The Movie (34 page)

Mercifully quickly they reached the ground floor, and Eleanor crossed over to reception to check out. As soon as she had signed off on the form she turned left and walked into the lobby, looking for Tom.

She found him right away.

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Goldman was standing by a huge black leather sofa, dressed in a nondescript grey suit, and looking awkward and guilty.., and.., happy? And with a start of absolute disbelief Eleanor saw that Jordan was standing next to him, dressed in a fussy purple pantsuit, one hand fimly clasping her husband’s. -

Eleanor’s mouth dropped open before she could pull herself together, but recovering at lightning speed she walked up to them.

‘Jordan! This is a surprise,’ she managed. ‘I thought you were back in LA.’

‘Oh I was,’ Jordan squeaked, her face a mask of childish delight, ‘but I caught a reallate flight last night and got over here first thing in the morning. I wanted to meet Tom here and surprise him in person.’ She turned coquettishly to her husband.

‘Can w tell Eleanor, honey? I wanted you to be the first to hear it, but now…’

‘Yeah,’ Goldman said, not meeting Eleanor’s eyes. He looked away, subdued, embarrassed. ‘Go ahead.’

‘Eleanor, I just know you and Paul will be sooo happy for us,’ Jordan cooed, squeezing Tom’s hand ostentatiously. ‘It’s so fabulous[ Isn’t it, sweetheart? We’re going to have a baby!’

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R.oxana Felix and David Tauber sat together at a corner table in the small, elegant dining room of Lutece, eating lunch. Nothing about David Tauber’s manner proclaimed himself to be excited about this: he ordered comfortably, he ate slowly, and he never so much as glanced at another ‘table. But inside, he was thrilled. The hum of discreet conversation all around him had the music of money rippling through it; this restaurant was where Wall Street mixed with Hollywood and flirted with the Social tegister, and normally he would have had to wait weeks for a table. Sam Kendrick might have been able to breeze in’here, but not him. Not yet. But add a forty-million dollar supermodel to the equation, and it was a different story.

P,.eservations had fallen over themseFces to accommodate him. The maitre d’ had rushed to seat them as prominently as possible. And David Tauber had the very pleasant sensation of knowing that here, in one of New York’s most exalted meeting phces, the great and powerful were ogling his table, and not the other way round.

Word of this lunch would leak out, he knew. It would send shockwaves of fear through the fat little fucks at Unique, tLoxana’s model agency. And it would be another feather in his personal cap - since he’d signed her, loxana had been dealing more through Sam Kendrick than through him. For some reason. Well, obviously that was all about to change.

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‘Won’t you have a little more champagne, loxana?’ he asked solicitously, extending the bottle of vintage Tat tinger towards her.

‘Not for me.’ Ms Felix shook her lovely head. ‘I have to watch my figure.’

Tauber laughed, and Poxana smiled encouragingly at him.

The two of us are so alike, he thought. She’ll stop at nothing to get what she wants. She’s already demonstrated that beyond doubt. My God, I remember when I didn’t even think I could persuade Artemis to look at the bitch’s test. And she sees herself in me. She knows I can be useful to her. Face it, she didn’t call me out here for the pleasure of my company.

‘Your figure is beyond perfect, loxana.Just like the rest of you,’ Iavid purred. ‘And I bet your photographers out here are saying exactly the same thing.’ He shrugged boyishly. ‘We poor movie-business types have to hope the

Jackson people will let you go in time for a few rehearsals.’ Tll go when I feel like it,’ Poxana said. ‘Of course.’ He was all deference.

‘And I didn’t ask you here to discuss my figure.’

David leaned forward. ‘You know your wish is my command, loxna.’

loxana Felix regarded her agent through faintly narrowed lids. Hmm. He was good, no denying it. He’d dressed appropriately-Hugo Boss suit in dark charcoal wool, Turnball & Asser paisley tie, no embarrassingly loose Angeleno style. And he hadn’t so much as looked away from her once.

See the Lights was about to go into rehearsals. One week of those, and they were on location in the Seychelles. That was when the fun would start.

Once she was on camera, she would be impossibly expensive to replace. She wouldn’t have to take any more

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crap from that prissy bitch Eleanor Marshall and her mousy little screenwriter protgte.

