An Accidental Affair (32 page)

“No wisecracks, James?”

“No wisecracks.”

“I’m disappointed.”

“The bill?”

“To start off, I want two cars. Two of your delicious cars. I want the next script. I want five million transferred to an account to be
specified next week. Regina will sign on to the project. Someone else could rise to the top on your words, but they will not on this script. Not the one that has everyone talking. And I want you to coax Regina into coming on board. If she passes on this one, I will show the public all that I have and make it so she won’t be able to get a reality show. She will work through my production company. Only her contract will be different.”

“You want enough money to buy an island, total control and top-shelf talent for free.”

“She will be paid.”

“You know what her asking price is, right?”

“She’ll work scale. Like the nothing she was when she came here.”

“You can’t leave her alone, can you?”

“I can leave her alone. I just can’t escape her. The same way Aniston can’t escape Pitt and Jolie. Debbie Reynolds couldn’t escape Elizabeth Taylor, not even when Taylor was on her deathbed. If we can’t fucking escape them, if we have to endure this ridicule and torture until our deathbeds, if that one relationship defines us, then we must use it to our advantage. No, I can’t escape Baptiste. She left me and went to you, but she’s never left me.”

“You threw her out, packed her up, sent her to me in a U-Haul.”

“But no paparazzi. If there had been no paparazzi, it would’ve been a private matter.”

“That was kind of you.”

“That whore made me seem like I am less of a man. Wonderful spin on my misery, don’t you think? Every direction I turn, I see her face. If I’m on a plane and read a magazine, I see her face. On the side of the road, a bus passes with her face. Every interview that I have done since then, her name has come up. Every interview, the same questions. Not about my work or my children, not about my skills as a gifted and underappreciated director. How did you lose the most beautiful woman on the planet? Anyway. Regina Baptiste and you,
James Thicke, even if no one knows who you are, you and your wife are a gold mine right now.
Boy Meets Girl
.”

“My most recent labor of love.”

“You took my labor of love. I want yours.”

“I could pen you another one.”

“No. I want
Boy Meets Girl
. Regina Baptiste, you’ll get her to sign on.”

“I’m married to her, but I don’t own her.”

“She loves you. Love is the invisible slavery. Love is a debt. She betrayed you and she owes you and because of that emotional debt, she will do whatever you ask. After what she did with Bergs, after what she did in front of the crew, the guilt she feels, the love and trust she has for a prick like you, and she’ll do it just to please you. And she’ll be in it with Johnny Bergs.”

“That in and of itself will be interesting.”

“Oh, it will be. Regina Baptiste. With the director she dumped in a screenplay written by the husband she cheated on starring with the man she cheated with. Can you see it now? Maybe I’ll hire her other lovers as extras. That poor slob she left back in Livingston would love to have a five-and-under. Regina surrounded by all the men that she’s either fucked or fucked over. But in this case, she’s fucked us all. Can you imagine the torrid interviews?”

I nodded.

He said, “Regina Baptiste. I lived for her, James. You destroyed that.”

“You fed her cocaine like it was pixie dust.”

“The problem was I just didn’t feed her enough.”

“You’re out of control, Holland.”

“Quite the opposite. I’m in control. I’m driving and I own the car.”

He turned his Mac desktop until it faced me again; the video was in a loop.

I said, “I don’t need to see the video again.”

He left the monitor facing me, that video playing over and over.

“So, my asking price is pretty low, thinking long-term here. How much money she would stand to make versus how she would lose or never make. She would be blacklisted overnight.”

“And you want my money and my cars to make it go away.”

“Ah, your toys look great in photo shoots. Your home and your toys, but you’re upside down on your mortgage, so your home has no real value at this point. Oh, they love your estate. They love it because she lives there. And she looked as if she owned the world when she took a photo in front of each of your cars, in different outfits.”

“The article was a nice puff piece. Pulled in the shallow and materialistic.”

“Loved the way she said that you were the first man she had ever loved. She told me she loved me a million times and all of a sudden you became the first man she loved. Never mind the boyfriend she left back in Livingston. There were other men. She discounted and devalued every man who’d ever come into her life until the moment she betrayed me for you.”

