The Bequest (3 page)

By the time she was through, both she and Mona were doubled over with
laughter. Teri wiped tears from her cheeks and sat up straight. “My side
hurts,” she said. “And I can’t tell you how good it feels.”

“It’s the first time I’ve seen you laugh in weeks.”
“Let’s just hope it’s not the last time.”
Mona opened her mouth to reply but stopped short at the ringing of

It kept ringing, the theme song from
Magnum, P.I
. Teri looked at the
read-out, then at Mona. She nodded.
“You gonna answer it?” Mona asked.
“I’m not sure I want to hear what he has to say.” She downed the rest
of her drink, then snatched up the phone. “But I guess I better get it over
with.”

Mike Capalletti’s office befit his status as one of Talent Agency of
America’s rising young stars. He didn’t have a corner office yet, but that
was just a matter of time. Sitting in the middle of an oversized U-shaped,
glass-top desk, his back to floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked
Century City, he wielded multiple phones with the panache of a hibachi
chef on steroids. After graduating with his MBA from Harvard, he’d
started in the legendary mailroom of TAA, but was now on the cusp of
achieving his dream as a full equity partner in the agency. He represented
some of Hollywood’s hottest talent, both actors and directors, with a
sprinkling of writers thrown in. But you were only as good as your A-list
clients’ last movie. And only one thing could stop his ascent now. Hard to
believe, but only one client stood between him and his dream.

He spun in his chair and stared out the window. He had come a long
way in such a short time. The tough streets of Chicago’s southside seemed
but a distant memory now. Sporting the accoutrements of success, such as
thousand dollar suits and two-hundred-fifty dollar haircuts, he wasn’t
about to let anything or anyone drag him down. Not when he was this
close.

Silver-haired Bob Keene entered with his strange walk caused by
unnaturally bowed legs and small feet. He sat down in one of the plush
leather-covered chairs across from the desk. Mike spun around suddenly,
startled by the intrusion. He stared hard at the man he idolized and
emulated. The man cut from the same pretentious cloth as he, albeit three
decades apart in age.

Teri entered the elevator on the ground floor of TAA’s building on
Century Park West, in Century City, and took a deep breath. She pushed
“12” and the car began its slow ascent. When the doors opened, she got off
on TAA’s floor and followed the hardwood floors toward Mike’s office.
Dread tugged at her mind with each step. The sounds of her footsteps,
though softened by the rubber soles of her running shoes, seemed to echo
just as Poe’s telltale heart had driven a man mad. Mike had been closemouthed when he called. “I just need you to get down here,” was all he
would say in response to her questions. “We’ll talk about it when you get
here.”

She could almost predict what was coming: She was losing her
housekeeping deal at Cinema USA Studios. She’d had the deal since
winning her second Oscar and setting up SH Productions with Mona.
Cinema USA had outbid several other major studios and given her offices
on the lot, a small staff to take care of clerical work, first look at any
projects she developed, and agreed to distribute any movies she made.
Initially, it looked like a stroke of genius for them when Teri won her
second Oscar in relatively short order after the first, but then the drought
hit, culminating in her most recent failure. Cinema USA was already
bleeding red ink, for a whole list of reasons unrelated to Teri, but her
latest movies not only failed to stem the blood flow, they also seemed to
open up new veins.

