Adam's Daughter Part 20

"He's senile. I told you that when you bought the paper," Ian said. "What's he done now?"

"Remember that columnist I told him to fire? Well, he didn't do it. Now I've got the Portland mayor threatening a libel suit over something he wrote about his G.o.dd.a.m.n wife."

Kellen watched Adam. She had heard stories about Whittaker before. He was the eighty-five-year-old executive editor of Adam's Portland newspaper, the last of his family to remain on the newspaper after Adam bought it. She had met him when he came to dinner. He had told her with great pride of how the Whittaker family had founded and run the paper for four generations until financial problems forced him to sell it to Adam. Adam had kept the old man on as a figurehead to preserve the paper's community image.

"He's got to go," Adam said. "I'll go up there next week and take care of it myself."

"You're firing him?" Kellen said.

Adam and Ian stared at her. "Kellen, honey," Adam said, "you don't understand."

"But he's a nice man," she said. "And he's so old, Daddy. It seems so hard. Couldn't you just --"

"It is hard," Ian interrupted. "It's business."

"Let's forget it," Adam said, wanting to stave off another fight between the two. He opened the folder Ian had brought in.

"What's this?"

"The latest circulation figures from San Mateo County," Ian said. "You aren't going to like them. We picked up some in Daly City and Pacifica but we're making no progress anywhere else. The farther south down the peninsula you go, the worse the figures get." Ian paused. "Father, I really think it's a mistake to try to expand the Times' circulation right now. It's getting expensive. And besides, those people down there just don't want a San Francisco import."

Adam glanced down the rows of figures. They were discouraging, but he knew the market was there. He knew that people were moving away from the city and that communities were springing up like patches of fungus down the peninsula. Just south of San Francisco, endless blocks of identical homes built five feet apart were being sold for $6,000 apiece. Beyond that, farmlands were being subdivided into whole communities, the orchards paved over to make way for shopping malls and parking lots. It was a huge untapped market.

"It's not a mistake," Adam said. "We can get those people. That guy you hired as circulation manager just isn't cutting it."

Ian hid his irritation. "We've tried. But they read those s.h.i.+tty little weeklies or nothing at all. We can't get them to buy the Times."

"Why don't you give it away?" Kellen said.

Ian sighed in derision. Adam chuckled.

"No, listen," she said. "I've used this shampoo for years. Then one day I got this free sample in the mail of some stuff I never heard of. Well, I tried it and it's great. I switched shampoos. You could do the same with the paper. Give it away for a while until they're hooked on it then they'll buy it."

Ian laughed. But Adam looked thoughtful. "You know, that's something we've never tried," he said. "Sampling."

"You've got to be kidding," Ian said. "Give the Times away? We're talking about tens of thousands of papers. We'll lose our s.h.i.+rt."

"Maybe Kellen's right," Adam said. "Once people get hooked on the Times, they'll subscribe. Reading a newspaper is a habit more than anything. Let's do it." He stood up and stretched. "Ready for lunch, Kellen?"

She jumped to her feet. "You taking me to the club?"

"Not dressed like that. You'll have to settle for corned beef at Breen's. Just let me go wash off the newsprint."

After Adam went into an adjoining bathroom, Ian turned to Kellen.

"You think you're hot s.h.i.+t, don't you," he said. "Making me look like a f.u.c.k-up in front of Father."

"You don't need any help from me, Ian," Kellen said. She picked up her bag. "You know, everyone around here knows you take three-hour lunches and one of these days Daddy's going to figure out just what a screw-off you really are."

Before Ian could reply, Adam returned. "Ian, try to get some cost estimates on sampling together this afternoon. Come on, Lil'bit, let's go."

At Breen's, Kellen sat across from Adam, eating her sandwich, waiting for the right moment to bring up the subject she wanted to talk about. She had been waiting all week for time alone with her father and now she waited some more until their small talk turned back to the newspaper.

"That was quite an idea you had back there," Adam said to her. He chuckled and took a drink of his beer.

"I have lots of ideas," Kellen said.

"I know. You always did."

"I mean it, Daddy. I have ideas about the newspaper."

"Oh, like what?"

She knew he was just humoring her but she pressed on. "Well, for instance, the Times is so dull." She smiled at the look on Adam's face. "Sorry, Daddy, but it's true. It's so fat and gray and serious."

Adam smiled indulgently. "And what would make it un-dull?"

"You could get a gossip columnist."

"We get Winch.e.l.l from the syndicate."

"No, I mean San Francisco gossip," Kellen said, "Like that guy Sandy Francisco writes in the Journal."

"Kellen, that's trash. You don't read that junk, do you?"

"Of course, Daddy. All my friends do, everyone does. People love to read dirt, especially about people they know. And that Sandy guy doesn't know half of what's going on because he never gets invited to the best parties."

"Well, I'll think about it. In the meantime, finish up. I have to get back."

Kellen pushed her sandwich aside. "Daddy, there's something I want to talk to you about," she said.

"Whatever you want, it's yours."

"I want to come work on the Times."

Adam was reaching for his wallet and he paused to look at her before he tossed some money on the table. "Don't be silly, Kellen."

