Hollywood Boulevard (26 page)

    "No."

    "But okay?"

    "Yes." He hung up.

    I hung up.

    "Good news?" Andre asked. I looked over at him. He had a silly grin on his face. Booze- induced, I supposed— or hoped.

    "I'm not sure."

    He reached over to pat my head. "What a good wife you are, transporting me safely." His hand glanced down and lightly touched my right breast.

    I nearly flinched. Good wife!

    Carola came to life in the backseat. I wondered if she was going to roll down the window and throw up; she looked white as death. "I had such a nice little nap," she said.

    Andre turned to face her. "Good, that is the spirit. Take things in step."

    He meant stride. I glanced at Carola in the rearview mirror, but she didn't smile.

    My cell went off again, in my lap. Andre picked it up. I nearly hit the brakes. He glanced at the caller ID. "Andre?" I fought not to shout: "Give me my phone, please."

    "It reads, ID BLOCKED," he said. "Secret lover?"

    I grabbed the phone and threw it still ringing into my purse. I glanced at Carola again. Her eyes had gone big. I smiled, shrugged as if to say, what a silly man. "Actually, someone has been making anonymous calls lately," I said to the car, not addressing Andre. And this latest would be number five.

    "That's scary," Carola said.

    "Who might it be?" Andre asked. He sounded off to me again.

    "I have no idea. It's probably nothing." I tried for a light tone. The GPS informed us we had arrived, destination on the left.

    "You go left here, Ardennes," Carola said, pointing.

    "Yes, up to that steel- and- glass abomination. Head straight for the valet," Andre said. He glanced at his watch. Suddenly he seemed all business and churchman- sober.

    I wanted to stay with the car or go for a walk, steer clear of the meeting. Andre could call me when it was over. I'd taken Fits's Salinger with me, so I was all set to find a hideout and wait. What I needed was a hole to crawl into, call Billy to find out what was going on with Eddie Tompkins. Was it safe to conclude that this latest news took him off the list of possible mystery callers? But Andre was telling me to head for the building valet. I suggested he drop me off. I'd find a dark bar or café where a person's features were hard to distinguish, the sort of place Fits would know of, no matter where in L.A. Andre wasn't having any of it.

    "No. There is no place for you here, Ardennes. Among corporate towers you are a lost bird; your little wings will fail. Come with us," he insisted.

    He was right about me and office towers, but wouldn't it be worse for me
inside
the bowels of the steel- and- glass abomination? Still, I'm not helpless. " There is nothing diminutive about my wings, Andre."

    He glanced up from his phone and gave me one of those intense looks with his deep gray eyes, a look that used to unnerve or arouse me and always put me at attention. He held his gaze, then let go, smiled ever so slightly, and said, "Here we are."

    A smartly uniformed young Latino stepped out of the valet station, leaned into the window I'd opened, all crisp and ready to serve. "Good afternoon, ma'am."

    Andre leaned into me. "We are expected at Campion Productions; Paul Thames."

    "That would be elevator J," Sharp Latino said, pointing the way. "If you'll head there I'll follow and park your car. When you are ready to leave, they will call down for us."

    "Right," Andre answered, and I drove to the elevators.

    We passed through reception after some awkwardness with my name not being on the appointment roster. The lobby receptionist was an unattractive woman with rigid determination, in the German shepherd vein. She was sorry, I would have to wait downstairs, but the others could go right up. "That won't be necessary," Andre said with that distinct brand of Eurodisdain. " Jonas Campion knows my wife; there has been a lapse, easily corrected."

    "Sir, procedure," the receptionist declared. A uniformed security guard stepped up, either to defend the canine miss or put me under lock and key. Andre was already on his phone. Twenty seconds later the receptionist was defanged by a ten- second phone call from above, and we were ushered to the inner sanctum of one of Hollywood's invincible string pullers.

