Private Affairs

by Judith Michael

  "Elizabeth?" Keegan Rourke stood at her elbow. "We need you with us. Tony, if you want to be pan of our group. ..."

  Tony shook his head. "Thanks. I'd rather be part of the audience."

  "It was good to see you again," Elizabeth said coolly, and held out her hand.

  He took it and kissed her cheek. "I see I went a little too far. I'll be better next time."

  "You'll stand on Matt's right," Rourke said as they crossed the room to a table with a small microphone. Matt was already there; he took Elizabeth's hand in a quick squeeze and held it as she stood beside him, "Friends," Rourke said into the microphone, and the room was silent.

  He told them what they already knew: the festivities were in honor of Matthew Lovell, vice-president of Rourke Enterprises and publisher of its new subsidiary, Rourke Publishing, and his wife, Elizabeth Lovell, whose column "Private Affairs" would appear three times a week in all the Rourke newspapers. Elizabeth studied the guests, half-listening as he out= lined their background.

  "We expect within a year," Rourke concluded, "to have a chain of newspapers, each reflecting its own unique area, but all unmistakably part of Rourke Enterprises. Matt and I don't agree on everything, but our basic ideas coincide and I doubt we'll have many wrestling matches over editorial policy." A ripple of laughter ran through the room. "We also agree on the high standards that will distinguish the Rourke papers, and the special features that will make them profitable. Most important, we agree on our good fortune in finding each other and joining forces. The southwestern United States will never be the same! Ladies and gentlemen, Matt Lovell."

  Applause filled the room as Rourke took a step back. For a moment, Matt surveyed the attentive faces, the glittering jewelry, the small smile on Tony's face, the fixed stare of Chet's at the back of the crowd. "Since Keegan and I agree on so many things, I can't contradict anything he's said. He did leave out one important point: the enormity of the challenge he's given me. We're going to be moving very fast and we won't have time

  for mistakes. I appreciate his confidence; I hope to gain yours, too. I'll be meeting with many of you over the next few months, and by the time Rourke Publishing is weD established, I'd like to think we'll have formed some good working relationships, and friendships, too. Elizabeth and I thank you for coming tonight; we look forward to seeing you often. Now I'd like to propose a toast. To Keegan Rourke, who has very big ideas and the courage to entrust them to an unknown, but very grateful, vice-president."

  Again there was applause, and murmurs of approval. Everyone drank to Keegan Rourke, who stood quietly, smiling at his guests, until he turned, raised his own glass, and silently toasted Matt. Then, swiftly recovermg from his error, he bowed to Elizabeth and included her in his toast.

  •'Dinner in fifteen minutes," Rourke said into the microphone. "Ask Chet for your seating cards."

  The ceremony over, everyone crowded around to shake hands and add more congratulations to those they had been giving for two hours. "Very nice," Chet Colfax murmured to Elizabeth. "It's a nice time for you. It's a pleasure to see that; I always say it's a pleasure to see deserving people get rewards."

  "Is that what you always say, Chet?" a^ked Elizabeth. "That's very generous."

  His eyes were blank. "I share Mr. Rourke's pleasure when things go well. We all do. When you live here, you'll share it, too."

  "We aren't going to live here, Chet. I thought that would please you."

  "Did you?" For a moment his voice slipped and she heard his fury and wondered at it. Because Matt wouldn't be there all the time, where he could be watched? Or because, wherever he lived, Man was the new favorite, an unknown quantity that had to be considered in everything Chet Colfax did to try to make himself indispensable to Keegan Rourke?

  "It will be harder for your husband not to live here," Colfax said. "But if he wants my help I'll be available. Information, you know; it's not as easy as you think to step into a new business."

