Showbiz, A Novel (25 page)

             
She slid out of the booth in a hurry, knocking over her untouched glass of wine and grabbing her coat. He reached for her hand.

             
“Don’t touch me,” she snapped. “Don’t ever touch me again.”

             
“It’s not what you think.”

             
“It’s exactly what I think.” She was crying. “I can’t believe I ever trusted you, Reilly.”

             
“Let me at least make sure you get home safely.”

             
Ever since the break-in at his apartment, he’d been paranoid and looking over his shoulder. He had managed to avoid mentioning anything about Scarlett’s involvement to Margolies, but the man was bound to know. It was probably the real reason she was fired, he thought.

             
“Oh, so one minute you’re killing my show and destroying my career, and the next minute you’re worried about me?” she said sarcastically.

             
“I told you, I’d fix this. Just...please don’t tell anyone,” he said lamely.

             
“You’re pathetic!” she said, turning on her heel and disappearing out the door.

             
Reilly put his head down on the table, ignoring the puddle of wine left from her spilled drink. He had never felt more deplorable and miserable in his life. There had to be a way out of it. At the moment, however, he had absolutely no idea how.

Scene 39

             
Candace pushed through the revolving doors of her office building toward the street. She was glad to be through with another long day. Her work hours had become consumed with working with her staff on prepping the online mechanism they’d use to solicit and collect votes. The vote would happen the week after next, once the final finalist, Reilly, had taken his turn. It was annoying that she’d need to go through the motions for another week, putting the complicated and labor intensive process in place, when it would all be a sham, anyway.

             
On her way to her waiting car, she literally bumped into Reilly, who was blocking her way.

             
“Oomph! Excuse me... Reilly Mitchell?” She looked at him closely. He looked like he hadn’t slept in a week, and she barely recognized him in a trench coat and baseball cap. “I almost didn’t recognize you. What the hell do you think you’re doing here?”

             
“I need to talk to you,” he said urgently.

             
“Are you out of your mind?” she said, continuing toward her car. “We can’t talk here.”

             
“Well, let’s go somewhere, then,” Reilly said.

             
“I can’t be seen with you.” She pulled open the door of the town car and slid in. Reilly threw himself in beside her.

             
“What are you
doing
?” She pushed him away.

             
“Please, I just need a few minutes.”

             
“Fine. But close the door.” Even as she said it, she reached over him and pulled it shut herself. They were safely hidden behind the car’s tinted windows.

             
“You look like shit, you know that?” she said, incredibly irritated that he would risk talking to her in public—in front of her office, no less. He needed to learn the rules, if he was going to survive at
her
Banner
.

             
“Candace...” he began as the car pulled out into traffic.

             
She pulled out her cell phone. “I’m calling Margolies.”

             
“No! Wait. Hear me out.”

             
She glared as he reached over and grabbed her cell phone out of her hand before she could make the call.

             
“You are way out of line, Reilly. It’s not too late to pull the plug.”

             
“I just need five minutes.”

             
“Fine. But we can’t talk here,” she whispered, indicating the driver, who was easily within earshot. “Wait.”

             
They sat quietly for the remainder of the drive downtown. Reilly’s fidgeting annoyed Candace to no end. She really needed a drink.

             
“Follow me,” she said, leading the way to her brownstone, looking both ways to see if they were being observed. She felt a little silly, but she couldn’t be too careful. She wouldn’t put it past Margolies to be spying on her.

             
Candace threw her briefcase against the wall and made her way to the open kitchen off the main living room. She poured herself a bourbon on ice, not bothering to offer one to Reilly. As she took a deep sip, she eyed him standing awkwardly on the edge of her living room.

             
He had seemed so confident when it all started. Now he looked nervous. Just another victim of the Margolies Effect. She finished off her bourbon and poured herself another, filling the glass to the brim. On an empty stomach she could already feel the bourbon working its magic.

             
She made her way over to the couch, taking her time so as not to spill her very full drink, and intentionally making him wait. It was a trick she’d learned from Margolies, a power play, and it seemed to be working.

             
She sank into the couch, put her feet on the coffee table, and slid over a stack of newspapers to make room for her feet. She considered asking him to sit down but decided not to. He wasn’t a welcome guest after all. It feels nice to be powerful, she thought. It has been a while.

             
“What’s so important that you had to see me and risk ruining everything?” she said, finally.

             
“That’s just it.” He took a seat on the edge of the chair across from her. “This plan. It’s ruining everything for me. It’s ruining my life.”

             
“I find that hard to believe,” she said, taking another long sip. “I’m offering you a life. A life as the chief theater critic at one of the largest paper in the world.” She spread her arms wide, the ice clinking in her glass.

             
He rubbed the stubble on his chin and looked at her with desperate eyes. “I know, but the truth is, I can’t go through with it.”

