Temptation

by Douglas Kennedy

  ‘You’ve done nothing wrong, Tracy,’ I said.

  ‘Maybe – but the perception is that I called an ex-boyfriend to write a sympathetic puff piece on your behalf.’

  ‘But he called you.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter – the perception’s otherwise.’

  ‘What does Craig say about all this?’ I asked.

  ‘He’s got his own problems,’ Tracy said. ‘Variety’s just fired him too.’

  ‘You have not been fired,’ Bob said sharply to her.

  ‘No – I’ve just been given the bottle of whisky and the gun with one bullet, and told to do the honorable thing.’

  She looked like she was on the verge of crying again. Brad squeezed her arm as an attempted gesture of support, but she shrugged him off.

  ‘I don’t need anyone’s sympathy,’ she said. ‘I made a stupid call, and now I’m paying the price.’

  ‘I’m appalled by all this,’ I said.

  ‘You should be,’ Tracy said.

  ‘I can’t tell you how sorry I am. But as I said before, I didn’t mean . . . ’

  ‘Understood, understood,’ Bob said. ‘But you also have to appreciate our tangled position right now. If we don’t let you go . . . ’

  Even though I had been expecting it, the news still hit me like a slap across the face.

  ‘You’re firing me?’ I asked, my voice hushed.

  ‘Yes. With the deepest regret, I should add, but . . . ’

  ‘That’s not fair,’ I said.

  ‘It might not be,’ Brad said, ‘but we have our own credibility to consider.’

  ‘I have a contract with you . . . ’

  Bob shuffled some papers and pulled out a document.

  ‘Yes, you do – and as I’m certain Alison will explain to you, there is a clause that voids the contract should you be found to have falsely misrepresented your work in any way. Plagiarism would certainly qualify as a major misrepresentation . . . ’

  ‘What you’re doing is wrong,’ I said.

  ‘What we’re doing is unfortunate, but necessary,’ Bob said. ‘For the good of the series, you have to go.’

  ‘And say Alison and I take you to court?’

  ‘Do what you want, David,’ Bob said. ‘But our corpor ate pockets are far deeper than yours. And you won’t win this one.’

  ‘We’ll see about that,’ I said, standing up.

  ‘Do you think this is fun for us?’ Brad said. ‘Do you think anyone in this room is pleased with this situation? I know you’re the creator of this show . . . and, believe me, you’ll still get your creator credit and a cut of budget. But the fact is, there are seventy other people involved in Selling You – and I’m not jeopardizing their positions by fighting your corner. Your current position in indefensible. You didn’t just get caught with the smoking gun, David; this time, it was a smoking bazooka . . . ’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Loyalty . . . ’

  Long silence. Brad’s hand twisted tightly around a pen. He took a deep steadying breath, then said, ‘David, I’m going to put that remark down to the high emotional temperature we’re all running right now, as I have shown you loyalty to the nth degree. And before you start lashing out at any of us again, do remember one thing: this is a fuck-up of your own making.’

  I was about to say something loud and emotional and incoherent, but instead I simply stormed out of the office, stormed out of the building, fell into my car, and started driving.

  I drove for hours, roaming the freeways without plan or logic. I did time on the 10, the 330, the 12, and the 85. My itinerary was a masterpiece of geographic illogicality – Manhattan Beach to Van Nuys to Ventura to Santa Monica to Newport Beach to . . .

  And then, finally, my cellphone started ringing. As I grabbed it off the adjoining seat, I glanced at the dashboard and noticed it was three-ten. I had been driving aimlessly for five hours.

  ‘David, are you okay?’

  It was Alison, sounding half-awake, but worried.

  ‘Hold on,’ I said. ‘Got to pull over.’

  I turned the car into a lay-by and cut the engine.

  ‘You’re out? Driving?’

  ‘Seems that way.’

  ‘But it’s the middle of the night.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I’m just up, and I just got your message. Where are you right now?’

  ‘I don’t know . . . ’

  ‘What do you mean, you don’t know? What’s the name of the road, the highway?’

