Taking Hollywood

by Shari King

  As she slowed down to approach the entrance to the estate, the guard spotted her and raised the barrier and waved her through, her speed increasing but only into the twenties. She was in no hurry to get home.

  With a heavy heart, she slung a left into her driveway, so different from the beach property she’d just left.

  The thought made her stomach churn.

  It was his voice she heard first as she opened the car door.

  ‘Mirren! Mirren. Oh thank God, Mirren. I think she’s sick. Really sick.’

  Her legs refused to move; her brain struggled to process.

  ‘What do you mean, sick?’

  ‘She got drugs, Mir. Must have had them stashed in her room. She took them and . . .’ Jack was wailing now, standing on the lawn, his expression one of sheer terror.

  Nothing was making sense. Jack. The noise. Coming up behind her. The blue light. On. Off. On. The bang of a door.

  ‘Excuse me, ma’am, we’re coming through.’

  Two medics, running past her, and now she was chasing them, going after them, running, screaming.

  ‘Nooooooooo!’

  43.

  ‘Crazy’ – Gnarls Barkley

  For a long time Zander didn’t move. Couldn’t. Just nothing there. This is what the day after a bottle of Jack Daniel’s felt like: the nausea, the crashing agony in his head, the fear, the anger, all bubbling on a wave of dread.

  Yet Mirren had only left five minutes ago.

  He threw open the balcony doors to try to relieve the claustrophobia that was suddenly making the walls creak towards him. And the itch. The itch was back and his skin was starting to feel like it was crawling. Only one thing medicated that pain. There was no coke in the house. In the distance, he could hear music and he knew that a score was only five minutes away, in any one of two or three bars within a few hundred yards.

  He grabbed his jacket, fumbled for his wallet, opened it and . . . empty.

  No money. Just a note.

  ‘Sorry, don’t hate me. I’ve taken your cash in case, well, you know. If you need anything, call me. Love, Hxx’

  Aaaargh!

  The itch was seeping out of his pores now, moving from under the skin to the top of it, searching, probing, demanding to be satisfied.

  One line. Just one line. He did a calculation in his head. Next drug test was Monday. Today was Tuesday. There was a slim chance it would still be in his system, but he didn’t care. He didn’t care. Shit, he did care.

  He couldn’t face that again. The disappointment in Wes’s face. The sadness in Hollie’s. This was the moment the counsellors talked about. Yes or no. In or out.

  A shred of sense somewhere deep in the survival synapse of his mind told him it could only be out and he knew that wasn’t going to be possible if he stayed here. His resolve might last an hour. Maybe two. But he knew himself well enough.

  He had to get away from here or he was going back to a cloud in Colombia and that could only end badly.

  The idea came out of nowhere, shaped up in his mind, and instantly, he evaluated the pros and dismissed the cons.

  No contest.

  The number was answered on the second ring.

  ‘Good evening, Mr Leith. How can I help you?’

  ‘I need to go to New York. Tonight. Can you organize a jet at Van Nuys?’

  ‘Of course, Mr Leith. Do you have your security code and password there?’

  He rhymed both off, one from the card in his wallet and the other from memory.

  ‘Your code and password have been accepted, Mr Leith.

  How many passengers will there be?’

  ‘Just one.’

  ‘Yes, sir. And when do you wish to leave?’

  ‘Soon as possible.’

  Now. Right now. Before he did something incredibly stupid. Yep, what did it say about his life that this was the most sensible plan he could come up with?

  ‘Certainly, Mr Leith. OK, let me just check . . . Sir, I’ve got the flight company on the other line. They have a Challenger 605 on standby and it can be ready for you in one hour. Is there anything else I can do for you this evening?’

  ‘Can you send a car to my house? Twenty minutes? And arrange a car into Manhattan at the other end?’

  ‘Certainly, Mr Leith.’

  ‘Great, thanks.’

  What had his therapist said? Go after another buzz. Find a high that didn’t come from any kind of chemical or alcohol. Disrupt the desperation for coke by focusing on something else. Exercise. Love. Sex. Travel.

  Tick number four and hold the other three on standby.