             
“What...did...you...just...say?” she said coldly.

             
“Well...um.” Reilly looked down at his hands.

             
She took her feet off the table and leaned toward him. “We will bury you, Reilly Mitchell. You have no idea how deep we will bury you.”

             
“Can we just talk about this? I thought you might understand,” he pleaded.

             
“Talk,” she said, sinking back into the couch.

             
He looked her in the eye. “Do you know that
Swan Song
is my girlfriend's show? Do you know how long she’s worked on it? There has to be another way.” He looked at her pleadingly.

             
“You think I give a shit about your girlfriend and her little show? This is way bigger than all of that. Didn’t you hear anything Margolies told you last week? We are giving you a chance to play with the big boys, to join the ranks of the Broadway elite.”

             
“I know, and I’m ready. I just thought...” His voiced tapered off.

             
“
What
did you think?”

             
“I just thought that maybe you didn’t want a corrupt critic, either. You’re a journalist at one of the top newspapers in the world. I see what Margolies has to gain from paying off the critic, but, if you don’t mind me asking, what do you gain?”

             
She stared at him. After a moment, she finished her second drink and started to stand up. She felt surprisingly wobbly. She must have poured more than she thought. She stayed seated, leaning forward, looking Reilly in the eye.

             
“That’s none of your business,” she said, but her tone belied her ebbing conviction. She’d be a fool to throw in her lot with Reilly and risk Margolies’ vengeance. But Reilly appealed to her better self. She set her drink down. She needed to focus. “It’s this or nothing,” she said. Margolies would be proud of her.

             
His face hardened. “I could still expose you.”

             
Candace suddenly didn’t like the direction the conversation was going. “No, you can’t. I know for a fact that you don’t have proof.”

             
“Maybe I do. Maybe you and Margolies and your thugs didn’t get everything.”

             
“You’re bluffing.” In her anger and drunkenness, she was slurring but didn’t care.

             
“Maybe. Maybe not.” He leaned forward and met her gaze. “What are you going to do about it?”

             
“I don’t believe you,” she said, looking away.

             
“Fine, don’t.”

             
She looked back at him carefully. He sounded like he was telling the truth, but she couldn’t be sure. Margolies would have made sure there was no proof. For once, she wished he was there.

             
Candace pulled her phone out of her pantsuit pocket. “I’m calling Margolies!”

             
Reilly whipped out his phone. “And I’m calling the
Manhattan Journal
.”

             
“You wouldn’t dare!” She was enraged. Not her best self after all.

             
“Try me,” he said with an edge to his voice she hadn’t heard before. His eyes were steely.

             
They had reached an impasse. A tense moment stretched on, neither of them willing to concede the point. Finally, Candace broke the silence.

             
“I know it won’t mean a lot coming from me,” she began with dull resignation in her voice, “but I respect your integrity.”

             
“Then help me,” Reilly said, the lessening tension in the room leaving them both fatigued.

             
“I wish I could,” Candace said honestly. “But I don’t need to tell you how powerful Margolies is. He has us both backed into a corner.”

             
She saw the light of an idea flash in Reilly’s eyes.

             
“He
thinks
he does.” Reilly got up and started pacing. Candace remembered having energy and hope like that, back in the day. “Margolies’ whole plan revolves around what gets printed in the paper—the
Swan Song
review, the contest winner, all of it. But only you can dictate what actually gets published.”

             
“So what are you saying?” she asked. “Tell him you’re going along with his deal but then print a positive
Swan Song
review…and
still
have you win the critic contest? I don’t see how that helps. He’d come after me. He’d come after you.”

             
“But what could he do to us? If he revealed your involvement in the Kanter corruption, he’d be implicated as well.”

             
She could see Reilly getting excited about his idea.“I need to think about it.” It made sense. Of course, it did. It was what she had wanted in the first place. An honest critic. But Margolies was a formidable force to be reckoned with, and she had yet to prove herself up to the challenge of crossing him.

             
Reilly came over to the couch and sat next to her, looking her in the eyes. “You know this is the right thing to do. For the public. For the
Banner
. Together we can beat Margolies.”

             
“I’ll need to think about.” She swirled the mostly melted ice cubes around her glass.

             
“You know this is the right thing to do,” said Reilly quietly. “It’s not too late—”

             
“Okay,” she said, almost inaudibly, putting up her hand, still not looking his way. “Okay, okay, okay,” she chanted, warming to the idea. She just wanted the whole mess to be behind her. “Now show yourself out. I’m tired.”

             
“Thank you!” Reilly said, giving her an awkward hug before standing up. “You won’t regret this.” He practically danced to the door.

             
Candace heard the door click behind him. She felt drained. She closed her eyes. That was the last thing she remembered, until the late-morning sun hit her face through her open curtains the next day.