Plan B (40 page)

“Leave me alone.”

“He really is a nice guy,” I said, not to bug Alison but just because I was thinking it.

Chuck said, “I wonder if he’s ever, you know, killed anyone.”

Sally Hughes’s interview with Jack hit the airwaves at about one o’clock and we amused ourselves by monitoring the various networks as the news spread. Within ten minutes of the story breaking, all the other networks were interrupting their programming with live reports from the correspondents outside the house, as if they’d uncovered the news by being there, as opposed to seeing it on television like everyone else. After all the live reports went out, we noticed a change in the behavior of the news people outside. They began moving all over the place with their cameras, climbing up on top of their vans finding any possible vantage point from which to aim their cameras at the house, all in the hopes of getting a shot of Jack. They were undoubtedly catching hell from their bosses for his having made it safely past them into the house, and now the pressure was on them to deliver something. Some of the photographers were even climbing the trees.

By the time Jack awoke two hours later, Fox had aired snippets of the interview twice more, and a crowd of fans easily twice the
size of last night’s vigil had begun descending on the scene. Sullivan wasn’t equipped to control the crowd and called in the state police, who arrived in a commotion of sirens and lights and began erecting more prominent barricades. When the crowd continued to swell, they were forced to close off the road, and within a few minutes the road had become a large pedestrian mall. Jack peeked out under the shades for a second, careful to hide his face from view, and whistled softly. “Word sure gets around in these small towns.”

“It helps to have the networks camped out on your doorstep,” I said.

“Man,” Chuck said, watching a group of young girls holding posters of Jack. “You must get laid everywhere you go.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Jack said distractedly.

“Hey,” Lindsey called. She and Alison were still in front of the television. “Seward’s on TV”

We all turned to see Seward, in a black suit and blue and red tie, walking past a group of reporters as he made his way through the crowd outside. There were beads of sweat under his perfectly gelled-back hair, probably due to the fact that he’d had to abandon his car and walk the last mile, and an annoyed arch to his eyebrows, which was probably congenital. He carried himself with a nervous arrogance and had the weathered good looks of an ex-athlete except for his eyes, which seemed too dark and small for his face. “We’re all relieved that Jack’s okay,” he said, in answer to an unheard question. “Beyond that I have no comment.”

“Have you seen Jack Shaw since he returned?” someone shouted. “Have you spoken to him?”

“Yes,” Seward lied. “We spoke briefly yesterday.” He stopped in his tracks. “People,” he said, condescending to address the media. “I’m going in there to speak with Jack right now. I hope I’ll have more to say to you after that. For now, I’m asking you to
please get out of my way.” With that he strode up to the barricade, where he was stopped by a state trooper. The trooper spoke to Seward, who looked irate and began gesticulating wildly with his hands until finally a second trooper joined the conversation, followed by Sheriff Sullivan. Seward pointed an angry finger at Sullivan’s chest, but Sullivan didn’t seen impressed.

“We might as well let him in,” Jack said uncertainly. “I mean, I’m going to have to deal with him sometime.”

“No you won’t,” Alison said. “You never have to see him again. He needs you, you don’t need him.”

“That’s not how it works,” Jack said. “We have contracts. He’s a player. I can’t stonewall him.”

“Let’s let him in,” I said. “What’s the worst he can do?” I stood up and opened the front door, and there was an audible “Ooooh” as the crowd hushed. I was suddenly very conscious of the fact that I was on live television. The reporters began shouting questions to me, but they were too far away to be understood. Still, I knew the cameras were all zooming in on me, and many of them were in the middle of live feeds, so I smiled and made a few peace signs, which made me feel like an idiot. When you’re not in front of cameras every day, you have no damn clue how to act and you just become this wooden dolt. I called to Sheriff Sullivan, who turned to face me, and I pointed to Seward.

“Is he okay?” Sullivan asked.

“Nah, he’s a prick, but he can come up,” I called back, hoping that the cameras had picked that up.

