Action!

by Robert Cort

  He sat on his impulse to tell her to go to hell. Breakfast was about damage control.

  Terry attacked her kippers with gusto. She was the only person AJ had seen order that breakfast entrée in fifty years. “More coffee,” she ordered a passing waiter. “And then that crazy decision to buy theaters. You took all that cash from the Maniac sequels and blew it.”

  He guessed that this was her principal peeve. In 1992 AJ had begun to vertically integrate J2 by building and buying theaters. It was the studio model his father had argued to maintain before the Supreme Court. The Bush and Clinton Justice Departments had approved his plan, and his company now owned twenty-three hundred screens. “We’re getting terrific synergy between production and exhibition.”

  “Synergy’s as real as a unicorn.”

  “I disagree. Take a look.” He removed a set of charts from his attaché case. “We’re experimenting with varying ticket prices on some of our movies. When it’s a presold title, like Maniac V, or has a star like Tom Cruise in Animal Instincts, we charge up to fifteen bucks a ticket. But when it’s a low-budget film with unknowns like Cattle Call, we drop the price from seven dollars to three. In the test markets people seem to prefer paying less when the risk is greater and don’t mind paying more when they know what they’re getting. Our revenue is way up, and we’re going to roll it out across the country in the near future.”

  Terry shoved the papers back across the table. “Your only future is on the sidelines. The mortgage payments on your theaters are crippling you. Your interest expenses have tripled. Last quarter they sent you into the red. Now with that new white elephant in Chicago—”

  “You’ve never even seen it.”

  “It cost twice what it should. You’ve built great theaters, but so have Pacific, AMC, and every other chain in the country. The overcapacity’s a killer.”

  The woman was either savagely smart or psychic. Last year J2 had reported ten million dollars of net income, down from sixty-one million in 1995. Pete’s estimates for 1997 anticipated a loss of fifty-one million, reflecting the drain from the theaters. Terry was also correct about the competition. The breadth of their building programs worried AJ. “The underlying real estate is worth our investment.”

  “Bullshit. But why are we arguing?”

  “Because what you say sways ‘the Street.’ You know that.”

  “My only concern is protecting shareholder value.” Mangiarcina’s transparent innocence infuriated him. “But if you announced publicly that you were going to divest your theaters and reorient your production philosophy toward teens, I might withhold my ‘sell’ recommendation.”

  This time AJ grabbed the waiter—for a check. How could this woman, who produced nothing more creative than criticism, have the chutzpah to dictate his strategic decisions? “Theresa, do what you have to do—I’ve got to run my business. We’ll see how it all comes out in the wash.”

  After his guest departed in a huff, AJ stalked Park Avenue to cool off. At the opening bell, the price of a share of J2 stock on the NYSE was sixty-three dollars. Post Mangiarcina’s announcement it would fall at least ten points. Given his one million shares, it was the most expensive breakfast AJ had ever eaten.

  Maggie Ginsberg ran out of patience halfway through Dr. Neil Abromovitz’s hemming and hawing. “What you’re saying—or not saying—is the cancer’s back and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it?”

  “Yes.” As the leading oncologist at Cedars, Abromovitz hated to fail any patient, especially one who had donated a wing to the hospital. And having treated Maggie for colon cancer seven years ago, he’d grown to admire her spirit. “I can’t answer your next question.” She stared him down. “Truly, I don’t know how long you’ve got to live.”

  “Will I see my ninetieth birthday? That’s my target.”

  “You’re—”

  “Eighty-three.” When he missed a beat, she poked him. “Screw you. Now you’ll have to dance with me at the party . . . and I’ll want a tango. You won’t mind, Neil, will you? I don’t have many people left to dance with.”

  Abromovitz hugged her. “I look forward to it, Mrs. Ginsberg. And I’m signing up for lessons, because I never bet against you when your mind is made up.”

  Maggie held her chin high. Two hip replacements, the cancer surgery, and chemotherapy had left her frail but unbowed. As she navigated around gurneys, walkers, and wheelchairs, a searing pain radiated from her liver, where they had detected the newest tumor. Maggie gritted her teeth, smiling at the patients and hospital workers who recognized her from the TV days. She had to bear up because the pain medication Neil had prescribed left her so spacey she barely knew day from night.

