And now it’s up to me to retaliate.
Before, I was just putting on a show for Cheyenne Parris, agreeing to take Mona’s request to Jackie to see what happens. I figured Jackie would give it a quick veto and that would be the end of it. Instead, for some reason Jackie decides it’s time to right every wrong Hollywood has perpetrated on actresses over the years. God knows Jackie’s been on the wrong side of the industry’s patriarchal ways, with all the vicious rumors about her. When I spoke to her moments before that meeting with Stark, Jackie said, “You know, it’s time. What’s right is right.” I assumed she meant it in abstractly, not in the sense that she was going to march into the meeting and actually try to make it happen then and there.
Afterward, I was willing to just let Stark and Jackie hash it out, knowing that Stark would win, and then everybody could get on with the business of making movies.
Now Stark has made this about me.
I’m guessing he couldn’t resist taking a shot at his rival. In the past, though, such behavior was limited to a gloating email when he poached a client from me. This was nastier. Maybe he figured I’d back off my equal pay request if I thought Mona was secretly in his corner. That won’t be happening, though. The man obviously doesn’t know me as well as he thinks he does.
I send a quick text to Cheyenne.
Do you have T.J. Holland’s phone number?
I’m about to make it my mission to get Cheyenne Phillips the money she wants for this movie.
I am also going to make history and be the first agent to secure equal pay for equal work.
And I am going to assfuck Mason Stark in the process.
3
Mason
Link and I are on the 101, heading into downtown Los Angeles. Traffic’s not bad, considering it usually is utter madness on this stretch of highway. We’re in my two-month old Mercedes-AMG GT S, which I already love more than any woman I’ve ever been with. The car is a sleek two-seater in Magno Selenite Grey with black and red leather interior. I paid just under two-hundred grand for it, and it’s loaded with every high-tech feature available. Drake and I joke with each other about who’s got the best car, and he paid way more for his beloved Ferrari, but the truth is that he’s not really that much of a car guy. He talks a big game, but probably decided on the Ferrari after Googling “most expensive sports car.”
I bought my GT S, on the other hand, because every little thing about this fine automobile exudes sex. It’s jaw-dropping from the engine to the custom fifteen-thousand-dollar sound system. Even the floor mats came from some little dad-and-son shop in Idaho and are handmade out of military-grade rubber compound covered with wool from New Zealand sheep. The engine is five-hundred horses of raw power, but that’s secondary. What matters most is the look, which Mercedes officially says “seduces your gaze,” but which Mason Stark says “removes her panties.”
“How’s your sex life, my friend?” I ask Link.
Link is a fellow member of the Hollywood Bad Boys Club, a group my friends and I formed a few years back. Three of us found ourselves suddenly wealthy before the age of thirty and getting extraordinary amounts of ass. Drake Manning is a member, as is Los Angeles Lakers star Marcus Jennings – both as famous as they are rich, while I myself am not known outside of showbiz circles. Then there’s Link, who has neither fame nor wealth, but somehow gets more than his share of women because he’s a massive stone wall of pure unadulterated attitude. If there’s a real alpha dick among us, it’s Link.
Lincoln Jefferson rescued Drake and me from a bar fight back in college and we’ve been close ever since. He and Drake moved out to Hollywood a couple of years after I did, and Link found work in personal security – bodyguard stuff. I helped him get his first few showbiz clients and he’s doing well enough, but the other three of us have incomes that dwarf his. That doesn’t seem to faze him, and his gruff, muscular, tattooed persona is great fun to be around if you’re a guy. Women, though, seem to fear Link outwardly while secretly being drawn to him.
“Sex life?” Links considers the question for a second, then says in his deep, gravel-tinged voice, “Can’t complain, man. Pussy grows like palms trees out here.”
I laugh out loud. “That’s fucking poetic. We should adopt that as the official Hollywood Bad Boys Club motto.”
