The Rise, page 7
Was it wrong that even today he was instinctively insulted by the fact that he didn’t get top billing? What did ten guys in bullet-proof vests storming the gates of a Hollywood Hills mansion have that he didn’t?
The shot cut back to the studio, to a size zero presenter whose brilliant-white, veneered smile was wider than her thighs. Flicking a waist-length mane of jet-black hair that had only last month been on the head of a fourteen-year-old factory worker in Bangladesh, she delivered the segment in the manner of a pageant queen being asked her opinion on saving the rainforest.
‘And here’s what Family Three leading lady, Vala Diaz, had to say to those gorgeous ladies on The View today about the wide-reaching repercussions of this shocking situation.’
The image changed to one of Tilly Cantor sitting on the couch of The View, speaking in her trademark tone: breathy with an edge of Republican superiority.
‘Vala, I know you’re not here to talk about this today, but I couldn’t let you go without asking you about the latest controversy surrounding producer, Davie Johnston, and poor teenager, Sky Nixon. We hear she’s still in a coma, and obviously we’ve all seen those heartbreaking images of the fans holding a vigil outside the hospital where she lies fighting for her life, but what’s been the impact on your show? How are Davie Johnston’s children, Bella and Bray, holding up?’
Beads of sweat burst onto Davie’s forehead. Holding up?
Holding up? They’re fricking seven! As long as they’ve got their iPads and a supply of candy, all’s right in their world.
The thoughts ricocheting off the inside of his skull skidded to a halt as Vala opened her beautiful mouth.
‘Well, I think it’s just a tragic situation for everyone involved and my heart goes out to darling Sky.’
Davie’s thoughts kick-started again. Darling Sky? The one and only time they’d been in the same room, Vala had threatened to impale her on an ice sculpture because she was all over Davie like a fungal infection.
‘I don’t know Davie very well, as obviously I only work with his children, who are adorable by the way…’
The audience murmured their approval of her sentiment.
‘… but I do know that as a cast we are coming together to protect those innocent children and we will continue to do so for as long as they need us.’
Over in the corner, Darcy broke off from stroking Jenny’s hair to speak to Davie for the first time. ‘Next time you bang her, you might want to introduce the concept of a gag.’
Davie ignored her, about to flick the TV off when the next segment caused whole-body paralysis.
‘And it’s been a week for scandalous happenings among Hollywood royalty, as a name that will be very familiar to Mr Johnston steals some headlines of her own. We still have no word on the whereabouts of Mirren McLean, Johnston’s former film-making partner and lifelong friend. As we reported two days ago, a car belonging to Ms McLean’s husband, Jack Gore, was found wrecked at the bottom of Trancas Canyon. Police have reported that as far as they are aware, no crime has been committed; however, they are still searching the area. This morning, her husband refused to comment on rumours that his close relationship with actress Mercedes Dance has been a source of marital problems.’
Oh fuck no. Mirren. He must have called her a hundred times in the last two days and mentally branded her every bitch under the sun for refusing to pick up or call back.
His mind went into overdrive as a dozen scenarios played out in his head, none of them good. His knees almost buckled and he had to grab the table to support him. This shit shouldn’t happen, and if it did, he should be able to deal with it. He’d coped with every situation in his life and survived. Every trauma. Every drama. He’d written every cliché into his shows. Go big or go home. Swing for the fences. If this was a movie, it would be his Braveheart moment. Conquer or die trying.
But right now, he needed someone else’s oxygen. He needed Mirren. Needed to speak to her.
The vibe in the room changed suddenly as Cal strode in, looking every inch the volatile, aggressive agent that he’d always been, and threw his hands up in outrage.
‘Are you fucking ready to deal with this?’
Cal’s voice. Every hitman in every blockbuster of the last twenty years had imitated Cal Woolfe when they were delivering their final words to their victim. Goodnight, sucker. His voice was low and deadly, at odds with a stature that was whippet-thin and a pallor that belonged to an accountant who avoided daylight hours.
