Falling Star (21 page)

Geoff accepted a scotch from the Asian
stewardess servicing first class and squinted into the cabin's
dimness. Never once with Natalie had he felt replaceable. Somehow
she made him feel truly singular. He remembered how Natalie looked
after they first kissed—like he was the only man in the world.

He forced his logic to kick in, the same
logic that had earned him a First at the University of Sydney and a
spot on the Law Review at the U.C.L.A. School of Law. Methodically
he ran through Natalie's negatives, starting with her age. In and
of itself he didn't mind her being three years older, but her being
forty pretty much put the kibosh on kids. And he liked keeping that
option open. And of course she was "in the throes of divorce," as
people were wont to say. Still battling Miles legally. A wounded
bird. Vulnerable.

Not to mention that she was a client. Briefly
he shut his eyes. That thought was almost painful. It wasn't
verboten
, an agent/client romance, but it was certainly
frowned upon. Bonking clients was definitely not included in the
professional code of ethics. And he hadn't worked his ass off at
Dewey, Climer to commit career suicide.

He had to admit one other thing bothered him,
parochial though it was—Natalie was so damn wrapped up in her
career. He remembered how she had completely closed off to him when
she got the call that Scoppio was suspending her. One minute they
were making love; the next all she could think about was her
beloved airtime. He'd been shunted aside with a swiftness that
stunned him.

Geoff rolled the tumbler between his palms,
becoming perplexed, as he often did, when he thought about Natalie.
So many downsides and yet the pull toward her was shatteringly
powerful. There was something so vital about her, so unpredictable.
That afternoon, once the veil had lifted and he saw her not as an
anchor, not as a client, but as a woman, he didn't think he'd ever
felt quite the same rush before. It was like catching a truly wild
wave and wanting to ride it so bad you didn't give a damn whether
or not it killed you.

Forcefully Geoff shook his head. He knew he
had that side in him, that maverick side that hankered after all
the wrong waves, and for years he'd fought it. Dangerous, that
side. Foolhardy. What more proof did he need? He'd let himself ride
the wave only to take advantage of one woman—a client!—and cheat on
another.

Geoff had long prided himself on being smart
when it came to serious matters. He wanted to do things right. He
wanted to succeed. And the smart thing, when it came to choosing
between these two women, was to select the one who would make his
life easier, better, calmer. The one who would help him control his
wild side.

Janet. He nodded to himself. Janet. From the
moment he'd met her, he'd seen what a rare find she was. In a land
of starlets and wannabes, Janet was both down-to-earth and
beautiful. And though she wasn't brainy, exactly, she was smart.
And sensible. And anchored.

Janet.

Janet Roswell. Janet Roswell Marner. Janet
Marner. It worked, he told himself. It sounded right. It was
smart.

Right then and there, thirty-five thousand
feet above the earth, Geoff made up his mind. When he got back to
LA after the London trip, he would ask Janet to marry him. He
should have done it long ago. But he would do it now.

*

He couldn't believe it.

Tony leaned both elbows on his desk and
peered at the overnight ratings, slurping his morning coffee
without raising his eyes from the neat columns of numbers. Maybe
the ratings were wrong. But Nielsen was never wrong. Or even if it
was, nobody could do a damn thing about it because Nielsen was the
only game in town. Nobody else did TV ratings. It was Nielsen,
beginning and end of story.

He closed his eyes and opened them again. The
same numbers reappeared in the column labeled KXLA, smack dab in
the 10 to 11 PM slot. So.
The KXLA Primetime News
got a 5.1
rating the prior night, the third night in a row it had come in
over 5.0. The third night that Kelly had anchored in Natalie's
place. And they were only three-tenths of a point behind KYYR, the
bane of Tony's existence, the only other well-run independent TV
operation in La La Land, the one station between him and his
hundred-grand bonus.

And the higher ratings weren't because of the
lead-in. Tony leaned back to think, resting his crossed hands on
his belly. KYYR had creamed the competition from 9 to 10 with a
reality show called
Behind Bars
. Incarcerated females,
secret-camera video, the kind of thing that came out every ratings
period, in this case the July sweep. It was hot, far grabbier than
the bullshit teen drama he'd been forced to air. A bunch of Valley
girls moaning and groaning and getting beaten up by their low-life
boyfriends. At least they were running around in those cutoff
midriff tops, but still . . . Tony had had to force himself to
watch and he'd switched to KYYR at every commercial break.

