Star Time (63 page)

Biff gunned the accelerator and sped past the guard into the lot and down into the office building's basement parking garage.

Camera on his shoulder, Biff nodded familiarly at every security guard he passed as he worked his way up into the building to the floor on which he had met with Marian Marcus.

An assistant stood up to bar his progress into Marian's office.

"I've been sent up to shoot an interview with Ms. Marcus," he announced with gruff amiability, appearing to chew gum as he spoke.

"You mean, for the affiliates?"

"Right," he quickly agreed.

"I thought that was supposed to be this afternoon."

"They told me I had to get it right now." He appeared to check his wristwatch. "I get a break in fifteen minutes. Union rules. We better do it now."

"She's on the phone, but she won't mind if you set up."

The young woman opened the door for Biff, mouthing the words "affiliates" to Marian, who glanced up from her phone call as they entered. Marian nodded and turned back to the phone.

Biff closed the door behind him and pretended to set up the camera. A couple of minutes went by before Marian hung up the receiver.

"Where do you want me to sit?" she asked.

"On my lap, sweetheart," Biff said in flawless imitation of Humphrey Bogart.

Marian laughed,
then
did a double take.

"Biff?"

He lifted off his sunglasses.

"Why the disguise?" she asked.

"I have to talk to you."

"You could have called."

"I did.
Twice."

"Oops." She quickly shuffled through the deck of pink messages before her.
"One.
Two.
Sorry. This has been a hellish week, getting the new shows and promos ready. I swear I would have called you back by tonight."

"You didn't call when Sally Foster was taken out of
Adam and Eve
and put into
Loving
Luba
."

"I must have. Or Fred did."

Marian snapped her fingers, recalling with embarrassment that her subordinate in charge of dramatic development had not attended the meeting with Sally Foster. "And, of course, Sally didn't tell you."

"Sally didn't tell anyone. I finally reached John and Marti Rosenthal last night to let them know. They're in New Mexico finishing a movie of the week for you."

Marian remembered. "Oh, right. There was all that secrecy so Annette wouldn't find out what we were doing. Damn, I wonder if anyone has told
her
yet."

"I've been sitting on pins and needles for months waiting for word my show. And all the time it was already knocked out of the box."

"Look, I'm sorry," she apologized. "It's just that
Adam and Eve
never seemed to have the right chemistry, so I didn't mind pulling Sally out of it. The guy and gal were supposed to be buddies and potential lovers, but never really clicked. They should have been more like, you know, Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy in
Forty-eight Hours."

"That's who they were originally supposed to be like: two guys, one white, one black, both trying to stop secret threats to America, but thinking they're enemies.
Really menacing situations, but a lot of humor."

Marian snapped her fingers in recognition.
"
Beverly Hills Cop
."

"I wanted one of them to be a top secret counter-espionage agent trying to stop threats against the country. The white FBI agent thinks he's a bad guy he calls the Intruder and tries to stop him, not realizing they're both working to defend the country. The black guy uses all sorts of disguises as messengers and doormen, you know working-class African
Americans no one ever notices. But Danny thought they should be cops, and Sally talked me into changing the black's part so she could do it."

"It would work a lot better your way."

Biff hung his head sadly.

"Did you ever mention it to John and Marti?" she asked

"A couple of times.
They liked the idea, but you'd already
okayed
the version we were already shooting, the version with Sally."

"Can you put something on paper, just a page or two and get it here this afternoon?" Marian asked, her enthusiasm growing. "We'll fax it to them. I've got a couple of hour series that might not make it. I'd feel a lot more comfortable with a backup hour show in development."

Could he put it down on paper? The original was sitting in his desk drawer. 

She was deep in thought. "Chad Laidlaw and who?" she muttered, flipping through possible black actors in her mind. "Somebody who can pull off the ploys and disguises with a light kind of charm."

Her eyes lit up.
"Just like you did bluffing your way in here."

"There must be a lot of guys—"

"You!" she yelled at him. "You've got the style, the humor, stage presence. You sure understand the part."

"I want to be a writer."

"Are you really crazy enough not to take it?"

Biff lifted a pen from her desk to serve as a mike. "And for the role of Lance in
Adam
Without
Eve,
Biff Stanfield.
The envelope please."

"If the show works like I think it's going to, you really solved a big problem for me."

"Just glad I could help," he said coolly.

"Do you have a better title?"

"
Under Cover of Darkness.
But Danny said—"

"I like it."

"Dynamite, isn't it?"

Within days after
Ev
Carver resigned from FBS, he announced the formation with Basil Markham of a new company seeking to acquire media corporations. The announcement, at least initially, had an adverse effect on their plans. Guessing that the first company they would seek to acquire was FBS, where Carver had worked and around which Markham had been rumored to be buzzing, investors began buying into the broadcaster, and the price of the stock rose a point and a half.

Greg had already hired lawyers and investment bankers to devise defenses against hostile takeovers. Now they had a possible enemy to keep in their gunfights.

