The Almighty

by Irving Wallace

  "Oh, Dad," Victoria called out. "Don't do that."

  Her father hushed her with his hand. "Here's what I mean, Edward," Weston said into the phone. "You remember my daughter, Vicky—well, she's a grown woman now, and a crack reporter. She's worked for three years in the Chicago area, two of them on an important suburban daily. She knows the ropes. She's decided to move on to a job that's more challenging. She quit her Chicago position last week, and came here to ask my advice this morning. I thought of you, and I wondered if you'd have the time to see her, would want to—" He stopped, listened, and smiled broadly at the mouthpiece. "That's wonderful, Edward, wonderful. You won't be disappointed. What? . . . It's Victoria, Victoria Weston. . . . All right, perfect. Good luck to you, too, Edward, the best of luck. You deserve it. Let me know the next time you're coming to D.C. We'll hoist a beer together. Good. I'll tell Victoria."

  He hung up and turned to Victoria, beaming.

  Armstead's looking for people. He's ready to look at you. Your appointment at the New York Record is for two o'clock tomorrow."

  At the corner of Park Avenue and Forty-sixth Street, the light gray Armstead Building stood sixteen stories high, dwarfed by the taller new buildings leading uptown. The heart of the structure, the one that pumped activity into all the other stories, was the sixth floor. Most of it was given over to the New York Record's newsroom, with one portion of it reserved for the publisher's suite which included the publisher's main office, the office for his personal secretary and receptionist, a conference and electronic media room, two offices for the advertising director and his assistant, and smaller, glassed-in cubicles for the managing editor and the assistant managing editor.

  By the third day following E. J. Armstead's funeral, the temporary heir to this suite and to the building had made few personnel changes. Edward Armstead had retired his father's elderly female secretary on a genercus pension and replaced her with his own secretary, Estelle Rivkin, a smart, brisk, thirtyish woman with short-cropped dark hair and horn-rimmed glasses who had served him with devotion for five years in Special Projects. He had moved the advertising director and his assistant down to his old Special Projects offices and brought Harry Dietz and Bruce Harmston up from the fourth floor and installed them in the nearby advertising offices. For the time being, he had allowed managing editor Ollie McAllister and assistant managing editor Jim Crutchfield to remain in their glassed-in cubicles.

  Now, this early third afternoon following the funeral, Edward Armstead, having finished his box lunch (tomato and lettuce on wheat bread, a dill pickle, a spinach salad, a diet drink—he had decided to diet to make himself even more attractive for Kim Nesbit) summoned his personal secretary and asked her to remove the cardboard box.

  As Estelle placed the empty paper plates and cup into the box, Armstead retrieved a toothpick and began to use it as he surveyed the forty-foot office.

  From the door Estelle said, "It's beginning to look right, Mr. Armstead." She indicated the stretch of office.

  Armstead gave a nod of assent. "Yes, I think we've got it in shape."

  After his secretary had gone, Armstead glanced about the spacious office once more. In his shirt sleeves, behind the formidable oak desk, he was pleased with what he saw. It was beginning to look right, his own office, no longer E. J.'s. Most of the reminders of his father had been eradicated. For one thing, the wall decorations. During the preceding two days he and Estelle and a newspaper handyman had taken down all of his father's favorite framed photographs, laminated honor scrolls, and French paintings. Gone from the Irish linen matte wallpaper were E. J.'s pictures of himself, self-styled "the Giant," with five United States Presidents, with foreign royalty, with baseball superstars, with movie and television luminaries. Only one photograph had been allowed to remain hanging, a portrait of Edward Armstead's mother taken with Edward himself at the age of fourteen.

  Since Armstead's own pictures with celebrities and his framed awards had been pitifully few, he had filled the empty spaces with artistic photographs by Julia Cameron, Stieglitz, and Steichen, and substituted for his father's Matisses, Picassos, Cézannes his own favorite Yugoslavian primitives, Generalié, Rabuzin, Lackovie, a gaudy collection of naIfs acquired on several visits to Hlebine, Zagreb, and Belgrade.

