Hollywood Hit (6 page)

Bradford leaned forward and kissed each of her cheeks. His hand cupped her elbow and heat rushed up her arm. There was an innate satisfaction when meeting an old lover by whom you’d been jilted and looking much better than they did. She tried not to gloat. Bradford’s wan look was the result of something far deeper than simply letting himself go. His eyes were haunted with a deep need.

Christina plastered her producer’s smile to her face. The last time she’d been alone with Bradford was years before when they met at a club. Bradford had asked for another chance. She hoped this wasn’t the same type of conversation. She couldn’t be with Bradford. She couldn’t be with any actor. They were ephemeral and childlike and wonderful as friends, but she didn’t have the patience to nurse a relationship with one. Especially an actor who needed so much female attention.

Bradford set his coffee on the table and folded himself into the chair across from her. A tiny tremble shuddered through his hands. Where had he been the last six months? What had he been doing?

“It’s good to see you,” Bradford said.

The bravado Christina remembered wafting off Bradford like too-heavy cologne was absent. Life had knocked him around a bit.

“It’s been a long time,” Christina said. She sipped her coffee. Bradford’s fingers were thin. The tips seemed withered.

There was a slight nod and Bradford’s eyes drifted past her. His lips were soft, and a thought crinkled his brow. This wasn’t a look she remembered from a younger Bradford. This was a look that held sensitivity, thoughtfulness, even pain.

“I was surprised when you called,” Christina said.

Bradford’s eyes darted back to her. A fishhook smile lifted the corner of his mouth. “Were you?”

Christina placed both hands around the warmth of her coffee cup. She looked at Bradford and waited. Waited for him to tell her if he had a script he wanted Lydia to produce, or if there was a role in one of Lydia’s films he was after, or if he simply wanted to bend her ear.

He took a deep breath and what had once been a well-muscled chest appeared thick-ribbed and emaciated under his gray T-shirt. He licked his lips and leaned forward. He settled his elbows onto the table.

“I need help,” Bradford said. A tightness that was witness to the difficulty of him saying those words thinned his lips.

Christina’s heart bumped faster in her chest. She fought the urge to pull herself backward into her seat. His gaze was intense, and his need vibrated between them like a live wire. This was LA; one of the primary rules of the Industry was to never let on that you “needed” anything. Need was a dangerous thing. Need could be leveraged against you. Need could make you appear desperate. Need could cause you to lose your spot on the Hollywood field.

“What kind of help?” Christina asked.

Bradford’s eyes held her. They would not release her. They were big and blue and somber. A world-weight of pain swam through them.

“There is no one else I trust,” Bradford said. “Nowhere else I can turn.” He ran a hand through his scruffy blond hair. He glanced to his left and his right, a quick Hollywood head-check to ensure there were no nearby ears. He paused as he looked across Sunset. Christina didn’t turn. They were in public—perhaps a pap or someone he knew had grabbed his attention.

The muscle under his left eye twitched. Anxiousness descended upon him. “Can we walk?”

He scooted back his chair and moved to the edge of the patio. He turned and waited. Christina gathered her purse and her coffee. She stood and pushed the chair under the table.

No one walked in LA. Sunset Boulevard on a hazy day was void of pedestrians. Bradford’s stride was loose limbed and slow. He said nothing for the first block, but once they stood before Carney’s he stopped and turned to Christina.

“I need you to take me somewhere,” Bradford said.

Christina squinted. “Where could you need me to take you? You own a fleet of cars.”

 Bradford slipped a package of Marlboros from the front pocket of his jeans and slid a cigarette into his mouth. From his other pocket he pulled a gold Zippo lighter with an American eagle emblazoned on the front.

She didn’t remember Bradford ever smoking. But she didn’t remember him quiet or serious, or pensive, or nearly as anxious as he appeared right now.

A tingle flickered across her skin and fear spread through her arms. A fear that something was wrong. A fear that the Bradford she’d known and thought she loved had managed to get himself into something, some sort of trouble for which he needed help.

“Of course,” Christina said. She reached out her hand toward Bradford’s left arm, which hung at his side. “Where? When?”

“Now,” Bradford said. “I need you to take me to Malibu right now.”

