Chapter 13

“MORGAN—DO YOU know what’s happened?” Nancy was excited, but I could hear a note of concern in her voice, too. It was a quarter to seven in the morning.

“About Damon.” I had just awakened, after less than three hours of sleep. “Yes.” I was pouring coffee into a mug the size of a large flower-pot. “I was there this morning, right after they found his body.”

“And you didn’t come up to see me?”

“It was almost two o’clock—”

“Jesus, Morgan, I wouldn’t mind being woken up to hear about a murder in my own building.”

“Have the police said it was a murder?” I asked.

“Oh, come on—all the morning news shows are saying it. But how is this going to affect your job?”

That’s what she’s worried about. “I don’t think it should. The show’s ratings are high.”

“So far, so good then. Now, when’s the funeral? I want to go with you.”

“I don’t know anything about a funeral. And why would you want to go?”

“To see who’s there, of course. Maybe I can spot the killer.”

“You changed your name to Nancy Drew?”

“I’ll ignore the sarcasm, grumpy, because I probably called before you’ve had your coffee. Just tell me this, if Damon was a character on your show, and all the others who might have killed him were characters too, who would you choose to be the murderer?”

“Can’t do it. I like the people who might be suspects more than I liked the victim.”

“You’ve got to stop telling the truth like that, Morgan. The police will think you did it. I’ll bet right now everybody else is talking about how much they adored Damon, what a wonderful man, what a terrible tragedy—yada, yada puke.”

“I’ll let you know when I find out about the funeral.”

TV KINGPIN SLAIN screamed the New York Post.TV HONCHO CANCELLED bellowed the Daily News. Both papers had pages of photographs, provocative stills of Teresa from her movies, Damon and Teresa’s wedding picture, and shots of some of the models and actresses Damon was known to have dated since their divorce. The New York Times, with typical restraint, reported the few known facts of the police investigation on page fifteen. The story was accompanied by a headshot of Damon. It was the same picture used in Global Broadcasting’s most recent Annual Report. Nathan Hughes’s office probably gave it to the Times. The photograph wasn’t retouched; staring at it, I had to admit he actually had looked like a younger Robert Redford, or an older Brad Pitt.

The Wall Street Journal wondered if Damon Radford’s death would have a negative effect on Global’s stock price. No photographs.

“Murder in the Penthouse” was the lead story on GBN’s nationally syndicated TV show Entertainment News. Similar stories topped news magazines on the other broadcast and cable networks. I imagined Damon—wherever he was now—furious it had taken his death to make him the biggest star on television.

The TV in my office played in the background all morning as I worked furiously to revise several weeks’ worth of scripts. I had to create places into which we could insert the counterfeit flashbacks of the reshot rape scene, and revise those same scripts to incorporate the changing relationship between Kira and Nicky, and Kira and Cody. It would be faster to do this myself than to explain what I wanted to one of my staff writers. Cybelle said she loved the dance scene I wrote for her. With my new plan, I was keeping the dance, but it would be Link Ramsey who would be in the scene with her, not Sean O’Neil. And I had to come up with a new story for Sean’s character, Nicky.

A little after twelve noon, Tommy Zenos surprised me by showing up at my office. He was toting an expensive wicker picnic basket. Although he had taken the elevator, he was huffing, puffing and sweating as though he had walked up all six flights. “I . . . brought us . . . lunch,” he said between labored breaths. He opened the top of the basket and took out cutlery and cloth napkins.

I leaned over and looked at what else the basket contained. The top item was fresh Iranian caviar. He opened it and spread some for me on a thin cracker. It was delicious. As soon as I swallowed, I said, “This is quite a treat, Tommy.”

“Beware of Greeks bearing gifts,” he joked. But I knew it wasn’t really a joke; he was much too nervous. I realized that this picnic basket had come with strings attached, strings as thick as coaxial cables.

“What’s this gift going to cost me?”

“Morgan, you’re not going to tell anybody—anybody at all—about what happened up at Damon’s that day, are you?” It was more of a plea than a question.

“There’s nothing to tell. We watched the tape of Link’s new scene. If Damon hadn’t just got out of the hospital, we would have watched the tape in his office.”

“Thank you, Morgan.”

“There’s nothing to thank me for.”

“The police might not understand,” he said. “I mean, Damon said horrible things like that all the time, to everybody. You know that. Everybody knows that.”

“Tommy—”

“It didn’t mean anything, what he said. Just words. I wouldn’t kill Damon because of that. Not that anybody said I did. Kill him, I mean.”

Tommy Zenos didn’t know how to take “yes” for an answer.

“Damon liked the new scene, Tommy, and he told us to go ahead with the story changes we want to make. I don’t remember anything else he might have said.”

He looked as though the governor had just called and told the warden to put the lethal injection needle away.

“Morgan . . .” He was stretching my name out so it sounded as though it had more than two syllables. “I’d . . . I’d like you to get more involved on the production side of the show, work with me closer. I think you’d make a fine co–executive producer. I mean, I’ve thought that for a long time, but even more. Now, I mean.”

He was trying to bribe me! Even though I liked him, I wanted to rub his caviar in his face. I might have, except that I like fresh caviar, and until today I hadn’t had any in years. Not since my first wedding anniversary, on a moonlit night in Mombassa. Out of respect for the caviar, I controlled my temper. “No,” I said.

“No—what?”

“I don’t want to become co–executive producer that way, Tommy. You don’t have to pay me, because you didn’t buy anything from me.”

“I mean it, Morgan. I can use your help . . . when the police are gone and all this is over.”

I put the jar of fresh black caviar back in its place, wiped my hands on a napkin and folded the wicker lid back down, closing the basket. I swiveled away from Tommy and faced my computer again.

“I have to get back to work,” I said.

AS SOON AS the medical examiner released Damon’s body, Teresa Radford took charge of making arrangements for the funeral. When I learned the details of the service, I called Nancy at her office.

“Do you still want to see Damon sent on his way to ‘the other side’?”

“After everything you’ve told me about him, I wouldn’t miss it.”

“There’s an official ‘to be admitted’ list. I’ll have your name put on it. Eleven o’clock Friday morning, at the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel, on Madison at Eighty-First Street.”

“Funeral home to the stars. Good choice,” she said.