Agent to the Stars Part 20

The door opened and a tall man in a lab coat came through.

"Tom, this is Doctor Paul Adams," Mizuhara said. "He's the one that worked on Mich.e.l.le."

We shook hands. "How is she?" I asked.

"She's not good," Adams said. "We don't know how long she was without oxygen, but we think she went right up to the limit -- five or six minutes. Her heart activity is fine, but we haven't been able to get her to breathe on her own. Her brain activity is very low; I think it's very likely she's probably suffered some permanent brain damage. She's in a comatose state now. I think we can expect her to come out of it at some point, and then we can judge the extent of her brain injuries."

"'At some point,'" I said. "What does that mean?"

"Hard to say," Adams said. "She could come out of it later today, or it could be weeks. It just depends. The concussion she got," he pointed to the bandage, "doesn't help any, although it's actually the least of her problems; it was fairly superficial. In and of itself, it would have knocked her out, but she would have come out of it with nothing more than a b.u.mp and maybe some st.i.tches. It was the lack of oxygen to the brain that's the real problem. If you don't mind me asking, what the h.e.l.l was she doing with latex all over her face?"

"They were making a mask of her face for a movie," I said.

"So that's how they do it," Adams said. "Well, I'm no expert on these things, but I think they might want to find another way to do it from here on out. That mask of hers just about killed her."

"Dr. Adams," I said. "This may be offensive, but I hope you won't be going to the press with any of this."

"You're right, it is offensive," Adams said. "But I understand your concern. The staff that worked with me all understand that it's more important for Miss Beck to recover than it is to be shown in the National Enquirer with a tube down her throat."

"Thanks," I said.

"Of course," Adams said, and looked back at Mich.e.l.le. "Don't expect too much from her over the next couple of days," he said. "But if you can, talk to her. Let her hear familiar voices. That helps as often as not. If she has any family, you should contact them and see if they can come as well."

"I'm afraid she has no family," I said. "Although she has a dog. Would it be okay to bring him in to see her?"

"I'd really rather not," Adams said. "It's a question of hygiene. Also of state law. Unless it's a guide dog, of course." We shook hands again and he departed.

"I have to join Dr. Adams," Mizuhara said. "Carl should be arriving any minute now and we want to be there to meet him." We shook hands as well, and he left.

I stayed in the room, staring at Mich.e.l.le. Miranda was in the hall, feeling guilty about Mich.e.l.le's situation, but if anyone had to shoulder the blame, I felt it should be me. If I had gone with her rather than Miranda, this might not have happened. Mich.e.l.le and I would be on our way to Mondo Chicken, her to sulk in her oriental chicken salad, and me doing my best to cheer her up. It occurred to me that if no one was closer to Mich.e.l.le than me, than the reverse was also probably true as well. I couldn't think of anyone I was closer to than her. Except possibly Miranda, who I had managed to drag into this mess as well.

I sighed to myself, and rested my head back against the wall. I had really managed to screw this one up.

After a few minutes, there was a knock on the door. Miranda poked her head through. "Carl is here," she said.

I went out to see Carl, Mizuhara and Adams chatting about something or other. Carl turned to me when he saw me. "Tom," he said, shaking my shoulder. "I'm terribly sorry. But you did right to call me. Mike and I go back a ways."

"So I heard," I said. "Los Angeles really is a small town."

"Yes it is," Carl said. "Tom, Mike and I were trying to decide what we should do next. My first inclination is to move Mich.e.l.le closer, perhaps to Cedars, but Mike and Dr. Adams think she'd best off here."

"If it's a question of the quality of care..." Dr. Adams began.

"No, not at all," Carl said. "But in the next 24 hours you're going to be dealing with things you've never had to deal with before. Photographers posing as maintenance workers and nurses. Fan vigils. Reporters trying to interview everyone down to the cafeteria staff. It's a mess."

"We've managed to keep the lid on it so far," Mizuhara said. "And I think Dr. Adams will agree with me when I say that the best thing for the patient is continuity of care. Additionally, I'm not comfortable with moving her now. She's stable at the moment but she's certainly not out of the woods."

"We'd probably cause more of a commotion moving her than just keeping her here, anyway," Adams said.

