New York Billionaires Series

But if he’s serious…

This would be true investigative work. Talking to someone, learning their tells, pressing them for information. Luring someone with a hidden motive to share more than they’d anticipated.

Audrey: You’re serious?

Carter: Dead serious. I swear it on your beloved coffee creamers.

Audrey: I’ll be there. One o’clock?

Carter: Sounds good.

I look over at Declan in his tweed blazer, as if he might somehow have seen. But he’s focused on the monitor and not on me.

The lunch place Carter chose looks nothing like I’d imagined. It’s hardly even a restaurant, and with a neon sign askew outside, it looks ready to be demolished. I step inside to the scent of stale beer and fries. It’s a dive bar, with a counter occupying one half of the restaurant and old newspapers covering the walls. They look yellowed with age.

“Audrey,” Carter calls. He’s sitting at a booth in the back, a vinyl menu splayed out in front.

I take a seat opposite him. “This place is… interesting.”

He looks down at his menu. “It is. New York journalists have frequented it for decades.”

“Really?”

“Yes. It’s got a fascinating history, you know. Secret meet-ups and off-the-record conversations.” He looks around the place, jaw sharp beneath his five-o’clock shadow. “Scandals about congressmen and senators, a leaked sex tape, wire fraud. All of it has gone down here. There’s a book about this place, actually.”

“There is?”

“Yes,” he says. “It came out about a decade ago. Never made it big-it’s a niche subject. I’ll send you a copy.”

“Right… thanks. And thanks for showing me this place.” I play with the edge of my notebook. “Why did you want to meet with me?”

“I told you,” he says. “I want to tell you my real plans for the Globe .”

“With no strings attached?” I open my notebook.

He reaches over and puts a large hand on the cover, shutting it firmly. “No strings, but this is off the record.”

“Then why tell me?”

His heavy gaze tells me I should already know. It clicks into place a moment later. He still wants us to be friends, for some reason. “Audrey,” he says, and his voice is low. “Hear me out before you judge me.”

I push my notebook to the far end of the table and put my pen on top of it. They’re out of reach. “Off the record,” I agree. “I’ll listen.”

He leans back in the booth. “You asked me if I’d considered that all the people I fired the other day had jobs. Livelihoods. Entire careers, of which the Globe was the pinnacle.”

“I did, yes.”

“I had. Every single person I’ve laid off at the newspaper was a well-thought-out decision. I promise you that. But,” he says, raising an eyebrow, “the Globe is dancing at a knife’s edge. Some of the department heads know just how bad it is, but not all.”

“A knife’s edge,” I repeat. “It’s one of the biggest newspapers in the country. In the world, even. Good investigative reporting is the backbone of a country. A free and independent press is the fourth estate.” I can tell my voice is getting passionate, and I shake my head. “It’s worth so much more than just dollars and cents.”

Carter looks amused. “Yes,” he says. “Free press being the key word. But the Globe is currently beholden to advertisers every single issue to keep it afloat.”This content provided by N(o)velDrama].[Org.

I frown. “I’d noticed a lot of ads. But most print media has that now.”

“Yes, because all of print media is struggling. You haven’t seen the numbers, Audrey, but if you had…” He shakes his head. “This place is a week, a month, from ruination. People don’t read the news anymore. They certainly don’t open their local newspaper to see which albums the music expert has reviewed when debating whether or not to buy a CD. Because they don’t. We have to adapt.”

“By firing some of our greatest people?”

“Not all have been fired,” he corrects me. “Some will work as independent contractors. Phil, for example, who you seemed so concerned about in my office last week. He will continue to write monthly op-eds for the newspaper. He doesn’t need to have a full-time office space and be on the payroll for that.”

“That’s job security,” I say.

“Only if the job continues to exist,” he says. There’s a seriousness to his expression now, like he wants me to get this. To believe him. “The Globe is a great paper, Audrey. I know it and you know it. But it will be a hard few months before this place finds a way to right itself from the nosedive it’s in.”

I sigh. “I didn’t know it was that bad.”

“It is,” he says. “What’s worse, I don’t like how much power the advertisers have. It compromises the kind of stories your department gets to tell.”

I lean back in my seat. His words strike me like a thunderbolt. I’d never thought of that before, not deeply, even if it had come up now and again during my classes in J-school.

If we’re really in such dire straits… “It’s hard to take in, that’s all. That these drastic changes are necessary.”

“I’m not trying to butcher the newspaper,” Carter says, and there’s a quiet, passionate note in his voice I haven’t heard before. “In time, I hope the others will realize that too.”

“But more people will have to go?”

“It’s either that,” he says, “or the newspaper goes bankrupt.”

I sigh, looking down at my menu without reading a single word. The letters might as well be in a different alphabet. “I want to believe you,” I say.

He has no reason to lie to me, no reason to get me on his side… but he’s every bit the moneyed, privileged, too-rich businessman I’ve read about a thousand times, in a thousand articles, slaughtering companies for parts and not caring about the employees.

“You should,” he says. “Have I ever steered you wrong?”

“You have spectacularly bad judgement sometimes,” I say, unable to stop myself. “Like when you suggested I go on a date at Cake.”

“It’s a nice place,” he says. “I’ve been on plenty of dates there. The guy you went out with last week, the insurance agent, he would’ve liked it, I’m sure.”

“Yes, but Cake has a two month waiting list. You live in an ivory tower.”

He frowns at me. “It does?”

“Yes. How do you usually book a table?”

“I call them, or my assistant does.”

“And you say your name?”