“You make it sound so ugly.”
“That’s what I do.” Stan chuckled, a dry, harsh sound.
Black wished he’d brought his cigarettes in with him. Not that he could smoke in the bar – the nanny state had made that illegal along with just about everything else that was fun or felt good. But the craving was stronger than he could have believed, and he shifted uncomfortably, silently cursing his weakness, which inevitably intensified when his blood alcohol level spiked.
“So will you keep me in the loop?” he asked, trying not to radiate desperation.
Stan leaned back in his chair and swung his leonine head around, looking for the bartender. He caught the Asian’s eye and lifted the bottle of beer, then held two fingers aloft before returning his attention to Black with a humorless smile.
“Of course I will. But you’re buying the drinks tonight.”
Black sighed in resignation. “I may be easy, but I’m not cheap.”
“We’ll see about that.”
Chapter 10
Morning light streamed through the designer blinds into the lavishly appointed offices from which Freddie Sypes operated his celebrity gossip empire, the heady aroma of freshly brewed dark-roast Costa Rican coffee pervading the suite like ambrosia. Freddie’s assistant Daniela, a severe brunette Italian beauty who stood six one in her stocking feet, lightly rapped on his Honduran mahogany door with her carefully sculpted nails.
Freddie looked up from the pile of publications he was poring through, a daily ritual that started each of his days before anyone else but Daniela was in the office, her hours of 6:50 to whenever long ago tacitly agreed to as part of her continued employment.
FSA was a twenty-four-hour shop, but for the executive offices, the business day began when Freddie appeared precisely at seven each morning and ended when he left, which was usually ten to twelve hours after he arrived, six days a week, and sometimes on Sundays. One of his favorite sayings was that bad news didn’t sleep, and if you didn’t like the grueling treadmill that was part and parcel of his empire, you were free to go find work elsewhere.
Freddie eyed Daniela’s cutting-edge outfit and cocked a carefully groomed eyebrow, his salon-tanned face looking every day of his forty-nine years.
“Yes, Daniela?”
“I’m sorry to disturb you, but we just got a tip that I knew you’d want to look at.”
Freddie had a long list of celebrities whose names would generate an instant alert so he could personally decide how to handle the tip. He waved a manicured hand and pursed his lips, impatient with her. He still had a faint buzz of hangover from the party at one of his favorite haunts the night before, a casual soirée with twenty of his closest right-now friends that had gone on a little too late, as had the ensuing encounter with a twenty-something cameraman with a body like Adonis and a face to match.
Daniela placed the slip of paper on his desk and stepped away. Freddie peered through his designer tortoiseshell reading glasses at the brief message and sat bolt upright with a sharp intake of breath.
“Who have we got available?” he demanded.
“Simon and Rick are both on deck.”
“Get them out to the place, but it has to be discreet. Total stealth. Maybe we can catch the old fool with his gut hanging out and a few days’ growth. We can run anything they get this afternoon with the piece about him being picked up for questioning by the police. It would be nice if we could paint a picture of him being totally out of control.”
Freddie was particularly pleased about the scoop from one of his contacts at LAPD headquarters. He’d had someone call Hunter’s press contact about it, but all he’d gotten was the expected ‘no comment,’ the arrogant bastard’s standard response to FSA on any topic at all. Hunter remained convinced that Freddie had somehow contrived to have his slut daughter run down, which couldn’t have been less true. It still tasted like bile in Freddie’s throat that he’d been forced to shell out millions to Hunter over the alleged actions of one of his lowest-end stringers, but the attorneys hadn’t wanted to take it to a jury, cautioning that the public perceived his profession as ranking slightly below call girl or congressman in terms of integrity.
Not that the impression bothered him, or was necessarily wrong. He’d created an incredible entity with FSA, but its currency was dirt and innuendo and scandal, and Freddie had long ago learned that it was better to get the scoop without questioning the ethics behind the way it was obtained or who might be hurt as a result. He was in the titillation business, and fornication, overdoses, drunk driving, rehab, adultery, and scandal were his stock in trade. Nobody paid big advertising dollars to feature front and center on a site that had countless dog-bites-man articles. He needed a constant stream of juicy tidbits, star sightings, ugly mishaps, and tall tales to draw the numbers that kept him at the top of the rankings.
“I’ll call them right now,” she said, and gently pulled his door closed, leaving him to consider the slush pile of folly that had collected on his desk overnight to be trawled for anything tasty enough for the consumption of the idle masses.
Freddie rose, walked to his picture window, and activated the blinds. As they rotated open, slowly and obediently revealing a panoramic view of the Pacific Ocean from his penthouse suite, he was reminded that the trappings of his lifestyle didn’t make him feel as potent as they should. Sure, he had the inevitable canary-yellow convertible Porsche, invitations to all the best functions, designer drugs and clothes, unlimited sexual adventures…but in his gut, he always felt like an employee, not fully in control of his destiny. He’d had to sell majority interest in FSA to a group of investors who were professional money jockeys, and they expected performance out of him like any other hired gun – he was only as good as his next quarter. The pressure was constant, and more irritating than anything else. He hadn’t changed his approach, which was charging hard 24/7, but now he felt like he had no choice in the matter, which made a huge difference in his motivation level.
