Taking Hollywood

by Shari King

  20.

  ‘Sweet Little Mystery’ – Wet Wet Wet

  Glasgow, 2013

  Saturday night in the Grill On the Corner was like a winter wonderland. The sheets of tiny white lights that covered every window were like the separation between real life and Narnia. Outside, a cold, dark, Glasgow city centre night. Inside, laughter, beautiful clothes, subtle music and the aromas of expensive perfume and incredible food.

  But that wasn’t why it was Sarah’s favourite restaurant. She loved the dark wood floor and the leather booths and the stunning chandeliers that dropped from the ceiling. It was the perfect mixture of class and comfort: gorgeous yet unpretentious, chic but simple.

  ‘Red or white?’ Simon asked, his hand perched above two bottles.

  Sarah smiled. ‘Neither. Just coffee, thanks.’

  Wine would perhaps come later, but even though they’d just arrived, right now she wanted a hot drink to warm her bones and some caffeine to give her a jolt of energy. She didn’t even want to count up how many hours’ sleep she’d had this week, but she wouldn’t need to work it out on a calculator.

  She watched Simon as he immediately took charge, making everyone feel at ease, being charming as always. Sometimes it was such a relief being with him, knowing that he would be the driving force, arrange every detail of their lives. At work, she had that dogmatic determination to achieve, so when she came home, she was happy to relinquish the social control to him. And he did it so well. Incredible holidays to Dubai, the Maldives, New York in winter. Spontaneous weekends in Perthshire lodges. Nights out like this one, with their friends: great food and conversation. It left all her caffeine-suffused energy for work.

  His brown hair, swept back in a Forties movie-star vibe, was a little longer than usual, but it was working for him. To his right, Pippa, girlfriend of his best mate, Rob, had been giving Simon twinkly eyes since they’d arrived. Rob and Simon had met on their first day at university and been friends ever since. Rob was a lawyer in the most profitable company in the city, had already made partner and had little time for a serious relationship. Pippa had been around for a few months – a remarkable achievement given that his girlfriends usually had a higher recycle rate than the paper bin in his office. He seemed unusually keen, and thankfully oblivious to the fact that she appeared to be doing some serious subtle flirting with his mate.

  Simon handled the attention with impeccable grace, while Sarah didn’t give it a second thought. As he often reminded her, she had been born without a jealousy gene. Zero on the territorial tantrums. Let Pippa flirt – it might keep Simon occupied while she popped out to have a quick chat with Ena Dawson. It had to be Davie’s mother, didn’t it?

  Much as the neds up at the scheme were hardly on a par with Reuters, she had a feeling they knew exactly what was going on. And it wasn’t like Ena was a common name these days.

  There were just a few sips left of her coffee when the others’ starters arrived and she took that as the perfect moment to make her excuses.

  Leaning over, she kissed Simon on the cheek. ‘Be back in half an hour, darling.’

  Rob leaned back to allow the waitress to place his rock oysters in front of him. ‘You leaving us already, sweetie?’

  ‘Just for half an hour. Sorry, it’s a work thing. Arranged before I knew we were meeting tonight.’

  It was a small white lie. Simon didn’t react. When she’d told him about it earlier, he hadn’t been happy, but she wasn’t going to wait another week to speak to Ena. Everything else had ground to a halt and Ena had become her last straw to grasp.

  The slush lapped the sides of her black suede stiletto boots as she walked briskly up the incline on Wellington Street, turned left onto West George Street and got the bus in her sights. It was only a few streets but a million miles between where she’d left and her destination. Like all major cities, Glasgow had two sides: the wealth, culture, architecture and rich history lived right alongside the poverty and deprivation.

  The bus looked quiet tonight, no stragglers around the entrance, only a few faces in the windows. As she climbed on, Isabel greeted her with a smile. ‘Hey, love. Twice in one week. We’ll be giving you your own seat on here.’

  Sarah replied with a hug, scoping the long galley of battered leather seats as she did so. A few old men sat in silence as they ate their soup, their gazes fixed on the Formica table in front of them. Up at the front, Dan, one of the regular volunteer paramedics, was speaking to two others whom Sarah didn’t recognize. Neither fitted the profile for Ena Johnston.

