The Movie (6 page)

‘The Boys of Summer’ by Don Henley flooded the car’s luxurious interior with soothing, mellow sounds, and Eleanor let the music wash over her, finding a small haven of pleasure and relaxation in the combination of speed and melody. God only knew that once she stepped inside the lot she wouldn’t have a chance to breathe all day. And when she got home…

Eleanor shrugged, feeling guilty. She knew she ought to look forward to going home. She pictured Paul Halfin, her partner. Forty-five years old, aristocratic, thick grey hair and intelligent, cold blue eyes. Very sober, very suitable, Paul was a pin-up boy for the new, eco-conscious decade; he worked out, shunned red meat, always stood in the

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presence of a lady and was utterly faithful. He preferred opera and free art to watching a baseball game, was well read and highly polished, and had been at home in the finest country clubs since birth. As a respected investment banker, his career neither overpowered, nor was overpowered by, hers. Paul had had no problem with Eleanor’s promotion, the day it finally came. Why should he? Albert, Hal/m, Weissman had completed another successful takeover only that week. On the contrary, Paul took Eleanor to Ma Maison for champagne and celebration, and basked in all the little tributes she received as Hollywood queued before their table to kiss the hand of the new queen in town.

He was a perfect escort. Everybody said so. And in the

, nineties, that was what it was all about. The days of cocaine

and musical beds were long over. Now, if you weren’t half

of a loving, devoted couple, or at least a couple which appeared loving and devoted, you were nobody. And a Hollywood woman’s top accessory of choice had shifted from a diamond necklace to a diapered baby.

.The CD skipped to a sexy James Brown track, and the president of Artemis Studios pushed her foot almost to the floor, picking up a burst of speed, trying to drive through the sudden stab of pain, blinking rapidly to get rid of the instant fdm of tears that had settled across her eyes. She couldn’t afford this weakness. She couldn’t afford to surrender to the permanent ache, the feeling of emptiness and pressure, the terror that she’d left it too late. Not now. She couldn’t think about a baby now.

By the time her gleaming car swung into the executive parking lot, past the saluting guards, Eleanor Marshall, 341cthe most powerful woman in Hollywood, looked like somebody who was always, always, always in control.

‘Hey, good-looking.’

Tom Goldman, chairman and chief executive of Arte

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Eleanor’s office. ‘Thought I heard you coming in.’

‘I know you’re a sucker for my light, tripping footsteps, boss.’

They smiled at one another, co-conspirators at the top. Eleanor felt the inevitable small shock of pleasure at seeing him for the first time that day. Goldman was her closest friend and best ally. He’d been her mentor at Artemis since the sixties, when she was a novelty woman employee, albeit just a lowly reader, and he’d been number two in the merchandising division. Their paths up the -greasy pole had run pretty much together, although Eleanor had taken far longer to make that final push into the Artemis inner circle, the tiny little group of people who, despite all the fancy titles and vice-presiden tial perks of the common or garden management, were the only xnes with any real power to get anything done. For five long years Eleanor had done time in Marketing, making buckloads of money for the head honchos in New York, all the time trying to prove that she had what it took for a creative position. Tom had always pushed for her, in the mild way senior Hollywood people push for favoured juniors. After all, no one can afford to be too closely linked to an untried exec. They might screw up and make you look bad. But finally, last month, Goldman had really come through for her.. After Martin Webber, the last president, was fired for a hit-free year, Tom gave a slick presentation in the boardroom of the parent corporation, and Eleanor Marshall was the newest recruit to the world’s most exclusive sorority. Female Players. Girls

with the clout to cut it with the boys.

She was thirty-eight years old.

Goldman looked his new second-in-command over. This morning she reminded him more than ever of Grace Kelly, a soft De La R.enta suit in buttery silk setting offhe flawless blonde bob and impeccable complexion, and low

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heals from Chloe dongating her already endless, slender legs. Nojewellery except a subtle Patek Philippe watch on her right wrist. No make-up except a light base, maybe a tiny dash of blusher across those high cheekbones. Elegant Eleanor. He smiled, thinking how well she dressed for the part, how perfectly she matched up to all those insulting nicknames that the male VPs threw around. The Ice

Princess. The Blessed Virgin. Killer Queen.

‘Always.’

