LITMIR.BIZ

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to the chase, Bob,” Nick growled. “What’s the problem?”

      The bald man took a pencil from behind his ear and began tapping it against the printout he was holding in his hand. “I guess I’m just a little puzzled.”

      “About what?”

      “About your show over the last two weeks, Nick. What’s happened to the spice? The wit? Hell, you haven’t even included any of your trademark lawyer jokes in your monologue lately.”

      Nick flinched, unwilling to admit that he hadn’t found those jokes so funny since he’d tangled with a certain long-legged attorney. “You can run anything into the ground, Bob. I’m sure my listeners were getting tired of my attack on lawyers. It was time for a change.”

      “And you think this mumbo-jumbo about Congress passing a law to make gossip a felony is funny?” the editor demanded. “Hell, you’re attacking just about everybody on the planet.”

      Nick shifted in his chair, then sent his boss an angry glare. “So, it’s okay to attack lawyers, just leave the gossips alone, right?”

      Nick watched as his boss’s ears turned a light shade of pink. “Hell, boy, you’d better stop and think who it is you’re attacking. Those faithful listeners out there are mainly just regular people, going off to work every morning and depending on you to lighten their mood and give them something to chat about at the water cooler. It’s your humor that’s got you this far, son. Don’t throw that success away by attacking the little guy.”

      “And you learned that in Broadcasting 101, I suppose.”

      Leaning over the desk until his face was only inches away from Nick’s, the older man said, “Now, listen here, Nicky, I don’t know what’s had your shorts in a knot over the last few weeks, but I expect you to get over it and start giving me the type of show that got you syndicated in fourteen states and put all that damn money in your fat bank account. Now, get to work and give me an outline that will keep me laughing all day. Understand?”

      When Nick refused to answer, the station manager stomped out of the office and slammed the door behind him, leaving Nick sitting at his desk in a stew. Damn, but this week has already gotten off to a rotten start, he thought. He hadn’t been at his desk long enough to take his first sip of coffee when the vet called to inform him that Earl was going to be a daddy. The woman also insisted on examining Earl as soon as possible. For what, Nick had no idea.

      But with the way his luck had been running lately, Nick wouldn’t be surprised if Earl didn’t have some dreaded doggy social disease.

      Caught off guard by the call, Nick hadn’t objected when Dr. Bishop gave Earl an appointment for eleven o’clock that morning. Of course, once he thought things over, he was thoroughly p-o’d that the lovely Miss Collins hadn’t bothered to contact him herself. Nick resented being ordered around by a hired associate, and he intended to tell Miss Collins so himself before the day was over.

      Glancing at his watch, Nick sighed, knowing he barely had time to dash home and grab Earl, then hurry back downtown to make the damn vet appointment. Calculating he probably wouldn’t return to the office until well after noon, he figured he’d have only a few hours to do the new outline his surly station manager had just requested.

      “Damn, I hate Mondays,” Nick grumbled to himself as he grabbed his leather jacket from the back of his chair.

      Heading for the elevator, Nick ignored the scowling station manager and banged against the down button with the ball of his fist.

      “And where the hell do you think you’re going?” yelled his boss from across the cluttered radio station.

      “I’m going to see a lady about a dog,” Nick yelled back, then disappeared into the elevator, cutting off a string of angry curses when the doors finally slid together.

      “CALM DOWN, DEE, I can’t understand a word you’re saying,” Cassie said as she listened to the excited voice on the other end of the telephone line. However, when it finally registered what her best friend was trying to tell her, Cassie’s eyes grew wide with concern.

      “I mean it, Cassie, get out of that office before Nick Hardin gets there. I’ve never seen anyone so angry.”

      Cassie jumped from her chair and hurried to the window behind her desk. Peeking through the miniblinds, she searched the parking lot below her second-story window. She would have laughed if the situation hadn’t been so serious. Pulling into a parking space near the building entrance was Nick on his big Harley, with Earl perched between the handlebars looking like Snoopy in his Red Baron pose.

      “It’s too late, Dee,” Cassie gasped. “He’s already here.”

      Hurrying back to her desk, Cassie rummaged through her top drawer, searching for her compact. A madman was on his way to her office possibly to end her life, yet her first instinct was to make sure she’d make an attractive corpse. Satisfied with her appearance, she slipped the compact back into the drawer, then quickly flipped the intercom switch.

      “Sally, a man in a black leather motorcycle jacket is going to burst through the door any minute carrying a dog under his arm,” Cassie told the law student who was her assistant for the summer. “Give him an appointment if you have to, Sally, but don’t, and I repeat don’t let him into my office under any circumstances.”

      “I beg your pardon?” came a shocked reply from the voice box on Cassie’s desk.

      “Just do it, Sally,” Cassie begged, knowing that the young woman who had promptly adopted Cassie as her role model was probably now making the assumption that the usually professional Miss Collins had suddenly resorted to taking heavy doses of some mind-altering drug.

      Trying to quiet her rattled nerves, Cassie forced herself to pick up the brief she’d been working on, but tensed at the sound of raised voices filtering through her closed office door. Within seconds, her office door burst open and Nick stormed inside, holding his fuzzy companion in the crook of his arm.

      “I’m sorry, Miss Collins, he rushed past me before I could stop him,” the freckle-faced student wailed as she hovered in the doorway.

      “That’s okay, Sally,” Cassie said, then forced a smile at Nick when Sally quickly closed the door and sealed Cassie and the enemy inside the room alone.

      Show no fear, Cassie told herself, then calmly rose from her desk. “Is there a problem?”

      “I’d say that’s putting it mildly,” Nick growled.

      After plunking Earl down on one of the expensive leather chairs that faced Cassie’s desk, Nick pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his inside jacket pocket. When he tossed the paper on Cassie’s desk, she saw the name Dr. Dee Bishop printed across the top of the page.

      “Is this some kind of a joke?” Nick demanded.

      “Do you see me laughing?”

      “What I see is a woman who has a vivid imagination if she thinks I’m going to fork over fifteen hundred dollars for one vet appointment.”

      Cassie glared at Earl, who had not only spent the past few minutes digging at the expensive leather of her chair, but who now held one leg high in the air while he expertly licked himself where no human could. “The cost of passion runs high these days, Mr. Hardin.” Cassie nodded toward Earl. “If your dog had spent more time engaged in the activity he’s enjoying now, none of us would be in this mess.”

      Slightly embarrassed, Nick thumped Earl on the head, prompting the dog to stop the lewd performance and sit obediently in the chair. Locking eyes with Cassie again, Nick said, “Excuse the pun, counselor, but as far as I’m concerned, there’s never been a piece of tail worth fifteen hundred dollars.”

      Cassie blanched slightly but quickly recovered. “I have no doubt you’re well versed in what the going price for human flesh is these days,” she said, pleased when his eyes narrowed to tiny slits. “But I warned you from the very beginning that your negligence

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