It was going to be good. Establishing herself as a true star would be her first priority, but revenge would be number two on the list. Payback time. For every one of them that had insulted, snubbed or thwarted her.

Zach Mason. Eleanor Marshall. Sam Kendrick. They all had it coming.

But Megan Silver, the dumpy little nothing, Megan Silver who had flat-out turned down her requests to have her meagre part beefed up, Megan Silver, who had deliberately attracted Zach when she, loxana, wanted him - Megan was going to pay the most dearly.

This was going to need delicate handling, though. And that was why she had summoned Tauber to New York. Because loxana had some serious plans, and they went beyond just getting a few people fired.

She’d learned some valuable lessons during her time in LA. Dear God, she hadn’t been screwing Howard Thorn for nothing. She was going to get more than real fame out of this movie: by the time she’d finished, she would’ve shifted the goddamn power balance, at Artemis, at SKI, and socially.

Those pathetic sun-dried assholes had thought they could patronize her!

loxana’s fingers tightened imperceptibly round the stem of her champagne flute. Even David Tauber thought he was using her. Did he truly believe that she could be manipulated with some decent pecs and a cosmetically whitened smile?

‘Have you seen a lot of Megan lately, David?’ she asked sweetly. ‘Such a nice girl. I always hoped you two would get together.’

David nodded. So that was it. His orders from the Electric City concert had been confirmed: take Megan out of the picture, so I can concentrate on Zach.

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‘I haven’t been round to Megan’s since the concert,’ he said, ‘but I’ve been meaning to see a lot more of her.’

‘Good.’ His mistress was pleased. She shifted on her chair, displaying that magnificent body for him as it slithered luxuriously around under her amethyst silk Donna Karan slip dress.

‘How is Zach?’ David added. Let her know he was calling his marker. After all, like the old Mafia guy said - I don’t do favours, I collect debts. ‘Just wonderful,’ tLoxana purred. Tm sure he’s as happy with you as I am, David. I’m sure he’ll be boasting about being one of your discoveries in as many interviews as I shall. After all, Zach, Megan, me - See the Lights is really your movie, isn’t it?’

David Tauber felt the warmth wash fight through his body, with a swift jolt of adrenalin following in its wake. Great. Sh was going to play with him. She would repay him. A few well-placed comments with the trades and his

star would be shooting up faster than ever. He’d have Kevin Scott fired. He’d walk out of SKI.

With 1Loxana and Zach hitched to his wagon there was no limit, Tauber realized. He suppressed an urge to clench his fists. No limit at all. He wouldn’t have to try to impress Sam Kendrick any more - he could be Sam Kendrick.

Forget about money. Forget about coke. Forget about sex. Power, power was the only drug, and power was what lq.oxana Felix was offering him.

‘It’s good of you to say so,’ he replied.

‘Oh, but I do say so.’ P,.oxana speared a forkful of lettuce. ‘And if you ask me, David darling, you should be exercising a little bit more control over it.’

‘More control?’ Tauber looked blank. ‘How could I do that?’

The supermodel looked at her agent, a tiny half-smile. playing across her blood-red lips. ‘David, you don’t really

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know Jake Keller, do you? He’s the number two to Eleanor Marshall over at Artemis. He has some interesting ideas about this movie… I think you two would get on just fine. Perhaps I should arrange for you to play a little tennis?’

For a second Tauber sat there, frozen, his mind racing at a million miles an hour. Jesus fucking Christ. What was the bitch proposing? A conspiracy? Was she out to get Eleanor Marshall? Who did she have in her pocket? And could he risk it? Because if you weren’t with Roxana Felix, you were against her.

He was only treading water at SKI anyway - and he’d always-hated the idea of women running studios. They shouldn’t run anything except errands.

‘What a good idea,’ Tauber said smoothly. ‘I could do with some work on my backhand.’

Flowers. They were everywhere she looked: huge, vulgar, ostentatious bunches of them, baskets stuffed full of them, wreaths and pot plants and every variety knownto man. Ex)ery designer florist in Beverly Hills must be laughing their heads off, Eleanor thought bitterly. She couldn’t walk into the Artemis executive offices without being overpowered by a wash of different fragrances, assaulted by an ice-cream medley of colours; hyacinth, irises, jasmine, tiger-lilies, snowdrops - where the hell had Isabelle Kendrick found snowdrops in July? - and piles and piles of roses. Peonies and poppies were stacked next to orange blossom and orchids on every secretary’s desk. Some of the arrangements were in cutesy shapes-a teddy bear of white chrysanthemums, a stork made entirely of cornflowers. Many of them were colour-themed in pastel pinks and blues.

