“Crap. We were both forced to go to the same wedding as friends of the bride and groom, did too much oxy, had a one-night stand, thought it would be a lark to go to Vegas and get remarried, and woke up the next day with a hangover and a marriage neither of us wanted.”
“But I don’t understand…why didn’t you just get an annulment?”
“V.A.M.Pyre was coming out the following week.”
“The movie?”
“Yes, the movie. Jerry suggested we wait.”
“Jerry?”
“My manager.”
“And you actually did?”
Max rubbed his eyes. “There never was a right time. My film release, her film release, the Golden Globes, the Academy Awards, the Haiti relief trip, The View. There was never a moment when we could stop. The story was too good. The mags were calling it ‘a second chance at love.’ Talia’s built her whole career on being the fresh-faced girl next door. If we divorced, I’d get the blame. I’d be the bad guy. I’d be headed straight for Mel Gibson territory.” He smiled at Luther—his patented ironic smile. He felt that smile down to the soles of his shoes. “So now you see what you did? You solved the problem for her. She’ll make a beautiful widow.”
“This is Talia L’Apel we’re talking about. She wouldn’t do that.”
“Remind me what she said again?”
“Unbelievable.” Luther put his head in his hands.
“Imagine how I feel.”
“But surely she wouldn’t want you to die of starvation in this hole! She’s America’s Sweetheart.”
“How’s anyone gonna know?”
Luther hopped to his feet. “Just wait. Just you wait. I’ve got something to do, but I’ll be back soon.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“ARE YOU OUT of your mind?” Jerry Gold yelled.
He’d been storyboarding when Talia had called him into the kitchen to tell him her news. She’d told the kidnappers to go to hell in no uncertain terms. If they were lucky, she said, Max was being executed as they spoke.
He repeated, “Are you out of your mind?”
She gave him her best innocent look, which really was amazing.
Talia L’Apel was the sexiest woman on the planet, did things to him in bed you couldn’t even imagine. But she had the instincts of a small-potatoes con. He understood that, and accepted it, because he was madly in love with her, but her intellect…
What she lacked in innate intelligence she made up for in luck. Take her name, for instance. Talia’s real name was Talia Lipowitz. That could have actually worked, in this day and age. Look at Kim Kardashian. But starting out, she’d wanted a romantic name. One day, before she was even on the radar as a star (this was during her first marriage to Max Conroy), they were in a shop looking at women’s suits for a bit part in a film, and the salesgirl pointed out the lapel, saying it “really makes the garment.” And Talia got that shine in her eye. “Lapel,” she breathed, stroking the suit. “That’s French, isn’t it?”
Jerry tried to talk her out of it. He thought she’d be a laughingstock. But Talia was not only stupid, she was stubborn. (Not to mention heartbreakingly beautiful.)
And so Talia Lipowitz became Talia L’Apel, and lo and behold, people ate it up. Turned out that Talia was smarter about this kind of thing than he was. He’d overestimated the intelligence of Talia’s public, and it was then he decided to take dumbing-down lessons from her at every opportunity.
Jerry balked at carrying her Yorkie, but otherwise, he deferred to her streetwise cunning and manufactured just-off-a-turnip-truck innocence.
Except for now.
This time she was flat-out wrong. “You’re going to screw up everything! What about your baby from Africa? What about your reunion?”
“What about it? As far as I’m concerned, it’s less work I have to do. I don’t have to pretend anymore.”
“Less work? Is that how you see it?”
“I don’t know why you’re looking at me like that. I thought you wanted something like this to happen. Now we don’t have to work so hard, don’t you see?”
Dammit. How in God’s name had this shitstorm happened to him?
Chapter Thirteen
NOT LONG AFTER Luther left Max, the trapdoor opened again. Luther made his way down, followed by Corey, followed by Luther’s uncle, Sam P., who stepped delicately for a huge man.
Corey carried a tripod and a small video camera. Black material swung from his belt—Max realized they were ski masks. The ski masks went with the scimitar in Sam P.’s hand.
