Pimp

Fourteen

“Executive Producer.”

Angela rolled the words round in her mouth, like a cinematic blow job, but one she’d initiated. She checked the mirror, and fuck, she already looked different. She had a sharp, stately look, like Michelle Obama — well, Michelle Obama with makeup. Hmm, maybe Executive Producing and acting was just the beginning. Maybe after a few blockbusters, and Oscars, she could announce she’s leaving acting and producing to embark on a career in politics. Hey, if a foreign bodybuilding maid-fucker could be governor, why not her?

With producers and a studio on board, all they needed was a writer. Angela, wanting to flex her power as Executive Producer, announced to Darren Becker, “I want to bring in my guy.”

They were in Darren’s home office, posters from Casablanca, Vertigo, and Titanic of course. Were they in every producer’s office? Larry’d had the same posters in his office.

“Who’s your guy?”

Angela was lost, didn’t actually have anyone in mind, then on a whim, said, “He wrote a script I was involved with while I was working for Larry.”

“Whoa, I told you, no Larry,” Darren said. “The guy’s the kiss of death. If Larry gets involved this project will sink so deep James Cameron won’t be able to find it.”

“This has nothing to do with Larry,” Angela said. “It’s the screenwriter of a script I loved, but the project fell apart. Spaced Out.”

“Who’s the writer?”

“Bill Moss.”

“Never heard of him.”

“Exactly,” Angela said. “I know Larry didn’t pay him anything.”

“He wrote it on spec?” Darren laughed. “Moron.”

“Right,” Angela said. “So if we offer him to write for minimum he’ll be over the moon.”

“Love it,” Darren said. “You’re already thinking with your producer’s hat on. Try to keep costs down and fuck the writer, that’s the way to do it. But how do you know he’s right for this? I mean Spaced Out was a space movie, right?”

“I’m telling you,” Angela said, “it’s the cosmic twin of Bust.”

“I’ll get coverage on the script asap,” Larry said, “but Lions-gate has some ideas themselves, heard Ethan Coen’s name kicked around. But Coen’s quote is a fortune. They’ll like that we can lowball this... what’d you say his name is?”

“Moss,” Angela said. “Bill Moss.”

“Mr. Spec,” Darren said, and left the room shaking his head and laughing.

Angela knew it would put her in total control of the project if she got the job for her guy, but how to get him? Like the old joke, the bimbo goes to Hollywood and sleeps with... the writer! Hey, they say there’s truth in every joke, right?

Angela was imagining the look on Larry’s face when he read that Bill Moss was writing Bust. It would be another kick in the balls, and that’s the type of ego-driven head game that the New Angela thrived on. That’s right, Angela was a player now. Suck on that, Larry Reed.

But this was what an Executive Producer took care of. Smooth and cajole. Get them together in a room and she’d weave her witchy spell. Getting Bill on the phone, not so easy. Had to go through a manager and two agents, but Angela slalomed through the obstacles like a Hollywood pro.

They met at the Chateau Marmont. On the way in she spotted several hot Hollywood couples: Will and Jada, George and Amal, Leo and Tobey, the Teen Mom and James Deen. Clint was at a table with some young blonde, and was that Al Pacino in the corner or was it some other guy with too much plastic surgery? Angela made these star sightings with her peripheral vision, of course. She wasn’t some wannabe; she was one of them now. Let them stare at her, and she knew they were. They were all thinking, Is that Brandi Love, the new A-List producer I heard all the buzz about? She was surprised Leo wasn’t rushing over, asking for an autograph.

She sat at the table, and in true Hollywood fashion ball-busted the waitress, demanding room-temperature water with a slice of organic lime. When the waitress brought the water she had a sip, then grimaced and said, loud enough that those around her and the lurking paparazzi, could hear, “This is not room temperature. It’s seventy-seven degrees here, and this water is seventy or below.”

The waitress, an obviously frustrated, jealous actress, apologized and went for a new glass.

