The Cooperman Variations (11 page)

“They were waiting for me on my desk when I got here an hour ago, Vanessa.”

“Good,” Vanessa said through her teeth, without looking up, and Sally stalked out on her morning mission, her trade journals left unattended on her desk. Vanessa began sorting through the newly arrived paper in her IN box. “The daily hell,” she announced. So, after frowning for five minutes, I started telling her about my meetings with Sykes and Boyd. When I stopped talking, she said, “They think I did it. They
still
think I did it!”

“Not necessarily, Vanessa. Sure, they’re watching you, but that’s at least partly to see that what happened to Renata doesn’t happen to you too. To tell you the truth, I don’t think Sykes himself knows what he thinks happened. All he’s doing is hedging his bets. That’s the best he can do. He’s also making sure that Bob Foley’s suicide is properly gone into. Foley may have been pissed off at the Vic Vernon people, but even Vic Vernon doesn’t drive everybody to suicide. What do you know about him?”

“Vic’s an egomaniacal—”

“Not Vernon. You told me about him already. I mean Foley.”

“Bob? I don’t know. He was a good technician. One of the best, so I understand. I don’t deal directly with the grips, riggers, lighting and sound people, Benny. The job just won’t let me. I know that there are cameramen, and I recognize most of them, but that’s out of my realm. Bob Foley I know by reputation. He was good at what he did. So good that Dermot Keogh got him to do all of his last Canadian recordings. Wouldn’t work with anybody else.”

“Yesterday in the car you mentioned a foundation. Raymond Devlin spoke of it too.”

“Oh, yes. Bob was one of the trustees of Dermot’s foundation. Under Dermot’s will, Raymond set up the Plevna Foundation. Don’t ask me what Plevna means. The foundation basically establishes bursaries for brilliant but poor music scholars, and thinks up new ways to spend Dermot’s posthumous earnings, which are considerable.”

“How did that happen? Dermot was a well-known, world-famous celebrity; Foley a fine, but obscure, technician. Wasn’t there some social and economic distance between them?”

“Dermot was many things, Benny, some of them maddening, but he was not a snob. He and Foley, in the course of their recording work for the last two years of his life, grew close to one another. Dermot attended Foley’s father’s funeral. Foley had keys to Dermot’s downtown studio. He drives Dermot’s old Jaguar. I heard—this is hearsay, because I didn’t get it first-hand— that Foley once complained that working with Dermot included walking his dog, staying up all night and moving furniture from Toronto to Dermot’s summer place. Dermot loved the diamond in the rough, Benny. He introduced me to amateurish ivory carvers with no talent, a virtuoso bubblegum artist and a charming panhandler who made his home at the corner of Bloor and Walmer Road. Outside, on the street.”

“How old was Foley?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Ask the cops,” she said, unbuttoning her jacket. Here I was treated to what every male in my class at Grantham Collegiate Institute and Vocational School would have killed to see: a little more of Stella Seco than Stella noticed was on display. When she saw my expression, she made an adjustment, clucking her tongue. “Benny, won’t you
ever
grow up?”

“If taking you for granted, Vanessa, is mature behaviour, then I hope to stay in short pants forever.”

“I suppose that’s very sweet, but from over here it’s boring.”

There was something calculated about Vanessa’s sudden unbuttoning of her jacket. She knew the effect it would have on me. Was she trying to change the subject?

“What does Vanessa Moss have planned for today?” She looked at an electronic appointment book and snapped it shut after a few seconds’ study.

“Yesterday, you met the junior executives trying to boot me from my Entertainment throne. This morning, you’ll meet the senior executives equally dedicated to the same noble purpose.”

“How is it you manage to make all these people mad at you?”

“I don’t take shit, Benny. Not from incompetents below me or above me without making damned sure everybody knows about it. I chose to come into broadcasting a long time ago. In my way, I care about it. I’m not going to carry the can for those bastards who can’t see higher than the bottom line. That’s my answer. You’ll have to get Sally drunk some night and pump her for her version. Sally’s separated, by the way. Do you think you can melt such frosty, unmalleable clay? I’d like to see it, but not on my time. You hear?” I loved the way Vanessa could make a subversive suggestion and, a moment later, accuse you of thinking it up on your own.