“Really?” Max said. He lay on his cot, legs crossed at his feet, hands clasped behind his head.
“Get up, asshole,” Corey said. “It’s time for your close-up.”
Max obliged. He was calm now, as if he were in the eye of a hurricane, and the hurricane was his own rage. The rage would be easy to tap, but he could control it. “Where’s my mark?”
“Knock it off, jerko,” Corey said. “Do what you’re told and everything’s going to turn out fine. Otherwise…” He made a slashing motion to his throat.
“You really think a video will change Talia’s mind?”
They ignored him as they set up the tripod facing the wall. The lighting here was not the best, but Max thought it would only enhance the terror of the scene. “May I make a suggestion?”
Sam P., who was about to don his mask, said, “Certainly, sir.”
“Guess he wants us to shoot his good side,” Corey said.
Max said, “Who are you supposed to be? Rabid Islamists? Because if you’re going the scary Islamist route, you’re setting up a certain expectation.”
“Everyone’s a critic,” muttered Luther.
Max shrugged. “If you’re going to do this, don’t you want to do it right?”
Corey grumbled, but Sam P. said, “Let’s hear what the man has to say. He’s been around the block a few times, after all.”
“If you want to scare them, fine. But what’s the endgame? They have to believe you’re real kidnappers who want money, not Sharia law and death to infidels. If you pose like that and threaten to behead me, they’ll think that sending you money won’t buy anything, because you’re extremists who will kill me anyway. See what I mean?”
Sam P. looked at Luther and Luther looked back. “He’s got a point.”
“This is ridiculous,” said Corey. “He’s snowing us, man! He’s playing with our heads.”
Max said, “Look. Don’t you think I want to make it out of here alive? Don’t you think I have a stake in this?” He looked from one to another to another. It was his sincere look, the look he had when he was about to a) go to war, b) stand up to the bad guy or c) kiss a woman who needed kissing. He let his eyes bank like coals, smoldering with meaning. With belief.
Sam P. sat down on a folding chair. Amazing it could hold him. “So what do you propose we do?” he asked.
“You go simple, no frills. Just sit me on a chair and videotape me. Ask me a couple of questions. Just straightforward stuff—it will be chilling, trust me. Because it will be believable.”
Sam P. thought about it, then slapped his thigh. “Sounds good.”
Max saw Corey’s face fall. Corey had wanted to wear the mask.
“Another thing,” Max said. “Are you sending this just to Talia?”
Luther looked diffident. “That was the plan.”
“Because here’s what she’ll do. She’ll erase it. Just wipe it right off her phone—boom, like it never existed.”
Luther looked at Sam P. and Sam P. looked at Corey. They all looked at Max.
The center of power had shifted. Max was in control now. “See, what you’ve got to do—when the time comes—is go viral. That way she’s forced into meeting your demands. America’s Sweetheart isn’t going to stand by while her husband is killed by kidnappers, not with TMZ on the case. Not with Entertainment Tonight, and The Huffington Post, the cable shows, the bloggers, the tabloids, YouTube—she can’t ignor
e you then.”
Absolute silence. Then Sam P. said, “Dammit! Why didn’t I think of that? Max, I bow to your expertise.”
Corey muttered something unintelligible under his breath.
“OK, first thing we have to do is make it look like you’ve hit me.”
“Hit you?” Sam P. recoiled in horror.
“You have ketchup?”
“I think so.”
“Go get it. And if you have any charcoal, or something to make me look bruised up a little, get that too.”
Sam P. said to Corey, without looking at him, “Do what the man said.”
Corey grumbled, but went.
And so they did it. Max sitting in a chair. Dim lighting, but just the right kind of lighting to show it was, indeed, Max Conroy. Max looked stunned but brave. He had to keep in mind that he was a leading man, so he maintained that strong, manly presence, even though he was tied to a chair. He played the part of the weary hero who had fought bravely against his attackers but succumbed to overwhelming odds.