  "I don't think it's easy at all," Elizabeth replied. She looked around for someone to rescue her from the fixed stare and tight voice that had made her uncomfortable ever since she met Colfax m Albuquerque. But everyone seemed occupied; she would have to do it herself. "If you'll excuse me, Chet, I want to—"

  "You want to help your husband. I'm telling you how. All these people, you know"—he flicked his glance about the room—"are beholden in some way to Mr. Rourke. You may think it's crude to talk about these

  things, but it's accurate. Your husband doesn't know how to deal with situations that arise because of it. If he relies on me, I can tell him—"

  What makes you think I'd help make my husband dependent on you? "Why don't you do that right now 0 " Elizabeth asked icily. She grasped his hand in hers and walked rapidly toward Matt. Taken unawares, Colfax let himself be dragged along and in a moment he was facing Matt and Elizabeth was saying. "Matt. Chet wants to help you with some background information on the guests who are here. I thought you'd want to know about it."

  Matt saw the bright anger in Elizabeth's eyes and the confusion sweeping across Colfax's face and he knew somehow she'd done in the little weasel. He felt a rush of love for her. She was quick and bright and beautiful—and he didn't tell her that often enough.

  "Chet wants to tell you these guests are all beholden to Keegan, but he'll son them out for you and tell you about situations that arise and how to deal with them. Is that right, Chet? Would you call it crude but accurate 0 "

  "I wanted to help you." Colfax said to Matt through thin lips.

  "So I could be beholden, too." Matt said pleasantly. He didn't feel pleasant; he was irritated and tired of going through motions. Playacting. Making the impression he was supposed to make. He knew it was essential: a major newspaper chain couldn't function without dealing with politicians and corporations. But he was fed up with talk; he wanted to get to work. Instead he was wasting time with this slimy little bastard who—"What?" he asked.

  "I said we should be civilized." Colfax repeated. "We have to work together and I want you to call on me as a friend—"

  "I'm sure you do. If I need you, I'll call on you."

  "But you do need me!" The smooth facade was cracking. "If you'll let me know what you're planning, who you'll be talking to, your schedule and so on, I can give you advance information. . . ."

  "I'm sure you want me to tell you all that, Chet, but that's not how I operate. I'll call you, I promise, if I need you. Now if you'll excuse us, Elizabeth and I are going in to dinner."

  Elizabeth saw the rage in Colfax's face. "You talked to him as if he's a child." she told Matt as they walked away. "I think you should be careful: he could be dangerous."

  "I doubt it. He's a little man trying to be a big one."

  "And you don't think they're ever dangerous?"

  He shrugged. "Let Keegan take care of him. He's his lackey, not mine."

  They were stopped as they walked through the room by men and women wanting to congratulate them, to ask about their children and where in Houston they planned to live, to invite them to dinner. Matt let Elizabeth answer for both of them. He was exhausted and annoyed—a bad combination—and he had started to fume inside. If Chet Colfax thought he could make trouble for him, he was dead wrong. Anyone who thought Matthew Lovell could be stopped or slowed down was dead wrong. He knew how he'd gotten here and he knew where he was going. For the first time he had all the resources he needed to go as far as he could, to build the kind of empire he'd dreamed of, and no one was going to stop him, now that he was this close.

  No one. Not even Keegan Rourke. Or Elizabeth. No one.

  H A P T E R

  K

  .eegan Rourke's offices were in the Transco Building, a steel and glass tower in Houston's Magic Circle. Once a patch of empty fields and din roads, this part of the city had been transformed m the past few years to a few glittering square blocks of exclusive restaurants, boutiques, theaters, and buildings housing corporations from around the world. In their midst
were the enclosed Galleria shopping malls, with international hotels, an indoor ice rink, and a galaxy of more restaurants, shops, and offices.

  "How fitting." Elizabeth had said the first time she visited Rourke's headquarters. "Magic Circle. Where else would he be?" But his offices had been a surprise. As richly furnished as they were, there were fewer than she had expected: a handful of trusted people in a small suite of rooms quietly ran Rourke's growing empire. There were vice-presidents for oil leasing, real estate, investment, and development; two accountants; two administrative assistants in an office next to Chet Colfax; and four secretaries m another large office. At the end of the corridor was Matt Lovell's office: Vice-President. Rourke Publishing.

