"Ms. Hamilton-Ayres," the man said after a thorough discussion of the pending problems, "it's up to you. How do you want to handle this?"
"Like a grown-up," she said, feeling herself quake inside.
The plans were drawn. First stage, if the story about her affair with Madeline Pratt were released, Georgiana would do an hour on "The Jessica Wright Show" to set the record straight: She would say that the woman in question was known to have a drug problem; that the woman in question was being paid to release this information; and that, yes, Georgiana had slept briefly with this woman while on location as an experiment—one from which she had quickly withdrawn.
"We'll have the drug problem confirmed by Monday," the man told Georgiana.
"Confirmed?"
"She can sue you for libel if it isn't true," he explained.
"How do you find out?"
"Don't worry," he told her, "the important thing is to discredit her immediately. Then, at worst, you'll simply be another modern-day woman who tried an unsuccessful experiment."
An unsuccessful experiment. What a god-awful way to put what was suddenly such a precious part of her life.
The rest of the plan was hammered out:
Stage two: Georgiana was to acquire a serious boyfriend (they could help her find someone, if need be. There were several celebrity male clients who were in need of such a relationship as well), and a PR blitz about the romance would ensue.
Stage three: Would she be willing to marry? Better yet, have a child? It had worked very well for several high-profile careers they could think of—but would not name.
Georgiana could only stare at them in disbelief, and when she realized they were perfectly serious, she said, "Absolutely not."
Okay. Backpedal. Stage three re-envisioned. Would she at least be willing to let them start rumors that she was pregnant?
"Absolutely not," Georgiana told them.
"Don't be angry, Ms. Hamilton-Ayres," the man said, "our job is to tell you honestly what your options are."
"I am not angry," Georgiana said, back ramrod straight. "I am merely telling you it is honestly out of the question."
Summary: they would stick with "The Jessica Wright Show" and the PR romance blitz, and if the threat to her career had not died out after that, Georgiana promised she would reconsider the options.
"Come on! You said we could do anything I wanted!" Ted cried, half pulling Patty into the lodge at Wollman Rink in Central Park.
"I am the mother of three small children," Patty pleaded to the man renting Rollerblades.
"They were 'responsible young adults' an hour ago," Ted said. "Size seven and half for the lady here, and eleven for me. Make sure to give us knee and elbow pads, and a couple of those helmets."
Within ten minutes Patty was clinging to the fence of the pedestrian walkway above the rink.
"Come on, Patty," Ted said, prying her loose. "If you can go up against ICA, honey, you can Rollerblade."
And he was right—she could! Well, after a fashion, anyway. As the mother of teenage children Patty had lost all ability not to imagine what a spill on the pavement would be like. She had witnessed too many skinned knees and chins, to say nothing of horrible-looking scrapes and gravel that had to be plucked out with tweezers.
But Ted was right there beside her as they skated and cruised the paved pathways, through fields and forests, up and down meadows. It was beautiful.
They stopped near the lake and ate ice cream. And held hands. And lay back in the grass to marvel at the shapes of the huge white clouds, and afterward, they skated on to watch some softball games.
"David, what are you talking about?" Susie demanded. "I don't know anybody at ICA!
"But have you said anything to any of your friends about what's been going on?" he said, switching the telephone to the other hand.
"No!" she said. "You told me not to!"
"Are you sure?" he said.
"I'm sure about one thing," she said, "and that is, you're being a total asshole and I don't like it!" And she hung up on him.
By the time Georgiana got back to Alexandra's apartment on Saturday evening, the damage control team's suggestions had depressed and slightly sickened her. Alexandra's antidote was to put Georgiana on the Nordic Track for a half hour, then into a hot bath. She then wrapped her in a fluffy terrycloth robe; sat her down on the settee with an afghan; fed her salad, homemade vegetable soup, and hot crusty bread; and snuggled with her while watching a video.
It was bliss.
It was heaven.
