Showbiz, A Novel (33 page)

             
Pride cometh before a fall, thought Scarlett. She had been momentarily worried that she wouldn’t be able to go through with their plans that night. But seeing him, there, a puffed-up peacock reveling in glory that was built on the broken backs of everyone involved, she had no qualms.

             
“Look behind him,” Reilly said. Sure enough, the goon squad was hot on his heels.

             
“I bet he loves that,” Scarlett said sarcastically, knowing how much Margolies must hate having a trail of middle aged, corporate suits, tailing him. She noticed Margolies ushering them in front of him and into the theater so that they wouldn’t infringe on his red-carpet photo ops.

             
“What’s going on in there, guys?” Lawrence said into the Jeremys’ earpieces.

             
Scarlett looked at the video feed, currently focused on some guy's ass.

             
“Sorry, just getting some footage for later,” Jersey Jeremy said as he adjusted position. The tight butt in question turned out to belong to Ashton Kutcher.

             
“Avert your eyes,” Reilly said, jokingly putting his hands over the screen. “No girlfriend of mine should have to see that.”

             
Scarlett knew he had meant to be funny, but the word
girlfriend
just hung in the air between them. She was still unwilling to discuss their relationship. The recent weeks had been exceedingly hard on their fledgling romance.

             
Lawrence came to the rescue, as usual. “I hate to be a killjoy,” he said, talking to the Jeremys but eyeing the pair next to him in the car, “but it would be great if you could go to your seats, so we can make sure we have the camera angles right.”

             
“If we must. I suppose our public can wait,” Jersey Jeremy said grandly.

             
“Hey, look, there’s Candace,” Reilly said.

             
“Ooh, I need to see this Cruella D’editor! Tell me which one she is,” Buff Jeremy said.

             
“She hasn’t gone in yet, but you can’t miss her,” Reilly said. “Fifty going on eighty, blonde, tacky red dress, drunk as a skunk.”

             
“Shouldn’t she be in jail or something?” Scarlett asked.

             
“I’m sure they’re still digging up proof before they nail her for fraud. I wouldn’t be surprised if it takes a while,” Lawrence said.

             
Candace had made it halfway up the block and then sagged against a wall. She looked really out of it.

             
“And to think, she was supposed to be my date for the evening,” Reilly said.

             
“She clearly needs someone to prop her up. Where’s her charming ex-husband?” Scarlett said, ungenerously.

             
“I wonder if she still has the extra ticket that I would have used,” Reilly mused as if to himself.

             
“I don’t like the sound of that,” Scarlett said with a warning look in his direction.

             
“This is just too good to miss,” Reilly said with an impish grin.

             
He leapt out of the car before Scarlett or Lawrence could stop him.

             
He wove his way through the cars inching up the street dropping off bejeweled guests, and he put his arm out to Candace. Her white knight to the rescue.

             
She looked confused initially, but after some sort of brief conversation she fished what appeared to be two tickets out of her tiny handbag, spilling various contents in the process, and allowed Reilly to escort her in. He tastefully steered her around the paparazzi and flashed a subtle thumbs up, along with a roll of his eyes, toward the Escalade, before disappearing into the theater.

             
“That kid’s got balls,” Lawrence said.

             
“Once a gossip columnist, always a gossip columnist,” said Scarlett, more than a little annoyed that he’d ditched them just like that. True, he wasn’t officially part of their plan, since he’d come into the process so late. But she’d wanted his moral support, at least. “But we aren’t clear what Margolies does or doesn’t know about Reilly’s
Swan Song
review and his job at the
Banner
. We don’t know what Candace has been telling him. What if Margolies confronts Reilly?”

             
“Well, luckily for Reilly, Margolies would never cause a scene tonight. You know as well as I do that there’s too much at stake for him to risk overshadowing his masterpiece with a seedy showdown with Reilly in the lobby.”

             
“You’re right. Guess that just leaves you and me to hold down the fort out here.”

             
“You won’t hear me complaining. I haven’t had you all to myself in a while,” Lawrence said, taking a break from his electronics to give Scarlett a reassuring smile.

             
“Sorry I haven’t been very fun recently. I really appreciate what you’ve done for me. All this...” She gestured to the high tech set up.

             
“Are you kidding? This is the most fun I’ve had in months!”

             
“Sorry to interrupt this charming tête-à-tête,” Jersey Jeremy said, interrupting their moment, “but these are crappy seats.”

             
“If you keep whining, I’m going to delete the Ashton footage right now,” Scarlett retorted.

             
“Actually,” Lawrence said, “you guys are perfect where you are.” He winked at Scarlett. “Just do me a favor and sit up straight. Remember not to cross your arms or make any sudden moves.” He pointed to the screen and said to Scarlett, “Look, they’ll have a perfect vantage point.”

