by AnonYMous
“Sometimes it’s tough here, yeah,” I replied, earnestly. “But life isn’t perfect, y’know? You can’t just complain all the time. You’ve gotta do what you love—but you’ve also gotta find a way to love what you do.” (For some reason, this didn’t sound as good when I said it.) “If you never commit to anything because you think you’re too good for it, because it isn’t exactly right, then you’ll miss out on all kinds of opportunities, and this is one of those opportunities, Brock. Joey Lovecraft wants me to write scripts for him. He’s paying me. Why don’t you come out here to LA for a weekend—see what it’s like? Maybe we could do our plan in reverse?”
“Uh-huh.”
A long pause.
“What do you mean… ‘Uh-huh?’” I said, testily. “That could mean yes or no.”
“I mean, uh, yeah… right on. Look, Sash, I’ve gotta—”
“Are you even listening?”
“Of course, Sash. Of course.”
“Then what do you think about coming to LA?”
“Me—go to LA? No can do. I’ve got stuff going on. And Pete is living on the couch.”
“Pete? What is he, three years old?” I was beginning to remember how much Brock could irritate me.
“He needs my help, man. He’s broke. Look, why don’t you come out here, like we said, like we had planned, and we can talk? All that hanging around with celebrities—it’s like you’re not thinking straight, Sash. I’m getting worried about—”
A muffled scrunching noise, like someone had just pulled the phone away from him.
Chaos on the line.
“… give it to me…”
“Tell her.”
“… just gimme the phone…”
“Fucking tell her, Brock.”
“… will you stop…”
“If you’re not going to do it yourself, I’ll do it for you, dammit. Jesus, you’re pathetic.”
A female voice—older—addressed me. “Sasha? This is Nadia. I’m Brock’s manager at the Hua-Kuwali. Brock’s been meaning to tell you: We’re fucking. We’ve been fucking since he arrived in Hawaii, actually, but on a more regular basis recently. We’re lying naked in my bedroom at this very moment. Brock is living here with me, Sasha. His bong-brained friend Pete is subletting his apartment. That time he didn’t call you back for two days when you were in San Diego? We were on Maui together. We were fucking, Sasha. We’re pretty much always fucking, because as you know, Brock here is quite the piece of ass. He’s been leading you on, honey. He wants you to come all the way out here, just so he can break up with you in person, which in my opinion is a lot worse than just telling you like this over the phone. But I guess I’ve just ruined the surprise. Stay in LA, Sasha.”
For some reason, I was sure everyone in that hospital lobby knew the line had just gone dead on me. So I stood there for a while longer, hand still over one ear.
“Okay, love you, bye,” I said, a few seconds later.
Then I walked very calmly to the bathroom, where I bawled my way through half a toilet roll.
I felt much better afterwards. Much, much better.
At least Joey had been wrong about one thing: Nadia wasn’t “some hula-skirted surf princess.” I’d seen pictures of her on Brock’s Facebook page: She was midforties, with a smoker’s complexion, and showing evidence of the kind of cosmetic surgery that’s intended to repair the damage caused by previous cosmetic surgery. All right, so maybe not that bad. But bad enough for me to suspect that Brock had a nonromantic motive, no doubt related to Nadia’s salary as the manager of a five-star beachfront hotel. He always liked the good life, Brock. Or more accurately, he liked to be supported, usually via frequent and generous wire transfers from his dad. I wondered how much longer he could get away with living like that.
Then again: Who gave a fuck?
Not me.
Boris was sympathetic, as always.
“Dude was a gutless loser, Sash, but I know you wanted to finish your Novel of, uh—Huge Significance?—over there in hula-land. So I’m sorry it didn’t work out.”
“Immense Profundity, actually. And ‘finish’ isn’t exactly the right word. It’s still one sentence long.”
“Yeah, but like you said the other day, at least you figured out where to set it.”
“Hmm. Guess.”
“Have you ever been to a fifteenth-century Norwegian monastery before, by the way?”
“No. But here’s the funny thing, Boris: I think I might have already written another book. A totally different kind of book. Without even knowing it.”