The concurrent distress heaped upon Liam Wadsworth because of his innate embarrassment over the true debauched submission to which he was required to submit, to merely exist, within the realm of what was his admittedly self-imposed Master, grated. Liam hadn’t seen daylight, except through glass, in twenty-seven months. The promise of freedom, the promise of a glorious promotion that included an expense account, was the proverbial carrot that allowed Liam to endure the stick his boss wielded. The idea of promotion propelled Liam through the mind-numbing morass of the answering of phones, the setting of lunches, the scheduling of pedicures, manicures, back exfoliations, and waxes, all of which Liam did with the complete and utter appearance of exterior docility as testament to his complete prostrate position to his liege,
mein
Bikram Shasta.

Anger seethed within Liam. A deep-burning, ever-increasing anger fought exterior placidity for primacy. “The Big-Ass Man,” or BAM, as Liam had dubbed his dictator, deserved to die. To endure a slow, most horrific, most painful, most torturous death. Liam preferred the notion of shredding BAM’s internal organs through the ingestion of finely crushed glass. BAM’s shit would bleed microscopically into his body cavity through the nicks and cuts left in his intestinal wall, the foul intestinal seepage ever so slowly causing septic blood, insidiously and painfully, to the point where BAM’s intestines were shredded to a flimsy gauze that resembled a porous cheesecloth held against a klieg light. The shards so tiny that BAM would mistake an errant crunch for a piece of pulverized cow bone while he ingested burger upon burger upon burger from In-N-Out.  

There would be no salvation for BAM.

Liam’s heart palpitations increased dramatically with his fantasy of
mein
Shasta suffering such a horrendous and painful demise, but Liam would also settle for shooting the bastard.

“Get me Mike Fox at Worldwide,” bellowed BAM from his desk. His bulbous jowls and florid, puffy face were the result of many-too-many scotches and few-too-few colonics.

Liam’s fingers danced across the phone. He needed not to look up Mike Fox’s number. He was an impeccable assistant. Within two weeks of his employ, Liam had committed to memory the office numbers of the most powerful members of the Entertainment Community, read every script in development at Shasta! Productions plus all scripts in active development at every studio. Finally, finally… Liam had read the books that were under option and in active development at the studios. Books! Multiple books. In Hollywood that was akin to being the finder of the Holy Grail—no one read books—coverage, sure—but to sit and read three hundred plus pages when a 120-page script was a stretch was beyond comprehension.

Upon completion of the voluminous multitude of crap, Liam surmised what BAM missed from his production slate. BAM was rotund with thrillers, he was morbidly obese with comedies, he even had flabs-of-fat full of family fare, but BAM was absent that one screenplay—the piece that could take twenty years or twenty days to get into production—dependent on cast availability and film finance—BAM did not have a showcase piece. Actor candy. Oscar bait. BAM had failed to acquire the Award-Winning, You-Must-Invite-Me-to-Every-Party-in-Town-Because-

My-Film-Just-Got-Nominated screenplay.

Liam began to dig. To read. To track upon the most pretentious of tracking boards. Liam searched, scrounged, dug for that diamond of unfound material that would be Liam’s pathway to success, inclusion, promotion!

Liam sought that white whale of a script that could and would land on any star’s poolside patio and said star would have to play the lead, any financier’s yacht and said billionaire would have to write the check, any studio executive’s desk and said well-suited exec would have to give a green light, any producer’s meaty, grubby, over-puffed hand and said rotund producer would have to give their ever-loving, hardworking, indentured-servant-of-an-assistant a promotion simply because of the inherent A-plus quality of the material.

“Worldwide,” Cecily chirped. “Mike Fox’s office.”

“Bikram Shasta for Mike Fox,” Liam chirped back at Mike’s assistant. Liam knew Cecily—they lunched. They kibbitzed. They traded gossip as if it were nuggets of gold. Then, if the gossip was a big enough bit, they passed on the nugget to their respective bosses. How, other than Liam’s bit of gossip from Cecily, did Bikram even know to make this call to Mike Fox?

“I have Mike,” Cecily said into the line.

“Mike on one,” Liam yelled to BAM without even an attempt to keep the rage from his voice.

Liam muted his headset and listened. It was in the listening that he learned. BAM might be an intolerant, ungrateful man, but he had worked in this town and emerged successful through multiple decades. First BAM was an agent at CTA, then a studio head at Galaxy. BAM had been out of favor for nearly a decade due to an unfortunate incident involving BAM’s cock and a mouthy on-set PA. He’d resigned his Presidential status at Galaxy and begun Shasta! Productions.