The meeting of top executives took place in the boardroom at the end of the corridor on the twenty-first floor. It was a big room that tried to look impressive. Until you recognized the sober-faced portraits on the wall as set decorations from everything from
Martha O’Malley’s Children
and
The Bartletts of Oak Street
to
The Blue Team
and
Northern Cross
, you might have been taken in. The books on the beautiful dark wood shelves were more studio cast-offs. Fake books. Just the spines showed. My respect for this bunch was quickly going downhill. The centre of the table, which was an amazing bit of woodcraft, was reserved for the CEO of NTC. The table must have been built here from a kit of some kind. It certainly didn’t come through any of the doors I’d seen. Ted Thornhill, too, would have had difficulty getting through some doors. But here he could be sure that there were no living or inanimate obstacles between him and his high-backed black leather chair. Apart from the abundance of Ted Thornhill and his pink, wagging chins, I could see that he moved with a certain balletic grace. When he stood, it was with a boxer’s firm stance; when he sat, it was an act of will, not the passive subsidence of oneeighth of a ton of flesh and bone.

He was soon surrounded by his fellow board members and the vice-presidents. As head of Entertainment, Vanessa almost counted as a vice-president, but not quite. Except for me and a stenographer in Yves Saint-Laurent glasses, Vanessa was the lowest life form present. All the others carried voting stock totalling just over a quarter of the voting shares. But this didn’t look like that kind of board meeting. None of the four women present had had their hair done for the occasion. Only Thornhill sported a boutonnière and it looked like a leftover from an earlier event. Once more, Vanessa tried to introduce me to her colleagues and no one looked up. Papers were exchanged across the table. The steno distributed photocopied pages all round. Even I got a set. I wondered whether all boards were like this.

When it came to Vanessa’s turn at bat, she described her fall line-up of programs: which of the old ones were coming back and on what terms, what new series were coming and from which production house. “We’ve finally rung the knell on
The Newton Street Mob
. After three years of decline, I’ve washed my hands of it.”

“You told Christopher Hodges that he was
fired?
I don’t believe it!” This from the dark man with a moustache sitting next to Thornhill. He liked to quarrel with everybody.

“That’s your scenario, Ken, not mine. I made him a low offer and he declined to accept it. There was no blood on the floor. As a newsman, you should get your facts straight.”

And so it went, on and on. Vanessa kept her mouth shut unless she was addressed by name. One fellow kept chirping up that in cases like this—I forget what “this” was—justice must not simply be done, but it must be
seen
to be done. I figured him for the idiot son of a wealthy family. Thornhill’s skill in handling a meeting was on a par with Vanessa’s, only, if anything, Vanessa allowed a little more expression. Nobody tested Thornhill’s loyalty to the firm. Nobody was shocked when he referred to a program carried on a rival network. I remembered that at Vanessa’s meeting, one of her underlings saw such a reference as a heresy. After hearing his comments on the reports of several of his vice-presidents, I could see Vanessa’s point about Thornhill being a beancounter and not from show business or broadcasting. His closest approach to greasepaint came from sitting in an aisle seat two rows away from the orchestra pit. When I think about it now, he seemed like a good interim head, but not an enterprising, go-ahead sort of leader. Hamp Fisher could do better than this conservative heavyweight.

I asked Vanessa in a whisper who the fellow called Ken was. He seemed to be the only one in the room who wasn’t a yes-man.

“That’s Ken Trebitsch, VP of News. That’s the most powerful job. He pushes the rest of us around. Especially Entertainment. He’s always trying to steal time from us for news specials. Then we never get the time back again. He’s practically the only real broadcaster in the room. No, that’s unfair, I’m forgetting Philip Rankin over there.” She indicated a sloping chin I’d hardly noticed across the table. Philip Rankin wore a dark bird’s nest of a wig, cut to look fashionably silky and shaggy, a conservative grey suit and an unlined, slightly bewildered face.

“What’s his department?”

“Music. He’s head of all music heard on the network.”

“That can’t be a lot,” I offered.

“More than you think. He’s head of the large recording division of NTC: NTC Music, NTC-CDs. It’s a vital and growing department, Benny, trying to struggle on with a structure that is hopelessly outdated. There will have to be big changes here, but whether Philip is the man to inaugurate them is a matter for debate.”

