Flavor of the Month (30 page)

“Well, I think I could see my way clear to do that.”

Yes! “One more thing, Mr. Slater. I also need you to do a legal name change for me. It’s important for my career.”

“That’s no problem, as long as you’re unmarried. I’ll need your birth certificate and a few other documents, though.”

“I have them, and I’ll get them in the mail to you today, but I expect my check in today’s mail as well.”

“No problem,” he told her.

And now there wasn’t any.

Jahne walked up First Avenue, the sunshine glinting off her glossy hair, her stride long, a tilt to her pelvis that ensured an alluring twitch to her walk. I’ll have to practice this, she thought. She might not have been born sexy or beautiful, but she
was
an actress, and she’d been watching the Bethanies of the world for half a lifetime. She might not
know
beautiful, but she could
play
beautiful, and now her old frame and face wouldn’t make the portrayal laughable.

She stopped at the bank machine at Sixty-fourth Street, pulled out her card, and got on the short line of people already impatiently waiting. A plump, youngish man was about to pull out his wallet as she joined the line behind him. He stopped, his hand poised on his back pocket, and looked at her. Just looked. Then, “Please,” he said, and indicated with his other hand that she should move ahead of him.

“Oh, no. That’s all right.”

“Please,” he said again, and then colored to his receding hairline.

She glided ahead of him, accepting the tribute due to the lovely from the unlovely. She inserted her card and punched in her code, asking for her balance. Green numerals appeared on the screen: $694.18. She withdrew twenty dollars, then collected her card.

“Thanks,” she said to the plump guy.

“Thank
you
,” he breathed. She twitched by him, playing it, and walked up a block to Liberty Travel. The place was empty, just a single reservation agent at a middle desk. The agent was blonde and pretty in an obvious, big-hair way. Jahne walked up to her.

“Can I help you?” the woman asked, and gave her the head-to-toe once-over that attractive females reserve for the competition.

“Yes, please. My name is Jahne Moore. That’s Jahne with an ‘h’ in the middle and an ‘e’ at the end of Moore. And I’d like a one-way ticket to L.A.”

“When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece.”

—
JOHN RUSKIN

“In Hollywood ‘breakfast’ means maybe we’ll do business, ‘lunch’ means yes, and ‘dinner’ means we’re in bed.”

—
RICHARD ROUILARD

By now, unless you have spent the last two years as a hostage in some hostile third-world country, you know why three women as disparate as Lila, Sharleen, and Jahne came together. But even you, hip Reader, don’t know how.

Remember that I told you it was all because of a lipstick? An oversimplification, perhaps, but still the truth. It was, more accurately, an argument over a lipstick that set the wheels in motion
.

For what seemed like a thousand years (but was really only a few decades), Hyram Flanders had to take back seat to his mother, Monica. Monica was the queen of cosmetics, the chairman of the board of Flanders Cosmetics Inc., and Hyram’s boss as well as his mother. No wonder Hyram hated strong women
.

Since he had taken over—at last—as president and CEO, Hyram had been searching. Not, as his mother had, for a new beauty product. After all, he knew all the crap they sold was basically the same. He was searching for a way to cut the advertising budget. Because beauty is sold through advertising, and if he could keep selling current volumes but cut the astronomical ad budget, he’d be a hero to everyone
.

Well, to everyone but his mother. Monica said no to every proposal to cut advertising spending. It was as if she, too, believed in the ads, the way the consumer did. And Hyram had watched as the cost-of-sale grew and grew, while the market segmented into more and more pieces. Flanders carried twenty-three separate lines to appeal to the young, the very young, the not-quite-so-young, the middle-aged who didn’t perceive themselves as such, the middle-aged who did…Well, the list was endless
.

It was Hyram who first talked to Les Merchant, head of the Network, about sponsoring a show that would appeal to multigenerational women viewers. TV, unlike the movies, targets female audiences. Hyram and his advertising-agency rep, Brian O’Malley of Banion O’Malley, played with the idea. And Les Merchant, panicked at the Network’s dwindling Nielsens, took the idea up with Sy Ortis, one of the hottest agents and packagers in Hollywood. Sy in turn reluctantly brought it to Marty DiGennaro, the director who could do no wrong (and who also never did TV)
.