  Death was no big deal. The afterlife was an invention. There was nothing out there, so why worry about nothing? But what bedeviled her was how little time was left to ensure the happiness of the person she loved most. Ricky—no, he preferred Richard—was CEO of Powerline, the family business. The position placed him among the executives leading the technology revolution, and when Maggie died, he would inherit her stock, which would make him fabulously wealthy. He had a model family—a beautiful wife and two equally adorable girls. But despite possessing all the trappings of success, he remained as troubled at thirty-nine as the six-year-old who’d tried to burn down his elementary school.

  As Maggie walked out of the hospital into the warm May afternoon, she realized that she might never see another spring. Her chauffeur opened the Bentley, but Maggie reversed directions. She needed to make absolutely certain that Dr. Abromovitz kept his death sentence to himself. No one could know until she was ready to tell.

  CHAPTER 47

  On the cover of May’s Vanity Fair, to the right of a beefcake shot of Johnny Depp, the promotional copy advertised “Why Every Woman Should Want to Be Jessica Jastrow.” In her flattering profile, screenwriter and journalist Delia Ephron provided ten delicious reasons:

  1.As president of production at J2, you’re the third most powerful woman in Hollywood, behind Julia Roberts and Sherry Lansing.

  2.Your calendar shows lunch with Tom Cruise and Antonio Banderas.

  3.There’s no limit on your American Express card.

  4.Giorgio Armani invites you to Milan for a private showing of his fall collection.

  5.Your personal trainer meets you at work, where you shower and apply makeup in your personal office bathroom.

  6.At thirty-six you remain a to-die-for size two.

  7.Your only boss is your adorable and adoring dad.

  8.TV hospital heartthrob Billy Gonzalez cooks you his paella on Sunday nights.

  9.Your enemies are jealous but admit you’re great at your job.

  10.Your friends are jealous but admit you’re wonderful—and great at your job.

  As Jessica relaxed poolside at the legendary Hôtel du Cap on the French Riviera, after a lunch of crudités and kirs with Pierce Brosnan, she added an eleventh reason: “You’re the princess of the Cannes Film Festival—as long as you can grant the go-ahead to their movies.”

  Two tables over, Dino De Laurentiis twirled pasta and promoted a movie about a plot to kill Stalin to French director Jean-Jacques Annaud, Spanish actress Penélope Cruz, a Japanese distributor, and an executive from the BBC. “Globalization” had assaulted the film business—make that “Babelization,” since none of these players understood what movie the others were talking about. No one cared, however, because the real meal was finding the money to make it. Jess noticed a photographer crouched at table level taking candid shots of the delegation with a Leica set on motor drive. She almost whistled. The guy was her age, with shaggy hair, a lean body, and a two-day shadow that made him dangerous enough for an afternoon fantasy.

  That’s exactly what she needed, because for all the myriad reasons to be Jessie, an active sex life was not one. Billy Gonzalez was a great chef, a sweet guy, and a closet homosexual. At times Jess wished she were a lesbian, because as a mating pool, Hollywood men were workaho
lics, connivers, phonies, narcissists—and so scared of her power they never asked her out. As for asking them for . . . it made her feel like a predator, and if they said no . . . God, she’d die of embarrassment. Her closest friends shared her emotional problem and had suggested a technological solution. Jess retrieved her beach bag and scampered to her private cabana, situated among the tall pines dotting the grounds. Nestling in a chaise longue, she switched on the Pocket Rocket. It resembled a Magic Marker and was just long enough to contain a double-A battery, but in its case, size didn’t count. When Jessie wanted to experience a bone-crushing orgasm, all she required was the Rocket and a fertile imagination.

  She chose the crouching photographer for inspiration. His first name would be . . . André . . . no, Gilles, and he’d been wounded covering the Gulf War for Le Monde. Gilles was at Cannes on assignment to photograph Jessica for an exhibition on the sexiest women behind the camera. They were alone in her suite when he unstrapped his camera and knelt down on the Oriental carpet, where she posed in a black silk T-shirt and tight jeans. He freed the top button, now another . . .