It’s great to see Link more or less happy these days, because life was horrible for him early on. He had one broken home after another. His dad left and returned to Mexico when he was still a toddler, leaving him alone with his Canadian mom and her cocaine habit. She got into harder drugs, eventually taking in a junkie boyfriend who was abusive to Link, still in elementary school at that point. Besides the beatings and constant verbal abuse, the two of them were more interested in buying drugs than food, and Link often went hungry. He even told me his mother sometimes gave the boyfriend blowjobs on the couch while Link was watching TV in the same room. He remembered strange men would enter the apartment and he would be shooed off to the bedroom so his mom could trade oral sex for crack or meth.
After his mom overdosed and died when Link was just nine years old, he bounced from one foster home to another, yet still managed to graduate from high school – practically a miracle, considering. With no college and bleak prospects, Link was able to find security work because of his tremendous size. Now the three of us are out here living the good life. No telling where Link would be if he hadn’t saved Drake and me from getting our drunk asses kicked that night.
Still, I often wonder what’s going on in his shaved head. He’s not much of a talker and keeps everything bottled up. Hopefully, he’s found some true peace of mind out here in la-la land.
We pull into the Staples Center valet parking area. I give the attendant a look when I turn over the keys to him and he knows exactly what I mean. One scratch is all it takes.
Link and I are running a bit late, so we bypass our normal pre-funk at the Hyde Lounge and head right for our seats. I had Lakers season tickets years before Drake did, only six rows up behind the opponent’s bench. Not bad seats at all, but Drake used the money from his first starring role to get four courtside seats, so now I usually give my tickets away to clients and sit with him. There’s a years-long waiting list to get courtside seats, but Drake somehow managed (read: bribed his way) to jump the line and get his four baseline tickets, near the corner of the court.
He and Allie are already waiting in their seats when Link and I show up few minutes before game time. The two of them have been together for seven or eight months now, and he’s the first member of the Hollywood Bad Boys to have that kind of extended relationship with a woman since we started our little club. We had pledged ourselves to remaining bachelors until we were at least forty years old, so it was disconcerting at first that one of us caved – and Drake Manning, no less, who can literally fuck any woman he wants.
Link and I get bro-hugs from Drake and regular hugs from Allie. She’s in jeans and a tight Lakers jersey with the number thirty-two and “Johnson” on the back. I smirk in Drake’s direction and he just shrugs.
“Nice jersey, Allie,” I say.
“Thanks,” she replies before realizing that I’m actually referring to the manner in which she fills it out. She finally gets it when sees the smirk, punching me in the arm and calling me a dick. This why Allie is so great, it’s almost like she’s one of us.
“Does ‘Johnson’ refer to Magic or to Drake’s penis?” I ask, meriting a harder bicep punch for my insolence.
We all liked Allie from the moment we first met her, when she stepped out of Drake’s pool changing room wearing nothing but a blindfold. Of course, she thought Drake would be waiting there alone, but instead found Link, Marcus and I. Anyway, Allie’s a great girl and a fucking Pulitzer-prize winning writer, so it’s totally understandable that Drake wants to explore the possibility of a long-term relationship with her. She also has the best, most spectacular tits I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen an awful lot of tits in recent years. So of c
ourse we find ways to kid her and Drake about them every chance we get.
The player introductions start and we settle back to watch the game. Marcus is the clear star of the home team, but he still gets as many boos as he does cheers because sports media has deemed him a selfish player. It’s blown way out of proportion, but it’s true that once the ball hits his hands, it seldom leaves them unless he’s shooting. A video surfaced on YouTube titled “MJ2 Doesn’t Like to Pass,” and it features play after play of Marcus taking ill-advised shots while teammates are wide open. Despite him hitting half of those shots, the video still makes him look bad. To make it worse, he despises the nickname MJ2, which a sportswriter gave him during his lone college season at Kentucky because he was supposed to be the second coming of Michael Jordan, an impossible label to live up to.
Tonight Marcus is on fire and racks up twenty-four points and eight rebounds by halftime against the hated Boston Celtics, not to mention a fierce slam on an alley-oop pass that gets the crowd on their feet. Of course, Marcus rewarded the teammate who’d set him up for that highlight play by ignoring him the next trip down the court, despite his open look from the three-point line, instead tossing up a bad shot from nearly behind the basket. Lucky for the Lakers, he’s a gifted scorer and the coach overlooks his selfish play because without Marcus, the team wouldn’t have a chance.
