Chapter Thirteen

 

2:15 p.m. EST

 

“Lucy, baby, buckle your seatbelt” Hoffman bulldozed into the office of TV 10’s Executive Vice President and General Manager, Lucy Lockman. “Lucy, you’re not going to believe this one”

Slouched behind her slick glass-and-chrome desk, Lucy, like a bored Persian cat, moved her aqua eyes up from the latest issue of Variety. She had many things on her mind. The most important right now—keeping her job. Hoffman’s enthusiasm induced thoughts of a good vomit. She forced a response.

“Hoffman, don’t you ever fucking knock?”

“Lucy, you have to see this video This is our ticket home, baby. We’re gonna bury those pricks at Channel 6 with this one.” He rushed across twenty feet of thick white carpet to Lucy’s six-monitor, high definition TV video center. “Wait till you see this. Un-fucking-believable”

“It better be.” Lucy leaned back in her maroon executive chair and stroked the yellow-and-red polka dot tie that hung between her lemon-sized breasts. She wasn’t in the mood for another of Hoffman’s unbelievable news stories. Jerk is a looser, she thought. She caressed her pointed chin while she scrutinized him playing with her video center. This dick head and his news department are the reason I’m in hot water, she thought.

As she watched him configure a TV to play the video, the shrew’s voice of her broadcast division boss played back in her mind like a recurring punk rock commercial.

“Revenue is down for the quarter, Lucydown for the quarter. You know, Lucy, your news ratings sucknews ratings sucknews ratings suck. Lucy, your operating expenses are way out of lineway out of line. Lucy, your news ratings are totally unacceptableunacceptable. Ms. Lockman, you have six months to turn it aroundturn it around”

Lucy looked at Hoffman and thought, This jerk will be history, too.

She tossed the Variety to one side and remembered she had to call that West Coast headhunter she had talked to last week. Has to be something better back home in L.A. She massaged her left earlobe. Miami sucks. Everything is better on the West Coast: men, women, dicks, everything.

“Lucy, you’re not going to believe this video. Wait till you see this.” Hoffman pressed start on a remote he held.

“This better be good.” Lucy moistened her purple lip-gloss with the tip of her diamond-studded tongue and watched the dim video unfold on the sixty-inch screen. “Great, just great. What asshole shot this?” She sneered. “Night guard at Pinkerton security? You can’t even see the damn video”

“I know, I know, it gets better, just watch the action.”

She yawned at yet another police cruiser then became more interested as an African-American female was jerked from her car.

“What is this, another cop story?” Lucy leaned forward then moved from behind her desk, whisking her slender, unpolished fingernails along the textured wall that dripped with autographed pictures of network television stars she had, in her words, “broken bread with.”

“Who shot this?” She stepped next to Hoffman, hands jabbed in the front pockets of her loose-fitting Bill Blass designer slacks.

“Some redneck.”

She watched. “He said what? What is this?” She jammed her hands through her short ink-black hair, took the remote from Hoffman. “Where did you say you got this?”

“Some redneck shot it, last night, on Key Largo—he crabs, fishes out there.”

“What is that idiot cop doing?” Lucy put her hands on her thin Body-by-Jake hips.

“Guess.” Hoffman pinched his lower lip.

Watching, Lucy said, “I can’t believe this What? No No” She stared. “I can’t believe this.”

“That’s what I said.”

Lucy, hating it when anybody said that’s what I said, scowled.

The video glitched.

“What happened?” Lucy said.

“Redneck ran out of battery. It’ll come back.”

“Sure, probably jerking off.”

“That’s what I said.”

Lucy daggered a glance at Hoffman then folded her arms and addressed the video. “Now what the fuck is that cop doing?” she said.

“Looks like a double dip.”

“Ha, ha, ha.” She scrutinized the video. “This some kind of joke?Now where’s limp-dick going?”

“Back to the squad car. Watch this.”

“What the? That’s a bottle of booze”

“Sure is. Look at this.”

“What is that?” Lucy shrieked.

“Just watch.”

“Oh, my God.” She smacked her forehead. “Look at that. He’sshe’sa blow job I cannot fucking believe this.”

“That’s exactly what I—” Hoffman caught his mistaken remark and stole a mousy glance at Lucy.

Lucy dropped her hands to her sides, turned and put a long, cold stare between his beady eyes.

He went back to the video. After a long moment, Lucy turned to watch the final scene.

“Jesus Christ He just blew her brains—this is crazy” Lucy pressed pause and shook her head. “This is not real, is it? Some kind of stunt—you’re screwing around with me?” She glared at Hoffman. “I’m not in the mood for games, Hoffman.”

“Lucy, did you see the news this morning? This explains it. Monroe County Sheriff found the body, homicide, white Lincoln, cocaine in the carfits the whole thing. One caveat—it ain’t no drug deal, it was the Miami cops.”

Lucy pressed replay for a second look.

Again they watched.

“Un-fucking-unbelievable,” Lucy said.

“That’s what I said.”

“That’s it” Lucy jabbed stop with her fist and turned to Hoffman. “Quit your goddamn saying ‘That’s what I said’ You never, on your best-ever Sunday school dick-head day ever thought what I thought.”

“Sorry.”

She stroked her hair, jabbed start and watched, uninterrupted, the video again. When it finished, she pitched Hoffman the remote, shoved her hands into the pockets of her slacks, said, “Un-fucking-unbelievable.” She yanked her hands from her pockets, crammed her fingers through her hair, squeezed her scalp and turned to Hoffman. “So, what are you going to do with it?”

He flashed her a smug smile.

“Don’t just stand there with that shit-eating grin on your face. Say something.” She darted behind her desk and began drumming her fingers on the glass. “I’m waiting.”