    This had been Harry's quarry. He knew the money men and the money knew him. And they all intimately knew each other's lawyers. Some of the personnel in this building had once had a great deal to say about my own financial health, from a distance mostly except when our paths crossed at certain parties, do- or- die award nights, or happenstance meetings at an in restaurant. This was anonymous corporate America, the ticking heartbeat of an economy, impersonal and all powerful. The twenty- first floor was not for the Harvey Weinstein types who wanted hands- on involvement and name credit on their films. This crowd usually did not do indies. Andre was one of a few exceptions and was duly distrusted. Gatekeepers, flunkies like Paul Thames, whose name
would
appear on films, fronted for the real investors, and his head would roll all by its lonesome if a movie failed to fill seats. Complicated and boring stuff— at least to me— and I was scanning my interior for a place to install my mind while the others negotiated the current cloudy weather in search of a bright ending to the problem of Andre's production sans a star.

    Paul Thames was a paunchy Brit with a perspiration mustache even in the frosty corporate air and soft, limp hands, one of which I had to shake. He more or less ignored Carola (I assumed by his terse tone they'd met before) to focus on me as Andre made the introductions, cutting him off: "Quite! Pleased as hell to meet you after enjoying your fantastic work, and looking forward—"

    Now it was Andre's turn to cut in: "We should get down to business. Where are the others?"

    "Right. We'll meet upstairs in conference," Thames said. He moved aside, held out his left arm, indicating I should please go ahead. I stepped aside and indicated that Carola should please go ahead. I followed her, and Andre took his place in the queue, leaving Thames to bring up the rear as we filed back to the elevator bank.

    The twenty- third- floor conference room held smashing views of Santa Monica and the shimmering Pacific beyond, a power view that left me cold. Andre cast an ironic eye toward such tired symbols of worldly success too and was, I knew, ready to turn mocking if need be. He didn't like being at Campion Productions any more than I did. At least he had motive. I felt like a trapped skunk.

    So it was all in place, the view, the big- boy players, and the administrative assistant (a.k.a. hot secretary) to match: three- inch heels, cool demeanor, even cooler hair, and just this side of pricey slut in her stuck- to- the- skin dress. Sleek efficiency with a cute behind that didn't quite go with the rest of her statement.

    Jonas Campion— the man in charge— extended a warm greeting, mostly to me, indicating to Cheryl (Cheryl Li, of the cute behind/cool demeanor) to bring whatever was required by way of refreshment. The sense of expectation in the conspicuously appointed conference room— no detail left to the imagination— was palpable. I was an actress, ergo expected to exhibit a certain air, a breathy flourish, big gestures, commanding presence. Alas and ah me, I am not typical in this regard. I did not expect all company present to cleave to me. I know actors often feel compelled to per form, to own the stage even if it consists of a table for two and the interlocutor is a friend. This must be tiring for them and is often tiresome for others. I don't borrow ideas either, to seconds later make them my own, and I don't deflate postsocial situations. I deflate
in
social situa tions and perk up when left to my own devices. So any ideas of being entertained, that a prima donna had entered the room, were destined to be disappointed.

    Andre's agent, Kurt Tayker, was present, looking ready to pounce as needed. Andre had only contempt for him, calling Kurt a viciously unenlightened man who had one purpose in life: making money through the talent of others without being burdened by a particle of comprehension of that talent. He could have been a fishmonger, Andre said, or a suit salesman; a good fish, a well- cut suit, or a Hollywood star, the particulars meant nothing. He made Harry Machin look like Marcus Aurelius. If you talked to Kurt Tayker— a man destiny had given the perfect name, a little joke by a playful God with an Olympian idea of the inanity of human intercourse— you were always divided between his phone and himself. "I have to stay connected," I once heard him tell Andre in his whiny, perennially complacent voice. It was a cocktail party at the Soho loft, a time to relax, but the glow of Kurt's phone was always on, a bluish fairy in his hand, linking him nonstop to the West Coast. He glanced at it every other minute. When I suggested he turn it off and enjoy himself, he grew churlish. I'd just quit the business, word was out, so Kurt had little to lose in not being phony polite to me. He was no good at it anyway. What he was good at was making deals, taking the toughest line possible, and winning, his way. Andre said he was a necessary evil, a pit bull to keep the producers off his own face. He'd say, "Go see Tayker," and that usually kept a money worry from blossoming into gangrene. No one wanted to tussle with Kurt if they could avoid it. So how would that work out now with this enormous problem of Andre having just tossed his lead?

