CHAPTER 1
Thirty-year-old Hal Pearson's divorce was finalized and it was goodbye good-time Melody who had got away with half of his assets and was back at her dance studio and screwing her financial backer, a married guy.
Sure Hal was bitter, having lost three years spent unwisely married to a hot bitch that soon tired of being with him exclusively, although he had to admit there had been many great times. When he found Melody in bed with her brother oblivious to him entering the room because they were being so disgusting, Hal kicked both of them out of the house and had it sold before Melody thought of applying for divorce. She still got half of his, um, his disclosed assets.
Hal leased a studio apartment and continued at The Sentinel newspaper as a business columnist and with Melody gone considered fancied was free to have any female who'd suck his tongue. His strike rate rather pleased him but as most were married the liaisons failed to blossom into satisfying affairs.
Damn.
A buddy told him the latest 'zip' (gossip) doing the office. Macy Aphelia Law, the executive editor's 26-year-old glamorous journalism graduate daughter, had walked out of the General News Department where she'd been deemed 'next to useless' and had said no to a transfer to Features and no to Home and Fashion and no to Motoring. Her enraged father ruled it was Business or she was history. Macy was inducted into business reporting where on her second day she was deemed to be 'next to useless.'
Hal sniffed. Macy, God was a name. Perhaps she ought to be working in a department store.
Alan Wright dropped in to Hal's office and that was rather ominous. Alan rarely spoke to Hal these days because his married daughter had been one of Hal's post-divorce conquests and daddy found out.
Hal tensed, thinking Alan was about to announce he was ending Hal's column and returning the adulterer to financial reporting. But Alan was smiling, showing bad teeth.
Huh?
"Great column yesterday," Alan began.
Huh?
And ten minutes later Hal had been told he was to take Macy Law under his wing and groom her to become a successful newspaper journalist.
"I don't think so," Hal objected gently.
"Oh I think so. You fucked my daughter, a mother of two little kids. So who's next, Macy Law's mother? Now what do you think Frank Law would say to that possibility if I presented it to him and told him you'd soiled my daughter who just happens to be Frank's goddaughter?"
Huh?
When the smiling Alan left, Hal called Accommodation and Supplies and ordered a new desk and chair and filing cabinet for his office, asking for the smallest desk available.
When thinning-on-the-top blond Hal arrived Monday and smelt a sickening fragrance in his office, he found Macy was at her desk painting her nails.
"Oh hi Mr Pearson or is it Hal?"
"It's Hal. What's your bra size?"
"That is confidential personal information Hal and for some reason the HR manager called me to her office after I had been advised of this transfer. Mrs French spoke to me about harassment and how to report breaches of our company's Code of Ethics. She gave no explanation for that briefing. Do you have a reputation for being a naughty boy Hal?"
"Who me? I should think not. Christ look at the size of your desk. Someone's been an idiot. I'll call Accommodation and Supplies and demand they come up and change it immediately."
"No Hal. I anticipate doing only a little bit of work and so a desk this small seems appropriate."
She uncrossed and re-crossed her beautiful long legs slowly, as if to capture Hal's attention.
"I'm a person who prefers quality over quantity Hal. I guess you being a columnist also fit that profile?"
The move didn't fail.
Hal swallowed and had the ridiculous feeling of being caught in a web. He cleared his throat. "I um noticed on your profile that it's your birthday Friday. For some reason a bra jumped into my mind."
Macy folded her arms high up over her chest and said coldly she believed she knew why. "God Hal get your mind above you belt. If you must know 34C."
"Are you sure?"
"Of course I am. I'm narrow across the back. Flowers will be very acceptable and you may take me out to morning coffee. Now teach me the practicalities of journalism to add to my academic absorption."
"Pick you phone and call around for leads. I'll get coffee."
"Call whom?"
"Those deadbeats lecturing at the School of Journalism would have taught you about cold calling."
"Yes but we were given phone numbers."
"Pull up the Yellow Pages on your computer. You do know how to use a computer to bring up the Yellow Pages I take it?"
"Yes but what kind of business do you wish me to call?"
"Any business with a payroll exceeding 1000 initially. In Business we give priority to big business and after them niche business."
"Give me an example of a niche business."
Hal hitched up his trousers and grinned, looking where her folded arms had been. "A small company that produces very strong big bras.
She scowled at him and didn't look very pretty. If she hadn't hurled her desk paperweight at him, drawling her arm back for the throw and thus revealing to Hal a taunt breast of magnificent classical shape, he would have written off Macy. Instead he ducked athletically and the lead weight shattered the glass division behind him. The thought of that breast shape momentarily flooded his mind before he regained composure.