Well, Reader, you certainly aren’t surprised to hear that most, if not all, of what is broadcast on TV is spawned to sell you something. Perhaps you aren’t old enough to remember the early days, when television-set manufacturers sponsored programs simply so there would be something to watch? Or after that, when shows were called by their sponsor’s name?
The Campbell’s Soup Hour? The Hallmark Hall of Fame?

It still happens. It’s just a little less obvious. Or sometimes more so. Plugs, endorsements, “infomercials,” and all the rest. So, when Monica Flanders told Hyram, her son, that it was impossible to sell more than one consumer sector at a time, Hyram was convinced he had to find a way to do it. “Don’t waste my time,” his mother sniffed. “No woman will wear the same lipstick as her mother.”

Which brings us to Sy Ortis. It is the agents who run Hollywood today. Agents control the stars, and put them together with the directors and screenwriters (also clients of the agents) in “packages” that they try to sell to the studios. Agents with a powerful stable of stars are the most envied, sought-after, and hated people in L.A. And among all the agents, Sy Ortis was the most envied, sought after and hated
.

Sy Ortis stretched his little body, his feet lifted off the floor, his back arched against the black leather of the swivel chair that, with its eleven identical brothers, surrounded the electric-blue lacquer conference table. He turned from the glossy photographs laid on its shiny surface and the anxious faces that watched him. He stood up, walked to the window that overlooked La Cienega Boulevard, and sighed. Christ, he was sick of incompetent assholes! And it wasn’t as if Weinberg and Glick didn’t know better. They were one of the two best casting agencies in L.A. He turned to Milton Glick.

“Let me explain it again, shmuck,” he said to Glick. He spoke slowly, his high-pitched voice almost a whine. “Marty is a genius. And Marty wants three blank slates. New pennies. Fresh meat. Don’t show me these twenty-six-year-old twats who’ve been selling it up and down Hollywood Boulevard for the last decade. Marty wants new. And what
Marty
wants,
I
want.”

Glick licked his thin lips and nodded nervously, running his fingers through his equally thin hair, obviously replanted with even little tufts of curls that were plugged into his scalp. Sy turned away, not from any delicacy over Milton’s discomfort, but, rather, at a queasiness that had always made his stomach reactive. Jesus, where did those hair plugs come from? he wondered. Milt’s back? His armpits? His pubic hair? Why didn’t the guy cover himself with a hat, so decent people didn’t need to puke when they looked at him?

The room was silent. All of the young, trendy California go-go staffers looked down at their laps. As if, Sy thought, they had the answer in their crotches instead of their heads. Then Milton cleared his throat. “I think we can do it, Sy.”

“Not if this shit is any indication,” Sy snapped, and swept his arm across the table, dumping several dozen perfect, smiling, beautiful eight-by-ten faces onto the floor, decimating as many hopes with the gesture. None of the trendies moved.

Sy Ortis was, arguably, the most powerful agent in Hollywood, and one of the five most powerful men in the Industry. He’d scrabbled up the heap, he’d worked like an animal, he’d bled, and he’d performed bloodlettings. Most people in Hollywood would do anything he asked, just as a favor, gratis. And now he sat here in front of a bunch of morons he was paying to help him and got
nada
.

“Look,” he said again slowly, as if each of them was mildly brain damaged. “Marty DiGennaro has never done television before. This is going to be the biggest show, the biggest trend since spandex. He’s creating something totally new. He calls it a ‘content-free show.’ And the Network has given him carte blanche.
Carte blanche, for chrissakes!
” His face was red, his voice strangled. He’d negotiated the deal between DiGennaro and the Network, and it was unbelievable, unprecedented. But Marty had insisted on total secrecy, so—irritatingly—nobody could admire Sy’s handiwork. No one ever really appreciated what he did. They called him “the most powerful man behind the scenes,” and with secretive, paranoid clients like Marty, he’d had to stay there.

Sy now swept the worried faces quickly with a frustrated look. He’d try again. “So we’re trying to do a
new
thing. Get it? That means no sitcom hacks, no refugees from Budweiser commercials, no rat-burgers from slice-and-dice flicks. This is Marty DiGennaro we’re talking about, not Roger Corman. Marty wants fresh blood, and you’ve been given the exclusive to get it for him. Do you understand what that means?”