  ‘Don’t know.’

  ‘Now you have me worried. What’s going on?’

  That’s when I started to sob . . . when the entire horror of what had happened finally hit home, and I suddenly couldn’t deny it. I must have sobbed for an entire minute. When I eventually brought it under control, Alison spoke.

  ‘David, my God, tell me, please . . . what the hell’s happened to you?’

  I told her everything – from the extensive plagiarism accusations in McCall’s new column, to Sally’s inimical reaction, to being fired by Bob and Brad.

  ‘Jesus fucking Christ,’ Alison said when I finally finished, ‘this has gotten completely out of hand.’

  ‘I feel like I’ve opened a door and walked straight off a skyscraper.’

  ‘All right, first things first. Do you know where you are right now?’

  ‘Somewhere in town.’

  ‘You’re sure you’re in LA?’

  ‘Yeah – that I’m pretty sure of.’

  ‘You think you’re okay to drive?’

  ‘I guess so.’

  ‘Right – here’s what I want you to do. Get home. Safely, I should add. If you’re in LA, you should be there within an hour. And as soon as you’re home, e-mail me McCall’s column. I’ll be heading out to Kennedy – because I’m getting on the nine am flight back to LA. I should be able to go online at the airport and read the column, then I can use the AirPhone on board after we’ve taken off. All going well, I should land around noon LA time, so why don’t you plan to meet me at the office by two. In the meantime, I want you to do one thing . . . which is sleep. Do you have anything at home to knock you out?’

  ‘I think there’s some Tylenol PM.’

  ‘Take three.’

  ‘Please don’t tell me this is all going to look a lot better after sleep. Because it won’t.’

  ‘I know that. But, at least, you’ll have had some rest.’

  I made it home within forty minutes. I e-mailed the story to Alison. As I sat at the computer, the bedroom door opened and Sally came out. She was just wearing a pyjama top. My first thought was: she is so beautiful. My second thought was: will this be the last time I ever see her so intimately?

  ‘You actually had me worried,’ she said.

  I kept staring at the screen.

  ‘Would you mind explaining where you’ve been for the past seven hours?’ she asked.

  ‘I was at the office, and then I was driving.’

  ‘Driving where?’

  ‘Just driving.’

  ‘You could have called me. You should have called me.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘If I’ve been driving for half the night, you know what happened.’

  ‘You’ve been fired?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve been fired.’

  ‘I see,’ she said, her tone flat.

  ‘Tracy Weiss has also gotten the bullet.’

  ‘For giving the exclusive interview to her ex-guy?’

  ‘That was the crime.’

  ‘This is a tough business.’

  ‘Thank you for that blinding glimpse of the obvious.’

  ‘What do you want me to say, David?’

  ‘I want you to come over here, put your arms around me and tell me you love me.’

  Long silence. Finally she said, ‘I’m going back to bed.’

  ‘You think they’re right to fire me, don’t you?’

  ‘I suppose they have a point.’

 
‘Really – all for a couple of unintentionally borrowed lines?’

  ‘Did they say anything about your compensation package?’

  ‘That’s Alison’s department – and she’s in New York right now.’

  ‘But she knows?’

  ‘We’ve spoken.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘She wants me to get some sleep.’

  ‘That sounds like a very good idea.’

  ‘You think I’m in the wrong here, don’t you?’

  ‘It’s late, David . . . ’

  ‘Answer the question, please,’ I said.

  ‘Can we do this tomorrow?’

  ‘No. Now.’

  ‘All right then. I think you’ve blown it. And yes, I’m very disappointed. Happy now?’

  I stood up and walked past her into the bedroom. I undressed. I found the Tylenol PM in the bathroom. I popped four tablets. I got into bed. I set my alarm clock for 1pm. I switched the phone on to voice mail. I pulled the covers over my head. I passed out within a minute.

  Then the alarm went off. I saw a note on the pillow next to mine.

  Off to Seattle tonight. Will be gone two days. Sally.