“You said he’s an old-timer?”

“He came here from CBC Radio, where they do a lot of music programming and recording. He built up that whole department. Now he—well, you saw that Christmas show yesterday? He’s ultimately in charge of all of that.”

“Why didn’t his name come up then?” I asked.

“Because we were in the studio; Philip never goes near the studio if he can help it. Do you collect CDs, Benny? Philip started NTC in the recording business in a small way about four years ago. Now, we’re right up there with the top labels.” A look from Thornhill ended our conversation.

I wasn’t getting much out of this meeting. I’m not even reporting on it very well: so much of it flew over my head. Thornhill managed to keep a regal distance from his vice-presidents. The vice-president of Programming, Vanessa’s immediate boss, seemed like a cipher. He had nothing to say and let Vanessa do his talking for him.

When the meeting broke up, I followed Vanessa and the others into an adjoining room, where plates of yellow and orange cheese were laid out like a corpse on a white tablecloth. Two or three bottles of domestic and Californian wine stood at attention, daring anyone under the rank of vice-president to pour a glass in front of his betters. A few other senior executives, who were not at the meeting, were allowed in to take some light refreshment. Soon the room was crowded with beaming faces and the noise level was raised high enough to endanger good crystal. Luckily, there was none around, just heavy-duty glass that probably had come with the cheese and the toothpicks. Philip Rankin came over to say hello to Vanessa, who introduced me as her assistant. He grinned as though he and Vanessa were sharing a joke about the length of my stay on the payroll. Ken Trebitsch joined us. I noticed grey in his black hair, and the fine moustache sheltered a very youthful smile, spoiled only by dark, hooded eyes.

“I was thinking of you yesterday, Ken,” Vanessa said. We all tried to look intrigued. “I saw on the news that our one-time CBC colleague, Bert Russell, has set up a digital communications empire in Pasadena.”

“I heard about that. He was always a whirlwind. Of course, Bert was treated miserably by the CBC when they got rid of him. Remember, Philip?”

“Yes, axed from above. He didn’t suspect a thing until his keys wouldn’t open his door. And after all he’d done for the Corp. He must have reduced staffing there by thirty-five per cent during the years of budget cuts.”

“He was the best salesman for public broadcasting they ever had,” Ken observed.

“NTC invited him to take on just about any department he wanted five, six years ago, but he wouldn’t have it.”

“That’s how loyalty gets paid off.” They went around again, Ken and Philip Rankin exchanging comments on the ill-done-by Bert Russell. When it looked like he was about to run out of steam, Ken turned to Vanessa in a teacher-like way. “Did you ever know Bert Russell, Vanessa?”

“I introduced his name into this conversation not five minutes ago, Ken. Are you losing your memory?” There was an attempt at laughter, then Trebitsch wandered into another conversation group. Vanessa held on to me and engaged Philip Rankin in further chit-chat. “Philip, what’s Bob Foley’s death going to mean to your Plevna Foundation?”

“Why, nothing, dear girl. At least I don’t think so. I haven’t thought about it much. There were three trustees, now there are two. That’s all.”

“Philip’s on that Dermot Keogh foundation I was telling you about, Benny.”

“Oh, yes. The cellist. From what I hear, he was a remarkable man.”

“Understatement, Mr. Cooperman.” He grinned at me with the misty eyes of a true believer. “Everything about Dermot is an understatement. Apart from the two books about him that have already appeared, I know of three distinguished writers who are working separately on biographies. There are more of his CDs out now, since his death, than there were last year or the year before. Cutout limbo doesn’t exist for Dermot Keogh. People can’t get enough of him. Not since the death of the great Glenn Gould has there been such a musical phenomenon.”

“And you knew him well?”

“What? Goodness, did I know him? I
brought
him here to NTC. Oh, yes! We recorded a series of half a dozen shows and were committed to do another six. I met him at the CBC originally. In the Old Building. He was just twenty, but already reorganizing the music department there from the inside. A year later he made his break-out recording of the Bach
Suites for Unaccompanied Cello
. That sold a million copies worldwide in the first six weeks on the shelves. It went platinum within the next month. Oh, I could go on and on about Dermot, who was, along with his genius, a wonderful human being. I keep having to remind myself that I was privileged to be counted as one of his friends.”