Private affairs : a novel (73 page)

After a moment, in a small voice, Holly asked, "Did you follow your own advice?"

"I tried to convince myself that I cared for Tony. It didn't work."

Holly met her eyes. "Did he really lie about putting me on his show?"

"I'm sure he did. A television critic in Los Angeles called to tell me his show had been canceled, but even if that story is wrong, you know he never features unknown people. And if that weren't enough, he'd have to clear you with Bo Boyle and Bo would never allow my daughter on the show."

"I asked Tony about that because I knew you'd quarreled with Bo. He said it's his show; it's called 'Anthony,' you know."

"It's his father's show. He and Bo control it. That was why I left; because Bo and Keegan have final approval on everything. And Tony wouldn't stand up with me, against that."

Holly was silent. "Why didn't you ever tell me?"

"I'm not sure. I think I didn't want to admit to you that my good friend Tony let me down. I should have; then you wouldn't have greeted him so warmly."

"Maybe I would have been even warmer. Thinking I'd show my mother the right way to handle him."

A small chuckle broke from the two of them. They put their arms around each other and sat quietly in the silent house. Two women, Elizabeth thought, finally open and honest with each other. My daughter is growing up. And so am I.

M

.att read a report on Cal Artner's story in Key Largo, where he and Nicole had docked for the night. While she browsed in a sportswear shop, he flipped through a Miami newspaper, his eye caught by a headline: "Columnist Accused of Conflict of Interest."

(AP) ALBUQUERQUE, NM, MARCH 19. Elizabeth Lovell, nationally syndicated columnist, has been accused of using her column, "Private Affairs," to advance her own interests by rousing public opposition to a state park and resort being developed in the mountains near Santa Fe, New Mexico.

The stoiy was a brief review of Artner's charges, picked up by the wire service and reprinted around the country. Matt read and re-read it, disbelieving and infuriated. Elizabeth! The most honest person he had ever known, stubbornly refusing to do anything unscrupulous from her first stories in high school and college, through all their work together, from the time they fired Cal Artner for—

Artner, for Christ's sake. Since when did he work at the Daily News? And who the hell let this trash go to press?

"Matt, good gracious," said Nicole, coming up to him. "Has someone accused you of murder? Piracy? Hijacking a plane to Majorca?"

"Worse." He ripped the page from the paper and stuffed it in his pocket. "I'll be right back; I'm going to call the office."

"Darling, it's eight o'clock; seven in Houston. No one will be there."

He paused. "I'd forgotten." Then he said, "But it's only six in Albuquerque. I'll be back in a few minutes."

In a telephone booth, he struggled to remember the name of the editor of the Daily News, and when it came to him he placed the call. "Just tell me," he said when the editor answered. "Who authorized that story on Elizabeth Lovell?"

"Oh, Christ, Matt, you didn't know about it? Shit. I thought it was kind of peculiar—in fact, tell the truth, I wanted to call you before we ran it, but Chet said you knew all about—"

"Chet?"

"Well, who else would I listen to except you? He said you knew about it and Mr. Rourke knew about it. He said both of you were hopping mad, worried about opposition to land development all over the southwest if people like Aragon were allowed to sway public opinion and ride roughshod over the will of legislatures—those were his words—I wrote down everything he said. You know, just in case."

"Send me a copy."

"I sure will. Always glad to—"

"Now tell me why you never called to check that story with me."

"Chet said you weren't available. He said you were off sailing somewhere and you'd put Artner on the story and then sent him—Chet—to tell us to run it, since it was the New Mexico legislature you wanted to reach. Of course, you knew the AP would pick up a local story—'course your wife's so famous, we should have guessed . . . but it wouldn't matter if you already knew about it, except I guess you didn't . . . Christ, Matt, I'm sorry as hell, but Chet said you'd fire me, or Mr. Rourke would, if I didn't run it. What was I supposed to do?"

"Call me. How many times have I told you to call me any time you have the slightest doubt about a story?"

"That's what I told Chet! He said you were sailing!"

"Wherever I am, I call in for messages. You know that."

"He said there was a rush on it."