Jesus, but this town was tacky when you thought about it. Eleanor tried to ignore the living gauntlet that she had to

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run on the way into her own offce, the one space in the building mercifully free from greenery. On the second day after word of Jordan’s pregnancy had leaked out, the overflow of blossoming tributes had gotten too much for Tom’s secretary, who’d innocently enquired if Eleanor would care for some pale pink tulips or light blue roses, only to be told frostily that the president suffered from hayfever. A manifest lie, Eleanor knew, but what could they do about it? She wouldn’t take any of Tom’s goddamn flowers. She was still president here. That was one thing she could rely on.

Eleanor sat in the spartan, businesslike fortress of her office and bent her head, examing the latest projections for Looking Good, the Artemis comedy that had opened the week before. The figures were creditable, but Eleanor didn’t see them. They swam before her eyes, meaningless, unimportant.

Oh, dear God. All she could feel was the pain. It occupied her thoughts one hundred per cent of the time, drumming its agony deeper inside her with every pulse of her broken heart. Her skin was sallow from lack of sleep. Her eyes had dark shadows under them, and she was losing weight rapidly as her appetite slowed and died. How she got through each day was a mystery to her. How she had managed the journey down fromJFK to-LAX, with Jordan sitting in the seat beside her, babbling excitedly on for the whole five hours, she could not even remember.

Eleanor knew she was still well dressed, even if she no longer bothered with make-up: After all, clothes were a form of armour. And she got through meetings with no perceptible loss of control; the words flowed smoothly enough.

But behind her cool gaze Eleanor Marshall was a zombie, going through the motions. Years of businesslike behaviour had provided her with an automatic pilot, and she was just coasting along, utterly out of control.

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The Panasonic on her desk buzzed.

‘Yes, Mariah?’

‘Mr Keller on line one,’ her assistant chirped. ‘Thank you,’ Eleanor said, hitting the button. ‘Jake.’ Her deputy’s voice was brisk and calm, no hostility to it at all. ‘Eleanor, I’ve got some more See the Lights budget items for you to sign off on, and a few location ideas. Is it OK if I come over and run ‘em by you?’

‘Thanks, Jake,’ Eleanor said lisdessly. ‘That would be great. Why don’t you bring them across now?’

A week ago she would have told him to wait until she was through with what she was working on. But who cared?-Now was as good a time as any. Jake was suddenly

cooperative, running off sheet after sheet of budget plans,

‘production expenses, location arrangements. She’d thought all that stuffhad been sorted out, but apparently it needed changing. Fine. Keller could change what he wanted.., what did it matter? Minor alterations. Small adjustments. Whatever.

Two minutes later Jake Keller was in his immediate ‘ bss’s oflfice, clutching a revised set of forecasts and some new site decisiom. The significant changes were buried in the middle of the third page, in a couple of clauses it had taken him all of last night to work out. They weren’t hidden, though - they were clearly laid out, in language nobody could fail to understand. That was the way it had to be. If she signed these documents, the responsibility for them had to be hers-dearly, and without room for doubt.

Keller advanced towards Eleanor, holding the memos out to her. His heart was beatingin a nervous samba, but he was sure it didn’t show. And if it did, would Eleanor pick up on it? Would she notice anything?

Not in this state. He had to bet on that. She looked like shit, she looked really ill. Her cool blonde head had been someplace else all this week, andJake Keller was not a man to let an opportunity like this pass him by. He’d had the

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ultra-intelligent Ms Marshall signing off on proposals an intern would have objected to. Signing off on the presidency, he hoped. But these were the big two, two simple, unrectifiable errors that he was praying would get her approval, right on the dotted line.

‘Sorry to keep bothering you with this stuff, but it’s best we get it right,’ Keller said, watching the president’s eye skim over the first page of close print. Keep her talking, keep her involved, make her trust you. ‘Don’t you think so?’

‘Sure,’ Eleanor said blankly, turning to the second page. Keller felt the roof of his mouth dry up. She was reading it. Was she taking it in? ‘Are you planning to go but on location yourself?.’