Chapter 14
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BY TEN-THIRTY FRIDAY morning a crowd had formed in the street outside the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel, gawking at the celebrities who were going in. As I made my way through the crush toward the entrance, I heard someone say, “Will you look at the size of this crowd?” I remembered reading about a Hollywood wit who, when he saw the immense turnout for the funeral of the despised head of one of the studios, made the famous crack, “Well, give the public what it wants and you can’t keep them away.”

I gave my name to one of the two black-suited men who flanked the entrance. He checked it off on his clipboard and I was admitted into the packed chapel.

A gleaming brass casket, framed by huge arrangements of Casablanca lilies in black ceramic urns, rested on a low platform at the front of the chapel. The casket was closed. The Global Broadcasting Network’s official photograph of Damon, his face twice the size it had been in life, rested on a brass easel next to the casket.

I was in the right place. So was Damon.

Nancy had arrived early and saved me a seat. Over the years enough men have complimented me so that I know I’m all right in the looks department, but next to Nancy Cummings I usually feel like furniture. This morning, wearing a gray Prada ensemble that perfectly accentuated her slender curves, and clutching a red lizard Ferragamo bag, she looked even more gorgeous than usual. She stood up to let me into the row and towered six inches over me, instead of her usual three. I looked down and saw she was wearing new Manolo Blahnik stiletto pumps. When five-foot-nine-inch Nancy wears three-inch heels and someone asks her how tall she is, she smiles and replies, “I’m five feet twelve.”

All around us, people were speaking to each other in hushed tones, while at the same time their eyes scanned the chapel to see who else was there. As I sat down, I saw that Nancy, too, was assessing the celebrity quotient under Frank E. Campbell’s roof.

“Do you know who’s here?” she whispered.

“Who?”

“Everybody who’s important on your network,” Nancy said.

That was not much of an exaggeration. I had expected to see everyone connected to Love of My Life in attendance, and the Trauma Center folks, and the rest of the daytime schedule over which Damon had direct control. What surprised me was how many of the creators, producers and stars of shows on the prime-time and late-night schedules were there; I wouldn’t have thought they would have had much contact with the head of daytime programming. Helen Marshall was also among those present. She was dressed all in black and held a black lace handkerchief close to her pale face, prepared to cry for the man who had fired her.

In the row behind Helen, I could see Cybelle Carter, who looked as though she was in pain. She was in a wheelchair, parked at the end of her row. Johnny Isaac was directing the foot traffic around her, making sure no one bumped into her, or jarred her chair in the narrowed aisle. Farther back I was astonished—and thrilled—to see Harrison Landers, the man who trained me. Tears of happiness filled my eyes and threatened to overflow at the sight of him, out in public at last. His complexion had the ruddy glow of health, and his wiry gray hair was still thick, still cut military short. With his bright hazel eyes and broad shoulders, I thought again, as I had when we worked together, that he must have been one of the best-looking Marines in Vietnam. He still had the broad shoulders, but now he was in a wheelchair, too, his paralyzed legs covered by a blanket.

Unlike Cybelle’s chair, a temporary convenience that had to be propelled manually, Harrison’s was an electric model. Someone had affixed the Rolls-Royce Spirit of Ecstasy hood ornament to the right armrest, just in front of the hand controls. Harrison’s “Rolls” was parked several rows behind Cybelle’s “compact,” on the opposite side of the aisle.

My joy that Harrison was well enough to leave his apartment was total, but I was surprised he hadn’t let me know how much improved he was. I thought he was still bedridden from the stroke he had suffered three years ago. The stroke that had followed his terrible fight with Damon. I wanted to go over to him, to tell him how much I missed him. I wanted to make plans to see him, but with this crowd, under these circumstances, I realized that wasn’t possible. So I smiled and made the “phone call” gesture with my hands. Harrison smiled in response, and nodded to me. It was a start.

The eulogies began. Hypocrisy on parade.

The first to speak was Father John Collins. He introduced himself as Damon’s priest.

Damon had a priest?

“I’d like to have been a fly on the wall of that confessional,” Nancy whispered.

Father Collins praised Damon as a long-time supporter of the Catholic Youth Athletic Center. “He insisted that his generous contributions be anonymous.”

“But I’ll bet they were tax deductible,” Nancy whispered.

“Shhhhh.”

The next speaker came in the person of a delicate little woman with silver hair who appeared to be in her seventies. Father Collins introduced her as Elizabeth Radford, Damon’s mother. In the five years I had worked in daytime, I had never heard any reference to Damon’s parents. He might have sprung fully formed from the head of Zeus for all we knew.

Mrs. Radford’s voice was soft, with a distinctly Southern accent. Without the aid of the podium microphone her words would not have carried past the first row. “Damon was a wonderful son,” she said. “He treated me like a queen. My husband, his father, died when he was only five years old. I wasn’t well, and I didn’t have any family . . . I had to put Damon in foster homes . . . for seven years . . . I didn’t see him again until he was twelve years old . . . but he always treated me like a queen . . .”

My God, a child whose father died, exiled by his mother to foster homes for seven years. It gave me a new image of Damon. A helpless little boy was a Damon I never knew, and now never would.

Mrs. Radford was followed by Winston Yarborough, the network’s founder and chairman of the board. Yarborough lauded Damon’s “mastery of the television medium,” recounting a story that had become legend.