Beaming with pride, Hoffman took the SD card from the TV. Holding it in the air: “I’m going to blow the top off the Nielsen ratings in this town, that’s what I’m going to do”

She stared at her desktop, thinking You lucky bitch you, Lucy, then said, “Where did you say you got that video?”

“I told you, some redneck, called this morning—”

“He sign a release?”

“Yes.”

“Un-fucking-believable. That the only copy?”

“Yes, it’s ours, exclusive.”

“Did you check it out?”

“What’s to check out? Here’s the video.” He held up the SD card. “Seeing is believing.”

“What’s to check out?” She slapped her forehead. “The news director asks the general manager what’s to check out. How about Chief Manny’s office, for starters? Did you try to contact him?”

“Contact him, with this? Are you kidding me? They kill the messenger in this town.”

“We have to at least offer to show him the fucking thing.”

“Lucy, baby, this is not something for a local two-bit police chief to approve. Besides, even if I showed it to him, what’s he gonna say? ‘Oh, sure, that’s us okay, sure is, we did it.’” He pressed the bridge of his glasses. “Come on, Lucy, they acknowledge this, they’re dead meat.”

Lucy noodleing, “That’s one of their squad cars, alright”

“Sure is, and it’s them, but if we wait around getting approval while they get a story together, somebody else is going to get wind of it, break it, and we get a royal screwing.”

Lucy rubbed her chin. “Did you make a backup copy?”

“Ah, no, I wanted to let you see it first.”

“Dumb dick head What if that SD cardJesus Christ, Hoffman.”

“Okay, okay.” He let her cool for a minute then leaned over her desk. “Lucy, I want to break it—now. This is stuff you dream of. And we got it, exclusive. Jesus H. Christ I can’t believe it”

“Talk to me. Talk to me.” Lucy lit a yellow Eve cigarette.

“This is the kind of story that can bust a market wide open, turn the ratings on their head” he snapped his fingers. “just like that.”

She pulled the short hair on top of her head and paced to a large window overlooking a tropical palm patio one story below. “Where’s the redneck fit in?”

Hoffman didn’t want to cloud the issue with Russ Parker’s identity problem so he shrugged it off. “Who needs him? We got the video. Something like ‘Channel 10 has obtained exclusive video from a confidential source,’ and go from there.”

“Did you get your confidential source’s name, number?”

“Yes, yes, yes.”

“Goddamn it, Hoffman, you don’t get the big picture, do you?”

Hoffman was used to her bursts of temper; and with her in a foul mood when he came in, he for sure didn’t want her sidetracked on Parker’s child support problems. He looked at her, smiled, waited ten seconds then went on. “Let’s break it now. I’ll get Steve on the news set, we’ll interrupt—”

“Lost In Life You know how many people watch that soap? They don’t care if you got video of the President balling Queen Jillian. You interrupt their soap, and I get nine thousand phone calls and a zillion letters.” She put her cigarette out. “Shit.” She looked at Hoffman. “Can’t it go on the six o’clock news? Promo it all afternoon, like a sneak preview.”

“Lucy, it’s too big. I got that redneck’s word it’s ours exclusively, but you never know with those hicks—he could be across the street right now.”

“Thought you said this was the original, no copies.”

“That’s what he told me, but how do you know, like I said”

“Shit.”

Hoffman knew Lucy’s decision-making style so he didn’t push too hard. Just let her decree, he thought. After a few seconds, he added a kicker.

“Lost In Life is the highest-rated show we have on the air. Think of that audience sampling of our news product. Couldn’t be better.” He tilted his head and grinned. “Besides, this is kind of soapy stuff anyway.”

“Ha, ha, ha.” She lit another cigarette, spewed a stream of smoke toward the ceiling and talked to herself. Oh, Lucy, dear, you always were a lucky bitch. She hit her desk with her fist. “Shit, do it.”

“Allll right” Hoffman flashed a high five over his head, but Lucy declined the invitation.

“Listen to me, Hoffman. If you fuck this up, I’ll personally cut your balls off. Do not mess this up. I’m leaving for Labor Day weekend, going to L.A. That source better be verifiable.”

“We will, we will, it is. Besides, this is a public service. Who’s going to watchdog the cop bullies if we don’t? It’s a duty to the community.”

“Fuck you You need six rating points or your ass is history and you know it.”

She looked to her outer office and called her secretary.

“Tommy, get your ass in here.” She looked at Hoffman. Her competitive juices had begun to flow. She stuck words in Hoffman’s face. “Get promotion to work on a spot right away. Get a press release out. We had it first. We own it. Keep our logo on every piece of video that goes on the air. And call that dick head Miami Herald newspaper critic. Maybe he can write something good about us for a change.”

Tommy entered and Lucy shot him words: “Give Hoffman my itinerary—phone numbers, all that. The Bonaventure, LA, where I’ll be this weekend.”

“Yes, Lucy.” Tommy made notes on his yellow pad.

Lucy studied Hoffman and began to weave a win-win scenario for herself. If this blows up, I didn’t know anything about it. Dick head news director did it. If it works, it could be a start to building some news ratings at this rathole TV station. Then I’m a hero, outa here, LA, here I come.

Finished taking his notes, Tommy smiled at her.

“What the fuck are you smiling about?” Lucy said.

“Nothing. Is that all?”

“Is that? Get the fuck out of here.” She turned to Hoffman. “Well, Douger, what are you waiting for, huh, huh? Take your video and get your little dick down to the control room and put on a spectacular show. The whole world will be watching.”

“Buckle your seatbelt, Miami, here we come.” Hoffman, SD card clutched in hand, rushed out the door.

Lucy crushed her cigarette out and glanced at the Nielsen rating’s chart on the wall. The graph line showed WSUN in last place. A thought dropped her chin. She turned and screamed toward the open door. “Hoffman Make a backup copy of that fucking video”