The Ayatollah's Money

by Richard Dorrance

  Chapter 44 – Laleh’s First Taste of the Business

  Three hours after the news storyad hit the papers and websites, The Hall turned into a madhouse, with Gale at the center, mouthing off. She’d tell one reporter one thing and then another reporter the opposite. One minute it was a movie and then it was a play and then a doco and then she’d say she didn’t know what it was, only Clooney and Soderberg knew, and they were keeping it secret. These were the local reporters. Later that afternoon the national reporters arrived at the airport and made their way to The Hall, and the next day a few international ones showed up. There were so many that first afternoon Gale couldn’t keep up, no matter how facile her lies were. Soon they resorted to interviewing Jinny, who had even less idea about reality than Gale, but whose skill at lying was equivalent, and proceeded to do so with a high level of imagination. Laleh, Roger, Shimmey, and Gwen watched the circus for an hour from high up in the lighting gantries over the stage, hidden in the darkness. Gwen was a little on the grim side, Roger was amused, and Laleh was amazed. She said, “What’s going on? How did these people find out about this place so fast? What do we do now?”

  Roger said, “The CIA thinks they know what’s going on in the world, but these are the people that really know. They have noses like truffle pigs and tenacity like jack russell terriers. The only way to handle them is by doing what Gale’s doing....mis-direction. Get them going all over the place and you have all the publicity you want. Then at some point you hold a news conference and sort it all out by telling the truth.”

  Gwen said, “I wish I knew what the truth was. Is.” She looked at Shim. “That story you wrote worked. At least it worked on the media.”

  Shimmey said, “If it works on the media but not on Clooney and Soderberg, what do we do? It’s chaos down there. Aren’t those people going to get mad at some point?”

  Roger said, “We don’t do anything. They’ll all go away, chasing the next weird lead that comes along. But I don’t think we have to worry about that. The story will work on Clooney. He’s the key. When he cracks and joins up, Soderberg will follow.”

  Laleh said, “What’s going to make him crack?”

  Just then, directly below them on the stage, Gale grabbed Jinny and demonstrated to the reporters how George was going to take the mystery leading lady in his arms and kiss her right after he kills the assassins who’ve been tracking her for weeks. She made Jinny go through all the motions except the actual kiss, which created a lump of disappointment in Jinny’s chest.

  Gwen said, “That wasn’t half bad.”

  Roger said, “What’s going to make him crack is, when he calls I’ll tell him the basic facts, and then I’ll tell him he has to talk with the producer, Gwen, and then he talks with her, and then he cracks.” Roger didn’t smile, he said it matter-of-factly, and waved down at Gale, who gave him a thumbs up.

  Laleh looked at Shimmey, wondering if he knew about this Gwen thing that was so influential. He nodded at her and said, “Yeah, that’ll work. She does this thing, I’ve seen it a couple of times, she talks with someone and then they do what she wants. I don’t know what it is, but it works. It would work on me except that I’ll do whatever she wants, and she doesn’t even have to use the special thing. She uses it on strong people, not writers.” Now Shimmey waved to Gale.

  Laleh watched the circus and Gale’s performance and thought about Gwen’s magic. All this was a lot better than doing business tasks for her father and brothers and getting paid nothing and having them tell her what to do all the time. Gwen stood up on the catwalk and said, “Come on, it’s getting out of control down there. We gotta go and put a clamp on Gale and Jinny.”

  Gwen led the way down the ladder to the rear of the stage and moved through the crowd of media people to the front. Gale and Jinny watched her with ambivalence, knowing their time as the focal point was over, yet curious about what Gwen would do next with this madhouse they had stirred up. Jinny whispered in Gale’s ear that Gwen would get everyone’s attention by pulling her gun from under her jacket and firing a couple of shots into the ceiling of the theater, the way she did once during the ballet production. Gale knew that wasn’t going to happen, and that it was just wishful thinking on Jinny’s part. He loved it when Gwen took out her gun.

  Gwen motioned to Shim and Laleh to join her, thinking it was time they starting getting used to a theatrical environment. She clapped her hands loudly and yelled, “Ok, everyone, your attention, please. I have an announcement about the situation here.” Everyone heard the command in Gwen’s voice and the commotion died down. “Please, go down to the seats.” Again everyone obeyed and filed down the short flight of steps at stage right and stage left. Three minutes later the six members of the June team stood at the front of the stage and looked out at the fifty people or so sitting in the first three rows. Gwen raised her arms and said in a loud voice, “Good evening. My name is Gwen June, and we are June Enterprises.” She motioned to her left and right. “Thank you for coming. As you know, productions of this type sometimes are a bit uncertain in the early going, and this one is no exception. Over the next week or so we will be engaged in pre-production tasks, and will keep you informed of our status via regular press releases and updates to our website. Until a few minutes ago we were uncertain about the arrival time of our director and star. Both of them have extremely busy artistic schedules that take them around the world, and we are fortunate both of them agreed to work in this production on short notice. They have juggled those schedules over the last two weeks, and I am happy to report that both Steven Soderberg and George Clooney arrived in Charleston two hours ago, and are excited about getting to work. We expect to swing into full production mode over the next week.” She paused to let that sink in. “Again, thank you for your interest and your understanding of our production uncertainties.”