  Packing took less than ten minutes as he threw a couple of T-shirts, a pair of jeans, socks and a shirt into a bag. Despite a high-profile underwear campaign in the early days, he preferred to go commando.

  Travelling clothes next. He exchanged the trousers of the Guilloti suit for black jeans, but kept on the white shirt and jacket. With a pair of Armani black leather boots, it worked. Not that fashion was his thing, but he wanted to look passable. Put together. Nothing like a druggie desperate to hoover up a large pile of fine white powder.

  It was only an hour and a half later, as the LA lights grew smaller and disappeared, that he realized he’d omitted one vital call.

  He speed-dialled the number.

  ‘Oh God, tell me it’s not handcuffs or a dead body. Anything else I can deal with,’ was her opening line.

  It felt good to laugh. There hadn’t been enough of that lately.

  ‘You might want to rethink that statement after this conversation.’

  Hollie played along. ‘OK, hostage situation, you’ve joined a terrorist cell, the discovery of an evil twin. Other than that I’m good. What’s that noise in the background? Are you in a car? I warned Leandro to let me know if you called him. Tell him he’s fired.’

  ‘Not a car, and Leandro’s in the clear. I’m on a plane.’

  ‘I hadn’t even got onto mode of transport yet! Crap, dammit. Oh God, I’m scared to ask. Please tell me this is a wind-up. Damn, why can’t I work for Matt Damon? He’s like the most scandal-free guy ever. It would be fricking heaven. What plane, Zander? I swear I’m calling Damon’s office in the morning.’

  ‘I need to go to New York.’

  ‘No, you don’t, Zander. What you need is to get yourself to set in the morning. What you need is to make a movie. What you need—’

  ‘OK, OK, I get it.’

  ‘So you’ll turn around?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘Sorry. Look, Holls, it was really close. It was this or the dark side,’ he said, using Hollie’s code for drug-dealer central.

  There was a pause on the other end of the line as she digested this.

  ‘So the fact that you’re on a private plane, heading for New York, spending a hundred thousand dollars is actually a best-case scenario?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘I’m sure Matt Damon’s number will be in the book.’

  ‘He won’t love you like I do.’

  ‘Well, hello, Flattery, I’ve been expecting you.’

  ‘I’m sorry to leave you with the crap . . .’

  ‘No you’re not.’

  ‘But can you clear this with the studio?’

  A strangled exhalation of irritation was her initial reply, then, ‘OK, I’ll call Axl in the morning, but don’t blame me if he goes Jackie Chan on your ass.’

  ‘You’ll protect me,’ he joked.

  ‘I’ll help him,’ she replied. ‘Look, it shouldn’t be a deal-breaker. You were only scheduled for a couple of hours in the morning for blocking. We’ll get a stand-in. I’ll tape it, go through it with you later.’

  ‘Thanks, Hollie. I really mean that.’

  ‘I know you do. Can I ask why you’re going to New York?’

  Zander laughed. ‘Oops, sorry, captain says we’re about to hit turbulence.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Sorry, Holls, phones need to go off.’ The
last thing he heard as he pressed the red button on his cell was something about ‘asshole’ and ‘calling Matt Damon’.

  Call disconnected, he threw the phone on the white leather sofa, poured a glass of Jack Daniel’s from the bar.

  ‘Mr Leith, I could have got that for you.’

  The male steward materialized from behind the curtain in front of the lounge area. Tall, impeccably groomed, a young Richard Gere, who’d probably been on ten casting calls that day before doing the night shift on the jet.

  Zander was glad it wasn’t a stewardess. Over the years there had been many flights, and while the majority of the stewardesses were the epitome of professionalism, there had been a few who were more than happy to join in the party. Good times, but not for tonight. Tonight he needed something entirely different.

  ‘That’s OK. Listen, I’m just gonna take this back with me and get some shut-eye. Can you give me a shout when we’re half an hour out?’

  ‘Will do. There’s a call button on the bedside table if you need anything.’

  ‘Thanks, mate.’

