Whitehorse (39 page)

Ed adjusted his glasses and took the
Post
from Johnny's PR manager. He scanned the article. "
Had
proof. We all know that whatever proof Dolores dug up about Foster burned up in that crash, along with Dolores."

Robert Anderson arrived. Joining Edwin and Jack, he slapped them both on the back and smiled. "Good news. I just got a call from the assistant DA. Ted Weir informs me that Johnny's blood tests just came back. No trace of drugs, and his alcohol level was well below limit."

"Great," Edwin groaned. "Now the only thing they can charge him with is manslaughter due to reckless driving."

"Fullerman, you're such a pessimist."

"Easy for you to say. If Johnny gets charges slapped against him, you double your fees and spend the next year charging him a thousand bucks an hour to defend him. What the hell do we get?" He looked pointedly at
Anderson
. "A big fat zero because no producer or director or advertising firm will touch him with a ten-foot pole until he wins his case."

"I'm glad to know you have my best interests at heart, Fullerman." Johnny stepped out of the library, a cup of hot coffee in one hand, a copy of the
Washington Post
in the other.

Edwin shrugged and spread his arms. "You know I love you, Johnny, but let's face it. You're worth a million bucks a year to me."

Johnny stepped aside as the men filed by him into the library, where a table with coffee, juice, and danishes awaited. Edwin made for the refreshments immediately, loading his coffee with three spoons of sugar, while Jack grabbed up two sweet rolls and headed for a chair near the window.
Anderson
walked directly to a chair and sat down, placing his briefcase by his feet, his shrewd eyes watching Johnny as Johnny closed the library door, then headed for a chair next to his.

His mouth partially full of raspberry danish, Edwin said, "Wanna tell us now why you dragged our asses out of bed at six this morning and why this meeting couldn't wait until this afternoon? I do have other clients, you know."

"You wouldn't know it, hearing you talk a few minutes ago," Johnny replied.

"Don't get cocky,
Whitehorse
. I'm having lunch with Brad Pitt next week. If I'm lucky I could be representing him soon."

"Tell me you're going to have lunch with DiCaprio and then I'll be impressed."

"Swine. Should I remind you that before you signed on with me you were actually considering modeling for romance-book covers?"

"As I recall,
you
came knocking on
my
door, Ed. You knew a good thing when you saw it."

"Right. If you'd stayed with that other agent you'd be doing nothing but cheap butter commercials like Fabio, wiggling your ass at romance-book conventions and giving a lot of horny old women postmenopausal orgasms."

"You're just jealous, Ed." Jack laughed and blew into his hot coffee.

"What have I got to be jealous about?" Edwin rubbed his bald head as if it were Aladdin's golden lamp.

"Some of the sexiest men in history have been bald. Yul Brynner—"

"Savalas," Jack added, laughing harder.

"That
Star Trek
captain, what's his name. Patrick something. Face it. Bald is in, gentlemen. Eat your hearts out."

Johnny listened to his companions spar a while longer as he sipped his hot coffee and thought just how to delicately break the news that he intended to marry Leah Starr. They wouldn't be pleased, he surmised, glancing from one to the other.

But they wouldn't be the only ones. Not by a long shot.

He set his coffee aside, rubbed his sleepy, burning eyes, and took a deep breath. Raising his voice to be heard over the men's cajoling, he announced: "Gentleman, I'm getting married."

Sudden silence, then they all asked in a woeful tone: "To whom?"

"Leah, of course. Who else? If she agrees, we're flying to Vegas day after tomorrow."

Ed's eyes widened behind his wire-rimmed glasses and his face flushed with hot color. There were flecks of white icing on his lips that fell like little snowflakes onto the front of his suit as he stared down at Johnny. "Shit," he groaned. "I was afraid you were going to say that."

Jack, balancing his rolls on one knee, stared off into space, as he always did when he was attempting to contain his mortification over a sudden turn of events.