“Never knew you felt that way.”

“On national television she said that no man had ever been as good to her. She made every other man who had loved her nothing. My kids saw that. Kids that she lived with for three years; kids that she sat at the table with at Thanksgiving and Christmas, she didn’t mention. Not one word. I ceased to exist. They ceased to exist. Once my career wasn’t as good as hers, I ceased to be of value. She did to me what the studios have done to many. I was dedicated, but no longer profitable, so I was expendable and forgettable and regrettable and laughable. The wedding pictures were magnificent. You looked good standing next to her.”

“Okay. Looking around your office, you looked good next to her too.”

“But any man looks good standing next to Regina Baptiste.
Quasimodo would look like Prince Charming. You, her first love. Her first husband. She made it sound like she was a born-again virgin on her wedding night. The happy wedding pictures were everywhere. Regina Baptiste. The Girl From Livingston. Montana to Hollywood. It’s impossible to escape her.”

“You can’t escape her. She casts a long shadow. A very long shadow.”

Bobby Holland asked, “Enjoying the video?”

“Like a 9/11 terrorist enjoyed Gitmo.”

“James, I could fuck you in your ass right now. Or have someone else fuck you in your ass while I did a line of coke and sipped champagne and broadcast it live online.”

“You do have a noose around my neck at this point.”

“You’re mine. Like she was mine, now you’re mine too. Success buys access. With her name, once again I will have access to everything.”

“What’s the cost?”

“I told you.”

“Sorry. I was numb. I can hear better now. Repeat it for clarification.”

“It will cost you three cars.”

“You said two.”

“Well, now it’s three. I want five million of your money. Better yet, make that five point two five. Penalty for stealing what was mine. I want the rights to
Boy Meets Girl
. I want to own it. I want my name on it as primary writer. You can stay on as co-writer. No. As original story by.”

“Déjà vu.”

“You sued me. You rounded up the best lawyers in Hollywood and sued me.”

“And won.”

“You sued for conversion, for copyright infringement, for false designation, for violation of statutory rights, misappropriation, violation of privacy, everything but sodomy.”

“I don’t think sodomy is illegal in Hollywood. Not sure, but I can double-check for you.”

“Yes, I am still crossed about that. We’ll reduce you, even though you did the hard work, to being an idea man. I will take credit as the screenwriter. I want Regina Baptiste to sign on as the female lead. And I want Bergs to show up and do whatever it takes to make this a hit.”

“I can’t control Johnny.”

“Oh, but I can.”

“How?”

“Thanks to you, I have him.”

“What do you have on Bergs?”

“I have a noose around his neck and a vice grip on his balls.”

“If you say so.”

“Regina Baptiste and Johnny Bergs. I want them seen together at Jamba Juice. And I want Regina laughing like she’s a goddess sitting with a goddamn god. I want them seen on vacation together. On a beach with white sand, half naked and frolicking. Better yet, I want them photographed on the nude beach, Hawksbill Bay, in Antigua. I want her topless on Pointe Tarare and Seven Mile Beach. If I want them to fly off to Africa and adopt a baby, they will do that too. And I want them seen with the swingers going into Trapeze down in Fort Lauderdale. But for now, days of photo ops. Lots of talk about this wonderful moment they’ve shared. That will keep the rumor mill going. They’re a gold mine now. Their next movie will open with numbers that rival James Cameron.”

I said, “I’ll have my lawyer draw it up.”

“No, we’ll use mine. And my confidentiality agreement as well.”

“Sure. We’ll use yours. But my lawyer will have to review it.”

“You will sign it as is. But you can use your own pen.”

I paused. “Sure.”

“Right off the bat, as a sign of good faith, that will cost you three cars.”

“You are obsessed with my cars as much as you are obsessed with Regina.”

“I want them detailed and delivered within the next forty-eight hours.”

“Sure.”

“Losing those cars will hurt your pride, won’t it?”

“Sure will. But I can only ride in one at a time anyway.”

“I want the Maybach. I want the Bentley. I want your favorite and hers. I’ll text you the third. I haven’t decided. More than likely it will be the brand new Maserati.”