  The bedroom was small but luxurious, big enough for a double bed and some room to walk around it. The bedding was cream silk, with Frette sheets, perfectly arranged gold jacquard shams and booster pillows. Zander kicked off his boots, took off his shirt and, JD in hand, lay back and switched on the TV using the remote that was on the bed-side. The guys on TMZ were pounding on some NFL player who’d been caught in a strip club while his very pregnant wife headed to the maternity suite. The next item showed Davie Johnston heading through the gates of his mansion, while his wife and her co-star Darcy Jay disappeared behind Darcy’s front door. The innuendo of the chat made sure the implication was clear, without anything actually being said.

  Harvey Levin, the TMZ chief, was, as he liked to remind everyone, a lawyer.

  As the attention switched to a brawl at LAX between a snapper and Lex Callaghan’s mother, the hilarity ramped right up. Mrs Callaghan was in possession of a fierce right hook. They were still discussing it, to the sound of the Rocky soundtrack, when Zander fell asleep, missing the rest of the show.

  At exactly thirty minutes until landing at Teterboro Airport, young Richard Gere woke him with an egg-white omelette, fruit, juice and coffee. The airline kept a record of his preferences.

  In the washroom, he showered, shaved and pulled his jeans back on, this time going for a white Prada T-shirt. It would look OK under the Guilloti jacket. Aviator shades on, he headed down the stairs to the car that was waiting on the runway as requested.

  Eight a.m. and morning traffic into Manhattan was flowing surprisingly freely. Perfect.

  He’d already looked up the address on his iPhone and gave it to the driver. Fifth Avenue. On the adjacent block to Trump Tower.

  The driver flicked on the hazards while he pulled over to let Zander out at the door to the building. The doorman, a sixtyish guy in a grey uniform, had opened it before he even got there.

  ‘Good morning, sir. Can I help? Oh. Mr Leith. I watched the Dunhill Triple Jeopardy only last night. Great movie. Wife’s certainly a fan.’

  ‘Great to hear.’ Zander paused, aware of how this situation would go, exactly as it had done a million times before. The expression on the doorman’s face said it all.

  ‘Do you have a piece of paper?’ Zander added.

  ‘Indeed.’ He sprinted over to his desk and came back with an A4 sheet of paper and a pen. Zander took both.

  ‘What’s your wife’s name?’

  ‘Janice. Janice Crane.’

  Zander scribbled something on the paper.

  ‘OK, got a camera phone?’

  The doorman pulled a smartphone from his pocket as Zander held the paper up in front of him.

  ‘OK, go for it.’

  Sixty seconds later, one unsuspecting Queens housewife would be shopping in the frozen-food aisle of her grocery store when a photo would come through from her husband, a selfie of him and Zander Leith, her favourite actor, holding up a sign saying, ‘Good morning, Janice.’

  Her life would be complete. Her husband would get laid tonight.

  Meanwhile, back on Fifth Avenue, George the doorman was having one of the best starts to his day ever, and that was saying something for a guy who had worked Manhattan doors since he was a teenager.

  With a grip that was as fierce as it was enthusiastic, he shook Zander’s hand. Only when he was done did he release it and rewind to the fact that Zander Leith was there for a reason.

  ‘Sorry, Mr Leith, how can I help you this morning? And whoever you’re here to see, please don’t mention this or I’ll be out on the hot-dog stands by the end of the week,’ he said with a twinkle in his eye.

  ‘Don’t worry, George – your secret’s safe. I’m actually here to see—’

  His words were interrupted by the buzzing of the door, and he didn’t even have to look up to see who was there. For once in his messed-up life, this was actually playing out like the movies.

  ‘Darn it!’ George sprinted to the door, his face flushing at his very obvious lapse in his duties.

  The new arrival didn’t notice. Her gaze was fixed on Zander’s, watching him stand there, leaning casually against the reception desk, as if this was an everyday occurrence.

  He was watching her too. Her jet-black hair gleamed and her oversized YSL dark glasses cut out the winter sun, her eight-inch, steel-heeled stilettos and leather skirt a sharp contrast to the cream cashmere swing coat and the grey Hermès Birkin she carried in the crook of her arm.

