You Can't Stop Me. Max Allan Collins
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control room getting rowdy, but right now it was like church—in more ways than one, because several people were praying.
The screen faded to black as the show went off the air.
Byrnes said to Nicole, “Get him. Now.”
She nodded, cell at the ready, turning away, speaking quietly; then, cupping the phone, she said, “He’ll be in his office. He says…he’s expecting you.”
“No shit.”
Soon the exec was moving down the corridor, which would normally be filled with staffers quickly finishing up and getting the hell out. With the season over, the network had arranged a wrap party at the newest swank LA bistro, El Viñedo, to which they should all be on their way.
But Byrnes found the hall lined with cast and crew.
As his gaze swept over them, their eyes either found something very interesting in the carpeting to focus on or turned toward lead reporter Carlos Moreno.
Byrnes’s frown withered his staff the way sunlight did vampires. “What’s this about?”
But Moreno, six feet tall with short spiky black hair, was impervious to the exec’s gaze. His eyes locked unblinkingly on Byrnes’s. “We’re here to support our boss,” he said.
Byrnes never flinched. “That’s very gratifying, Carlos…since I am your boss.”
“We support J.C.”
A few nervous nods backed up that claim.
“All right, duly noted,” the network president said, keeping his tone even, nonconfrontational. It was a union town, after all. “I’ll see you all at El Viñedo.”
People peeled off the wall and headed down the hall and around the corner—hostages released after a siege—though Moreno stood firm.
Byrnes met the man’s gaze. “You don’t think I should fire J.C.’s ass?”
“Nope.”
“What do you think I should do?”
“Give him what he wants. He’s an accidental genius. He didn’t mean to, but he just handed you and me and all of us the biggest potential ratings winner in history. If he’d come to you first, you—”
“But he didn’t come to me.”
“Dennis! So what? He isn’t your standard TV whore. You were well aware when you hired him that J.C. took this show hoping to find his family’s killer.”
“And here I thought it was the truckload of money we backed up and dumped at his feet.”
The reporter rolled his eyes. “Right, Dennis. Money. That’s what makes J.C. Harrow tick.”
Byrnes frowned, but had no response ready before the reporter gave him a little salute and ambled off down the hall.
The exec strode down the corridor to the dark-wood door with the name J.C. HARROW in banker-like gold lettering. For a split second, Byrnes considered knocking, then decided screw it, and went in.
Behind his desk, J.C. Harrow appeared as relaxed and confident as a man who had just scored his biggest success, and not committed career suicide on national television.
Byrnes didn’t bother to sit down, just strode up to the desk and gave his star a cold, confrontational glare.
“I just want to know one thing,” Byrnes said.
Harrow did not take the bait. He just waited silently, leaning back in his chair, his expression not quite smiling, but certainly self-contained.
“Why did you piss it all away on a whim, J.C.? You could have come to me, we might have put something together, instead you skyjack the airwaves. Weren’t we good to you?”
For a long time, Harrow said nothing, then, “That’s more than one thing, Dennis. If you want an answer to any of those questions, pull up a chair and sit down.”
Byrnes had a moment—a moment where he had to choose between losing it entirely, going off like a geyser, or behaving like a grown-up.
So he pulled up a chair, crossed his legs, folded his hands, and (goddamnit!) smiled at his star. “Please, J.C. Enlighten me.”
“UBC has been great,” Harrow said. “The money is generous, and I like the work. But, Dennis—I didn’t piss anything away.”
“Nothing but your career and your starring gig on the number-one-rated show on this network.”
“Explain,” Harrow said, not at all confrontational.
Byrnes shook his head. “Can you really think there’s any reason I’m here other than to fire your ass?”
“You wouldn’t need to be here, if firing me was all you had in mind. Or anyway, you wouldn’t still be here.”
Byrnes had no response to that.
Harrow shrugged, rocking slightly in his chair. “Anyway, why would you fire me?…I may be a relative novice in this business, but I know enough to be sure of one thing—I just guaranteed to double your ratings in the fall.”
Byrnes sat forward, seething but in control. “You go on the air and commit my network to unknown, enormous expenses, you rewrite—off script and on air—the format of our top show, and you wonder why would I fire you? Do you think when word gets out any network would ever trust you in front of a camera again?”
“Maybe not a live camera,” Harrow said, with a puckishness unusual for the ex-cop. “Anyway, Dennis, I don’t think you’ll let the word get out. You know that I wouldn’t take as much blame for this as you would—for allowing it to happen. I’m not where the buck stops.”
“That sounds uncomfortably like extortion.”
“Dennis, much as I like you, I’m not much for taking lessons in morality and business ethics from television executives.”
“…Maybe there are circumstances where I’d consider putting you back on the air…but I’m not paying for some ‘superstar’ private forensics team or any other wild-eyed ideas….”
Harrow sat back again, shrugged. “You can take me off the air, Dennis, but I’ll have another network signing me up for a new show by end of workday tomorrow…on my terms, right down to the ‘superstar’ forensics team.”
Byrnes started a sigh somewhere around his toes, and finally it emerged. “Why didn’t you come to me with this idea?”
“And have you say no? And hold me to my contract? I do apologize for the tactics, but they were necessary. Your priority is the show—mine is finding my family’s killer. I believe I came up with a way that serves both our interests.”
Byrnes shook his head. “I can’t believe you would commercialize the murders of your own family….”
Harrow’s laugh was a bitter thing. “Give me a goddamn break, Dennis. You’ve been commercializing my family’s death since day one of this show. And I’ve been letting you do it, because it’s a relatively harmless means to an end that is everything to me.”
For the first time he could remember, Byrnes found himself in a room with someone he could not stare down, facing someone who wasn’t afraid of him. Like any jungle predator, Byrnes could smell fear and pounce. Only this time, the fear he sensed in this room was his own.
“You played me for a fool tonight,” Byrnes said.
Harrow shrugged. “I know, Dennis. And if that means you have to let me go, to save face, and let the chips fall wherever the hell, well then…no hard feelings. You’re doing what you have to do. Like I am.”
The star rose, and came around to extend his hand toward his seated boss. “Whatever you decide, I owe you for the platform you’ve provided me. Thank you.”
Stunned,