Star Time (68 page)

"Raoul, how terrific to see you!
I've been meaning to call you. What a raw deal those bastards at FBS gave you. I've always admired you so. How are things going?"

"As a matter of fact, things are going pretty well," he admitted. "I've just replaced Mickey Blinder."

"What a spectacular surprise! You don't know how happy I am for you."

Actually, Sally had heard the news through a girlfriend whose decorator had confided that he had to cancel an appointment with her that morning because of an emergency meeting at Monumental to redecorate Mickey Blinder's office for Raoul
Clampton
. Sally knew she did not have a second to lose.

She immediately jumped into her car—doubly good timing, as it turned out, because the loan-company collector was just pulling up to repossess it. After a ninety-mile-an-hour dash on the freeway, she managed to lose the repo man with a fast turn onto an off-ramp and arrived outside of Raoul's office building in time to run into him—by purest chance—when he went out for lunch.

"Raoul," she cooed, taking his arm and making sure that her breast nuzzled up against it, "I've missed you so, all those good times. Why don't we do something wild and crazy tonight to celebrate your new job, just you and I?"

Ev
had chosen the bar and the table with care. No one was likely to see them. Even if someone did, the thought would probably be that two former colleagues were catching up.

As Greg slipped into the dimly lit banquette across from him,
Ev
pulled an envelope from his jacket and handed it to Greg. Inside was an offer to him as FBS's chief executive officer and to the directors to buy all of the company's stock for thirty-three dollars a share. The letter expressed the hope that the directors would recommend to FBS stockholders that they accept the offer. Greg fought to maintain an unreadable expression.

"We bid so high because we want this to be a friendly transaction,"
Ev
told him. "It's a great price."

"If the directors turn you down, I suppose you'll make a public offer and launch a hostile takeover fight."

"The lawyers tell me I can't say that."

"But that's what you'll do."

Ev
smiled,
his voice a soft hiss. "We're holding all the cards. Our financing's locked up. A lot of stockholders thought they'd be stuck in the twenties forever. They'll beg us to buy it at the price we're offering. We're ready to make this as dirty a fight as you want."

"It would be a mistake,
Ev
."

"Exactly what I've been thinking.
You don't want to lose the company back to the old man and be left with nothing for your troubles. You've done a good job, but that won't mean shit in a few days. Roderick has the votes to bounce you. I'm willing to make your leaving worthwhile."

Greg strove not to lash back. The mistake was
Ev's
and not his own.
"A golden handshake?"

"If you back our offer, you'll get a handsome severance package."
Ev
outlined it. Noticing the frown on Greg's face, he added, "I'm so eager to make this an amicable experience for all concerned—and we're such old friends—that I'm willing to raise the two million a year to three."

"A lot of money."

Ev's
eyes narrowed. "This isn't a contribution to the needy. I'm
buying
you."

Greg used to think that
Ev
Carver merely wore his ambition more prominently than other men. Now, though, sensing the terrible urgency fueling
Ev's
ruthlessness, he understood that
Ev
Carver was truly an evil man. An aggressive, immoral obsession to dominate propelled his every action.

Greg viewed the offer as advantageous in several ways: An attack on the company might sway Barnett, at least temporarily, against dismissing him while the directors studied it or maybe even to keeping him on during the battle if they decided to oppose it. And if Greg lost out to Barnett—or to
Ev
—the severance package would provide the very comfortable means to walk safely away and start over somewhere else.

Greg rose from the table. "I'm required by law to submit the offer to the directors. You know that. In the meantime I'll think about how I want to handle it."

"Don't do anything dumb,
Lyall
. I told you, I'm holding all the cards."

I have you by the balls, Greg mused as he walked away, but you won't know that until I squeeze.

Greg worked late on Monday night. He had spent the day signing off on as many decisions as possible that would lock FBS into future policies; he wanted to make it difficult for Barnett—or
Ev
—to undo his changes and
erase
his vision. Firm orders were given for several midseason shows and new pilots. Contracts he had pressed the lawyers to conclude were signed for foreign deals and for arrangements with cable networks and the new online network. All the while, a contrary impulse counseled him that, instead, in case he was terminated, revenge should be motivating him to pull down the temple around him like Samson.

Greg's second major task that day was alerting the directors by phone to
Ev's
offer to buy all the FBS stock. He implied that now was not the time to rock the corporate boat with a change at the helm. The directors meeting would take place in three days.

FBS's investment bankers were also working late, evaluating
Ev's
offer in order to provide the directors with an opinion as to whether it was adequate and, thus, should be accepted. Their instinct was always to turn down any offer and then seek large fees to repel the resulting takeover effort or, alternatively, to find a more acceptable buyer, a so-called white knight, again earning large fees. They now sought a sense of which way Greg was leaning on the offer. Investment bankers were known to have very flexible consciences about valuation.

"Let's wait and see how things look by the time of the meeting," Greg told them.

He would not be seeing Chris tonight. She needed a long night's sleep. Tomorrow night she would do the news as usual and then anchor election coverage into the early-morning hours. This would be her first turn at the job, and a lot of eyes would be on her. Her stamina would be commented upon. 