Barnett began showing up at his FBS office each day and meeting with key executives. Greg knew the Chairman was gathering ammunition to be used in an attack on his policies when the directors convened in November. Several directors close to Barnett found reasons not to lunch with Greg. A few others lectured him about the scandal in which he and Chris had embroiled the company.

Yet, none expressed dissatisfaction with his progress in lowering expenses, the company's small, but perceptible rise in the ratings, and consequently, the higher income that scatter sales were earning. Even those most closely aligned with Barnett and most repelled by the notoriety seemed to be holding off on judging his performance as CEO until they saw the results of the new season.

"I can't believe it," Chris said sullenly as she gazed into the twilight from Greg's living-room window. "Ten years have passed, and even though more Americans probably know about our love affair than can name the President, we still can't go out in public for a simple dinner or movie together. It's worse than it was back then. We can't even live together.
J
ust for
us to have a little time alone
I have to drive a car with darkened windows into your garage and race into the elevator before anyone can see me
.
So much for the fruits of success."

Greg stepped up behind her and putting his arms around her, kissed her neck. "We can still make love."

She pulled away. "That's the last thing on my mind right now. I haven't eaten all day, and that Chinese restaurant said the food would be here half an hour ago."

"They also said maybe longer; they're backed up."

"For God's sake, don't defend them. And don't defend the manicurist who was too busy to leave the shop to come here to fix my broken nail. No matter how unreasonable I sound or how cranky I get, I want you to defend
me.
. . . I want you to tell me how abused and mistreated
I
am. Just say I'm right. Okay?"

"Okay."

"This is one of those times I envy smokers. What I wouldn't give for two or three minutes of even insubstantial comfort."

"I offered sex."

She frowned. "The truth is you feel as distracted and unsexy as I do right now. Nothing is going right for us." She began to count the setbacks on her fingers. "The Defense Department is kicking our butts at every turn.

those
poor brothers are probably locked up somewhere so deep underground it would take an archaeologist to find them."

A second finger went up. "I'm a pariah
. '
An immoral example to young people' is what they call me in those photocopied letters and petitions from religious groups. In the past week, I've appeared only twice on my own broadcast, and there hasn't been a let-up on you or the sponsors to get me off the air. How many sponsors have canceled?"

"A couple."
One had frantically pulled out after receiving a single letter.

She lifted a third finger. "And you're hanging on by a thread as CEO."

Greg was about to speak when she interrupted. "Oh, and there's one more: That bitch
Hedy
Anderson.
Our own Edward R. Murrow with cleavage."

"You want me to tell you again that it's all worth it because I love you?"

"What's lovable about me is shrinking fast. On top of no longer having a professional life, I have no private life. Because I come into their living rooms, everybody out there thinks they own me and can step all over me, like their delinquent kid or their alcoholic aunt."

"You're a star.
Comes with the territory.
With the high salary and all the glory."

"I used to think it came because I had something to contribute."

"I guess you just lost your virginity."

The intercom buzzed to inform them that the deliveryman had arrived from the Chinese restaurant. Chris felt as if she and Greg were holed up in a bunker during the last days of the Third Reich.

Ken Chandler tried to continue campaigning after the scandal broke about Chris's affair. The summer was a good time
to
hit the upstate vacation areas and city beaches and get on TV during the seasonal dearth of news. But he perceived in the voters either pity or disdain. He shut down active campaigning for a while and buried himself in Washington, claiming his legislative duties demanded his presence. He managed to get on TV during the warfare over raising the debt ceiling and lowering the deficit, but not enough to rebuild his image. In voters' minds he, too, was considered untrustworthy.

At night, he thought of little but Chris, missing her desperately. Although she was doubtless lost to him forever, he felt as sorry for her as for himself. Chris's downfall had been triggered not by the deceit being ascribed to her, but by her honesty. She saw illegal activity in the Lopez matter and exposed it. When she fell in love with another man, she slept with him and asked for a separation. Ken had to believe that in the missile-base controversy, too, she had told the truth. Oddly, the fates of their careers now seemed to be linked: If her integrity as a reporter was
not vindicated in her clash with the Defense secretary, neither would his be as a senator.

He obtained the approval of the Armed Services Committee chairman to set up a subcommittee to investigate the charges and countercharges. Money was allocated to hire a small staff and begin the probe. In his years in Washington, Ken had made a lot of contacts and earned a lot of favors. Now was the time to call in the chits.

"
Dollink
," Sally crooned to
Luba's
husband, "I love
hotfurters
."

The audience roared with laughter and broke into applause.

The director waited until he had enough applause on the sound track to fade under the closing theme music and then called out over the PA system from the control room, "That's it, kiddies.
A wrap.
Fabulous, Sally."

The season's first episode of
Loving
Luba
" was in the can. Sally bounded over to the glass-sided booth at the side of the stage. A batch of nervous network executives was packed inside

a lot was riding on her success as Annette's replacement. Some had been anxious about the audience's accepting a different female lead.
Some about her ability to do broad comedy.
She had not dared to sneak a
peak
at the booth during the entire shooting.