  A fifth secretary worked m the reception room, dramatically furnished m chrome, leather, glass, and Art Deco torch lights rising from a plush

  carpet that reminded Elizabeth of the grass around their courtyard at home when Peter had put off mowing it. A spiral staircase led to the next floor where Rourke's executive secretary sat in a round reception area with beige leather couches, western oil paintings, rare old photographs of the first railway across the plains, and a garden of flowering cactus. Beyond the door, in a spacious office carpeted in deep brown, with suede and rosewood furniture grouped before a fireplace, Rourke was ensconced within the curve of a polished table of red padouk and black walnut. Around him hung the mystical acrylic paintings of Jean Richardson.

  "All that's missing," Elizabeth had said at that first visit, "is the feeling that a real person uses the place. No family photos or souvenirs or personal gadgets. Just a high-class decorator. With a high-class budget."

  "Someone told me Nicole did the design," Matt had said, and Elizabeth had murmured, "She gave herself away: she's probably as cold as her furnishings."

  On the floor below Rourke's office was a windowless conference room with an attached kitchen where caterers prepared lunch for staff meetings, held at least once a month. It was here, two months after the party in Rourke's home, that Matt made his second major progress report to the staff and Rourke's attorneys, who always sat in.

  "Last time I gave you details on the Chalmers chain," he said. "I assume the paperwork will be finished soon, in spite of the delay at Thanksgiving"—he looked inquiringly at the lawyers, who nodded— "and the contracts signed. Those six papers cover western New Mexico south from Los Alamos and north to Farmington. You have my memo on the negotiations for the Phoenix Arizonan and the Tucson Call; in the meantime, there's another group I'm interested in. The prospectus is in front of you: eight newspapers and a television and radio station in southeastern New Mexico. I've spent the last couple of weeks with Jim Graham, who owns the group in partnership with his son. They're losing money, but I'm convinced it's bad management; there's no serious competition and if we can get his price down I'm recommending that we buy it."

  "He's asking ten million," read one of the lawvers from the prospectus. "Too high."

  "Of course," Matt agreed. "We have to get it down."

  The discussion moved around the table. What equipment did Graham have and how soon would it have to be replaced? How much personnel could be let go? How many were close to retirement? W T ho were the local advertisers? Who were the readers, the viewers, the radio listeners?

  Matt had written the prospectus after Chet Colfax had given him data on finances and personnel, and he had made his own inspection trip.

  Now, standing at one end of the oval table, he answered questions about the eight towns: economics, politics, recreation, geography, what the people were interested in and worried about, prospects for industrial develop-ment and tourism.

  Matt relished these discussions, working toward a goal fueled by such enormous wealth that the whole process was different from any he had ever known. The wallet is full And now the wallet was Matt's, along with a staff and Rourke's backing, and when he went into a town, that gave him a sense of power so sweeping he sometimes felt like another person.

  He remembered sitting at the kitchen table with Elizabeth, figuring out ways to scrape together the money for the Chieftain; deciding they had to sell the Nuevo property to finance the Sun.

  Christ, if only he'd waited! He could have bought any paper they wanted.

  But he thought less about the past as he plunged more deeply into building Rourke Publishing. The first newspaper chain, around Los Alamos, added six papers to the two in Albuquerque and Houston. If they bought the Graham chain, it would add eight more. Even without the Chieftain and the Sun, which Matt and Elizabeth refused to consider part of Rourke's chain, they would have sixteen papers and a television and radio station by the end of the year, less than three months after he'd started. An impressive beginning.

  He finished his presentation and the men around the table nodded approvingly. Rourke smiled. For two hours he had watched Matt, occasionally jotting a note on a pad of paper, his eyes noncommittal. And for those two hours Matt had made sure his own eyes were steady when they met Rourke's. He knew he was on trial; for at least the first year he assumed everything would be a test. And he liked that: the feeling of being on edge, tense with energy and purpose, trying a little harder each day. If Rourke had given him the whole wallet with no strings, no watchdog committee, no test runs, Matt would have thought him a fool.

  And there was none of the fool about Rourke. Matt had never met a sharper businessman; one who could more swiftly and unerringly judge someone; who could spot a flaw in a situation or a weakness in a man and use them to his own advantage. He knew Rourke's silence was not necessarily approval or disapproval; most of the time it simply meant he was watching, measuring, judging. He would take part when the time was right, to settle a dispute or make a decision.

