Nice Girls Finish Last Read Online Free PDF Page B

jokes?
    Besides, I wanted to avoid the whole subject of the murder as much as I could without arousing suspicion.
    I changed the subject. “Any news from the executive suite?”
    â€œNot yet,” he said, as an intern handed him some wire copy. He scanned it quickly and then said, “The meetings are very hush-hush.”
    â€œLouis, here’s the AOA on the new school prayer bill,” an edit assistant said, handing Louis a tape.
    (AOA stands for “Any Old Asshole,” known in more polite circles as MOS, “Man on the Street.”)
    Louis took the tape and popped it into the monitor on his pod while talking both to the edit assistant and to me. He has the amazing ability to conduct two or three conversations simultaneously without losing the narrative thread of any of them.
    â€œMy best source is on the job, though,” Louis said, winking at me. Louis didn’t know it, but his best source was my best source, Phil the omnipotent janitor. Louis didn’t have any new information because Phil had been out with flu the day before.
    The phone rang on Louis’s desk. “I’m listenin’,” he said when he answered. “No. Haven’t seen her.”
    He hung up and turned to me. “That was Jerry. He wanted to know if you were in the newsroom. I lied.”
    â€œThanks.”
    â€œWho’da thunk Jerry Spurdle would become such a big success? Great ratings, big moneymaker, and on top of everything else, he won that ACE award. Bet he really has a swelled head. How is it, working with him these days?” Louis asked.
    â€œOh … you know.”
    Louis was goading me, expecting me to say something like, “He’s more fun than a flesh-eating virus.” But I clammed up. If you can’t say something nice and all that. Anything I said about Jerry was bound to end up in the rumor file, and I didn’t need the trouble because, as you know, my troublemaking days were over.
    Louis gave me a sad look and shook his head.
    â€œYou know,” he said, “Jerry’s been bragging that he broke Robin Hudson, the rogue filly.”
    â€œIt’s more complicated than that,” I said.
    â€œHe says, like all women, you can be subdued by a strong hand, metaphorically speaking. I dunno, Robin. You gotta do what you gotta do, but your reputation is suffering with the troops. They think you’ve sold out to that sleazebag.”
    â€œWhy do I have to hassle with Jerry? The job’s being done without me. Tamayo drives him nuts and I can concentrate on my work. Besides, Dean Wormer has me on double-secret probation. Another mess-up and I could be working the cash register in the cafeteria for the duration of my contract.”
    â€œYou were the rogue filly,” Louis said, wistfully.
    The Rogue Filly. I think he knew I’d like the sound of that.

4
    T he Special Reports offices are housed in an extraneous set of men’s and ladies’ rooms a couple of hallways off the newsroom. Although the swinging bathroom door from the outer office to the hallway has been replaced, we still have tiny, ceramic bathroom tiles on the floor and the suite retains a certain residual bathroom ambience, especially in the afternoon when the sun shines through the narrow, opaque glass windows placed high in the wall.
    As the network’s number-two moneymaker, behind Kerwin Shutz, Jerry Spurdle could have had the plushest offices in the building. But he was known as much for his low overhead as for his high advertising revenues. Having a spartan, utilitarian office was part of his image, one especially appreciated by ANN president George Dunbar, a man who expected his employees to provide their own pens and paper clips and once proposed letting corporations sponsor aircraft carriers, space shuttles, and national parks to reduce the deficit. How proud our fighting boys and girls would be, shipping off to war on the battleship