  ‘Good to see you, Isabel. Here, I brought this.’

  Sarah wrestled a Boots carrier containing twenty miniature bottles of shampoo from her handbag, handed it over and was rewarded with a beaming smile.

  ‘Thanks, love. Staying for a cuppa? Only you’re a bit over- dressed.’ She gestured to the hem of the black sequinned tunic peeking out from under Sarah’s coat, complementing the leather-look jeans and over-knee suede boots.

  ‘No, thanks. I just wanted a quick chat with Ena Dawson. Is she around?’

  Isabel gesticulated heavenwards. ‘Upstairs. She’s just giving it a quick tidy before the rush starts.’

  The winding stairway was narrow and treacherous to navigate in six-inch heels. When Sarah reached the upper deck, her exhalation of relief caused a tiny cloud to form in the freezing air in front of her.

  The woman sweeping between the chairs looked up. ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘Ena Dawson?’

  Wariness and hesitation flickered across her face.

  ‘Yes?’

  Bingo. Sarah could see immediately that she’d got the right woman.

  The resemblance to her son was uncannily obvious. The same dark, wavy hair. The brown eyes. Something in the shape of her face . . .

  ‘I’m Sarah McKenzie. I’m a reporter with the Daily Scot and a friend of Isabel.’

  ‘Och, if you’re doing another one of those reports on the work Isabel does here, you’re better talking to Dan downstairs. Lovely boy, so he is.’

  Her smile was warm now, with just an edge of embarrassment. Sarah decided to go with open confidence and hope for the best.

  ‘Actually, it was you I wanted to talk to, Mrs Dawson. I’m actually working on a story about your son, Davie. It did used to be Ena Johnston, didn’t it?’

  21.

  ‘Losing My Religion’ – R.E.M

  ‘So what’s the verdict? Give it to me one fucking disaster at a time.’

  Al stared at the screen in front of him for so long Davie had time to contemplate what would happen if the heat of the blood coursing through his veins caused a spontaneous combustion. He just hoped the fire caught Al’s $10,000 silk wallpaper and burned the whole fucking place down.

  ‘American Stars have dropped you. They’re offering it to Seacrest now that Idol has slumped. They had no choice – Pepsi and Nike threatened to pull sponsorship. The talk show with E! has been put on indefinite hold. Obviously filming of New York Nixons has been canned: Sky is out of the coma, but no other details yet, and Jax Nixon has announced that he’s taken a contract out on you if you come within a hundred miles of the Eastern Seaboard. The Hugo Boss campaign is cancelled, Ferrari have taken you off their ad, and you’ve been politely informed that your services are no longer required for the Kids Kick Cancer Telethon.’

  Al stopped with a sigh when he realized that Davie was no longer breathing.

  ‘Look, it’s not as bad as it sounds.’

  ‘It’s fucking worse.’

  Al sighed again and rubbed his temples with his index fingers.

  ‘I can see why you’re thinking that. But look, Davie, there’s still hope. Your productions are still killing it – Liking Lana got its best ever ratings last week, and Dream Machine is doing great. Even if you’re not presenting it, you’ll still get production credit on American Stars so you’ll still be banking three of the top-rating shows in the country.’

  It wasn’t much of a consolation
. Sure, the money, to a lesser extent, was still coming in, but for how long? These shows rarely went past five seasons before they ran out of storylines and the public got bored with them. Only the Kardashians had managed to hang on, and that’s because he wasn’t the only one who thought they were the most fucked-up people on the planet.

  He might be at the top of that tree now, but it wouldn’t be long until some bastard came along with a chainsaw. He slid out of the white leather Corbusier chair and started pacing, his white McQueen Puma sneakers leaving indentations on the thick black rug.