At halftime Drake and I go to take a leak. Standing side-by-side at the urinals, I look over and say, “So can Allie actually feel that tiny thing when you’re fucking her?”
Drake retaliates without hesitation. “Yeah, and so did your mom.”
Hey, I never said our jabs at each other were literary. After we’re done, we grab a drink at the Hyde Lounge bar to talk business for a moment. Drake knows Link is keeping Allie company.
“Cheyenne Parris’s team is raising a stink about you making so much more than her for Texas Flood,” I say. “She says it’s not fair, since your screen time is about the same.”
“Cheyenne can’t open a film like I can,” Drake says. He’s right. His name alone is enough to make back a budget for the producers and the studio in the opening weekend. “Who’s handling her?”
“Her manager is Mona Simmons.”
“Never heard of her.”
“And Claire Jarrett is her agent.”
He nods. “Did they take the demand to Jackie?”
“Yeah, we all had a meeting about it yesterday,” I reply. “Me, Mona, Clair and Jackie. Jackie’s in their corner, too, though I’m not sure why. The producers won’t increase the budget, so she asked me to talk to you about giving seven million of your salary to Cheyenne to make things even.”
Drake raises an eyebrow, so I reassure him. “Don’t worry, I told her I would pull you and T.J. from the film before I’d ask you to take less. She said I didn’t have the balls to do it, and I told her she’s an expert on balls because she licked so many on her way to the top.”
Drake almost spits his bourbon. “You really said that?”
“Yeah, and Jackie stormed out,” I say. “Then I wanted to piss off Claire, so I had this Mona Simmons chick meet me later at the Melrose Star and fucked her in the men’s room, then made sure Claire found out.”
“Nice touch. Were she and Jackie pissed?”
“Don’t know yet, but I will soon. So I’m guessing you don’t want to give seven million to Cheyenne, then?”
He smiles and says, “Cheyenne’s all right. Gorgeous, great actress, dedicated, hard worker… and an exceptional fuck. But no, she can’t have my money.”
“Did Allie say anything about the Texas Flood nude scenes with you and Cheyenne?” I ask.
“She’s okay with it. I told her Cheyenne and I dated for a month, but she trusts me. She went through this already with Siena Alessi, so she knows it’s part of the business.”
“You fucked Siena Alessi?” I ask. I know they had their famous nude scene in Entangled States, but he’d never motioned actually having sex with her.
“Nah, why would I even want to be with another woman now?”
Damn, my buddy has changed in the last few months. I’m glad to see him so happy, but for the life of me I can’t imagine myself settling down. The mere thought of fucking the same woman every night depresses me.
As we head back to our seats, I wonder why I haven’t heard from Claire Jarrett yet. I know she’s aware of what happened with me and Mona. I expected a livid phone call, or at least an email. Instead, just crickets. Something’s not right about that.
Marcus finishes the game with thirty-eight points, thirteen rebounds, four steals, two blocked shots and zero assists, but the Lakers lose again. I’m more than a little concerned, because with his Adidas endorsement contract up for renewal in a few months, it might be tough to convince a shoe company to build a campaign around his ball-hogging ways.
“Just shoot it” probably won’t fly.
4
Claire
By the time Wednesday rolls around – a full week after Mason Stark’s little stunt – I’m itching to start putting my plan in place. He may have expected me to retaliate right away with an equally juvenile response, but instead I’m going to proceed slowly and use whatever time I need to set up my revenge. He’ll be caught off guard and will be stunned by the magnitude of what I plan to pull off.
First, though, I have to lay the groundwork. Only then can I lure Stark into my trap.
I drive out to Culver City and pull into the Trident Studios building. It’s a beautiful January day in Los Angeles, cool and sunny, the air crisp. Once inside, Jackie Hightower keeps me waiting less than five minutes before I’m ushered into her penthouse office.
