‘What’s the matter?’
Maha, Sasha’s burly Hungarian housekeeper, poked her head round the door. She was carrying a solid-looking torch.
‘Is everything OK, Miss Sasha? Shall we call the police?’
‘Go back to bed. It’s fine.’
Usually she would have let Maha answer the door, but she was curious to know what was making Josh so agitated. Wrapping herself in her silk robe, she padded downstairs and let him in.
‘This better be good,’ she said, retreating into the kitchen. She opened the fridge and poured herself a glass of Maha’s freshly squeezed orange juice. She didn’t offer Josh any. ‘Well? What’s so bloody important?’
Josh looked terrible. Two grey crescents hung under his eyes. There was a stain on the front of the blue shirt that was brand new the night before. He looked like a tramp. If your sponsors could see you now, thought Sasha, taking a sip of her juice.
‘I’m in deep shit, Sash,’ he said. ‘There was a situation at the party. The police want me to go to the station.’
‘What sort of situation?’
‘I think the News of the World is going to call it a roasting.’
‘Roasting?’ said Sasha. ‘You mean a rape?’
‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘She was up for it.’
Sasha put her glass down on the distressed oak table and walked back to the door. She put her hand on the lock.
‘Out,’ she said.
‘Sasha, please . . .’ he began.
‘Get out of my house!’ she shouted.
Josh came over to her. ‘Hear me out, Sasha, please. It wasn’t like that. I wasn’t involved.’
She saw the desperation in his eyes. He really was scared. It couldn’t hurt to hear what he had to say; she could always call Maha down with her torch.
‘All right, start talking,’ she said, sitting down at the table and crossing her arms.
‘After you’d gone, I stayed in that room,’ he said, his voice trembling. ‘Steve went off, but there were those footballers . . .’
‘And those sluts,’ said Sasha.
Josh looked down and nodded. ‘We had some champagne, a bit of coke. We were all out of it.’
‘Then . . .’
His face looked pale in the dark of the kitchen. ‘Then it all started getting a bit playful. That girl you saw, Louise? She stripped off and Martin started having sex with her on the bed. When he finished, his friend Wayne took over. Then Gary joined in . . .’
‘And was the girl still up for it?’ she said with sarcasm.
He looked away once more and fell silent.
‘And what were you doing at this point?’ she said.
‘I left.’
‘You left,’ she repeated, letting it hang in the air. ‘So why do you look as if you’re stepping up to the executioner’s block if you’re so completely innocent?’
He was looking increasingly uncomfortable under Sasha’s direct gaze.
‘When she took her top off, I felt her tits. I mean, she asked me to! She wanted to prove they were real. I just jiggled them for a second. We were just having a laugh.’
‘Hilarious, yes,’ said Sasha.
‘Listen, I’m in trouble, Sash,’ he said, his eyes pleading.‘It was dark in that room and the girl was out of her head. She didn’t know who fucked her and who didn’t. But I swear to you, I didn’t do anything.’
He put his head in his hands.
‘Gary called me. She’s saying she was raped, and the police have pulled Martin and Kev in. They’re all denying it of course, and who knows if she actually said no.’
‘Do you really think that would have mattered?’ shouted Sasha, thinking of her first few months in London. Men with power, influence, or just the illusion of it, exploiting girls for disposable pleasure.
‘So if you’re all such great mates, how do the police know you were there?’
‘The girl went to the police station with her friend, the other one who was in there. She identified all of us.’
Sasha thought for a moment.
‘Would Gary or Martin say you left the room?’
‘No chance – you know how the papers work. It suits them for me to be dragged into this. They’re all Premiership footballers, but they’re not Beckham or Rooney, not household names. But if I’m involved, the media will home in on me, won’t they? Formula One Ace in Roasting Scandal and all that? No one will be interested in them.’
Sasha knew he was right. Not that Josh was entirely an innocent party here. After all, he’d fondled a drunken girl and then watched the other men have sex with her.
‘Go to the police,’ she said. ‘Tell them what you’ve just told me.’
‘What I say isn’t going to matter!’ he cried. ‘That girl will say I was in the room, she might even say I had sex with her. And that bastard Gary said he would take me down with them unless I kept my mouth shut.’
He looked at her hopefully. ‘There’s only one way I can see out of this ...’
‘What?’
‘Come with me to the station, Sash. Say I left the party with you at two o’clock. I’ll admit to having a drink with them but then say I left the room.’
‘You want me to lie?’
‘Why not?’ he said. ‘You’re a respected businesswoman. I admit I was wrong being there, but I’m not taking the heat for something I didn’t do.’
He stretched his hands over the table and grabbed hers. ‘Sasha, you have to help me.’
Snapshots of the past jumped into her head as she looked at his pleading eyes. The advertising party and the feel of the cold tiles in that toilet stall. Then the island, and Miles Ashford’s face on the beach. Power and lies, lies and power. She couldn’t do it again.