  I squinted at the alarm clock. One pm. I forced myself to sit up in bed. I picked up Sally’s note and read it again. It was the sort of note you leave the maid. I suddenly felt very alone, very scared, very desperate to see my daughter. I picked up the phone. There were none of the usual telltale beeps informing me that I had messages. I dialled my voice messaging system nonetheless. The recorded voice informed me what I already knew: ‘You have no messages.’

  Surely, there must be some mistake. Surely some of my friends and colleagues, having already learned about the McCall column, had then called to show support.

  But they all phoned two weeks ago. Now, in the face of multiple plagiarism charges, I was out on my own. Nobody wanted to know.

  I picked up the phone again. I called Lucy’s house in Sausalito. Even though I knew Caitlin was at school, her voice was on the answerphone and I wanted to hear it.

  But after two rings, Lucy picked up.

  ‘Oh, hi . . . ’ I said.

  ‘What are you doing, calling in the afternoon? You know Caitlin’s at school.’

  ‘Just wanted to leave her a message, saying I missed her.’

  ‘Suddenly all homesick for your former family, now that your career is dead?’

  ‘How did you know . . . ?’

  ‘You haven’t seen a newspaper this morning?’

  ‘I’m just up.’

  ‘Well, if I were you, I’d go right back to bed. Because you’re third page news in the San Francisco Chronicle and the LA Times. Nice one, David – stealing from other people’s work.’

  ‘I didn’t steal . . . ’

  ‘Yeah – you just cheated. Like you cheated on me.’

  ‘Tell Caitlin I’ll call her later.’ And I hung up.

  I went out into the kitchen. There, on the counter, was our morning’s copy of the LA Times. Sally had thoughtfully opened it to page three, where the top right hand corner headline read:

  SELLING YOU CREATOR ACCUSED OF MORE PLAGIARISM

  Beneath this was a short, five-hundred-word précis of the McCall demolition job . . . evidently rewritten at speed late last night (when the advanced copies of Hollywood Legit must have been leaked to the papers). After recounting all the charges McCall made against me, the paper stated that, contacted late last night, Selling You producer Brad Bruce said ‘This news is a tragedy both for David Armitage and for the Selling You family’ and that a formal statement from FRT would be issued later today.

  Nice strategy, Brad. First come on touchy-feely about what had befallen me, before issuing the press release that I had been fired off the show.

  I raced over to the computer. I went online. I checked out the San Francisco Chronicle website. The article was also a rushed job by their LA correspondent, featuring the same rundown of the accusations and the same quote from Brad. But what truly unnerved me was the discovery that, in my AOL letterbox, there were already half a dozen e-mail requests from assorted journalists, asking for an interview . . . or, at the very least, a comment about my reaction to McCall’s column.

  I picked up the phone and called my office. Check that: my former office. Jennifer, my former assistant, answered.

  ‘I’ve been instructed to pack up your office,’ she said. ‘I presume you want everything delivered to your apartment?’

  ‘Jennifer, you could at least say hello.’

  ‘Hello. So is the apartment the place to send everything?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Fine. Expect it all tomorrow morning. And what should I do about any calls for you?’

  ‘Have there been any calls?’

  ‘Fifteen this morning. The LA Times, the Hollywood Reporter, the New York Times, the Seattle Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Jose Mercury, the Boston Globe . . . ’

  ‘I get the idea,’ I said.

  ‘Shall I e-mail you the list and all their contact numbers?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So if anyone from the press wants to contact you . . . ’

  ‘Tell them I’m uncontactable.’

  ‘If that’s your decision . . . ’

  ‘Jennifer, what’s with the Ice Age routine . . . ?’

  ‘How do you expect me to act? Your departure means I’ve been given a week’s notice . . . ’

  ‘Oh Jesus . . . ’

  ‘Please – no platitudes.’

  ‘I don’t know what to say, except I’m sorry. This is all as much a surprise to me as it is . . . ’

  ‘How can it be a surprise when you stole stuff?’