Anderson
, on the other hand, reached for the pocket tape recorder he always kept within grabbing distance and began to murmur directives for his secretary into it.

"Let me understand this precisely." Edwin attempted to swallow his partially chewed pastry. "You've just sauntered into this room and announced that you are marrying Senator Foster's daughter. Or perhaps I misunderstood. Dammit, Johnny, please tell me I've misunderstood."

Jack shook his head. "You didn't misunderstand our client, Edwin. The son-of-a-bitch said he's getting married day after tomorrow. To the senator's daughter, no less. Where are my nitroglycerin tablets. Shit, I feel a coronary coming on."

Pushing the Pause button on the recorder,
Anderson
scribbled notes on a pad and said, "This doesn't give me much time to write up a pre-nup."

"There won't be a pre-nup," Johnny replied.

They all glared at him and said in unison, "No pre-nup? What are you, crazy?"

"Have you any idea what you're worth,
Whitehorse
?"

"I believe you said close to a hundred million a few days ago."

"That's a conservative number. Whitehorse Jeans alone—"

"There will be no pre-nup."

Edwin tossed the danish and coffee into the trash, removed his glasses, and nervously cleaned them with his silk tie. "You need your head examined. That's it, isn't it? The wreck jarred something loose."

Jack dragged his chair in front of Johnny, sat and propped his elbows on his knees. "We have to talk, Johnny. A man in your position just doesn't up and get married like that." He snapped his fingers under Johnny's nose. "Have you any idea what this could do to your career? You're the most eligible and desired bachelor in this country. Your
Fifth Avenue
posters alone rake in two million a year. Every damned adolescent girl in this country and
Europe
has got that frigging photograph over her bed. Women will be throwing themselves off of buildings."

Johnny laughed and crossed his legs.

"Don't laugh." Jack shook his head. "I'm serious. They buy your jeans for their boyfriends just so they can imagine they are peeling them off of you."

"Marriage didn't hurt Elvis or McCartney. Hasn't tarnished Cruise."

"They will build effigies in Leah's image and burn them. Every wacko fan out there will be after her."

"Besides all of that," Edwin interjected. "You spring this a week after Dolores is killed. How is that going to look? You bury one
fiancée,
then turn right around and marry someone else?"

"I wasn't in love with Dolores. That bullshit that she was my
fiancée
was her doing, not mine. It would have been a cold day in hell before I married her."

Laying aside his notepad and tape recorder, Robert asked, "Have you informed Doctor Starr that you intend to accuse her father of attempted murder, and that you had in your hands the proof that you needed that he
's
heavily involved with Formation Media? Just how and when do you intend to break the news to her that you have every intention of putting her father in prison? On your wedding night?"

"That's it." Edwin shook his head and rubbed the lenses a second time. "You're going to marry the woman before the shit hits the fan, aren't you? Because you know that as soon as you accuse her father of corruption—"

"Don't forget murder," Jack said.

"—she's history. For God's sake, Johnny, what are you doing? All these years you've kept your nose clean; you move back to Ruidoso and all hell breaks loose. The most desirable women in the world are banging on your door and you up and marry some woman who smells like horse shit and has a retarded kid."

Johnny left the chair so fast Edwin had no time to react. Johnny grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and flung him partially over a desk, sending Edwin's glasses flying against the wall and scattering paperweights and magazines over the floor.

"I don't think I like your attitude, Ed. Need I remind you that I pay you fifteen percent of every cent I make to kiss my ass?"

Jack and Robert moved up behind him, their faces almost as white as Edwin's.

"Sorry," Ed managed, doing his best to remain calm.

"You're about to be even sorrier, you greedy son-of-a-bitch. Now take your goddamn BMW and Rolex watch that I bought you and get the hell out of my sight. You're fired."

His green eyes widening and his face totally colorless, Edwin gave Johnny a weak smile. "You don't mean that, J. W. Sheesh, I didn't mean—"

Johnny dragged him off the desk and shoved him toward the door. "You're finished. Get out."