Matt nodded, though there was no one to see him. It wouldn't have made a difference, he thought; on this trip, for the first time, he hadn't

called in every day. Nicole had been like summer wine—heady, warm, lulling, so that he thought of nothing else. They'd gone swimming off the boat in waters as clear as shimmering sunlit air; they'd rented diving gear and photographed vivid fish and coral at inky depths; they'd lain naked on the teak deck of Rourke's sailboat, drinking margaritas, tasting the salt on each other's lips, mingling sex and seawater and sunlight. And whenever they felt like it, they ate from the lavish picnic baskets Nicole bought at every stop. They never cooked or prepared anything, but they always had food and drink: salmon bisque, Szechuan pasta, cold curried scallops, goose liver pate, salade Nigoise, dark sourdough and Russian rye breads with Normandy butter, French and Danish cheeses, white and red wines and Belgian chocolates with centers of mousse or liqueurs. It was the closest Matt ever had been to a fairyland where genies anticipated his wants before he was even aware of them and the days passed in a haze of sunlit sensuality.

Until he bought a newspaper: the first in a week. "I'm going to write a new version of that story," he told the editor. "As soon as you get it, I want it run."

"Uh . . . Matt, would you mind . . . would you talk to Mr. Rourke about that? Chet told me—"

"Print it when you get it," Matt said shortly. "I don't need to be told when to speak to Rourke." He hung up. Of course he was going to speak to Rourke. As soon as he could get a flight to Houston.

Nicole was annoyed when he told her; it was one of the few times she had let him see it. "I'm only cutting two days off the trip," he said the next morning, dressing in slacks and a shirt. He'd made arrangements for them to fly to Miami in a private plane that would be leaving in half an hour. He pulled on his sport coat, then tilted her chin up, forcing her eyes to meet his. "After I talk to Rourke, we'll find a way to finish our vacation. All right?"

She shrugged. "I thought a vacation meant getting away from everybody and everything."

"We've done that, for a week."

"And now you're ending it. Because of one newspaper article. Can't your wife take care of herself? Do you have to be her shining knight, dashing into combat to protect her poor little reputation—?"

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"I'm sorry, oh, damn it, Matt, I'm sorry, that was stupid. I didn't mean it." She put her hands on his shoulders. "Please say I'm forgiven. I don't say stupid things so often, do I, that you can't forget this one? Matt? Are you listening? Am I forgiven?"

"Of course." She'd sounded jealous, which was odd, for her, but she'd also sounded worried. "We'll talk about it later," he said. "Are you ready? We should be on time when we're hitching a ride and it's almost noon."

"Yes," she said, very subdued, and they barely spoke on the way to the small airstrip, or later, on the plane to Houston, or later still, driving in from the airport. Matt gave Nicole's address to the driver of the limousine, but he stayed in the car when they pulled up at her house. "I'm going straight to the office; I'll call you when I'm through."

"I'll be waiting to hear how it went. Shall we have dinner here?"

"Whatever you like."

Settling back as the driver wove through the traffic from River Oaks to the Transco Building, Matt thought about what he would say. It wasn't complicated; he was just looking for information. And he had a few small demands to make.

"Chet has to go," he said to Rourke, pacing in the circular office. For the first time in a year, the shape of the room bothered him; he felt imprisoned within the seamless walls, as if they were closing in, with no corners to keep them in their place, and he found himself pacing in a large circle.

Chet had been in the office when he walked in unannounced; he and Rourke had looked up together, surprised into silence by Matt's abrupt appearance two days before he was expected. In that silence, Matt told Rourke he wanted to talk to him alone. Rourke's face had already smoothed out, all signs of surprise gone. He tilted his head at Chet and immediately Chet gathered up his papers and left the office, nodding at Matt as he passed.

"He has to go," Matt repeated. He slapped the page from the Miami newspaper on Rourke's desk. "He ordered this story; he claimed he was speaking for me. I don't know what the hell made him think he could play publisher, but he's not going to get away with it."

"I'm sure he wasn't trying to take your place, Matt," Rourke said easily. "I'll talk to him; it sounds like there was some confusion in assignments."

"Chet doesn't confuse assignments you give him," Matt said bluntly.

Rourke shook his head. "I don't know anything about this. I agree with you: the story shouldn't have been written and it shouldn't have run. But for whatever reason he did it, Chet always acts from zeal, not evil; we don't fire people for that."