Seward stormed past the troopers and headed up the lawn with a purposeful stride. Someone in the crowd started a chant of “We want Jack,” and within seconds the whole crowd, easily a few hundred people, was screaming and whistling for Jack. I nodded at Sullivan who flashed me a sarcastic half-grin, as if to say all his worst expectations had been realized. I guess he had a point, seeing
as how we’d turned his town into a circus. He blamed us for the crowds, the closed road, the humiliation of having to call in the state troopers, and probably last night’s injuries too, but there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. And now that Jack was back safely, he couldn’t even save face by arresting us. I didn’t know how the hierarchy worked out here, but someone had to be coming down hard on Sullivan for all of this. Basically, it sucked to be him today.

Seward blew by me and said, “fucking lightweight,” out of the side of his mouth, which was a kind of nebulous rank out, and I responded with, “dickhead,” which was, I thought, much more to the point and followed him into the house. Seward walked right across the living room, ignoring everyone in it, and leaned over to hug Jack on the couch. “Thank god you’re okay, man,” he said. “Thank god. You had me worried sick. Where the fuck were you?” Jack just shrugged and sat back in the couch. “It’s okay,” Seward continued, hurrying to fill the silence. “We’ll work everything out. I’ll get on the phone with Luther and the studios and we’ll smooth it all over. We might need to make a few minor concessions, but they’ll be so glad you’re back they’ll be kissing our asses to make it all work. Don’t worry about anything, I’ve already got a few scenarios in mind. We can go over them on the plane.”

Jack, who had maintained a stone face through his agent’s entire rap, straightened himself out on the couch and softly asked, “What plane?”

“Back to LA, Jack,” Seward said, speaking as you might to a mildly retarded young boy. “We have to get back there as soon as possible. We’ve got to meet with Cain and Schiller and put a new deal together. We’ve got to resolve the breach of contract thing—not that it will be a problem, I’ve already got it worked
out, pretty much, and then we’ve got the insurance issues. We’ll also have to do a little spin control, I mean your little interview was okay, but we’ve got to tighten it up for the trades . . .”

Watching him talk at Jack, I began to understand Paul Seward’s operating style. His technique was to make everything seem overly complicated and involved so that his clients, actors like Jack, would want to sit back and let him sweat all the details, which left Seward in the driver’s seat. I would have fallen for it myself, had I not watched Jack work most of it out with one phone call that morning. Seward might have been a good agent, but he was also a bullshit artist, which I guessed was what qualified him for the job in the first place. What I was having a little more trouble understanding was Jack’s seeming inability to stand up to Seward. Jack was never one to lack confidence, yet as soon as Seward entered the room Jack became quiet, almost meek, as if Seward instantly sucked all of the resistance out of him.

Jack sat back on the couch staring at the ceiling, and the longer he stayed quiet the more Seward bombarded him with plans and strategies. While Seward paused briefly to catch his breath, Jack flashed me a quick, meaningful look, which I took to mean he wanted a little help with Seward.

“Do you mean Luther Cain, the director?” I asked Seward, who was about to speak again. He flashed me an annoyed look, and said, “Yes, of course that’s who I mean,” in a patronizing voice before turning back to Jack. “Now I’d like to arrange for a car to come get us to the airport—”

“The reason I ask,” I interrupted him, “is that I spoke to Luther Cain this morning, and he didn’t say anything about you being at the meeting.”

That got his attention. “You spoke to Luther Cain,” he said skeptically.

“The director,” I added helpfully. He looked at Jack, raising his eyebrows in disbelief, as if we might be playing a joke on him, but Jack nodded quietly.

Seward now turned his full attention on me. “You spoke to Luther Cain,” he repeated between clenched teeth. “Do you realize the damage you may have caused? Who the fuck do you think you are? Jack,” he turned to look at Jack again. “Did you know about this?”

“Yeah,” Jack said.

“Of course he knew,” I said. “Listen, arrangements had to be made.”