The little man was breathing hard, his voice rising almost to a scream. Christ, he couldn’t breathe! He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his inhaler, thrust it up against his mouth, and sucked on it like a greedy infant at the breast. Not another asthma attack!
Madré de Dios
, it’s the pressure, he told himself. And the smog in the Valley today didn’t help. City of Angels, my butt hole! he thought angrily. With this air quality, it was only the Angel of Death who worked here. But, this was where the business was, and Sy hadn’t become the most influential agent in the Industry by breathing calmly in Scottsdale, Arizona.

It wasn’t just Milton and the shitty job he’d done, Sy admitted to himself as he gasped for breath. It was this whole new Marty DiGennaro project. Marty was, maybe, the most prestigious big-money film director in Hollywood; he was class
and
cash, and then he gets this crazy yen to stoop to television.
Television
. The ghetto of the entertainment industry, with the Kmart of plots and the Walmart of actors. But Marty wanted TV. And with this nutsy idea: an MTV-type, hip, freewheeling show about three girls hitchhiking across America. What the fuck? Marty was a genius, and Sy’s most powerful client, but the thing made Sy nervous. “I want freedom from plots,” Marty had said. “I’m so goddamn sick of telling a story. Let’s forget stories. Let’s do something new.”

New! NEW! Christ, why not just say “dangerous,” “risky,” “a money-loser.” If DiGennaro got his kicks from losing big at the high rollers’ table in Vegas, that was all right with Sy; why the fuck did Marty have to pull this gambling shit with his career? Talent! Go figure. Talent loved to fuck with your head.

Then, to make things worse, Marty wouldn’t use any of Sy’s clients. An entire stable of stars, all of them willing to stoop to TV just to work with Marty, and Marty says no. A whole show to be cast, deals to be made, favors to extend, percentages to collect, and Marty says, “Bring me someone new.” Sy was ready to suck his own dick over this one. So here he was, in the offices of Weinberg and Glick, pulling on his inhaler and looking for an unopened can. ’Cause if he didn’t cast it soon, Marty would go to the outside, and Sy would lose control of the casting. Just the thought of losing control made Sy suck a little harder.

At last, his breathing calmed. The frozen trendies still sat there, useless as tits on a monitor. He turned to Milton, still nervously licking his lips. “Milton,” he said. “These girls are gonna be big. Enormous. They’ll be on the cover of
TV Guide
and
People
, they’ll be on
Tonight
and
Arsenio
and
Letterman
. They’ll host
Saturday Night Live
. And that’s just for starters. If everything goes right, they’re going to be a fuckin’ industry. So I want them new and fresh. No nudes in
Penthouse
. No past jobs as weather girls in Kankakee. No porno, no agents, no bounced checks, no husbands, no
problems
. New and clean, so we can tie ’em up nice and neat. So, Milt, don’t insult my intelligence. Don’t piss up my back and tell me I’m sweating. Get me some new faces.”

Sy turned and walked to the door, then spun on his neat little foot at the doorway. “Because, if
you
don’t, Milt, Paul Grasso
will
.” Sy saw Milt wince at the mention of his ex-partner, now his bitter enemy. “You’ve got till Tuesday.”

“I’ll do it,” Milt assured him, but Sy was already down the hall.

If Sy Ortis had been the bully of the meeting at Glick’s casting office, he knew he was about to be bullied at his next one. But in a lineup that included Les Merchant, the head of the Network; Brian O’Malley of Banion O’Malley, the largest advertising firm in the world; and Monica Flanders and her son, Hyram, he knew he was the smallest fish. He shrugged. One could do worse than be a guppy in
that
pond. There would not be a person in the room whose net worth was under fifty million dollars.

And there was nothing Sy respected as much as money. Thinking of the raw power of—say—fifty million dollars made him almost weak in the knees. Someday he’d have a net worth of that, and then he wouldn’t take shit from anyone. Not that he had to take much now.

Sy, as usual, was on time, but, surprisingly, so was everyone else. The difference between big business and show business: big business had the discipline to keep to schedule. Sy smiled as he shook hands around the table. No one smiled back. Another difference.

The meeting was being held at the L.A. conference room of Banion O’Malley, and Sy was there to represent his client Marty DiGennaro. Both had decided it was best this way. After all, the deal had been consummated, but it was best to keep both the sponsor and the Network happy for as long as possible. Anyway, today the pressure was off Sy. It was Merchant’s and O’Malley’s dicks on the table. Sy almost smiled at the thought as he took his seat.