Star Time (31 page)

"She has to be 'managing editor,' " Carl asserted, emboldened by Greg's remarks.

"She has it," Greg agreed. Arrangements at other networks where the anchor could dictate staffing and stories had sometimes been criticized, but Greg sensed this point could be the deal-maker. "Chris, I intend to take personal responsibility for rebuilding the program. And I’ll be the only one who can overrule you."

"Oh, God!" she retorted. "I don't even want to see your face. You know what the worst part would be? All that power, all those people working for you, dependent on you, will finally justify every wrong you've ever done."

Greg lowered his voice, hoping to lower the level of her rage, so that she might become reasonable about considering his offer. "You might not believe it, but this meeting isn't easy for me either. We both know I'm here because I need you. With you as our anchor, we'll pick up a lot of viewers in a hurry


“Younger ones.
Higher ad rates,” Green pointed out.

Greg nodded. “Some anchors wouldn’t be able to hang on to them, but just like in Wyoming and Wichita and I saw for myself in Los Angeles, you will. Our ratings will climb. But that's just a start. I want the best news program—the best news
organization
—in America. I'm up against it at FBS. We're sweeping up after the elephants in every category. But whatever you might think of me, you know that I'll move heaven and earth to change that. And to do that, I want the best newscaster in America at the helm."

He could see she was listening now, weighing pros and cons.

He would have to make a final push, a personal one, however hard that might be. "You know that what I've always wanted most

what I sacrificed maybe too much for

is to run a network and make it the best. The fact that after everything

despite
everything

I'm asking you to anchor our nightly news must tell you how highly I value you. That's why you should say yes to my offer. That's why you should believe me."

"I detest you, you know."

"You have every right to," he admitted. Yet, his expression was intense with excitement over what he envisioned. "But you want this job.
As much as I want you to take it.
Look, you know who the top people are at your own shop. We'll get them for you, Chris. I promise to put the best news team in broadcasting behind you."

Chris's deliberated silently for a long while, focused only on her thoughts. Carl wanted to jump into what he understood of the negotiation, but something in her concentration dissuaded him.

When she finally looked up, she said, "I want Hugo Ramirez as executive producer."

"Terrific," Greg agreed. "Where is he?"

"Still with FBS," she said caustically.
"Buried at your
overnight news program."

"You've got him."

"Finally!" she exclaimed as she stood up. "It only took me nine years."

"What's happening?" a confused Carl asked them.

"Congratulations," Greg happily informed him. "You just made a deal. Christine
Paskins
is coming to FBS."

When the Buenos Aires bureau was eliminated, Hugo Ramirez was repatriated, only to be exiled to FBS's bleak two-to-six-in-the-morning news program that sputtered along on few viewers and a meager budget. Everyone connected with the overnight knew they were considered expendable in the purge to cut staff. They were the outcasts, those who had not made it onto the network’s A-list of favored news producers, writers, and reporters—or even onto the B-list.

Hugo had considered sending Greg a note when his old boss was named to head the company. But after the passage of so much time, it seemed like brown-nosing, and the proud Latino decided against it. He alerted his wife to prepare for the worst and began making phone calls to industry friends in a quiet job hunt. But having been abroad so long, he lacked the recent contacts others could count on.

A few minutes before seven o'clock in the morning, the end of his workday, Hugo began to straighten up the desk a daytime producer would soon occupy.

"In the mood for some breakfast?" a man's voice asked him.

Everyone here knew he went straight home after the broadcast, returning later only if he had a story to prepare that day. He glanced up at the speaker to refuse the invitation. Greg
Lyall
stood across the desk from him.

"Breakfast sounds good," Hugo said, the ends of his mustache curling upward with his smile.
"Just what I was hoping for."

By noon, an FBS press release alerted the rest of the world that Christine
Paskins
had switched networks and, in two weeks, as soon as her present contract expired, would go on the air as FBS's evening news anchor. The News Division president at the network she was leaving immediately called a press conference to declare that
Starting the Day's
rating would not suffer because of her absence and that the firing of Ron Skelly as producer had been in the works for a long while before Chris’s announcement. No one believed him. His voice was faltering, and word was already circulating that his own neck was now on the chopping block.

# # #

Biff Stanfield had worked late at the nightclub and had slept only three hours before waking to get ready for his appointment. Clean-cut and black, in his mid-twenties, he made his living as a comedian, and he hated it. The club, where he had a semi-permanent job introducing the acts and performing, was in a bad section of Los Angeles and attracted a violent crowd. He was desperate to write for series television.

He had gotten a few writing jobs on sitcoms, but a lot more writers were out there than there were series to employ them. A few producers read his spec scripts and told him they liked his work, but they already had writers on staff, experienced writers; he should stick to comedy. He knew they were right about his knack for comedy, but he'd be damned if he'd cater to their black-comedian stereotypes and demean himself by enjoying doing standup or succeeding at it. Success to him meant succeeding in the white man's world on his own terms. That was why he had substituted Biff Stanfield for his real name,
D’Shawn
Washington. The new name was an aggressive slap at white people's preconceptions; producers who would never take a meeting with a
D’Shawn
Washington would do so with Biff Stanfield.

