The Turning (12 page)

The Brit accepted the phone, said, “Here, sir.” Tomlin listened intently for three minutes, then said simply, “I will get started on this immediately.”

He cut the connection and spent a few moments fiddling with the knot of his tie. “It seems that I underestimated the potential of this meeting.”

Trent returned to drop into his seat. “Barry said yes?”

“He did indeed.” This time, it was the edges of his mouth that crimped along with his eyes. “Shall we begin anew?”

“Fine by me.”

The LA group manager rose and walked around his desk. “How do you do. I’m Colin Tomlin. And it is indeed a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

Trent felt his heart take off on wings he did not even know he had. “Likewise, Mr. Tomlin.”

“Please, I insist you call me Colin.” He waved toward his door. “Shall we begin?”

WESTCHESTER COUNTY

A
fter the prayer time, Jenny Linn took a walk with her father.  She found an exquisite pleasure in reaching over and taking his hand. As though the years of arguments had never existed. Richard looked at her fingers intertwined with his own and said, “You used to walk with me like this all the time.”

“I remember.”

“If your mother tried to hold your hand, you would holler like a banshee. Even at three years old, you had a will of iron.”

“Your genes at work.”

They left the road and walked down to the stream. The grass was littered with petals from the cherry trees. There was not a breath of wind. Richard said, “This is nice.”

“Thank you for coming, Daddy.”

“Thank you for making room for us.” A few steps, then, “I feel your work here is very important.”

“So do I.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Anything.” It was ridiculous for that single word to cause her eyes to burn. But for years any question from her father seemed to probe for weakness. Her normal response had been to ready herself for the next attack. But here in the meadow, such memories belonged to a different world. A different life.

Even so, his question was immensely surprising. “Do you think that your mother and I could join with you in studying this book about listening to God?”

“Of course, Daddy.” She stopped and turned to him. “Why are you asking me?”

“Because neither of us wants you to feel that we are horning in. This is your role. God has called you. Not us.”

“Daddy …” Jenny looked out over the surrounding green. In the far distance, John Jacobs walked alone, his shoulders bowed by a burden she could feel from where she stood. “I can’t think of one single thing I would like more to share with you.”

LOS ANGELES

That evening Trent Cooper sat at a table in the Bel Air Hotel bar and read two files sent over by the detective agency. He had printed out both documents in the business office. The young woman in charge clearly noticed the content, because she transformed the carpet between her desk and the printer into a catwalk. She didn’t say anything directly to Trent. The Bel Air hotel did not permit overt flirting between staff and guests. But her look and her walk and the way she touched her lips with her tongue said it clearly enough. Definitely available.

Trent did not let his smile break out until he was safe outside again. Clearly the young woman didn’t see anything wrong with his jeans or his rumpled jacket.

Each page was stamped with the agency’s logo, and below that was written,
proprietary information
. Trent had no idea what the words meant, other than the suggestion that the data was worth the ten thousand dollars he had paid the agency for a rush job. The information was complete enough, a full workup on the career and personal life of one Stone Denning. The A-list director had experienced an astonishing rise, a truly Hollywood tale of riches and fame.

Stone Denning had started as a mail clerk at CAA, one of the largest agencies in film and television. He had written a pilot script on the side, then used a buddy who was one rung further up the ladder to place the script with Fox. The script had spawned one of the most successful dramas in the network’s history. Stone Denning had coproduced the series with his buddy, who had taken over as show-runner when Stone had moved into film.

Stone’s first full-length feature was a buddy-cop drama that drew a huge and global audience. In the seven years since, Stone Denning rose to become one of the hottest figures in Hollywood. Currently he worked on the second of a five-film deal with Mundrose reportedly worth a hundred million dollars.

Trent set the professional overview aside and turned to the personal data, which contained a dozen photographs, most of which were highly unflattering. Despite his power and growing income, Stone Denning was constantly flirting with bankruptcy. He regularly dove into new business ventures, many of which could have been successful if he only had taken the time to manage them well. But he had a filmmaker’s attention span, which rarely lasted more than the six months it took to shoot a new project. All but two of the ventures had gone bankrupt, saddling Stone with massive debt.