  What did the ratings matter anyway if the whole world thought he was scum? The press conference had halted the damage only temporarily. There was at least a seed of doubt that he had the moral values of the average serial killer, but then Rainbow had hit back the following day denying his story, calling him a liar and announcing she was launching legal action. It was an entirely predictable move, but according to Al, popularity was a numbers game. Prior to the press call and the debacle that night at the Lakers game, 100 per cent of people thought he was guilty. The entertainment round-ups and daytime shows had all run his explanation slash apology the next day. Now 30 per cent thought he was guilty, 30 per cent thought Rainbow was making it up, and the remainder had forgotten about it because their attention had been entirely captivated by Miley Cyrus twerking at the VMAs last night.

  Davie made a mental note to send flowers as a thank you for taking the heat off. Not that the pressure from the paps had cooled any. The tossers were outside his house, following his car, staking out the CSA offices. They’d even formed a welcoming guard at Nespresso on Beverly to deprive him of his morning shot of caffeine.

  They were like vultures, circling, knowing that their biggest feed ever had just been given last rites.

  Al clicked onto a new page on the screen. ‘We’ve had requests from Leno, Letterman, Ferguson, Kimmel, Fallon, Ellen, Brianna Nicole, The View, The Talk, Chelsea Lately. And you know, Davie, we could do an Oprah special.’

  Davie stopped mid-pace. ‘I’m not doing Oprah. Lance Armstrong does Oprah to announce he doped. Lohan gets all repentant on Oprah. Cruise makes a dick of himself on Oprah. I’m desperate, mate, not fucking suicidal.’

  Al’s massage of his temples was now beginning to look like he was attempting to drill through his skull.

  ‘We’ve got a meeting at four p.m. – full team, damage control. In the meantime, I’ve leaked your schedule today.’

  ‘What schedule?’

  ‘You’re picking the kids up from set and taking them to the playground at Coldwater Canyon at noon. The shots will be on long lens, so make sure they don’t get you scratching your balls or ignoring the kids.’

  Davie stopped and stared at him like he was insane.

  ‘My kids. The park. Noon. Al, have you met my kids? They’re fucking redheads. They don’t do midday sun. Forget it, Al. Change of plan. I’ll be back at four for the war room.’

  ‘Look, Davie, do you want me to bring Harvey back in?’ Davie shook his head. Harvey Jones was his former manager of over a decade, fired a year ago because Davie decided he’d been giving away 10 per cent of his income to someone who added nothing to his career. Jenny had said at the time that he was being a control freak. She was probably right. But he was a control freak who had a couple of million a year more in the bank. The managerial stuff now got handled by CSA, alongside every other aspect of his career. It used to seem like wise strategic planning. Now, for the first time, Davie wondered if it was too many eggs in one overloaded basket. The peg that held Al’s Zegna blazer was looking shakier by the second.

  As Davie headed out of the underground car park, a squad of motorbikes and SUVs fell into a convoy behind him, one dick on a Ducati actually riding up alongside him and shooting off shots through the window. Davie had never been more tempted to swerve the car. It would make sense to go home, batten down the storm doors and keep a low profile for a few days, but the thought of being stuck out in Bel Air while his life crumbled around him drove him insane. He had to be busy. Had to be doing something. Even if it was just screaming at Al and manipulating those bastard paps.

  He needed a plan, one that didn’t involve bloody Oprah. In the meantime, he’d go get the kids, take them for ice cream in their lunch break and let the paps get their shots. Dad of the Year.

  Twenty minutes later, the chase ended when he slid into the entrance lane at Captis Studios.

  ‘Hey, Mr Johnston, good to see you.’

  The beaming smile and courteous nod was proof that Rick the security guard was either a convincing actor who’d missed his calling or he didn’t keep up with celebrity news. Or perhaps he just knew that in this town, it paid to stay onside with everyone.

  It was a sad frigging day when he was grateful for the kindness of someone who earned less than he spent on gas every year.

  The wave of white fear that had been slamming against him since this whole fiasco broke took over again, making his hands shake against the walnut steering wheel as he drove through the gate.

  He checked his watch. Half an hour to kill. Usually he’d slip into Vala’s trailer, let her amuse him in the only way she could, but not today. That bitch had trashed him on national television. Not a shred of defence. Not an iota of praise of his many talents. Just the tremble of that salacious pout and the shudder of those glorious tits. Those glorious tits. Gorgeous . . .

