Falling Star (41 page)

"You cant do that!" he kept screaming. "You
can't just take something and lie about it and make it the opposite
of what it is!"

But I just did
, she thought to
herself.

*

Geoff hated conventions, but if there was one
a year he had to attend, this was it.

The Radio and Television News Directors
Association annual confab drew thousands of big and small fish, to
backslap, talk shop, and steal one another's talent. This year the
convention site was Charlotte, North Carolina, which in
mid-September boasted 90-degree temperatures and wilting humidity.
Geoff prowled the vaulted, air-conditioned convention center,
ignoring producers, directors, and engineers to home in on news
directors who might take an interest in one Natalie Daniels.

In an adjacent row of booths he spotted a
prime target: Bobbi Dominguez, News Director KNBC Los Angeles, who
in recent months had expertly dodged a good dozen of his phone
calls. He ambled closer. BD, black hair big as ever and dressed in
what appeared to be a hot-pink summer caftan, was working a crowd
of small-market news directors with tales from the big-city
trenches.

Geoff watched her dark, heavily mascaraed
eyes fly open midroutine when she spotted him. But he had to hand
it to her: she recovered fast and waved a bangle-laden arm.

"Now here's a player for you," she loudly
informed her audience. "One of the big-time LA agents."

Geoff laughed. "That still doesn't mean BD
returns my calls."

"Hey, what's ten calls in ten weeks?"

"Nothing when you can chat face-to-face.
Excuse us, gentlemen?" Geoff nodded at the news directors and
steered BD by her fleshy elbow toward a deserted booth across the
aisle.

"Always liked a strong lead," she
deadpanned.

"You're my kind of woman." Geoff manhandled
BD into the booth and squared off in front of her. "Cough it up,
Bobbi. You've been dodging me like the plague. What's up?"

She got a cagey look. "I know what you're
selling and I'm not buying."

"That's what I don't get. You've expressed
interest in Natalie many times before. Why not now?"

She shuffled in place, clearly
uncomfortable.

"Come on, Bobbi. What's wrong?"

Then she scoffed, which startled him.
"Nothing, unless you consider institutionalization 'something
wrong.' "

He frowned, incredulous.
"Institutionalization?"

"Marner, don't kid a kidder." She tried to
move away.

"Bobbi." He grabbed her elbow again and
forced her to face him. "What in the world are you talking
about?"

She rolled her eyes. "Look, I'm a woman, too,
okay? I'm not one to get all high and mighty when it comes to
another member of the female persuasion having problems. But that
doesn't mean I have to put her on my air. And you've got no
business getting on my case for that."

He spoke very slowly. "What do you mean by
'having problems?' "

She stared at him. "You're going to make me
say it? Okay." She threw up her hands. "I heard about the
breakdown."

"The
breakdown
?"

"Is there a PC word for it I'm not
using?"

"You think Natalie Daniels had a
breakdown
?" Pieces started to slide into place in Geoff's
brain. This was incredible. Yet . . . plausible. "Why in the world
would you think that?" he asked, though in some quarter of his
brain he knew. Already he knew.

BD threw up her hands. "What does it matter?
Everybody knows by now anyway."

Everybody knows by now anyway.
Geoff
felt a cold rage rush through his belly. He could see how the
scenario had unfolded as clearly as if it were playing on a screen
in his head. Scoppio. It was Scoppio. He'd made up the malicious
lie, then fed it to BD, knowing, as did everyone in Los Angeles
television, that she was more effective at spreading news gossip
than all the trades combined.

That explained everything. News directors
shunning him. The cold shoulder when he finally did get somebody on
the phone. The absence of offers after months of beating the
bushes. What news director would want to hire an anchor who'd had a
nervous breakdown? Risk having her blow up on live air? Not a one.
It all added up.

People jostled past them, the din in the
convention center deafening. Geoff found his voice, low and cold.
"The bastard."

BD frowned. "What?"

"Scoppio. He lied to you, BD. He fed you a
line to quash competing offers and keep Natalie in-house for a
pittance."

BD scoffed again. "Come off it, Marner.
You're just trying to protect your client. Not even Scoppio would
go that low."

