My Gun Has Bullets (37 page)

"That's what I'm saying."

"I'd love to, but Demi Moore is waiting for me in her limo, and she promised to blow me on the way."

"Mr. Stipe, it costs Mr. Kinoy one thousand dollars every minute his private jet sits on the runway. If he gets annoyed, he's liable to take it out of my Christmas bonus," the man said. "If that happens, I'll take it out of your face."

Stipe tried to stare into the guy's eyes but only saw his own pathetic reflection in his sunglasses. "You got a bar in your limo?"

"Yes sir."

"I'm not talking about a Diet Coke in an arm-rest beverage holder."

"Will Dom Perignon satisfy you?"

Stipe handed him his suit case. "Lead the way."

He didn't believe for a moment that Milo Kinoy, the international publishing magnate behind Big Hooters, Big Butts, and Big everything else, wanted to see him. But if this bruiser was so eager to give him a ride, why the hell was he arguing with him? Money saved on a taxi is money better spent on airplane cocktails.

He followed the big man out the lobby doors, where a Cadillac stretch limo was parked, gleaming in the early morning sun. The man held open the door and Stipe peered inside.

Sure enough, there was a bottle of champagne in

a bucket on a carved, teak countertop. And Milo Kinoy himself sitting in the rich, leather seat, watching the opening titles of
Beyond the Beyond
on the tiny television set tucked into the sculpted marble entertainment center.

"Get in and close the door, Conrad, the glare is killing the picture."

Stunned, Stipe climbed inside, bumping his head on the roof and trying to look natural as he fell into the leather seat across from Kinoy. Stipe welcomed the pain, it cleared his head. Before Stipe could say anything, Guy Goddard's voice filled the limo in Dolby Stereo.

"The darkest reaches of space, the furthest boundaries of adventure, one starship journeys into the unknown, exploring the mysteries that lie...Beyond the Beyond."

And as the limo pulled out, and the
Beyond the Beyond
theme began, Stipe studied the deeply-tanned, billionaire Brit across from him, a man on the downhill side of forty who always dressed for golf, a game the magnate never played. He was the black sheep son of a Sir or a Duke or something, who embarrassed his family by investing his trust fund in the girlie magazine all his Oxford chums were jerking off with.

But within ten years, he'd used his education to transform
Big Hooters
into a global porno publishing empire that grew so enormously powerful, he was able to diversify into mainstream music, video and software businesses with equal success.

"What do you know about the typical fan of your show?" Kinoy asked.

"If it's a guy, he's awkward, ugly and his sex life is his subscription to one of your magazines," Stipe replied. "If it's a woman, she's fat, has a lot of unicorn jewelry and elf statuettes, and wishes she could find a man as affectionate as her cat."

Kinoy smiled, flashing obscenely perfect teeth. A poacher could probably sell them as jewelry. "Those are the fans you see, Conrad. The ones you don't live in suburban tract homes, drive mid-size Japanese cars, and rank cable television as more important in their daily lives than God, sex or nutrition."

Kinoy picked up the remote with one perfectly manicured hand and clicked off the TV, his cuff rising to reveal a solid gold, diamond-studded Schaffhausen DaVinci Perpetual Calendar Chronograph strapped on his tanned, hairless wrist. Stipe casually covered his plastic Swatch with one hand and waited.

"You flew all the way up here to tell me not all my fans have bad skin?" Stipe laughed nervously. He still had no idea what the hell he was doing here. Part of him couldn't help wondering if it had something to do with that little Double-D fantasy he had last night. But how could Kinoy know about that?

"This morning, I bought Pinnacle Pictures from the Japanese, who lost their kimonos investing in American studios," Kinoy said. "Pinnacle owns the major independent stations in six of the top ten television markets. I'm going to use those stations to launch my own television network."

"The Big Network," Stipe said, trying to be funny.

"As a matter of fact, yes."

Kinoy didn't laugh, and Stipe didn't care. He was beginning to connect the dots, and he liked the picture it was making. A big, fat dollar sign. Pinnacle also owned the negatives for
Beyond the Beyond
. But if Kinoy was here, they wanted something more. From him. And that would cost.