“One day almost twenty-five years ago,” he said, “I received a letter from a communications major in his junior year at the University of Missouri. A young man I’d never heard of named Damon Radford. He sent me his twenty-page thesis on Global Broadcasting, pointing out the network’s weaknesses and including a plan to improve our ratings and our overall level of audience satisfaction. I was astounded at the clarity of his thinking, and the freshness of his ideas. Most of all, I was impressed with the initiative he displayed by putting so much work into his detailed assessment of our company. At first, I admit, his paper made me angry because he attacked some of my most cherished strategies. But when I calmed down and thought about it, I realized this young man had an extraordinary mind. I contacted him by telephone and we talked for two hours. As soon as his college year ended—he was a junior—I brought him to New York for a weekend. By the end of that weekend, I had arranged for his transfer to UCLA, and started him off with a part-time job at our affiliate station in Los Angeles.”

Winston Yarborough’s voice broke. I realized that he really had cared about Damon. Had he ever seen the Damon I knew?

Yarborough took a sip water from a glass on the podium and went on to his conclusion. “Damon’s rise in our company has been well-documented. Suffice it to say I had great faith in Damon. He was my protégé, my highly regarded colleague, and it had been my plan to make him my successor when I retired. I loved him like a son.”

Neither Teresa nor Jeremy spoke.

For me, the biggest surprise of the service was the appearance of the woman who rose from her seat with the family and came forward to close the program. Her back had been turned to me and I had not recognized her until that moment. It was Kitty Leigh, the petite, blonde, doll-like former child star with the spectacular singing voice and the sensation-filled personal life. After many public ups and downs in her career, she was currently hosting a daytime talk show for the network. Kitty’s gaudy personal life, full of ruthless men who damaged her, could have supplied daytime drama material for several years.

“This was Damon’s favorite song,” she said.

Without accompaniment, she began to sing Irving Berlin’s “There’s No Business Like Show Business.” But she sang it in a way I’m sure Mr. Berlin never envisioned. Kitty turned into a love song what Berlin had written as a rousing anthem for the Broadway show Annie Get Your Gun. (Under the circumstances, there was a touch of irony in the choice, I thought.) Instead of belting out the lyrics, Kitty caressed them. She transformed the song, just as years ago Barbra Streisand’s sensuous reinterpretation of “Happy Days Are Here Again” put a new spin on that old political campaign tune.

Kitty was fabulous. She held the chapel spellbound. When she finished the last note of the line “Let’s go on with the show . . .” there was a moment of silence, then the chapel burst into an inappropriate round of applause. I couldn’t fully concentrate on her performance, though. I was recalling a scene I’d witnessed four months earlier at Damon’s apartment. He had forced Kitty to degrade herself in front of his guests. Rick Spencer and Joe Niles were present; their behavior that night is the cause of my deep dislike of the two of them.

Based on what Damon did to Kitty, I thought that of all the people at Campbell’s, she had the most powerful reason to want him dead.

AS SOON AS the funeral service was over, Nancy left to go back to her office. I had to go through the receiving line to pay my respects to the three surviving members of Damon’s family.

When I reached Jeremy, I hugged him.

“I’m so sorry about your father.”

“Thanks,” he said. “You’ve been great.”

I told Jeremy the truth; I was sorry that his father was dead. My deeper regret was that Damon had been his father. At least the Damon I knew. Perhaps there was another Damon—or perhaps there might have been another, a different, Damon, had it not been for whatever happened to him during those seven years he was in foster homes. When it was my turn, I said something polite to Teresa. She said something polite in return.

I had been watching Elizabeth Radford while I waited to express my condolences to her. I suppose I was searching her face for some trace of Damon. It was there, in the cheekbones. She didn’t have Damon’s vitality. Up close I could see that she was tired, and that her eyes were dull with grief. Her replies to expressions of sympathy were perfunctory, her handshake mechanical. A little old lady wind-up doll.

Finally it was my turn to speak to her.

“Hello, Mrs. Radford. I’m Morgan Tyler. I—”

Her eyes suddenly came alive and she embraced me. “Oh, my dear. I’m so happy to meet you,” she said.

Gently, I disengaged myself and asked, “Why?”

“Damon told me so much about you. But he said I wouldn’t be able to meet you until the wedding.”

I was sure she was confused. She was certainly confusing me.

“What wedding?”

“Your wedding to my son! I know it was supposed to be a secret, but that can’t matter now.” She embraced me again and she began to cry. As awkward as it was, there was nothing I could do except hold her comfortingly.

I was so astonished by what she said I didn’t think about who else might have heard her. Then I glanced up and saw Teresa and Jeremy staring at me. Teresa was steaming with fury. Jeremy looked betrayed. As carefully as I could, I disengaged myself from the elderly woman for the second time.

“That isn’t true,” I said to the three Radfords. “Damon and I weren’t going to be married. There’s some misunderstanding.”

“Why are you denying it?” Mrs. Radford looked as though I had slapped her. “My son loved you.”

Teresa glared at me, then put one arm around her former mother-in-law. “Come with me, Mother Radford. I think you should lie down now,” she said as she led the grieving woman away.

“Jeremy, it isn’t true,” I said, reaching out to him.

He stepped back, dodging my touch. “I thought you were my friend.” His eyes were filling with fresh tears of shock and pain. “But you weren’t.”

He turned and hurried away, following his mother and grandmother.

In death, Damon had managed to strike one more painful blow.