Howard Engel - The Cooperman Variation

Security this afternoon was a bored face with rimless glasses. She examined my pass, made me sign in and instructed me to go directly to my assigned floor without stopping to gossip in the halls. When she caught my expression, which I’m afraid echoed my heart, she turned on me with a stony look. “Commander Dunkery knows about you, Mr. Cooperman. I’d be on my best behaviour if I were you.”

“Who’s your Mr. Dunkery?”

“What? You don’t know Commander Dunkery? That is a surprise. I suspect you’re having me on.”

“I suppose I can look it up. If I remember.”

“You should get your picture on that pass, you know. It’s as good as my job if I let you through here after a week. You see to it, now.”

I found the burgundy elevator and let NTC in all its corporate ugliness settle down around me again.

Sally put down some complicated-looking schedules she was working on. Television requires a lot of work to keep it as bad as it is. Armies of talented people work their hearts out about whether to broadcast a series about a Martian who has imprinted on a gas pump earlier or later in prime time than a series about a straight guy pretending that he is gay in order to continue living with four scrumptious college girls. I’d seen them all, adults, every one of them, get depressed because a series had slipped from sixth to seventh place in the ratings game. And what was the series about? A show about an analyst who’s trying not to fall in love with two of her patients and who’s allergic to a third.

“Benny! She’s been asking for you.”

“You mean, she’s back?”

“She just called from the airport.”

“Good. I thought she was yelling for me here.” That gave me a little time.

I must have looked fretful or indecisive, because soon Sally asked, “Where are you going now?”

“How did you know I was going anywhere?”

“You get this look when you’ve been in one place too long.”

“But I just got here!”

“Doesn’t matter. Gordon used to get it. It’s a man thing, maybe.”

“I’ll try to watch out for it. I was thinking of going over to News, to bother Ken Trebitsch for a change.”

“Watch your back.”

* * *

The News Department fairly vibrated with activity. There was a sense of purpose in the air as three dozen people moved like a human tangle of multicoloured wires about their business in the large newsroom from computer monitor to chalkboard, from chalkboard to duty desk and from duty desk back to monitor. There were enough clocks on the wall to tell you the time anywhere on the globe: Los Angeles, Tokyo, London, Rome, Moscow, Beijing, Washington. There was something self-important and comic about the bustle and the serious faces that managed to avoid eye contact as I came through the door. Trebitsch, in shirtsleeves, was leaning over a huddle of backs at one computer monitor. Obviously, he was a manager who stayed close to the action, not a dull administrator. “We haven’t got a story if we can’t get film on it.”

“We’ve got file film, Ken.”

“Yeah, with Tito leading the parade. You’re going to have to do better than that. See if Humphreys at CBC can feed you anything. He still owes us for Kosovo.” He disengaged himself from the clutch of news people and was heading into another huddle when he saw me. “Mr. Cooperman! Are you still here?”

“I’ll bet you thought I accepted an invitation to go home to Grantham.”

“You’d be surprised at the amount of good advice that gets ignored. But there’s no reasoning with some people.”

“What’s your part in all this?” I asked. “Do you see an enemy behind every bush and stone?” He looked at me in a peculiar way.

“You just don’t get it, do you?” For the first time his eyes had lost their hooded, snake-like look. They shone with innocence.

“I came here hoping to learn something.”

“If you don’t know now, you won’t learn in a thousand years.”

“You want to run all this?” I moved my arms to suggest that there was a world beyond News.

“Not just this , but-never mind. I haven’t the time to explain. But you need an education, and I think you’re going to get it.”

“You’re talking hard knocks?” He didn’t answer directly, but looked over a pair of shoulders into another monitor for a minute, made a suggestion, then turned back to me.

“As you may have noticed, I’m a hands-on type. I like to know what is going on around me.”

“And what happened to Renata Sartori is outside your grasp. Not in your schedule? Is that it? How’s that different from a plane crash or a hurricane? You’re in the dark, and your friends aren’t very good at turning on the lights.”

“Go home, Cooperman!”

“That was the message you tried to deliver the other night.”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about, but it makes sense. Take it to heart. You’ll live longer.”

“Sounds like a threat.”

“Forget what it sounds like; grab the sense of it and go!”

“Your boys with the green car aren’t much good. They could get into trouble negotiating a stoplight. I’d get them out of sight, if I were you. They could be an embarrassment to a man on the move like you.”

“I said I don’t know what you’re talking about. But there are a lot of heavies around here if you need them. There are always new bodies to take the places of the fallen.”

“Yeah, and the Third Reich will last a thousand years. Can your world takeover be stopped with Raid?”

“Look, Cooperman. You’re persona non grata . Need a translation? I don’t like it when there are too many players on the floor. Even the cops would be happier if you went home. I know that for a fact. Why don’t you just do that?” I shrugged. It only irritated him. “For God’s sake, this isn’t some sort of game! This is my life you’re playing around with. My fucking life!”

“This isn’t a life. This is a delusion. You think you’re delivering the news. You’re a pap merchant. At least be an honest one. It’s not all the news that’s fit to print; it’s all the news that fits. It’s not news if you’ve got no pictures. A two-week war is a week too long. It needs editing.”

“You’ll never understand what we’re trying to do here.”

“Right, because I won’t smoke the stuff you’re smoking. Writing the news is honest work. But you puff it up like it’s a blast from Mount Sinai.”

“I want you gone, Cooperman, and gone fast. This place is filled with serious professionals. We know our business. Why don’t you mind yours? If you don’t, as I keep telling you, you could get hurt. You’d be surprised how little that would bother me.”

“For a newsman, you’re behind the times. Things have been happening under your nose in the last few hours. You’ve got some catching up to do. There have been some moves since you stopped watching the board. See you around.” I turned to go. I was sorry I couldn’t get more from him. Just for the hell of it, I turned to see him still watching me as I headed for the door. I called across to him, “At the sound of the tone, the time in Tokyo will be exactly four, seventeen and a half.” For a moment the only sound you could hear in the newsroom was the sound of electric clocks.

I left him intrigued, I think. Trebitsch was the sort whose shoes pinched when he wasn’t in the race. I didn’t want to tell him that shortly the cops and I would be talking again-that would only prompt another call to the Chief’s office-but it gave me a good feeling to see him looking just a little uncomfortable.

It proved to be a little premature for me to feel smug about the tenuous hold I had over Trebitsch. I discovered this as I reached the halfway point between News and my office.