  If my father had been that decisive and single-minded, he could have been anything he wanted, instead of a disappointed old man relying on his son to live out what was left of his dreams.

  "So if we can get him to take six million." Rourke's chief accountant was saying, "or, better yet, five and a half: then cut total personnel by fifteen percent and increase circulation by a third I'd have no prob-

  lem with that "

  "No problem!" one of the lawyers repeated, chuckling. "Will he come down to five and a half. Matt?"

  "I doubt it. We ought to get it for seven, though. Maybe six and a half. He's trying not to show how desperate he is, so I'm not sure, but it's obvious there's a serious problem—"

  "Two of them," Chet Colfax cut m. "One is. he can't keep away from the horses and he bets wrong nine times out of ten. The other is James Junior, known as Jim Bob. He likes horses, too, but even more he favors blackjack at Las Vegas and expensive women anywhere. He and his papa have run through most of their money. And a few months ago Jim Bob started passing bad checks. Which Papa has so far made good on."

  No one asked where Colfax got his information or if it was correct. It was his job to get information: it was his job to be correct. "By borrowing." Rourke said.

  '"Yes. indeed," Colfax responded. "Ten thousand from one friend, fifty from another, a quarter of a million from a pal m Ohio . . . there's a substantial list."

  "Demand notes." said Rourke.

  Colfax nodded.

  "Matt," Rourke said easily, "let's start with three and a half."

  "He won't take it," said Matt. "He knows it's worth more."

  "Of course he does. If we know it's irresistible at five and a half, so does he. And of course he'd like six or more; who wouldn't if he had to follow his son around, cleaning up his shit 0 But my guess is he'll take four and a half rather than wait. So start with three and a half."

  "And if I have to go to five?"

  "If you play it right, you won't have to."

  Matt hesitated. Play it right. But he had made it clear he thought six and a half million a good price. If Rourke thought him naive, or incompetent . . . "I'll see what I can do," he said.

  "Call me as soon as you know." Rourke moved on to other business and Matt sat
back and listened. Well be moving very fast. He should have said, Learning very fast He wondered if they all thought he was out of his league.

  But after the meeting, Rourke put his arm around Man's shoulders as they walked to his ofike, "Listen, son. I know you can handle Graham. If Chet is right—and Chet is always right about these things—Jim Bob

  won't be around; you'll just have the old man. A father disappointed by a son." He gave a short laugh, almost a bark. "Take it from me; he's vulnerable."

  Matt heard that short laugh again and again as he flew in the small commuter plane to Roswell. A father disappointed by a son. Odd: he'd thought of Tony Rourke as a nuisance, possibly a threat, when he kept showing up in Santa Fe to see Elizabeth, and again at Rourke's party when he saw them talking together. But since the day, two years ago, when Tony mocked him about getting away from his father, Matt had never thought of Tony as Rourke's son.

  A father disappointed by a son. He remembered Rourke's hand on his shoulder as they had walked down the hall. Listen, son, I know you can handle Graham.

  Gazing at the desert landscape below with its blowing tumbleweed, stretches of pale grass, dry gulleys, and narrow roads like knife strokes across the emptiness, it hit Matt suddenly.

  No wonder Chet is in a rage. He wanted Tony's place for himself.

  But Chet knew he'd never be a publisher, Matt thought as he walked across the airstrip to meet James Graham, standing beside his car. So all he wanted was the closeness. Listen, son . . . And Matt, unknowingly, had shoved him aside. Worse: treated him like a child, Elizabeth had said.

  "Matt—glad to see you again." Graham shook Matt's hand. "Get in, get in, we'll grab some lunch, talk business over food, best way, don't you know, full stomach, friendly bargaining." Laughing too heartily, he opened Matt's door, then walked around to his own. He'd lost weight, Matt saw: his jowls sagged; the collar of his shirt was loose; a tightened belt pulled his pants into folds.

  Graham followed Matt's look. "My go-to-meetin' pants," he chuckled. "All my jeans, every last one, in the wash. At least so the missus says; my personal opinion is she hid 'em so I'd wear what she calls real clothes and impress you. That's my guess, anyway. They impress you?"