  Jess pushed aside her bathing suit and felt the hard, cool plastic of the vibrator. Its insistent pulses made her shiver as she luxuriated in how perfectly Gilles comprehended her body. Jess pressed her bottom against the cushion. The orgasm jolted her. Her shallow breathing had just returned to normal when someone knocked on the door. Through the window of the cabana she saw that her visitor was none other than the photographer himself. Not even Lucy in her most inspired moment had matched her double take.

  “Hi. I’m Patrick Shanti.” So much for fantasies—his accent was red, white, and blue. “I recognized you by the pool and wanted to say hello, because . . . uh . . . it happens we have an unusual connection.”

  He didn’t know the half of it. “How so?”

  “My mother’s a photographer. Her professional name is Naomi Riordan.”

  “She’s wonderful . . . and courageous.” New York’s Whitney Museum had presented a retrospective of Riordan’s portraits of the “Combatants of the ‘60s,” revolutionaries like George Jackson and Abbie Hoffman and reactionaries like Bull Connor and Spiro Agnew, who fought them at the barricades.

  “My mom photographed your dad at his bar mitzvah reception,” Patrick explained. “She eventually published a book, called Boys to Men, which compared her photos of young men and her sketches of how they would look at midlife with the real thing.”

  “I remember my dad posing for her . . . it must have been ten years ago. He got kind of strange.”

  “I was helping her out and the vibes in the studio that day . . . I thought Mother was going to jump him. She’s been known to do that—I have eight stepbrothers and -sisters from three marriages after my father.”

  Jessica’s cell phone rang with breaking news from her office. Not wishing to intrude, he waved good-bye. She hit the cancel button and called out, “Your dad was Avril Shanti, the Indian musician?”

  Patrick stopped short. “You listen to sitar music?”

  “We used two of his songs for one of our films. They were so haunting I played the soundtrack every day on the way to work.”

  Patrick grinned. “Better you than me. The sitar grates on my nerves.”

  “Would you like to . . . I don’t know . . . maybe have a drink?”

  “Thanks, but I’ve got to get back to work.”

  After he left, a copy line from a commercial popped to mind—“Is it real or is it Memorex?” The afternoon was filled with meetings and a dozen more distress calls from L.A. Everyone making movies for J2 huffed and puffed about something. But Jessie remained unflappable and arrived at the Palais des Festivals for the evening’s premiere of Ang Lee’s The Ice Storm dressed flawlessly in silk pants and a red-and-white beaded jacket by Mr. Armani.

  The photographer had faded from her thoughts when she saw him again. Actually, she heard his motor drive, because Patrick was preoccupied shooting the crowd. Or so it appeared, because as she approached he turned the lens in her face and snapped. “Don’t develop that,” she pleaded.

  “Why? You look beautiful.”

  “No.” Jess blushed. The picture would betray more interest in him than she cared to reveal.

  “I’d like to put you in my book.”

  She hadn’t heard that line before. “And what book is that?”

  Before he could answer, Jamie Klooz, a twenty-something agent from United Talent, sidled up, displaying a smile so white he must have swished his teeth with Clorox. “Hey, Jessie, you’re a ten on the babe scale tonight. Bought any films?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Smart cookie. These foreign flicks are pretentious crap, but the food’s totally awesome. A group of us are helicoptering to Saint-Tropez tonight. Why don’t you join us?”

  “No thanks. Jamie, this is Patrick Shanti . . . Patrick, Jamie Klooz.” Klooz sensed Patrick was a civilian and ignored him. “Crash, I need you to put the pressuroonie on your business-affairs guy to close the Daryl Hannah deal on Strangers.”

  “I’ll do what I can.”

  Klooz proffered his cell phone. “Any chance you could do it now?”

  “Absolutely none.”

  When he moved on, Patrick observed, “You have a really hard job.”

  “I appreciate your compassion. But you still haven’t told me about ‘the book.’ ”

  “If you cool it with the ‘pressuroonie’ and have dinner with me after the screening, I’ll explain.” Jess apologized that it would have to be her second dinner, since she had a nine P.M. meal scheduled with the men who distributed J2’s product in South Africa. He smiled. “Just have the first course.”

