“Of course you have to go. And it’s for a good cause.”
“You mean the kids’ charity it benefits?”
She laughed. “No. I mean International’s stockholders.”
“Just tell me one thing: are you always thinking about the business?”
“Let me tell you a couple of things. One of them I already did: Directors get depressed when their movie is finished. It’s natural. Everyone gets depressed when the shoot’s finished. That’s why we have wrap parties, to try to soften the blow.” April took a sip of her drink. “The other thing, Mr. Broadway, is, every director fucks his star, and every star fucks her director. It’s never love, and rarely even respect. It happens because it gives a level to the communication between director and actress that they wouldn’t have without it. Sometimes it shows on the screen. It’s good for the picture.”
Sam grinned and shook his head. “You’re a real piece of work, April. I appreciate your loving concern, but how come you’re so worried about me? I’m a big boy, I can take care of myself. If I’m down, I’ll get back up. And one actress doesn’t a love affair make. Don’t have any illusions, April. A good fuck is a good fuck. And when it’s over, it’s over.”
April was surprised by how much she liked this guy. This was almost fun. “So why the doom and gloom?”
Sam paused, sipped his drink, put it down on the table, and looked directly at her. “I have some decisions to make. I have to decide on my next job, whether I’m going to stay out here or go back to New York…I have a lot on my mind.”
“Well, let me give you some more to chew on. How would you like to do another movie for me?”
“You rejected my plays.”
“I didn’t say your plays. I said a movie.”
“What movie?”
“Forget about that, and just answer the question. How would you like to work with me again?”
Sam let a grin cross his face. “I’d rather eat broken glass,” he said, still smiling.
“I don’t know how to take that. It means yes if you like eating broken glass, and no if you don’t. So which is it?” She was smiling back at him now.
“I’ve got to give you this, April. You do know how to get things done. I’ve never worked with anyone who was so on top of things. Seymore was a shmuck. But getting a decision out of you is a pleasure. Watching you arrive at one is also a pleasure.”
“So I’ll take that as a yes. And I’ve made one of my famous decisions. I want to do a remake of Birth of a Star. I managed to snag the rights to it. I’d like you to direct it.”
Sam stopped smiling, looked away, and shook his head. “I don’t do remakes.”
“Did you ever see the original?”
“No,” he admitted, a little sheepishly.
“Good. So for you it won’t be a remake. It’ll be original. Now, will you do it?”
“You have a script?”
“You want to write it?”
“I swore I would never work on someone else’s story.”
“You changed your mind. Hey, it’s a classic. Guy on the way down falls for girl on the way up. Love affair. Disaster. But we set it all modern. Liberated. Nineties.”
“Who for the male lead?”
“Michael McLain.”
“Michael McLain? Jesus Christ, April, the guy is over the hill.”
“Exactly. It’s called typecasting, and a brilliant stroke of genius, if I do say so myself. Plus, he’s cheaper than he used to be, and reliable. I hear there’s trouble on his latest deal, a Ricky Dunn movie that might not happen. After Akkbar, if it falls through, he’s got to give this everything he’s got or he’s out of the arena.”
Sam thought for a moment. “Who for the female lead?”
“Suggest someone.”
“Don’t know. But if we’re getting McLain ’cause he’s really on the slide, let’s get someone really on the way up. Cinéma vérité.”
“Like who?”
“Maybe Phoebe Van Gelder. Or the girl who was featured in that last Redford thing.”
“It’s a possibility.”
“Or how about one of the girls from the Marty DiGennaro thing? They’re getting beaucoup publicity, and I think they’re going to be hot now.”
April looked at him, nodding in thought. Wasn’t one of them the daughter of Theresa O’Donnell? She’d starred in the other Birth of a Star. That would be good for lots of press coverage. “I don’t know. Television isn’t the movies.”
“Only movies are the movies. But the casting would be perfect. They’re new, they’re fresh, and any one of them would be great juxtaposed against the old harlot Michael McLain.”
