Private affairs : a novel by Judith Michael Page A

job?"
    "We'll write a manual," Matt said shortly.
    "We'll ask your help," Elizabeth cut in quietly. "All of you. You know the paper; we don't. But you'll be surprised at how fast we learn."
    "Bravo," said Wally McLain under his breath.
    Matt, cooler now, ignored Kirkpatrick's disdainful look and asked the rest of them for their comments. And as if floodgates had been opened, complaints poured out: major ones, minor ones, gripes they'd been making for years and new ones they thought of as they went along: wages, hours, vacation time, medical benefits, the lousy coffee machine, the obsolete darkroom enlarger, the former owner's crackpot decision not to buy computers.
    "The computers are being ordered," said Matt, who had been taking notes. He looked up to see smiles on the faces before him.
    "Well done," murmured Barney. In forty years he'd seen five different

    owners tackle the Chieftain, none of them off to this fast a start. "Maybe this old dog can learn some new tricks with it."
    "We'll all be learning new tricks," said Matt, grateful for some support. "Anything else?"
    "More sensation," said Cal Artner, long-chinned and narrow-nosed, his black eyes magnified by thick glasses. "Only way to sell papers. Dig up lots of dirt, sex, secrets—"
    "No!" burst out Wally McLain, young and handsome in the starched shirt his girlfriend had ironed for his first meeting with his paper's new owners. "Serious investigations. People in this town don't always get along, but if you read the Chieftain you think we're paradise. We should write about problems between Anglos and Spanish, and how we're getting ripped off by developers who build for the rich, ignoring local people who can't afford—"
    "We're not here to knock Santa Fe," Herb Kirkpatrick interrupted. "How many tourists would we have if word got around that the town is full of troubles?"
    "I didn't say troubles; I said problems."
    "Just as bad."
    "Bullshit."
    Mildly, Matt said, "I've always liked investigative journalism; we'll do a lot of it. Not to tear Santa Fe down," he added to Kirkpatrick. "To make it better. And to increase circulation. People like to know somebody's peering behind doors and over politicians' shoulders, reporting what's really going on in their town." He paused. "Other comments be-fore I make mine?"
    "Increase circulation how much?" asked Barney Kell.
    "Double it within a year," Matt said calmly.
    They stared at him. Elizabeth's pencil skidded on her notepad, though she kept her face still so no one would see her surprise. Matt had never told her that; they'd always talked about struggling to keep circulation at its current ten thousand, since it had been going down for the past two years.
    "Double it," mused Barney, his seamed face showing more approval by the minute. "How would you do that?"
    Matt started talking, going through the plans he and Elizabeth had worked on together. They would change the layout of the pages: wider columns, larger, easier-to-read type, more pictures, bolder headlines. They would increase investigative stories, buy a food section from a news-paper in Denver, a fashion section from a paper in Los Angeles, and run a new column by Elizabeth Lovell, "Private Affairs," about people in the

    area. They'd cut expenses to the bone, which meant no new equipment except for the computers already ordered. When circulation began to go up, they'd look at equipment, salaries, hours, benefits, and vacation time. "Until circulation shows a steady climb, you can expect to work longer and harder than ever before," he said flatly. "Elizabeth and I want your suggestions and criticism, but we make the rules and that's the first one: if you turn out a paper so good another ten thousand people want to buy it, we'll all get rewarded. Otherwise, we won't."
    "But the enlarger . . ." began the photographer, Bill Dunphy.
    "I'll take a look at it. That may be an exception."
    "And the coffeemaker," said Herb Kirkpatrick. "Coffee is essential to my health and