The Movie (30 page)

At that moment, Zach Mason pushed past the last knot of people, and stopped dead. There was Megan, pressed up against David Tauber, just like the first time he’d seen her. Only now the agent had his arm possessively around Megan’s waist.

‘Hi, Ztch,’ loxana Felix said, flashing him an incredibly sexy smile.

‘You sounded terrific, Zach,’ David said pleasantly. His hand moved on Megan’s hip, an unmistakably sexual caress.

‘Hi,’ Zach said blankly.

Megan Silver looked at him, shyly. ‘You were great,’ she said.

Mason looked from Megan to David and back again, not wanting to accept it.. But it was true, of course. Why had he thought Megan would be any different? She wasn’t the Blessed Virgin. She’d fallen for his competent, slick, rich Hollywood agent. She was exactly like all the others. And he’d dedicated a song to her in front of eighty thousand fans.

He felt like a jerk.

‘Glad you enjoyed it,’ Zach said coldly. He turned to loxana Felix, smiling brightly for the cameras that exploded around them, and took her exquisite head in his two hands, kissing her luxuriously on the mouth.

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‘Come on, sweetheart,’ David whispered in Megan’s

ear. ‘They don’t need us hanging around. Let’s go home.’

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Eleanor went through her notes on the way to the airport, knowing she’d have time to practise her speech on the plane. Tom had arranged for them to fly to New York on a private jet belonging to Howard Thorn, the billionaire financier, whose conglomerate, Condor Industries, had become the single largest shareholder in Artemis Studios last year. She would have to deliver her presentation to Thorn aad the other six Wall Street moguls who comprised the Artemis board.

It was odd, she reflected, how the world had suddenly become so medieval in its structures. 1Keal power no longer resided in Presidents and Prime Ministers, but in the shadowy figures who controlled the flow of money; men with the power to devalue a currency or crash a stock market, who sent the world economy into growth or recession, and who could buy and sell the flow of ideas. George Soros. Bill Gates. Warren Buffet. Who was the most powerful man in the world? Probably Rupert Murdoch, Eleanor thought, the Australian who seemed to own half of all the papers On the planet as well as three major TV networks and a fflrn studio.

These were the kind of men she’d be standing in front of. The modern-day equivalent of the Medici, the Italian merchant princes who had controlled Europe during the 1Kenaissance. It was, she realized, going to be a baptism of fire. She had imagined that president of Artemis was one step away from the top of the power ladder, and she was

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now beginning to realize that in fact it was the very bottom

rung.

She was nervous.

The carphone trilled against the cream leather of her

seat.

‘Eleanor Marshall.’

‘So, are you ready for this?’ Tom’s voice crackled across

the line, and she could almost see the grin on his face.

‘The question is, are they ready for me?’ Eleanor told

him.

Goldman laughed. ‘That’s my girl. I’m sure we’re gonna

walk it. And besides, New York will be a vacation for you,

the way things have been going back here.’

‘That’s very true,’ she agreed. It would be pleasant not

,to have to think aboutJake Keller’s bitter tittle memos, or the See the Lights budget problems, and especially her one month deadline to give Paul his answer. ‘Where are we staying?’

‘The Victrix,’ he said. ‘You’re in the Presidential Suite.’ ‘Ha, ha, very funny,’ Eleanor replied, but she was pleased. The Victrix was simply the most luxurious hotel in Manhattan, on a par with the Lanesborough in London or the Oriental in Bangkok. This trip was vital and nerve racking, but at least Tom had made .sure there would be certain fringe benefits.

‘I’ll see you in a while. Don’t leave your briefcase on the

back seat,’ Goldman te ,ased her.

Eleanor blushed. ‘Tom! That was frfteen years ago.’ He was reminding her of an incident that had happened when she’d just begun work at the studio as a reader. Tom Goldman, then senior marketing manager and her mentor, had asked Eleanor to bring over his notes on a merchandising deal for a kids’ feature with Toys R Us. It had been an important presentation. Eleanor, then twenty-three, had left the wrong briefcase in her car and Goldman had had to speak extempore, pretending that the pile of rejected

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scripts in front of him was highly secret sales projections. He’d clinched the deal, but reamed Eleanor out. And hadn’t stopped ribbing her about it for the rest of her career.

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah. Once a flake, always a flake,’ Tom teased. ‘See you later.’