Stone’s family life suffered from the same insatiable quest for the next big thing. At thirty-nine he was already divorced four times, involved in an additional three paternity suits. His ex-wives and former flames and legal costs ate up 70 percent of his disposable income. He spent the rest on a stable of sports cars, a Malibu beachfront mansion, a raging lust for high-stakes poker, and a nightlife that exhausted Trent just reading about it. The summary at the end of the analysis read,
Insatiable appetites, a series of bad judgment calls, and looming debts make Stone Denning open to persuasion. His hunger for the gambler’s high also suggests he will listen most keenly to what he sees as a high-stakes bet
.

The more he read, the more certain he became that Stone Denning was his man.

“Am I interrupting?”

Trent shut the file and rose to his feet. What he saw left him stunned. “Wow.”

Gayle wore a sheath of silk that was somehow both black and silver. Her stockings were a pale gold, reflecting the bar’s firelight, making her appear to dance even when she stood still. “Might one assume that is a note of approval?”

“Assume away. Absolutely.” He knew he wasn’t making sense. But the impact was staggering. The woman had always been lovely. Now she was nothing short of stunning. A Los Angeles star-making beauty. “You ought to be up there on the silver screen.”

“Tried. The camera doesn’t like me.” She allowed him to hold her chair. “I modeled my way through university. Hated the life.”

It was the most she had ever said about herself. “Where did you study?”

“Vasser.” She pointed at the file. “Doesn’t it say?”

“This isn’t about you. It’s a rundown on Stone Denning.”

“Oh, may I see?”

He passed it over. “What will you drink?”

“What are you having?”

“Mineral water.”

She made a small moue. “I think I’d prefer a Gibson.”

“So would I. But it’ll need to wait until after this meeting.”

“As I am only playing the observer, I don’t feel any such compunction.” She opened the file. “Make it a double.”

He met the waiter midway across the floor, delivered the order, then returned to the table by the corner windows and sat studying the room. The Bel Air hotel bar was a masterful rendition of a rich man’s study. Dark wood and Persian carpets and silk drapes and chandeliers and leather furniture. Along with an overworked AC, the roaring fire was kept in check by a glass shield carved with the hotel’s emblem. Trent resisted the urge to turn and watch her read. At best, Gayle was a temporary ally. At worst, she was a spy who would not hesitate to imbed the knife as deep as it would go. Trent kept his gaze on the fire and honed his strategy for the meeting to come.

Gayle closed the file and returned it to him. “This confirms my every suspicion.”

“You’ve met Denning?”

“Twice, briefly. When he was over for meetings with Mr. Mundrose.”

“What do you think of him?”

“The file sums it up rather well.
Insatiable
is a word meant to describe Stone Denning. He has no off switch. Have you seen any of his films?”

“All of them. Most of them several times. I love his work. Which I suppose is a sign of my lowbrow tastes.”

She shrugged. “Stone Denning makes money. Some say he has his finger on the pulse of America’s younger generations. I personally think he simply is the right man for the job.”

“You don’t like him.”

She eyed him coolly over the rim of her glass. “It’s not my job to like people, Mr. Cooper.”

“Call me Trent, please.”

She sipped her drink, set it down, and did not reply.

“What do you want from this?” When she did not answer, he pressed, “I’m not talking about the purpose behind your being here. In LA. With me. I mean …”

“I know what you mean.” She met his gaze. Her eyes were a remarkable shade of pale brown. Almost gold in the firelight. The cool gaze of a lioness. “Ask me that question in another setting.”

Meaning, once he had shown he was going to be around long enough for her to want to reply. There was no reason why her answer should tear a rent in his gut. She was the beautiful assistant to one of the most powerful men in the entertainment universe. “No problem.”

“Good.” She offered him a tiny smile. “Trent.”

Stone Denning ordered the hotel’s most expensive whiskey with brusque assuredness, a sixty-year-old single malt. He waited until the waiter deposited his glass to demand, “All right. You’ve got exactly three minutes to tell me why I shouldn’t just walk out that door.”