"We fire them for overstepping the bounds of their authority, for acting

..

irresponsibly and giving someone cause to sue us for libel, for lying, God damn it!—"

"Matt, Matt, talk about overstepping bounds! We're dealing with a loyal worker! Someone who's been with Rourke Enterprises for over twenty years! Now I agree that he did something he should not have done, but let's keep it in perspective. Chet was trying to protect the concept of free and open development of private and public land. He knows I'm concerned about it; he knows I have investments in a number of these places—"

"In Nuevo?" Matt asked suddenly.

"We're talking about the entire southwest; Chet knows I'm always interested in new properties; he knows I want land opened up for mining and lumbering, for housing, ranching, recreation ... I don't believe in government owning too much land, and Chet knows that. You know it, too. You've written editorials on opening up more land; you ran a brilliant series of articles on the subject last year and we've talked about a new series for this year. We're not in disagreement on that. Our small disagreement at the moment is over one single decision that Chet made independently. Of course he thought he was helping us, but he went too far. He ignored the fact that Elizabeth is your wife, and I confess I'm surprised that he took it upon himself to allow criticism of her in our paper. Of course I intend to speak to him about it, but I must say I'm surprised at your overreaction, Matt: flying back from Florida, rushing in here demanding Chet's head on a platter because the man made the mistake of working too hard for our interests—"

This man is lying. After telling me for months how much he trusts and relies on me, he's telling me a pack of lies. "Listen to me," Matt said, his voice hard and cold as it never had been with Rourke. "This isn't an overreaction and I'm not overstepping my bounds; I'm defining them. First, I will not have Elizabeth or anyone else smeared in a paper of mine: I don't run that kind of operation. Second, as publisher I decide what is printed in my papers. I can't force you to fire Chet; he works for you, not me. But I expect you to tell him that never again will he talk to anyone but me about my newspapers; he will never again go near my papers or my editors; he'll never again attempt in any way to influence what goes in my papers—"

"I think you'd better stop there, Matt. Whose papers are you talking about?"

"Mine. I bought them; I'm publisher of them. I was given complete control of—"

"You weren't, but the important word there is given. You were given

those papers by me. And since I gave them, I can take them away." Rourke leaned back in his chair. A stranger would have said he was relaxed, but Matt knew those half-closed eyes hid a glint that made powerful men quail. "If you think you can behave as if those are your newspapers, and order me to tell one of my staff how to conduct himself, you don't know the meaning of bounds, much less overstepping them. God damn it, I made you! I freed you from that piddling rag you were turning out once a week behind a cactus somewhere; I widened your boundaries, I made them limitless, I made you known and respected not in an adobe wasteland but in the whole country!"

Matt had stopped pacing. "You didn't make me anything. I've been running those papers; I've made my own reputation."

"You fool. If you have a reputation, it comes from working for Keegan Rourke."

"It comes in spite of working for Keegan Rourke. You gave me my start—God knows, I've never denied that—but do you know how often I've been hampered by you? I should have supported Dan Heller for senator in New Mexico, gotten in on the ground floor with him, but I lost that chance because you insisted on backing Andy Greene—poor, tired Andy, who shouldn't have run again, much less been supported. And our readers know it. So now I have to work at getting back the confidence they had in us before. And I shouldn't have given in on that highway in Colorado; I knew it wasn't necessary and would damn near destroy a wildlife area, but I gave in when you asked me to, and now I have to deal with readers who know what I've always known: that nobody benefited except a handful of men who owned land along—"

Rourke lunged forward, sending his chair skidding backward until it bounced off the marble window ledge. "Who the hell do you think you are to make accusations in this office?"

There was a sudden silence. Accusations? Matt plunged his hands into his pockets and contemplated Rourke's sleek figure at the far side of the circular room—not quite so sleek now, hunched over the desk, leaning on his hands, returning Matt's look through those half-closed eyes. Accusations, If he says I'm accusing him of supporting a highway because his friends own land along the right of way, it's a good bet his friends own land along the right of way. Or he does. And he's probably lined up someone for Andy Greene's senate seat; I asked him about it once, and he dodged it. And it's a good bet he owns some or all of the new Durango ski area. And skipping past a few other developments—how close is he to Terry Ballenger?