‘I can’t,’ she said, pulling away. She knew the media would tear Josh apart unless she backed up his story, but he had brought it on himself. And the truth was he wasn’t the only victim here. Sasha had her own reputation to think about. She’d built up one of the most successful fashion houses in Europe from the ground up; she wasn’t going to let some sordid little coke orgy screw that up.
‘Why not?’ he said. ‘Why can’t you help me? We’re partners, friends. That’s what friends do for each other. They help each other, protect each other.’
‘That’s over, Josh,’ she said simply. ‘I don’t want to be in this relationship any more.’
‘I can’t believe you’re saying this, Sasha. Not when I need you.’
‘What you need, what we all need is just to tell the truth. It’s simpler that way.’
He stood up and walked to the door. ‘Well I didn’t think I’d hear you of all people say that.’
As he closed the door behind him, she felt a thick sob swell in her throat.
No, neither did I.
61
January 2010
Miles paced up and down the Ash Corp. offices high above the Las Vegas Strip. He was in a particularly foul mood this morning. Not even the blow job he’d received from Hans, the Canadian sous chef in the executive kitchen, had done much to cheer him up.
‘What are we going to do?’ he demanded. ‘The whole project is going tits up and you’re all just sitting there with pokers up your arses. Give me solutions, people!’
The Ash Corp. management team exchanged glances, but none of them spoke.
‘Come on!’ shouted Miles, banging his desk. ‘I pay you good money to fix these things. I need ideas.’
Miles knew he needed more than ideas; he needed a miracle. After the runaway success of the Laing hotel and its rapid extension into luxury apartments on the Strip, the Las Vegas gaming commission had had a sudden sea change in its attitude towards Ash Corp. As long as certain conditions were met, they said – Miles suspected that ‘certain conditions’ meant ‘heavy investment’ – they were open to an approach vis-à-vis building a casino. Work began on Ashford Towers almost immediately: a vast upwardly mobile hotel, casino and condo project. It had been started in late 2006 wh
en the whole of America was riding on the crest of an economic wave. Sin City was recession-proof, everyone said so. In its entire history it had only suffered one downturn, immediately after 9/11. But then no one could have predicted the scale and impact of the 2008 financial crisis. Sub-prime greed, arrogant hedge-funders plus the hubris of the US banks meant that the world economy not only wobbled, it toppled to the ground, taking Lehman Brothers and a whole house of cards with it. To Miles’ fury, Ash Corp. was left badly exposed. If he had stuck with his father’s policy of diversification, they might have been able to roll with the punches, but he had restructured to focus on leisure, travel and construction – three of the most vulnerable sectors in a recession. Now Ashford Towers seemed to stand as a shining monument to his folly, its rooms empty, the gamblers shifting to Hold ’em Poker, the only game in Vegas where the house failed to win.
‘Well, we could refinance,’ said Greg Barbera, the Ash Corp. COO, cautiously. ‘It’s a risk of course, given the current climate, but it might help us ride it out.’
‘No, that’s just throwing good money after bad,’ said Miles. ‘Besides, we haven’t got the time. Every hour it’s open, the casino is sucking up more electricity than the whole of New England. We need to make money, not borrow it.’
‘Perhaps if we look at the projections?’ said Jonathon Cohen, finance director. ‘I’ve run a few figures, and if we experience a bounce effect, we may gain some breathing space.’
Miles jabbed his finger at the spreadsheet in front of him. ‘Screw your projections, Jon,’ he said. ‘Look at the figures from last month. Hotel booking down thirty per cent on your worst-case scenario. What kind of confidence do you think that instils in me? We need to face facts: it’s far worse than anyone dared guess.’
‘It’s not just us. Have you seen where MGM Mirage stock prices are? Steve Wynn has just had to cut employees’ salaries by ten per cent.’
‘I don’t care what other people are doing,’ said Miles. ‘I only care what we’re doing.’
He looked around at each of the team. ‘Right. No more double-talk and marketing-speak bollocks. I want each of you to go away and come back with real-life workable solutions for rescuing Ashford Towers – and Ash Corp.’
He clapped his hands. ‘Go on, piss off.’
Silently they all gathered their notes and filed towards the door.
‘Not you, Michael,’ said Miles, gesturing to Michael Marshall to close the door. He walked over to his drinks bar and poured himself a malt whisky. ‘Snifter?’ he asked, but Marshall shook his head. ‘OK, Mike, tell me you’ve got an idea.’
The lawyer had started out in the company by getting Ash Corp. a foothold out here in the desert; now Miles needed him to perform another of his sleight-of-hand tricks. Marshall had risen up the ranks by doing Ash Corp.’s dirty work, but now he was Miles’ consiglieri, the one man he trusted to dig them out of this hole, because the alternative was grim: the whole company could go down.
‘I do have one idea to get hotel occupancy up, but I’m not sure you’re going to like it.’
‘If it works, I’ll like it, Michael,’ said Miles, sipping the amber liquid. ‘We’ve run out of elegant solutions. Ugly is all we got.’