But it wasn’t his voice that chilled Davie right now; it was what he was saying.
Was he ready to deal with this? For years they’d been a team. What happened to ‘we’? What happened to ‘us’? It was the way it worked in this business. Everyone claimed credit when the going was good, denied culpability when it all went to shit.
We had a hit show.
Your show tanked.
But for now, they were still in it together. They had to be.
‘You need to pull this off,’ Cal told him. There it was again. Singular. But the warning was unnecessary. Twenty years in the business had left a muscle memory that caused a snap in Davie’s psyche.
What was it they said? You found out who your friends were when the chips were down?
Right now they were scattered all over the floor and he was getting a harsh reality check.
Exit one friend, so fast the sparks were coming off his Gucci loafers. The ones purchased with Davie’s 10 per cent.
Fuelled by desperation, demanding inspiration, Davie wasn’t letting go.
‘You have to help fix this, Cal. We’re a team, right?’
Cal didn’t even try to hide his discomfort or distaste. Oh, the irony. Yesterday, he’d have given his grandmother up for Davie Johnston, but now, he’d happily hand him over to any other agent in town. He peeled Davie off his torso and reclaimed his personal space.
‘OK, the guys are outside, every reporter in town is there, and we’ve got them cordoned by the guest house. Camera crews are ready. Security is tight. Ready to be humble?’
‘Yeah, Cal, about that, I—’
‘Your opinion ain’t required, Davie. Just get out there and grovel.’
Davie nodded like a school kid trying to please the priest by telling him that he did three decades of the rosary every night.
But hang on.
Suddenly Cal was giving him points on performance? Davie was the talent. He was Mr Public. Davie was the one who got 90 per cent because he was the one out there. When cameras were rolling, he called the shots.
And right now, his shots had to be on target.
Jenny and Darcy said nothing as he checked his hair in the Rennie Mackintosh mirror above the travertine mantel, dusted on some loose powder to counteract the shine and added a subtle coat of mascara. Waterproof. Just in case.
Walking behind Cal, and followed by a tribe of publicists from CSA, they headed out of the glass doors and crossed the lawn, which was so vast Rod Stewart had once asked him why he hadn’t remodelled it into a football pitch.
As they approached the ornamental meditation garden, between the yoga deck and the maze, he could hear the buzz of expectation. It was unusual to hold a press conference at a star’s home, but they were using every trick in the book to ensure a mass turnout. If the wolves didn’t come out of journalistic interest, they’d come for a view of the sixteen-car garage that hosted some of the rarest vehicular classics in the country.
The flashbulbs popped like strobe lights from the second he came into view, mounted the small stage that had been hurriedly purpose-built for this morning and took his place behind the microphone at centre stage.
Like a synchronized dance, the crowd hushed at once, each of them pressing record on their audio devices and cameras.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming.’
Watching the polished greeting, taking in the relaxed posture and the trademark cheeky grin, not a single person there would have guessed that fifteen minutes before, he’d almost been on his knees.
‘Obviously, my name has been in the headlines over the last couple of days and for once I’m thinking that’s not a good thing…’
The self-deprecating humour earned him an automatic murmur of amusement.
‘I just want to set the record straight and let you know the truth behind what happened. That was me on that tape – I won’t deny it. But what you didn’t hear was that my words were being recorded as part of a cameo stunt we were going to set up, a satirical piece about the rumours that all reality shows are scripted. I’m sorry that Rainbow Nixon used that tape out of context. I’m sorry that she chose to release it at a time that was so sensitive for her daughter and her family. I have no idea why that happened. I can assure you, quite categorically and absolutely, that I did not have any part in Sky Nixon’s decision to take drugs. I can only hope now that Rainbow, with her own extensive experience of addiction, will be there for her daughter and focus on the truth and yes – reality of the situation.’
