Westlake, Donald E - Sara and Jack 01 Read Online Free Page B

know today’s more knowledgeable,
more interested, more involved woman
pretty well, and our newsstand figures back us up. Our average weekly sale is
comfortably above five million copies, which gives us sufficient financial
strength to be able to go out and aggressively get the stories we want, the stories we know our reader is
interested in.”
                 Sara
nodded, listening, keeping her thoughts to herself. This was the way the
recruiter had talked, a year and a half ago, but the recruiter had spoken more
passionately, selling the concept. Harsch didn’t sell; he was more like a
priest describing his religion. His assurance was so total that neither
miracles nor agnostics could faze him. Sara, listening, wondered if the man
could possibly believe what he was saying. We’re all just here for the buck,
aren’t we? It didn’t seem a good question to ask.
                 And
what about her dead man, the man with the bullet in his head out on the
highway? Her first story in the new job, and she’d imagined herself running in
with the news, flinging herself into a chair in front of a typewriter, banging
out the copy while co-workers in the comers of her imagination murmured, “The
new kid’s okay, you know?” She already had her lead: “The car radio played a
sprightly melody, but the driver couldn’t hear it anymore. He was dead.”
                 Somehow,
Jacob Harsch didn’t seem like a person who would be interested in a dead body beside the road. His world was more
rarefied than that. I’ll tell my editor when I meet him, she decided.
                 Meantime,
Harsch continued what was probably a set speech: “Our financial strength also
makes it possible for us to hire the people we want, particularly the
hardworking far-seeing young women like yourself who will help us keep the Weekly Galaxy brisk and alert and
relevant to that ever-changing audience out there.”
                 “Relevant,”
Sara echoed, no expression in her voice.
                 “Yes,
relevant,” Harsch said, smiling grimly down upon her. “We’re not afraid of that
word, Sara. All we’re afraid of is getting stale, old, tired. That’s why we want young women like yourself, who will
challenge us, make us toe the mark, keep us . . . relevant.”
                 “Gosh”
was all Sara could think of to say.
     
                 Having
passed back everybody’s papers—Jack gazed in quiet despair at the many red
lines now crisscrossing his own contributions— Massa finished this morning’s editorial meeting
with a little general diatribe, saying, “Nobody’s giving me any news about John
Michael Mercer. Do you people realize that man is the hottest star on
television? Do you know his series, Breakpoint ,
is the number one rated series? And it’s shot right here in Florida !”
                 Massa glared around, waiting for an answer, and
finally an editor to Jack’s left said, “Mercer doesn’t seem to be doing
anything right now, sir.”
                “John Michael Mercer?” Massa stared, popeyed. “What kind of answer is
that? He’s interesting! People want
to know about him. I want to know
about him! Last night— On the show last night, he drove that little sports car
right through a burning bam! It was
terrific! I was on the edge of my chair! You tell me he doesn’t do anything? He drives through a burning
bam, doesn’t he? Why doesn’t he tell us what he thinks about that?”
                A different editor,
reluctance in his face and in his voice, said, “Uh, sir, John Michael Mercer
won’t talk to us.”
                 “What?” Massa was astonished. “But we’re America ! The Galaxy is the American people!”
                The editor nodded. “We have
explained that to him, yes, sir.”
                Pointing generally—but glaring, it
seemed to Jack,