“Connors,” said the voice on the end of the line.
“Mark.”
“Hi, old buddy. Something for me?” Richard Connors’ drawl was suddenly animated.
“Could be. How does a water temperature of 27° Centigrade in mid-Atlantic grab you.”
“On 24 May?”
“That’s what the man says. And let me give you some more.” He listed numbers, slowly, giving his friend time to write them down. “Yeah,” Connors said, thoughtfully. “Yeah. Thanks a million, Mark. You coming north any time?”
“I’ve a furlough next month. You got an apartment yet?”
“Maybe. We’re talking terms this afternoon. There’ll be a bed in the lounge.”
“So I’ll see you. Guess what. Or who, I saw the other day. Pam.”
“Great,” Connors said without enthusiasm. “How’s she doing?”
“Looks pretty good to me. Tall, tanned…”
“And terrific,” Connors agreed, and sighed. He could picture her in front of him. But her predilection for sun, sand, and sea, and the beach bums who went with those things, had been the prime reason for his divorce. Without which, he thought grimly, he would never have left Florida… not even to be on nationwide television. “Next time, give her my regards. And Mark… keep me up to date on those water temperatures, eh?”
“You got it,” Mark said, and hung up.
National American Broadcasting Service Offices, Fifth Avenue
“I have Connors outside, JC,” Kiley said.
J. Calthrop White grunted as he perused the financial pages of the New York Times, and Kiley twisted his fingers together. He might be network manager, but the company president was a difficult man to work for, or with. J. Calthrop White was a short, thin man, whose energy belied his shock of white hair, and whose irascibility made a nonsense of his puckish features; his more junior employees were wont to refer to him as Jesus Christ, and his more senior staff sometimes supposed that he also might have mistaken his initials.
“Who’s Richard Connors?” he asked.
“The new forecaster, JC,” Kiley explained.
“From Florida,” White remarked, still studying his paper.
“Well, from California, actually, JC,” Kiley said nervously. “But he worked in Florida, yes. For three years.”
“So what decided you to bring him up here, for Chrissake?”
“Well, JC…” Kiley’s fingers were tying themselves in knots. “Down in Miami he was big. He’s got it all. Looks, personality, charm, knowhow… and an almost prescient way of forecasting the weather. He was getting seventy plus letters a week down with WJQT. I reckon he’ll make an impact on the ratings up here.”
“Weather forecasters make impacts?”
“Everyone watches the weather, JC; it’s right after the News. Give them a face they like watching, a guy who sounds like he knows what he’s talking about, and they just start watching one particular channel to listen to that guy again.”
J. Calthrop White at last raised his head. “How much?” he asked. Kiley knew that although his boss was thinking of the ratings, he wasn’t actually referring to them. “Well, I had to go a little over the odds,” he said.
“How much?” White repeated.
“Well, seventy-five.”
White leaned back in his chair. “Kiley, you are paying some shavetail beachbum as much as a cabinet minister to tell me it’s gonna rain tomorrow? Jesus Christ!”
“He’s good,” Kiley said. “And it’s only a one-year contract, renewable.”
“He had better be good,” White said. “Show him in.”
Kiley almost ran to the door. “Mr White can see you now, Richard.”
He held the door ajar, and Richard Connors entered the big office which looked down the length of Fifth Avenue from the top floor of the National American Broadcasting Service building. White looked him up and down. The new weather forecaster was six feet three inches tall, and had an undeniably handsome face except for the broken nose which had mended slightly off the straight, but this in turn gave him an attractively macho appearance. His shoulders were good and it was easy to tell he was fit. He also exuded confidence. These were all characteristics which J. Calthrop White personally disliked in other men, as he possessed none of them himself. Except confidence.
“Footballer, eh?” he inquired.
“Why, yes, Mr White,” Connors agreed. “UCLA.”
“I hate football,” White informed him. “Kiley tells me you can forecast the weather.”
“That’s my job, Mr White,” Connors said, refusing to be overawed.
“So tell me what sort of a summer we’re gonna have.”
Kiley was back to his finger twisting; he knew that JC never joked, and would remember whatever he was told.
“It’ll be hot,” Connors said.
“Yeah? That’s easy. It’s goddamned hot already.”
“It’ll be hotter,” Connors insisted. “And there’ll be more hurricane activity than usual.”
“Now, how the hell can you tell that?”
“Because the ocean is much warmer than is usual at this time of year, Mr White. Warm water spawns tropical storms.”
“Richard is an expert on hurricanes, JC,” Kiley put in, eagerly.
“We don’t have hurricanes in New York,” White pointed out. “You’re not in Florida now. Have a good day.”
Kiley was waggling his eyebrows, and Connors nodded. “Thank you, Mr White,” he said, and left the office.
“Seventy-five thousand,” White remarked, and pressed his buzzer. “Alice, get me Mike Donnelly.”
“Senior, or junior, JC?”
“For Chrissake, when I want to talk to some kid I’ll tell you,” JC growled and released the switch to glare at Kiley. “Seventy-five thousand.” He pointed. “He’d better be as good as you say, Kiley.”
The phone buzzed. “I have Mr Donnelly senior, Mr White.”
Calthrop White arranged his features into a smile, as if hoping thereby to influence his voice. “Mike, you old son of a gun. How’s it going? Yeah, damned hot. How’s the boy?… Already? I thought the yacht-racing season didn’t start until June?… Is that a fact. Mike, I want to float a stock issue.” This time he had to listen somewhat longer before he could speak again. “Oh, sure, sure,” he said at last. “I read my papers. But this has to be, Mike. There’s a franchise coming up in England this autumn… I reckon 125 million will do it… Sure, Mike, sure. I can swing my board, and my stockholders. For Chrissake, most of them are relatives anyway. Listen, why don’t you come over and talk about it… Sure, bring Michael if you want, whenever he can spare the time from playing with his little boat. But make it soon… It has to be this summer, Mike. Sure, sure, but in my book, nothing is impossible if you really get to it. You come on over. Love to Babs and the kids.” He replaced the phone, leaned back in his chair, gazed at Kiley. “Goddamned Irish shit,” he remarked. “Can’t be done, he says. What the hell is a stockbroker for, Kiley? You tell me that. Racing goddamned little yachts up and down the coast?”
West Bay Street, Nassau, Bahamas
The automobile lights flickered under Lawson Garr’s hand, and the rollover garage door lifted to allow the sleek white Cadillac to slide into place beside Belle’s Lotus. They could hear the kitchen phone bleeping as the key turned in the lock, and Belle threw her purse on to the counter, kicking off her high heels as she grabbed the receiver. Blonde and statuesquely beautiful — she took after her mother, Barbara Donnelly — she moved with an elegant grace even after several cocktails. “One of your clients,” she said, passing the phone to her husband and grabbing her purse and shoes back again.
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