Nancy Grace - Death on the D-List

They both walked through the glass doors and headed toward the wide expanse of the security desk.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Fryer.” The security guard said it, barely looking up.

But, glancing over at Sookie, his face was blank. “Name and ID, please.”

“Why, I’m Sookie Downs.” How dare he ask for her ID. Didn’t he know who she was?

“Beg pardon?”

“I’m Sookie Downs.”

The guard registered not a hint of recognition.

“You know, Sookie Downs. ” She said her name slowly and with emphasis as if he were deaf. “I’m the executive producer of The Harry Todd Show ? Certainly you’ve heard of Harry Todd. The Harry Todd Show ?”

“Not ringing a bell. Name and ID, please.”

This was not going as planned. Sookie fished around the bottom of her purse for her GNE ID pass. Certainly she’d brought it. Normally she was with Tony whenever she came in. He’d meet her at her limo and walk her in, already clearing her entrance with security.

She couldn’t find the pass.

“I must have changed purses…”

“I vouch for her… You can let her up, Fred.”

“Yes sir, Mr. Fryer.”

Walking toward the elevator bank, Sookie breathed as evenly as possible.

“You know, I hate it when they put new guards at the front desk. So irritating.”

What else could she say? The elevator doors closed in front of their faces as they zoomed upward.

I JUST WANT TO CONVEY HOW HAPPY WE ARE HERE AT GNE WITH THE TODD SHOW’S recent ratings.” Noel Fryer sat back in his leather swivel chair, his feet up on his desk, the view of Manhattan thirty-one floors below him. He’d had the chair specially ergonomically designed several years before. He’d even had the leather seat and arms individually crafted in Italy, and told anybody that happened to come into his office. Today, reared back in his chair, he looked like king of the city and acted like it too, like it all belonged to him.

“I know some time back I had mentioned that, in light of Harry’s, well, I hate to boil it down like this, in light of his ratings, maybe he should consider a graceful exit. You know, when that day does come, when your career is winding down… headed for a new phase… a new direction… and believe me, Sookie, it comes for everybody, even me, Noel Fryer, we would make it all look like Harry’s decision.”

“Noel, let me remind you that for years, Harry’s by far been the highest rated thing you’ve got going and you’d be crazy to end his run now…”

“Correction, Sookie, he was the highest-rated thing we had going.” Noel Fryer came down off his perch and put his feet on the carpet in front of him for emphasis. Sookie winced.

He went on. “There was the little slump… not so little actually, sixteen months of Todd’s ratings in the crapper. And we stood by him.”

Hardly. The moment Harry’s ratings dipped, they started circling like wolves and Sookie knew it. If Harry hadn’t had an ironclad contract locking them in for another eighteen months, he’d have been on the streets, and Sookie with him. What about her ? What would become of her?

“But that’s all behind us, Sookie. That’s why I called you in. Todd’s ratings are up. He’s leading the network again. It’s fantastic… we’re…,” Fryer searched for just the right word, “… thrilled! ”

Sookie was still defensive, but kept it together and smiled brightly, pointing every single one of her veneers across the huge expanse of desktop separating her from Fryer. He was now kicked back in his chair again, the soles of his feet balanced on the desk-top, directly impeding Sookie’s view of his face. She kept peeking around his left foot to get a look at him.

Was he doing it on purpose? Was this some sort of mind game? Fryer was famous for messing with your head… and with Sookie, it didn’t take much.

She smoothed down the edges of her mini, not that she wanted to show less leg, she just didn’t have anything else to do with her hands. From this vantage, Noel couldn’t even see her legs. To remedy that, she got up and casually walked toward the window running the length of the office. She leaned against it, keeping a serious look on her face as if she were pondering his every word.

“In fact, research sent me an analysis of Todd’s numbers and, frankly, they look great.” Fryer reached down into the lower drawer to his left and, opening it, pulled out a stack of computer printouts labeled with yellow stickers. As he flipped through, Sookie could see some of the numbers highlighted in pink.

“And based on what we’re seeing”-“we” meaning only Fryer himself… he always talked as if he were a group-“you spike on the nights you feature Hailey Dean.”

Hailey Dean? He had brought her up here to talk about Hailey Dean? Todd hated her… wouldn’t even have her on the same set with him. And Tony said the feeling was mutual. For her own part, Sookie didn’t think Hailey Dean was all that .

But she knew how to play the game.

“Oh, yes. She’s fantastic.” Always better to play along with the suits, tell them what they wanted to hear, and then go do whatever you wanted. “I’ll definitely have her back on the show. She’s great as a legal panelist.” Sookie consciously smoothed back her red hair, glittery with product in the sunlight.

“It’s more than that. I’ve watched when she was on. It was the Prentiss Love show. Hailey Dean practically jumped off the screen. She’s got it! She’s electric. Then there was the ah… what was it… the ah… the first one, the ice water. And she’s been on a few of the days you did follow-up shows. Police aren’t saying much, but you’ve done pretty well with the old boyfriends, neighbors, you know, the usual suspects. But that Dean, she’s got something… ”

“Oh, Noel, you’re absolutely right. She’s lightning in a bottle. You’re so right, Noel… she’s… positively electric.”

It pained her to agree about Hailey. But the Prentiss Love show was huge. And Hailey did light up the screen. Sookie managed to shift her legs while leaning back against the window, crossing one over the other, trying to re-direct his attention back to her own calves and thighs and off Hailey Dean’s “something.” It didn’t seem to be working.

“So, I want you to make her a regular and pay her out of the Todd Show budget.”

“What?” Sookie was appalled. “We can’t afford to take money out of our budget for Hailey Dean !”

“You can and you will. You’ve already got the fattest budget at the network, and up until Dean came along, your numbers simply didn’t justify it.”

“Well you know, Noel, we did have the very last interview ever done with Leather Stockton, right after that DUI. And Prentiss Love had just been on with Harry about Celebrity Closets , and he got in a lot of questions about her personal life. You know, no steady boyfriend, no husband, doesn’t cook, lives with her four cockapoos type interview. It was great. We sliced and diced them and turned them to make fantastic shows. I think the numbers had nothing to do with Hailey Dean. They had everything to do with my producing,” she said icily.

She remained perfectly silent, motionless in fact, waiting for Noel to acknowledge her talent. That was what it was all about. No one in their right mind would imagine the success of The Harry Todd Show had anything to do with the host.

“Enjoying the GNE jet? It’s nice, isn’t it?”

She was thrown off. Noel had completely failed to take the cue. He didn’t even bother to agree with her.