Then in walked a guy, long hair uncombed, unshaven, wearing old jeans and a hoodie. Was the restaurant about to be robbed?

“I’m Bill Moss,” he announced.

Didn’t have the A-list look Angela was expecting, but what did she expect from a mere writer? She was the Executive Producer and he was merely the talent. It was okay for him to look like shite. Besides, Angela had screwed worse — she saw a flash of Max Fisher, fake hair melting, dripping down his forehead, but struck it from her mind quickly.

Her first words to Bill Moss: “You are going to be shit rich.”

It was a grabber.

First his grim face nearly smiled, then settled into constant disbelief, and he said, “Yeah, right, and the check’s in the mail, just like Larry Dickfuck Reed, when he promised me Guild minimum and the first rewrite, and he didn’t pay me jack shit. He jerked me around for years when that project was in development, told me it was my ticket out of the telemarketing cubicle, and guess what, I’m still in the telemarketing cubicle.”

She turned on the full-heat voltage, right in his crotch space, asked, “You want to hear me out or not?”

Managing to make that sound like, “You want to fuck me every which way but loose?”

The waitress brought a water. Angela sipped it and muttered, “Acceptable.”

Bill ordered a lemonade.

Then Angela said, “I just need your focus.” Again with the subtext of, Put it to me, big boy.

You want to hook a writer, quote lines from his past glory, can’t fail. It didn’t. He actually let his body move from tense to interested, asked, “So you really liked Spaced Out, huh?”

She looked on the brink of multiple orgasm, gushed, “Liked... liked? I got down on my knees and worshipped that script. When the alien says to the hero, ‘I feel your pain. Your pain is my pain,’ I wept buckets.”

“Wow, really?”

Sold.

She ran an outline of the Bust story, then the hook, “It needs a writer of extraordinary sensitivity and vision to bring this to glory.”

She thought she may have overpitched but there are two types who will buy this shite fully — writers and wannabe writers.

He was on board. Asked, “That fucking piece of shit Larry Reed won’t be involved, right?”

“No, I guarantee it.”

“Am I gonna have full freedom?”

She smiled, asked, “Is Barack black?”

Bill was getting into it, promised, “I’m right on this sucker.”

She fluttered her eyelashes, said shyly, “You are the man, Bill.”

And he fucking believed that too.

She had asked him, “How do you define film?”

Not that she gave a toss but she felt it was vague enough to sound like she knew what she was asking and because he was the kind of gobshite who loved abstracts.

He didn’t disappoint, went into a long spiel about post-structuralism and the use of prism as a channel to postmodern parody.

She battled not to yawn.

In an attempt to be clearer, he tried, “The writer Stuart Kaminsky, his son Peter wrote, ‘If there was a hell, he had a one-way ticket, and if there was any argument he had with Satan about the matter, all Satan had to do was say, “Roll the film and show that scene from the bathroom.” ’ ”

She couldn’t help it, went, “Wot?” in faux Cockney as the whole gig seemed to require absurdity.

He said, “The world is divided into those who hear this and nod and those who ask, ‘What bathroom scene?’ ”

What choice did she have? She nodded.

Later, leaving the restaurant, Angela called Darren on her cell and gushed, “I got Moss.”

“Great news,” Darren said, “and the timing’s perfect. I got great coverage on Spaced Out, and I agree, Moss is perfect for Bust. Also, I heard through Lionsgate that for some reason Ethan Coen doesn’t want to be in business with me. But, hey, it’s Ethan’s loss. I’ll be sure to thank him when I win my Oscar.”

When Angela clicked off, she saw a familiar face, staring at her in the lobby of the Chateau. Was it Lee Child?

The guy saw her noticing him and rushed away. Angela went after him, but when she got near the escalators, he’d either gone into an elevator or left.

The truth was setting in. It was actually him — the man who’d shot her and left her for dead in Canada was now here in L.A. Definitely not Lee Child, but when she found him he’d wish he fookin’ was.