Free Sleeper Spy by William Safire Page B

printniks are grubbing after hard facts about real scandals, and the fuzzy new electronic world leaves us suckin’ hind teat.”
    She had him off balance and, carefully scratching an ankle with one manicured toe, pressed her advantage. “If you have something worth working on, I’ll know.”
    “I don’t know how much Ace told you, but it’s a big one.”
    “Matt McFarland doesn’t like to be called Ace. You’ll have to learn to be nice to your agent. He can make it all happen for you.”
    He gave her an unbelieving squint. “Look, kid, Ace loves to be known as the Ace. He tells people not to call him Ace who don’t know him from Adam. The Ace is his shtick, his up-from-the-street attitude. It’s the handle that separates him from the literary types who made agent the easy way with three-hour lunches in ritzy bistros.” He put his heavy shoes on the edge of her coffee table. “The nickname Ace is that little touch that tips the scales to editors who assign profiles. Pretending not to like it is his pose. Don’t fall for poses. Deal with reality, and people will begin to respect you.”
    “You know all about poses. Yours is media biggie, strike terror into the hearts of wrongdoers, darling of journalism schools.” He was probably right about Ace; she hadn’t thought of that, and she was beginning to enjoy dueling with this so-secure character. “But there you sit, with your clodhoppers on my good coffee table, in a pose of your own.” He didn’t move them.
    “You’re afraid you’re over the hill,” she pressed, “and you’re in debt.” She was guessing, but was sure she was right. “You need one big hit to get back in stride, and you hate having to share it with somebody younger and more hip and much more attractive than you. And you can cut out the ‘kid’ business. I’m thirty-two years old—not thirty-three—and I’ve been on my own since I was sixteen making a damn sight more money than you ever made.”
    He drained his glass, set it down, and rose. “Give me my hat, I’mleaving.” She had pushed him too far; she did not want to lose him; it could be he wasn’t as tough as she thought he was.
    “I hurt your feelings,” she mimicked. She poured them both another glass, coming close, then drawing back.
    “That was your best line so far,” he said, sitting down again, “and it was the one I wrote. But you delivered it well.”
    “And you don’t have a hat.”
    “I wasn’t leaving yet. The database says you started as a cocktail waitress at sixteen.”
    “You learn a lot fast about men that way.”
    “You learn how to belt down that booze, too. No?”
    “Let’s see, now. You don’t like my smoking or my drinking. Is there anything else I do that doesn’t please you?”
    “I used to be a drunk, too, when I was your age. Very popular in the newspaper business. You either straighten out or you self-pity yourself into oblivion.”
    That was a thrust Viveca did not appreciate at all. She had been drinking more than before, but she was sure it was not a problem, and she held it down at dinner before airtime. There was a world of difference between a drinker and a drunk; he needed a zing back.
    “If we do this book together,” she said slowly, “and I say
if
we do it, we are going to keep the hell out of each other’s private life. That’s rule number one. You can pad your expense accounts and go whoring around all you like, the way the database says you do—that’s none of my business—so long as you move the story along.”
    “Never missed a deadline in my life. And the expression in the journalism field is to ‘advance the story.’ ”
    “Your problem isn’t deadlines, it’s assignments. You can’t get them. And that’s why you need me.”
    The muscles in his cheeks worked. “I don’t take assignments. I get stories on my own that force assignments from editors. And I don’t just sit there and look pretty and read.”
    “You used to be a big name,” she