‘See you later,’ she agreed, hanging up.

As the P,.olls-loyce glided smoothly and speedily down the freeway, deserted in the blue half-light of early morning, Eleanor Marshall felt her spirits lift a little. So, Tom was in a good mood. Whatever else happened today, at least she could be sure that the brusque, business-only awkwardness of their relationship since Isabelle’s party was finished. Perhaps her performance with Jake Keller the other day had done the trick. Anyway, if Tom was joking around like this, things were back to normal.

Eleancr checked out her face in the rearview mirror. Light blusher, sugarplum lips with a neutral berry pencil, and equally subtle eyeshadow in pale pink and sand-gold. She’d gone to bed early last night with a sleeping pill, so there was no redness in her eyes or sallowness in her skin from lack of sleep. In fact, her skin looked great, under its sheer mousse foundation; the fine lines around her mouth and eyes had become far less noticeable .since she’d started with that Alpha-Hydroxy moisturizer. Thank God, finally a beauty product that aceaally worked.

She could pass for thirty this morifing. Sometimes life was good. Even under pressure.

When they pulled up on the runway twenty minutes later,

Goldman was there and waiting for her.

‘Got the briefcase? Good, let’s go.’

She thanked her chauffeur, took her case and overnight bag from him and followed her boss up the steps.

‘I thought you’d never get here,’ Goldman grumbled ks

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they strapped themselves in for takeoff. ‘I was waiting out there in the freezing cold. Forever.’

She checked her watch. ‘Tom, I’m five minutes early.’

He waved that aside as they taxied down the runway. ‘Eleanor, I’m busy, Don’t bother me with trivial details.’

Once the place had reached cruising altitude, Eleanor got up from her seat to take a look around. This was a Gulfitream IV, a serious jet, not your two-bit Astra or Lear that a mere multimillionaire might use. The only other man she knew who could afford a Gultream IV was David Geffen.

‘Impressive, huh?’

Goldman walked up to stand beside her as she gazed at the decor. Howard Thorn had rigged his little toy up in dark blue leather with gold-leaf trim, the softest wall-to wall carpeting, leather armchairs, a bathroom, a bedroom and a kitchen.

‘This baby cost twenty-five million bucks. And a hundred thousand a month to run,’ Tom said. ‘I know because I read it in Vanity Fair.’

Eleanor whistled. ‘That’s one hell of an expensive cab ride .’

He nodded. ‘Sometimes I wonder if I got into the fight game.’

‘I don’t even see a company logo around here,’ Eleanor observed, glancing across at the young stewardesses in their smart navy uniforms. ‘[ must say I’m surprised. I didn’t imagine Howard Thorn to be the unostentatious type.’

Goldman chuckled, dearly amused. ‘Are you kidding? This is Howard’s private jet. Condor Industries has two more of these stacked down in Dallas, near their oil company. And in those you can’t move for 10gos.’

They sat down together on a cavernous sofa and Tom laid out his projections on a glass-topped coffee table in front of them. They worked through the figures as Thorn’s flight attendants served them breakfast; Earl Grey tea from

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a Georgian silver service, tiny smoked salmon sandwiches, hot, flaky croissants, and racks of toast with marmalade and strawberry jelly. Eleanor declined a second course ofa Brie omelette, followed by hot pancakes with syrup.

‘Tom, you’re going to get fat,’ Eleanor warned him absently, her head buried in her speech.

‘Nonsense.’ Goldman grabbed her hand and laid it against the thin cotton of his Oxford shirt. ‘That’s all muscle. Feel it.’

He was right, Eleanor thought, her palm connecting with a rock-hard wall of flesh. It was solid muscle. Tauter even than Paul, despite his macrobiotic diets and rigorous exercising. She felt an instant stab of desire.

She snatched her hand away quickly, before things got any worse. ‘Well, it won’t stay that way if you keep stuffing yourself with cholesterol, she said, hoping he wouldn’t notice the slight blush.

Tom snorted, spearing a delicious-looking forkful of oozing cheese omelette. ‘You.sound just like Jordan when you talk that way,’ he said.

Clearly, not a compliment.

‘Would you prefer some fresh strawberries and champagne, madam?’ one of the stewardesses asked her, clearing away Eleanor’s untouched plate. ‘We have PerrierJouet, Bollinger, Cristal…’

‘No thanks, I’m free,’ .Eleanor told her.