It did the trick.
And though she was exhausted, Georgiana found herself making love with Alexandra again that night, as though nothing in the world could be wrong. And that's how it felt.
"What are you doing?" he asked in his deep, pleasant voice.
"I'm just lying here with George Eliot," Elizabeth said over the phone.
"Oh," David said, after a pause, "George Eliot."
"Yes," Elizabeth said, and laughed, "who did you think I meant? Anyway, it's a Middlemarch kind of night, and for lack of a specific directive, I've taken to my bed, determined to rest for at least twelve hours."
"That's good. Are you okay?"
"Yes," she told him. "And you?"
"I don't know anymore, Bets."
"You want another?" Ted asked when the waitress came around.
"I shouldn't really," Patty said, having already had two glasses of wine.
"Oh, go ahead," Ted said. "She'll have another," he told the waitress.
"I'm so glad you went to all this trouble to conduct your business during my act," the comedienne said from the stage.
"You want anything else, honey?" Ted asked. "Some nachos or something?"
"Hey!" the comedienne yelled. "You! I'm talking to you!"
"Ted!" Patty whispered. "She's talking to you!"
Ted turned around to look at the stage. Not only was the comedienne talking to him, but the fiery redhead was making her way down the stairs into the audience.
"Oh, no," Ted muttered, embarrassed.
"So is that what you do? Say to the babe, 'Hey, let's go to the Comic Strip so we can wreck Kimberley Travis' act?' I mean, whaddaya here for, honey," she said, standing over Ted now, "the food?" To the audience: "Everybody knows the Comic Strip for its food, right?"
Everybody was laughing. Ted was beet red.
They were in the Upper East Side comedy club Ted had seen on TV and had always wanted to visit. It was crowded, casual, and the drinks and laughter and music were plentiful. They had been having a ball—until now.
"So you just can't be from New York City," the comedienne said. "I mean, really, look at him, everybody—this poor schmuck thinks this is a place to eat. Some people go to the Four Seasons or Le Cirque or the Rainbow Room—but him? Naw, it's the Comic Strip for us, babe, this is the high life! Gourmet microwave pizza!"
Moments later the comedienne dragged Ted up to the stage and forced him to participate in her act. The audience was howling and the more embarrassed Ted got, the greater the response. But it was very funny, and Patty was laughing her head off. And Ted, now that he was over his initial terror, was having the time of his life.
There was a soft knock on Monty's door. "Who is it?" he asked.
"Elizabeth."
"Come in!" he called, straightening the covers. He was in bed in his pajamas watching TV.
"Hi," she said, poking her head in. "I'm sorry to disturb you, but I wondered if you would be interested in going to church with me in the morning? There's an eight o'clock service around the corner."
"What denomination are you?"
"Presbyterian," she said.
"Close enough. I'd be honored to accompany you to church tomorrow."
She smiled. And then she frowned, looking over at the TV set. "What on earth are you watching?"
"You've never seen this?" he asked, sitting up higher against the pillows. "It's 'Mystery Science Theater 3000.' B
ut for those in the know," he added in his radio voice, "MST 3K."
On the television it appeared as though they were sitting behind some sort of puppets in a movie theater, watching a film on a big movie screen ahead of them. While the movie unfolded before them, the silhouettes of the puppets moved as they made wisecracks about it.
"You don't get it, do you?" Monty asked her.
"I'm afraid I don't," she admitted.
"Do you want to watch for a while?" he asked, feeling a tiny bit ludicrous.
"Sure," she said, pulling a wing chair near the bed and sitting on it. "So what's the movie?"
"Well, the movie is always one of the worst ever made," he said. "Tonight it's Billy the Kid versus Dracula, starring John Carradine as a vampire in the Wild Wild West."
"Monty," she said, watching him watch the TV.
"What?"
"You love this, don't you?"
