Revenant Rising (13 page)
“There won’t be any change. The old rules still apply in this instance.”
“Then that means you’re turning down social requests as well?”
“It does. Unless I make ’em.”
“You’ll be disappointing a lot of A-list socialites and industry heavies if you don’t make the rounds.”
“Do I need the connections? Do I actually? Didn’t you say there’s three-four other record labels interested? What do I need with the social shit? The decision stands, so you’d better be thinkin’ of ways to get me out of breakin’ bread with Kingsolver because I am not sitting down with a bloke that’s out to rob me of both cash and creativity.”
“Interesting way to put it. I’ll see what I can do.”
“See that you do.”
As done with Bemus, Colin rather crowds Nate in the direction of the door, but Nate stalls the attempted bum’s rush with another of his withering glances, this time directed at the surroundings.
Obvious he is with this faultfinding even before putting it into words. “You must have noticed,” Nate says at conclusion of the prolonged appraisal, “you
had
to have noticed that along with being too small, this suite
has
seen better days.”
“As a matter of fact I
did
notice.” Colin yanks open the door to the hall and holds it open—wide open. “And a bit too small and a bit worn at the edges is very much to my liking, actually.”
As though he hadn’t heard, Nate goes on with the critique and remains planted just short of the threshold. “Given more notice, I could have arranged for something more appropriate, more accommodating of your special needs and requirements, but Bemus didn’t let me know until—”
“What the fuck do you mean ‘arranged’? What the fuck are you talkin’ about when you say Bemus didn’t let you know? Are you sayin’ you’ve been in on this all along?”
“That surprises you?”
“Are you saying Bemus was giving you my every move . . . starting in Denver?”
“He was only following orders and we had to cut it a little tight when you decided to leave L.A. on the red-eye.”
“Fucking hell!
Bleeding
fucking hell! Bemus is binned as of
now
! And you . . .
you
are on notice. You hear me?”
“Everyone on this floor hears you,” Nate has the balls to say.
“That is so goddammed insulting! Shit, you could be on the Institute Awards organizing committee!” Colin cranks up another notch.
“You’re being rash about Bemus. As I said, he was
only
doing as told.”
“Like he’s working for Nazis! And who
does
he work for, I ask you? Who pays his bloody wages, then? You think I’m gonna let that sort of disloyalty go unnoticed and just roll over and jump through another hoop? Now get the fuck out of here and don’t come back unless you’re called!”
Colin skims the heel of his hand off top of Nate’s perfectly tailored shoulder. Not precisely a blow, not enough of a shove to propel him out the door the way he got rid of Bemus. No, Nate has to do his own propelling when he finally recognizes threat level.
Nate’s near-poisonous presence lingers for actual minutes after his departure. For the first of those minutes Colin remains stationed behind the closed and bolted door as though the madly possessive manager might still be on the other side attempting to exert influence. Or Bemus, the turncoat, might have come back to reassert control.
A move to the windows and the splendid view of the park fails to evoke the yearnings felt earlier. Home and springtime are the farthest things from mind now.
He closes all the curtains, goes to the bar, opens a beer and sits down in front of the telly, tuning it to the music channel where he soon sees a replay of himself at the awards show. When the beer’s gone he returns to the bar, eyes a bottle of whiskey, rejects that notion and goes in search of the room service menu. The phone rings just as he’s about to place an order from the children’s page of the menu. He ignores the ringing. It could be Nate, intent on having the last word. And if it’s home calling they know the drill—to wait an interval then ring again.
Minutes after he’s finished placing the food order, the phone rings again. This time he picks up only to hear that it’s the front desk calling to say that a representative of Clark, Sebastian & Associates has delivered a packet for him and a hotel staff member will bring it up straightaway.
Minus a bodyguard and the direct involvement of a manager-overseer, Colin prepares to leave the pleasingly imperfect hotel suite. The notes and chordings for a tune he struggled with half the night are locked away with the working title “Angle of Repose,” a title Nate will no doubt disparage as inviting of misinterpretation, as was said of Icon-winning “Revenant.” But that will only happen if Nate is made aware of a work-in-progress and allowed to offer one of his sour opinions.
The subject of Nate and what to do about his smothering attentions occupied the other half of a sleepless night and wants to linger now when the priority is getting his unattended self to the meeting at David Sebastian’s offices.
Dressed in a modishly cut suit and a tieless dress shirt, he’s clean-shaven, and brushed, combed, and polished in all the right places. Armed with the packet of unread material sent round by the solicitors, he’s determined to arrive at Rockefeller Center with a minimum of fanfare.
The ride down in the lift and the passage across the hotel lobby are uneventful. Entry into a taxi on the park side of the hotel attracts no undue notice till the bloke behind the wheel turns out to be the only unjaded cabby in Manhattan. He’s the opposite of blasé about identifying his passenger and demanding a personal account of the hijinks at the Awards Show. Hijinks—the cabby’s irksome expression for something that needed doing—irksome enough to make Colin terminate the trip short of destination.
Leaving the taxi on Fifth Avenue is no sacrifice. Hiring a taxi was a concession to time rather than the condition of his feet—feet that feel fine now that he’s wearing socks and a pair of bespoke shoes.