He finished up with the thousand-yard stare.
A hundred screenwriters can’t be wrong.
II: ICONOCLAST
Chapter Fourteen
AFTER THE CALL, Jerry went into his study. Talia followed, but he motioned her out and closed the door. He needed to think.
Normally a showplace, the room’s walls had been papered with 8 ½” x 11” sheets of paper. Four rows of them, taped up all the way around, even over the French doors looking out on the pool. He could have taken them down days ago, should have taken them down, but for some reason he liked looking at them. They reminded him of the early years, when he was just another spoke in the film industry’s wheel, a lowly screenwriter-turned-indie-prod, long before he became Max’s business manager.
It had been fun, getting back to basics. Planning and scheming, working out how it would look—the tracking cam, the extra-long shot, the two-shot, the extreme close-up. Most of it was unnecessary—this wasn’t a film project. Most of the story would stay on the cutting room floor. But he realized he’d gotten…lost. Lost in the work. Reminded himself what it had been like as a young man, a starving artist. When he was creative.
Another great thing about working on this project—he could shut out Talia’s whining. She’d become increasingly strident as days went by. He understood it. The waiting had been difficult. She was worried, frightened that it wouldn’t work out. But her voice had a knife’s edge at times he just had to avoid. So he came in here and storyboarded.
The scenario Jerry and his brother Gordon had chosen for Max’s death would have looked great on a computer, but there could be no computer. There would be no paper trail. Paper could be destroyed, but a computer’s memory had a way of staying around forever.
One more week, he’d thought, and they would have been home free.
Jerry’d had rotator cuff surgery once. They’d scheduled the surgery and he had burned up daylight just waiting. Waiting to get started, waiting to go through with the damn thing, just hoping to get out fine on the other side and start living again. That’s what it had been like, even though the stakes now were much higher. He wanted it done already.
And now, suddenly, everything was out of their hands.
A timid knock on the door—Talia. She knew she’d annoyed him. Knew he was upset.
“Come in.”
Her eyes looked bruised. Had she been crying? Or faking? You could never tell with Talia.
She slipped her arms around his waist. “I’m sorry. I should have let you handle it. Is it going to be OK?”
He pulled away from her, went to stand before the fourth scenario. The one they’d planned. Now, after all the foresight, the risk-taking—they’d even killed a world-famous forensic expert—it might well be that the plan had been smothered in its crib.
“They’ll call back, won’t they?”
“Probably.”
She said, “I still don’t see why we can’t just let them do it.”
He stared at his storyboards. The forensic specialist, Dr. DePaulentis—what the man had done was spectacular! He’d kept it as simple as possible. The fourth scenario. No drug cartels, no terrorist gangs, no spectacular plane crashes, just…a lone bad guy. Jerry’d initially wanted a prison escapee but Gordon had pointed out that wouldn’t work. A prison escapee would have to break out of a real prison, and it would be on the news if that happened.
So it was back to a chance encounter with a bad guy. Simple. No frills, but planned down to the exact detail.
A reconstructed crime scene, clues and all.
He stared past the sheets of paper at the glimmer of the pool, the fountain, the royal palms beyond. It had been foolproof until Max escaped from the Desert Oasis. Elegant—a thing of beauty. He turned to Talia. “Now our fate is in the hands of strangers.”
“But that’s better, don’t you see? Then there’s no involvement on our part. No one could ever connect—”
“Have you ever played high-stakes poker?”
She looked at him. Clueless.
“What if they do kill him? What would that look like? A bruised, broken body dumped by the side of a road? Have you seen gunshot wounds? It’s not a pretty picture. Maybe they leave him out somewhere to be eaten by predators. Or what if he’s still alive? What if they send us a video? Can you picture it? He’s beaten up, terrified, practically peeing in his pants. Max Conroy reduced to a mewling baby. They might slap him around. Tell him to say ridiculous things, plead for his life. What if it goes on YouTube?” He stepped toward her, his anger building. “How do you think that would look? It would look like seventy million dollars going straight down the drain!”