“Plus, it doesn’t hurt that they’re gorgeous and very fuckable, right? But can they act?” April laughed. “I’d rather go with a movie neophyte than a TV star.”
“But one of them might be able to make the transition easily.”
“Sure, that’s what they said about Tony Geary.”
“Who?”
“My point. The balding guy from General Hospital. Luke of Luke and Laura. Tried the big screen.”
“I never saw him.”
“Neither did anyone else.”
Sam sighed. “Well, there’s a lot of talk about the show and them now. Wouldn’t it be a good thing to check it out?”
“Talk is cheap, especially talk before the show is out. But if you’re interested, I could get an advance copy and we could screen it.”
“Come on. No one can even get in there. DiGennaro is a nut about secrecy.”
“I can get it.”
It might even be interesting, she thought. And if it pissed off Marty, it might be worth it. Yes. Yes, it certainly might be.
Sam turned his body toward April, and looked at her. “Do you know everyone and everything?” he asked.
“Everyone and everything worth knowing,” she told him, and slowly licked her blood-red lips.
21
Lila came back to Robbie’s house from a long day of househunting with a dreadful headache. She climbed into bed and prayed he wouldn’t bother her. She rubbed her forehead and tried to adjust the pillow so that her neck was supported. The Malibu sunlight had made her eyes water and intensified the pain at her temples. But now, at least, she knew her stay here was ending. She’d have the chance to get away from Robbie and his constant prying and badgering. She’d rent the Nadia Negron house—the home of the silent-film star who had played the lead in the very first Birth of a Star. It was more than a coincidence—she was destined to live there.
Because she needed a place of her own. Marty DiGennaro and 3/4 were only a stepping-stone to the larger career she wanted. It was nerve-racking not knowing if the show was any good or not. If it came out and flopped, she knew that the Puppet Mistress would do a victory dance. And that Ara would dump her. Even Robbie would be disappointed in her.
Well, if she had her own place, she could have more privacy, more control. And maybe, just maybe, she could bear to let Marty DiGennaro touch her, if that was what he wanted. But first she had to make sure he wanted her badly. Really, really badly. And she knew how to do that.
There was a knock at the door, that annoying whisper of a knock Robbie used when he wasn’t supposed to be knocking at all.
“What is it?” Lila asked, exasperated.
Robbie rolled in, the cordless phone in one hand, his face an exaggerated moue of excitement.
“It’s your director,” he whispered.
Inwardly, Lila smiled. But she only winced before Robbie. “Oh, God. Not again. Why didn’t you say I was out?”
“Because it’s Marty DiGennaro, the biggest director in Hollywood and your boss. That’s why. Can’t you make an effort, for heaven’s sake?”
Angrily, she reached out for the receiver. She wondered what pretext he would use now. A private screening? An extra run-through? Since shooting started, Lila felt that Marty had become more and more insistent on seeing her outside of work. But she had to make sure it was
only her that he wanted. Not just any of the three of them.
“What is it?” she asked into the receiver.
“What’s the matter, Lila? You sound ill.”
“I have a headache.”
“I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have bothered you if I’d known.”
“That’s all right. What is it?” she repeated, but she did feel a little better.
“I wanted to know if you could have dinner with me. But not if you don’t feel well.”
“Call Jahne or the dumb one. You could eat with them.”
“Oh, come on. Are you really sick? Would you like me to bring over anything? Advil or chicken soup?”
“No thanks, Marty, I’ll be fine. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Okay. But I hope you feel better soon.”
“I doubt it,” she told him.
But by the time she’d hung up and Robbie left her, Lila found her headache had gone away.
22
The uncharitable in Hollywood would call Michael McLain a pimp, but they would do so quietly. He was too powerful and well connected to insult to his aging, pretty-boy face. If you asked for Laura Richie’s opinion—and why shouldn’t you?—I would agree, but I would add that he was a dual career pimp. Like Sy Ortis, Michael McLain had decided to try and keep the bodega. As a young actor, he had foreseen that the tides of stardom did not flow predictably. If he could have a fallback position, something that kept him in the public eye for those times when his current movie did not, he would be far better positioned to weather the storm.
