The Inheritors (8 page)

I hit the button. “Barbara.”

“I love you,” she said.

“You’re nuts,” I laughed.

“No, I mean it. I love you,” she said earnestly. “You’re there. Like you’re solid. Always there.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Great!” she answered. “I’m having a ball.”

“What are you doing?”

“Right now I’m having breakfast in your bed. I hope you don’t mind crumbs. And I had them roll in the TV and I’m watching it.”

I was curious. “What are you watching?”

“An old Jana Reynolds movie. God, she could really sing.”

“Yeah,” I said. Absently I hit the remote on my desk. Sinclair TV came on. A quiz show. I hit the other button. The next set came on. The Lone Ranger. Par for midday. “What channel?”

“Don’t tell Daddy,” she laughed. “ABC.”

I hit the button twice and Jana Reynolds came on just in time to be cut by the commercial. I turned off the sound.

“I like it here,” she said. “One of the waiters even called me Mrs. Gaunt. I may never go home.”

“Sure,” I said, watching the screen.

“What time are you coming home?”

“Why?”

“I ordered a special dinner for us,” she said. “Caviar, Chateaubriand, pommes soufflés, Dom Perignon, candlelight, the works.” She giggled. “I even ordered a fantastic negligee from one of the shops in the hotel.”

“You sound very domestic,” I said, my eyes still on the screen. The commercial went on, forever. “I hope it wasn’t too much trouble.”

“None at all. As a matter of fact, I think I boosted your prestige a hundred percent in this place.”

“At room service prices, baby, I could live without it.”

“Put it on your expense account,” she said. “Tell Daddy that you’re entertaining someone very special to the network. A big stockholder. After all, mother left me fifteen percent of Sinclair Broadcasting.”

“You twisted my arm. Now get off the line, I’ve got to get back to work.”

“I love you,” she said, and the phone clicked off.

I put down the receiver as Jana Reynolds came back on. The movie was about fifteen years old and she was in her prime then, about twenty-five years old but still playing nineteen and making you believe it. Too bad she couldn’t go on playing nineteen forever.

But time caught up with her. Time, and three bad marriages, and booze, and drugs, and near suicides. It’s like at a certain point someone turned off the juice. You got too much talent, baby, now take some of the shit. And she got it all.

Films were out. They passed her by. There were other nineteen-year-olds now. But somehow in spite of everything, her voice held up. Occasionally, she did concerts and nightclubs. The public still loved her and would come out in droves to see her in person, but then something would happen and the whole thing would blow in a front-page blast of headlines. She was bombed and wouldn’t show up or if she did, she was falling down and in no condition to perform. But the headlines were there. They were always there. She was still a star. Even her discharge in bankruptcy was front page.

I stared up at the screen. She was still a star. I was reaching for the phone even before the thought crystallized in my head. A star. Wasn’t that just what I was asking Jack to find for me?

“Now I know you’re crazy!” he yelled.

“Who’s her agent?”

“She hasn’t any,” he answered. “There isn’t one that would touch her. She’s involved in lawsuits with everyone she’s ever had.”

“What’s the packaging fee on a hundred-thousand-dollar show every week?”

“Ten grand per,” he answered promptly.

“For ten thousand dollars a week you won’t handle her?”

There was a pause. “I’m your boy,” he said. “For ten thousand a week I’d handle Adolf Hitler.”

Spoken like a true agent. If nothing else, he was dependable. I never got to that dinner Barbara had planned for us. Instead, that night, I was on a plane to the coast.

CHAPTER NINE

It was three months later when I ducked into the alley behind the theater on Vine Street where the show would be broadcast. It was five minutes to five, Pacific Standard Time. In five minutes it would be eight o’clock in New York and we would be on the air.

Inside was a madhouse. Tension was crackling like the whip in a jockey’s hand on the home stretch. I cut behind several men who were moving scenery and made my way to the wings. There were men and wires and cameras everywhere. The stage manager was whispering into his chest mike to the director up in the booth.

I peeked out into the theater. It was jammed. The curtain was still down, but they watched the stage with an air of expectancy.

The call came while I was still peering at the house. “Three minutes to airtime. Places everybody.” I turned back.

