And just about all of his high school.
Oddly none of the above had been able to tear away from busy schedules to attend.
Then he read the first five chapters of his book, titled Steel or Die. The blurb by some Irish guy said he was the new Lee Child, and even just hearing that name again gave her shivers. The chapters were long and Angela felt Child had no immediate cause for concern. When it was finally over, Angela rushed to the wine table and downed two cups of some putrid plonk, appropriately served in the little plastic cups used for urine samples. Looked to see if there were any eats and came face to face with Bob.
He seemed overjoyed to meet her, gushed, “So, how did you like the book?”
“Riveting,” Angela said.
He filled her cup, leering slightly, said, “My Amazon rating is seven hundred ninety-eight thousand and the book has only been out a few months.”
Angela figured she needed two more cups of the awful wine to help her sleep, so asked, with absolutely zero energy, “Got any movie interest?”
His eyes widened. “You think it would work as a film?”
“No doubt.”
Then he frowned, went, “Thing is, I don’t know if I should go with the straight movie deal or hold out for a TV show.”
She managed, “Be sure to keep control of the character, I mean, a creation like Steel, they will all want a piece of him.”
He was nodding furiously, then said, “I think maybe I’ll do fifteen in the series, then go for a standalone.”
Jesus, she thought, said, “What the world is crying out for.”
Angela didn’t buy Bob’s book, but another book caught her eye — a towering pile of a new book called Bust, published by Hard Case Crime. Angela was familiar with Hard Case. Years ago, when she was Max Fisher’s executive assistant — didn’t those days almost seem quaint? — she needed some cash and posed for one of the covers. She liked the cover of Bust — an image of a camera and a surprised old guy and a sexy woman in the lens. The scene seemed familiar somehow, but she wasn’t sure why. She wasn’t planning to read the book but, fuck it, she bought it.
Bob followed her out of the store, going, “Wanna go for some brewskies? I’m paying for my own tour but, hey, long as we discuss the book, beers are tax deductions, right?”
Later, in a side street, as he anticipated a BJ, she kneed him in the balls, took his wallet, said as she weaved away, “Deduct that.”
Sadly, Angela was making more from these hustles than she was from her acting. Aside from a half-day shoot in The Walking Dead and a few lines in a dreadful revival of A Long Day’s Journey into Night — they wanted her for her American/Irish accent — she hadn’t gotten any work at all. Money tight, she had to work part-time for an escort service. She didn’t mind the screwing — compared to Russian/Chinese porn it was like free money — but the insults got to her. Guys thirty years older than she was, calling her a MILF? It made her think of her own long day’s journey into what was shaping up to be a cold, bitter night.
Then, on yet another sun-filled morning in L.A., Angela was at her local Starbucks near the strip. Behind her was a long-haired guy with hip shades. She wondered if Starbucks had mass-produced this guy and planted him in the corner of every branch. Going for that hip draw of, Hey, you too can be a writer.
When the guy left, giving her a radiant smile that said, Yeah, we both know I’m hot to trot, Angela noticed he’d left behind a copy of Variety.
She had begun to flick idly when she saw a big announcement of a major TV deal for a hot new bestseller, Bust. She remembered it was the book she’d bought, so she read on.
“Jaysus wept!” She shouted so loud the other writers in the store looked up from their laptops to see what the fuss was about.
Angela read the story at least ten times, to make sure she wasn’t missing anything. But she wasn’t: Bust was her story. Paula Segal, that little tramp from New York, had teamed with some Swedish writer to write the book, which was now being “fast-tracked” for a TV series. Lionsgate was the studio and a guy named Darren Becker was the Executive Producer. It was like a feckin’ nightmare or a joke — a joke with no punch line.
Later, Angela read more about the project online. There were rumors that Ethan Coen would write the pilot and David Fincher would direct, and she watched a video on YouTube from CBS Sunday Morning of the Swedish guy — can you believe that fookin’ name? — Lars Stiegsson. Angela had heard about him from Ginger; he’d once had a notorious legendary rep in the porn industry, but she’d had no idea that he was a crime writer. Jaysus, Mary and Joseph, seemed like you could throw a dead cat and hit a crime writer these days. Watching the interview, Angela tasted vomit as Stiegsson tearfully told his story of how Stieg Larsson had ripped off his whole career and how fulfilling it was to now, years later, finally hit it big with Bust.
Angela read the book in one setting, amazed at how well Paula, that cunt, and the Swedish pornographer had captured the entire story. It was all almost exactly the way it had happened. A few names had been changed, some of the dialogue had been altered, but the major events were all there. In particular Angela loved the chapter where she tried to dissolve Dillon’s body with Drano in her Gramercy Park studio. Angela felt they’d really captured the psychosis, delusion, and rage that had been boiling inside her at the time. She read these passages aloud, feeling like she was back there, living it.
While Angela admired the novel, the reality of the current situation was setting in — Angela was a third-rate escort, sucking off the dregs of Hollywood, and Segal and Steigsson were making millions on Angela’s life story.
She had to find a way in.
A few days later, at a dull party in Santa Monica thrown by Charlie Sheen’s dogsitter who, of course, was also a screenwriter, she met an old, sleazy producer, Larry Reed. Hard to find one of those in Hollywood, right? She hoped he could help her get an in on Bust, or thought at the very least he’d be an easy score. She’d work for him for a while, suck him off a few times, then rob him blind.
It seemed to be heading toward the “rob him blind” option until he invited her to his place and told him a crazy story about how his wife had been kidnapped and he badly needed money — the sort of money Bust could give them both. He came up with a crazy, desperate plan to get in on the deal. While Angela didn’t give a shite about Larry Reed, or his kidnapped wife, she thought it was worth a shot. She had a feeling that this was her last shot. It was Bust or bust.
Angela arrived at Darren Becker’s, the driver letting the fare slide in return for her fake phone number.
It was quite an estate, had to be twenty rooms. Tall bushes, a brick pathway leading to the house, a Merc and Caddy in the drive, probably for show. There was probably a pool, guest house in the back, maybe Kato living there. Angela wondered what movies this guy had done to get a set-up like this. Darren Becker. She’d never seen the name before she’d read that Variety article. But he had to be somebody, somebody worth getting close to.
Rang the bell and Christ, heard Tubular Bells, who the hell even knew what it was outside of Irish writers. The door opened to a surfer dude, seemed to be in his early twenties, with a mop of shaggy blond hair, cut-offs, and washed-out blue eyes. Thrown for a moment, she faltered, “Um... Darren Becker?”
One-hundred-watt smile and, “Was me when I woke up.”