Dirt

Chapter 2

Amanda walked into the office suite of her penthouse, dressed in her standard uniform of Chanel suit, Ferragamo shoes, plain gold jewelry, and a gold Cartier Panther wristwatch and bracelet.

Her staff of three, at their desks five minutes before her always precise nine o’clock arrival, leapt to their feet as one, welcoming her back and complimenting her on how tanned and rested she looked. She shook each of their hands, received their compliments, and sent them back to their desks, save her secretary, the trusty Martha, who had been with her for her entire career as a columnist.

“Ready for your messages?” Martha asked, holding up a batch of yellow slips.

“Not yet,” Amanda replied, slipping behind her little French desk. She loved the desk. Sister Parrish, the doyen of New York interior designers, had found it especially for her when she had done the apartment a few years before her death. “Before I do anything else, get me Bill Eggers at Woodman and Weld. He should already be at his desk.”

Martha returned to her desk, and a moment later the green light on Amanda’s phone flashed; her party was on the line, waiting. Amanda did not converse with other people’s secretaries.

“Bill,” she breathed into the phone. “How are you, darling?”

“I’m wonderful, Amanda,” the lawyer replied. “How was your holiday?”

“Just perfect. I’m fully rested and raring to go. What was Hickock’s reaction to our latest contract proposal?”

“I called him on Friday, but he’s putting me off,” Eggers replied. “He says somebody in the legal department is on vacation, but to tell you the truth, I think he’s just not giving it his full attention. After all, he’s got another two months and three weeks before your contract expires. He’s used to negotiating with the print unions right up to and past deadlines.”

Amanda frowned, then forced her facial muscles to relax. Having recently had some lines surgically removed, she didn’t want new ones cropping up. “He’s not going to have that luxury,” she said.

“You want me to call him again?”

Amanda thought for a moment. “No,” she replied. “Meet me in the lobby of the Galaxy Building at precisely ten minutes past one this afternoon.”

“Do you already have an appointment?”

“No, but he’ll see me.”

“If you say so, Amanda, but listen, I have to give you my best advice on this before you do anything rash; that’s my responsibility.”

Amanda sighed. “Go ahead, Bill.”

“Okay, you’re in a good negotiating position; your readership is slightly up in the home paper, and well up in syndication. You’re not overpaid, at the moment, and what we’re asking for is not out of line with the numbers involved. However, it’s almost never good to appear eager when you’re dealing with Dick Hickock; he’ll have you for breakfast, if he thinks he has any sort of edge. My advice is to wait, not even call him, just wait for his call. He knows exactly when your contract is up, and he won’t ignore the deadline and risk losing you to another paper. Sit tight, and you’ll get most of what you want. There, I’ve said it; what do you want to do?”

“Precisely ten past one, at the Galaxy Building.”

“See you there.”

Amanda hung up and began doing something she had forced herself to put off: She went through the New York and L.A. papers quickly, looking for any reference to the incident of the night before. As she had suspected, there was nothing. Every paper had closed well before the photographs were taken at the hotel, and nobody would have been fool enough to print the story without substantiation. She breathed a heavy sigh of relief; she had until early evening, when the show biz news programs came on, after the evening news.

Amanda got up, walked to the door, and leaned against the jamb, looking out into the open bay where her secretary and two assistants sat. Of the three, only Martha had known where she had spent the past weekend, and nobody, but nobody, could torture the information out of that woman. While the others hadn’t known, they might have somehow picked up something around the office. Still, each of them was well paid and, apparently, happy in his or her work. One, Helen, was a young woman of thirty who had been with her for three years; the other, Barry, was a gay man who had been with her for eight. There was not a naive bone in Amanda’s body, but her best judgment told her that the news had been leaked from somewhere else, most likely from her lover’s end, although he had denied any such thing. Most likely his wife had put a detective on them, but that remained to be seen.

“All right, Martha,” Amanda said, “let’s go through the messages.”

At nine minutes past one the elderly Cadillac glided up to the main entrance of the Galaxy Building, and Amanda stepped out; Bill Eggers was waiting in the lobby. It was lunchtime, and the two were alone together in the elevator.

“Amanda, won’t he be at lunch at this hour?” Eggers asked.

“Dick Hickock always has lunch at his desk on Mondays,” she replied. “Always.”

“Are you sure he’ll see you?”

“He won’t have a choice,” Amanda said.

“Jesus,” the lawyer said under his breath.

They stepped out on the thirtieth floor, into a paneled and hushed hallway. The receptionist’s desk was empty; a sign on the desk said,

THIS FLOOR IS CLOSED UNTIL 3:00 P.M. FOR ASSISTANCE, PLEASE GO TO THE MAIN RECEPTION DESK ON THE TENTH FLOOR.

“Follow me,” Amanda said. She strode down the hall, her footsteps silenced by the thick carpeting, through a double door marked “Chairman,” across a reception room, and into the office of Richard M. Hickock, chairman of the board of Galaxy Media. Dick Hickock sat at his desk in his shirtsleeves, his necktie undone, the Wall Street Journal open before him, eating a huge sandwich.

“Hello, Dick, darling!” Amanda enthused, walking behind the desk and planting a kiss on his cheek, leaving a smear of cerise.

Hickock had just taken a large bite out of his sandwich, and he struggled to get it chewed and swallowed so that he could speak. By the time he had, Amanda and her lawyer were seated in a pair of chairs to his right.