He picked up the overnights to analyze the
numbers quarter hour by quarter hour. Viewers had
changed
channels
at 10 to watch his newscast. Viewers had
abandoned
KYYR to watch him. Viewers had
stuck with
him
for the entire hour.

Not him, exactly. Kelly. Well, not only
Kelly. Ken, too. But who was he kidding? It was really Kelly.

Viewers saw what he saw: she was young, she
was hot, she was new. Higher scores in all those key dimensions
than Natalie Daniels got, that was damn straight.

But were viewers hoping to see Psycho Anchor?
That whole Hope Dalmont saga sure had gotten a lot of publicity.
Maybe viewers initially tuned in to see if Psycho Anchor would be
on, he concluded, but they figured out fast she wouldn't. Still,
they stayed. What did that
that
him? They saw
something
they liked. Ken, who he'd had the smarts to bring
in. And Kelly, who he'd had the smarts to have fill in.

His intercom buzzed and Maxine's nasally
voice whined out into the silence. "You have a Suzanne Anderson and
a Martin Van Davies here from Peterson and Drake, the public
relations firm."

"Who?" Shit. Some PR flaks who wanted to
foist some asinine story ...

"They represent Hope Dalmont."

Even Maxine, who'd seen and heard everything
twenty times over, sounded impressed. Tony frowned. What were
they
doing here? Then it hit him. Of course. The courtesy
call to tell him, the boss of Psycho Anchor, that Hope Dalmont was
going to charge his crackpot employee with stalking, or
trespassing, or whatever the hell other felonies she'd
committed.

Fine. But he wanted backup. "All right, send
'em in, Maxine, but get Elaine over here pronto."

Tony set up a third chair and scuttled back
behind his desk just as the PR types showed up at his door. He took
one look and his jaw nearly hit the ground. The redhead was a major
babe-alicious and the guy looked like Cary Grant in the good old
days. He thought the two of them should give up PR to go forth and
multiply.

"Mr. Scoppio," Cary said, holding out his
hand, "we are here on behalf of Hope Dalmont."

Tony shook his hand. Cary had a damn strong
grip. The redhead's wasn't bad, either. Where the hell was Elaine?
He felt cowed by these people. His entire wardrobe probably cost as
much as Cary's shoes.

"We apologize for not having scheduled an
appointment," Cary went on, "but hope that in light of what we have
to say you'll forgive our intrusion."

"How is Miss Dalmont doing?" Tony asked,
stalling.

The redhead arched her brows, like she
couldn't believe he was civilized enough to ask. "Very well, thank
you." She had the huskiest voice he'd heard this side of
The
Exorcist
. "She's flying to Monaco today, as you know, with the
rest of the bridal party."

Tony nodded. Why the hell should he know?
Unlike Psycho Anchor, he wasn't tracking Hope Dalmont's movements.
But that's what these PR people were like, always convinced their
story was the biggest dot on everybody's radar screen.

"Tony?"

Elaine. He waved her in. He was glad to see
her, but damn, did she took like a tree-hugger today. She'd pulled
out all the stops and mixed green
and
brown corduroy. He saw
the PR pair look at each other.

"Elaine Nance, from our Legal Department,"
Tony said. Elaine arranged herself next to the redhead, who moved
her chair away a few inches like she was afraid her hair would
frizz if she got too close. "You were saying?" he prompted. Now he
wanted to get this show on the road.

Cary cleared his throat. "Miss Dalmont has
spent a great deal of time thinking about the unfortunate events of
last week and has made an important decision."

He paused.
Jesus
, Tony thought,
does the guy want a drunroll?

"Miss Dalmont felt a certain . . . kinship
with Miss Daniels," Cary went on. "I gather both of them suffered
similar personal losses when they were children. And while Miss
Dalmont believes Miss Daniels was, perhaps, overassertive in
pursuing an interview, nonetheless she has selected her to tape an
exclusive interview this Friday in Monaco, on the eve of the
nuptials."