  Acting on pure testosterone, he doubled back, turned right, stopped and sprang out of the car, checking first to make sure he wasn’t being watched. Security was tight in here, but all it took was one maintenance guy with a mobile phone looking to make a quick buck from Radar Online.

  No one.

  He knocked the door and then went straight in without waiting for a reply.

  Vala was lying on her chaise longue, in a tank and G-string, watching the last Seb Dunhill movie. You have got to be shitting me. There was no way he was getting a hard-on now.

  ‘Hey, are you ever gonna stop bursting in here?’ Her accent was staccato, her voice high-pitched – the latter due to the fact that Zander Leith was kicking the crap out of someone on her fifty-inch plasma.

  Libido crashed, Davie went into the fridge and took out a Bud, screwing off the top and tossing it in the sink. She kept a stock for him and her deadbeat brother, who showed up once a week looking for cash.

  ‘What time are you due on set?’ he asked.

  No pleasantries. No subtlety. He didn’t care. No way he could shag her now.

  ‘One hour,’ she said, opening her legs wide, licking her finger, then letting it trail downwards.

  It was amazing how a personal invitation could bypass brain and go straight to cock.

  ‘I’ll only need half of that,’ he said as he walked towards her. Beer bottle still in one hand, he used the other to flip open the button of his AG jeans, slide down the zipper and pull out his erect dick.

  Vala lifted the TV remote and pressed pause, leaving a huge image of Zander on the screen, looking down on them. Davie wanted to grab the remote and switch it off, but he could see she was in the mood for a fight and there wasn’t enough time to humour her. Instead, he turned his back to the TV and walked towards her. Still looking over his shoulder at the screen, she put a foot out in front of her to stop him.

  He played along. Eyes locked on his, she whipped off the tank and tossed it to the side, exposing her tight, high tits. Then she pulled hard at the tiny G-string so it barely resisted as the side band snapped and the flimsy triangle of lace came clean off, revealing perfectly smooth, hair-free skin underneath.

  His erection was starting to throb as he reached past her outstretched leg.

  ‘C’mere,’ he said, his voice a couple of octaves lower than normal.

  Vala hit his hand away and slouched down on the chaise, then opened her legs wide, revealing her perfect snatch.

  His groan was as desperate as it was irrepressible.

  ‘Kneel down,’ she ordered.

&n
bsp; Right now she could have told him to sign over his worldly goods and he’d have done it. He sunk to his knees, then shuffled in closer, ready to enter her and relieve the unbearable pressure in his dick.

  Once again, she stopped him.

  ‘No, no, amigo, not today. Today, it’s all about me. Now eat.’

  She leaned forward, grabbed his head and pulled it down towards her pulsating clit. As he got to work, even the roaring in his head couldn’t block out the fact that she had restarted the movie and was watching it over his head. He blocked out the voices coming from the TV, Zander’s guttural roar.

  In just a couple of minutes, the rasping of her breath, the heat of her limbs, the shudder of her ass told him that she was coming.

  ‘Oh yes, baby. Oh yes. Oh yes. Oh . . . oh . . . Zander!’

  Something both inside – and outside – died.

  What would, by most men’s standards, be considered the zenith of their life experiences became the moment that Davie Johnston knew for sure that his time at the top was over.

  22.

  ‘How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?’

  – Al Green

  There was something comforting about being back in the office. Every single thing in here had been picked by Mirren, set up when she’d won the development deal with Pictor Films to make the first Clansman movie. The two pale cream jacquard sofas sat on either side of a tile coffee table she’d brought back from Mexico on the back of a pickup truck ten years ago. Her desk was worn and much loved, found at the Fairfax flea market and previously installed at the tiny Santa Monica house she’d lived in when she first moved here, the one in which she’d written the first Clansman movie. Simple. Basic. Warm. Some thought it too low key and cheap for a woman of her status in this city, but for Mirren, it said the opposite. She didn’t need a $10,000 marble desk to reflect the size of her dick.