She reached the door to Mike’s office, which was uncharacteristically
closed. Teri’s anxiety kicked up a notch as she knocked.
“Come in,” Mike said.
When she opened the door and saw Bob Keene sitting there, she
knew instantly things were worse than she imagined. Neither man stood as
she entered. Wordlessly, she sat in the guest chair next to Bob, directly
across
from
Mike.
Mike
looked guilty, Bob
looked resigned.
Teri
wondered if she looked panicked.
“The deal’s gone, isn’t it?” she asked. Her tone was matter-of-fact, as
if this were just another business meeting, even though she knew full well
it wasn’t.
“You’ve got to look at it from their perspective,” Bob said. “You’ve
lost them a lot of money.”
“I made them a lot of money, too.”
“Old money is a forgotten memory.”
“Then we’ll go to another studio.”
“No other studio’ll take you. Right now, you’re poison.”
The words stung more than Teri could have thought possible. Her
own agents, quoting the press as if it were truth. She looked at Mike,
silently pleading with him to come to her rescue.
“You’ve seen this coming for a long time, Babe,” he said. “Remember
what you said just the other day? No studio wants an actor—”
“I don’t need you to remind me what I said,” she snapped. “I need
you to remind the studio who I am.”
“What you need is a hit,” Bob said.
“Look, Babe,” Mike said, “no one believes you’re washed up as an
actress. The problem’s been the movies you made; not you.”
“You and Bob were involved in every decision I made. In fact, as long
as we’re talking about short memories, do you recall that it was you two
who brought this last fiasco to me and insisted that I do it?”
“And that was our mistake,” Bob said. “But by that point, we were
desperate to find something to let you break back out.”
Teri tried to make eye contact with Mike, but he seemed more
interested in looking at the desktop, the floor, and the ceiling, than at her.
“Look, maybe it’s time we switch gears,” Teri said. “No more
romantic comedies, no dramas, and damn sure no period pieces. How
about a thriller? I haven’t done a thriller in a long time.”
“Do you have a thriller script?” Bob asked.
“Isn’t it y’all’s job to find one for me?”
She could tell when she said it that, as usual, the “y’all” was like
fingernails on a blackboard for Bob. She couldn’t help the way she talked.
Her Texas roots were deeply engrained, but sometimes, when she was
annoyed at Bob, she made it a point to sneak in a few extra “y’alls” and
“fixin’ to’s” just to piss him off.
“Y’all can’t tell me there are no good thrillers making the rounds
right now.”
“Everything out there that’s worth a damn has got a male lead,” Mike
said.
“So we tweak it a bit, turn it into a female lead. Any writer worth a
damn can do that. And y’all do rep writers, don’t y’all?”
“Sarcasm doesn’t become you,” Bob said evenly.
His calmness pissed her off even more. “What do I care what
becomes me? I’m poison, remember?”
She turned her attention to Mike, banishing Bob to invisibility. “We
just need one hit—”
“You mean
you
just need one hit,” the refusing-to-be-invisible Bob
said.
“No, I mean
we
need one hit. We’re a team, aren’t we?”
Mike spun his chair around and looked out the window. She glared at
Bob, who met her gaze with the same evenness with which he had spoken
earlier.
“The executive committee has discussed it, and we think maybe it
would be best if you sought representation with another agency,” Bob
said.
She pulled back and cocked her head, as if she hadn’t heard him
clearly. “You’re firing me?”
“Technically, we’re simply exercising the termination provision in
your contract. It happens all the time in this business.”
She looked at Mike, who still faced the window. “Mike?”
No response.
“Mike, look at me.”
He slowly spun his chair back around. She saw nothing in his eyes.
Not tears, not remorse—nothing but a blank stare.
“Did you know about this?” Teri asked.
“He was sworn to secrecy until I could tell you,” Bob said.
“What did you expect me to do? I’ve got an obligation to the
agency,” Mike said.
“You’ve got an obligation to me. ‘Home is here.’ Isn’t that what you
said?”
“It’s not personal; it’s business.”
“Then I guess sleeping with you makes me a whore.”
Teri felt tears welling in her eyes, but she willed them back to their
ducts. She’d be damned if she was going to cry in front of these two
jackasses. The phone on Mike’s credenza rang, but everyone ignored it. It
stopped on the second ring, and the room went deathly silent. Finally Teri
spoke in a low voice, almost a whisper.
“I’m telling you, all we need is the right script.”
“It’s not about scripts anymore,” Mike said. “I hate to say it, but
Bob’s right. You’re box office poison right now. You just don’t want to
admit it.”
Bob stood and clapped his hands, like a football player breaking the
huddle. “We’ll give you a good referral, Teri. After all, we’ve had a lot of
good years together. Hell, we’ll even make it seem like it’s your idea. It’ll
be better for everyone.”
“You’ll understand if I disagree.”
“Think of it as a new opportunity.”
Before Teri could respond, there was a knock on the door, then it
opened and Philip, Mike’s assistant, stuck his head in. He seemed petrified
of interrupting the meeting.
“I’m sorry to interrupt, but there’s a call for Ms. Squire. It’s a
lawyer. Something about somebody died.”
The words hit hard at Teri’s heart. Bingo? Had Daddy had him put
down? Then she thought better of that idea. Lawyers didn't call about dead
horses.
She walked behind Mike’s desk and picked up the phone. Her voice
quivered as she spoke. “This is Teri Squire.”
“Ms. Squire, my name is Spencer West. I’m Leland Crowell’s
attorney. I’m sorry to have to tell you that Mr. Crowell has passed away.”
“I don’t know any Lester Crowell.”
“Leland. And he knew you. He’s left you a bequest in his will.”

Wearing a black
dress
that stopped just above
her
ankles,
Annemarie Crowell stood alone in a broken-down cemetery just outside
of the town limits of Ludlow, California, barely more than a ghost town in
the Mojave Desert. The town had once known better days. Founded as a
water stop for the railroad, it briefly flourished as a tourist stop on Route
66 before the construction of Interstate 40 drove a spike into its heart.

The cemetery was as sad as the town, brown and barren, devoid of
color. There was a scattering of simple headstones, a few wooden crosses
and, to mark yet other graves, nothing more than indentations in the
ground where the soil had settled over the years. Two elderly Mexican
men—illegals, Annemarie was sure—shoveled dirt into a rectangular
hole. At the bottom of the hole sat an unmarked pine box. Final resting
place for Leland Crowell.

Annemarie stood rigidly as rocks and dirt clods thudded onto the
casket. A hot wind blew, its touch like a furnace on her face. A trickle of
sweat painted a tiny streak on her left cheek, the only crack in her mask.
Her lips pressed tight, gray hair pulled back in a schoolmarm bun, her face
revealed nary a hint of emotion. There was no crowd, no preacher, no
mourners, no weeping and wailing. Just Annemarie, face painted like a
clown, two Mexicans, and her dead son’s body.

A helluva send-off into the afterlife.
The last shovel of dirt fell into place, and one of the Mexicans patted
the ground with the back of his shovel, then stamped on the dirt to pack it
down. Annemarie reached into the pocket of her dress and extracted two
fifty-dollar bills. She pressed one each into the hands of the shovelers, who
mumbled their
gracias
, then left without looking back.
Annemarie stepped close to the edge of the loose dirt. She glanced
around, as if looking for something. Her eye fell on a crude cross on a
nearby grave. Made of wood, it was nearly rotten with age and leaned
precariously to the side. Inscribed with a simple R.I.P., but no name, it fit
her needs. She walked to the grave and pulled the cross out, then returned
to Leland’s site. She shoved the cross into the loose dirt at one end of the
grave, but it immediately listed to the left.
She stepped back and eyed the cross. Another stream of liquid
coasted down her cheek. With her index finger, nail long and painted red,
she traced it back up her face to its source. She was stunned to find that it
originated at her lower eyelid.
She wiped the tear from her cheek, grabbed the wooden cross, and
threw it as far as she could.
Then she returned to her car.