“What—you’ve been sleep-writing or something?”
“I’m serious. Since I moved to LA, I’ve been keeping a diary. Just notes on stuff that’s been happing at work. Conversations with Joey. Rants about Len. That kind of thing. You’re in it, too. Not much. But I wrote a few pages about our first date—before I found out about Mrs. Zglagovvcini being your great aunt and everything.”
“Look, Sash, she insisted I didn’t—”
“Let’s not get into that again.”
“She didn’t think you’d agree to—”
“Mrs. Zglagovvcini is insane, Boris. No offence to your family or anything. Insane. But anyway. As I was saying: My novel’s been right there, the whole time, staring me in the face—literally—on my laptop. I didn’t even realize how much I’d been writing: I’ve got more than three hundred pages! And I was reading some of it back last night, and it’s just… the craziest stuff. All I’ve got to do is change the names and take out that one bit about Wayne—I mean, the whole puppy thing is bad enough—and it’s done. My first novel, finished. I even have a title.”
“What is it?”
“A Babylonian Named Bill,” I said, proudly.
“Ah.”
“You like it?”
“Lemme sleep on it. In the meantime, you’d better keep that laptop of yours locked up at night.”
“What do you mean?”
“Jesus, Sash—are you kidding me? After everything that’s happened this season? If Len or Teddy or any of those guys find out you’ve written a book about them, they’ll go nuts. It’ll be like the Watergate breakins all over again. Back that thing up, man. Print out the file. E-mail it to yourself. And for God’s sake, don’t take it to work.”
I didn’t tell Len any of this, of course. Then again, if Dick had been following me—which wouldn’t have come as much of a surprise—he would have known about Boris already. I’d been practically living at his house up on Mulholland Drive. Hence the cabs.
“Look, I don’t get it,” I said to Len, as the three of us sat there in his office, projector still humming. “Why do you care about the leaks? I mean, okay, it sucked to be Joey when Rabbit found out he’d been using pig pee in his drug tests. And I felt bad for Big Nugg when all that stuff about Jimmy, uh, came out. Mia? well… she deserved it, to be honest. And Cassie should have known better. But that’s not the point. The point is, shouldn’t we be thanking Chaz Chipford? Aren’t all these headlines the reason why our ratings have been going up every week?”
Len raised his palms as if in surrender.
“As much as I enjoy having a three-hundred-pound dick at my beck and call—no offence, Dick—this wasn’t my idea,” he said. “I got my orders from up on high. The way Big Corp sees it, all this tittle-tattle in ShowBiz might be doing us a favor for now, but what’s the next story going to be? The Germans have put a greased fist up Sir Harold Killoch’s arsehole, Bill. He can’t afford another scandal. Besides, he invested a hundred million dollars in The Talent Machine. He doesn’t want us stealing its glory, which would make it look like the giant fucking pile of ego wank that it is. They’re happy to see our numbers improve, yes—but not too much. And certainly not if it means giving ShowBiz magazine any leverage over us.”
“So it’s all politics.”
“All I care about is catching the mole, getting through the finale next Thursday, then getting on a plane to the farthest point away fr
om Greenlit Studios on Earth, so I can live to see another season—if Sir Legs Eleven gives us that pleasure,” said Len. “Now think, Bill. How come you’re suddenly acting like you’re working at Vogue magazine, with all these cabs and designer dresses.”
There was no point in hiding it any longer. I was amazed Len hadn’t figured it out for himself already, in fact. “Okay,” I sighed. “So I meant to tell you this a few weeks ago.”
“Tell me what?” Len looked urgently at Dick, who reached for his notebook.
“It’s Joey,” I said. “I’m… writing scripts for him. Same thing Tad’s been doing for Bibi all season, basically. Only I’m doing it at nights and at weekends. Moonlighting.”
It was the first time I’d ever seen Len look genuinely surprised. “You mean… you’re the one who… ?” He couldn’t even get his words out. I noticed something else in Len’s face, too. Another first: He was impressed. There was no hiding it.
“Yeah,” I confirmed.