"I'll be eighteen next month. That's old enough to go to work."

"You don't need to work."

"But I want to, Daddy." Kellen leaned forward. "I've been taking journalism courses in school. I want to learn how the business really works."

"No, Kellen. You're going to college."

"How about just for the summer?" she asked. "Stephen worked at the Times during summers."

"That was different."

"But why? Why can't I do the same?"

Adam sighed. "Kellen, it's a hard business. You have this notion that it's fun, but it's a dirty very unglamorous business. I don't want my daughter working for a newspaper."

"But Ian can?" Kellen asked, her voice rising. "Why is it all right for him to get his hands dirty, but I can't?"

"Ian is going to run the business someday. He has to learn it."

"Why can't I learn it, too?"

"Kellen, stop it. I don't want to hear any more about it," Adam said. Then he sighed and stood up. "Come on, I have to get back."

She rose slowly and picked up her bag. She could feel her face burning in embarra.s.sment and wouldn't look at Adam. He took her shoulders.

"Kellen, listen to me," he said. "I love you. Your happiness is very important to me. Trust me, you wouldn't like it. You're made for other things. Better things."

She looked at him, keeping her tears in check. He kissed her forehead.

"Now where to you want to go? I'll drop you off."

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR.

Adam put down the Journal and leaned back in his chair. He had just finished reading two weeks' worth of columns by Sandy Francisco. The columns were drivel, nothing but overwritten accounts of parties and fluff straight from press releases put out by ambitious businessmen and politicians.

He glanced at the stack of Journals piled near that afternoon's copy of the Times. The Journal had never quite recovered from its losses during the war. It had lost so much advertising that four copies of the Journal put together barely equaled the bulk of one weekend edition of the Times. It bothered Adam that he had pirated away the Journal's advertisers and some of its best reporters, but he couldn't capture the hearts of its readers.

What did the Journal give them that the Times did not? Surely it wasn't trash like Sandy Francisco.

Adam scanned the front page of the Times. Eisenhower had upped the quota of atomic fuel use. A shake-up in the Kremlin had left a man named Khrushchev in the spotlight. The only light touch was a news story about the New York Giants moving to San Francisco.

He flipped through the other sections, but they were just as dry, just as serious. The Times had become exactly what he promised Robert Bickford it would be so many years ago -- a respectable symbol of good and truth.

But it had also, somehow, lost its life along the way. It had failed in its most important function. It did not capture the soul of its city.

Kellen was right. The Times had become dull and gray.

Adam's eyes went to the photograph of Elizabeth on his desk.

"Just like me," he said softly.

He picked up the front section of the Times again, reading now not for content but tone. Flat, it was all flat. But then one column in the sports section caught his eye. It was about the outdoors and was well-written, in a breezy offhand way. It had...a bit of style.

The byline was C.J. ABLE. Adam had never heard of the fellow.

He called the sports editor, who told him that C. J. Able was a thirty-year-old ex-bookstore clerk who had talked his way into his current job on the strength of a sample column he had written on the metaphysical joys of salmon fis.h.i.+ng in Michigan.

Adam told the editor to send Able up to his office then asked Adele to get copies of Able's columns from the morgue.

Adam was reading the columns when Adele brought Able in.

Able was a tall reed-thin man wearing wire-rimmed gla.s.ses and the ugliest suit Adam had ever seen.

Except maybe that one I wore my first day here, he thought.

"Come in, Able. Sit down, please."

The man slid into a chair nervously.

"I've been reading your stuff," Adam said. "It's good. You get good quotes from people. That's a real art, getting people to talk."

"Thank you, Mr. Bryant."

"Call me Adam, please. And I'll call you...?"

"C.J. is fine, sir."

Adam smiled. "I never trusted bylines with initials. I always like to know a fellow's name."

The man seemed to freeze up then his face reddened slightly. "Clark," he said firmly.

"Clark Able," Adam said with a nod. Then, slowly, very slowly, Adam's smile faded as he repeated the name to himself several times.

Able sighed. "It's all right," he said. "You can't help it. I just wish my mother could have. She saw Gable and Leslie Howard in A Free Soul back in thirty-one when she was pregnant. She got inspired. I got the name."

Adam smiled. "Could be worse. She could have called you Leslie."

The man laughed and began to relax.

"I'll get to the point, Able," Adam said. "I want to start a new column, real high profile one that could make the person writing it one of the most important people in this town. And I think you might be the man to write it."

Able sat up straighter. "I'm interested, sir."

"Good." Adam glanced at his watch. "My G.o.d, it's nearly six. Let me take you to dinner, Able. How about the Big Four?" Adam pushed the phone over to the other man and rose. "Call for a table, will you? I have something to finish up."

The man blanched. "We'll never get near that place this late. You'd better call, Mr. Bryant."

"No, you do it. And use your real first name."

Able waited until Adam left the room then gingerly dialed the phone. He hung up just as Adam returned. "We all set?" Adam asked, slipping on his suit jacket.

Able stood up and smoothed his hideous maroon tie. "I got a table," he said incredulously. "No problem at all."

They took a taxi to n.o.b Hill and once inside the restaurant Adam hung back to talk to someone, telling Able to go ahead.