past a quadrangle to the Student Union. "It's too beautiful to go inside," Valerie said, and they took a table on the terrace. "Now tell me about your incredible day. I need a fun story; everything is so dull lately."

"I didn't know you were dating other boys," Sybille said.

"Well, now you know."

"But you're still dating Nick."

"No." Valerie was rummaging in her book bag for her wallet, so Sybille could not see her face. "I decided marriage wasn't for me."

SybiUe gasped. "You were married^ I didn't know... when were you..."

"No, of course not." She paused. Oh, what the hell, she thought; she's so awfully anxious, and she's harmless. "But going with Nick is about as close to being married as you can get. He doesn't date; the word isn't in his vocabulary. He mates. It got to be too much and I broke it off. Lemonade," she said to the waitress, then stared moodily at her spoon. "I wish people weren't so busy,'''' she said. "They're always doing and planning and working, and then talking about what they're doing and planning and working on. It makes me nerv^ous. And they always expect me to listen and nod and look enthusiastic, as if I'm a cheering section or crew on a boat ... or a wife."

"Well," Sybille said after a moment of silence. "I guess I shouldn't tell you what I've been doing and working on."

"Oh." Valerie looked up and smiled, the warm, generous smile that always made others forget how wrapped up in herself she had been only a moment before. "That wasn't nice of me; I totally ignored you and you were so excited about your incredible day. Say you forgive me, and then tell me all about it."

"Of course I forgive you, don't be silly. If you really want to hear what happened..." Valerie nodded, so intent on her now that Sybille felt as if she were the only person in the world Valerie cared about. "It's something that happened at the station, just yesterday, well, actually the day before but everything sort of developed yesterday; everybody made it seem so terrific..."

As soon as she heard the name Ramona Jackson, Valerie wished she could stop Sybille in midsentence. She didn't want to hear about it. It brought back that whole awfiil evening with Nick; their angr)^ quarrel

still echoed in her mind. But she'd let herself in for it and she couldn't hurt Sybille by cutting her off.

"I saw it," she said when Sybille finished. "I wondered if you'd had anything to do with it. It's a crazy story." She paused. Maybe she could get Sybille to talk about something else. "How do you put together a story like that? Do you interview everyone?"

"Sometimes. I didn't on this one; I trusted the person who told me about it."

"Did you? Such an odd story. You didn't check it with other people?"

"I didn't have to! You get to know when you have to and when you don't. This guy who told me was sleeping with the wife of somebody at the university. A vice-president," she added wildly, not caring whether it was true or not. "Terry said I was fantastic for finding that story and he'd bring me with him if he went to the network."

"You found it yourself^"

"Of course I did. I found that sketch too; no one helped me. I brought them to Terry and he loved the whole thing and told me to go ahead with it. It was one of his moments he's always talking about."

"Moments?" Valerie was listening intendy, and Sybille felt herself expand.

"Human interest. Moments in people's lives that an audience can identify with. Things that are more interesting than facts and figures about crop damage or pollution or even a new building. This story made the new building mean something to people, and it was so good it didn't need much to make it perfect: it was funny, and still part of a serious story. When I finished with it, it had a little bit of everything."

Valerie's interest was piqued. "What does that mean: it didn't need much to make it perfect? You have to use what you have."

"We do our best with what we have," Sybille corrected, as if she were the teacher. "Most news is so dull you have to work on it to grab people's interest."

"Invent it, you mean."

"No, of course not." She studied Valerie to see if she were baiting her and decided she wasn't. "Not invent. Just write it in a way that makes people pay attention. If you know what you're doing you can put a quote in a different context, give it a new slant, a new emphasis, add a litde color, maybe a few details, and then you've got something that will keep your audience from wandering off somewhere. And they don't care; they don't even remember it five minutes after it's over. But

you do. You know that for two minutes and thirty seconds you had a perfect piece, and if you wrote and produced it, you remember it. And so do the professionals. That's how reputations are made."

Valerie nodded. She was getting bored again; tired of Sybille's slighdy pompous intensity and energy. She pushed her lemonade away. It was awful; it had no flavor. Nothing had any flavor lately; everything was flat and dull and dreary. I want Nick, she thought. I want to talk to him, and hear him laugh. I want to laugh with him. I want to see his eyes light up when I say something he likes. I want to lie underneath him and on top of him. I want him to hold me.

She couldn't believe it; she'd never let herself get into such a mess before. And it was beginning to look as if she wasn't going to have much fun, or be interested in anybody, or even enjoy a glass of lemonade, until she got herself out of it. But for right now she was really very bored with talk about television. She fastened her book bag and stood up. "Congratulations. I'm glad you're so set there. It's nice to see people making a success of things."

"Wait, I'll walk with you," Sybille said. "Are you going to class?"

"I suppose."

"So am I."

They walked back the way they had come. "Rob seems nice," Sybille said. "He's incredibly handsome."

Valerie sighed. "Rob is a little boy dressed up like a college student dressed up like a fabulously successful salesman, which he'll be one of these days."

"He didn't seem to be selling you on anything."

"I'm a tough customer. What about this Terry character you talked about?"

"What about him?"

"I don't know. Something in your voice. Is he somebody special?"

"I hate him. I have to work for him." Sybille stopped walking. "I'm going this way; I'm going to the library. I'll see you around."

"I thought you had a class."

"Yes, but I need a book. See you." She walked away, almost scurrying across the pavement.