And what an office it is.
In the Hollywood pecking order, studio heads are near the very top. Sure, the A-list stars and directors throw their weight around sometimes, but the true power rests in the hands of people like Jackie. Ultimately they decide what gets made and what doesn’t, especially when it comes to big-budget blockbusters like Texas Flood.
Jackie’s office reflects both her status and her personality. It’s huge and decorated with deep blue leather chairs and giant-leaved palms of some kind rising almost to the tall ceiling. Her desk is a curved marvel, made from what appears to be zebra wood and ebony, polished to show off the gorgeous detail of the exotic woods. Even her large desk chair looks suspiciously throne-like. Floor-to-ceiling windows lend a dramatic flair and offer views of Los Angeles from downtown to Santa Monica, with Catalina Island swimming in the Pacific off in the distance.
Jackie doesn’t bother to get up as I enter and merely gestures toward a chair. I take a seat and try not to look intimidated. Although I have a reputation around town as a hard negotiator, Jackie Hightower is known as an absolute she-demon who always gets what she wants. Stark’s choosing to antagonize her was a stupid move, and I know by the time she leans forward in her chair that she wants blood.
“Thanks for seeing me, Jackie,” I say. “I won’t take much of your time.”
“Did you bring me Mason Stark’s head?”
“His remark was totally uncalled for,” I say. “I had no idea he would stoop so low.” If Jackie knows about Stark fucking Mona, she’ll surely bring it up now.
“He’ll get his. I’ll make sure of that.” The look in her eyes tells me she means it.
When she doesn’t mention the Melrose Star bathroom sex, it confirms that his agent told no one except my assistant. Stark can be a dick, but I doubt he’d jeopardize Mona’s career. His jackass act was performed solely for my benefit, which irritates me no end.
I grin. “Well, I don’t have Stark’s head for you, but I might have the next best thing.”
“I’m listening.”
Now I’m the one who leans forward. “I know Trident has been wanting to reboot The Phantom Peril for a while. Where do you stand with that?” The first attempt at the superhero story set during World War II tanked badly at the box office a decade ago, and there have been rumblings lately t
hat Trident was trying to reboot it.
“We have a script and a director attached, but we’re still casting. Haven’t found the right leads yet. I need someone who won’t fuck it up like Aaron Wolfe did.”
Wolfe was woefully miscast in the first film, and it ended up ruining his career. He was handsome enough, but didn’t have the hard edge the character requires, and the fanboys never forgave him for screwing up their beloved comic.
“What if I could solve all of your casting problems for Phantom while simultaneously letting you knock Stark down a peg?” Jackie can’t possibly turn down an offer like that, and she doesn’t.
“I’m still listening.”
I lay my cards on the table. “You go with Savannah Welsh as the girlfriend, and I can guarantee you Cheyenne will come on board as Lady Bannister.” Lady Bannister is a role that will likely get precious little screen time, but needs a big name to lend it some weight. I can get Cheyenne to do it for the right price, and Savannah is one of my clients as well.
“What about my lead?” Jackie asks.
“T.J. Holland. We both know Texas Flood is going to skyrocket his career. Phantom can ride that rocket.”
Jackie looks confused. “Holland isn’t your guy. He’s at MAU with Stark.”
“I can steal him with a promise of a lead in a superhero film,” I say. “T.J. would be a perfect Phantom.”
“I definitely see him as a tortured badass hero. And Stark would be furious.”
“Exactly. And if Holland jumping ship to do Phantom isn’t enough, what if at the same time Variety just happened to run a story that paints Stark as a misogynistic throwback who doesn’t want to see equal pay for actresses?”
Jackie raises an eyebrow. I know that Variety’s editor-in-chief, Samuel English, is a longtime ally of hers, and getting such a story published would be a simple matter as long as it’s bolstered by enough facts. Even if Stark knows Jackie’s behind it, his reputation will take a hit. His refusal to budge on Cheyenne’s Texas Flood salary is going to come back and haunt him.
Hollywood Bad Boys Club: Book 2: Mason Page 3
