Read Body Copy for Free Online Page A

directors.”
    “And those are the people who sit around all day throwing a football, coming up with ideas for beer commercials?”
    “Yeah. Roger determined which of those ideas got presented to the clients.”
    “And from what I’ve read, he came up with a lot of stuff himself.”
    “Yeah. Constantly.”
    “So, if Gale/Parker was presenting an idea for a commercial to somebody, your uncle either thought of it or ap-proved it.”
    41
    Michael Craven
    “Yes. And he would go and present the work himself.
    The bigger stuff anyway.”
    “What about the business side? What was his role there?”
    “In terms of the number-crunching and investing and loans and taxes and all that stuff, he basically just signed off on things. He had people doing that for him. What he did do a lot, though, was chase new business.”
    “He was a legend. I imagine it was pretty easy for him to get a meeting.”
    “Yeah. A lot of times, clients would just give the agency business because of its reputation. Because of his reputation. But most of the time, even if you’re really famous like Gale/Parker, agencies have to come up with something good, then put on a song and dance. And that was his spe-cialty.”
    The waiter came around. Nina ordered a Cobb salad.
    Tremaine, the eggs Benedict.
    “So, bottom line,” Tremaine said, “if Roger Gale weren’t around, Gale/Parker would get less business?”
    “Maybe not at first. Because there are a lot of talented people at every good agency. But over time, business would wane because there are only a handful of people as passion-ate and good as Roger was.” Nina looked at Tremaine and said, ”When the investigation was going on, the detectives looked into a work-related connection.”
    “Right,” Tremaine said. “Tyler Wilkes, the guy from the other ad agency.”
    Tremaine didn’t tell her how he knew this, that he’d obtained the police report. She didn’t ask. If she had asked, he still wouldn’t have told her.
    42
    B O D Y C O P Y
    “Yes,” Nina said. “Tyler Wilkes was their only lead.”
    “Mine too. So far.” He then said, “What about Ted Parker? Is he still around?”
    “No,” she said. “Ted Parker left Gale/Parker about ten years ago. He’d made his money, he was ready to get out.
    So he moved to Hawaii to relax. And, after one month there, he had a heart attack and died.”
    Tremaine shook his head and said, “Life can provide some dark twists.” He knew this to be true.
    “But the name stayed?” he said. “Gale/Parker?”
    “Yeah. The agency was famous by then, but more than that, Roger wanted Ted’s name to stay.”
    Tremaine said, “And that meant it was going to.”
    The waiter came back around, this time to deliver their lunch. He put their plates down and said, “The salad for the lady, and the Benedict for Insane Tremaine.”
    Tremaine managed a polite enough smile.
    Nina said, “What does that mean?”
    “I have no idea.”
    Nina gave him a sly smile, “What is that, a nickname?”
    “I have no idea how he knew my name or why he decided to make a little rhyme out of it.”
    “Come on.”
    “All right. When I was surfing professionally, some guys made a video of me called Insane Tremaine .”
    “Why did they call it that? What was insane about it?”
    “Some of the waves were large. I never liked the title.”
    “Why? Trying too hard?”
    “Yeah. And I never felt insane when I rode those big waves. I felt scared, but not insane.”
    “If you were scared, why’d you do it?”
    43
    Michael Craven
    “I liked it. It was challenging. And, even with the fear, I always felt like I could do it, make the drops. Of course, I was often wrong. I was often very, very wrong”
    “What happened when you fell?”
    “It could be pretty ugly. That was the main reason for the title of the movie. There was a section of the film that was just a montage of one wipeout after the next. I got absolutely pulverized many, many times. People enjoyed watching that