The stagehands who had been adjusting the set came running off. The wing cameras rolled into place and set.

The director came out of the booth for a final check. He nodded, but I don’t think he even saw me.

He came to a dead stop. “Where’s Jana?”

The stage manager stared at him. He half turned, then turned back to him. “She was here a minute ago.”

“You fool!” the director screamed in a shrill voice. “She’s not here now. Get her!”

A stagehand stopped. “I just saw her go back into her dressing room.”

“Get her! Get her!” The director was hysterical now.

“Two minutes to airtime,” the overhead speakers blared.

The stage manager pulled off his headset, dropping it on the floor, ran toward her dressing room. Several of the grips followed him. I was right behind them.

The stage manager was knocking on the door. “Two minutes to airtime, Miss Reynolds.”

There was no answer.

He knocked again. “Two minutes—”

I pushed my way through the crowd in front of the door. “Open it,” I snapped.

He tried the door. He turned toward me, a sick look on his face. “I—I can’t. It’s locked.”

I pushed him out of the way. I put my foot against the door and kicked it off its lock. I followed the door into the room.

She stood there, staring at me, a bottle in one hand, a glassful of liquor in the other. “Get out!” she screamed. “I’m not going on!”

I knocked the glass from her hand as she raised it toward her lips and the bottle from the other as she tried to put it behind her. I caught her hand as it came wildly at me with an outstretched claw and pulled her to me.

“Let me go, you son of a bitch!” she screamed, twisting viciously, kicking at me. “I want a drink!”

I held on to her. “No booze. That was our deal. You’re going on!”

“I will not, you cocksucker!” she spit into my face. “I’m not going out there. You tricked me! They didn’t come to hear me sing, they came to eat me alive! They came to see a freak.”

I let her have it. Open palm, right across the face. It made a crack like thunder in the small room and she spun across it and wound up half on and half off the couch against the wall.

The overhead speakers blared, “One minute to air time!”

I crossed the room and pulled her off the couch. She stared up at me, naked fear in her eyes. “You’re going on, you cunt! I didn’t pull you out of the gutter to go to black at airtime. You stand me up you don’t talk to lawyers, you talk to your undertaker!”

I slapped her again just to let her know I meant it. Then I turned and dragged her after me toward the stage. The crowd in the doorway parted silently to let us pass.

The crawl was already on the monitors when we reached the wings, the announcer’s voice came from the speakers. “STV proudly presents… JANA REYNOLDS… LIVE!”

She twisted toward me. Her voice was shaking. “I can’t… I can’t… I’m frightened!”

“That makes two of us,” I said, turning her toward the stage. I put my foot on her ass and shot her out over the wires and cables to the center stage.

It was a miracle she didn’t fall. She just had time to straighten up and glance at me. I grinned and gestured a “thumbs up” at her. She turned toward the audience as the curtain arced open and up.

The orchestra went into her theme song and for almost a minute you couldn’t hear her voice because of the thunderous applause. They all knew the song. “Sing from the Heart.” It had been her very own since she was fifteen years old.

I stood there watching her. It was like not to be believed. Whatever else was wrong and crooked inside her it wasn’t her voice. Maybe not as young as it once was, maybe not as strong. But there was a magic there. A beauty, a sadness, a pain and a kind of joy too. For fourteen minutes until the first commercial, she just stood there and sang.

When she came off, she was sopping wet and half fell into my arms. I could feel her shaking. The audience was roaring. “They liked me,” she whispered almost as if she couldn’t believe it.

“They loved you.” I turned her back to the stage. “Go back out there and take a bow.”

She looked up at me. “But it will throw the timing of the show off.”

“To hell with it,” I said, pushing her toward the stage. “The name of the show is ‘Jana Reynolds… Live.’”

She went back out and took her bow. When she came back, she was glowing.

“Now get back to your dressing room for your change,” I said.

She kissed me quickly on the cheek and hurried off. I looked after her. I never told her that her bow didn’t get on the air. The only thing that television never interrupts is the commercial.

Then I went looking for the couple we had hired to keep an eye on her. I finally found them alone in a small viewing room at the rear of the stage. She was jumping up and down in his lap. They were too engrossed to hear me enter.