“You know Bill Eggers, don’t you?” Amanda asked.

Hickock nodded and washed down food with a glass of beer.

“Amanda, what the hell…” he began.

“I do apologize for interrupting your lunch, Dick,” Amanda said contritely, “but I hope you will understand that this just won’t wait.”

“Amanda,” Hickock said, shaking his head in disbelief, “there’s a thirty-eight in my desk drawer, and I would have used it on anybody who walked in here like that.” He smiled benevolently. “Anybody but you. Now what can I do for you?” He nodded at the sandwich. “My Milton Berle is waiting.”

“What’s in a Milton Berle, Dick?” Amanda asked, apparently fascinated.

“Corned beef and chopped liver with Russian dressing on pumpernickel, and this.” He held up a huge pickle. “The reference to Berle,” he said, grinning.

Amanda blushed. “Oh, Dick! You are awful!”

“It’s true,” Hickock said to Eggers. “I am awful.”

“It’s about our contract proposal,” Amanda said without further ado.

“Amanda, your contract has another three months to run,” Hickock replied. “What’s your rush?”

“Oh, it’s not me, darling, it’s SI Newhouse.”

Hickock’s face instantly became expressionless. “SI who?” he asked disingenuously, his eyes narrowing.

“Dick, it’s been awful; I’ve spent the whole weekend fending him off. Somehow, he got my phone number, and he would not be put off.”

“Don’t listen to a word he says,” Hickock said.

“Oh, I’ve tried not to – he’s such an awful flatterer – but I must admit, when he started throwing numbers around…”

“That absolute shit,” Hickock said, almost to himself.

“Oh, I don’t want to go with SI, Dick; that’s why I came to see you. He’s practically forced me to have a drink with him later today – God knows, I don’t want to alienate him – and I’m planning to tell him, as sweetly as I possibly can, to go away.”

“Right, my dear,” Hickock said, smiling. “That’s exactly what you should do.”

“But I can’t, Dick darling, not with things just… hanging the way they are with my contract.”

“Just say no, Amanda.”

“Well, I can’t very well do that, if I don’t know for sure that I have a deal with you, can I? I mean, my God, I don’t want to leave Galaxy, but when he’s dangling all that money in front of me and all those perks…”

“Perks?” Hickock asked, looking alarmed.

“Oh, you know how lavish SI can be when he really wants somebody.”

“Amanda, it’s wrong of you to press me like this.”

“Dick, my darling, I’m not pressing; I’m the soul of patience. SI, unfortunately, is not.”

Hickock rummaged in his desk and came out with the contract proposal that Eggers had sent him. He put on his reading glasses and began leafing through it. “You really think you’re worth this sort of money, Amanda?”

Eggers jumped in. “Her numbers support everything in that proposal,” the lawyer said.

“You want five percent more of the syndication?”

“Syndication income is way up,” Eggers said.

Hickock seemed to be collecting himself, Amanda thought.

“Tell you what, Amanda, my legal guy is back from vacation next Monday; we’ll get back to you the end of next week, all right?”

Amanda stood up and smoothed her skirt. “Dick, my darling, I can’t tell you how sad this makes me,” she said, dabbing at the corner of an eye, where an actual tear had appeared. “I had so wanted it to work out. I want you to know that I have no hard feelings whatsoever.” She turned and started toward the door, with Eggers at her heels, then stopped. “Oh, can you and Glynnis come to dinner on Friday? Just a small dinner, we’ll only be eight, but it’s a good crowd.”

Hickock was on his feet. “Now, Amanda, come back and sit down.”

Amanda and Eggers returned to their chairs. “I’m sitting, Dick,” she said.

Hickock was reading the proposal again. “A Mercedes Six Hundred? What’s the matter with the Five Hundred? Or, come to that, with the Four-twenty? The Six Hundred is a hundred-and-thirty-seven-thousand-dollar car, for Christ’s sake!”

“Oh, that’s right, you drive one, don’t you, Dick? Isn’t it such a wonderful car? I mean, the Six Hundred has the burled walnut and the separate air conditioner for the back seat. You know how warm-natured I am.”

“Amanda, be reasonable.”

“Dick, I despise cheapness in a man, I really do.”

“Oh, all right, you have a deal,” Hickock said. “We’ll sign something when my legal guy gets back.”

Eggers instantly produced a small stack of documents. “I’ve prepared a deal memo,” he said. “We’ll work out the final language when your man gets home.”

Hickock read the document quickly and signed all four copies. Amanda signed them, and Eggers left two with the publisher.

Amanda stood up. “I’m so thrilled that we’re going to be together for another four years, darling,” she said. She met him halfway around the desk, and they embraced. “And don’t forget dinner, Friday, at seven.” She turned to Eggers. “Can I give you a lift, Bill?” She took his arm and steered him toward the door. At the threshold she turned and looked at Hickock, who was gazing at his sandwich. “Oh, Dick, they have just the car I want at that Mercedes showroom on Park Avenue.” She returned to the desk and laid a card on it. “The man said they could deliver it at five; all it takes is a phone call from you.”

“We’ll be trading your Cadillac, right?” Hickock asked.

“Oh, Dick, you are funny; I’ve already sold it.” She swept out of the office.

In the car, Bill Eggers wiped his brow. “Amanda, I don’t know why you need me at all,” he said.

Amanda patted his hand. “Somebody has to do the boilerplate, dear.”