Makeovers Can Be Murder

Chapter 32

As if I didn′t have enough on my plate, Beatty chose that exact moment to bug me about my weight-loss series.

″How are your fat stories coming along?″ He′d rematerialized at my cubicle.

″Fine,″ I lied. In fact, Frank and I had finished taping only the first segment of the weight-loss series, the Skinny Wrap story. We had four parts left to do.

″Good, because I want to move your series up on the schedule,″ he said. ″We need to run the first two installments next week.″

Next week? Yikes. I was supposed to have three more weeks to work on it.

″Okay, but I′ve got a lot of breaking stuff I′m following right now,″ I said. ″I just got an update about the Jana Miller carjacking.″

Beatty waved off my objection. ″Give your carjacking updates to someone else if you don′t have time to handle everything,″ he said. ″I need to get your series on the air ASAP. It′s going to run instead of Lainey′s series on homeless dumping.″

At the mention of Lainey, my ears pricked up like a terrier puppy′s.

″Why the switch?″ I asked him. ″What′s wrong with her series?″

″It needs more reporting. Meanwhile, Marketing is screaming bloody murder down my back because we need something else pronto to promote for next week. We got squat right now.″

Needs more reporting. That meant that Lainey had screwed the pooch on her stories, newswise. There was no time for me to do a victory dance, however, because I was woefully behind in completing my own series. Plus I was anxious to check into the report I′d heard from Jana′s brother about how her body had been mishandled. That was a major scandal brewing in the medical examiner′s office.

I gave Beatty a wild, hopeful look. ″Maybe I could finish Lainey′s homeless series for her. I could turn that one around really fast,″ I suggested. ″I′ve already got solid sources for it.″

Give me anything, God, but having to work on more fat rip-off stories. I sent up a little prayer.

Beatty lowered his aviators on his nose to peer at me. ″Does that mean your series is ready to go right this second? Fine. Where′s the disk?″

″I′m tweaking it.″

″You′re tweaking it. And I′m the wizard of friggin′ Oz.″

Beatty started to turn away. Then he snapped back around, his favorite method for catching reporters off guard. The Beatty Brows were working in hypermotion. If the rest of us were lucky, one of these days his eyebrows would sprout wings and fly away with his face.

″Are you positive you′ll be ready with your first two installments by next week, Gallagher?″ he demanded to know. ″Because I need to review both of them by this Thursday. That′s three days from now. That′s a drop-dead date, by the way.″

″You′ll have both stories in your hands by this Thursday, Beatty. Don′t worry-it′s under control. ″

Yup. My fat-scam series was under control. Like everything else in my life these days, the series was about as under control as a plane that was nosing over into a death spiral.