Taking Hollywood

by Shari King

  ‘I know,’ she replied. Calm. Serene. Resigned.

  ‘It’s Jack.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘And Mercedes.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Mirren, she’s pregnant.’

  The pain exploded inside her. Her career, her reputation and her achievements remained untouched. This was much, much worse.

  Her heart began to bleed.

  Lou broke the silence. ‘Do you know what you’re going to do?’

  Mirren could only manage a whisper. ‘Yes.’

  4.

  ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For’ – U2

  Zander Leith

  The plump nurse trundled towards him, brandishing a cup from the coffee house down the street. Zander knew it would contain a skinny latte with a vanilla twist and three extra espresso shots. His caffeine overdose of choice. He also knew that somehow his coffee-winning manner, combined with a perception that he was a lovely guy who always got the girl/ saved the day/won the war in the movies had given this woman a glimmer of hope that the top box-office draw in the country would respond to her daily gift by screwing her in a very expensive Malibu rehab clinic, sometime between group counselling and having his pee tested to ensure he hadn’t discovered a way to smuggle in a bottle of JD.

  It happened all the time. The groupie who got a friend at the alarm company to disable his house alarm so that she could sneak in, strip and lie spread-eagled on his kitchen table. The model who would upgrade on a flight so that she was sitting next to him and ‘accidentally’ roll her head onto his shoulder as he slept. He’d never found manipulation to be much of a turn-on, so while it was always a conversation-opener, it never ended in a relationship. A blow job, maybe. But ever since Clinton, that didn’t count.

  However, he accepted his coffee from Greta with his million-dollar smile and a wink that ensured the same scene would play out again tomorrow morning. It was Groundhog Day in here. Same walls, same people, same shit for weeks now. The expensive carpets, manicured gardens, the top-class therapists and the prime location on top of one of Malibu’s most scenic clifftops didn’t mask what this was – a collection of misfits and desperadoes who had everything yet couldn’t deal with reality without a pill or a swig from a bottle. And he was one of them. Again.

  He made his way along the corridor to the patient reception, where Lebron greeted him with a wide grin of perfect white teeth.

  ‘Hey, man, big day today. You want me to, like, do a drum roll or something?’

  Zander laughed. He liked the irreverence and the sarcasm. Reminded him of another place and time, many years and several thousand miles ago.

  ‘Naw, just give it to me straight.’

  The strength of his Scottish accent surprised him a little. It had softened over twenty years in LA and rarely made a reappearance unless he was talking to someone from home.

  Home. Strange that he still called it that when he hadn’t been back in two decades. The memory of that night in 1993 when he was forced to attend the Oscars ceremony still made his perfect, professionally whitened back molars grind.

  His thoughts were cut short by Lebron handing over a telephone with a flourish and a cheeky bow.

  His weekly phone call. Zander thanked him and strolled out through a side door to the garden, punching in familiar numbers as he walked. Last week, he’d used it to call his PA, Hollie. This week, it was to the only other person in the world who gave a shit.

  The call was answered immediately. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Wes, it’s me.’

  ‘Hey, bud. How you doing?’

  Zander could picture Wes Lomax reclining in his $10,000 calf-hide chair, cigar hanging from his mouth, much to the disgust of the anti-smoking lobby, who wanted an immediate death penalty for anyone who sparked up in this town.

  ‘You tell me,’ Zander replied, aware that the clinic management sent a daily report to the head of the studio and the insurance company that were underwriting the movie. It was standard practice for all productions to have a safety net. The policies were expensive, but they paid out for delays and shutdowns caused by freak weather, terrorism and actors going off grid.

  Zander had become high risk. One more strike and they’d start withholding a percentage of his salary as collateral against another incident.

  The next level above that was uninsurable. If that happened, his career was over. No one would touch him. When Robert Downey Jr. was in the depths of his chaos, the insurance companies refused to back him. His career was only saved when Mel Gibson stepped in and paid an insurance guarantee to allow him to work on The Singing Detective. Ironic. One hellraiser saves another.

