Let Me Whisper in Your Ear Read Free Page B

how’s it going?” Mike Schultz loomed over her desk.
    â€œGetting there,” Laura answered, capping her highlighter. “I’ve whittled down the list to the most important dead people—now we just have to keep our fingers crossed that no one else dies in the next nine days.”
    â€œYou can bet somebody big will buy the farm before the year’s out,” Mike replied.
    Laura nodded, knowing her boss was right.

5
    M IKE S CHULTZ HAILED a cab and told the driver to take him to Penn Station. He really was not looking forward to the commute home, but he was looking forward to a double Johnny Walker Black.
    Mike was a burly bear of a guy. At six-foot-two, he carried his extra weight well, but his large frame sported fifty pounds of unexercised baggage put on since his college football days. That was only two pounds a year, he rationalized to himself.
    His doctor viewed it differently. “You’re looking at an early heart attack. Cut the crap out of your diet, get some exercise, quit smoking and stop stressing out over that damn job!”
    â€œOkay, Doc.” Mike sighed resignedly. That’s easy for you to say, he thought.
    He tried. He really did. Instead of grabbing a bagel with a double-cream-cheese-and-jelly-“schmear” at the deli across the street from the commuter train platform, he’d take the time to slice a banana and cover it with raisin bran and low-fat milk, scarfing it down before he rushed out the door to catch the train from Park Ridge, New Jersey, to Manhattan. At lunchtime, he’d choose carefully from the cafeteria salad bar, instead of loading upon his usual cheeseburgers, french fries and onion rings. He’d even try to get out of the office at some point during the day to grab a twenty-minute walk.
    It was harder, though, when he got home. He ached for a scotch or two, or three, after a day in the Bulletin Center. He wondered what effect always being on alert had on a human being. He was sure it wasn’t good. Knowing that anything could happen at any time, and it would ultimately be his responsibility to get the news on the KEY Television Network, was part of the senior producer’s job description. True, he had correspondents, producers and editors under his command to fight the war to get the news immediately on television and, in doing so, beat the other networks. But when things went wrong, when human error or logistical nightmares caused the excuses to fly fast and furious, the buck stopped with Mike Schultz.
    He wanted out. It was getting to him. At first, it had been a relief just to be working in his field again. He’d been determined to do the job well and show the executives on the front row that he had what it took to be a leader and a valued team player in the KEY News hierarchy. Hadn’t he always been a good soldier, willing to do what KEY wanted and needed him to do? Someone had to take the hit for the Gwyneth Gilpatric scandal. He still remembered with a shudder the day Yelena Gregory had summoned him to her president’s office and explained that, for the good of KEY News and the reputation of its star correspondents, Mike would have to take the fall.
    He had been dismissed from the staff of Hourglass, the second most highly rated news show on television. He went from traveling in the network news fast lane to being persona non grata in the industry. None of the other networks would touch him. For a year, he was out of a job … without a job, but with a wife, three kids and a mortgage.
    They’d made it, scraping along on Nancy’s substitute teaching, Mike’s working nights at a local liquor store and dipping into the children’s college fund. After months of that nonsense, he had called Yelena Gregory and threatened to expose what had really happened when he worked at Hourglass with Gwyneth Gilpatric.
    Suddenly, Yelena reassured him that of course they wanted him back. He was a valued part