Howard Engel - The Cooperman Variation

The meeting of top executives took place in the boardroom at the end of the corridor on the twenty-first floor. It was a big room that tried to look impressive. Until you recognized the sober-faced portraits on the wall as set decorations from everything from Martha O’Malley’s Children and The Bartletts of Oak Street to The Blue Team and Northern Cross , you might have been taken in. The books on the beautiful dark wood shelves were more studio cast-offs. Fake books. Just the spines showed. My respect for this bunch was quickly going downhill. The centre of the table, which was an amazing bit of woodcraft, was reserved for the CEO of NTC. The table must have been built here from a kit of some kind. It certainly didn’t come through any of the doors I’d seen. Ted Thornhill, too, would have had difficulty getting through some doors. But here he could be sure that there were no living or inanimate obstacles between him and his high-backed black leather chair. Apart from the abundance of Ted Thornhill and his pink, wagging chins, I could see that he moved with a certain balletic grace. When he stood, it was with a boxer’s firm stance; when he sat, it was an act of will, not the passive subsidence of oneeighth of a ton of flesh and bone.

He was soon surrounded by his fellow board members and the vice-presidents. As head of Entertainment, Vanessa almost counted as a vice-president, but not quite. Except for me and a stenographer in Yves Saint-Laurent glasses, Vanessa was the lowest life form present. All the others carried voting stock totalling just over a quarter of the voting shares. But this didn’t look like that kind of board meeting. None of the four women present had had their hair done for the occasion. Only Thornhill sported a boutonnière and it looked like a leftover from an earlier event. Once more, Vanessa tried to introduce me to her colleagues and no one looked up. Papers were exchanged across the table. The steno distributed photocopied pages all round. Even I got a set. I wondered whether all boards were like this.

When it came to Vanessa’s turn at bat, she described her fall line-up of programs: which of the old ones were coming back and on what terms, what new series were coming and from which production house. “We’ve finally rung the knell on The Newton Street Mob . After three years of decline, I’ve washed my hands of it.”

“You told Christopher Hodges that he was fired? I don’t believe it!” This from the dark man with a moustache sitting next to Thornhill. He liked to quarrel with everybody.

“That’s your scenario, Ken, not mine. I made him a low offer and he declined to accept it. There was no blood on the floor. As a newsman, you should get your facts straight.”

And so it went, on and on. Vanessa kept her mouth shut unless she was addressed by name. One fellow kept chirping up that in cases like this-I forget what “this” was-justice must not simply be done, but it must be seen to be done. I figured him for the idiot son of a wealthy family. Thornhill’s skill in handling a meeting was on a par with Vanessa’s, only, if anything, Vanessa allowed a little more expression. Nobody tested Thornhill’s loyalty to the firm. Nobody was shocked when he referred to a program carried on a rival network. I remembered that at Vanessa’s meeting, one of her underlings saw such a reference as a heresy. After hearing his comments on the reports of several of his vice-presidents, I could see Vanessa’s point about Thornhill being a beancounter and not from show business or broadcasting. His closest approach to greasepaint came from sitting in an aisle seat two rows away from the orchestra pit. When I think about it now, he seemed like a good interim head, but not an enterprising, go-ahead sort of leader. Hamp Fisher could do better than this conservative heavyweight.

I asked Vanessa in a whisper who the fellow called Ken was. He seemed to be the only one in the room who wasn’t a yes-man.

“That’s Ken Trebitsch, VP of News. That’s the most powerful job. He pushes the rest of us around. Especially Entertainment. He’s always trying to steal time from us for news specials. Then we never get the time back again. He’s practically the only real broadcaster in the room. No, that’s unfair, I’m forgetting Philip Rankin over there.” She indicated a sloping chin I’d hardly noticed across the table. Philip Rankin wore a dark bird’s nest of a wig, cut to look fashionably silky and shaggy, a conservative grey suit and an unlined, slightly bewildered face.

“What’s his department?”

“Music. He’s head of all music heard on the network.”

“That can’t be a lot,” I offered.

“More than you think. He’s head of the large recording division of NTC: NTC Music, NTC–CDs. It’s a vital and growing department, Benny, trying to struggle on with a structure that is hopelessly outdated. There will have to be big changes here, but whether Philip is the man to inaugurate them is a matter for debate.”

“You said he’s an old-timer?”

“He came here from CBC Radio, where they do a lot of music programming and recording. He built up that whole department. Now he-well, you saw that Christmas show yesterday? He’s ultimately in charge of all of that.”

“Why didn’t his name come up then?” I asked.

“Because we were in the studio; Philip never goes near the studio if he can help it. Do you collect CDs, Benny? Philip started NTC in the recording business in a small way about four years ago. Now, we’re right up there with the top labels.” A look from Thornhill ended our conversation.

I wasn’t getting much out of this meeting. I’m not even reporting on it very well: so much of it flew over my head. Thornhill managed to keep a regal distance from his vice-presidents. The vice-president of Programming, Vanessa’s immediate boss, seemed like a cipher. He had nothing to say and let Vanessa do his talking for him.

When the meeting broke up, I followed Vanessa and the others into an adjoining room, where plates of yellow and orange cheese were laid out like a corpse on a white tablecloth. Two or three bottles of domestic and Californian wine stood at attention, daring anyone under the rank of vice-president to pour a glass in front of his betters. A few other senior executives, who were not at the meeting, were allowed in to take some light refreshment. Soon the room was crowded with beaming faces and the noise level was raised high enough to endanger good crystal. Luckily, there was none around, just heavy-duty glass that probably had come with the cheese and the toothpicks. Philip Rankin came over to say hello to Vanessa, who introduced me as her assistant. He grinned as though he and Vanessa were sharing a joke about the length of my stay on the payroll. Ken Trebitsch joined us. I noticed grey in his black hair, and the fine moustache sheltered a very youthful smile, spoiled only by dark, hooded eyes.

“I was thinking of you yesterday, Ken,” Vanessa said. We all tried to look intrigued. “I saw on the news that our one-time CBC colleague, Bert Russell, has set up a digital communications empire in Pasadena.”

“I heard about that. He was always a whirlwind. Of course, Bert was treated miserably by the CBC when they got rid of him. Remember, Philip?”

“Yes, axed from above. He didn’t suspect a thing until his keys wouldn’t open his door. And after all he’d done for the Corp. He must have reduced staffing there by thirty-five per cent during the years of budget cuts.”

“He was the best salesman for public broadcasting they ever had,” Ken observed.

“NTC invited him to take on just about any department he wanted five, six years ago, but he wouldn’t have it.”

“That’s how loyalty gets paid off.” They went around again, Ken and Philip Rankin exchanging comments on the ill-done-by Bert Russell. When it looked like he was about to run out of steam, Ken turned to Vanessa in a teacher-like way. “Did you ever know Bert Russell, Vanessa?”