For eight years, BAM had quietly collected material and waited out his purgatory in South-of-Sunset-East-of-La-Brea hell. Finally rehabilitated within the eyes of the Entertainment Community—having endured the confines of micro-budget indies for half a decade—BAM could again be safely touched with less than a ten-foot pole. BAM was finally, finally, being readmitted into the Hollywood Club. Well that and the influx of Indian money BAM represented plus a collection of indie scripts he’d optioned that had directors attached. Directors who studios wanted to work with, directors who won awards, directors who were finicky and picky and, to the chagrin of their agents, directors who were
auteurs
and wouldn’t agree to the next Transformers 45 even if the studio threw seven figures at them.

Liam listened while BAM and Mike exchanged the mandatory masturbatory social interaction. Liam waited for BAM to let loose with Cecily’s tidbit, her nugget of gold that had been heaven-sent from her pink pout of a mouth. According to Cecily, Celeste Solange wanted an Oscar. More than wanted—she lusted—she craved—she decreed—that she
must
have her Oscar. Mike Fox ran the studio that was owned and operated by Mr. Ted Robinoff, the current husband of the estimable Celeste “Cici” Solange—thus if Celeste was on the hunt for the script which would make her an Oscar-winning actress, then Mike Fox most assuredly was too.

Enter the most brilliant of screenplays:
Boundless Bound
.

The stumbling block had been Jeb Schmaltzer. Celeste Solange wouldn’t take directions to Brentwood from Mr. Schmaltzer, much less instruction on how to inhabit a role. The solution to this estimable dilemma had recently been found; the writer and formerly attached director of
Boundless Bound,
one Mr. Jeb Schmaltzer, was currently in a cooler awaiting his delivery to dirt.

“Mike, JP Anderson wants to direct
Boundless Bound
,” BAM said into the phone.

“Wait, wasn’t that… isn’t that—”

“Jeb Schmaltzer’s film.”

“Bikram, he died five days ago.”

“More like four. So sad. Wife is devastated, but I hear he had a fucking huge life-insurance policy. She’s set. But JP wants to do
Boundless Bound
and I know you want to work with JP and I also know that Celeste Solange wants to work with JP. The last three actresses in a film JP directed all got Oscars.”

The sigh from Mike was palpable—Liam could nearly feel the jet of air in his ear. Bikram was a pig. A pig. Every one of his facts was true, but a man had just died—died! Jeb’s demise, according to BAM, opened up a fantastic script that before Jeb’s death had a no-name D-lister attached as director, a
first-time
director. Now this brilliant piece of material was open, open to the opportunity of attaching a
fantastic,
everyone-wants-to-work-with-him director. A director like JP Anderson. A director that any A-List actress would slit a throat to work with, to create an Oscar-winning movie with, and to make ton of dough with. A win-win for everyone involved: BAM, the studio, the actress, and the director. Awards, accolades, and currency for everyone involved—everyone but Liam. He leaned forward and settled his chin onto his hand. BAM was a pig. A swarthy, soul-sucking pig. A pig who deserved to die.

Liam had found
Boundless Bound
and handed the truffle-like delicacy to Bikram. A delicacy upon which BAM was now salivating and chomping. Without a thank-you. Without a “Good Job!” Without even the slightest seductive taunt of the abysmal Associate Producer credit given to former assistants. And most definitely no promotion.
Boundless Bound
with JP Anderson and Celeste Solange would win awards—garner praise—get big bucks!

Liam had realized when he read the script, slipped to him by an assistant of Jeb’s manager, that to make this film, Shasta! Productions had to find a way to ditch the director. Consider the director ditched because Jeb was dead.

“Has Jessica read the script yet?” Mike asked BAM.

BAM couldn’t lie here, there was no way to pull off a fabrication as Mike Fox was married to Jessica Caulfield-Fox, the manager of one Ms. Celeste Solange, whom Bikram desperately wanted to play the female lead in
Boundless Bound
. BAM (and Liam too) was convinced that the Academy wanted to give Cici her Oscar—needed to give Cici her Oscar—but had yet to see this beloved Box-Office-Breaker in any role worthy of the Golden Man.