And what better position than a recumbent one? Michael’s policy was to bed the hottest Hollywood newcomer. If his first career was being a movie star, his second career was making love to, and headlines with, the most beautiful, wanted women on the planet. Nice work if you could get it, but work it was. Michael had schooled himself not only in his sexual techniques but also in those dozens of small wooing gestures and comments that made him irresistible and indispensable to the girls who became the Hollywood flavors of the month.
And if, when the flavor lost its tang, he moved on, who could blame him? Everyone else did the same. That was the nature of a flavor of the month. After all, who wants a steady diet of Pecan-Walnut Fudge? Certainly not Americans. They want their Cherry Garcia to be followed by Cashew Rocky Road, and after an addiction to Rain Forest Crunch, a switch to French-Mocha Praline is not only pleasant but necessary. After all, he never promised them forever. In fact, Michael McLain was very careful: he never promised them anything.
Michael now lay on the portable massage table that his therapist had set up for their weekly session. Clear plastic tubes lay on the table beside them. “Roll over,” Marcia told him. Each week, she administered a high colonic to Michael, as well as another two dozen stars and spouses of stars. Michael insisted on the clear tubing, to be sure that she flushed out enough material. “A clean colon is a healthy colon,” he always repeated. His crazy sister had turned him on to Marcia, and for once she made sense. The time he spent on the table was the time he used for thinking, and he found that, despite the discomfort of Marcia’s hose pushed up his butt, the satisfaction in watching those toxins flushed past his line of sight soothed him. He did his best thinking then.
Now he was considering how he might proceed. There was no doubt in his mind that he could win the bet with Sy and have all three of the girls from the new show. To accomplish it would not be easy. Still, Michael was a veteran of difficult campaigns and almost never took no for an answer. Plus, the prize was so alluring. Not the women—long ago, Michael had begun considering them more work than treats—but star billing over that little prick Ricky Dunn. The kid was as hot as Michael had been twenty years ago. Everything Ricky touched turned to box-office gold. If Michael could maintain star billing over Ricky and also get fresh exposure to that sixteen-to-twenty-one-year-old crowd, he knew that he could really score.
So how could he score with the three new TV pussies? He felt a sudden cramping in his gut as Marcia turned on the water. “Hey, watch it,” he told her sharply.
“Sorry, Michael.”
He shifted on his knees, his butt still raised high in the air. He felt the pressure as the water continued to press up into his intestine. “Ouch,” he cried, and looked toward the plastic to see if more than the usual feces was breaking away.
“Sorry, Michael. Have you been eating red meat?”
“No, goddamn it.” He was sick of being blamed for her incompetence. He hadn’t eaten red meat since 1981, for God’s sake. A lot of other therapists would die for the chance to do his colonics. “Watch it,” he told her, and tucked his knees tighter under his chest.
He considered the girls. He had seen that Sharleen, the blonde, would be no problem. He’d done some checking, and it seemed that she was living with some kid, but that didn’t trouble him much. After all, he didn’t want a relationship with her. With the right setup, it seemed like it wouldn’t take more than a couple of dates to be photographed together. Trash like that would probably be willing to do it in the limo. That would give him a witness for Sy Ortis, in case he needed one.
Jahne Moore, the dark-haired one, seemed a little more problematic. Word on the set was that she and Lila Kyle did not get along. Should he let her and Lila know that he was pursuing both of them? Let them do the work of pursuing him? If they didn’t like each other much, did they dislike one another enough to be jealous? Would they compete for him the way they competed on the set?
He grunted as the suction in his gut intensified. Nah, he didn’t think that approach would work. Jahne Moore was a New Yorker, playing at the serious-actor bit. Maybe he could work on that. After all, when he first came to Hollywood, he had made some arty-farty films. But had little Jahne Moore ever heard of them? They were two decades old now, probably older than she was.