And all because of that bastard Hunter.
He could trace a hundred percent of his recriminations back to the settlement.
The blackest day of his life.
Freddie turned from the view and plopped back into his Herman Miller chair and studied the pile of pubs on his desk. Years of clawing, cutting throats, backstabbing, and conniving and plotting had gotten him where he had been, and then it had all come crashing down. True, he was still a multi-millionaire, but he should have been far richer. And he lived in a town where talentless deadheads pocketed twenty million a film for showing up and phoning it in, so his money looked meager by comparison.
No, he was still an outsider, nose pressed against the glass, watching the privileged and the pretty leading dream lives while he shivered in the figurative cold. A necessary irritant to most of them, to be pandered to when it suited their purpose and ignored when it didn’t.
Freddie viewed himself as one level above the reality TV stars he stalked with regularity, feeding the public’s endless appetite for twaddle. Not quite legit, but known enough to get a decent table at a good restaurant on a Saturday night. In Hollywood, that was often how one could determine the pecking order – who could walk into Nobu and command a prime spot without a reservation.
He wasn’t an A player, or even a B, he knew. He existed in a kind of celebrity purgatory where he was a known quantity, but despised for how he made his living. Paparazzi were like insects, swarming over the still-warm carcass of whatever object of fascination had attracted the public’s interest. And he was the king roach. He didn’t kid himself, and there was no self-loathing. Freddie was accepting of his station. But he’d gone from owner to towel boy overnight, and there wasn’t a day that went by that he didn’t curse Hunter and his bitch of a daughter for ruining his good thing.
An icon on his flat screen monitor blinked, signaling that his first virtual meeting of the day was about to start. He sighed and took a swig of coffee, then pushed his pile aside and reached for the
mouse, an acrimonious aftertaste lingering as he swallowed, thoughts of Hunter having ruined even that for him.
But not for much longer.
Hunter needed this film to be big, and Freddie was putting every ounce of muscle into subtly denigrating the man and his work, planting seeds of doubt in his audience’s mind.
In this business, that could be enough.
Freddie would have the last laugh.
He’d make sure of it.
Chapter 11
Black sat on the mocha leather sofa, fidgeting as Dr. Kelso scribbled something on his ever-present notepad. Finished, Kelso scratched his salt and pepper beard – a nervous mannerism that Black particularly disliked – and studied him like a lab specimen.
“And why do you think that you got so impatient with them? Did they do something specific?” he asked.
“No, it’s more like a general irritation. It’s the cumulative effect of a host of little things.”
“Give me an example.”
“My name. They insist on using my first name.”
“Well, it is your name.”
“They know I hate it. They know I use my middle name. Which I had to make up, since they neglected to give me even that.”
“Maybe they forget. Or maybe they think it’s a phase you’re going through,” Dr. Kelso suggested.
“Yeah. A phase. I mean, I’m only forty-two. I might grow out of hating my shitty first name. You know, around the time I die.”
“Do you think about death a lot?” Kelso asked, instantly more interested.
“No. I mean, no more than anyone else does, I suppose.”
“And how much does everyone else think about it?”
“Look, I think we’re getting off topic here.”
“Yes, I suppose you would.”
They sat in silence for a few moments, and Black wondered for the umpteenth time why he squandered his hard-earned money on this quack. A hundred bucks twice a month, and he had seen no discernible progress in his anger issues even after two years.
“I’m still angry a lot of the time.”
“But not all the time.”
“No. But I was never angry all of the time.”
“Would you say you’re angry more often lately?”
“Not really. Just not less.”
“Besides your parents, what else makes you angry?”
“We’ve been over this. Don’t you remember any of our discussions?”
“Of course I do. Just tell me again.”
“I’m broke. I got screwed over by my wife. The songs I wrote made tens of millions of dollars, and I never saw a cent of it. Just a lousy hundred grand to sign a deal I should have never agreed to.”
“Ah, yessss. Now we’re getting somewhere. The record deal. Let’s explore that, shall we?”
“We’ve talked about it a dozen times.”
“I sense you’re making progress each time.”
“How do I know you aren’t just running out the clock and choosing topics you know will torment me?”
“Do you often feel persecuted by those you’ve selected to help you?”
“That’s not what I’m saying.”
“Tell me again about the record deal. It still makes you furious, doesn’t it? That the renowned Nina Angel became rich and famous from your songs. But it was your idea to sign them over to her in the first place, wasn’t it?”
“Of course it infuriates me. I sign over all the songwriting credits and copyrights in my new wife’s name, and then the album goes quadruple platinum and I get the shaft. How would you feel?”
“But why did you sign them over? Wasn’t it to cheat on taxes?”
“Not to cheat on them,” Black corrected, growing annoyed. “She was a Nevada resident. Her address was still her mom’s trailer in Henderson. It made no sense to pay California tax on any income from the songs if we could have them in her name. We were married, for God’s sake. How was I supposed to know that the second the album started selling, she’d start screwing the attorney we’d hired and then divorce me? Who wouldn’t be angry? And by the way, her real name isn’t Angel. It’s Gomez. She changed it.”