Apace with the flow of humanity moving through the landscaped passageway towards the central plaza, Colin keeps his head down and goes unnoticed. At the core of the Rockefeller Center complex he homes in on a remembered feature—a glassed-in entryway—that always put him in mind of a Paris Metro station. Everything looks much the same as three years ago: the open-view restaurants either side; the colorful array of flags flying opposite; the gaudy statue of Prometheus below; the skaters in agreeable conflict with the spring flowers bordering the ice rink.
The office tower he enters is remembered by the grandiose artwork in the main lobby. In that lobby he collects a few sidelong glances whilst waiting for the lift. These glancers must be natives because that’s as far as the intrusion goes.
On the specified floor he’s met by a small pretty girl with curly red hair who blushingly introduces herself as Amanda Hobbs, assistant to Laurel Chandler, and escorts him to a conference room. He has no idea who Laurel Chandler is unless she’s David’s hand-reared new associate, the one Nate went on about yesterday.
In the large conference room the usual types—publicists, stylists, and marketers by the look of them—are segregated at one end of the long table, and members of Nate’s regular staff are clustered at the other. They all snap to attention once they recognize him; to a man and woman they all offer to see to his every whim and desire, but it’s only wee Amanda who thinks of practicalities by making a direct offer of refreshments.
He would like a coffee and he could use something to eat, breakfast forgotten in the rush to take care of everything himself. David Sebastian arrives before he can decide what to ask for. With David is an entourage dominated by Nate.
David extends a cordial welcome without going overboard.
“Good to see
you
again.” Colin replies with an equally restrained smile and remains fixed on the senior partner if only to avoid eye contact with Nate.
“And this is my new associate, Laurel Chandler,” David goes on to say. “She’ll be second-guessing me throughout.” David and Laurel Chandler laugh as though second-guessing were the rarest form of inside joke—some sort of clever, intimate practice known only to them.
Colin’s outlook is more than a bit cynical when he switches his attention to Laurel Chandler and takes her offered hand.
“Gah . . . aah,” he says upon finding himself face-to-face with the spectacular brunette from yesterday—the one glimpsed in the hotel lobby. “God is good,” he somehow manages to enunciate whilst holding on to her hand a bit longer than propriety would dictate.
“I’m sorry?” She cocks her lovely head at him then looks at David as if for support.
“You would have met Laurel yesterday afternoon when she came by your hotel to drop off the proposals, but you weren’t available when she called,” David explains.
“I left them at the concierge desk. I trust you received the information?” Laurel Chandler says.
Colin hopes he’s making the correct responses because his utter amazement still has him on autopilot. He must be doing all right, though, because now she’s assuring him that no harm was done by his missing her call,
“Don’t worry about it,” she says. “My car was parked at a garage near your hotel so I didn’t go out of my way.”
“Did I see you at The Plaza yesterday morning, near the main entrance?” He still can’t quite believe his eyes or his good fortune.
“Yes, you did. David and I had breakfast there and I was near the door when you arrived, Mr. Elliot.”
“Did you know who I was?” The question is left hanging because the meeting’s about to start.
Colin takes the seat assigned him halfway along the length of the table. Nate Isaacs, flanked by two yes-men, positions himself at head of table as though this is his home turf. David Sebastian, flanked by Laurel Chandler and her assistant, Amanda Hobbs, takes the place directly across from Colin and any twit can see where the power is and where the focus belongs. The extras—whoever they are, whatever the fuck they’re here for—vie for the ample remaining spaces; they could be the otherwise useless seat-fillers he saw employed at the Institute Awards ceremony to keep things looking tidy for the cameras.
Unbeknownst to Colin the first item on the agenda is an examination of how best to repulse rumors without adding to them and how best to set the record straight without inviting excessive subjectivity.
Where in bloody hell did this topic come from? Who asked for it? Colin aims a scowl at Nate that has about as much effect as religion applied to an atheist. The premise sounds ridiculous, even when spoken in David Sebastian’s dignified tones. The ensuing give-and-take soon proves even more ridiculous when the flaks and flunkies introduce intricate schemes that only skirt the real issues.
With few exceptions, everyone in the room appears to have forgotten he’s there. This is not a new experience and his response today could be the same as it was back in the old days when similar groups were regularly brought together to debate some sticky element of Colin Elliot, the commodity. He could amuse himself now, as he used to back then, by mentally ticking off the considerable number of people unnecessary to this discussion. He would if there weren’t something better to do.
Occasional stolen glances are not cutting it where Laurel Chandler’s concerned. He stops pretending his interest is casual, that the length of her eyelashes doesn’t intrigue him. Are they real? He decides they are and next wonders how long her lustrous dark hair is. Would the release of the clip holding it in a thick coil at the nape of her neck result in a moderate spill or something greater—one that would flow past her shoulders, actually? He’s captivated by the way her brown eyes catch light and the angle of her cheekbones reflect that light; he’s fascinated with the high bridge and narrow nostrils of her proud nose, the set of her strong jaw, the lift of her tapered chin, and the way her lips come together in perfect harmony. He’d likely worship her teeth if he could see them.