Cometh the Hour (The Clifton Chronicles 6)

7

A BLACK STRETCH limousine was parked outside the Sherry-Netherland. A smartly dressed chauffeur opened the back door as Harry walked out of the hotel. He climbed in and sank into the backseat, ignoring the morning papers stacked neatly on the cocktail bar opposite him. Who drank at that time in the morning, Harry wondered. He closed his eyes and tried to concentrate.

Harry had told Aaron Guinzburg several times that he didn’t need a stretch limo to take him on the short journey from the hotel to the studio, a yellow cab would have been just fine.

“It’s all part of the service the Today program gives its headline guests.”

Harry gave in, although he knew Emma would not have approved. “An extravagant waste of the company’s money,” as NBC would have discovered, if Emma had been its chairman.

Harry recalled the first time he’d appeared on an American breakfast radio show, more than twenty years before, when he had been promoting his debut William Warwick novel. It had been a fiasco. His already brief spot was cut short when the previous two guests, Mel Blanc and Clark Gable, both overran their allotted time, and when it was finally his turn in front of the microphone, Harry had forgotten to mention the title of his book, and it quickly became clear that his host, Matt Jacobs, hadn’t read it. Two decades later, and he accepted that was par for the course.

Harry was determined not to suffer the same fate with Uncle Joe, which the New York Times had already described as the most anticipated book of the season. All three morning shows had offered him their highest rated spot, at 7:24 a.m. Six minutes didn’t sound a long time, but in television terms, only ex-presidents and Oscar winners could take it for granted. As Aaron pointed out, “Just think how much we’d have to pay for a six-minute peak-time advertisement.”

The limo came to a halt outside the glass-fronted studio on Columbus Avenue. A smartly dressed young woman was standing on the sidewalk waiting for him.

“Good morning, Harry,” she said. “My name is Anne and I’m your special assistant. I’ll take you straight through to makeup.”

“Thank you,” said Harry, who still hadn’t got used to people he’d never met calling him by his Christian name.

“As you know, you’re on at 7:24 for six minutes, and your interviewer will be Matt Jacobs.”

Harry groaned. Would he have read the book this time? “Great,” he said.

Harry hated makeup. He’d showered and shaved only an hour before, but it was a ritual he knew he couldn’t refuse, despite insisting, “As little as possible, please.” After a liberal amount of cream was applied to his cheeks, and powder dabbed on his forehead and chin, the makeup girl asked, “Shall I remove those stray gray hairs?”

“Certainly not!” said Harry. She looked disappointed, and satisfied herself with trimming his eyebrows.

Once he’d escaped, Anne escorted him through to the green room, where he sat quietly in a corner while a B-movie star, whose name he didn’t catch, was telling an attentive audience what it was like to share a scene with Paul Newman. At 7:20, the door swung open and Anne reappeared to carry out her most important function of the day. “Time to take you through to the studio, Harry.”

Harry jumped up and followed her down a long corridor. He was far too nervous to speak, which she was clearly accustomed to. She stopped outside a closed door on which a notice declared: DO NOT ENTER WHEN RED LIGHT IS ON. When the light turned green, she heaved open the heavy door and led him into a studio the size of an aircraft hangar, crammed with arc lights and cameras, with technicians and floor staff running in every direction during the ad break. Harry smiled at the studio audience, who from the blank expressions on their faces clearly didn’t have a clue who he was. He turned his attention to the host, Matt Jacobs, who was seated on a sofa looking like a spider waiting for a passing fly. A studio assistant handed him a copy of Uncle Joe while a second powdered his nose. Jacobs glanced at the cover before turning to the back flap to check the author’s biography. He finally turned to the front flap and read the synopsis of the book. This time Harry was prepared. While he waited to be taken to his place, he studied his inquisitor carefully. Jacobs didn’t seem to have aged in the past twenty years, although Harry suspected the makeup girl had been allowed to use her considerable skills to defy the passage of time. Or had he succumbed to a facelift?

The studio manager invited Harry to join Jacobs on the sofa. He was graced with a “Good morning, Mr. Clifton,” but then his host became distracted by a note yet another assistant placed in front of him.

“Sixty seconds to transmission,” said a voice from somewhere beyond the arc lights.

“Where will it be?” asked Jacobs.

“The page will come up on camera two,” said the floor manager.

“Thirty seconds.”

This was the moment when Harry always wanted to get up and leave the studio. Uncle Joe, Uncle Joe, Uncle Joe, he repeated under his breath. Don’t forget to keep mentioning the title of the book, Aaron had reminded him, because it’s not your name on the cover.

“Ten seconds.”

Harry took a sip of water as a hand appeared in front of his face, displaying five splayed fingers.

“Five, four…”

Jacobs dropped his notes on the floor.

“Three, two…”

And looked straight into the camera.

“One.” The hand disappeared.

“Welcome back,” said Jacobs, reading directly from the teleprompter. “My next guest is the crime novelist Harry Clifton, but today we’re not discussing one of his works, but a book he smuggled out of the Soviet Union.” Jacobs held up his copy of Uncle Joe, which filled the whole screen.