He felt his face getting warm. "Yeah, I do," he said, looking back to the TV. "It reminds me of when I was a kid and my brother and I used to do the same thing—sit around making jokes while watching terrible movies."
She smiled. "Brings up good memories, then?"
"The best," he admitted. "We were kids then." He looked at her. "Do you know what I mean? We were really young and just... kids."
"I know what you mean," she told him.
"You watch much TV?"
"Almost none," she admitted.
"Good," he said, "then maybe watching this will create future good memories for you." Pause. "For you and me both." They both smiled, and then they watched the movie.
54
"Now, then," Dorothy said, sitting in a Queen Anne chair at the head of the living room on Sunday, "are we all here?"
"First, may I ask who these gentlemen are," Monty said suspiciously, pointing to the two middle-aged men sitting on either side of Josh Lafayette.
The group was spread out around the room with Henry and Dorothy near the door; Georgiana, Elizabeth, and Patty on the sofa; Ted perched on the arm of the sofa, one hand resting on his wife's shoulder; and Monty sitting in a wing chair near the window. Lining the other side of the room in chairs brought in from the dining room were David, Josh, and the strangers.
"Josh, would you please do the honors?" Dorothy said.
"This is Agent Maldwin Healy," Josh said, gesturing to the taller of the two. "Federal Bureau of Investigation. And this is Herbert Klein, special assistant to the attorney general of New York."
Elizabeth leaned forward to whisper, "I think you can trust them, Monty," and everybody laughed. She turned to Dorothy. "There's one more thing I think people should know before we start."
"And what is that, dear?" Mrs. Hillings asked her.
"David's movie was put in turn-around yesterday after Creighton Berns found out he was helping us. He pulled the stars and encouraged the backers to drop their financing—which they have."
They were quiet for a moment. Then Monty burst out, "How do we know this isn't a cover?"
Everyone looked at him.
"And why would you say that, Monty?" Dorothy asked.
"Because somehow Berns has been kept posted on what we're doing and who's involved. The leaks always happen when he's been around."
Dorothy looked around the group. "Is this true?"
Elizabeth sighed and explained that Creighton Berns had known early on about Monty and Elizabeth's involvement, that he had known Patty was working undercover at ICA, and that Georgiana had been threatened for her participation, among other things.
Dorothy leaned over to whisper something to her husband, who nodded, thought for a moment, and waved Josh over to whisper something to him. A horrified look came over the young attorney's face. "You're probably right," they heard him say.
Henry got up and left the room.
"Well, leaving that issue aside for the moment," Dorothy said, waving her hand as though to clear the air.
"Just like that?" Monty said. "We're going to go on with him still sitting here?"
"Trust me, Montgomery," she said to him, "the problem is being taken care of."
He narrowed his eyes. "Not to be rude, Dorothy, but how would you know?"
"I know because if anyone had told me about this before, I could have told you who the mole had to be then!" she said, annoyed. And then she sighed slightly, smiled, and said, "I apologize, everyone, but knowing all that I know now..." She shook her head. "I feel that I have not only been terribly violated, but that my personal life has been invaded as well. I'm anxious to set things right."
"You'll have your chance, Mrs. Hillings," the FBI agent assured her.
She smiled again. "Yes, indeed, I think I shall." She cleared her throat. "All right then, let us continue with the matters at hand. Needless to say, everything said in this room is to be kept in complete confidence until you are informed otherwise."
"I don't know," Monty said, shaking his head, "if there's something important to reveal, I don't think you should be telling all these people."
Dorothy looked at him. "First, we need the help of all these people. Second, I'd trust anyone of you with my life. Third, while I am eternally grateful to you, Montgomery Grant Smith, if you interrupt me one more time I'm going to keep you after school."
Everyone laughed.
"Now then," Dorothy said, "the first thing you should know is that judging from the story bible and script that David obtained for us—at considerable cost to his career—it seems clear that the Metropolis movie in question, Race in Space, has indeed been substantially lifted from the children's story Mathew and the Allied Planets, written by Stephen Collins and published in England in 1941."
