Chapter 14

It wasn’t typical, not for Harrison.  Riding backwards on the train had always been avoided, even as a child.  But he wasn’t going to make an issue of it, just as long as he could stay with the conversation and keep his dinner where it belonged¾in his stomach.  After all, everybody knew Edward Klowsky, Founder and Chairman of Galaxy Broadcasting wasn’t the kind of man you showed your vulnerability to, especially when he called you for a visit.  Even though they had been friends since childhood, having this kind of meeting left Harrison uncomfortable.  They had shared foxholes in Nam, shared women in Tokyo, and shared grievances when the Knicks lost.  Ed and Harry were as tight as tight is, but the sudden phone call and an end of the day meeting on the club car of a train was out of character.  Having to ride backwards made it seem all the more troubling, especially when the usual soft spoken, always smiling, “velvet hammer” of broadcast was not smiling.  His empire of six hundred radio stations and thirty-two television stations along with three satellite transmitters orbiting above them, was more than enough to keep any man smiling and enough to keep Harrison reminded he had a way to go on his success trail.

“…And the ball stayed in bounds!” Ed laughed.  “God Damn if the ball didn’t just… Oh, it was the best… the best.  You should have been there.”

“Yeah, well, had a deadline to meet.  You know how that is.”

“Yes.  What would we do without deadlines, eh?”  Ed said as he took a sip of coffee. 

“Excuse me… such a wobble on this train.” giggled the woman as she almost fell in Harrison’s lap.  She regained her balance, what was left of it, and moved through the car, waving her near empty beer can high above her.

“The New Haven now has ‘wobble’ to add to its’ woes,” chuckled Ed.  “So, Harry, how’s everything going, really?  We haven’t talked in a while.”

“Great,” answered Harrison with a swallow of his Seven-Up.  Seven-Up usually helped the nausea of watching objects fly away from him at seeming Mach speed and right now, Upper Manhattan tenements had just begun to appear in a blur as the New Haven Local emerged out of the Manhattan tunnel, rushing toward its many stops leading to Greenwich.

“Sara, the kids?”

“Fine.  Great.”

Ed took another sip of his coffee and gazed out the window.  “I hear you’re going to publish Ari’s work.”

Harrison looked up from his drink.  “Boy, news travels fast.  How’d you hear about that?”

Ed turned back from the window and flashed one of his infamous smiles, “News does travel fast… especially when it’s bad news.”

“Bad news?  I don’t understand.”

“Ari’s stuff is… interesting.  I told you that when you first showed me the prints, even though I didn’t agree with some of his visions.  Like the one of Senator Thorne.  Who would ever believe the ideas in that picture, even if they were true?”

Harrison leaned across the small table separating them.  “Who told you about this?”

“The fact you’re trying to turn your magazine around from a 6-million-dollar loss, or the rumor that you’re giving your cover to an Aristotle Impression… with more pages inside?  You deal in secrets.  I deal in secrets.  You have your ways. I have mine, Harry.  Now, it really doesn’t matter how.  What does matter is what.  Ari’s covered Kings and he’s covered the underbelly of Hollywood.  He’s got his ideas, I’ve got mine.”

“You’ve got yours?”  I guess I’m not getting it.

“Harry, the wrong pictures with the wrong impressions could do us both some harm.  Nobody wants their images of public figures to be anything other than what they are.  Senator Thorne in particular.  That mishmash collage  of strange colored incidents that never happened mixed with the occasional full face of the Senator is Okay I guess, as long as it stays hung in your library at home.  But, in a national publication, people might get the wrong idea.”

“I don’t believe I’m hearing right.”

“Oh, you’re hearing right, old buddy.  Obviously, one of your staff gave me a call.  At least someone in your hundreds of employees thinks it would be a mistake too¾or is it closer to two hundred employees you’re now responsible for?  Damn, Harry, this is not a time for mistakes.  I don’t want to get pressured any more than you, so… burn the damn thing and publish whatever else you want.”

“This meeting is all about Thorne and re-election year?  Harrison queried.

Then came the ‘big’ smile, the one that Harrison knew always punctuated the end of a conversation, the smile he had first witnessed when they were ten years old and Ed bumped him five dollars in a friendly nickel-dime poker game.  “That’s against the rules,” Harrison remembered saying.  “I’m changing them,” Ed had retorted with abandonment for the norm. 

He won then.

He wanted to win now.

“New Rochelle.  New Rochelle, next stop,” the conductor shouted above the raucous of a club car full of increasingly wobbly people with increasingly more empty beer cans and mini bottles.

“My stop, old buddy.  Damn, it’s good to see you again.  You’ve got to take this earlier train more often.  I’m always on the 6:20.”  He rose, picked up his umbrella and Wall Street Journal.  “Bet you’re always on the 9:20 getting those deadlines out, huh?  Or do you stay in your Manhattan hideaway for those occasions?”  Ed winked.  “Having a little place on Columbus Circle is convenient, isn’t it?  Used to enjoy my double life too.”  Ed flashed his all-knowing smile.  “You have a great weekend, you hear?  Best to Sara and the kids… especially that Roger.  How old is he?”

“Ten.  He turned ten last month.”

“Tough age.  Too young to know a lot, too old to play dumb, right?”

“Right,” smiled Harrison.  “Thanks for the Seven Up.”

