For each future release, Move My Cheese employed over two hundred different variables, everything from box-office grosses of all the actors previous works to the number of cleavage shots used in trailers. But the real genius was in the calendar program, which factored in considerations like holiday trends, TV schedules, even local weather patterns. It retrieved much of this information off the Internet, automatically adjusting its math to fit vicissitudes. The NRG was a crude Magic 8-ball. The Cheese was just magic.
Of course it wasn’t without problems. For starters, there was an extraordinary amount of data entry involved, not to mention educational guesswork. In the hands of Ira, it was a precise instrument. In the hands of a sloppy marketing intern, it would be no better than tea leaves. It would require at least two weeks for Ira to train the MGM staff to properly use his Ouija. That part worried me the most. The software, like Ira, was user-hostile.
Still, the numbers were hard to ignore. Keith was so impressed that he was willing to pay seventy-five hundred dollars for a trial run. Our meeting was officially a success, and my part in the project was over for now.
We threw in fifteen more minutes of obligatory shop talk, then I paid for lunch. As the three of us left the restaurant, Keith took my arm.
“Listen, Scott, do you have time to take a ride with me?”
“Sure. You want to drop me off in Marina del Rey?”
“No problem.”
I gave Ira the keys to my car and told him I’d meet him at the Ishtar. Although I didn’t show it, I was excited. Keith wouldn’t have taken me aside like this if he didn’t have PR work for me. And since his wife, Hayley, was a vice president at my old firm, Tate & Associates, that meant the work was too covert for them. I loved covert projects. They always paid big, always under the table. And as ominous as they sounded, most of them were actually nice and simple. Drama-free.
________________
“This goddamn school shooting,” he muttered, tapping his cigarette out the window of his BMW Z8. “I thank my lucky stars that it’s more rap-related than film-related. But it’s still gonna hurt Hannibal when it opens next Friday. The movie’s not exactly an after-school special. If you read the book, you know.”
“I know.” I hadn’t read the book. Just the reviews.
“Man, that little girl picked a hell of a time to go postal.”
“No kidding.” I looked beyond Keith to the sprawling CBS Television City complex. Late one night Gracie and I had bribed a guard to let us sneak onto the set of The Price Is Right. I just wanted to look around. The sex was her idea. She climbed up onstage, got undressed, and told me to come on down.
“The whole entertainment industry’s gonna catch hell for this,” said Keith. “Soon it’ll be easier to market tobacco products than R-rated films.”
“People still smoke, though.”
He laughed and held up his cigarette. “This I’m addicted to. I don’t know anybody who had a fit to see The Mod Squad.”
I smiled. Keith turned left on Fairfax. The infamous Melrose High was just a few blocks north of us. I could feel it. A big black hole, sucking all the conversational air. For over a year it had been the same way with O.J. Simpson’s house, a mere stone’s throw from my apartment.
Keith took a deep drag off his cigarette. “Scott, you know that everything I’m about to say is in complete confidence.”
“Of course.”
“Good. There’s an interesting opportunity for you. An urgent one. That was sort of the real reason I wanted to meet with you. No disrespect to your Cheese thing.”
That only made me tingle. “No. That’s fine. Sounds like quite a jam.”
“It’s not my jam, thank God. It’s a job my wife came across. She would have called you herself but she doesn’t want this coming within a mile of Tate. This is a complete mercenary effort. You get caught, you’re on your own.”
I loved movie people. “What kind of job?”
“It’s a de-publicity effort. The story’s already written and it needs to be unwritten. The problem is that you’ve got to work fast, because it’s coming out soon. Probably sooner than Hannibal.”
“Care to give me details?”
“You ever heard of a guy named Jeremy Sharpe?”
“No.”
“Neither did I. Listen, all you need to know is that he’s a very important man who needs a hero right now. You save his ass, and you’re in the catbird seat. We’re talking an easy six figures and a lot of gratitude from a lot of big names. You interested?”
Jesus. Yes. “Depends. I assume this is short-term, right?”
“The shortest of terms. This’ll keep you busy while you have it, though. So clear your schedule.”
No problem. I had already cleared it for the Fairmont Keoki project. If this hadn’t come along, I would have had to start making cold calls again.
“I’m interested so far. What’s the next step?”
He handed me a hotel business card. L’Ermitage. A swank luxury pad on the outskirts of Beverly Hills. A room number was scribbled on the back.
“Be there at eight tonight. They’ll fill you in on the rest.”
“You don’t have any more information? I usually like to prepare.”
“Don’t worry. My wife already sold you to them. All you need to do is show up and say yes.”
Hayley Jane Trudeau was the last of the old guard at Tate & Associates. In 1998, a London ad agency acquired the firm and put it through a huge turnover, kind of like The Poseidon Adventure. Many jobs were lost. A small band of survivors, including myself and Hayley, made it to safety. Under the incompetent new regime, the job quickly began to suck, kind of like Beyond the Poseidon Adventure. I quit and went freelance. Hayley threw me some crisis work now and then.
“So, Scott, can I tell them you’re coming?”
Fun fact about me: the less bait you put on the hook, the greater the chance Ill bite. I tried not to be predictable, but damn it. I fell for it every time. Hayley knew that, of course.
“I’ll be there.”
Keith threw his cigarette out the window before getting on the 10 West. “Good. I just finished my household chore for the day. Can I ask you a question now?”
“Sure.”
“Why the hell is it called Move My Cheese?”
If you don’t already know, it’s not worth explaining. Trust me. I wanted to call it What If…? That was the name of a comic book series that Marvel Comics ran in the eighties and nineties. It was a great concept. Each month they took a different superhero and threw in a speculative twist. What if Spider-Man’s uncle had lived? What if Captain America had never been unfrozen? What if Magneto had formed the X-Men? It allowed writers to experiment with classic characters without messing up decades of continuity. Unfortunately, Ira didn’t appreciate the connection. Like I said, it was his baby.
Keith dropped me off at the Marina at 3:15. I went aboard the Ishtar. A yacht wasn’t the best place for a home office. Ira’s workstation took up half the galley. His printer sat on top of his microwave. Wires ran everywhere, and Ira worked in the middle of it all, a fat techno-spider. He loved it, but it wasn’t very friendly for all his visitors, namely me.