"Tom?" Carl said. "What do you want to do?"

"I don't think I'm really qualified to answer that," I said.

All three of them stared at me for a minute. I suddenly became very uncomfortable.

"What?" I asked.

"You don't know, do you?" Carl said.

"Know what?" I said, looking at Carl, then Adams, and then Mizuhara.

"Tom, we had her insurance send over her information," Mizuhara said. "Discreetly, of course; I handled the request myself. Most people have someone listed who has the right to make medical decisions for them if they are unable to make the decisions themselves. Usually it's a relative or spouse or a longtime companion."

"Sure," I said. I'd filled out insurance forms in my own time; if anything ever happened to me, my mother would have to decide whether to unplug me or not.

"Well, Miss Beck doesn't have any of those," Mizuhara said.

"All right," I said. "So?"

"Tom," Carl said. "The person who Mich.e.l.le authorized to make medical decisions for her is you."

I found a chair and sat down.

"You really didn't know?" Adams asked.

I shook my head. "No. No, I didn't."

"I'm sorry," Adams said. "It's a hard job to have."

"Tom," Carl said, again. "What do you want to do?"

I covered my face with my hands and just sat there for a few minutes, awash in guilt and grief. I felt my actions had put Mich.e.l.le here to begin with; now I was being asked to make decisions that could affect the rest of her life. I was going to need a really good cry when this was all over.

But not right now. I put my hands down in my lap.

"We'll keep her here," I said.

Now if I could just figure the rest of it out.

Chapter Fifteen.

The leak, of course, was as impossible to track as it was inevitable to occur. Sometime after the 2 am s.h.i.+ft change, one of the janitors or nurses or doctors. .h.i.t the phones, waking up friends and relatives because, after all, how often does the hottest female star in the United States come into your hospital in a coma? At 3:35 in the morning, one of these friends or relatives called KOST-FM and requested to hear "Your Eyes Tell Me," the hit theme song from Summertime Blues, because she heard Mich.e.l.le Beck had died. After the song played, another listener called in to say no, she wasn't dead, but she was in a coma, and she had heard that Mich.e.l.le's corneas were slated to be given to Marlee Matlin, who was, after all, deaf.

KOST happened to be the favorite morning radio station of Curt McLachlan, KABC's morning news director, who was, at 3:35, getting into his car to head to work. The first thing he did was switch off "Your Eyes Tell Me," because it was, by any objective standard, the single worst pop song of the decade. The second thing he did was get on the car phone with his counterpart at Good Morning America, which, at 6:37 Eastern Time, was just a few minutes away from air. GMA's news director screamed at the video morgue to pull up clips of Mich.e.l.le, and at some poor, groggy intern, 19 years old and two days into her stint of slave labor, to ready a blurb for the hosts to announce on the air. Once McLachlan got off the phone with Good Morning America, he called his own a.s.signment editor out of a sound sleep and told him to get working on a package. He flipped on the radio just in time to hear about the corneas going to Marlee Matlin. This prompted another round of phone calls.

News of Mich.e.l.le's death and/or coma hit the airwaves at 7:03 Eastern, 4:03 Pacific. The folks at GMA had the presence of mind to stress that the report was from unconfirmed "radio sources". It hardly mattered. Newspaper and magazine entertainment editors up and down the Eastern seaboard of the United States leapt from their breakfasts and called reporters at home, hollering their demand for verification. It was the biggest potential star death since River Phoenix spasmed his life away in front of the Viper Club.

My phone first rang at 4:13 am. It was the gossip columnist from the New York Daily News, looking for verification. I hung up on her and disconnected my phone. Less than a minute later, my cel phone rang. Then the other. I turned them both off and then realized my third cel phone was lost in the woods where Joshua had left it. I reconnected my home phone, which immediately started ringing; I picked up the receiver, dropped it back in the cradle, and then picked up again almost instantly, before it had a chance to ring again. I called Miranda, apologized to her for waking her up, and told her to meet me in the office. Then I called Carl, who, as it happened, was already up and on the phone.

"I have the New York Times on call waiting, Tom," he said. "They said they couldn't reach you directly."

"I disconnected my phone," I said. My own call waiting was going off like mad, making the phone sound like a Geiger counter.

