Prophet (15 page)

Then the stories were all sifted again, this time by the show producer, who placed each one where he or she wanted it within the half-hour time slot, which really meant twenty-two minutes of actual news time plus eight minutes of commercials.

Finally, whichever portions of the stories were to be read by the anchors were proofread by the anchors, and that was where John was right now.

Okay, here was a story about gubernatorial challenger Bob Wilson speaking at his kickoff rally. After last week’s story—the one John hoped everyone would forget—the public was no doubt curious about how he would respond.

And here was a hate crime story about a cross burned on a lawn out in Woodard. Racism was always hot; people were interested in that.

Oh-oh. A gay/AIDS story. These were hot but also tough to do because they were so politically and morally loaded and stirred up a lot of cross fire. This story was a follow-up on a Sunday demonstration by gays during a Catholic Mass. Ah, this was where Leslie Albright was today, gathering this story. She’d be on-camera, reporting live from the newsroom during the Five Thirty broadcast, sandwiched around her video package. John perused the script for the question he would have to ask her. Hmm. “Leslie, can we expect more demonstrations of this
kind?” John chuckled. He already knew the answer to that one, but he made a mental note:
John, remember, you don’t know the answer to a scripted question.

Here was a story about one of the ferries that carried commuters across The Bay breaking down, and that would be of interest to the commuters who rode that ferry. The volcano still erupting in the Philippines was a big story that all the other stations and papers were covering, so naturally NewsSix would be covering that. But this story about a lady finding a tarantula in a bunch of bananas and suing the grocery chain probably qualified as filler or maybe human interest. There was certainly no plague of tarantulas threatening the area as of yet.

Speaking of filler, here were some more stories of that nature: the new uniforms for the Irish Girls’ Drum and Bugle Corps (and whether or not you could join if you were not Irish or not a girl or didn’t care to wear a skirt) and an oyster eating contest! These were bound to end up on the floor if time got tight.

John continued to scroll through the script just to give it an overview, tapping away on the PgDn key. He’d be spending most of the afternoon proofreading and polishing, as would his co-anchor, Ali Downs. Most of the stories had already been assigned to either Ali or John and marked with an A or a J, but both anchors read and edited all of the script in case either one missed something—and to make sure the stories made sense and were understandable and readable. Sometimes the script could tie your tongue up and had to be changed.

Anyway, this was great. This was life as usual, and John was happy to let himself become lost in it, absorbed by it. Now he could just work on getting normal again.

Normal. Something about that word made him think of Carl. Oh brother . . . Carl . . . He’d gotten a call from him that morning and set the whole thing up, but he still hadn’t cleared it with the front desk. He picked up the phone—

He spun his head around even as his hand held the receiver. The scream came from across the room. A woman. An accident. Something terrible.

He bounded from his desk and weaved through the maze of desks toward the sound.

Now he could hear words. “I didn’t do anything . . . I didn’t do anything! Leave me alone!”

The reporters, writers, producers stayed on their phones, kept at their computers, even conversed with each other. Good grief, what was wrong with these people? They didn’t care! They didn’t even turn their heads!

“What’s happened?” John asked Hal Rosen, the weatherman.

Hal, a lanky, good-natured guy, was at the weather desk, shuffling through weather wire copy and watching the computer-enhanced satellite photos on the monitor. At the look on John’s face he jumped up, alarmed. “What?”

John heard the woman’s voice again. “Get away from me!
Please!
I haven’t done anything!”

It was coming from Tina Lewis’s office.

“Tina!” John dashed into her office with Hal on his heels.

Tina was facing the wall, a script in her hand. At the sound of their entrance—and it was not a quiet entrance—she spun around, startled and irritated. “What in the world—”

“Are you all right?” John asked, his words rushing with urgency.

She slowly, deliberately dropped the script on her desk and demanded, “Don’t you ever knock? I don’t recall inviting you in here.”

“She’s okay,” said Hal, ready to look elsewhere.

“I heard you screaming,” said John.

She glared at him, even let her mouth drop open with incredulity. “Screaming?”

John saw her glaring at him the way she always did.