By the time he had made his last call to a director in a later time zone and then rose to stretch and put on his jacket to go home, Greg was no more optimistic than before about his candidacy. Barnett's supporters remained loyal, none wavering. In their voices he could detect an undertone sometimes of reproach, sometimes of outrage for the disgrace he had brought upon the company. Many had known Diane since she was a child and, Greg sensed
,
felt called upon to exact retribution for the wrong done to her.

He halted in the doorway to memorize the desk, its chair, the sofa and club chairs, the credenza with the TV screens, even the progression of portrait photos on the wall.

I loved it too much, he confessed to himself.

Then he turned out the light and left.

The dinner had been arranged on short notice, slipped in before Marian's scheduled departure on a late flight to New York. She picked up Derek at the sound stage, and they drove to The Palm.

As they approached the restaurant, Derek asked Marian, "Why this dinner?" The last few months had taught him that not even the most casual-seeming appointment or conversation among those at the apex of the entertainment industry was purely social; the ultimate purpose was always to make a deal.

"Raoul
Clampton
fired me from FBS. Then Greg fired him and gave me his job. It turned out Raoul was making private deals for himself—stealing from FBS in effect. It was nasty."

"Then why are we having dinner with them?"

"They claim it's to celebrate the success of
Scum.
"

"But it's not."

"Derek," she patiently explained, "
there
are only a few major networks. Unless they have access to me,
Monumental's
new projects are closed out at one of them, the only one that bought a show from them. They need a peace powwow."

"But how can you even deal with a man like that?"

Marian heard echoes of her own ingenuousness when she moved into Programming's executive suite. Again, she answered patiently. "Monumental is a big supplier. We don't want to be cut off from their
projects. The head of their company is coming and bringing his wife. His name is Tiny Small."

"You're kidding."

"And Sally Foster is coming."

"I thought she hated you for dropping her from
Luba
and some other show."

Marian nodded glumly.

Derek groaned.
"A fun evening."

At the restaurant Marian and Sally fell into each other's arms like long-lost sisters. Tiny introduced his fourth wife. As his career advanced, he traded up to bigger and bigger wives. This one was well over six feet, as buxom and airbrushed as a centerfold, and fussed adoringly over him as she might have over a Chihuahua.

After complimenting Derek on his performance in his series, the men seemed hardly aware of his presence. Marian kept a wary eye on Sally, who was seated next to Derek, but the actress was almost primly demure. Derek picked at his oversize steak, chatted sporadically with
Tiny's
wife, and listened to the others incredulously.

The men fawned over Marian. They enthused over her observations. Whenever she made a humorous remark, Tiny nearly fell off the phone book in laughter.

As they all shook hands to part afterward, Raoul casually mentioned that he was sending Marian an important project Sally would star in. Sally beamed modestly. Marian replied that she was just delighted. And Derek felt
Tiny's
wife slip her phone number into his pocket.

Marian was miserable throughout the United flight. This was the first time Derek had joined her on one of her frequent trips to New York. His shooting schedule had been arranged so he could do two days of publicity for his show, including a party FBS was giving tonight in connection with its election-night broadcast.

She tried to engage him in conversation, but he barely looked at her. Finally, she went to sleep. She awoke during the night to discover that Derek's seat was empty. She spotted him at the front of their first-class cabin in a laughing discussion with two women flight attendants, who appeared enthralled. She could not sleep after that and continued to observe him under lowered eyelids.

Marian and Derek at their Plaza suite with just time enough to wash up and change into dressier attire before descending to the lobby for a breakfast meeting with Greg and two European executives eager to demonstrate how much money they could save FSB if it used their production facilities, perhaps a historical mini-series would be a good start. The men were enthusiastic over Marian's plans for next season. They talked with her about subsidies, quotas, and fees, about scripts and casting. Derek ate quickly and excused himself, claiming to need to return to the suite for several interviews FBS had set up for him. Actually, they were not for an hour, but he could not bear sitting there beside her for another minute.

"Do you have the list of stores I gave you?" Marian asked him. She thought he might like to go shopping this morning after the interviews.

She privately worried that, instead, he would be spending his free time learning personally from his new friends at United the aptness of the airline's name.

Strangely, despite the long months Marian had pined for Derek at UCLA and their recent months of living together, Chris had never met him. Lunch for the three of them was arranged for one o'clock at Aquavit. Derek arrived on time, carrying several packages from men's stores. Marian's relief was transitory. He seemed entranced by Chris and kept asking questions about Greg
Lyall
.

When Derek excused himself to use the men's room, Chris commented, "He's as beautiful as you said he was."

Marian fought back her tears. "I'm going to lose him, Chris. Women kill for him. The second I look away, he's with one of them. He's getting impatient to leave me."

"You don't know that for sure."

"I try everything I can think of to hold on to him. But my desperation probably makes him more eager to leave. Now that he no longer needs me, it's only a matter of time."

Chris sometimes felt that, like Marian, she loved too possessively, too fearfully. Often, when the strains on them grew excessive, she felt like screaming out to Greg that she did not want to be selfless and forbearing and understanding, that she wanted them to get their divorces and marry each other that very minute, so she wouldn't risk losing him. But she was afraid that revealing her insecurities might prove as self-destructive as what Marian was doing.