“Interesting. So she disliked her name too.”
“I don’t see what that has to do with anything…”
“Back to your anger and the songs. You were trying to, mmm, minimize taxes. So you were trying to be tricky, and it backfired, and now you’re resentful.”
“Didn’t you hear anything I just said? My nineteen-year-old wife became an international sensation singing songs I sweated blood to write, got richer than Bill Gates, and promptly dumped me to bang our attorney. And then she had him butt-hurt me by having me sign a deal nobody in the world should have taken. I really should have sued both their asses.”
“Yesss. ‘Should.’ Sounds angry to me. Wasn’t it your inability to control your rage that resulted in the whole situation?”
“I guess you have been paying attention,” Black said sheepishly.
“You broke your hand a week before you were supposed to go on tour. How did that happen, anyway? We ran out of time the last time we were discussing this.”
“I got into a bar fight.”
“Ah. So one of your long string of outbursts. Is that not correct? You told me that the record company had no choice but to replace you – you couldn’t play, and they weren’t about to cancel the tour because you couldn’t control yourself. Isn’t that right?”
“They could have hired a session guy, and I could have picked up in eight weeks. But they didn’t. I think my wife was screwing the attorney even at that point. Otherwise, why not hire a stand-in? The fix was in from the start.”
“And you could have then had another fight on the road, and they would have been right back in the same position. So they decided to get rid of you. And you’re still angry about it.”
Black exhaled noisily.
“You know what the strange thing is? Not that much, anymore. I mean, the attorney? He feels terrible about the whole thing. We’ve actually become good friends. He helped me set up my business. He’s helped me with my other businesses.”
“The ones that failed. The limo company, the supplement company, the carpet cleaning company…”
“The carpet company could have happened to anyone. It was an accident. I had no idea the products would ruin a million-dollar Persian rug.”
“No. Of course not. Do you feel like the ‘fix was in’ there, too, as you put it?”
“Look, I know I screwed up on that. I don’t need to be reminded.”
“Fair enough. Let’s circle back to the record deal. Are you still angry at your wife?”
Black considered the question. “A little. I think I’ll always be pissed that she cheated me out of millions, became a household name, and dropped me like a bad habit. Hard to get over that kind of thing.”
“So you’re angry at your ex-wife, and you’re angry at your mother.”
“And my father.”
“Bear with me here. What other women do you have in your life right now? No new girlfriends since the last time we talked?”
“No. I’m broke, I told you. It’s kind of hard to hook up in this town if you don’t have a pot to piss in.”
“Mmm, right. So those are the only two women in your life. Didn’t you mention an assistant?”
“Roxie? I don’t really think of her as a woman.”
“Really. Interesting. Why not?”
“Because…I mean, she’s twenty-five. I have socks older than that.”
“So you think of her as an old sock?”
“No, you’re twisting my words.”
“Is she attractive?” Kelso sounded interested again – twice in one sitting, a rare event during their sessions.
“No. Yes. I mean, yes she’s attractive, in a kind of punky, goth way. Or emo. Whatever that means. I can’t keep up. She’s got the whole black hair, black nails thing. Sings in an art rock band.”
“Ah. Another f
emale singer. Hmm. And she’s a young female singer like your wife was when she dumped you.”
“This really isn’t helping my anger, Doctor.”
“And she’s attractive, yet you claim you aren’t attracted to her. Tell me, are you angry at her?”
Black was stumped. How had they wound up here? “That’s ridiculous. I mean, sure, sometimes I am, but that’s because she can be difficult.”
“Huh. I see. Do you ever think of her sexually?” Kelso asked, leaning forward, a gleam in his eye.
“What kind of question is that?”
“It’s a routine question. All part of the process. Do you think of her sexually?”
“Wha – okay, Doc, I’ll admit that when she parades around the office wearing next to nothing but Doc Martens, she’s kind of hot, but that doesn’t mean I want to have sex with my receptionist. Assistant,” Black corrected.
“So you have her come to work wearing provocative outfits?”
“I don’t tell her what to wear.”
“I see. So she chooses to come to work wearing these sorts of sexually alluring clothes?”
“I…that’s how the young chicks dress now, Doctor. I think you’re making more out of it than I do.”
“Do you spend a lot of time noticing what the ‘young chicks’ wear?”
“No. Not like that.”
“How young do the chicks have to be before you stop noticing what they’re wearing?”
“Christ. Now I’m a pedophile?”
“I’m not labeling you. I’m trying to get to the bottom of your rage issue. I think we’re on to something.”
“You say that every session.”
“Which is a good sign, isn’t it?”
“Look, Doctor. Okay, maybe I’ve had a few impure thoughts about my assistant. And yes, maybe I’ve been angry at all the women in my life at one point or another. But that doesn’t mean–”
A tiny chime sounded. Kelso put his pad down and checked his watch, then fixed an impassive expression on his face.
“I’m sorry. I’m afraid our time is up. It’s nine. Shall we pick this up the next session?”
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