  ‘They say you’re doing great, son. Spoke to the insurance company yesterday and they want one more week. Publicity are saying that public opinion is still with you – that Entertainment Tonight special really helped. Legal have made the charges go away and shooting starts in a fortnight, so we’re looking good.’

  Another week. He supposed he should be grateful. The blowout had been spectacular, a combination of Jack Daniel’s, a reality-show prick who crossed the line and the kind of beating that no stunt coordinator could fake. Zander’s hands had healed, and no doubt a large cheque from Lomax had helped the wounds to the Z-lister’s body and ego heal real quick.

  He was lucky he wasn’t in jail. But the insurance company had been unequivocal in their insistence that he go to rehab before they’d back his next movie, the seventh in a spy series featuring Seb Dunhill, an MI6 operative who could kick Bond’s ass. Bourne went to four movies. Die Hard was at five, but there was another in the works that would take it up to match Rocky’s six. On number seven, Dunhill didn’t quite match Bond in numbers but it blew the other action franchises away at the box office. That bought Zander Leith a whole lot of leverage and understanding.

  So it was back to the five-star, all-inclusive package in Life Reborn, the finest rehab in town. He knew the drill. It wasn’t like this was the first time.

  Hanging up with a sigh, Zander lit a cigarette, the smell blending with the scent of the flowers that bloomed in shades of white all around him. It was like drying out in a fricking morgue.

  It was only when he tossed the remnants of his smoke into the sand of a podium ashtray behind him that he noticed her. Sitting in the corner. Hugging her knees. Head down. Long red curls falling around her. The image kicked him in the chest, closing his airwaves. Mirren.

  But no.

  As if sensing his presence, she looked up. ‘What the fuck are you looking at?’

  His shrug clearly wasn’t the answer she was looking for.

  A light of recognition switched on in her eyes.

  ‘Zander Leith.’

  It was a statement, not a question.

  ‘I’m Chloe.’

  ‘I know.’

  Run. He should turn and run. For once in his life he should do the smart thing and walk away from trouble.

  ‘You grew up with my mom.’

  ‘I did,’ he replied. Run. Just run.

  ‘So you already know.’

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘Just what kind of bitch she is.’

  5.

  ‘Don’t You (Forget About Me)’

  – Simple Minds

  Glasgow, 2013

  The room smelt of death and a million futile wishes. Sarah McKenzie prided herself on having a strong stomach, but the stench was making her want to retch. Swallowing, she fought to keep down the bile. Nothing was going to get in the way of this story. She’d been working on it for months. Manny Murphy. Glasgow gangland crime lord. A giant of a man and a legend in this city.

  But that was before the cancer started eating away at his organs until he was nothing but skin, bone and disease. Now in his seventies, he was bedbound and totally reliant on the nurse his sons paid for to assuage the guilt they knew they should feel for stepping into the old man’s shoes and walking in the other direction. His young, gold-digging wife had left him, and non
e of his three boys had been near his home on the outskirts of Crofthill, the area he’d grown up in. Now, he wouldn’t go any further afield until they took him there in a box.

  His sons belonged to the new Glasgow. The side that left the Mean City behind. The glittering shopping centres. The world-class restaurants. The architecture, there for hundreds of years, now appreciated for its historic splendour. The commerce, the culture, the fashion, the forward-thinking buzz. Glasgow was an extraordinary city. A remarkable green place. Somewhere to belong. A city of ambition, aspiration, humour and hope.

  Not that his sons’ desertion was a great loss. Manny was never slow in telling any audience what a disappointment his offspring were. All of them too impetuous, cardboard gangsters who thought they could throw their weight around without the intelligence to back it up. Where were their plans? Where was their class? Their long-term strategies? Not like it was in his day. Back then, the territories were marked and everyone knew where they stood. Now, it was all about a fast buck with no thought to the future. Coke. That’s what his boys were into now. Running it up from Liverpool in the back of fruit trucks. Ironic. He’d heard the rumours that all three of his kids were using the drug as one of their five-a-day.