  Armstead cast his gaze further about the room. The fern planters on either side of the sliding doors that led to a balcony overlooking Park Avenue were new. The ultramodern seventy-two-inch television screen before the fireplace was also new. The pull-up rattan chairs before the oak desk had taken the place of his father's pompous leather ones. The desk top itself, always kept clean by his father, Armstead had defiantly cluttered with mementos—ivory miniatures from Tokyo, tiny military figures from Paris, several small bronze golf trophies from St. Andrews, an ancient coin in a velvet-lined case from Masada.

  Of the larger pieces, only his father's custom-made oak desk retained its place. There had been magic here once. Armstead had not wished to tamper with magic.

  His housekeeping inspection done, Armstead directed his sight toward his desk calendar and was suddenly eager to get going. His father's will had made him extremely sensitive to the passage of time. He reached for his ivory-colored computer telephone, pressed the ICM button and then the intercom code for Harry Dietz's private telephone.

  "Harry, I'm ready for the meeting. Bring Bruce with you."

  "Be right in, Chief. We have everything set."

  A few minutes later Harry Dietz and Bruce Harmston appeared, Dietz carrying a handful of folders, and Armstead motioned his lieutenants to the rattan chairs across from his desk. Armstead felt comfortable with them, the only persons, besides his secretary, he depended upon. Certainly his reliance on Dietz was without equivocation.

  Dietz was the taller of the two, with sandy hair, a chalky complexion, an adenoidal smile, and a smooth, suave manner. Harmston had a rounder face, receding hairline, bulbous nose, and lots of chin. Neither was as creative as Armstead, but they were perfect when it came to reading his mind, even to finishing his sentences. They were aggressive, daring, filled with energy, and both had hated E. J. These were Armstead's confidants and his loyalists, since Chicago, and from now on they would be properly rewarded.

  "First things first," Armstead said to Dietz. "Did you check out the daily circulation of the New York Times?"

  Dietz found a clear area on the desk, set his folders down, picked up the top one and opened it. "According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, the latest daily circulation figure on the Times—four months old—is 873,255. That's subscription and newsstand."

  "And the Record, what's our latest daily circulation figure?"

  "Approximately 533,000."

  Armstead frowned. "So we'd have to pick up around 350,000 readers to pass the New York Times."

  "I'm afraid that's it, Chief," said Dietz.

  "The bastard."

  Both Dietz and Harmston knew that he meant his father, and they bobbed their heads in agreement.

  Armstead sat up in his swivel chair and loosened his tie. "Well, if we want to keep this paper we'd better get to work You've got the records of the editorial staffers and the reorganizational charts?"

  Dietz patted the folders on the desk. "Right here."

  "Okay, I'll get at them later. Let's start with the two of you. I've been giving it some thought. You will both be answerable only to me. Outside of general orders, everything I tell you will be kept in strictest confidence. Harry, this is a bigger job, much bigger, than Special Projects, and so your work will be greatly expanded. As always, you'll be the one to develop and carry out my ideas. You, Bruce, will have a double work load. Not only do I want you to serve as my liaison with the two hundred editorial people out there, but I also want you to act as my personal public-relations man."

  "For yourself, not just the paper," said Harmston.

  "For me. I come into this position as the Giant's son, an heir who got lucky, an obscure relative, a faded copy of the legendary press
lord. I want to climb out from under that image. I want to be my own man, a known individual."

  "I'd love that," said Harmston enthusiastically.

  "You did public relations in Chicago," added Armstead. "You have the background to do the job. See that I get a fair shake for everything I do. And work up a program that will get me both attention and prestige."

  "I can do it," Harmston promised.