             
From the Jeremys’ seats in the balcony, the video feed gave Scarlett and Lawrence an unobstructed view of the stage over the gilt railing of the first balcony. The theater was majestic all by itself, and Margolies had pulled out all the stops. All they could see on stage at the moment was a large scrim with a projection of Mount Olympus and occasional flashes of lightning in the background. A hazer was already going at full steam, adding to the atmosphere and emphasizing each beam of light dramatically. Scarlett had to admit it was a cool effect, even from where they were.

             
They could hear the orchestra tuning up over the murmur of conversation picked up in the Jeremys’ earpieces.

             
Scarlett glanced at the countdown computer. Lawrence hadn’t been kidding about how many laptops he had. Eight of them had been called into action that night. One was counting down until 8:00 p.m. even though they both knew that opening nights never started on time. That was why they needed the Jeremys on the inside.

             
In order to precisely time their “attack,” they needed to be able to see what was happening in live time. Scarlett thought it was ironic that despite all the technology, their plan was so incredibly simple.

             
“Let’s get this show on the road!” Buff Jeremy said.

             
“It’s 8:00 p.m. The show should be starting sometime in the next ten minutes,” Lawrence laughed, sitting back to wait.

             
The sidewalk was starting to clear out. The paparazzi were packing up, preparing to wait in the lobby until they were allowed in to the theater for curtain-call photos—though Scarlett had a feeling that opening night, they’d get in before that.

             
The gawking tourists were shuffling away or heading into the Sardi’s and Angus bars across the street to wait for people-watching opportunities during intermission. A few brave onlookers tried to sneak past the velvet ropes and take photos of themselves on the now-vacant red carpet. The theater security guards shooed them away.

             
Scarlett and Lawrence turned their attention back to the video monitor as the lights went down in the theater. The cameras took a second to re-focus then showed a crystal-clear picture of the scrim going up as the audience hushed and the opening number began.

             
“We’re waiting for our cue,” Lawrence said into the microphone. “Enjoy the show.”

             
Scarlett felt nervous all of sudden. She shifted in her seat, suddenly uncomfortable in her stiff satin dress. “I can’t watch,” she said, turning to gaze out the window.

             
“Opening-night jitters?” Lawrence asked, patting her hand.

             
She gripped his hand back. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

             
“Of course you can.”

             
“But why does it have to be me?”

             
“Because I need to monitor all this and make sure we’re using the right frequencies. The Jeremys are in the theater, and Reilly is...wherever he is. And, anyway, it’s only right that it’s you. Artistic justice.”

             
“But the cast and crew...” she trailed off.

             
“Will be just fine,” he reminded her.
             
She sighed. He placed an iPad in her hand. “Your weapon, m’lady!”

             
“Death by technology,” she said, unable to muster a smile.

             
“Death by boredom,” Jersey Jeremy whispered into his microphone. Scarlett had forgotten that they were being overheard.

             
“No one’s dying of anything!
Shhh
. I’m trying to watch the show!” Buff Jeremy said.

             
Chastened, they all went silent and watched as Act One of
Olympus
proceeded. Margolies would be pleased, thought Scarlett. The show was beautiful. True, during the contrived scenes between the special effects, it dragged a bit. But a general audience wouldn’t care; they came to see the spectacle that wouldn’t disappoint. Well, maybe tonight it would.

             
Just as the first technical sequence went into effect, the video feed went blank. Lawrence jumped to attention, fiddling with buttons and dials.

             
Scarlett whispered into the mic, “Guys, are you there?”

             
Radio silence.

             
She looked at Lawrence in a panic. “What happened?”

             
“Best guess?” he said, not looking up from his frantic clicking and typing. “The wireless equipment on the stage bumped us out of available bandwidth. Pretty ironic, considering. I’m trying to find an open frequency for ours.”

             
Scarlett kept her mouth shut and let Lawrence focus. The Jeremys probably wouldn’t even realize they weren’t broadcasting.

             
She checked the time, recalculating, prepared to guess at the right moment to put their plan in action in case the feed didn’t come back up. Not ideal, but she was thinking on her feet.

             
“I’ve restarted the system, but it might be a good idea to talk about Plan B.”

             
“Well, last I knew, Act One was a little over an hour. While they’ve probably made some changes, we could take a guess at when the finale will be in full swing.”

             
“Too risky. If we miss our window, it all goes to hell. We
need
to know what’s happening inside.”

             
“What are we going to do about getting the video?” Scarlett asked, suddenly remembering the footage they were after.

             
“The cameras are still recording, so we should be fine on that front. It’s just that they just lost their wireless transmission.”

             
The computers started up again, and Lawrence frantically tried to get the feed going. “I think you may need to go into the theater.”

             
“Uh uh,” she said, shaking her head violently. “No way.”

             
“We may not have any other choice.”

             
“Why can’t you do it?” she said.

             
“Because I need to get this up and running. And, anyway, theater security knows you and won’t question it if you go in. Especially looking like that.” He raked his eyes over her tight dress.

             
“Don’t you think Margolies told them I was fired?”

             
“Not likely. Why would he think you’d try to crash his party?”

             
Lawrence has a point, thought Scarlett. Margolies was way too vain to think of Scarlett as a threat, once he’d cut her off from the office.