David Peckerstabbed impatiently at his veal piccata.
Wed been having a cordial business lunch, but he was growing frustrated.
This could be an important journalistic venture, he said.
David Pecker answered questions on the witness stand this week in the Donald Trump hush-money trialElizabeth Williams via AP
That may be true, I replied, but I dont care to be part of it.
We exchanged a friendly handshake and he picked up the tab, but no deal was made.
It involves a catch and kill genre story one at which Pecker had become a master.
TheEnquirer, long a suppository at newsstands nationwide, practiced what Pecker himself described as checkbook journalism.
Insiders were paid for stories, real or fabricated, and often paid more for killing them upon demand.
But Pecker had wanted more.
Although newsy and widely discussed, theEnquirerhad also become dangerous, its toxic stories steeped in litigation.
He was infamous for hisEnquirerrole, but he had decided the time had come to diversify.
Hence our business lunch.
You have written hundreds of important byline stories inThe New York Times, he told me.
Then you moved on to become a Hollywood executive and insider.
You know the newsmakers, so now its time for you to find a new venue to exploit them.
It would offer sensation without sleaze a sort of populistVarietywith bigger stars and sexier subtext.
Personally, I rather enjoyed Peckers company and his veal piccata and guiltily liked his war stories.
His ambition, however, clearly had become a fatal trap, committed to the poisonous pursuit of Trump.
He himself inevitably would become a victim of its destructiveness.
In retrospect, I was not flattered by his business offer.