Stipe glanced at the champagne. "Is that bottle just for show, Milo, or were you planning on drinking it?"

The billionaire lifted the bottle out of the bucket and filled a Baccarat crystal glass for Stipe, who swallowed the bubbly like it was Perrier. Kinoy casually refilled it.

"
Beyond the Beyond
has a devoted audience of baby-boomers and their children," Kinoy explained, "all of whom fall comfortably into the 18-49 age demographic advertisers covet. Just what I need to launch my network."

"I see." He saw dollar signs, and lots of them. "You want to revive
Beyond the Beyond,
and you need me to do it."

"I could go off and make it with someone else," Milo said, "But I think the fans would like to see you produce it."

"In other words, Milo, I got the remake rights and you can't do it without me."

Kinoy stared coldly at Stipe. "Nor can you without me, since I own the characters and the premise. Working together, we can make some money."

Stipe grabbed the Dom, poured himself some more, then took a big drink, swishing it around his mouth for a moment or two before swallowing it. He belched, long and loud. It felt good.

"I want a $100,000 an episode, a Double-D girl in my sack every night, and your watch."

Kinoy unclasped the watch from his wrist and tossed it to Stipe. "Sounds reasonable to me."

* * * * * *

Talent agents at The Company didn't start in the mailroom, they began their careers on the docks in San Pedro. They were there every morning at 4 a.m., standing in their suits and ties, reading
Daily Variety
while waiting for the fishing boats to arrive. Their jobs were to select the very best fish, still alive if possible, and bring them back to The Company's tall, circular building, a marble-and-glass straw sticking out of Beverly Hills and sucking it dry.

By six a.m., the agent wanna-bes were riding up the service elevators with ice boxes of salmon, tuna, squid, crab, and fish they didn't even recognize. They were met at the 25th floor by super-agent Clive Odett's personal secretary Zita, a crisp, young woman of indeterminable nationality and race whose curves were as sharp as the shiny ginsu knife she wielded.

She'd randomly slice the fish with the practiced grace of a surgeon and, tasting the raw flesh, would allow those that passed her inspection to be taken back to the walk-in freezers. The rest went to the homeless in Beverly Hills.

Legend had it that once, when an aspiring agent delivered too many fish she deemed unacceptable, she sliced off one of his earlobes and popped it into her mouth like a grape. Nowadays, the hapless fellow was supposedly living in a parking structure off little Santa Monica Boulevard and munching on the free catch-of-the-day.

Of course, the more exotic fish were flown in alive from whatever waters they came from in the Company's jet. The fish were killed only seconds before serving by Clive Odett himself, usually in front of his astonished lunch guest who, on this particular day, was screenwriter Nick Alamogordo.

But Nick wasn't astonished. Not by the redwood bridge that arched over a dark pond full of colorful fish. Not by the gentle breezes wafting through the lush vegetation. Not even by the authentic pagoda he was sitting in, that had been shipped by boat, piece by piece, from Japan. He shrugged, as if he'd seen a thousand offices like this before.

The only thing that astonished the bushy-bearded, pony-tailed scribe was the limitless boundaries of his own, immense talent. After all, it was Nick Alamogordo who penned such blockbusters as
Carnalville
and
Full Frontal Force,
which made an international movie star out of Sabrina Bishop, TV's
Agatha's Niece
. When Bishop, as a government assassin, opened her shirt and nursed the injured cop she loved back to health with her breast milk, she earned a place in movie history. Siskel and Ebert accused Nick of stealing the idea from
Grapes of Wrath
. Didn't those two jerks know an
homage
when they saw one?

"I thought this was your office," Nick growled, "not a fucking Benihana."

If Odett was offended, he didn't show it. Odett stood across the table from him, swiftly cutting raw fish fillets into thin, translucent slices. He kept his eyes on his work, consciously ignoring the aromatic tufts of hair that fluffed out the open collar and short-sleeves of Nick's loud, Hawaiian shirt.

To Nick, Clive Odett resembled a Doberman who rose up on his hind legs one day and miraculously morphed into a man in Brooks Brothers slacks and a white sweater.