But then, in a weird dissolve, the glare melted into an anguished expression, the head thrown back, the eyes running with tears, the mouth contorted in a scream of agony. This face cried out, “You leave me alone! I had the right! It was my right!”

John froze. He stared at her. “Are you . . . are you sure you’re all right?”

“Barrett,” another voice demanded, “is there something you need?”

It was Tina Lewis’s voice. It came right through that anguished face.

No. Now it was that angry face. That impatient, condescending face.

John blinked. He looked at the floor. He looked at Tina Lewis again.

She was wringing her hands, wagging her head in torment. “Barrett?” The voice didn’t match the face again. It sounded alarmed, curious.

Now he saw her rise, not weeping or screaming, but a little concerned, bewildered, looking at him as if he were . . . as if he were . . .

“Are you all there?” Now she was weeping again, moaning in pain.

John mentally broke in on himself. He purposely aborted the program going on in his head, forcing himself to muster all the acting ability he had, look straight at the weeping, desk-pounding image, and say, “Boy, that computer printer! We’ve got to oil that thing or something. It sounded just like a woman screaming. I thought it was you!”

“Get out of my life!” she cried, cowering, her arms covering her head. “I don’t want your pain! Just leave me alone!”

“You need to get your ears checked,” said the other Tina. The real Tina? One of the Tinas? “Go on, get out of here.” She picked up the script again and sat down with her back to them.

“Come on,” said Hal. “The lady’s got work to do.”

They went back to the weather desk, Hal leading John by the arm, steadying him a little. John wiggled his finger in his ear. He could still hear the terrible cries coming from Tina’s office.

“Man oh man.”

“Here, sit down,” Hal said, pulling a wheeled chair closer.

John sat.

“You still hear something?”

John listened. “Not now.” He forced a little laugh, tried to gloss it over. “I’m too close to the printer, I guess. Or maybe it’s my telephone.”

Hal set his elbow on the desk and studied John for a moment. “You’re sure you heard Tina screaming?”

John shrugged. He tried as best he could to look like a normal, sane, responsible human being. “Isn’t that the wildest thing you ever saw? Boy, I sure thought . . . Boy, what a deal.”

“You okay?”

“Yeah . . . Sure.”

Hal didn’t seem satisfied. “You know . . . you just went through a real tragedy, John. Maybe you’re not ready to be back here yet, back under the pressure and everything.”

John was ready to get away from this discussion. He rose, looking at his watch. “Well, you know, my son’s coming to visit the station today, and if you think I’m hearing things, just wait ’til he gets here—you’ll think you’re seeing things. Gotta call the front desk.”

“Well, take care.”

John got back to his desk and rescued the telephone receiver, which he’d left dangling by its cord.

Rush Torrance was standing at his desk, only a few feet away, gawking at him. “What happened?”

“Oh, nothing. I thought I heard someone hollering for me. False alarm.”

Rush accepted that and went back to work at his console. John tried to look as normal as possible, realizing that others in the room were also gawking at him. He put the receiver to his ear and punched in the number of the front desk. As he talked to the receptionist and made sure Carl was expected, he could feel their curious gazes gradually turning away.

Then he slumped in his chair and stared at the computer screen. The computer kept prompting him,
Make a correction, escape, do something.
But it would have to wait for a moment. John was scared.

It had happened again, but this time more directly, more personally. Instead of vague, faraway, unidentifiable voices, he’d heard Tina Lewis. He knew he’d heard her, and he’d seen her so clearly, so vividly that he mistook it for . . . reality? But was it?

He cursed under his breath. LSD flashbacks. That had to be it. The sixties pseudo-intellectual, acid-dropping, college radical was now paying the price. Back then Dad always warned him there’d be a price to pay someday. He used to think of Dad every time he popped that little sugar cube into his mouth: “This one’s for you, Dad.” Now all the recent strain, first with Dad’s behavior, then with his death, must have jarred something loose somewhere in his head, and he was back there, back in the old rebellion. How poetic. Every time he took a drug trip he thought of Dad; now thinking of Dad too much brought on drug trips without the drugs.