Ed nodded with one last grin, sort of a reminder, thought Harrison.  As his best friend opened his umbrella and stepped off the train, Harrison’s eye caught a glance of a rain drenched billboard outside.  Not what I needed right now thought Harrison as he read the message below the picture, “Senator Thorne deserves your vote.  Help make his next year, your best as well.” 

The train pulled away. 

Harrison moved to the other side of the table and sent his thoughts out the train window.  He could now see what was coming at him… or so he thought.

***

The young lady at the desk was hesitant at first.  She knew it was against the hotel rules to give information out about the guests, but Ari hadn’t gotten this far in life from being unpersuasive.

“But you’re not breaking any rules, miss,” Ari said with the little boy charm that had worked wonders for him over the years.  “Mr. and Mrs. Quinlan are no longer guests of the hotel because they have left the hotel.  So…” He pulled a $20.00 bill from his shirt and laid it in as a bookmark in the hotel registry.  “Did they give any indication of where they were stopping next?” 

She remained her professional self and didn’t move.

Ari took another $20.00 out and placed it on top of the other one.  She looked down at the bill and smiled.  “No,” she said.  “But they did say to forward any phone calls.

“Yes?” said Ari. 

It was her turn to smile and be charming.  She obviously hadn’t gotten to where she was without some talent as well.

Ari reached into his pocket and pulled another $20.00 bill out and put it in her hand.  “The hotel?”

“Hardly a hotel.  They’ve gone to the island of castles.  We should all be so lucky.”  She jotted down the number. 

***

The guest list was large by anyone’s standards, made all the more unique by the number of yachts expected to arrive for the “intimate gathering,” as Mr. And Mrs. Umberto Pasolini had labeled the celebration. With just three days left to make sure everything was coordinated and set for a flawless week-end event, Shauna Waring, drove the Range Rover up over the perimeter sand dunes of the thousand plus acre Pasolini ranch and stopped on a cliff overlooking the ten miles of ocean separating the forty square miles of Pasolini Island from the mainland and the bay where the San Miguel was docked. 

There, in the private mooring she had occupied for the past three years of restoration, the historical 18^th century Spanish galleon received her final hours of detailing, as Lloyds of London finalized their inspection for the twenty million-dollar insurance policy.  The Pasolini family had restored the San Miguel¾the largest such galleon in the Spanish fleet at the time of her sinking¾in less than three years, but to them, it was a lifetime of work.  Together with their two sons, Giacomo and Leone, they had hunted down numerous other sunken ships during their forty years of treasure hunting the globe, but the San Miguel was their quintessential triumph.  Not only had it yielded gold treasure far beyond what was expected, but even for their somewhat jaundiced attitude toward their personal wealth¾three hundred million at last count¾the real value to the Pasolini family was being able to raise the ship and restore it to its original character.  This made all their other luck, money and accomplishments pale in comparison.

Raised from a depth of 200 feet off the Magdalena coast, Shauna had witnessed its rebirth from the beginning.  Now as she gazed out at the spectacular tribute to not only the will and determination of the family, but the hundreds of artisans and engineers brought in from all over the world to complete the task, she remembered the innocent summer four years before when she answered the college paper add: “Wanted - apprentice historian researcher seeking adventure and experience of a life-time.  6 months at sea.  Room and board.  One-year College tuition paid upon completion.” Having become hopelessly attached to the fever associated with hunting the depths of the ocean for sunken history, she had stayed on beyond the six months and was now the family’s official biographer and social secretary.  She smiled at the memories cascading by as she took her camera and snapped a picture of what was to her the ship of ships; and what would be to dozens of friends arriving by yacht or Pasolini private jet in just a few days, the biggest party in history. 

The Pasolini family loved to party events such as this with their international friends, most of which were wealthy, many of which were of average means.  A more eclectic group of friends was hard to find anywhere.  Intellectuals, artists, scientists and professional students from Universities of the world… were all a part of the eccentric Pasolini private circle. But as the event approached, she worried that the party would become overwhelming… especially if she let valuable minutes pass by. She glanced at her watch and realized she was going to be late for the special international television interview she had scheduled for Umberto at 4PM. 

She took one more picture and turned the four wheels back down the hillside toward the family compound, a stone and glass modern castle built high above the shoreline-cliffs overlooking the bay.  She picked up the car phone and dialed.  It wouldn’t be a good start for the weekend to be late, especially for such an important interview.  Umberto, who steadfastly kept himself removed from personal publicity, had reluctantly given permission in this case at Shauna’s persistent request.  She had assured him this would be the only such exposure and that he would not be bothered for the remainder of the event.  It seemed like a reasonable compromise for the 75-year-old Guru-of-the-sea who enjoyed his own definition of private life but had always remained the diplomat of diplomats. 

The Emmy Award winning show “In Appreciation Of” a quasi-patriotic propaganda program had massaged the judgment of Shauna for months in an effort to secure the exclusive which was to be a “tribute to history” between Umberto and a US Government representative.  It was to be moderated by Harwood Crane, the prestigious television journalist and Executive Producer of his own program, the longest running Interview show in television history.   The simulcast via satellite would broadcast over thirty-two-television stations and six hundred radio stations worldwide.  It was an interview Edward Klowsky had requested.  Harwood Crane was sure it could carve his name even deeper into television history, and Senator William Thorne was convinced this kind of air time would contribute enormous influence in his bid for re-election.

Unwittingly, the interview and gala celebration were but a prelude to even more unexpected historical events destined for the weekend.