  He’d told Sarah all of this on her last visit. Three times she’d sat here now and so far there was nothing she could use without ending up sued or dead. Patience. Wasn’t that what her editor always told her she needed? Patience. Quick reactions on the daily stories, patience on the long shots. She’d spent months on this now, setting up the meetings, bribing the nurse, getting Manny to agree to speak to her, determined that he was going to give her the story that would make her career. Put her on the map. At twenty-five, it was time to prove she had the grit that was needed to make it in newspapers.

  If only the old bastard would tell her something she could use. For the last hour he’d been banging on about a post office job he’d carried out in the early 1990s. None of what he was telling her was new.

  He hacked up some phlegm and wiped his face with the sleeve of his black silk pyjamas before continuing.

  ‘The whole crew got ten years, except me and Jono Leith.’

  Sarah almost missed it. On the face of it, nothing in that last statement jumped out. Manny’s ability to dodge justice was the stuff of urban legend. He’d already moved on to the next anecdote when something niggled. Perhaps it was the fact that in all her research she’d never come across Jono Leith. Perhaps it was the unusual surname, made famous by one of Glasgow’s most-loved exports. Something made her stop Manny mid-flow.

  ‘Jono Leith?’

  Manny paused for a moment, as if rewound straight back to the memory of a long-ago time.

  ‘Aye, Jono. Whit a guy. Bampot. Maddest bastard I ever knew.’

  Coming from someone whose friendship circle comprised many mad bastards, that was quite an accolade.

  A shot of adrenalin made Sarah’s hand shake just a little.

  ‘What happened to him?’

  Another pause. ‘Dunno. Disappeared off the face of the earth one day. Just never showed up again. Heard he fucked off with some bit on the side he was shagging. Christ knows there were many.’

  The obvious question niggled at her.

  ‘How come I’ve never heard of him?’ If Sarah was ever to have a specialist subject, it would be Glasgow criminals, past and present. She’d spent years studying her subject, reading reports, searching old archives and she didn’t remember ever coming across the name Jono Leith.

  Manny’s shaking hand lifted a mug half filled with dark, stewed tea to his cracked lips.

  ‘That wis Jono’s thing. A bit paranoid. Never bragged about the big stuff and never got busted for it either. Stayed oot the papers and there was nane o’ that internet pish then. Naw, Jono kept it all quiet and tidy. The polis knew him, but they could never tie any of the major stuff to him. Fucking Tefal he was.’

  That could have been the conversation-stopper if the journalist in Sarah, trained to keep asking questions until she got something she could use, hadn’t gone for a stab in the dark.

  ‘Don’t suppose he was any relation to Zander Leith?’ Her self-conscious laugh broadcast the message that she realized she was being ridiculous. Zander Leith was a local hero, one of the famous movie trio who’d left the local streets and conquered the world. Zander Leith, Mirren McLean, Davie Johnston. Megastars with more column inches and interviews than any other Scottish export. Hell, Gerry Butler and Ewan McGregor didn’t even come close. If Zander was connected to a shady figure, surely it would have come out long ago? Nah, there was no way she was on to anything here.

  ‘Zander . . .’ Manny’s tongue rolled the word around for a few moments. ‘You mean the bloke in the films?’

  Sarah was embarrassed. She’d known it was stupid. Too much of a leap. Manny would think she was a complete imbecile now and she wasn’t rushing to disagree with him.

  ‘Aye, hen, that’s him. Back then he wis just Wee Sandy.

  And aye, Jono was his old man.’

  6.

  ‘Walk this Way’ – Aerosmith

  Davie made his regular morning pit stop at the Nespresso Boutique on Beverly Drive. It was the Rolls Royce, the private jet, the Gucci of the coffee world. It was the only place to be seen to re-caffeinate. Davie bypassed the outdoor patio and went straight for the product. There were twenty-one choices of gourmet grand cru. His was strong, black and fast.