“Arrangements?” Seward shouted incredulously. “Arrangements! Who the fuck are you? I am Jack’s agent, and I make the fucking arrangements.”

“You weren’t here,” I pointed out.

Seward opened his mouth to speak, but all that came out was an incredulous gasp, and he actually clenched his hands in frustration. I noticed a vein throbbing alarmingly in his temple and briefly wondered if he ate a lot of red meat. “If you called and harassed Luther Cain,” he finally spat out, “you may have put Jack in a very bad position.”

“I thought I did okay,” I said.

Seward took a deep breath, and exhaled into his hands. When he looked up he had a new, fake smile plastered to his face, which looked doubly ridiculous in light of his recent outburst, the kind of smile that often precedes psychotic violence. “Look,” he said, running his trembling fingers through his sticky hair and wiping the residue on his pants. “I’m sure you thought you were just helping out Jack, but you have to understand, there are complicated contracts that need to be worked through here, obligations that must be met in one way or another, and you couldn’t possibly begin to work your way through them. Still,” he turned to Jack.

“I’m sure when we meet with Cain we can straighten this all out. He’s a stand-up guy, and he and I go way back. We’ll get on a plane this afternoon and I’ll have a meeting set up by tomorrow—”

“Jack, you can’t go back to LA today,” I said. “You have a meeting at seven this evening.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, will you cut that shit out!” Seward screamed at me, his voice tinged with hysteria. “You’re not helping here. Do you understand?”

“No,” Jack said. “I do have a meeting this evening.”

“Jack, who could you possibly be meeting with here? Now I don’t know what these people have told you, but—”

“We’re meeting with Cain and Schiller,” I said. I was really enjoying myself now.

Seward looked as if he’d just been punched in the stomach.

“Luther Cain is coming here?” he said softly. I nodded but he’d already turned away from me and plopped down on the sofa next to Jack, staring straight ahead at nothing in particular. “Jack?” he said softly, not looking at him.

“Yeah?” Jack said, also staring straight ahead.

“Luther Cain and Craig Schiller are coming here?”

“Yeah.”

Seward nodded, as if he’d just asked Jack the time. “What’s going on Jack?”

Jack turned to look at Seward, who continued to stare straight ahead. “I don’t think we can continue with business as usual, Paul.” The use of his agent’s first name as well as Jack’s soft tone made me acutely aware of how hard this actually was for Jack. He’d been with Seward for almost ten years and they’d enjoyed stratospheric success together. Then somehow along the way, Jack became addicted, and when he wanted his drugs Seward had delivered, the same way he delivered anything else Jack asked for. It
was Seward’s job to keep Jack happy, and he’d done that job well, but in the end he did it too well, and for that he was being fired. Jack felt like a shameless hypocrite, a typical Hollywood bad boy, blaming everyone else for his troubles, making a public scapegoat out of his agent. Seeing it that way, I suddenly felt bad for Seward.

“Are you firing me, Jack?” Seward asked without a trace of emotion in his voice.

“Yeah,” Jack said. “I just think I need to start again, you know?”

Seward nodded. “Start again,” he nodded. “Sure. Whatever. If you think you can do better, then by all means . . .”

“It’s not about doing better, Paul,” Jack said quickly.

“I’m just curious, Jack,” Seward said, and I now realized that his carefully modulated voice was not without emotion, but brimming with rage. “Do you think it’s my fault that you’re a fucking cokehead?”

Alison gasped and I started to interrupt, but Jack waved us away. “It’s okay,” he said quickly. “No, Paul, I don’t think it’s your fault. You worked to get me to the top and I didn’t handle it well. But now I’ve got to try to move on, and I have to stay clean.”

“What am I, a goddamn vending machine? If you don’t want to do drugs, don’t do drugs. You’re a pain in the ass on drugs. Puking and crying and making a mess everywhere you go. If you kick the habit, no one is happier than me.”

“I needed help, Paul,” Jack said. “I needed someone to tell me that I was out of control. I needed someone stop me. But you just kept getting me more.”