Hitman's Hookup: A Bad Boy Romance (29 page)

Not
smashed
the way that I used to get in college - I still prided myself on being able to hold my liquor. Even back in my undergrad days, most people couldn't ever tell that I was three sheets. But I was drunk right then, and I had the luxury of being drunk
at work
; a luxury that the vast majority of sorry motherfuckers do not have. But I’d always had the ability to do whatever the fuck I wanted, and that hadn’t changed. If anything, it was more true now than it had ever been. Why?

Because I was Roman Wilder.

Roman Wilder, God of Hollywood. Except I’d been caught with my pants down more than once in front of the paparazzi and was now known to most of the world as Wilde - the bad boy who could charm his way out of any situation. The day the New York Post cover hit - a photo of me with my parts blurred out, holding my arms up in a touchdown position - with the headline “WILDE CHILD" on it, I knew I'd have a nickname for life.

I'd even told my manager, Kimberley, how unfair it was that if a woman had been caught in the same position, she'd be slut shamed and told she was losing it.

"Then use that white man privilege, make both of us some money and you can donate it to every woman's rights cause on planet earth, okay?" She'd said this to me before firing off a few dozen phone calls to get me the opportunity to be interviewed.

She was such a genius at publicity that she'd gotten me a cover of
Vanity Fair
where I recreated the now-infamous candid pose but with a cadre of feminine hands covering my junk and some better lighting. Annie Leibovitz shot the cover. The issue sold out in an hour.

I was on set. My head was pounding. Normally I don’t get hangovers but I was still jet lagged from the flight over. I'd spent the weekend in New York City doing shots with supermodels and my on again, off again girlfriend, Hailey Holliday. The bright lights of the set made me feel like someone was drilling a hole into my skull through my eye socket.

"Wilde, I need you to run to the left slightly," Fox, the director, barked at me. His hairy, skinny legs were sticking out of his iconic, worn cargo shorts, and I'd noted earlier that his rotund midsection looked even bigger than the last time we worked together. It never ceased to amaze me that someone with so much money couldn't find better clothes to purchase. Or maybe he just didn't care. 

I moved my head infinitesimally and somehow the lighting people were thrilled by the minute adjustment.

"Okay," Fox yelled. "We're ready to go."

The assistant director counted down and snapped the board. "Speed, marker, and ACTION!"

I squinted my eyes up into the light that was supposed to simulate a klieg light in an interrogation chamber. I opened my mouth to say my line and the words flew completely out of my head.
Shit.

I wondered boldly for a moment if I could somehow play this off the way Harrison Ford did in
Indiana
Jones
when he shot the guy instead of engaging in the long sword fight. But I was no Harrison Ford, Fox was no Spielberg, this movie was no Indy sequel, and this scene was supposed to be moody and discreet.

Discreet. Perfect
. I tugged hard on the bindings that were only loosely draped on my wrists, and dramatically threw the rope on the ground. I stood up, shaking out my limbs. Then I reached into the pocket of my black leather jacket to pull out an herbal prop cigarette. I lit it and took a drag, turning around and walking to the faux-rusted metal warehouse door and opening it without a word. I looked back at the camera and gave a flash of my famous half-cocked grin before slipping through the doorway.

The room behind the fake warehouse set was the props room. I walked in to see Aldo, the fake gun guy, bent over a black pistol with a paintbrush. He had on a pair of magnifying glasses and a light on top of his head. "Oh, hey Wilde," he said, turning the light off and flipping the lenses up. "What's up?"

I walked over to a stool and moved the fake Uzi resting there to one of the empty tables. "What's up is that your peace and quiet is going to be severely interrupted in approximately ten seconds.” I sat down, leaning against the wall and extinguishing the cigarette on the bottom of my shoe. "This shit tastes like rosebud soap," I explained to Aldo, holding up the butt and throwing it into a trashcan halfway across the room.

On cue, Fox burst into the room. A vein was going at his temple. I knew this was a terrible sign. He held his hand up to Aldo in a perfunctory wave. "How's it going?" he asked him in a forced display of amiable kindness.