Henry came back into the living room and gave Dorothy a nod. She turned to the group and continued.
"It is our belief that Metropolis Pictures was for some time unaware that the movie extravaganza they had in production was based on the work of a writer other than the one listed on the title page of the movie script. As to whether the author of the screenplay realized where he had gotten the story and many word-for-word lines of dialogue, we can only note that his father was in England during the war, and, given the age of the writer of the movie, it is perfectly likely that a copy of Mathew had been brought home to him as a gift."
"How the hell can you know that?" Monty said.
"We have many new friends who are very well connected," Mrs. Hillings said graciously, nodding to FBI Agent Healy, who smiled.
"And so," Henry said, picking up the story, "what we have is a situation where a studio has a one-hundred-twenty-million-dollar movie to release, for which, they suddenly discover, the dramatic rights were never cleared."
"Hohohohoho," Monty said in his deep and nefarious radio laugh.
"So that's it," Georgiana said softly.
"Golly," Elizabeth said, on an intake of breath.
"Talk about trouble," Patty said.
"But upon researching the problem," Dorothy continued, "the studio, we believe, discovered that the author had died in 1947, and that the estate—the people who had inherited the rights to the book from Stephen Collins—had changed hands several times since then, to the point where it was doubtful they would even know they had inherited the rights to the book, much less the remaining copyright time on it. After all, there had only been perhaps a thousand copies of the work to begin with, since it had been out-of-print for over forty years, and the agent representing that one book of Mr. Collins's had gone out of business in 1956." Pause. "That was the good news for the studio."
She paused again for effect. "The bad news was that when Hollard & Borrs was dissolved in 1956, Hillings & Hillings in the United States took over the representation of their backlist properties."
The room was dead silent until, as if coming out of a dream, Elizabeth said, "So you represent the literary estate of Stephen Collins."
Dorothy nodded. "Technically, yes."
Monty was confused. "So...?"
"So," Henry said, "M
etropolis immediately went to the person who had initiated the movie in the first place—"
"Creighton Berns," Georgiana guessed.
"Right," Henry said. "So Metropolis went to Creighton and asked him to negotiate terms with the Collins estate, not only because Creighton had just moved to ICA, but because the agency's ties to Hillings & Hillings were well known."
After a moment, Ted Kleczak said, "And so did he try to negotiate terms?"
Henry and Dorothy both shook their heads. "No," Dorothy said, "that's just the point. Unfortunately for Metropolis, Creighton knew that ICA was buying Hillings & Hillings, and so he decided he didn't need to negotiate with anybody, he'd simply destroy the paper trail to the book when they took over the agency."
"At the same time," Henry said, "young Creighton was preparing his little coup with the board of directors at ICA, which, from what we understand, was a rather expensive proposition. So Creighton evidently told Metropolis to keep their mouths shut, he had cleared the rights for their blockbuster movie, but not only had he not cleared the rights, he had pocketed the money Metropolis thought it was paying to the estate to hush things up and smooth things over."
"Oh, man! Oh, man!" Monty was saying, bouncing in his seat. "But how did he think he would get away with it?" Elizabeth said.
"Well, first things first," Dorothy explained. "As soon as he got rid of Ben, he decided to shut down Hillings & Hillings and find and destroy all the paperwork that existed on Mathew and the Allied Planets. That alone would buy him years of time."
"But wait," Monty said, "sooner or later—"
"Sooner or later the copyright was going to expire in England," Dorothy continued, "or so Creighton thought. And he knew that as soon as that copyright expired, the story would move into the public domain and Metropolis would be in the clear."
"The copyright laws in England are different than they are here in the United States," Henry said. "In England, the copyright expires fifty years after the death of the author. In this case, it would expire on December thirty-first, 1997."
Any Given Moment (The Alexandra Chronicles Book 3) Page 31
