“Dear God, Beto,” I said. “You sound like a grown-up.”
“I’m just parroting Father John.”
“And you sound tired,” I said. “But it was a great party.”
“Must have been,” he said. “Dad wasn’t the only casualty of the evening.”
“Who else?”
“Lacy,” he said. “Kevin put her in rehab last night.”
“I’ll light a candle.”
“If only it were that easy. Hey, girly, I gotta go. I’ll call if anything comes up.”
“Please do.”
Next, I texted Kevin: “Call me. Now.”
Max and Guido were back and it was time to talk film business. Under the grape arbor, we went over our options for the Normandy project. Max had left several messages for Lana Howard, our executive producer at the network, but she hadn’t responded to them-not a good sign. He was fairly confident that the network would eventually release funds to us, but the issue was when. Whatever they did, it was clear that our position with the network was increasingly fragile. We had alternatives. We could wait out the network. We could take the project to the French television production company and hope that a long-term relationship with them would develop. Or, as Guido preferred, we could strike out on our own and try to scare up independent funding and distribution. All three prospects had both potential benefits and unknown perils.
In the middle of the conversation, my phone buzzed. I looked at the I.D. screen. “Lana,” I said, flipped on the speaker function and set the phone in the middle of the table.
“Lana,” I said, speaking loudly. “This is the Lord’s day. Why are you at work?”
“Are you underwater or something?” Lana snapped. “You sound weird.”
“You’re on speakerphone,” I said. “I’m here with Max and Guido.”
“With Max and Guido? I was hoping you and I could have a little private talk. Where the hell are you?”
“We’re in Berkeley,” I said. “Where the hell are you?”
“I’m in the middle of Malibu Canyon, sitting in my car in front of your house. That cowboy neighbor of yours wouldn’t tell me a goddamn thing about where to find you.”
“You could have called before heading up there.”
“That’s exactly what the bastard said.” She was in full rant mode; I knew it only too well. We had worked together for a long time, and it had never been easy. Not, as Jean-Paul would say, a peanut butter and jelly relationship. “Your damn uncle-and I know you can hear this, Max-gave me some cockamamie story about you and Guido taking your production to someone else. After all these years, I can’t believe you’d kick me to the curb like this.”
“Lana, no one has kicked anyone, yet,” Max said. “But you know how important this project is to Maggie and Guido, and how narrow the time window is. That makes me think that this foot-dragging over the budget is your own sweet way of kissing us off.”
Guido chimed in, “That’s how I read it.”
“You read it wrong,” she said. “This foot-dragging is more probably the head shed’s way of kissing me off.”
Max didn’t need much time to consider that before he shook his head.
“You walk out on me,” she said, “and I’m toast with the network.”
“Television is a young man’s business, Lana,” Guido offered, winking at me as he said it. He had more gray than black in his sideburns and a wrinkle or two; he was exactly my age. “A tough game.”
“Yeah?” Lana countered. “Well I’m neither young nor a man, Guido. As long as you can shoulder your cameras you’ll be okay in the business. And you, Maggie, my little sister, with a nip and a tuck and some good highlights you can last another ten, fifteen years in front of those damn cameras. I don’t have your advantage of makeup and lighting when I go into meetings with the children who run the network now.”
“By saying that, you aren’t helping your case, my dear,” Max said. “It’s time for you to test whether you have enough mojo left at the network to take care of Maggie and Guido. Tell your money goons that they have until noon Tuesday to release funding, or we walk with the project. And, maybe just for the exercise, we sue them for breach of contract.”
He snapped the phone off without uttering a sweet word of good-bye. Grinning, he said, “Bullshit. Pure manipulative bullshit.”
Guido wasn’t so sure. “If they dump Lana, will they keep us?”
“No one is dumping Lana,” Max said. “She has too many of those goons by the cojones for them to release her.”
“I liked the little sister gambit,” I said. “Last Christmas she canceled our series without shedding any tears over it, and brought us back three months later without any fanfare or apology. If that’s family, Guido my love, maybe we should run away from home.”
“Is that a decision?” he asked, looking hopeful. “You know what I want to do.”
“Lana was right about one thing,” I said, feeling every one of my years. “You have better job prospects than I do if we fall on our faces. I propose this: We give Lana until Tuesday noon to move the network to fulfill their end of the contract. But if the money isn’t in our account by the stroke of twelve, then Max should accept the French offer for the project. After that, we’ll see where we are. Whichever way it goes, I have a feeling that after this one, we’ll be on our own again the way we were when we started out.”
“Suits me,” Guido said. “But is that a good or a bad thing for you?”
“Hell if I know,” I said. “Max?”
“Nothing we can do until Tuesday.” He fiddled with his snazzy watch. “I’ve started the countdown. Lana has exactly forty-six hours, eleven minutes to move her people. In the meantime, you two need to book your flight to Paris and pack your bags. I’ll drive you to the airport, myself. One way or another, you will commence filming in Normandy by the first of August.”
There was a little more give and take, but that’s where we left it.
Roy and Lyle had worn out Max with the clubbing the night before, so he went upstairs to take a nap. Guido and I sat down to talk about old business. There were still some continuity issues with the Crooked Man film we had been working on since late spring. The air date wasn’t until fall Sweeps Week, but we had put in long hours to get it finished early so that we could leave for France as soon as the financing arrived.
We were happy with the film overall, but it still needed a final tweak for us to be completely satisfied with it. We made notes about what needed to be done, and then Guido headed off to San Francisco to use an editing bay at the studio of the network’s local affiliate. He planned to work late and bunk overnight with Lyle and Roy. If all went well, by Monday afternoon he might have a finished version to show me.
I saw him off, turned my phone back on and checked for a message from Kevin: nothing. I texted him, “Call.”
As soon as I sent the text, the phone buzzed. Not Kevin, though, but my cousin Susan. Would I mind if she arrived just a bit later than planned? She had met some interesting people during her week at wine camp-her sommelier course-and wanted to join them for a last glass of wine before everyone took off. I told her she should have fun. There were no specific plans for dinner, except that we would dine out and Uncle Max would pick up the check.
The locksmith finished his work, showed me what he had done, and handed me a bill that made my eyes roll back in my head. I dug my checkbook out of my bag, and paid him. He handed me a receipt and a fistful of nicely labeled keys to add to the growing collection. I pulled a bowl out of a kitchen cupboard and dumped them all into it.
Fergie, my assistant, hadn’t checked in to tell me what she had found about Thai Van, so I called her.