She took refuge in her speech for the rest of the flight.

The Artemis board had convened at the studios’ New York offices, an elegant couple of’floors at number Madison Avenue, right in the heart of the Flatiron district in midtown.

Tom and Eleanor said little to each other on the way in. As they drew closer to the meeting, the mood subtly changed from humour to tension. Goldman was anxious, Eleanor could see that. He kept double-checking hi

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statistics, like some nervous housewife who can never quite satisfy herself that she’s sure she’s got her passport with her and needs to look in her purse every ten minutes..

What does Tom have to worry about? Eleanor wondered, looking out at the lunchtime traffic. He’s a veteran at this, plus he knows all about the Japanese threat.., but it’s my first time at a board meeting, and I have no idea what they’ve been offered for the stock. I’m flying blind on this. And Tom gets to present figures - nice, clean, explicable figures our accountants have been working on for months. But I’ve got to wade in with my pep talk about See the Lights and how it’s gonna dean up with America’s kids. Nothing provable, very touchy-feely. Very ‘feminine’.

She began to wonder if there wasn’t something sexist

going on here. ‘Who’s going first?’ she asked her boss.

‘You are,’ he told her firmly.

‘Oh, terrific,’ Eleanor muttered, as their limo pulled to a

halt.

Tom held open the door for her. ‘You’re gonna be

fine.’

They announced themselves at reception and Tom led

her to the far elevator. ‘It’s right at the top, but this is one of

those express cars.’

‘Great,’ Eleanor replied, smoothing down the skirt of

her pale-pink Dior sill, suit.

‘You’re nervous,’ Goldman said, looking at her.

‘You’re observant.’

‘Come on, Eleanor. You’re the girl who was debating

for Harvard when she was twenty years old.’

Eleanor shrugged. ‘Between twenty and thirty-eight, I

think I may have got a little rusty on the public-speaking

front.’

Twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine.., the floor numbers slipped noiselessly by. They would be there any

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second. Suddenly, Goldman reached past her and pressed the halt button.

‘Eleanor, look at me.’

Surprised, she did. Tom was staring down at her, his black eyes picked out by his dark Savile t(ow suit, tender and full of kindness. ‘You remember when we first met?’

‘Sure,’ she said, wondering where this was going. ‘In the corridor by the canteen. I was running down the hall and I cannoned into you and you spilt coffee all over yourself.’

He nodded. ‘You called me “sir” when you apologized. Never showed me a second’s respect since.’

Eleanor recal/ed it vividly, just as Tom knew she would. Her first week at Artemis, when she was a lanky, nervous kid, fresh out of college and desperate to make it in the all male business world. And Tom Goldman, with a lot more hair and a lot less style, had been thirty and already number two in the merchandising division, a senior executive as far as Eleanor was concerned. She’d been so terrified at spilling coffee down him she’d gone white with fear.

Tom had laughed and taken her to lunch, thinking she was cute. By the end of lunch, he thought he might have discovered a useful future lieutenant. Ideas, intelligence and enthusiasm bubbled out of her every sentence. He

became her mentor and friend practically right away. ‘We were such kids,’ Eleanor said.

‘We were.’ He leaned towards her. ‘Now, do you remember how we flew up here today? Do you remember the last time you called Mike Ovitz on his private line? Do you remember having Sam Kendrick sitting in front of you, begging you to green-light a Fred Florescu picture? We’re not kids any more, Eleanor. We’ve done absolutely fucking great. People fell aside, but we kept on going, and now we run the whole damn studio. And don’t you forget it.’

He released the halt button, and the elevator began to move again.

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‘You were a gangly college girl in jeans when I met you’, Eleanor Marshall.’ The metal doors hissed open, and Tom followed her out into the studio’s corporate headquarters. Eleanor felt his hand on her shoulder, ‘But today, you are the president of Artemis.’

She had to blink back tears as she glanced up at him.

‘We’ve come too far to give it up now,’ Tom Goldman

said. ‘You go in there, Eleanor. And you kill them.’

‘Mr Goldman? Ms Marshall?’

A brisk, middle-aged English secretary in a tweed suit was walking towards them down the hushed corridor of the corporate suite. ‘If you’d care to step this way, the board are ready for you now.’