  The second Gwen stopped speaking, forty of the fifty people in the seats stood up and yelled questions at her. She turned her back on them for a moment, winked at her husband, and then turned to face them again. Jinny put his arm around Gale and said, “Here we go,” still wishing she had pulled a gun and fired a couple of shots to emphasize her announcement. Laleh and Shimmey just looked at each other, thinking, “This is going to be wild.” All five of the other June Enterprises team were surprised that Gwen had told the mother of all lies about the hotshots being in town, but none of them doubted she would produce the goods.

  Gwen heard ten people ask the same question, so she said, “They’re staying at a private home on The Battery, under a full security detail. Please respect their privacy,” knowing that wasn’t going to happen. Then she heard another ten people shout another question, and she said, “We don’t know who is going to star opposite Mr. Clooney. That hasn’t yet been decided. We have approached a number of actresses you will be familiar with, but the final decision will be made by the Director.”

  Gale was disappointed that Gwen hadn't announced her as the leading lady, but at least she hadn’t yet been ruled out. The next group question was about the form of the production. Is it a play or a film? Twenty five people pointed at Gale and said, “She doesn’t know if it’s a play or a film. How can you make something when you don’t even know what it is?”

  Gwen was ready for this, and said, “You all know Mr. Soderberg recently retired from making movies. What most of you don’t know is that his favorite film maker was Ingmar Bergman, and those of you who know Bergman may know he was involved in the theater for most of his life. When he retired from film making he continued directing plays for several more years. The point is that Mr. Soderberg now is interested in other types of artistic media in addition to film.”

  She waited for the inevitable, ‘What about Clooney?’ and continued, “Mr. Clooney has stated publicly many times his three favorite movies are Oceans Twelve, Leatherheads, and Oh Brother Where Art Thou. So we will have two of those directors invol
ved in this production. Neither Mr. Soderberg nor Mr. Clooney know the form of this project, but are anxious to get to work on it and let the creative process take its course. It’s the role of June Enterprises to support that creative process, and we have no doubt about the quality of the final product. Now, one last question, please.”

  It was weird how ten of the reporters would ask the same question at the same time, but that’s what was happening. In a chorus they said, “What’s the plot of whatever this thing is, and who wrote it?”

  “To answer the second part of the question first, the screenplay, or the script, hasn’t yet been written. Mr. Soderberg’s method will be to write as the process goes along.” Shimmey wondered at this. Was he to be involved? “We do know something about the plot, because that concept is what got Mr. Soderberg and Mr. Clooney interested in the project.” Gwen thought about how to put this, then said, “The production is about a young woman living in a Middle Eastern country who gets fed up with being a second class citizen. She has certain skills which allow her to steal a very large sum of money from a very important person. A political and religious person.”

  An astute reporter from the Boston Globe interjected, “It’s The Ayatollah, isn’t it? The Iranian Ayatollah.”

  Gwen didn’t bite on that, and continued, “This woman leaves her country to make a new life for herself and lands here in Charleston, of all places. She meets a man, played by Mr. Clooney, and falls in love. Meanwhile, the person from whom she stole the money is able to track her to Charleston, and sends an assassination team after her. There you have it, the story, and you can guess that Mr. Clooney will protect her. And that is all we’re going to divulge. What Mr. Soderberg makes of the production is up to him. Now, ladies and gentlemen, our time together today is over. Tomorrow afternoon at 1pm we again will open the theater for another press conference to accommodate the media. Thank you, and please leave by the doors at the rear.” She motioned to Jinny to get these people out of the place, and took the others back into one of the offices at the rear of the stage.

  They all sat down and Roger said, “The fat is in the fire now, hon. Good job.”

  Laleh said, “I remember a story about some explorers who sailed across the ocean to a new land, and when they got there, their commander burned their ships, which had the distinct consequence of motivating his team to achieve their mission, whatever it was. Gwenny, you just burned our ships. I wonder if Clooney will take the bait?”

  And Roger’s cell phone rang.