This was an even worse sign. Aldo shrugged and smiled. "On schedule as always," he replied. He pointed at the door. "Should I leave you two alone?"

Fox smiled and shook his head. "Nah, I'd like a witness to hold me back in case I strangle our leading man here," Fox said, still beaming sarcastically.

I adjusted myself on the stool. This was going to be a doozy.

"Wilde, you like making money, right?" he asked, taking the chair next to me and sitting in it.

"Well, you know, worse ways to spend time, I'd say," I replied.

Fox smiled even wider, though I knew he didn't mean it a bit. "You know who else enjoys money? My wife. My darling, darling wife of forty years. So do our kids, since it will one day be theirs. So do our grandkids, who enjoy the private schools they go to. You know what I
don't
like?"

I figured this was a rhetorical question so I didn't bother responding, still holding his gaze.

"I don't like know-it-all actors who start out promising and then wash their careers down the drain with a potent mixture of alcohol, women, and being surrounded by an abundance of people who can't seem to use the word
No
."

Fox leaned forward, his smile disappearing. "What in the
hell
was that out there? You had one line. ONE, Wilde. One. And you blew it. This is day one of the shoot and you're already fucking up." He stood up, his anger in full flow now. Aldo seemed paralyzed, not sure if he should look away and get back to work or keep observing the situation in case Fox did actually attempt to kill me.

"This script is a load of shit," I said to him. "It was fine in the early draft that I got but now it looks like it was cut apart by seventeen different screenwriters and a half dozen studio executives who have a Michael Bay fetish."

Fox threw his hands onto the top of the worn bucket hat he always wore. I wasn't sure he actually had skin or hair under there. I'd never seen it and neither, as far as I knew, had anyone else.

"Of course that's what happened! That is what
always happens
, Wilde. You've done this long enough to know that perfectly decent scripts get cut up into a million pieces by old man executives in custom Italian suits.
Your job
is this: you take the shitty script, you say the shitty lines, you smile your fifteen-million-dollar smile into the camera, and then we all get to go home early. Okay? Got that?"

I leaned forward. "I don't like the script. I want someone to fix it. Someone better than who we have now. And I don't want the execs messing with this version." I stood up, feeling excitement rushing through my body. "And I want to film it in Italy, not on a soundstage."

Fox shook his head and laughed. "Well, buddy, unless you have 20 million dollars to invest in this movie, I highly doubt that's happening."

I stopped. "Are you serious? Is that all it would take?"

Fox guffawed and stared at me in awe. "Is that seriously how you'll be spending the rest of your day? Making phone calls to see if you can take over this train wreck of an action slash romance slash comedy film?" Fox exhaled loudly and then held his hands up in surrender. "You know what? You go right on ahead. I'm sending everyone else home before the traffic gets completely out of control."

Fox left the room. I looked over at Aldo who shrugged. "I've always wanted to see Italy," he said with a smile. Before I could respond, the door to the set opened again. My assistant Harrison, a diminutive man with an irritating fucking penchant for bowties and pompadours, rushed through holding my iPhone.

"Mr. Wilder," he said briskly, "Your father called again."

I felt a surge of anger course through my body. "Ignore it," I replied tersely.

"Sir, he's called twice a day for the last week. I really think you should take it if you want him to stop calling you."

I clenched my fist, trying to hold my anger. "I don't fucking care what he has to say to me. I talk to him once a year on Christmas. I don't want to break my routine. It's been working really well." I waited for Harrison to respond to this, but he said nothing.

"Got it. I will block his number, if that would be easier."

I nodded. "Fucking do it. And get Kimberley on the phone. I've got a movie deal to negotiate."

CHAPTER EIGHT

OLIVIA

I set up two aluminum and vinyl folding chairs on the walkway that doubled as a wrap-around porch in my aunt's quintessential Californian apartment complex. When I'd moved in all those years ago, I fancied myself Veronica Mars. The complex looked almost identical to the one she had lived in with her father, complete with a swimming pool smack dab in the middle of the courtyard.