"Call Joey in Accommodation and Supplies to get someone up here fast with a new pane of glass. Tell him what happened but if word gets out about this I'll have his balls for a necklace."
"I-I couldn't say that to him."
"It's your choice -- either you momentarily embarrass yourself saying that to Joey or you suffer the humiliation of having the 170 people in Editorial knowing you behaved like an idiot after you had to admit I'd not laid a finger on you."
"Oh god."
"My office is usually an atmosphere of intelligence, friendliness and creativity Miss Law. When you report to your father tonight about you day at the office please say I said you have a great throwing arm. I reckon I was point-two of a second from being hit fatally between the eyes by a lead weight."
"Oh god."
When Hal returned with two machine coffees Old Ted was already placing the restraining glass around the new pane.
"Morning Hal."
"Hi Ted. How's Lucy and is Robert still at McEwan Aviation?"
"Yeah Robert's foreman of a jet engine maintenance crew and Lucy's florist shop is going great, particularly since you convinced HR here to decree all flowers and formal floral tributes should be ordered from Flowers by Lucy."
"It was just an idea Ted and putting three kids through high school must eat up a bit of income."
"Here's you coffee darling."
"Jesus Hal, does the big boss's daughter allow you to call her darling?"
"It's her first day here. I pulled out her chair and welcomed her and told her she'd come to the right guy to teach her about cutting-edge journalism and she shed a couple of tears of gratitude and told me to call her darling."
Hal heard Macy splutter coffee behind him.
"Miss Law, Top Gun Hal is likely to teach you more than journalism. Heh-heh-heh."
Hal pulled his chair over to Macy and asked her to show him what she'd got. She looked confused until Hal pointed to the three entries on her notepad. The third item caught his attention.
"Why the hell is Simon Bedding International sending a waterbed to Afghanistan?"
"Because one of our military commanders there has slept on a waterbed since his marriage and wants one sent out to him. His wealthy parents are paying all costs and it's a practical shipment because he is based at HQ."
"Has it gone yet?"
"No."
"Darling. You grab a photographer and get right out to Simon Bedding and first speak to the business development manager who will probably be female. She of all people within the company will know what a story in The Sentinel will do for the company and she'll steer you quickly through company hierarchy. The company chairman is a pal of dad's and so I can assist if you get stuck. I'll coach when you begin writing the story. I'll tell the news editor to hold space for you on the front page.
"Front page but I'm a business columnist aren't I?"
"Actually you are the assistant to the business columnist but why bother about that detail when you full your bra so well? I get something on page one or three at least three times a month as general news and I work in competition with the fucking entire business reporting team."
"God you make it sound like it's dog eat dog."
"Ah so they did teach your something at journalism school? Off you go. Try to get a female photographer."
"Why?"
Hal sighed. "It's camera guys for blood, rape, explosions, murder, building collapses, traffic accidents and hostage dramas. Females for homecomings, funerals, weddings, awards and anything else that can make female readers cry. Didn't they teach your anything at journalism school? Off you go."
"What will you do while I'm away?"
"Find stuff to fill my column without an assistant."
"Oh god, I should be helping with that."
"Get that great ass moving Macy or I'll plant my boot into it. You are making me emotionally disturbed with your unremitting loyalty."
"My what?" Macy yelled as she ran out the doorway with her handbag.
Hal took his phone and went to the café to find someone to chat with while waiting for the calls that would come from PR people and other tipsters who knew getting a mention in the column 'Hal Person on Business' rated at least as good as getting a single column story on front page and if the information was good enough Hal would get his story splashed on page one or three or use it as the lead on his column.
Hal had to take his hat off to Macy. She'd learned something at journalism school. By the time she was ten minutes on her way back from the plant with the photographer who was driving, she'd emailed him a brief outline of the story and one of the digital images Macy had downloaded from the camera. She advised she'd decided not to contact Army HQ in case they then attempted to kill the story.
"Good girl. Fuck Army chiefs," Hal grinned talking to himself. "If the family is paying all costs it's really none of the Army's business. Let them be embarrassed. This story will be run in media internationally. My girl is already on the way to becoming a star."
His email reply stated, 'Good work, tell no one about this story'.
Business news editor Alan Wright wandered in and looked at the empty chair and he snorted, "How the hell can Macy work at a desk that small?"
"She is capable of working with her laptop on her knee Alan so quit bitching. I ordered a small desk to teach her humility. Being the executive editor's daughter she will have a feeling of being privileged."
"Well where is she? You haven't sent her crying to the women's room already have you?"
