Free The Evening News by Arthur Hailey

disciplinarian and, after affectionate good-nights, Nicky left. Soon after, they could hear him playing on a portable electronic keyboard in his bedroom which he used when the living-room piano was unavailable . In the softly lighted room, Jessica returned to the martinis she had been mixing earlier. Watching her dispense them, Sloane thought, How lucky can you get? It was a feeling he often had about Jessica and the way she looked after more than twenty years of marriage. She no longer wore her hair long and didn't bother to conceal streaks of gray. There were also lines around her eyes. But her figure was slim and shapely and her legs still brought men's eyes back for a second glance. Overall, he thought, she really hadn't changed and he still felt proud to enter a room, any room, with Jessica beside him . As she handed him a glass she commented, "It sounded like a rough day ? ”
    "It was pretty much that way. You watched the news ? ”
    "Yes. Those poor passengers on that airplane! What a terrible way to die! They must have known for the longest time they didn't have a chance, then just had to sit there, waiting .”
    With a pang of conscience, Sloane realized he hadn't thought about that at all. Sometimes as a professional news person you became so preoccupied with gathering the news, you forgot the human beings who made it. He wondered: Was it callousness after long exposure to the news or a necessary insulation, the kind acquired by doctors? He hoped it was the second, not the first .” If you saw the airplane story ,” he said, "you saw Harry. What did you think ? ”
    "He was good .”
    Jessica's answer seemed indifferent. Sloane watched her, waiting for more , wondering: In her mind, was the past completely dead? "Harry was better than good. He did it like that ,” Sloane said, snapping his fingers .” Without warning. With hardly any time .”
    He went on to describe CBA's luck in having the crew in the DFW terminal .” Harry, Rita and Minh all came through. We beat the pants off the other networks .”
    "Harry and Rita seem to be working a lot together. Is something going on there ? ”
    "No. They're simply a good working team .”
    "How do you know ? ”
    "Because Rita's having an affair with Les Chippingham. The two of them think nobody knows. Of course everybody does .”
    Jessica laughed .” My god! You're an incestuous little group .”
    Leslie Chippingham was the president of CBA News. It was Chippingham whom Sloane intended to see the next day about the removal of Chuck Insen as executive producer .” Don't include me in any of that ,” he told Jessica .” I'm happy with what I have at home .”
    The martini had relaxed him, as it always did, though neither he nor Jessica was a heavy drinker. One martini plus a glass of wine with dinner was their limit, and during the day Sloane never drank at all .” You're feeling good tonight ,” Jessica said, "and you have another reason to .”
    She got up and from a small bureau across the room brought back an envelope, already opened-a normal procedure since Jessica handled most of their private business .” It's a letter from your publisher and a royalty statement .”
    He took the papers out and studied them, his face lighting with a smile . Crawford Sloane's book The Camera and the Truth had been published several months earlier. Written with a collaborator, it was his third . In terms of sales, the book got off to a slow start. The New York critics savaged it, leaping at the opportunity to humble someone of Crawford Sloane's stature. But in places like Chi cago, Cleveland, San Francisco and Miami, reviewers liked the book. More important, a ' s weeks passed, certain comments in it gained attention in general news columns-the best kind of publicity any book can have . In a chapter about terrorism and hostages Sloane had written bluntly of "the shame most Americans felt after the 198687 revelations that the U.S . Government bought freedom for a handful