“So… the joke about the banjo and the cheese stick that got picked up by Letterman the other—”
“Mine. Well, now it’s Joey’s, technically. Mitch had me assign the copyright.”
“Wow, Billy the Kiddo, I had no idea. A scriptwriter. You. Well, who would have guessed it? I wanted to be a writer myself, y’know. Always thought I had a novel in me. Mind you, I suppose you could write a hundred novels about this bloody place.”
“Am I in trouble?” I asked, expecting the worst, which Len was usually only too happy to deliver.
He leaned back in his chair and put his feet up on the table. Dick looked uncomfortable with the informality and straightened himself, as if to compensate.
“I’ve given you a hard time on this show,” Len declared, with a frankness in his tone that made me nervous. “I remember calling up Bibi not long after you got Bill’s job, and telling her to invite you over for lunch when you’d been out drinking until three a.m., just so I could hear how you’d suffered through it. The celery was the best part. Oh, I almost died. That was Bibi’s idea, by the way. And the fact she kept it going for seven hours before you asked to go home. Priceless! They brought out the cheeseburgers and fries the second you were out the front door.”
“You mean…” A ripple of heat rose up through my chest and into my face. “That was—”
“What I’m saying is,” Len went on, “I wanted you to quit or commit. There was something about you, Bill: You were good at your job, but you always seemed above it, like you didn’t care, like you had some bigger plan.” He was looking right at me now, leaving me with no choice but to meet his gaze, when all I really wanted to do was get up and tug at his hair, to see if the Merm could actually be real.
“Let me tell you something, Bill,” he continued, changing course. “I was bullied at school. Mercilessly. Head flushed down the toilet twice a day, at ten o’clock and three o’clock, without fail. You could set your fucking watch to the sound of me going under. But it made me a better man, Bill. It made me want to make a living out of what everyone had mocked me for—my love of pantomime—and go on to make so much money, fuck so many beautiful women, and buy such an enormous car, that I could come back to Chiswick and laugh in the faces of all those meat-brained arseholes with their shitty houses and ugly wives.”
“That’s a touching story, Len,” I said, squirming. “A modern-day fairy tale.”
“I haven’t finished yet.”
“I think I already know where you’re headed.”
He pressed on. “So if I’ve been hard on you, Bill—it was for your own good,” he said. “And look at you now: Writing scripts for Joey Lovecraft! I’m glad you found a way to make this job work for you, Bill, and to answer your question, no, you’re not in trouble. You have my blessing, as long as this stays off-the-clock. Just don’t tell Ed Rossitto, whatever you do. And if I ever find you sitting around in a beret, looking at the flowers for inspiration, you’re fired.”
“Thank you, Len,” I said—and I guess I meant it. For an asshole, he hadn’t been as much of an asshole as I’d expected. Maybe he wasn’t even that bad. Maybe he was just misguided. “For the record,” I said, refusing to let his theory of management go unchallenged. “I don’t think bullying made you any stronger. I think you would have done well anyway. I think bullying just makes people who are bullied do the same thing to others. It’s miserable, Len. A miserable, pointless cycle.”
“Agreed,” said Dick, unexpectedly.
“Jesus Christ,” coughed Len, taking his feet down from the table and glaring at us in turn, disgust in his eyes. “You two should go take a fucking cuddle break.”
“I’ve got a much better idea,” Dick suggested, impatiently. “Why don’t we get back to business?”
“Yes,” agreed Len. “Where were we?”
“Suspicious activity,” prompted Dick. He seemed eager to get me out of the room, move on to the next interrogation. Presumably they were working their way through the entire Project Icon payroll, in which case, it was going to be a long day.
“Right, yes,” said Len, fingers on his temples to focus himself. “So before you go, Bill: I need you to tell us anything you’ve seen or heard at Project Icon that’s given you cause for concern. Anything. I know you think all this press has been good for the ratings—and it has, yes—but Sir Harold has made his feelings very clear: He wants this leak plugged and the person responsible for it punished. This bingo business has pushed him right to the edge, Bill. Plus, the man’s eighty-two years old. He’s unpredictable. Any excuse, and bam! He’ll shut us down. And I don’t even need to tell you how much pressure Nigel Crowther is putting on the old bugger to give The Talent Machine a clear field in September. We’re not home free yet, Bill. Not by a very long shot. So think: Who could be doing this?”