  They ate at Le Machou, a restaurant on an alley up from the harbor. Over the best steak in Cannes Patrick described Markets, a coffee-table book that captured the staggering range of worldwide markets. He had already shot the rare-bird market in Djakarta, the commodities pit in Chicago, the thoroughbred yearling sales in Saratoga, and a dozen other locations. Cannes made sense because it was the world’s number one film market.

  “This must be culture shock for you,” Jess offered.

  “Not really. Regardless of the kind of market, people tend to behave the same way. They’re on the make, they’re excited, they’re hopeful . . . they just don’t dress as well as you folks. My favorite thing is catching people bargaining with each other. Are you good at it?”

  “Yes, if it’s for the company, but if it’s for me personally, like at a flea market, I’m a hopeless softie.” He posed questions until Jessie realized she had told her life story. That was unusual because she was normally a good listener—and men usually couldn’t stop talking about themselves. By the time they’d wandered down to the square to where her car waited, there was no time to turn the tables. Patrick was leaving the next morning for Kazakhstan to photograph arms dealers selling weapons to Third World countries.

  “I had a great time, and you’re very special.” He kissed her on both cheeks.

  “We’ve got great farmers’ markets in southern California.”

  Patrick mounted his motorbike. “I love fruits and vegetables.” He smiled and drove off into the night.

  On the ride back to the du Cap, Jess checked her voice mail and found twenty messages. That meant another hour of aggravation before she could climb into bed and lie awake wondering if she’d ever see Patrick Shanti again.

  “Roll sound,” the assistant director shouted.

  “Sound speed.”

  “Scene 75 Alpha, Take one. Mark.” The common clapboard cracked for seven cameras.

  “Action!” Director Curtis Hanson’s voice boomed over a loudspeaker and five hundred soldiers in gray Confederate uniforms began their attack on four hundred men in blue Union uniforms. Next to the director, perched atop a tower overlooking the rolling hills of West Virginia, stood AJ. He riveted his attention on the reenactment of Pickett’s Charge during the bloody Battle of Gettysburg.

  He liked to say that
J2’s epic production of Lincoln was fifty years in the making, all the way back to his visit to the Memorial with his dad. AJ had become a student of the sixteenth president and hatched the idea of a film about his White House years after the election of Lincoln’s antithesis, “Slick Willie.” Although Clinton left the public cynical about government, AJ was sure the audience craved a portrayal of greatness in Washington. When the first draft of the screenplay raised goose bumps, AJ journeyed to Spain, where he convinced his old friend Michael Douglas to play the lead. The movie had been shooting for the past four months in Virginia, where Hanson and his production designer had re-created the buildings and the culture of nineteenth-century Washington.

  Today’s extras were Civil War buffs whose hobby was acting out battles, and they fought with a savagery worthy of members of a family who hated one another. With computer-generated crowd multiplication in postproduction, a thousand soldiers would swell to twenty-five thousand. A bank of TV monitors displayed the shots from the ground, crane, and helicopter. Hanson lacked only the epaulets as he yelled instructions through the speakers at his mock soldiers.

  AJ glanced skyward. Clouds raced to cast a shadow over the sun in the middle of the scene. That would mean coming back tomorrow at a cost of a quarter of a million dollars. With a budget in excess of one hundred million, Lincoln had to be a blockbuster to succeed. Money was on AJ’s mind these days. Following Terry Mangiarcina’s downgrade, J2’s stock price had declined by a third. Wells Fargo, the company’s principal lender, had imposed new restrictions on building additional flagship theaters. And the fact that their last four movies had performed poorly at the box office had aggravated the crunch. Time stopped, and AJ imagined he was Lincoln in the Oval Office, hunched anxiously over a telegraph machine, awaiting reports from the front on a battle that would turn the tide in the Civil War.

  “Cut!”

  With exquisite timing, it started to drizzle. The extras quit fighting, brushed one another off, and listened for further instructions. Like hyperactive eight-year-olds, most hoped to do it again. After studying the replay on each camera, the director announced, “We got it. It’s a wrap.” AJ breathed an audible sigh of relief. But as he started for the ladder to return to earth, he heard Hanson say, “Just one more shot.”