  If it was true that the most beautiful people in the world lived in LA, the ones who loved coffee were here. Over the years, he’d been asked a hundred times how he could live in a society so fake. If the six-foot blonde drinking her iced macchiato in front of him was fake, then the realists of the world could cry him a river.

  While he was waiting, he used his iPhone to scan the gossip websites. He’d already seen the news on TMZ the previous night, but somehow, seeing Chloe’s mugshot just made it so much more vivid. His first reaction was irritation that it had knocked Sky Nixon’s overdose off the front page. Shit. They were counting on that to send the ratings on the opening episode of the second series of New York Nixons through the roof.

  His second reaction, more of an afterthought, was sympathy. Mirren must be going through hell with that kid of hers. Not that it was any of his business, and he knew she wouldn’t thank him for the pity. Or would she? How long had it been? Fifteen years? More? The last time he’d spoken to Mirren McLean, she’d made it perfectly clear there wouldn’t be a follow-up conversation.

  Coffee delivered, he headed back to the car, shrugging off the memory. In the Bugatti, he made a call. It went straight to the answering machine of Sky’s mother, a wacked-out heroin-chick-turned-organic-tree-saver called Rainbow, who kept it quiet that her much-publicized, minimalist crusade to be at one with the earth was secretly bankrolled by enough cash to buy her very own small island.

  They were all the same, the Hollywood tree-huggers. Pontificated about saving the Amazon rainforest while hiring private jets to fly their favourite meal from one coast to the other.

  ‘Rainbow, it’s Davie. Problem at this end. Sky’s situation didn’t get as much airtime as we thought. Two choices: we need a repeat, another overdose, or else make a press statement saying she’s not recovering. You know the drill. Tears. Prayers. Twitter. Facebook. Call me back to discuss.’

  He’d just hung up when the phone rang again. This time, he flicked it to loudspeaker, channelling it through the sound system on the Bugatti.

  ‘Hey, Al. How the devil are you?’ Davie’s tone switched immediately from pissed to positive. Hollywood didn’t do negativity. Even if you were down to your last dollar and the critics had handed you your ass on a plate, you had to maintain the aura of a winner, one that sat somewhere in the middle of the scale between confident and Charlie Sheen crazy.

  ‘Davie. News.’

  The top agent at Creative Stars Agency, Al Woolfe was always succinct and straight to the point. That’s why he was the most sought-aft
er representative in town. Besides, Davie hadn’t paid him 10 per cent for the last 10 years to be his buddy.

  ‘Am on my way in, bro,’ Davie replied, pre-empting the conversation. His American Stars contract had been discussed and their offer was due to hit the desk that morning.

  ‘Listen, this is just a holding call. The paperwork isn’t here yet. Pricks string it out every year. We should have added on an extra million just for their aggravating dick-tugging.’

  As he hung up, Davie changed course. No point in heading to the CSA offices now. For a moment, he wasn’t sure where to go. The sun was shining, it was 75 degrees, he had all the time and money in the world, and yet he couldn’t think of a single thing he wanted to do.

  At the bottom of Beverly, he made the decision. Instead of heading right, he hung a left. Fifteen minutes later, he was pulling up to the security checkpoint at Captis Studios, the home of Family Three.

  The guard treated him like an old friend.

  ‘Mr Johnston, we didn’t have you on the list for today. Good to see you.’

  ‘Thanks, Rick.’

  It was an old trick. He had an encyclopedic memory for the names of anyone who may ever be in a position to make his life easier.

  ‘Just missing the kids and thought I’d pop in to see them.’

  Rick gave him a high five as he waved him through. Laying out some love made life easier. Case in point.

  Outside soundstage 23, he spotted Bella and Bray being herded from their trailer to the set and pulled over out of sight. As soon as they were gone, he parked up and made for the biggest trailer on the lot.

  Opening the door, he congratulated himself on the decision. Vala Diaz, the twenty-five-year-old Mexican star of Family Three, was standing completely naked being spray-tanned by one of the huge entourage employed to keep her looking hotter than the midday sun in Tijuana.