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less than the high-price help, darling.”
    “If I had time, I’d fight you on this!”
    “You and everybody in town. Climb aboard. I want to screen this Monday morning. You hear?”
    “It’ll be on your desk, damn it!” Angry red spots had appeared under his eyes.
    Vanessa turned and headed out into the light. Before I had the wit to follow her, I caught a monosyllable in my ear. To Carter, it summed up Vanessa and all other women in a word.

FOUR
    Outside in the narrow lot, I tried to quiz Vanessa about her delicate health, while she foraged in her bag for car keys. “I may look healthy, Benny, but I’m desperately run down. My bones are dissolving. My doctors tell me that I need six months with nothing to do but watch geraniums grow. Some tropical paradise without e-mail. Oh, wouldn’t I love it! Palm trees, bougainvillea!”
    “Well, if that’s what the doctors say …”
    “There wouldn’t be a designated parking place at NTC when I got back. Do you know how many names come off doors around there in a week, Benny?”
    “But a needed rest for health reasons … ?”
    “Sudden death is the only excuse they understand, darling. And even that makes them angry this time of the year. When Harry Cassidy suffered a fatal stroke, the brass were sure he’d done it on purpose. Look! There’s a drugstore at the corner. Be an angel and get me some aspirin, Benny. I wouldn’t ask unless I really needed something for my head.” Vanessa pulled the car over into an empty space reserved for buses without waiting for my answer. I got out of the car and ran into the over-bright store to do as I was told. I bought a Kit Kat bar for myself, not knowing when Vanessa was going to call a halt to all this rushing around. When I got back, she ripped open the aspirin package while I wrestled with the top of the plastic bottle of mineral water I thought she might need to get the pills down. This accomplished, I continued to ask questions while she moved the car expertly through the heavy traffic.
    “Do you suspect colleagues like Carter or Green of plotting against you? I mention them because their names are stuck in my memory.”
    “Of course I do. They and everybody else in the place. Bill Franks. He’s head of Drama. Shotguns are his style. He likes to get a moose every fall. You know the type. But I don’t think he’s got the balls for it. And Nate Green’s out too, of course.”
    “Why ‘of course’?”
    “He’s dead, Benny. Don’t you read a newspaper? He died of a nasty cancer. I don’t even want to think about it.”
    “Hy Newman seems desperate,” I offered.
    “Hy is dead and buried like Nate, only he doesn’t know it yet. He’s an old man. The network isn’t a home for tired artists, Benny. If it was, the floor would be littered with has-beens.”
    “That’s a bleak picture, Vanessa. We all get to be has-beens.”
    “I’ve no time to worry about that. Let Human Resources deal with it. That’s what they’re there for. I’m not the Salvation Army, and Hy Newman’s not my rehabilitation project. Let somebody else try to regenerate him. I’ve got to keep my ass moving fast enough so that I don’t become the next victim of the system. Hy knew two years ago, long before I came aboard, that the network was getting out of producing its own programs. Even the CBC’s getting out of that. Hy knows it as well as I do. We are all looking for independent producers to pioneer ideas and create series. That’s when I can be approached. We horse-trade and out of it come sweetheart deals. Everybody’s happy. That’s how it works today, Benny.”
    A Volvo ahead stopped abruptly at a stoplight. Vanessa was quick with the brake, but not quick enough to avoid bruising the bumper. The owner, a small, dark woman with curlers under a bandanna, got out and looked for signs of the impact. Judging by her sour expression, she could find none. Still Vanessa’s knuckles were white on the steering wheel. She seemed to be