He walked to one wall and ripped down a piece of paper and held it up. “There goes the graphic novel!” He crumpled it and threw it down. Another piece. “The action figure!” Another. “The Max Conroy Memorial Limited Edition Vincent Black Shadow motorcycle!”
More sheets—ripped, crumpled, wadded-up balls of paper raining down on the Aubusson carpet. MacMillan’s whiskey—he’d envisioned a series of ads profiling Max’s bravery as a doomed, real-life hero. The suite of men’s hair and body products. The T-shirts, the posters, the hats, the phone apps, the Maxphone, the movie, the book, the Wheaties box.
Any time a photographer, writer, TV personality, or news source profiled Max Conroy, any time his image was used, a little angel got its wings.
“Marilyn Monroe’s estate is estimated at over a hundred million dollars! Michael Jackson’s made over one billion dollars since he died. His estate is pulling in one hundred and seventy million dollars this year. Think about what it would be like to license a Michael Jackson, a James Dean, the next Elvis Presley! Do you have any idea of the stakes?”
Finally, he couldn’t go on. Like a tired horse, he just stood there, his breath coming in ragged gasps.
Talia stared at him, shocked. He was sure, this time, she really was feeling what she looked like. Maybe he’d finally gotten through to her.
He sat down on the floor, Indian style, and stared out at the pool. “Do you realize now,” he said quietly, “what you have done? What you’ve accomplished with your flip little remark?” He pounded his thigh. “He could have been an icon!”
Chapter Fifteen
“IT’S A WRAP!” Sam P. shouted when they were done. “I always wanted to say that.” He patted Max on the head. “Let’s go and change the world.”
“We’ll do that,” Max said. “But we have to do it right.”
“You said we’d ‘go viral.’ All I have to do is upload to the phone and off we go.”
“And we will, we’ll get to that. But first, we have to wait.”
“Wait for what?”
“For them to get nervous.”
“Nervous?” Sam P. looked nonplussed. “Your wife told us to keep you. The only way to pressure her is to go viral—you said so yourself!”
“If you remember, I said we have to do it right. You want to do it righ
t, don’t you?”
“Well…yes, of course.”
“This guy is scamming you!” said Corey. “He’s screwing with your heads.”
“Shut up, Corey.”
“Look—”
“Shut up! I want to hear what the man has to say.” Sam P. fixed his eyes on Max. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying we give them a chance to think about it. To stew.”
“And how long, do you propose, should we let them ‘stew’?”
“A day or two.”
“A day or two?” Sam P. shook his head. “That’s too long. We want to wrap this up. The longer we keep you here as our guest, the more of a chance for something to go wrong. Frankly, we need to unload you as soon as possible.”
“I say we go viral,” Corey said. “Now. This guy is setting us up!”
“I think so too,” Luther said.
Max said, “It all depends on Jerry.”
“Jerry?”
“My manager. He and Talia are having an affair. Talia would be just fine with it if I dropped off the face of the earth, but Jerry has money—a lot of money—invested in me. I have to be on the set in a couple of weeks. She may want me dead, but he wants me alive and working.”
Sam P. and Luther digested this.
Sam P. said, “So this, uh, Jerry. What’s his last name?”
“Gold. Jerry Gold.”
“He’ll pay to get you back?”
Max shrugged. “He’ll get Talia to pay, which is the same thing. There’s no way he’s going to let his meal ticket die in a bomb shelter in the middle of the desert. But he’s going to need some time.”
“Time?”
“To convince Talia. She’s the one with the purse strings. And right now, she’s picturing life without me, and she likes it that way.”
“But this, ah, Jerry? He can convince her?”
“He’ll convince her. You’d better believe it.”
“How long, do you think?”
Max shrugged. “A day, maybe? She’s pretty stubborn.”
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