    There came a long pause as everyone settled into their chairs, during which time I stood awkwardly by the door, still entertaining faint hope of escape until the man in charge seized the reins at the long oval table. Campion pulled out a chair for me, at his side, facing the view, and I obliged, all hope withered. "On to the business at hand," he said.

    Jonas Campion had come up fast. I remember Harry mentioning him as a jackal with surprisingly original tastes. He was one to watch and watch out for I think was how Harry had put it. I felt I ought to warn Andre, but how could I? Toward me Mr. Campion was all pleasant skies and balmy afternoons: "Ms. Thrush, in this room we are all fans. It is an honor." More honors; I'd be wearing medals on my breast before the day was out. Why all the fuss over a dropout anyway?

    Big deal, I'd been nominated for an Oscar. I didn't win. I hadn't owned the town. I barely knew the names, Harry needling me all the time to show my face. This was well after Joe. Did I care about not getting the golden statue to place on a mantel I didn't even own? Sure, it ached like pins in my heart not to win. I bought a new dress for the stupid ceremony. I waited in line for the toilet along with all the other overdressed actresses with high hopes that night. I took Fits as my date— strictly friends at that point. He whispered in my ear, "Fuck 'em," when I didn't get the prize, and that made me smile— for real— which saved me from that cruel moment when the camera pans the loser's face for national television consumption.

    The Mancini brothers hustled me at one of the afterparties. Fits insisted I go to a couple: Never let them see you sweat a loss. They had a part for me, the brothers said, and could they messenger the script first thing in the morning? Sure. One of them said I should have won; I was never able to keep clear who was which. Maybe they were twins. I read the script and turned it down. It was not a vehicle for Ardennes Thrush the actor but for what they saw of me as a person: an exaggeration of me as a shy, secretive type working as a spy for the other side (of something). " Their characters lack sympathy," I told Harry. "I suppose that's the point, but must they
insult
their characters too?" That may have been the precise moment I knew I was going to quit, when I threw the script across the floor and called Harry to tell them I declined.

    "Not going to call yourself ? The Mancini brothers are big, and they approached you personally, Ardennes."

    "So?" I said, and Harry did the dirty work for me.

    Anyhow, the flattery trifling gotten over with serious talk could begin, and I could cringe inside myself. I was the only one free to enjoy the view. Poor Carola, already petite, seemed to have shrunk to the size of a seven- year- old. I wanted to grab her hand and run with her, out of school, into the fresh air, to frolic in the beckoning sea out beyond the windows. She sat next to Andre, hands clasped tightly in front of her.

    Campion cleared his throat. "Andre, problems with Luce Bouclé? I'm very surprised. I've seen her work. She's highly considered—"

    Here Paul Thames made the mistake of interrupting: "I . . ." he hesitated for a flicker of a second as Campion turned his head in his direction. "I was not certain from the outset she was ideal for the part."

    "How nice to be right," Andre said.

    Campion smiled. Sort of. "The money for this—" he paused to

glance at some papers before him. Cheryl straightened her spine, alert to any need the papers might give rise to, ready on short notice to shuffle others into place. "The money for the project is coming out of—" he lifted his hand off the table and flipped it palm side up.

    "Australia," Cheryl prompted.

    "Right. Ouch. That would be Amos Matterly." Cheryl nodded. " Those Aussies can be a particularly nasty lot when things go south. Was there much arm twisting to get him on board, Paul?"

    "Yeah, you know, the usual— and I can't say I blame him— his people wanted a stronger— I should say
bigger
name, male name, opposite Bouclé—"

    "Nothing new there," Campion said. He sighed, seemingly at the tediousness of it all. Or was I reading that into it?

    Kurt Tayker, who had so far maintained submarine silence, not even greeting the others, barely a nod to Andre, inserted, "Matterly can be handled."