‘All right,’ said Marshall. ‘Hotel occupancy is down, gambling is down, people have fallen out of love with Vegas – no one gets excited about blackjack when they’re struggling to keep a roof over their heads.’
‘My heart bleeds,’ said Miles. ‘But continue.’
‘There’s one other thing Vegas does that people will always want – showbiz. This place does over-the-top razzle-dazzle like nowhere else on earth, and people will come for that, because in hard times, everyone loves escapism – plus they feel they’re getting value for money. Now Cirque du Soleil continues to pack ’em in, and Celine Dion’s residency at Caesars has taken over fifty-five million dollars in ticket revenues over the first twelve months.’
Miles nodded. ‘It’s an interesting angle, but let’s say forty mill of that is profit – forty large isn’t going to fill our hole.’
‘Exactly, but fifty-five million ticket sales equals at least a couple of hundred thousand customers passing our way. They all need food, lodging and gas. And if they’re happy, in a great mood having seen a great gig, it will get them into the casino.’
‘But who’s big enough in the States to pull in that number? Madonna?’
‘Too expensive.’
‘Well who else sells tens of million of albums?’
Michael looked at him and nodded.‘Time to call in a favour, Miles.’
Alex didn’t say yes or no; he just laughed. The speakers in the conference call system crackled as his laugh boomed out.
‘Tell me you’re joking, Miles?’ he said down the line. ‘You have to be kidding, right?’
Miles struggled to keep his voice calm. He had been reluctant to call Alex at his home in London, but Michael had persuaded him that it was the only way to bring in enough bodies to get the casino working again.
‘I’m completely serious. We both have a lot to gain.’
‘You have a lot to gain, you mean,’ said Alex.
‘Think about it, Alex. It’s a golden opportunity to really reach your core audience. You tour all over the world, but you sell far more albums here in the States. They love you here. And it’s good for you, too. You’ve been quiet for the last eighteen months. AWOL from the industry, from your fans. And this way, you can stay in one place throughout the residency, instead of flying from country to country.’
There was a pause.
‘OK, I’ll admit that appeals to me,’ Alex said. ‘Touring is one of the things I hate the most about this job.’
‘Exactly,’ said Miles. ‘And you could build whatever kind of set you liked, be really creative with the way it’s presented. You won’t get that when you’re playing in football stadiums.’
‘What, are you thinking like a theatre in the round or something?’
Miles looked at Michael, who just shrugged.
‘Anything, the sky’s the limit on that score,’ said Miles enthusiastically, leaning over his desk.
‘I don’t know, Miles,’ said Alex. ‘I’ve just got out of rehab, I’m feeling good about myself. I’m not sure I’m ready to go out there yet.’
‘But you must have new songs you want to showcase, a new direction perhaps?’
‘Maybe,’ said Alex. ‘How long were you thinking?’
‘Seventy-five nights. Maybe more.’
‘Whaaaat!’
‘We’ll give you two hundred thousand a show.’
Alex was laughing again. ‘I don’t need money, Miles. Right now I need my sanity.’
‘You owe me, Alex.’
‘I’ll always be grateful for your help. But a seventy-five-night residency! I’ve been ill, Miles, you know that.’
‘Not ill enough to work for my sister.’
‘That’s a film score. I can do it from home.’
‘Don’t let me down, Alex,’ said Miles, his tone turning angry. ‘You’re saying no to me? After everything I’ve done for you?’
‘You know what?’ said Alex. ‘For once in my life I am saying no to you, Miles Ashford.’ There was a soft click through the speakers.
‘Alex?’ said Miles. ‘Alex?’ He looked at Michael. ‘Get him back, Marshall!’ he shouted. ‘Get the fucker back on the line!’
‘He’s gone, Miles. He said no.’
No one said no to Miles Ashford, no one. He looked out of the window at the silver tower twinkling in the sun. And roaring with frustration, he swept his arm across his desk, smashing the phone to the floor.
62
Alex pressed ‘save’ on his hard drive, feeling a familiar rush of excitement. It was the same feeling he remembered getting when he pressed ‘stop’ on his battered old tape recorder, having just committed a song to cassette. Only this time, he wasn’t sitting in that mouse-ridden house in Fallowfield; he was in his recording studio
in the basement of a Georgian mews house in a quiet pocket of Highgate. And this wasn’t a song; it was his first film score – two whole hours of sweeping, soaring music that had pushed him to the limit of his abilities as a composer. The last few months he had spent working on Grace’s film had been some of the hardest he’d had to go through, constantly questioning himself, constantly pushing himself harder until he’d created something he just knew was better than anything he’d done before. More than anything else, he felt proud of himself. Six months ago, he had been shivering and puking on the floor of his room in Second Chances; now he was sober, hopeful and content to just be here, doing what he loved. With a new song, he could connect with people, he could make someone cry, he could make his fortune. But here, he felt he had turned a corner in his life. Here he had opened a new door.
Kiss Heaven Goodbye Page 52