[Nina Howard has obliquely told Will that she will leave him alone if he pays her $50,000 for a silent restaurant investment, i.e. a bribe. He takes out his checkbook and begins writing, with an annoyed look on his face]
Hey, Will... we're journalists.
[Will stops writing]
I wish you hadn't said that.
What?
Everything would have been cool if you hadn't said that. You just talk too much.
You have a problem with me calling myself a journalist? Only the elite few who cover stories nobody cares about get to call themselves–
I've got a guy on my staff who got hit in the head with a glass door Thursday. His forehead wouldn't stop bleeding, but he wouldn't go to a doctor 'cause I got another guy who got beat up covering Cairo. And the first guy wouldn't see a doctor until the second guy saw a doctor. I've got a producer who ran into a locked door 'cause he felt responsible for the second guy. I've got an 18-year-old kid risking his life halfway around the world. And the AP who sent him there? Hasn't slept in three days. I've got 20-somethings who care about teachers in Wisconsin. I've got a grown woman who has to subtract with her fingers staying up all night trying to learn economics from a PhD who could be making 20 times the money three miles downtown. They're journalists. [his voice becoming quieter and more menacing] Come after me all you want, Nina. Come after me every day. Look through my garbage. Invent things out of thin air - that's what you're paid for. But you touch my staff, and you are walking into a world of hurt. I have an hour of prime time every night, and I will re-dedicate my life to ruining yours. I also want you to send a message up the chain of whatever back room machinery that's driving this that if I so much as smell Leona Lansing's perfume on any of this, I'm going to make a meal out of both of you, and I'm not going to stop until I'm done. Look at me... [waits for her to do so] ...And see that I'm dead serious. [voids the cheque] Restaurants are bad investments. Wait twenty minutes until you leave here.
[He gets up and puts his coat on].
Tough-ass speech. But you're not gonna win.
Nah, I don't care. I'm just a middle-aged man who never lived up to his potential. You don't want to be on the wrong end of me if I ever do. I got the drinks. [leaves]
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