  ‘I never intended . . . ’

  ‘What? To get caught? Well, thanks for catching me in your web too.’

  And she slammed the phone down.

  I hung up. I put my head in my hands. Whatever the huge personal damage I had suffered, it appalled me to think that I had unknowingly inflicted vast collateral damage on two innocent parties. It was appalling to think that fifteen journalists were chasing me for quotes. Because now I was real news – the great television success story who threw it all away. Or, at least, that’s the spin they’d put on it. My side of the story played successfully last week. Now, however, with all this new trivial evidence (but evidence nonetheless), the tide would turn, the spin would change. I’d be held up as an example of a talented man besieged by self-destructive forces; a guy who’d created one of the most original television series of the last ten years, but still had to rob lines from other writers. And there would be the usual palaver about me being yet another victim of Tinseltown’s ferocious cult of shallow success, blah, blah, blah.

  The bottom line of all this editorial coverage would be a simple one: I’d be permanently unemployable as a writer.

  I glanced at my watch. One-fourteen. I called Alison’s office. Her assistant, Suzy, answered. She sounded genuinely upset. Before I could ask for my agent, she said, ‘I just want to tell you this: I think what’s happening to you is totally unfair.’

  I gulped and felt my eyes sting.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said.

  ‘How are you doing?’

  ‘Not good.’

  ‘You coming over?’

  ‘Yeah – right away.’

  ‘Good – she’s expecting you.’

  ‘Any chance I could talk to her now?’

  ‘She’s on the phone with FRT.’

  ‘See you in a half-hour then.’

  When I walked in the door of her office, I caught sight of Alison sitting behind her desk, staring silently out the window, looking war-weary and preoccupied. Hearing me enter, she swivelled around and walked out from behind her desk and put her arms around me and simply held me for a minute or so. Then she walked over to a cabinet and opened it.

  ‘Does Scotch work for you?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s that bad?’

  She said nothing. Instead, she returned to the d
esk with the bottle of J&B, and two glasses. She poured each of us a large one. Then she lit up a cigarette, inhaled deeply, and tossed back half the drink. I followed suit.

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘Here it goes. I’ve never lied to you as an agent and I’m not going to start now. The situation right now is about as bad as it gets.’

  I threw back the rest of my drink. She refilled it immediately.

  ‘Now when I read the McCall story at the airport, my first reaction was: how could Brad and Bob take this seriously . . . especially when the charges he puts forward are so fucking minor? What he’s accused you of is ridiculous. I mean, we’re into the realm of “If I had a nickel for every writer who’s borrowed a joke.” And the shit about the Tolstoy story is just shit. He knows it too. However, the line from the Cheever story . . . ’

  ‘All I can say is this: I realized it was a direct “borrow”, and one which, I also knew, would never make it on to the screen. What he got his hands on was a draft, that’s all.’

  ‘I know that, and you know that. The problem here is that, coupled with The Front Page stuff from last week . . . well, you’re a smart enough guy to figure out that . . . ’

  ‘Guilty or not, I’m in deep trouble.’

  ‘That’s the essence of it.’

  ‘And you’ve spoken with FRT, and they can’t be in any way persuaded . . . ?’

  ‘Not a chance. As far as they’re concerned, you’re burnt toast. But that’s not all. As soon as I landed I spent an hour engaged in a screaming match with one of their lawyers. It seems that they are going to do their best to block any golden parachute for you.’

  Worse and worse. ‘But there’s a clause . . . ’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Alison said, pulling a file towards her, ‘there is definitely a fucking clause. Clause 43b, to be precise, of your agreement with FRT – and the gist of this clause is that if you have done anything illegal or criminally malfeasant in relation to the show, your future profit participation in its proceeds will be curtailed.’

  ‘They’re trying to say that I’ve done something criminally malfeasant?’

  ‘They’re attempting to cut you off from any future creator fees by arguing that your plagiarism constitutes an illegal act . . . ’

  ‘This is such bullshit.’

  ‘Absolutely – but they are determined to make it stick.’