23

“I think it’s wonderful,” Jasmine told Whit after she read his finished script. “The best thing you’ve ever written.”

“You always say that.”

“And I always mean it.” Then Jasmine got that look in her eyes, as if she were seeing something he couldn’t. “But this one’s different. Big-time different.”

“Big-time? You must be on Steven Soderbergh’s wavelength. So did you buy it when the girl turns out to be his daughter?”

“Oh yes.”

“I’m worried it’s too melodramatic.”

Jasmine shook her head. “With somebody else, maybe. Not how you’ll shoot it.”

Right away, he had Jasmine FedEx the script to Joe, who called back so early the next day he must have read it in one sitting. Joe’s verdict was essentially the same as Jasmine’s, only more meaningful for coming from a pro. “This thing has tremendous potential, Whit, just tremendous. Great parts, big canvas, killer ending. But it’ll cost to do it right.”

“You sound like that’s a bad thing.”

“No, no. Just more budget than we ever got for you before, that’s all. Tell you what, let me call in a couple favors, get some overnight reads on this.”

“From who? Your Seattle moguls?”

“Forget them—we can go to real people with this one. And if I’m right, you can color us green by week’s end.”

Money was what he meant, and Joe never kidded around about money. In Whit’s mind, it was almost as good as in the bank—a major payday, the kind he’d never had before. He hung up the phone flooded with optimism. Some divine intelligence must have led him back to the Northwest, to exactly the sort of script he needed to write, to all the pieces of his past gathering strength, to not just a comeback but a resurrection. And like his detective, it looked as though he had a grown daughter to boot. Life imitating art, as it so often did with him. Funny, how almost from the first he could imagine working with Laurienne. She was so different from Phoebe, yet with the same quick intelligence, empathy, and smarts about things that sparked his imagination. So reminiscent of his sister Becky, too. Without Becky in the house, he never would have grown into who he was.

When would it be official? When would Laurienne receive her confirmation? He called both her office and her apartment, getting only voice mail and her answering machine. Since she and Jasmine had met, he supposed it was all right now to leave his home phone number with Laurienne. He’d deal with how to break the news to Jasmine later. It shouldn’t be difficult, especially since she was so crazy about the script. She knew how much of himself went into these things.

Next he called Howard, his business manager in Los Angeles, and told him to find out what Phoebe’s fee would have been if she’d been credited for the Kiki script. Whit would even throw in a bonus. That ought to smooth over matters between them, pull her back to her real feelings for him. Which seemed necessary, now that they almost certainly had a daughter in common.

Arranging the money took a little maneuvering. Joe’s assistant had to track down Phoebe’s social security number. Howard had to call the Screenwriters Guild to ascertain fees for such an old script, and then Whit doubled the amount. Thirty thousand dollars was what it came to—not much by Hollywood standards, but a nice chunk of change for Phoebe. No need to go into fine-print particulars with her, quantifying his generosity with estimates of interest and residuals. And why bother changing the credit unless Phoebe brought it up again? She probably wouldn’t. This wasn’t her career; she didn’t belong to a union. If what she’d wanted to be was a writer, surely she’d have become one by now.

Whit wanted her check to look official, for tax purposes, so he told Howard to cut it on the Handheld Films account he kept for business expenses. It would come to Phoebe with a letter from Howard saying “Whit Traynor has directed me to issue this retroactive payment and bonus for writing services on Kiki.” Though for his own records, Whit directed Howard to apply the outlay for Phoebe as Watertight research, so it could be written off against Whit’s sure-to-be-hefty earnings on the film.

Howard put up a fuss. “There’s not enough cash in the Handheld account to cover it,” he said.

“I’ll have my broker wire the money,” Whit told him.

“I wish you’d wait until you get paid.”

What could you expect, with an accountant’s mind like Howard’s? No vision there, and Whit wasn’t about to explain himself, not to someone who worked for him. “Just wait a few days, then overnight it to her,” Whit said while he looked in the phone book for Phoebe’s business address.

With that settled, Whit called Brad, his broker. “I want to sell my BioIngenious shares.”

“How many?” Brad asked.

“Every one.”

“But you just bought them,” Brad said. “Sure you want to dump it all?”

“Yeah, the whole ball of wax.”

The amount equaled Phoebe’s fee almost to the dollar.

Whit knew full well he was breaking the first rule of filmmaking: Never use your own money. But when had he not broken the rules?

Two days later, Howard called about a letter from the tribe that had come to his office, where all Whit’s bills were delivered—something about sizable lease-rate hikes and assessments.

Whit exploded. “That bastard,” he said, meaning Carl Brown. “He promised rates were fixed for five years!”

Then, that evening, the blonde woman from Carl Brown’s party showed up at his door. She had to remind him of her name—Margaret.

“I hate to bother you,” Margaret said, “but we weren’t sure if you knew about the tenants meeting coming up.” She extended a lengthy outline in Whit’s direction. “Thought you might like to look over the agenda some of us put together.”

“Why would I want to do that?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” She shrugged. “So you can see what some of your neighbors think is the best way to handle the situation? So you can make objections, suggestions? Be part of the community?”

“Well, thank you very much,” Whit said. “I appreciate your concern. But I really don’t have the time now for community activities.” Let Margaret recycle the paper herself.

“Suit yourself,” Margaret told him. “I gather you usually do.”

What in the hell did she mean by that? Jesus, when did people around here get so rude? Just this morning, while he was filling up his tank, that waitress from the Tavern had looked up from screwing on her gas cap and glared at him. Then, on his way home, neither of the neighbors he passed on the Road seemed as glad as usual to see him. They didn’t even raise a palm from the wheel in the obligatory island wave.

That afternoon, Joe called.

“First the good news,” he said. “Three different studios are slobbering over this baby of yours.” He told Whit who had read the script—major players, every one. “We’ve got a bidding war going on here; it’s unbelievable. You’re the belle of the ball; the script’s a slam dunk.”

“So what’s the bad?” Whit asked.

“There’s no sweet way to put it, so I’ll just tell you flat out. Nobody thinks you can direct this up to potential.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“You’ve never had a budget big as what they want to throw at this one. They’re scared you’ll get in over your head, fuck it up.”

“Listen, I did my part. Convince them I won’t. Isn’t that your job?”

“Sorry, Whit. Not this time. And don’t give me any crap about Hollywood loyalty, because I’ve stood by you longer than anybody else in this town would. You can always shop it on your own, but when you’re done dicking around you’ll come to the same conclusion I have. Bottom line? You’ve got a choice. You can scrape the financing together, make some cheap version that nobody’ll see, and pay yourself peanuts.”

“Or I can go to the whorehouse with you.”

“Right, and earn more than you got for your last three movies combined.”

“Since when did this get to be just about the money?”

“Lemme see, what time is it? Oh, right. Since now.”

“I’ll talk to my agent.”

“Okay, talk to your agent—he’ll have an orgasm. I’m already assuming we’ll get you on board as a producer, tack on another fee there. But you’ll queer the deal with too many demands.”

“Like sole screenplay credit?”

“Yeah. Like that. Think about it. I need your answer fast.”

Whit slammed down the phone. So that’s how it was. Those pricks would sign up some hot young director who’d hire somebody else to rewrite the script, somebody with a big box office track record—the kind of hack who endorsed that screenwriting software. By the time they were done writing and shooting, Whit would be lucky to recognize anything of himself in the movie. He’d just be the guy who drew up the first blueprint, the one who spat out a script that begged for a more successful director’s vision to transform it. He’d just be one of the screenwriters, and in the end, screenwriters always got fucked. Always, always, always.