Silence. They were absolutely and completely in the palm of his perfectly manicured hand.
He owned that stage, called the shots, and his demeanour gave off a well-practised confidence perfected over twenty years in the business. He was Davie Johnston. Big time producer. America’s favourite presenter. A good guy. Decent. Trustworthy. Dependable. They wanted to believe him. And there he was, giving them what they needed. Reassurance that was almost presidential.
His future would be decided by public perception. Was this the honesty and integrity of a respected commander-in-chief?
Or was he the president who left his morals on the floor of the Oval Office and got caught lying to the nation?
12
‘SHE’S GONE’ – HALL & OATES
Mirren Gore was dead. Dead. The wife of producer, Jack Gore, the devoted mother of the famous boyband singer, Logan Gore, and the infamous wild child, Chloe Gore, was gone.
All that was left was Mirren McLean. Exhausted. Defeated. Speaking only to the two people on earth she could trust.
‘Sister, you’re going to have to say something soon,’ Lou told her. ‘They’re scouring the fricking country for you. Let me put something out, take the heat off.’
‘Fine. Whatever you think.’ The voice was so devoid of emotion it could have been the utterances of an automated phone system.
Lou’s sigh of relief was audible. ‘How’s Logan doing? You told him yet?’
‘Nope. Haven’t quite worked out how to share the news that his dad is screwing a girl whose poster was on Logan’s wall last year.’
‘Have you called Chloe?’
‘Last time I tried, she still wasn’t accepting my calls, but Logan let her know I was ok. I’ll try to speak to her again later once I’ve picked up a new cell. Leaving my phone in the Maserati wasn’t my best moment of forward-thinking. You can get me on this number until I do. How about that for a role reversal? Logan is complaining because I’m monopolizing his phone.’
There was a roar in the background: 107,000 screaming girls in the open air, Estadio Azteca, Mexico City. Logan’s world had been the obvious place for her to go. There was no better way to disappear than into the entourage of a boy band that had a security team rivalled by none. Twenty strong, all former Navy Seals, these guys were as close to impenetrable as it got. After the Maserati hit the deck, she’d hitched a lift back to civilization and taken a cab to Santa Monica Airport, with a detour to the office to collect her passport. If only she’d done an Angelina, a Travolta, a Harrison Ford and got her own pilot’s licence, it would have been so much quicker. No matter. Within the hour, her American Express account was $30,000 lighter, a private jet was on the runway, and she was heading south.
Might have been an idea to stop for supplies. She pulled her long cardigan around her, a sympathy gift from one of the girls in wardrobe when she arrived. The clothes she’d stood in – grey skinny 7 For All Mankind jeans, a white tank, Prada biker boots – weren’t quite adequate for an unusually cool Mexican night.
The temperature had dropped to somewhere in the forties. Mildly chilly, yet she was shivering.
She hated the cold. Reminded her of home. Of them. Of people she’d spent a lifetime trying to forget.
A snapshot of her childhood flickered to life in her mind. Mirren. About twelve. Sitting outside her house on a summer night. Then another. This time the leaves on the trees were brown and red. Another. Now bare branches towered over her. That was the overwhelming memory of her youngest years, shivering in the cold, sweating in the heat, always sitting outside because she couldn’t face what was happening on the other side of the walls of her home. The laughter. The screams. The smell of perfume and cigarettes. The words that no child should hear. Mirren knew them all. And she knew that she came way below the buzz of her mother’s long nights of play with her married lover.
Then there was the flip side. When he didn’t show up and her mother was alone, drowning in tears of self-pity, pining until the moment that he walked back through the door, took her hand and led her upstairs.
Over the years dozens of TV interviewers and journalists had asked her what drove her infamous work ethic, what made her so determined to succeed, what the secret was behind her successful marriage. She had stock answers, meaningless platitudes for every question, but the truth was that there was only one explanation.
She was determined that she’d never end up like her mother.