Tony sat up straighter in his chair. He could
not have heard what he just heard. "Say what?"

The redhead piped up. "That is correct, Mr.
Scoppio," she said. "Miss Dalmont has come to believe that Miss
Daniels will bring a unique perspective to an interview." She shook
her head, as if she thought Dalmont was as fruity as Psycho
Anchor.

"Now let me see if I've got this straight."
There's no way I do
, Tony thought,
unless hell froze over
this morning and the newsroom failed to report it.
"You're
telling me that Hope Dalmont wants Psych . . . uh, Natalie Daniels,
to tape an interview? In Monaco?"

"On Friday, yes."

"And did somebody use the word
'exclusive?'"

"Yes." The redhead nodded.

Tony struggled to process that. So Psycho
Anchor, who got herself arrested, now got herself an exclusive
interview? Beating out every goddamn reporter in the US of A? Tony
closed his mouth, which he realized was hanging open. He looked at
Elaine. She looked as if a big limb from one of her favorite trees
had fallen right on top of her head.

Then the redhead spoke up again. "Though I
should point out that we will require KXLA to provide dubs of the
interview to all news organizations that request them."

"Whoa." He threw up his hands. "What's up
with that?"

Cary took over. "Miss Dalmont was taken with
Miss Daniels's proposal precisely because it would generate
publicity for the Big Sisters organization, which Miss Dalmont has
supported for some time. Of course, the more widely the interview
is aired, the more support Big Sisters will receive." He paused.
"Naturally, every time any news organization airs excerpts of the
interview, it will be required to give KXLA an on-air credit."

Naturally. It hit Tony like a ton of
bricks.

He sagged in his chair. He could see it now.
So if those shitheads at KYYR, for example, wanted to air excerpts,
fine—so long as they aired a graphic saying the video was courtesy
of KXLA. Same thing with KKBR in Dallas and WNNC in New York and
KJDO in Podunk, Nebraska. And same thing with the networks, too.
CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox ...

Because every newsroom in America would want
to air excerpts.

KXLA would get national credit.

He
would get national credit, in every
general manager's office from Maine to California.

He started to flush. This was good. This was
very good. Maybe
too
good. He narrowed his eyes at the
redhead. "So what about the stalking charges?"

She hesitated. It was clear she didn't like
this part one bit. "Miss Dalmont has decided that filing charges is
unwarranted."

Hot damn. The whole thing was going away,
just like that. He pulled out his handkerchief and mopped his
forehead. Psycho Anchor hadn't only dodged a bullet: she'd been
resurrected and was levitating straight to heaven.

That was just fine. 'Cause he was going with
her.

Cary reached into his briefcase and pulled
out some documents. He yammered for a while about press credentials
and hotel suites. Then the redhead got up and laid a business card
on Tony's desk. "Please get us the names of the producer and crew
who will accompany Miss Daniels so we can process those credentials
and flight arrangements. We'll have a limousine meet the group at
Nice Airport. Good day, Mr. Scoppio." She sailed out, followed by
Cary, after another bone-crushing handshake.

Tony dropped back into his chair. He and
Elaine stared at each other.

Tony spoke first, but only after he'd reached
into his bottom right-hand drawer and pulled out his last two Three
Musketeers bars. Even skinny-ass Elaine polished hers off PDQ.
"Okay," he said, feeling fortified, "so what do we do to get
Daniels
un
suspended?"

*

"What do you mean, I should be thanking you?"
Natalie narrowed her eyes at Tony, holding court per usual from
behind his desk. She'd been in her office going through her
suspension ritual, day four, when Maxine called and asked her to
come by Tony's office. She still didn't understand why, though Tony
looked even cockier than his usual annoying self.

"You should be thanking me," he repeated,
"because if I hadn't lit a fire under your butt you never would've
gone all out to get an interview with Hope Dalmont."

Amazing. The gall of this man could fill
Dodger Stadium. She put her hands on her hips. "How perverse is
that? Now you want to get credit for me getting charged with a
felony?"

"My sources tell me you won't get charged."
His eyes glittered.