  "To do anything, we've got to hold on to the paper," said Armstead. "To hold on to the paper, we've got to revitalize it. To become Number One, we've got to give people what they can't get in any other newspaper. How do we do it? By finding exclusives. By digging for exposés. By having what no one else has. Harry, you and I will revamp the staff, get rid of the weaklings, hire some bright young pros. Bruce, I want you to revive Special Projects. Find out what the staff can offer. Meet with McAllister and Crutchfield. And that fellow, that investigative reporter who came up with that last Special Project for us, the groundwork for that series on the inside of world terrorism that my old man turned down. Who was that reporter?"

  "Nick Ramsey," said Harmston.

  "Sharp fellow. Milk him for some thoughts for Special Projects. Then—"

  The ICM on Armstead's telephone sounded. Estelle's voice came through the speaker. "Mr. Armstead, there's a young lady here who claims to have a two o'clock appointment with you. Miss Victoria Weston. I don't have her in my book—"

  "Miss—who?"

  "Miss Victoria Weston. Apparently you were to interview her for a job as a reporter."

  For a moment Armstead's face was a blank, and then recognition came. "Yes, I remember—Hugh Weston's daughter. I promised to see her. Tell her to wait a minute."

  As Armstead turned away from the phone Dietz said, "Want me to interview her?"

  "No, no, I think I should handle this myself. You remember how Hugh treated me in Chicago. I owe him this." He stood up. "Why don't you two get together with McAllister and Crutchfield in the conference room. Do some brainstorming. I'll join you when I finish with the girl."

  Armstead sat on the sofa in his office, fingering the résumé and considering Hugh Weston's daughter seated at the opposite end of the sofa.

  What was surprising was that he had expected Hugh Weston's daughter to be a child and instead found her to be a woman, very much so. She was a pretty, leggy young lady in a Chanel-style tweed suit and tan sling-back pumps. She had arresting, large hazel eyes and an attractive, tentative smile. She looked disarmingly innocent, deceptively so, he hoped.

  "You know, your father and I had a close relationship," Arm-stead said. "I admired him."

  "He alwaysthought highly of you," replied Victoria. "He still does. He was sorry to see your father go—" She hesitated. "—but he felt it might be good for you."

  Armstead acknowledged her frankness with a fleeting smile. "Yes, Hugh understands. Wasn't it Freud who said a son can't be a man until his father dies?"

  "I recall reading that."

  "How is your father these days? Does he like his new career?"

  She wrinkled her nose. "I'm not sure. He's a die-hard journalist at heart. He doesn't like being put in an adversary position with the Washington press. He's on the side of the White House correspondents when he has to spoon-feed them the daily dose of hokum."

  Armstead laughed. "Poor Hugh. But it's exciting for him, isn't it?"

  "Oh, yes. Very much so."

  "And now you want to follow in his footsteps?"

  "Well, he had pretty big feet."

  "But you're sure you want to be a newspaperwoman?"

  "I am a newspaperwoman, Mr. Armstead. I've been one day and night for over three years. As you'll see in my résumé—"

  "Ah, the résumé, yes. Let me have a look at it." He unfolded the sheet and read it carefully. He folded it again. "Impressive. Solid experience. You seem to lean toward investigative reporting. That can be a mean field."

  "I can be a mean reporter. I'm persistent, resilient, acceptably devious."

  Deceptively innocent, Armstead decided, and was pleased. "My role model has always been Nellie Bly," Victoria continued.

  "The little lady who went around the world in eighty days in—whenever it was?"

  "In 1889. And she did it in 72 days for Pulitzer's New York World. She started on a ship named Augusta Victoria—well, Victoria—I always thought that was a good omen for me."

  "It is," said Armstead with another smile. He was enchanted by her enthusiasm and seeming lack of guile. "As of now, you've got a job on the New York Record."

  "You mean it?" She almost jumped off the sofa with joy, wanting to kiss him, but she restrained herself. "That's wonderful, Mr. Armstead. I promise you won't be sorry."

  "I don't expect to be. I expect great things from you." He stood up, and she was quickly on her feet beside him. "We can use another investigative reporter," Armstead said, "especially a female one. The two or three we have are men. The best of them is Nick Ramsey."