“We have a new strategy for the marketing campaign,” Trent replied. “We need your help.”

Two hundred dollars of amber liquid caught the light as Stone raised the heavy crystal. “What’s in it for me?”

“I told you on the phone. Ten million dollars.”

“For the film’s marketing.” He shrugged. “Chump change. The ad budget for this film is fifty mil and climbing.”

“No, Mr. Denning. For you, personally.”

“The way you said it from the plane, I thought—”

“What I said is correct. There’s an additional ten million in advertising. But there is also another ten for you.”

The director was dressed in LA chic, stovepipe slacks and dress shirt beneath a cashmere vest, the shirttails dangling around his chair. The gold watch was big enough to have fit over both wrists, and jangled noisily as he drank. But he was listening now. Intently. Stone Denning glanced at Gayle and said, “I know you, don’t I?”

“We met when you visited Mr. Mundrose, Mr. Denning.”

“Sure. You’re the lady in Barry’s front room.”

Gayle gave him a professional smile. “It is kind of you to have noticed, Mr. Denning.”

“There’s a lot to notice.” His boyish grin was slightly marred by the two scars that ran from his neck to his earlobe, the product of a glove that frayed in a particularly intensive boxing battle. “In my head I called you Legs.”

Her expression chilled slightly. “Mr. Mundrose sends his compliments, sir, and asks you to give Mr. Cooper’s concept your utmost attention.”

“For ten mil, I can pay attention. For a while.” His gaze lingered a moment longer, then swiveled back to Trent. “So give.”

In response, Trent opened his laptop, plugged in a pair of earplugs, handed them over and said, “This will take exactly four minutes and seventeen seconds.”

“Precision. I like it. But it’s too long for a decent trailer.” He started to fit in the plugs, then asked, “These earphones are clean?”

“They’re new.” Trent hit “play.”

The three network evening news programs had given the Times Square mob extensive coverage, calling it the largest such gathering in recent memory. The owners of the signs around Times Square all sang the same tune, which was, their electronic boards had all been hacked. They had to give some excuse, since they were all under exclusive contract. Which was why it had cost Trent so much to put on the show.

Stone watched with a singular intensity. When the last clip ended, he took out the plugs and asked, “This was your idea?”

Gayle was the one who replied. “Mr. Cooper actually manufactured the entire event. The board was agog.”

“I bet. ‘Hope Is Dead.’ Classy. Packs a punch.” Denning rubbed the stubble on his chin. “They had some incredible frontline footage. How did they get it?”

“I planted roving camera teams all over the square.”

“You own the raw tape?”

“Every inch. There’s some random amateur stuff out there. But this was my own arrangement. The pros didn’t have time to show up. Can I show you one thing more?”

He could tell Stone Denning wanted to dismiss him. But the lure of national news coverage on all stations was too great. “Go for it.”

“I’ve just come from a meeting with Colin Tomlin. His team has roughed out a basic concept for our lead advert.” Trent hit “play” and leaned back.

Colin Tomlin had personally overseen the making of this mock trailer, remaining on hand for the entire two hours. His top art director and videographer and their teams were on hyperdrive with their boss in attendance. The result was a staggeringly powerful montage. All three news shows were patched in, along with intensely professional images from the mob itself. Connecting it all was a theme Trent had come up with on the flight. It still was rough work, but for a preliminary concept it carried remarkable force, or so he thought. Straight up to the climactic moment, when the electronic screens of Times Square all went blank, then flamed on with the same three words.
Hope Is Dead
. The words then melded into the poster for Stone Denning’s new film. The words were whispered by the female voice-over one final time.
Hope Is Dead
.

Stone leaned back in his seat. Trent saw the argument forming in Stone Denning’s eyes. The dark gaze went brooding, then tightened, crinkling the entire face. An expression made to battle the world. Trent felt his gut go cold. The director was going to turn him down. Which meant moving to plan B. Only Trent did not have one.