Of the three, it was Lila Kyle who troubled him most. He doubted she could be easily impressed with the star razzmatazz. Of course, with only an unaired TV show to her credit, she was not a star yet. But she’d watched that game her whole life. He had heard not only about her bratty behavior but about how Marty DiGennaro had begun to cater to it. If so, Michael would have to come up with something even more attractive than copping all the close-ups on your television show. That was a tall order. Michael smiled. Maybe Lila would like the part of the female lead in the movie with Ricky Dunn. Of the three, Michael figured Lila was the only one worth pursuing into a relationship. Yes. If he made a film where Ricky got the girl, but he got her in real life…She would be striking in photographs, of course, but, more important, even if the TV show went down in flames, she was the newest generation of Hollywood royalty. Pictures of him with Lila would help him stay forever young. Michael smiled. More than twenty years ago, he had had a brief fling with Theresa O’Donnell—it was his older-woman phase. She’d been a maniac in bed. Like mother, like daughter, Michael thought.
The noise of the colonic device subsided. “All finished?” he asked.
“Clean as a whistle,” Marcia told him.
Sharleen heard the baseball bat as it connected with her father’s skull. Thunk. Thunk. She shut her eyes and turned away and heard a siren. No, it was a phone. She was dreaming that a telephone was ringing. The sound of the phone pushed through the haze of sleep, until she realized that she was awake, and the ringing telephone was the one on the floor next to their bed. She turned toward the sound, and saw the green illuminated dial of the clock: 8:53 P.M. She and Dean were in bed by eight most nights. After all, she had to be up by five. The three puppies at the foot of the bed snuggled more deeply into the blanket. She moved Dean’s paint-splattered arm from across her waist and placed it gently by his side, then leaned over the side of the bed and picked up the phone in mid-ring. “Hello?” she muttered, then cleared her throat.
“Hi, is this Sharleen?”
“Yes,” she said, sleepily. Who was it? Only Sy Ortis, Mr. DiGennaro, and Lenny, her business manager, had her new, unlisted number. Oh,
and Dobe, if he was picking up his mail. This voice wasn’t any of theirs, and Sharleen didn’t know anyone else that might call her. But the voice was familiar. She pushed her fuzzy brain to try and think.
“This is Michael McLain. Did I get you at a bad time?”
“Oh, come on.” Had one of the guys on the set gotten her number? Barry Tilden, the new assistant director, was always teasing her. “Sure it is,” she added, sarcastically. After all, she wasn’t a fool. Then she heard the laugh at the other end of the phone. Oh, Lord, it did sound like Michael McLain—just like in that scene in his movie The Last Stranger, where he’s challenged by the bad cop and, even though he knows he’s going to lose, he laughs.
“If I’m getting you at a bad time, please…” His voice trailed off.
“How did you get my number?” And, more to the point, why would Michael McLain—if it was Michael McLain—be calling me? she thought.
“Sy gave it to me. Sy Ortis. He’s my agent, too. I know it must be an intrusion,” he said, but it didn’t sound like he meant it. There was a slight pause; then he added, his voice lower, “Do you mind?”
“Are you really Michael McLain?” Sharleen asked. He laughed again. There was no mistaking it. Sharleen sat up, her back against the bare wall. Dean continued sleeping, unaware. “Mr. McLain, why, no, I don’t mind. But are you sure you got the right person?”
“If you’re the Sharleen Smith that’s the star of Marty DiGennaro’s new TV show, I do.” Then that laugh again.
“Costar,” she corrected. She wanted to be fair. “There is no star.” Dean stirred in his sleep next to her in the bed. He was exhausted from painting their new house all day, he had collapsed into bed before eight, too tired to eat anything more than the Big Mac she’d brought home for him. And Sharleen was happy to join him. She was tuckered out each night, too. She’d finished six straight days of shooting, but thank the Lord tomorrow was her day off. “Mr. McLain, could you hold on a minute?”
“Sure,” he said.
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