It was true; nobody made him laugh like she did, nobody understood him better. Tom wondered for the millionth time if there’d been a chance for him with Eleanor once, but they had both been so wary playing the

studio game, making sure the correct amount of distance ‘ was always between them…

Eleanor tapped a heel on the soft carpet. ‘Better watch out for these footsteps, Tom. A woman’s shoes can be a

deadly weapon.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Sure. Didn’t you see Single White Female?’

‘He laughed. ‘You coming after me in a wig? That scene doesn’t play.’

‘You never know.’

They smiled at each other, but there was an edge to it. Since hst month, all the rules had changed. If Eleanor screwed up, Tom would be the one who’d have to fire her. And if she did great …. maybe he would look good to his bosses on the East Coast, or maybe they would replace him with her. They had been friends for fLeen years, but now, at the top, it was harder.

‘We have a meeting with Sam Kendrick this morning,’ Goldman told her, throwing himself into a leather armchair opposite her and resting his shoes on top of her desk.

‘General or specific?’ Her brittle professionalism always took him aback.

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‘General, as far as we’re concerned. I wanted to brief him on what we might be interested in this season.’

Standard practice. Talk to the big agents, let them know roughly what you needed right now. It was a timesaving device; that way they weren’t pitched with a billion Pretty Woman clones when they were looking for Terminator XV.

She nodded. ‘OK, that’s useful. But your tone would seem to imply that this isn’t routine for Sam.’

Goldman shrugged. ‘I got the feeling he had something in mind. I pressed him a little, but he didn’t let on.’

She felt her second small thrill of the day. A deal … maybe. Sam Kendrick didn’t usually drop false hints. She wanted to do a deal, she’d already been here a month. Not that anybody expected her to prove that she was Jeff Katzenberg in a little over four weeks, but the pressure was still there. Martin had finally got fired, but the internal whispers about him, the nasty little rumours, the lack of respect at cewa.inkey restaurants in town; that had started earlier-much earlier. Like about three months into his presidency, when no major deals had been signed. Of course, Martin’s reaction had been to green-light that terrible soft-porn flick that made the grosses on Body of Evidence look lAke Jurassic Park, and the other dog about the handicapped cop. She wasn’t about to make the same mistake, please God, but she could understand now how Martin had felt. The pressure to do a deal, to make a movie, to have a hit, mounted from the second they put your name on the stationery. And with her being a woman, not having come from the creative side of the business, and following Martin and his equally disastrous predecessor, the pressure was now up to steel-crushing levels. Artemis were desperate for a hit. Eleanor was desperate to fred them one, desperate for the right deal.

Sam probably knew that. Well, she wouldn’t bite unless it was good.

She hoped it was.

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‘We’ll see in Sam’s own sweet time,’ she said casually. Goldman nodded and stood up. She admired the way he moved. She had a brief flash of fantasy, of Tom inside her, stroking her with his cock, teasing her over the edge. He would be wild in bed, he would fuck like a savage. Not perfunctorily, like Paul, ticking off another goal for the day.

‘Are you guys free for lunch next Saturday, by the way?’ Tom asked, already on his way out. ‘Jordan and I are having a small party on the yacht.’

‘Surely,’ said Eleanor. They would just have to cancel on the Wintertons; Paul owed her one anyway. She liked spending free time with Tom, away from the relentless pressures of work. Even if it did mean socializing with that jailbait Barbie doll he’d married; Jordan Cabot Goldman, twenty-four years old, with hair down to her ass and tits out to the horizon and baby-soft skin that always made Eleanor feel like a wizened old crone. A self-styled feminist with no career and an IQ smaller than her bust measurement, but an unerring knack for giving the right parties and sipporting the charity dejour. Eleanor was sure her picture was in every dictionary right next to ‘trophy wife’.

One look at Jordan in her skintight wedding dress, slender young arm possessively wrapped round a besotted Tom, and Eleanor had smiled gently at Paul and felt hope shrivel and die inside her.

‘How sweet of Jordan to think of us. We’d be delighted,’ she said brightly, smiling back at him.

The phone shrilled on her desk. ‘No rest for the wicked,’ Tom told her, grinning and walking out.

Eighty-nine… ninety.., ninety-one…

David Tauber raised his torso up from the polished hardwood floor of his home gym, arms locked together over his head, bronzed legs stretched out straight in front of him, using only the well-developed muscles, of his

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stomach. Heavy rock music thudded around him, but the melody was just so much background noise. Tauber’s handsome face was set in a grim expression of pain and determination as he brought his trapped elbows down to his knees, right, left, then lowered himself back down to the floor and started again. Ninety-three… ninety-four… The agony was visible in the sweat that was beading all over the tanned, toned body that stared back at him from his mirrored walls, but then that was the prize. Two hundred and fifty pounds of solid muscle, with body-fat composition a mere 13 per cent. Ninety-eight . . ninety nine … David Tauber never gave up, no matter what torment his muscles were suffering. One hundred. There. Done. Tomorrow he might go for one-thirty.