"It's a lie," Geoff repeated. This no doubt
helped explain WITW passing on Natalie as well. Scoppio hadn't
limited his bile to Los Angeles; he'd spread it coast to coast.
"And I for one don't have any trouble believing Scoppio is capable
of this," he added.

BD's face took on an ugly scowl. "You're
seriously telling me there's no truth to it? That Natalie
didn't
have a breakdown?"

"There's not one whit of truth to it."

That shut BD up. Now she looked as astounded
as he felt. "I can't believe Scoppio would do that to her. Or to—"
Then she clammed up and Geoff silently finished her sentence for
her.
Or to me.

"Catch you later," she muttered and angled
past him out of the empty booth.

He watched her stamp up the convention
center's central aisle at high speed. It might as well have been a
warpath.

*

Tony sat in the La-Z-Boy in his family room,
across from the television, screening airchecks and playing hookey.
In short, killing two birds with one stone.

He hadn't gone to RTNDA, though with him out
of the station that day naturally everyone would assume he had.
Maxine was the only person who knew otherwise, and only because she
had to forward calls. Plus, he wanted to screen
The KXLA
Primetime News
airchecks in the privacy of his own home, where
talent somehow looked different than they did on a monitor at the
station. This was how viewers saw talent. Maybe if he watched Kelly
here, he'd get a better idea what the hell was wrong, why his
ratings were still parked below 5.0. Even
after
the
coaching. Even
after
the billboard campaign.

He hoisted himself out of the La-Z-Boy to
stretch his legs, looking around with disgust at the family room's
fake wood paneling. It amazed him that he'd had to shell out more
than half a million bucks for this house. It was in Studio City and
typical for the upper-middle-class San Fernando Valley
neighborhoods convenient to downtown: ranch-style tract homes that
boasted little more than three nondescript bedrooms and a spot of
front lawn. He knew that his, with its neat white clapboard and
curved stone walk bordered by Anna-Maria's impatiens, had nothing
in particular to recommend it. Nothing to indicate that one of the
powerhouse news directors in Los Angeles TV lived there. But at the
moment he wasn't feeling like such a powerhouse.

Anna-Maria walked in with a tray bearing a
mug and a muffin. She set it down beside the La-Z-Boy. "Blueberry.
Just out of the oven."

He had to smile. Well into her forties
Anna-Maria was still a damn good-looking woman, a helluva lot
better preserved than he was after twenty years of marriage. And
she'd
given birth to twins. Slim, blond (though now it was
thanks to those monthly appointments), still did her hair up real
nice, still wore pretty slacks and blouses and pink lipstick even
on weekdays.

He was a lucky man.

"Tony?" His wife's face was puzzled. "Why
aren't you at RTNDA?"

His smile faded. He didn't want to answer
that question. He didn't want to admit that the last thing he felt
like doing was hobnobbing with a bunch of TV types who'd
interrogate him about his ratings and why Kelly was anchoring and
how he was getting along with Rhett Pemberley. Anna-Maria had no
idea that everything wasn't just peachy at KXLA and he wanted to
keep it that way.

But he was saved by the bell because the
phone rang.

"I'll get it." Anna-Maria scurried off, then
returned holding out the cordless. "It's Maxine."

He grabbed the phone. "Bobbi Dominguez,
calling from RTNDA," Maxine informed him without preamble. He
frowned. Why would BD call him from Charlotte? Maybe she had some
mongo gossip.

"Scoppio," BD snarled the second he put the
phone to his ear, "I'm giving you one chance and one chance
only."

Talk about no preamble. "BD? Are you all
right?" He tried to sound concerned. Women liked that. "What are
you talking about?"

"Is it or is it not true that Natalie Daniels
had a nervous breakdown?"

Uh-oh. Tony's mind started spinning. He was
trying to concoct a plausible story when she snarled into the phone
again.

"Time's up. You sniveling troll. If you think
I'm gonna let you get away with lying to me, you've got another
guess coming."

Then she hung up. Tony kept the receiver at
his ear until the dial tone came on because it took him that long
to believe what he'd just heard.