  This was a Vogue editorial shot come to life.

  ‘Good morning,’ she said, with all the confidence of someone who expected things like this to happen in her life.

  ‘Good morning,’ he replied. ‘I was in the neighbourhood…’

  That one got a laugh, and if it was possible, as she threw back her head, she became even more beautiful than before.

  ‘But how did you know I’d be here today? And this early?’

  ‘Because you’ve been out of the office for a couple of days and you seem to me to be the kind of lady who would make sure she caught up with anything she’d missed while she was away. Educated guess. And a bit of wild optimism.’

  Adrianna Guilloti laughed again, walking towards him now.

  ‘And you got here by . . . ?’

  ‘Challenger 605. And I say that to be factual, not to act like a dickhead.’

  ‘I appreciate that,’ she assured him, pulling off her gloves, one finger at a time, completely unaware of just how fucking sexy that was. Zander was experiencing a familiar stirring in the crotch area. Hell, even George had a boner and that didn’t happen often without a little help from a small blue pill.

  They were toe to toe now. Face to face.

  ‘And since you seem to have all the answers this morning, how exactly did you envisage the rest of this day?’

  Zander smiled and shrugged. ‘I hadn’t got that far. I figured I’d do the legwork and leave the rest up to you.’

  George, the epitome of discretion, looked away as Adrianna lifted her face and brought it even closer, closer still, until their lips were only millimetres apart. Then she paused, like an adder contemplating her prey.

  Her prey moved first. Zander’s hand touched her neck, lightly to begin with, before coming up higher and framing her face. Then he pulled her mouth to his, their lips almost still as they touched and held there, before moving, in perfect synchronicity.

  After way too long to be anything less than a promise of something more, Zander gently pulled back.

  ‘So what now?’

  Adrianna’s stare and the rise at the corner of her mouth were almost a challenge.

  ‘That’s up to you. Where are you staying?’

  He hadn’t even got that far. But then, it wasn’t a tough question. He looked over to George.

  ‘Bud, can you call the Carlyle and tell them I’m on my way?’

  ‘Of course I can. Consider it done.’

&nbs
p; ‘Does that work for you?’ he asked Adrianna, with absolute confidence that it did.

  She shrugged nonchalantly. ‘I can live with it.’

  He kissed her again, both of them laughing.

  ‘Then we should go.’

  One hand rested lightly on the back of Adrianna’s coat as they headed to the door; the other was outstretched as Zander passed his new acquaintance.

  ‘George, good to meet you.’ The two men shook hands.

  ‘And great to meet you too,’ George replied, once again flaunting the grip of a well-oiled vice.

  With his other hand, George opened the door and then watched the surreal sight of Zander Leith and Adrianna Guilloti climbing into a limo.

  Only when they were out of sight did the realities of the situation kick in. George went behind his reception desk, pressed rewind on the security camera and scrubbed the last thirty minutes of footage.

  Mrs Guilloti’s husband owned the building and George wouldn’t want to be around if evidence of this morning’s activities fell into his hands.

  Even as he scrubbed the tape, George knew that it could cost him his job. Hell, it could cost him his legs. But hey, he’d have a happy wife and a lifetime of telling his grandkids about the morning he met Zander Leith.

  44.

  ‘No Mean City’ – Maggie Bell

  Glasgow, 1988

  ‘Have you washed your hands, Davie?’ Zander’s mum asked, just as she’d done before every meal he’d had at her house since before he could talk.

  ‘Aye, Mrs Leith. Twice,’ he said, face pure innocence. Zander booted him under the table, and shoulders shaking, they both buried their faces in their clasped hands as Mrs Leith moved on to stage two of the pre-dinner ritual.

  ‘Dear Father, bless this food we are about to receive, knowing that we take it with thanks and gratitude to the Lord Jesus Christ, your son, who has given us the fruits of his bounty . . .’

  Davie fought not to giggle again. The fruits of his bounty? It was gammon steak and chips. The only fruit here was the pineapple rings she fished out of a can and plonked on the gammon before she took it out of the grill.