Chapter 12

Player was the polar opposite of Mode. The cool, sleek white and orange décor was replaced with brown and reds. It was a more open floor concept with an air hockey table, foosball table, small basketball hoop, several flat screen TVs showing women from the magazine and photography equipment scattered about the place. The conference area was a cluttered coffee table surrounded by red retro-style furniture. Scantily clad women mingled with men dressed in jeans, sports jerseys and untucked shirts. The casual feeling made the place seem like a clubhouse for the magazine's demographic, 18-39 year old male idiots with a preference for sophomoric humour and hot chicks.

Occasionally, Castle heard "boos" or "barks" from the group depending on the situation and caught Betty's body language. She'd stiffen, take a deep breath, set her jaw and valiantly try to continue with her task. In exchange for a brief tour by the creative director, a rotund man with receding curly brown hair, a beard and moustache, she had agreed to help with some administrative guidance.

"Thanks for the tour," Castle said.

"No problem," Uno replied hands shoved into his jeans pockets. "It's a small price to pay to have Betty help with the filing system. The kid tries, but she's better at filing her nails."

The "kid" in question was a perky but ditzy blonde named Ginger. She was wearing a tube dress that showcased her assets and gold hoop earrings. Castle watched Ginger look at Betty with almost wide-eyed awe as she tried to understand what the other assistant was patiently explaining.

"So what was it like when Betty worked here?" Castle asked.

"Well, I think a lot of people were intimidated by her," Uno confessed.

"Really?" Castle asked surprised. Betty was easily the shortest person in the room.

"Daniel was always going on about how good she was, and it may have caused some jealousies before she even arrived," Uno explained. "Thing is, he was right. Her motorcycle stunt went viral and tripled the number of hits on our website. The next issue became the bestselling in the magazine's history."

"So what happened when she left?"

Uno let out a low whistle. "I've never seen Daniel as angry as he was the day she went back to Mode. You could hear the fight all over the floor. It was like listening to your parents arguing."

Daniel was a fairly even-tempered kind of a guy but could lash out pretty viciously if mad, particularly if he felt betrayed. A dark scene unfolded in Castle's mind. A young woman with a job in a less than friendly workplace suddenly feels as though she's being stalked. She turns to a person she trusts, but has her trust been misplaced?

"I should have seen it coming when Daniel traded the track suits for button-down shirts," Uno continued. "A few days after she had left, she came back carrying two big mail bags like she was Santa's Little Helper. They were full of positive letters from Mode readers. Next thing we know, Daniel's back on the 28th floor."

As they watched Betty put a reassuring hand on Ginger's shoulder as the blonde flashed her a grateful smile, Castle wrote down a phone number on a piece of paper and passed it to Uno. "Call my agent. She'll figure something out."

"Figure what out?" Betty asked as she came over to them.

"An interview," Uno grinned. "Oh, I even got the concept. Derrick Storm has a different babe in each novel so we duplicate a scene from some of your books with you as Derrick Storm and one of the Player girls as your femme fatale. The hotter the better."

"We better go and let you get back to work," she said as a football flew by.

As Castle and Betty headed toward the elevators, he asked, "So what would your concept be?"

Betty tilted her head. "If it were for a Mode shoot, I'd suggest perhaps reproducing scenes from classic film noire movies with you as the detective and the models wearing vintage period haute couture."

Castle could visualize both concepts. One appealed to his ego while the other appealed to his sense of romance and the theatrical. It was a tough choice.

"Where to next?" Castle asked.

Betty thought for a moment. "Well, there's only one other place that might be of interest."

ooOoo

Author notes: The Ugly Betty episodes referenced in this chapter are 3.1 "The Manhattan Project" and 3.2 "Filing with the Enemy".