Marilyn McLean was the reason that Mirren’s whole life had been built on a craving for security. Certainty. Stability. Change freaked her out. The unknown scared her. And the only thing that took away the fear was success in every area of her life. Career. Money. Marriage.
She had been in love with two men in her life. The first time had ended so badly she thought that she’d never recover. This time… this time…
The phone in her hand vibrated and a familiar image flashed on the screen. One that didn’t belong there. Why would Lex Callaghan’s number be in Logan’s phone?
Accept.
‘Hey.’
‘Hey, boss. So, anything happening lately?’
It was impossible not to smile. Lex Callaghan was that rare thing in Hollywood: an actor who didn’t take himself too seriously, who didn’t look at everything from the point of view of what it meant for him. Mirren had always thought that it was because his success had come later. He’d been around Hollywood for a decade, racked up dozens of minor parts, acted in half a dozen pilots that hadn’t been picked up. He had just hit thirty when he walked into the casting office for the first Clansman. For Mirren, it was like watching a character lift off her page and come to life. The collar-length, unruly black hair, the physique of a warrior and the blue eyes were straight out of her descriptive prose, but it was more than that. Every guy who’d auditioned so far looked like he’d stopped off on the way to have his nails buffed. Lex Callaghan looked rough, like he could climb mountains, swim lochs. He had a walk that exuded attitude with every step. But the deal-sealer was the accent. He spoke with a Highland lilt that was so authentic she couldn’t make out a trace of his natural Montana drawl. A childhood spent in the company of an immigrant grandmother who never lost her Perthshire brogue had given him a voice that was flawless. This was her hero, the man who had the courage of his convictions and was willing to die fighting.
The viewing public felt the same. The four Clansman movies they’d worked on had made him a global star. The fifth was supposed to start filming in two days and would add another legion of fans to his adoring army.
‘Hi. How did you get this number?’ No irritation, just surprise.
‘Last year’s wrap party. Logan sorted out South City tickets for my niece, gave me his number. She will now visit me when I’m old. Didn’t expect you to answer, though – was just going to interrogate him for information.’
‘He’d never crack,’ she said with a smile.
‘You’re right. So how you doing?’
‘I’m OK.’
‘Really?’
‘No.’
‘Want me to come down? My niece would love it.’
‘Thanks, but no. I’ll be back soon. Just needed to get my head together, stay out of the spotlight.’
‘We can push back the start date.’
‘No.’
It was unthinkable. Even a day of delay would cost the studio hundreds of thousands, but it was more than that. It was what it said. That she’d fallen apart, couldn’t handle it.
‘Look, Mirren, I’m here for you. Whatever you need.’
She needed something, but not from Lex Callaghan. They were friends, end of story. He had lots to offer: he was handsome, talented, had a body that rocked. He also had a wife, Cara, his high-school sweetheart, who had stuck by him through rich and poor, good times and bad, a one-bedroom condo to a fifteen-hundred-acre ranch in Santa Barbara.
Right now, she needed things he couldn’t give her. Reassurance. Strength. A rewind button. And something to take away the tsunami of dread that was making her block out Davie Johnston’s text. She wasn’t going back there, to their past, not even in her mind. Not for anything.
The rising sensation of bile from her stomach made her gag and she struggled to pull it back together.
‘Lex, I have to go. I’ll see you Monday.’
Hanging up, she pressed her face against a steel support for the lighting rig. Hot. Cold. Hot. Cold. Terror and dread were making her temperature fluctuate from one end of the scale to the other.
And breathe. Dear God, please breathe. Years of ashtanga yoga kicked in and jump-started her cardiovascular system. The voice in her head, the one that she’d trained over two decades to support her in everything she did, made a valiant attempt to do its job. Break it down, Mirren, break it down. You can deal with this. You can. All of it. You don’t have the answers now, but you’ll figure it out. You just need a bit more time. A bit more space. Lie low. Keep thinking. It’ll come.
