Page 46 of Prime Time

“What good? Damn, I’d like to shake some sense into you.”

She ignored his tantrum. Going over to a chair, she folded herself into it and raised her knees to prop her forehead against them. She was remembering how General Ratliff had looked at her the last time. He had known he was about to die. His good-bye had been a silent one.

“Andy, what the hell is the matter with you?”

When Les’s brash, insensitive question had penetrated her mind, she lifted vacant eyes to him. After several seconds his image swam into focus. “Les, a man I admired is dead. How can you possibly ask what the matter is?”

He shifted his eyes toward the curtained window that let in no sunlight. “I know you admired him, but he’s still a man who means news, and we’re news people. You didn’t see that announcer crying just now, did you? Andy, have you thought that we’re sitting on a gold mine?”

She shook her head. Les had gone to the window and whisked open the draperies. The sunlight hit her full in the face. She shaded her eyes against it. “What do … a gold mine?”

“Think, Andrea, for God’s sakes! We’ve got the only interviews General Ratliff granted since he became a damn hermit. Now he’s dead, and we’re sitting on hours of tape of him. Do you know what that can mean?”

Lowering her knees and standing up, she walked to the window and looked out onto a gorgeous day. It wouldn’t be gorgeous for Lyon. He’d have to arrange a funeral.

“Andy?”

“What?”

“Are you listening?”

She ran a hand through her tangled hair. “You asked if I knew what having the tapes of General Ratliff could mean.”

Les cursed under his breath. “Let me spell it out for you, then. You may have been sitting on the knowledge that the old general had croaked for personal reasons, and I’m likely never to forgive you. But I intend to sell those tapes to the network and for a helluva lot more than our first bargaining price. This is our way in, and with or without you I’m going to take it.”

“Wait, Les.” She held up one hand while rubbing her aching head with the other. Why was he bothering with this now? “They’re not even edited yet. No music—”

“What the hell do we care? Let them produce them the way they want to. They want them on their evening newscasts tonight. I’ve already contacted a producer. He about wet his pants, he was so excited. We’re to send the tapes air express to New York pronto. I guess we’ll have to drive to San Antonio, so hustle it.” His hand was already on the door knob.

“Les, please, slow down and let me think.” She went back to the bed and sank onto the mattress. “I never thought of airing the interviews after the general’s death. I never intended them to be an obituary.”

“I know that.” She could tell by Les’s grating tone that he was fast losing patience but was trying not to fly off the handle. “That’s the way it turned out, Andy. You knew the old, uh, general was going to die soon.”

“Soon, yes, but not while I was there to see it.” She covered her face with her hands. “It seems so cold somehow, so disrespectful to air them now.”

“I can’t believe what I’m hearing,” Les shouted and slapped his hands against his thighs. “What’s happened to you?”

Lyon. Lyon. Lyon had happened to her. And General Michael Ratliff had happened to her. The story she had gone to do had diminished in importance when compared to the men they were. But what about the interviews would be detrimental to the general’s memory? Nothing. She had kept them that way. So if she went along with Les on this, he’d leave her alone for a while.

“All right,” she said wearily. “Do whatever you have to do. But I’ll follow you to San Antonio later. I want to stay here a while.”

“You bet you will. I want you to do a follow-up report outside the gates of the ranch. We’ve got the crew here. The place will be crawling with press by noon, we can get a jump on everybody. While I drive the tapes to San Antonio and put them on a plane, you and the guys can go back out there—”

“No. Absolutely not,” she said, slicing the air with her hands. “I’ll go along with selling the tapes because I’d like the American people to see the way he was during his last days. But I’ll not be a vulture at a funeral.”

“Andy, for God—”

“I won’t, Les. That’s final.”

“I wish to hell you’d gone ahead and slept with that cowboy and gotten him out of your system. Maybe then you’d be acting like the Andy Malone I’ve known all these years. I assure you he’s got the same equipment all the rest of us have.”

“You’re going too far, Les.” She stood with her hands clenched at her sides, her posture perfectly erect. The golden eyes gleaming at him were those of a lioness confronting a potential predator of her young. He got the message loud and clear.

“Okay, okay.” He went to the door. “I’ll send the crew out to shoot some video. Someone else can record a track onto it later. Jeff said you had the interview tapes. Where are they?”

The tapes were labeled and stored in black plastic cases. Andy had them all in a canvas bag. She was holding it out to Les when he asked, “Is the release in there, too?”

Her mind went on a rapid hunt, looking in each corner of her brain for the time and place when she had had General Ratliff sign the permission form that would allow them to air the interviews on television. Such a scene couldn’t be found. One hand tightened around the canvas bag while the other came up to cover her mouth. “Oh, Les,” she breathed.

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