"Good man," Carl said. "These guys are nothing but a pain in the a.s.s. I'm fending them off for now. What do you want to do ?"

"I was going to ask you that same question," I said.

"Right now, we don't do anything," Carl said. "I've got to call Mike and make sure they're ready for the onslaught -- it's going to hit earlier than we expected. You'll need to make a statement, though; let's schedule it for noon and have no comments from anyone until then. Are you planning to go into the office right now?"

"I was, yes," I said.

"Don't. The fact that you're in the office at four thirty in the morning will only verify the situation. Get in at your usual time. And be ready for the reporters. See you at eight, Tom," Carl said, and then hung up, presumably to yell at the New York Times reporter that had the temerity to wake him up at home. I called Miranda as she was getting out the door; she sounded grateful for the reprieve.

At Pomona Valley, Carl's promised onslaught had already begun. The hospital switchboard was lighting up with calls from reporters who were calling every Los Angeles area hospital trying to find the one that was treating Mich.e.l.le. This was followed by calls from fans looking for the same thing. These in turn were followed by both fans and reporters who had found out that Pomona Valley was in fact the hospital they wanted; the reporters were invoking the First Amendment, and the fans their right to know about their favorite star. These were followed by fans and reporters posing as family members. As Mich.e.l.le had no living family, this didn't get them very far.

Credit where credit is due: Mike Mizuhara was as good as his word. He had the ICU ward sealed off; everyone who stepped off the elevator or out of the stairwell was greeted by a Pomona city cop, who had a printed list. On the list was the name and, more importantly, the photograph, of every doctor, nurse and staff member who had access to the fourth floor. Anyone who showed up on the fourth floor without permission was quickly and efficiently arrested for trespa.s.sing.

By eight am, more than a dozen people, posing as doctors, nurses, or staff, were in the pokey. A couple of them, from the tabloids, tried to bribe the officers. The officers were not amused; they had integrity, and besides, Mike Mizuhara had informed them that any bribe would be matched, plus ten percent; I later learned that Carl, who had bankrolled this effort, ended up sh.e.l.ling out nearly $25,000. The would-be bribers ended up in the pokey like everyone else, their money confiscated as evidence.

One amateur video guy, hoping to sell his tape to the afternoon tabloid shows, simply got on the elevator and, when the door opened on the fourth floor, sprinted down the hall, yodeling, waving his video camera wildly in hopes that a frame or two would later show Mich.e.l.le in her bed. He was surprised when the cop stationed at the stairwell popped up in front of him. He was even more surprised when the cop shot him with a taser. He was given his props for the attempt, but went to the slammer anyway.

When it became clear that no one was getting onto the fourth floor, more drastic measures were attempted: four people were arrested when they tried to trip the fire alarms to cause an evacuation -- three by pulling the fire alarm, one by setting fire to that morning's edition of the Inland Daily Bulletin and waving it at the smoke alarm. He was caught by an orderly's flying tackle; the tackle cracked his skull on the floor. He was treated for concussion on the spot, and then transferred to the county jail infirmary.

As Carl suggested, I went into work at the usual time. I took Joshua with me, at his insistence. "I want to do something for you," he said, though he wouldn't explain what. On the way in, I flipped through the radio stations. Nearly all the radio stations were talking about Mich.e.l.le; on one, the DJ was lamenting the fact that Mich.e.l.le's possible death brought down the number of people on earth worth s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g. On another radio station, a caller had noted proudly that he had uploaded the faked picture of the three way between Mich.e.l.le, George Clooney and Gwenyth Paltrow onto every single p.o.r.nographic Internet newsgroup as a "tribute."

The entrance to Lupo a.s.sociates was swarmed with reporters, camera operators and sound men. As I parked I saw Jim Van Doren near the periphery of the crowd, scanning the parking lot for my car; he spotted it and started moving towards it. Some of the more alert camera operators followed him; within seconds a stampede was coming toward my car.

"Oh, s.h.i.+t," I said.

"Let me out of the car," Joshua said. "Then follow me. Get ready to run."