Tauber stood up painfully and switched off the music, an incomprehensible rant about alienation and heartbreak by Dark Angel. Definitely not his normal thing. He preferred Gershwin and Cole Porter, but if Zach Mason was going to be his client, then David Tauber was the world’s biggest Dark Angel fan, as of the second Zach’s inky scrawl had dried on his deal. He was going to learn to

like industrial metal. If it killed him.

‘I guess I’ll see you later, then.’

A tanned, stacked blonde hovered in the doorway, hesitantly. Tauber’s eyes flicked over the tight T-shirt pulled across jiggling breasts, real ones, which had made a nice change for him, the equally tight jeans stretched across a butt that was fractionally too wide, the long, soft hair and the dumb hazel eyes. He was pleased to feel a twinge of desire, which was amazing really, considering that he had come in her mouth so recently.

What was she waiting for? Did she expect to be invited for breakfast? ‘Sure. I’ll call you, Data.’

‘OK,’ said the girl, disappointed but having the good sense to pick up her purse and leave. David glanced balk

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into the bedroom, saw that she had left a neat pile of glossy eight-by-tens on his bedside table. He smiled. Some things never change. Maybe he would call her.., she had just the fight looks for a small walk-on in Baywatch he’d heard was coming up, if she lost ten pounds. That should be no problem, it was just puppyfat she was carrying around. Only sixteen. And on the upside, you got great skin at that age. Plus, he thought he might want seconds. She’d been supple and compliant, she’d shaved herself between the legs and she knew how to suck. And she’d left in good time, too.

Tauber flashed on to a mental picture of her soft lips sliding up and down his cock, reddened with lipstick in the way he’d told her to do it, so he could get more pleasure ,out of watching her. He sensed himself get hard again,

remembering her perfect sense of pace, the warm juices of her mouth dosing round him, that tricky little thing she’d done with her tongue. Yeah, he would definitely call her.

He flicked on the percolator and went to take a cold shower. All his energies had to be directed just one way this morning. Towards the meeting at Artemis. This was exactly what he’d been waiting for and hustling for ever since he arrived at SKI two years ago, a green kid fresh from Yale with little more than a small trust fund, an OK grade-point average and limitless ambition. He’d hustled his way into a secretary’s job right off-no messing around with the mailroom for Iavid Tauber-and he’d hustled his way right back out again, making junior agent within two months. After that it had been a little tougher. No talent wants to risk association with some greenhorn kid playing agent, but no greenhorn kid gets up to agent status without

a talent. Catch-zz. Your problem. You figure it out.

But he had. And how.

David twisted under his power jets, letting the icy bhsts instantly eradicate his moment of lust. He wanted to raise the temperature, but resisted the temptation. Two more

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minutes. His trainer insisted cold water did wonders for the circulation.

The first signature had been hard. Colleen McCallum, a fat, riding Irish actress with a great career as a sex bomb ten years back, now reduced to putting out decent-selling schlock-folk albums and guest spots on summer specials. ICM had basically given up on her, but that didn’t mean Colleen was ready to chance it with a new rice. Jesus, how he’d had to chase the bitch. A twenty to the local florist had revealed a taste for orchids, and sure, they had to be the most expensive ones, and David had sent huge bunches morning, lunchtime and night for three weeks. Cost a fortune. He called six times a day. He put clippings together of all the shows he thought she’d be right for. That was when she’d permitted him more than a few seconds on the phone when he called. He remembered now that he’d thought about taking her out and sleeping with her - that was what she’d really wanted, wearing those see-through pink chiffon robes over her chunky body when he called round. David shivered at that memory, shutting the water off. Hell, he should just think of that whenever he wanted to cool down. More effective than cold water any day. Thank God he’d realized just in time that if he faked a relationship with Colleen he’d be stuck with it. You could pack cuties like Dara off in the morning, but not so a client. Your gig was to make them big, and if they got big they could make big trouble. Tauber shuddered at the thought of Colleen complaining about him to Mike Campbell, or worse still, to Sam Kendrick. Because he had made he big, and now his job was to keep her both big and happy.