“I don’t have a brand new Maserati. Mine is two years old.”

“Then you’ll have to order me a brand new one.”

“And the cash?”

“The money will be transferred to an account in Norway within fourteen days.”

“Was hoping you’d accept a personal check.”

“No paper trail.”

Defeated in battle, bested by Bobby Holland, I prepared to stand up.

He commanded, “Sit. I’m not done with you. Not yet.”

I nodded at my new master and sat back down, a thin smile across my face.

He said, “I need the truth.”

“Sure.”

“Thicke, the paparazzi being outside your gates when she left your home after your nine-day fuckfest, the way they dogged her everywhere she went, she blamed that on me.”

“I know she did. I blamed that on you too.”

“
But I didn’t call the paparazzi
. I’m not that low.”

I said, “She was your most prized possession. You were a man scorned.”

“She was mine. And I loved her too much to shame her.”

“In other words, it would’ve been a bad career move.”

Bobby Holland stared at me. “The paparazzi.”

“What about them?”

“When she was at your home betraying me, how did they know where she was?”

“Did you have her followed?”

“I should’ve had her followed, but I didn’t. It could’ve been that guy who drives you around. He looks like he would sell you out. Or it could’ve been anyone who works on your staff. A cook. A maid. A gardener. The pool boy.”

“None of those people called.”

“Why are you so sure?”

“All of those people adored her from the start.”

“That leaves only one possible answer.”

“Which is what, Holland?”

He bared his teeth. “You called the paparazzi.”

My breathing smooth, I possessed a face devoid of any readable emotion.

He said, “It wasn’t me. It wasn’t anyone else, so you say. It had to be you.”

With much effort, I smiled. “I made that call. Holland, I called in the paparazzi.”

Bobby Holland raised his right hand and showed me his hidden gun.

It was a .45.

The eye of the gun looked directly at me, center mass.

The gun looked angry. But not as enraged as Bobby Holland.

Holland had pulled his hand from underneath his mahogany desk and there was his HK .45. My confession had stung Bobby Holland. In that heated place, where there had been strong hate for me before, now there was extreme hate. Rage and murder danced around in his eyes. He held the gun on me. Pointed it at the center of my face.

I said, “Just remember. Hard to get five million and three cars from a dead man.”

He held the gun until his arm started to tremble from either its weight or his frustration, then slapped the gun down on his desk. He picked it back up, walked over to me, and slapped me twice, once for each cheek. He took a breath and shook his head, outraged.

He went back to his king’s chair and sat down before he snapped, “Why, Thicke? Why?”

I touched my face. Bottom lip busted, swollen. Tasted my own blood.

Again he snapped, “Why?”

“I wanted her.”

“You called the paparazzi. You did this to me.”

“This is life, Bobby Holland. This is the big league. We take what we want.”

“You did this to me and my children, Thicke.”

I said, “I called the paparazzi, Holland.”

He shook his head at me and scowled. “
Why why why why why
?”

I snapped, “
Because I wanted her, you moron
.”

“Be careful what you say, Thicke. I could still shoot you.”

“You could’ve shot me when I first came in here.”

“You fucked her a few times and lost your mind. You could have had her and sent her back to me and I would have been none the wiser. That’s what we do in this town. You broke the rules, Thicke. You could’ve had your thrill and moved on to a hundred women who look better than Regina Baptiste. You had your notch in your bedpost and you could’ve moved on.”

“I wanted her for more than sex. I wanted her for more than photo ops at poolside with exotic kids and cute dogs. I wanted her to live with me behind my gates.”

“Were you lonely?”

“Yes, I was lonely. I was lonely and I wanted her to keep me from being lonely. But most of all, I wanted her to be happy. I wanted her off drugs. I wanted to force her hand. You didn’t see her there. You didn’t see her with me at my estate those nine days.”

“Everyone is happy at Disneyland, Thicke. The crippled, the terminally ill, everyone.”

“You didn’t see how happy she was when she was away from you. Letting her go back to a scum like you, no matter if she still loved you, would’ve been wrong. If I had let her go back to you, she’d be dead by now, career dead at best, physically dead at worst.”