But he didn't much like it when he did start
believing it. BD was on to him. And she wasn't the sort of broad he
liked to piss off.

Wednesday, September 18, 7:19 PM

Kelly did what she usually did after a
session with KXLA's makeup artist: she added drama. She rose from
the chair, got real close to the mirror, ignored the sulking makeup
girl, and brought out her own liner, shadow, and mascara for round
two. Feinman the coach told her she wore too much makeup but
clearly he didn't understand TV news the way she did. The true news
babes wore the most makeup. It was that simple and she was amazed
Feinman didn't get it. What was it everybody said: those who
couldn't do, taught? Same for TV-news coaches.

7:22 PM. She had to be on set by 7:29:55 to
do a 5-second live tease for
The KXLA Primetime News
. And
the weird thing was she had to be as done up for those five seconds
as she was for the hour-long newscast at 10.

She had a few minutes. She'd go past Intake,
where an operator taped all the incoming satellite feeds and
airchecks, and pick up the aircheck of the prior night's newscast.
She wanted to check out her new haircut on tape. It was basically
the same as the old one but cost twice as much. She'd switched to a
Beverly Hills stylist because she figured that was what she needed
now that she was anchoring.

Past the studio, where the klieg lights were
already on, through the newsroom security door to Intake by the
editing booths. Kelly snatched the aircheck off the big gray metal
shelves busting with tapes, then noticed Ruth's hulking form in
Edit Bay 3 viewing tape.

She turned away, then did a double take.

It couldn't be. But it was. She'd logged
every single frame, so of course she recognized it.

Ruth was viewing CNN's tape of the school
shootout.

Damn!

How was this possible? Kelly stood under the
bright fluorescent lights in the hallway by Intake, clutching the
aircheck and listening to her heart pound. She'd destroyed that
tape! How in hell could that warthog be watching it? Kelly
remembered it well: as soon as she discovered herself on that
goddamn tape she'd personally mutilated it, then in the dead of
night had tossed the mangled remains off Santa Monica Pier. Where,
she didn't like to think about it, a collection of items she never
wanted to see again was mounting on the ocean floor.

The station intercom system buzzed on and a
male voice boomed. "Kelly Devlin, you're wanted on set. Now."

Damn!

Mechanically Kelly's legs began to move in
the direction of the studio. When she got there she ignored the
ignoramus floor manager and sat down at the anchor desk opposite
Camera One. Who gave a flyer if the live tease was in less than a
minute? She had a nightmare to contend with.

She had to get that tape. Kelly dressed her
mike and plugged in her earpiece. Probably Ruth had made dubs of
every frame of video she got from CNN; in fact Kelly vaguely
remembered hearing her say that.

Fine. What Ruth Sperry could do, Kelly Devlin
could undo. Kelly glared into Camera One and vowed that she would
get every last dub of that goddamn tape out of her executive
producer's fat hands.

*

Natalie claimed the chair next to Ruth in the
darkness of Edit Bay 3 and wiped her damp palms on her panty-hosed
legs. She couldn't deny it—she was as nervous as a high school boy
gearing up to ask his dream date to the prom. But Ruth—caustic,
funny, loyal Ruth—was her target, and nothing nearly like a prom
was in the offing. "What are you working on?" she asked her.

"
Kids in Danger
. I tell you, I will be
so happy when this piece of shit finally airs." Ruth put the tape
on slo-mo and raised her chin to squint at the monitor through her
bifocal lenses. "Working with Kelly is driving me nuts. That girl
has more moods than the Rockettes on Midol."

Natalie chuckled, then sobered as she watched
the grim images crawl past.

Ruth gave a heavy sigh and paused the tape.
"Tony wants it jazzed up, if you can believe it. So I'm reviewing
the CNN material to see what else we can use." She glanced at her
watch, a ladylike gold band on her left wrist, then focused her
gaze on Natalie, her sharp blue eyes appraising. "So how are
you?"

Natalie took a deep breath. "Funny you should
ask." And then she plunged in, telling Ruth all about the web
venture. And with every detail it began to take real shape in her
mind, so real that she could almost imagine setting up shop in some
business park, leasing office furniture, and getting started.