“Seems he’s incommunicado too,” said Frost, looking at Jinnah in a conspiratory manner. “He did say he was headed for a Grizzlies game.”
“Damn! What a shame!”
Jinnah tried to sound sincere and failed. He knew perfectly well that Junior Church was at that moment driving his Volvo out of the executive underground parking lot and that the massive, concrete bunker was a dead-zone for cellphones. Frost knew it too. Everything now depended on Permafrost’s news instincts.
“Shame, that,” Frost said mildly. “Junior out of commission, Blacklock incommunicado, deadline looming …”
“Nevertheless, there’s the story. Someone must make a decision.”
Jinnah held his breath. Did Frost have the intestinal fortitude to change the front page?
“Well,” said Frost. “I’m supposed to run wire on this Kelowna gas explosion —”
“Bullshit!” cried Jinnah. “It’s been on radio and TV all day! We have an exclusive here! Everyone will be chasing it!”
“And for second edition, we’re to run whatever Sanderson gets out of Surrey.”
“I fail to see how you can run a dose of the clap on the front page. This is supposed to be a family newspaper.”
Frost grinned. His fingers flew over the keyboard. He had the layout of the front page on his screen.
“We need art,” he said. “The explosion photo is holding up the whole front.”
“You have room inside for the wire, don’t you?” prompted Jinnah.
Peter Frost looked at his watch. Hell yes, the story on page five could be bagged. It was just another gratuitous Viagra piece anyhow and this was real news. Blacklock would have a shit-fit and Junior wouldn’t be happy, but what was the worst they could do to him? Bust him back down to reporter? Hardly. Nobody wanted Permafrost’s job. He lifted up his head over his terminal and called to the night news editor.
“Hey, Reilly!” Permafrost shouted. “Bag the Viagra piece on five. I need to move the Kelowna wire on the explosion there.”
Reilly, the grey-haired night news editor, looked up from his screen and over the top of his glasses at Frost.
“Oh?” he said, his voice a querulous Irish brogue. “And what may I be askin’ is goin’ ter take its place then?”
“An award-winning exclusive by Jinnah on Sam Schuster’s deadly love-triangle,” said Permafrost. “We can mug Schuster, his wife and … what was his name, Hakeem?”
“Lavirtue,” said Jinnah, his voice deep and resonate with the feeling of triumph. “Cosmo Lavirtue. But you don’t have to use mugs to hold up page one. I have better art than that.”
“Oh? What, pray tell?”
Jinnah reached inside his jacket and drew out of the inner pocket the object that had sat there like a lead albatross all afternoon and into the evening. Frost looked at it and raised his white eyebrows.
“What’s this and where did you get it?” he asked, guessing both answers.
“Sam and Paula Schuster’s wedding picture and you don’t want to know,” replied Jinnah. “Don’t worry — I’ll wear the mantle of responsibility for this one.”
“No, you won’t,” said Frost. “I will.”
And, he thought to himself, it will be worth it to see the look on Connie’s face in the morning. Permafrost only hoped that his new pal Phil approved.
Chapter Six
The look on Conway Blacklock’s face the next morning was a study in red, purple, and puce. He would have made a perfect calender boy for the Heart and Stroke Foundation. Instead of the explosion story or a heart-warming tale of a mother rescuing her daughter, he was confronted by a huge, colour photograph of the Schusters and a banner headline proclaiming the abduction story. And the worse part of all, the crowning insult on a page of insults, was Jinnah’s byline on the story. Furious, Blacklock stormed out of his house without eating breakfast and headed straight for the office.
But if his expression had been alarming while surveying Frost and Jinnah’s handiwork on the front page, it was as naught compared to the look that twisted his facial features upon finding the Publisher. Blacklock considered himself something of a classicist. The great ideas of Rome and Greece still informed and shaped his world. Blacklock saw the editor-in-chief as a sort of pater familias — the all-powerful head of a large family whose members lived or died at his pleasure. The Publisher, he had always thought, was more like the Emperor in pagan times: God incarnate, never revealing himself to the plebeians except on state occasions to cow them into submission or rally them to the defence of the empire.
So it was with considerable consternation that, still clutching the crumpled front page he’d torn from his morning paper, Blacklock tracked the Publisher down to the cafeteria patio on the fourth floor only to discover the demi-God himself slaving behind an outdoor grill, wearing a silly chef’s hat and an apron that read: “Kiss the cook!” Caesar, Blacklock was quite sure, never flipped pancakes for his legions.
“Connie!” Phil cried. “Glad you could make it! Grab an apron!”
“Ah, sir, a matter has arisen that demands your serious attention —”
“I am attending to it,” said Phil, sliding a stack of pancakes onto an advertising employee’s plate. “There you are, Roger! Way to go!”
“With all due respect, sir, it is an issue of a journalistic and, dare I say it, disciplinary nature and perhaps a soupçon more critical than a pancake breakfast!”
Blacklock had spoken in an angry tone and, as usual, he regretted it. The Publisher looked up at him with that maddening blank expression that Blacklock was beginning to recognize as extreme displeasure.
“Nothing is more important than motivating our employees to do their best,” said the Publisher. “You may have noticed, Connie, that this event is also in aid of the United Way Campaign. I issued an invitation to all managers to attend and take turns cooking. Did you not get yours?”
Blacklock had. He’d assumed it was a joke. But he didn’t think it wise to admit it.
“I’m very sorry, sir,” he apologized. “This other matter has somewhat preoccupied my thoughts.”
“Well, Mister Church appears to have remembered,” said the Publisher, turning sausages over with a long barbecue fork.
Blacklock gave a start and looked down the long row of outdoor cookers and through the crowd of chattering employees saw Junior dressed the same as the Publisher, serving up stacks of flapjacks and bevies of bangers, his chef’s hat almost touching the huge, United Way banner hanging down over the patio. Thou too, Brutus …
“Sir, I don’t wish to rain on your breakfast, but this is urgent.”
Blacklock unfolded the front page and thrust it under the Publisher’s nose. It immediately began to smoulder from the heat emanating from the cooker. Blacklock pulled it back and used his own, ample chest as a blackboard. The Publisher squinted through the smoke at it.
“Ah yes, the front page,” he said. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that.”
Blacklock gave an inner sigh of relief. Finally, he had found an iota of managerial responsibility in the man.
“An excellent example of employee empowerment, that front page,” Phil said, skewering a sausage.
“More like employee sabotage!” gasped Blacklock. “Sir, these people —”
“Did a hell of a job on deadline, on their own initiative,