29
Wingwoman
THE FOLLOWING THURSDAY, when finale night arrived, I was on an airplane.
No kidding: At 4:47 p.m., local time—thirteen minutes until opening credits—I was at five thousand feet, and rising. Only this wasn’t a commercial jet, taking me back home to Mom’s place in Long Island. No, it was a Beechcraft Super King Air, a rattly old twin turboprop deal, the engines vibrating at precisely the same frequency as my recently formed headache. There’d been a lot of drinking the previous night, after Sir Harold’s speech. And who could blame us, really, after everything we’d been through? Still: There I was, in an actually-quite-flattering jumpsuit, with a parachute on my back, and a steel frame over my chest to support a wireless camera unit. Next to me: an instructor and a technician, the latter recalibrating some vital piece of mobile broadcasting equipment.
Oh, and yeah: Joey was right behind me. They had him in the “full James Bond”—tuxedo jacket, white shirt, bow tie, striped pants, cummerbund, spit-polished shoes… the works. Not to forget the Project Icon-branded crash helmet, radio headset with microphone, and—most important of all—matching black parachute.
He grinned and made the triple ring sign.
Joey, being sober, was the only member of the Project Icon staff without a skull-crushing hangover—and he’d spent most of the day being insufferable about it: making a high-pitched, nondirectional humming noise during rehearsal, for example. Or mock-vomiting in front of Bibi. (This had backfired somewhat when he actually did vomit.)
We kept gaining altitude.
Six thousand feet… seven… eight…
In case you’re wondering: I told Len and Dick everything. More or less everything, anyhow. When I skimped on details, it was to protect Joey. The details are never kind to Joey.
I started with Milwaukee, and Bibi’s threat to set me up. And then I moved on to the part about how my pills had later gone missing—what a coincidence!—and reappeared right there in the bathroom of Joey’s trailer. Naturally, I lied and said Mitch had discovered them in good time. (There was no need to get into the whole thing about Maison Chelsea, especially with regards to Joey’s tongue and my mouth.) I even came clean abo
ut Crowther, believe it or not. The helicopter, the yacht… the fact that Chaz Chipford himself was right there, by the fireplace, drink in hand, those improbably dimensioned women fawning all over him. The only detail I left out was the appearance of Bill. It was irrelevant; and besides, I’d signed that confidentiality agreement, and didn’t want to push my luck. As for the climax of my tale: It was Crowther’s revelation that he knew about Joey’s admission to Mount Cypress Medical Center, seconds after Mitch had texted me. I didn’t mention the aspirin, of course. “Someone must have tipped him off,” I said, hoping they’d suspect, as I did, that it was Bibi.
Or Teddy, of course.
Or both of them, working together: Team Evil.
I was in that room for what seemed like hours, going through all of this. When I was done, Len looked drained of what little color he’d had to begin with. Dick, on the other hand, could barely have smiled any wider. I doubted that he’d ever had a more interesting day. Then the pair of them stood up, thanked me, told me they’d look into it, thanked me again, and hustled me out of the door.
It was over. Done.
Now for the consequences.
I didn’t actually see Len again until the day before the finale, when Sir Harold made his “presentation” to the Project Icon staff. The Big Corp CEO was supposed to have delivered this in person, of course—it was an annual fixture—but he couldn’t, on account of his ever-worsening Bavarian problem. Instead, the crew set-up a video link between Greenlit Studios and his hotel suite in Berlin, and we awaited his address in the seats usually reserved for the audience.
Eventually, Sir Harold’s face appeared in triplicate on the stadiumgrade monitors.
“Can he see us?” someone whispered.
No one was sure.
“Guten Abend, Kollegen,” he began, smiling weakly. He looked every bit as bad as I feared he would: as though every organ in his body were struggling to function. His voice was half-gone, too. All that testimony, no doubt. The Germans had him in court eight hours a day. No life for an octogenarian—even if he was a billionaire.