I crossed the room swiftly, put a hand under each arm, and lifted her.

“What the hell—” the man said.

The girl sprawled on the floor.

I looked at him as he tried to zip up his pants. “Where were you when the lights went out?” I asked.

“We got her to the theater,” he said sullenly.

The girl was on her feet now. “You weren’t supposed to leave her alone. Not for a minute,” I said.

“She was all right when we put her in her dressing room,” she said.

“That’s just it. You weren’t supposed to leave her,” I said. “You’re both fired.”

Twenty minutes later I had a new pair of watchdogs. Carefully I laid it out for them. They nodded. They knew the score. This wasn’t the first time they had a job like this. This was Hollywood.

“After the second show, you take her right back to the spa,” I said. The first show was beamed to the eastern and central time zones, there was still a second show to do for the coast. “You bring her back here on Tuesday for rehearsals and you stay with her. She does nothing alone. Eat, sleep, or sex without one of you there, understand?”

I looked at my watch. It was a quarter to six. I’d have to get moving if I wanted to make the seven o’clock flight back to New York.

I stopped and looked up at one of the monitors as I was leaving. She was singing again and she looked absolutely beautiful.

Suddenly I was tired. I didn’t know how many more of these miracles I could take. I could sleep for a week. But there wasn’t time.

I wanted to be in New York tomorrow morning for the flash Nielsens.

CHAPTER TEN

I took a pill to sleep on the plane, but it did no good. I couldn’t turn off my head. There was still so much to do. One show, one night even if it did turn out a big winner didn’t make a network. And in the back of my head a trouble was ticking.

It was nothing I could put my finger on. It was all too easy. Maybe that was it. The hostess came up. “Is there anything else I can do for you, Mr. Gaunt?”

I turned on a smile. “You can get me another double martini.”

“But you already had one double, Mr. Gaunt,” she said. “Regulations allow only two drinks per.”

“I know that,” I said. “But the way I look at it, we’re not breaking any rules. I still had only one drink.”

She hesitated a moment, then nodded. I watched her walk away and giving up the thought of sleep, I opened the attaché case. I placed the papers on the table in front of me.

The drink was cold and dry. I lit a cigarette and dragged on it. If only I could lose the feeling I had that something was wrong. I stared at the papers without really seeing them.

On the top, everything seemed okay. The fall schedule was shaping up. It would be the best that Sinclair had ever put on. Maybe not the best, but the most commercial. I had kept all the solid shows, the good ratings, but the problem had been there were not enough of them. About seventy percent of the fall programming would have to be new.

It had meant a complete change of direction for the network. It also meant a change of thinking for most of the executive personnel and more than half of them couldn’t cut it. That meant in addition to everything else I would have to find replacements for them if I wanted to take advantage of the resignations locked in my desk.

To this point, Sinclair had been proud of the fact that their programming won the most kudos and critical acclaim. They boasted of more Peabody Awards than any other network. What they didn’t brag about was the fact that they also had the lowest ratings and billings. The new fall schedule was designed to change all that. I never knew any Peabody Award that sold an extra cake of soap.

From now on, the critics could cry in their beer because there would no longer be such shows as “Great Adventures in American History.” How many times could Washington cross the Delaware and who cared? Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms, all three of them together if they came down from heaven or wherever they were and conducted the weekly “Sinclair Philharmonic Hour” couldn’t entice a single viewer from “Gunsmoke” or “77 Sunset Strip.” “The Classic Repertory Theater” didn’t stand a chance against Red Skelton or Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca.

The critics would have to be satisfied with such programs as Chic Renfrew in the “Park Avenue Squatters” (a story of a Kentucky moonshining family who inherited a fortune); “The Flyboys” (a new kind of private-eye story involving jet pilots who fly their plane to adventure); and “The Sandman,” a story of a western bounty hunter.

There were other goodies in store for them too. An hour-long country and western music program, originating in Nashville beamed right at the heartlands; “White Fang,” a dog story designed to yap at the heels of Lassie and Rin Tin Tin; and last but not least, “Sally Starr’s Family,” America’s favorite daytime soap opera now moving to prime time, three nights a week in color.