And, oh yes, wasn’t it Dad who helped aggravate this thing with his mutterings about the “cries of lost souls”? That had to be a part of it too. Dad’s last words, the tragedy that followed, John’s own deep
regrets coupled with the emotional upheaval . . .

He just had to be careful; he had to take it easy. This kind of thing probably passed with time and rest. He was an otherwise healthy man who took good care of himself, jogged five miles a day, watched his diet, got plenty of rest . . . it should fade, it should go away . . .

Aw, so forget it, John. Let it go. It’ll pass. You’re forty-two, all that stuff’s behind you, and you have a career to think about.

He leaned forward and got back to work on the Five Thirty script. What was that he was saying earlier? Something about getting back to normal?

CHAPTER 7

AT CLOSE TO 5,
Carl drove Dad and Mom Barrett’s gray Chevrolet down under the Channel 6 building and found one visitor’s slot still available. Following his father’s directions, he found his way around to the front entrance.

The reception area was big enough to . . . well, to hold a reception. It was a vast, high-ceilinged room with lots of glass, a deep, sound-deadening carpet, and a wide-screen television in the center of an inviting sitting area. The television was carrying Channel 6, of course, and at the moment a syndicated, prerecorded, controversial talk show host was interviewing what appeared to be prostitutes.

In the center of the room was the reception desk with an attractive young lady wearing a headset and taking calls.

“Oh,” she said, “you must be Carl Barrett.”

He smiled. The meaning was clear. With his weird hair, clothes, and jewelry he was easy to identify, hard to miss. “That’s right.”

“I’ll let your dad know you’re here.” She made a quick call, then had Carl sign in, identifying himself and the car he had parked down below.

Then he was free to wait, to stroll about the reception area and take it all in. All around the room Channel 6 was putting its best foot forward. There was, of course, the huge television providing a nonstop sampling of the station’s wares, but there were also several glass display cases filled with impressive memorabilia: a football jersey and an autographed
football from the The City’s football team; a baseball bat and autographed baseball from the baseball team; several trophies awarded to Channel 6 for excellence in broadcasting, broadcast journalism, and sportscasting; photographs of Channel 6 bosses meeting with dignitaries and celebrities.

But it was that wall behind the receptionist’s desk that really caught the eye. Here, in brightly lit, full-color, three-foot-high photographs, were the talent, the stars, of Channel 6: Hal Rosen, weatherman; Bing Dingham, purveyor of a stick-it-to-’em sportscast; Ali Downs, news anchor; Valerie Hunter, special assignments; Dave Nicholson, consumer specialist; Barry Gauge, editorial commentary.

And, of course, John Barrett, news anchor. Carl paused. So this was his father. He’d never seen his father stand still like this. There he was, clean and polished, in a dark blue suit, color-balanced burgundy tie, and a white shirt. His left hand rested on the news desk in front of him; the right rested on the left and held a fountain pen. The pose looked like he’d just finished doing the news, giving vital information to the public, and had now turned aside to pay special attention to just Carl. He sat tall and straight, though relaxed. His face was without blemish, his eyes keen and insightful. Hmm . . . The eyes were brown. Carl had never noticed their color before. He stood before that picture for the longest time, just gazing into those eyes, trying to read them. The only problem was, those eyes were not looking at him, but at a camera.

A door opened at the end of the room. “Hey, Carl!”

It was him. The guy in the picture. No suit jacket at the moment, but he was wearing a white shirt and a tie. A dark blue tie. The smile looked the same. He looked smaller than in the picture. And . . . whoa! He had makeup all over his face! Carl looked at the picture again, at that perfect, unblemished face. Well, maybe it was the makeup that made it seem so perfect. He couldn’t tell.

John extended his hand. “Any trouble finding the place?”

Carl shook the man’s hand. “Uh, no . . . Came right to it.”

“Did you sign in?”

“Yeah. I think I’m okay.”

“Great. Well, come on.” With that, TV anchorman John Barrett headed back toward the door he’d just come through, and Carl followed. The receptionist was watching, and when she got a glance from
John, she released the lock on the door. They went down a few hallways, turned a few corners, and went into the newsroom.