Star Time by Joseph Amiel Read Free Book Online

a secretary, and he had taken a part-time job writing news at a local radio station. He had hoped, after graduation, to teach on the college level while writing and selling his first novel. Finding teaching jobs scarce and low paying, however, he moved to the station’s TV affiliate and speedily advanced. He eventually grew a beard and assumed a pipe as a signal to others and a reminder to himself that someday he would write the novels he was sure were burning somewhere deep within his soul.
    Now, the combination of doing two jobs at the office and Patty's forcing him to share the duties at home were wearing him down. He finally capitulated to his fatigue and recommended to Ev Carver, the station's general manager, that Greg be made executive producer. He set up a meeting for the three of them.
     
    Greg entered Carver's office a step behind Stew. The curtains were drawn. A low desk lamp that provided the only illumination lit Ev's face demonically. Greg assumed the effect was a means of cowing underlings.
    Ev Carver was a muscular, broad-shouldered man, just over six feet tall. His eyes were hard and dark, his hair red fading to gray. Several anxious network executives had tried to slow his climb, but he seemed an inevitable force. Decisive, calculating, ruthless if that would get the job done, Carver drove his subordinates relentlessly. At thirty-three he had already turned around FBS's Chicago station before being moved to Los Angeles and given a free hand to revive that station's declining popularity. He got everyone's attention the first day by firing three executives and scrapping a local morning talk show in favor of cheaper syndicated game shows. By week's end he had lured Stew Graushner from Pittsburgh to overhaul a struggling news operation. Anything like his Chicago success would make Ev Carver a surefire bet for the network's upper ranks.
    "Stew tells me you're sucking up to him to become executive producer," Carver began.
    Greg knew the man’s reputation for provoking people so as to force them off stride. He ignored the insult.
    Legs crossed, hands clasped on his lap, eyes locked on Greg's, Carver grilled him for an hour about his background and his approach to every aspect of the job. Greg answered deftly, while ambivalence grew toward his interrogator. He thought he sensed coursing beneath the quick intelligence and potent personality, like vibrations almost below audibility, the rumblings of a primordial brutality.
    "What do you think of Brett Winters?" Ev suddenly asked. Winters was an anchorman on a competing station. "If you look at the eighteen-to-thirty-four-year-old women's market, he's got the pussy in the audience by the short hairs."
    Greg was equally candid. "He's a good-looking model who can read the words off a teleprompter. And he has trouble with the three-syllable ones. If you're thinking of hiring him, my opinion is he's going to hurt us badly when news breaks live or he has to chat unscripted. He won't last."
    "But you’re not convinced it’s a bad move until he does. A stud like that could hike the ad rates."
    Carver's tone carried the disturbing assumption that he was familiar with Greg's private thoughts, as if he were eavesdropping on a mental phone line. Soon after, Greg made the point that a reputation for news excellence and other public service would prove important when KFBS next had to show the FCC it deserved a renewal of its broadcasting license, an ordeal that concerned most station managers. Ev lifted his boxer's hands from his lap and leaned forward.
    "To hell with the FCC! You think they're going to make good if News loses money? News is a pain in the ass! Only worth the trouble it causes me if it turns a decent profit and delivers the largest possible audience to my evening lineup. You'll have a lot of leeway to run your own shop, Lyall , but fuck up on either of those, and you're out on your ass. Deliver and you're golden. In the end the only thing that matters in