"This is my sanctuary," Odett whispered, as he always did, to make sure people listened. "This is where I feed my body and my soul." He carefully arranged the wafer-thin slices into the shape of a rose and slid the assorted sashimi platter in front of Nick.

"You're feeding both of them on my ten percent," Nick took a handful of sushi in one of his hairy paws and shoved it into his mouth, dribbling rice into his beard. All this Zen and sushi shit didn't impress Nick one bit. Odett was a salesman, and lately, not a very good one.

Zita glided in from garden with two hot sakes, a fish fin aflame in each.

"What the hell is that?" Nick asked.

"A
fugu
fin, Mr. Alamogordo," she replied, "In Japan, it is considered an aphrodisiac."

She was as pretentious as her boss. Nick decided to put them both in their place.

"Maybe your boss needs to toast a trout in his drink to get a boner," Nick sized her up. "I just got to look at you, Pita."

"Zita," she hissed, gently placing the sake in front of each man before disappearing again into the brush.

"Bring me a beer," Nick called after her, admiring her ass, his lips tingling.

Odett tenderly placed a slice of fish on his tongue and savored it. "I understand you had dinner at Drai's last night with Mitch Stein."

Nick turned back to Odett and popped some more sashimi into his mouth. He wasn't surprised Odett knew he'd met with another agent, every maitre'd and waiter in town was spying for somebody, hoping to earn a favor they could exchange for an audition or a weekend read. The fact was, Nick
wanted
Odett to know.

"I fucked my wife last night, too," Nick said. "What's it to you?"

"You finished writing
Cop A Feel
over the weekend, and I haven't seen it," Odett said. "Mitch has."

"He liked it, too," Nick rubbed his tingling lips. Zita's ass must have made a strong impression, which wasn't unusual. What was weird was that
those
impressions were usually felt further south. "Mitch thinks I can get $2 million for it."

"Does he?" Odett took a sip of sake.

"Of course, that was just his opinion of my rough draft," Nick popped another piece of sashimi into his mouth. "It'll take another month or two to polish it up before I can put it on the market."

"Two months. That would be when your contract with us expires," Odett took the knife, and carefully cut along the grain of the fillet, making six fine, tissue-thin slices. "You wouldn't be holding the script back until you sign with someone else?"

"I'm a slave to the creative process. It's finished when it's finished," Nick shrugged. "If that happens when I'm represented by you or someone else, well, that's just fate."

Nick believed that
Cop A Feel,
the harrowing story of a cop battling sexual addiction while undercover as a male stripper, was not only his best script yet, but could nab him an Oscar.

"Does this mean you won't be signing with us?" Odett inquired casually.

"You only package my scripts with
your
actors and
your
directors," Nick knocked back his sake. "That severely limits my playing field and diminishes my price. There are other actors and directors I'd like to work with. Mitch Stein can get me Scorcese."

Odett studied Nick for a moment. Ten years ago, Nick and a number of other high-profile screenwriters were represented by The Quill Group, a boutique agency for writers founded by Martha Dale. She doted on them like a loving grandmother. They were all fiercely loyal to Dale, resisting all attempts at wooing them away. That was, of course, until her freak accident, jogging into a tree shredder. Her agency crumbled after they buried her in 68 individually wrapped pieces and her roster of loyal clients were looking for representation. The Company was there for them in their time of need.

Back then, Nick was earning low six figures for originals, and even less for rewrites. But under Odett's guidance, his spec scripts regularly sold for $1 million. And he didn't do rewrites for any price.

Now, Nick was getting cocky. He thought he could leave. He was wrong. "You've done very well with The Company," Odett whispered.

"I could do even better," Nick whispered back, just to show him he was onto his stupid game. Fucking salesman.

Odett realized that Nick was operating under the old-fashioned notion that the agent worked for the artist. Apparently, Nick hadn't heard that Odett had changed all that. Odett didn't get clients work, he
allowed
them to work, all he asked was a small part of the immense reward. That, and lifetime servitude.

"I see," Odett motioned toward the pond. "You know what those fish are?"

"Piranha?"

"Puffers.
Tetraodontoidei
, to be exact. The Japanese call them
fugu.
I have them flown in live from Tsukiji every week."