Howard Engel - The Cooperman Variation

“There’s a pub around the corner, if you’ve got a few minutes. Sort of a technicians’ hangout.”

“Where did you say you heard about me?”

“There’s not much going on at the network that we don’t hear about. We thought you might need an introduction to the characters you’re going to bump into.”

“Fill you in, bring you up to speed, that sort of thing,” Totton added.

“Wouldn’t that tend to prejudice me?”

The men looked at one another, then grinned back at me, nodding vigorously. Unopposed, they led the way to the Rex, a busy pub on the ground floor of an old hotel building not far from where we were standing. It was a lot like the old Harding House back in Grantham, with waiters balancing trayfuls of draft beer and giving change in a sustained balletic feat to the music of conversation and heavy metal. Alder and Totton led the way to a table in back, far from all but the most unrelenting beat of the music. There were four others already seated there, to whom I was introduced. I didn’t catch more than their first names. Like Jesse and Ross, they were all technicians at NTC. Jimmy, who looked the most senior, called the waiter, who set down a tray of brimming glasses in my honour. Over the rim of my first glass, I asked Jesse a question: “Why are you doing this?”

“You seem like a nice guy.”

“Come on. Or I’m out of here.”

“We all liked Renata. She was a sweetheart to work with and didn’t pass the guff she got from the twentieth floor on to us. She was a pro and all the techs knew that.”

For the next hour and a bit, the boys took turns in telling me everything they knew about NTC except why. This was a view from below stairs, as it were. This was broadcasting beginning with the roots and underpinnings. There was no room here for the airy-fairy shenanigans I had been seeing since I arrived in Toronto. The boys knew which of the producers were worth their pay and which they had been covering up for. Some had the sensitivity to do the job, others had only their ambitions. While I was there, Ross Totton took out his pipe and fired it up a few times. He was the only pipe smoker I’ve met who spent more time smoking his pipe than cleaning it. I liked the smell of his tobacco. Two other technicians joined us and listened in. Three of the earlier members of the group left together after consulting their watches. The newcomers added to my store of information.

“They can’t get rid of Ken Trebitsch because he’s been collecting personal information on everybody he’s ever worked for. He knows where the dirt is. He has a couple of junior producers collecting it. Talk about an enemies list. Trebitsch’s looks like a roll of fax paper.”

“Besides, his sister’s married to a cousin of the prime minister.”

“Yeah, and that’s not the only sweetheart deal around. Your boss makes big demands on outside producers before she’ll let them do a pilot. Talk about kickbacks!”

“But that’s normal in Entertainment. Life is short there. You have to make your bundle before the axe falls.”

“That’s right, but in the meantime she has lots of money to spend outside the network. That’s why there are so many Moss-watchers.”

“Have you met David Simbrow? The Moss-boss? Vice-president of Programming? He’s so stupid he couldn’t get work selling raffle tickets. But his father’s in the provincial cabinet.”

“And Ted Thornhill, the CEO, doesn’t know what to do about it. How can he reorganize Entertainment without booting Simbrow out?”

“Did you know that we’re doing more ‘sustained’ programs than ever before?”

“What are they?”

“When you can’t get the advertising, you underwrite them and hope nobody notices. It’s only a step away from lowering the advertising rates.”

“Have you met Philip Rankin yet?” I said that I’d had the pleasure. “Proper gentleman, isn’t he? Well, he couldn’t produce fleas in a zoo. Jesse and Ross and lots of us used to save his bacon regularly. That was a long time before Bob Foley came along.”

I tried to get them to continue talking about Bob Foley, but all attempts died on the vine.

“You see, Benny, Bob was never really one of us. We got tired of his stories about the Great Man. You know, Dermot Keogh. Bob talked as if we never worked with headliners more than once, twice a year. The brutal fact is that between us we know just about everybody. Hell! I’ve stuck a mike up Anne Murray’s shirt more times than … you know? That stuff doesn’t mean anything. We do it all the time. How many times have you arranged the lights for the Queen, Ron? See what I mean? I had coffee with the prime minister one time, killing time between appointments. So why would we suddenly get excited about Bob becoming Dermot Keogh’s gofer?”

“He had us up to a summer place in Muskoka one time. He was trying to lord it over us like he invented the place.”

“Yeah,” agreed Ross. “Remember how he treated that Paki lawyer? I just wanted to fade into the woods.”

“That’s right. And he’d tear up and down the roads on that borrowed chopper.”

“Didn’t mind that so much. I like choppers.”

“The Moss tried to call the Provincial Police on him.”

“Jesse, is Vanessa Moss doing her job?”

He thought about it, pulling at his earlobe and watching the flickering images on the TV set high above the bar. “Is she doing her job? Hell, Mr. Cooperman, nobody can do that job. It’d be like trying to agree on guidelines for an orgy.”

“That’s the truth,” Ross Totton offered. “She’ll last another season, then they’ll find someone else. That’s the way of the beast.”

I figured that besides enjoying the beer I’d had, I’d been given a backgrounder to the network I couldn’t have found elsewhere. In the end, I thanked the boys and tried not to trip over my feet on my way out of the Rex.

* * *

At 5:30 P.M., I sat in the bar at the Hilton hotel, a few short blocks from NTC. It was a generous bar of dark mahogany, with gleaming brass in all the right places. The crowd was hard to figure. The customers were welldressed frequenters of steakhouses, dapper account executives buttering up clients from Calgary or Edmonton with a taste of the real Toronto, before heading off to the hockey game and who knows what else.

Sally Jackson came in wearing her high-heeled walking-out shoes, which made her just an inch taller than me. “Sorry I kept you,” she said, finding her centre of gravity on the tall bar stool.

“What can I get you?” I tried to read her mood. Why had she decided to join me?

“Is the season well enough advanced to order gin and tonic?”

“Sure.” I passed the order along and sipped at my rye and water. The ice had melted. For five minutes or so, until her drink came, I tried to make small talk. I discovered that she knew little about the Blue Jays’ recent performances at the SkyDome and less about the delayed Stanley Cup playoffs. In general, her eye was more often on the door or the mirror over the bar than it was on me. Even the bartender gave her a look that, in my reading of it, said, “This dame ain’t gonna run a long tab.” I tried to think of how I could make things easier for Sally.

“You seem a little nervous, Sally. If this wasn’t a good idea, just say the word.”

“To tell you the truth, Benny-may I call you that? — this is the first time I’ve been out with a man since I left Gordon.” She was fiddling with the plastic wrapping from a pack of Benson amp; Hedges. She stopped short of taking one out and lighting it.

“Life can’t stand still,” I suggested. “When we can’t go back, we have to move on.”

“You don’t understand, Benny. I left Gordon for my good friend Crystal Schild. I’ve been living with her for three months now.”