It also came with neighbors screaming at each other through the thin walls at all hours of the night, along with a handful of eccentric personalities who would make amazing characters in scripts. One of them - a Doris Day impersonator - lived in an all-pink apartment with a small fluffy dog dyed to match. She only ever wore pink clothes. She was nice, but she also had the bad habit of practicing her songs at three in the morning.

Another man was an eighty-year-old bodybuilder who left his empty cans of beans and franks along the balcony railing. I usually helped him with his groceries so I could hear stories about what a cad Arnold Schwarzenegger used to be.

As for my aunt, she was still a rainbow-haired set designer in high demand around town. Why she still lived in this place was beyond me. I was convinced she was one of those people who would die and we would all find out that she had five million dollars stashed away somewhere.

I adjusted the chairs and went back inside our apartment to grab two cans of off-brand soda. They were the only kind I could afford, but I'd grown to enjoy them more than the regular brands. Sometimes Aunt Sally would buy a few cases for me. She knew I was still struggling.

Tonight she was at some party. She was vague about the specifics, which led me to believe she was likely hobnobbing with Martin Scorcese or someone equally famous. She hated to brag. I never pushed it, either, because she'd landed me ninety percent of my jobs. I let her be on the nights where she didn't want to be my conduit to a job.

Tonight, Lydia was coming over to hang out. I'd made homemade macaroni and cheese and it was nearly finished. I pushed aside one of the five thousand ceramic, kitschy cookie jars Sally loved to collect and set down a can of green beans. As I twisted the can opener, I thought about my situation again. I had approximately two hundred dollars in my bank account. Sally never charged me rent, and I made up for it by dusting her entire place top to bottom three times a month. It usually took me three hours.

There was a knock at the door. "Come in!" I yelled. As varied and wild as my neighbors could be, we all looked out for each other. This was a safe community. The door opened, thudding against a low table covered in more cookie jars.

"Jesus, we need to call that TV show about your aunt. You know, the one where they go through the person's shit and burn it all?" Lydia said as a way of greeting.

"And hello to you, too," I replied, setting down the can opener and walking over to hug Lydia. She looked great. Her dyed-silver hair was cut in a sleek, angled bob set off by her all-black wardrobe. She was the same Lydia I had roomed with in college, with the addition of a wildly successful career and a full bank account. She set down her handbag, which was vintage Gucci, and looked around.

"Anything I can do to help?" she asked.

"Grab a plate and a fork. We're eating outside," I replied. Within a few minutes, we'd scooped out a mountain apiece of baked noodles and cheese and were sipping our colas out front. A few little kids were swimming in the pool below us. Delilah, my Doris Day neighbor, was taking her pink dog out for a walk. I waved and she waved back.

"How are things?" Lydia asked me after chewing her macaroni. "Oh, and by the way, this macaroni is
amazing
. What did you put in it?"

"Fat and more fat. All the things forbidden elsewhere in Los Angeles. Don't call the body police on me," I replied with a laugh. I set my plate on my lap. "Things are shit, actually. The trilogy was cancelled."

Lydia responded with raised eyebrows and wide eyes. "Seriously? Oh...because the author and his high school-aged comrades?"

I nodded. "Yeah. Exactly." I took a few more bites and chewed carefully. I hated to do this. Even after all this time in California in a business built on who you know, using friends and family to find jobs filled me with anxiety. My inability to overcome that self-promotional discomfort might explain my bank account. "So I need a job. Horribly. If you hear
anything
about
anyone
needing a script supervisor,
please
let me know."

Lydia paused and set down her plate, fishing in the pocket of her pants for her phone.

"Oh, I didn't mean right now. You don't need to-" I said hastily, feeling guilty and like I'd pressured her into helping me.

She held up a hand. "Shush," she replied. She tapped her phone screen and then held it up to her ear. I sat there quietly, not even bothering to eat. There was a scream and the sound of tears from down in the pool. A dad rushed over to reprimand an older brother for splashing his baby sister. The little boy pouted and nodded, tears streaming down his face as his father calmly explained something to him.

"Hey love, it's me," Lydia said into her phone in a cheery voice. "I think I have who you're looking for. Yeah, they're available. Wide open schedule."