"That's right, my name is Biff Stanfield," he would explain on stage. "My folks were hoping for a blue-eyed, blond white boy . . . who could slam-dunk."

The audience invariably laughed, and the young man would be off and running. He was funny, but with a bitterly hostile edge; audiences could feel the heat of his contempt.

Right now, for the first time in the four years he had been trying, he had a real shot at having a network pay him to write the pilot script for a series idea he had come up with.

Nicky Willard, his agent, had loved his series idea and had pitched it in vain to every broadcast and cable network, to every studio. Raoul
Clampton
, at FBS, had turned it down twice, so had the people at NBC.

Just recently, in what seemed to be an annual ritual bloodletting, the head of Programming at another network had been fired and replaced with Nicky's close friend, who had loved the series idea over the phone. The two men had set up a meeting with Biff for today. Nicky assured him that he’d get an honest hearing.

Now Biff was waiting in the network's reception area to meet with this new Programming chief. He had been waiting for nearly an hour.
Almost as upsetting was that Nicky had not arrived to join him for the meeting.
Nicky was always punctual, always there to support him. Biff grew annoyed as the programmer kept him waiting.

Just then the elevator doors opened. For a moment Biff thought Nicky might be arriving, but two other people emerged. They appeared
to be old friends who both had appointments here and had encountered each other by chance in the lobby. Biff recognized one of them: Danny Vickers. Biff had seen his photo in the trade papers, but here was the man in the flesh. Vickers was a kind of divinity to Biff, a high-school dropout, who had started out with nothing and produced several long-running series that made him a television giant.

"I've been looking to come up with a good action-adventure show, Arnold," Danny said to the other man. "Reality finally seems to be out of steam. Maybe like
CSI
with different cops, maybe zombies, or
24
without the clock.” He halted in thought.
“A thermometer!”

The other man shook his head. When they gave the receptionist their names, Biff realized he was Arnold Mandel, a film writer and producer. The trades had mentioned that he had been developing a sitcom set in a weirdly off-kilter future with goofy parallels to today's social ills.

"I've shot two pilots for them," Arnold confided to Vickers, "and they still can't make up their minds."

Arnold gave a Talmudic shrug. He had overcome his aversion to the rat race of weekly television because this project had grabbed him. His best relations were at FBS, but Programming had imposed drastic changes to the pilot script. The pilot had been shot, but the network continued to test it in front of focus groups and to request changes

without paying for them

and to vacillate.

Mandel and Vickers wished each other good luck as the receptionist ushered them through the door behind her.

After a while, even though Nicky had still not arrived, Biff took a cue from Mandel and Vickers's boldness and stepped up to the receptionist. To his surprise Nicky's name seemed to confuse her, and she phoned inside to the offices.

"He'll see you now," she said.

That was more like it, Biff said to himself. Even without Nicky, he could handle it. Hadn't Nicky said that he pitched his own projects better than anyone? More important, hadn't Nicky told him this new Programming guy liked the concept?

Biff straightened up his jacket and strode through the doorway into the inner portals of the network.

The assistant guarding the corner office waved him through.

A curly-haired man was seated at a desk at the far end of the large office reading some papers. He raised his head.

"What do you want?" the man said.

It was Nicky, his agent!

"It's you! You're here!" Biff ran up to him. He was thrilled.

"They fired that no-talent S.O.B. last night and hired me. Why the hell did
they
keep you waiting?"

"This is great! I can't believe it. We can do my series now."

"What series?"

"You know,
my
series, the one you've been trying to sell. That's why we had this meeting today."

Nicky shook his head.
"A piece of shit."

"You said you loved it!"

"That was selling. This is buying."

Nicky had a meeting scheduled elsewhere in the building. Biff chased after him into the reception area.

"Let me give you a piece of advice, kid," Nicky said, a moment before disappearing. "Don't try to sell something to a network without an agent."

Biff felt faint, unable to breathe. The receptionist directed him to the men's room. He leaned over the sink and began splashing cold water on his face.

Danny Vickers, too, was heading for the men's room. The network's programmers had asked him in to cancel the only series he had left on the air. He had been prepared to propose several ideas to juice it up: Give the detective protagonist a sexy female sidekick he'd like to
boff
, but she plays hard to get, even though she's a former lap dancer; bring in a new guest star every week to play that week's killer; and the old standby, add more car chases. One look at the programmers' faces as he entered the room, though, and experience told Danny his show had already been pulled. The meeting was a short courtesy because of his past successes for them.

Biff glanced up as Danny entered and went to the urinal. He looks sicker than I do,
Biff
thought.

Bad investments and several marriages had reduced Danny's net worth drastically. He had lost the
Bel
Air house to his last wife and was living at the Malibu beach house. This latest calamity had come on the same day that his accountant had informed him he was $12 million in the hole.

Because of the stars' salaries, the posh sets, and the chic costumes, the hour series was expensive to shoot: $2.3 million an episode. The network was paying him only $1.5 million for it. So he was losing $800,000 on each episode, which he had borrowed from a bank and counted on recouping when the show was syndicated after its network run. But the cancellation had come with two few shows “in the can” to syndicate. With the expenses of his life-style and his bad luck the last few years, the $12-million loss would wipe him out.