Read The Cooperman Variations for Free Online Page B

bracing herself for the second impact of the trouble the woman was going to make. The woman didn’t. She returned to her Volvo, merely telegraphing a dirty look a moment before she slammed the door. By now, there was honking behind us. Vanessa leaned on her horn as well.
    “How did television get to be so cut-throat? Why would anybody want to work in such an industry?”
    “It’s something you understand, Benny, or you don’t. You either get off on the noise, the power games and the practice of cracking heads and breaking balls, or you get out. It’s like mountain climbing and skydiving, you have to have a head for it.”
    “And you have?”
    “Sure I do. One of the best in the business. Trouble is that I’m surrounded by memo-writers and buttoncounters. Like Ted Thornhill, the president and general manager. Ted’s the big cheese around here. The CEO. He controls people by tripping them up with paperwork. He breaks up viable working teams because he has nightmares about them riding into power on a wave of public popularity. He dreads the idea that a newsreader or sitcom producer could replace him. What he really wants isn’t big ratings or prize-winning programs, but quiet, drab, hide-in-the-corner schedules that nobody blasts or praises in the papers, the sort of programming the business community feels safe with.”
    I nodded, trying to reconcile this voice with the Stella of old. Who would have thought that under that tightly buttoned blouse of a former high-school girl beat a heart of such unfettered ambition. The thought made it hard for me to sort out material she was feeding me. I attempted to weigh the threat to Vanessa in what she said about her professional colleagues and adversaries. At the same time, I was getting a better picture of the background of the world she inhabited. What I didn’t understand was “why?” Why did anybody put up with this kind of nonsense for thirty seconds? All the efforts of all these people came out the boob tube. So far I hadn’t seen anything to convince me that that was a misnomer.
    “You never did finish about Hy Newman, Vanessa. A burnt-out producer with a chip on his shoulder might be just the sort of villain we’re looking for.”
    “Hy certainly could get frustrated enough. I hadn’t thought of that. I don’t see him making a mistake like that, though. He’s so meticulous. He’d look first and then shoot. We’re searching for someone who shoots without looking.”
    It was quiet in the car, which was filling up with smoke from the cigarette interposed between Vanessa’s scarlet lips. When I rolled down my window, she shot me a look. “This isn’t a criticism, Vanessa, it’s just a need for air. Ever since I gave up the habit, I’ve become supersensitive.”
    The sharp look mellowed, and she grinned at me in a lopsided way that only Stella could carry off. “Benny, I always could talk to you. I’m glad to have you with me while this is going on.” She patted my knee for a moment and then abruptly removed her hand to bang on her horn. “That son of a bitch! Did you see that?” A green Volkswagen I thought I’d seen before was still behind us after we’d been on the road for ten minutes. It distracted me from seeing a Japanese compact come up on the inside and pass Vanessa just as she began to move into the inside lane herself. It had been a near thing. The other driver looked scornfully over his shoulder and took the next right-hand turn.
    This moment of excitement interrupted the beginning of a sobering reflection: in the past, Stella Seco had had so little to do with me that the idea of her always being able to talk to me, while flattering, was plainly untrue. But, as I said, the thought was interrupted and I didn’t get back to it for some time.
    “Tell me about your life, Vanessa. Away from the bright lights, I mean.” She seemed to slouch over the wheel as though the helium in her balloon was leaking.
    “My life, if you can call it that,