  "I've read his stuff. He's marvelous."

  "When he's not drunk," said Armstead. "A little real competition from you might be a sobering experience for him." He started her across the room. "You'll begin tomorrow, nine o'clock sharp. Check in with Mrs. Crowe, our personnel director. She'll discuss your salary, which I'm sure you'll find satisfactory, and then she'll turn you over to Ollie McAllister and he'll assign you a desk. Right now I'm taking you next door to meet Ollie and his assistant and two of my other executives. I want them to meet the first person I've hired as publisher of the Record. So you see, I have a very personal interest in you. But tomorrow, no assignments. I want you to spend the day with Nick Ramsey. He'll show you around and break you in."

  At the entrance to the conference room, Armstead stopped her.

  "I'm curious about something," Armstead said. "Did Nellie Bly carry a gun?"

  Victoria was startled. "I—I don't know."

  "Considering the business she was in, she should have. Ask Nick Ramsey when you meet him tomorrow. He'll know. He probably carries one, and if you're going to be an investigative reporter, you'll probably carry one, too."

  For Victoria Weston, her excitement the following morning was dampened only by the initiation formalities of a new job. She had sat a long time with Mrs. Crowe going through everything from salary to health insurance forms to social security. It was twenty minutes before noon when she reached the office of Ollie McAllister, the managing editor. He was a dour, lanky Scot in his middle fifties. When she had met him the day before, she had worried that he did not like her, until she realized that his frown was a permanent one and carried no judgment.

  He was concentrating on some teleprinter strips when she entered, and he waved her to a chair.

  In a minute or two he was through. "All squared away, Miss Weston?" he inquired.

  "I think so," she said. "I'm told I'm to be turned over to Nick Ramsey. He's going to show me around and he's supposed to break me in, whatever that means."

  "It means he's going to show you where the toilets are and tell you why you shouldn't waste your time working on a newspaper." He reached for his phone. "Let me get him."

  McAllister spent a vain minute trying to locate Ramsey. Failing to do so, he glanced at the clock on his wall and shook his head.

  "Almost a quarter to twelve. I should have known he'd be out. He's always off for P. J. Clarke's early, to be sure he beats the lunch crowd to the bar. Then he usually goes on to several other wateringholes. That means you won't see him until three o'clock."

  "Isn't he on assignment?" Victoria asked with wonder.

  "Not at the moment. When he works, he works hard. When he doesn't work, he does nothing at all."

  "Is there anything special you'd like me to do until then, Mr. McAllister?"

  "Have lunch. It's lunchtime, so have lunch. After that, if you have free time—you're new to New York, aren't you, Victoria? If that's true, you'll have plenty to do."

  "As a matter of fact," said Victoria, "I tal
ked to some friends last night, and one of them knew of an apartment that's just become available. I should go see it."

  "See it," said McAllister. "You don't have to be back until three o'clock."

  Victoria came to her feet. "I'm supposed to be assigned a desk."

  "Yes, of course," said the managing editor. He joined her at his door, opened it, and surveyed the vast hangar of the newsroom. There were endless desks, half of them occupied.

  "I've never seen so many desks," Victoria said, excitement returned and mounting.

  "Two hundred of them," said McAllister, "and the newsroom is over an acre." He scanned the room. He pointed. "Look down this row to the left. About the tenth one down. You can't miss it —it's the only clean desk on the floor. That's the metropolitan section, where we'll probably start you, where you can drop anchor. Now go to lunch, Victoria."

  Feeling that she belonged, she clutched the strap of her shoulder bag and strolled along the nearest row of desks, boldly meeting the stares and smiles of young male reporters along the way, until she arrived at her desk. It was a brown metal desk bearing a telephone, some phone directories, an "In" and "Out" paper tray, and a word processor on a stand beside it.

  Satisfied that she had found her place, she was ready for lunch, for an apartment, and for the elusive Nick Ramsey.