I hopped out of the car and let Joshua out. Joshua hit the ground running and hurled himself at the oncoming swarm, snarling and baring his fangs. There was chaos as members of the press retreated, screaming, from Joshua's full frontal a.s.sault; suddenly a path miraculously appeared through them. I set out at a sprint. Reporters, torn between being bitten by an angry dog and getting their story, hollered questions at me as they retreated; their sound people desperately swung their boom mikes towards me to catch my response. At least one of the boom mikes connected with a camera operator. I heard a crunch as a $75,000 video camera hit the ground but didn't stay to watch.

Joshua snarled one last snarl, then raced towards the agency entrance, getting there at the same time as I did. We were met at the door by Miranda, who unlocked it just long enough to let us through, and then pushed it shut again the second we were inside.

I turned around, expecting to see the reporters pressed up against the gla.s.s, shouting questions. Instead, there was a riot going on in the parking lot. Apparently the cameraman who got whacked by the boom mike had decided to take the cost of the damage out of the mike operator's hide. A couple of people were trying to separate the two; the rest, drawn into the melee, were content to start swinging. There's something deeply satisfying about watching some of the most overly-paid reporters in the country slugging each other, pulling each other's hair, and kneeing each other in the groin.

"Tom, you should have been a movie star," Miranda said. "You sure know how to make a h.e.l.l of an entrance."

"It's not me that did all that," I said, still looking at the crowd. "You can thank my furry friend Joshua over there."

Off to the side of the riot, Jim Van Doren leaned against a car. He looked at the fight, then turned to look at me. Then he saluted. What a kidder.

"Did you do that, Joshua?" Miranda said, in that voice you use with dogs. "What a good dog!"

Joshua barked happily.

I spoke to the press at noon, like we had planned. Carl had flown in Mike Mizuhara and Dr. Adams from Pomona Valley; all four of us were standing at a podium that had been put in front of the agency's entrance. Slightly off to one side, Miranda sat, petting Joshua, who sat attentively, waiting for a reporter to get too far out of line. I was told that the press announcement was being carried live on three of the local stations and also on the E! Channel. For some reason, I found this profoundly irritating.

Precisely at noon, I stepped up to the podium, tapped the microphone to make sure it was on, and got out my prepared statement.

"Good afternoon," I said, because at 30 seconds past noon, it was. "Since early this morning, the media has been filled with rumors concerning the well-being of my client Mich.e.l.le Beck. It has come time to answer these rumors with the facts.

"First, and most important -- Mich.e.l.le Beck is not dead nor is she near death. Rumors of her death have been irresponsibly spread; let them end here.

"Second, yesterday, at about four pm, Miss Beck was involved in an accident during pre-production work on Earth Resurrected. The accident caused her to be suffocated; first aid was administered at the scene and Miss Beck was then taken to Pomona Valley Hospital, where she remains now.

"Miss Beck has not regained consciousness since the accident, nor is there a timetable for her to do so. After I am done, Dr. Adams, who treated Mich.e.l.le when she came in, and Dr. Mizuhara, the chief of staff of Pomona Valley, will give a brief medical update on Miss Beck's condition and will answer questions that relate to her medical condition.

"Those of us who knew her are praying for her recovery and hope that her fans worldwide will also do so. However, we ask that you do not attempt to visit her; she needs rest and quiet. Pomona Valley Hospital and the Pomona Police Department will not hesitate to arrest and prosecute any unauthorized attempts to visit Miss Beck. Please respect this request: it's in Miss Beck's best interests.

"Pomona Valley has also requested me to ask fans and admirers to stop sending flowers and fruit baskets -- their waiting room is clogged and after this point they will just be thrown out. If you feel you must do something, please write a check to the Pomona Valley Hospital general fund. I know that Mich.e.l.le would greatly prefer that to flowers -- these people are helping her and they deserve all our support."

I folded up the prepared statement and asked if there were questions. Obviously, there were.

"What will happen to Mich.e.l.le if she doesn't emerge from her coma?" asked the reporter from Entertainment Weekly. "Will she stay on a respirator or will she eventually be disconnected?"

"We haven't even thought about that yet," I said. "Nor have the doctors at Pomona Valley given us any indication that's where things are going. Until we know her medical situation a little better, it would be premature to think about it."

"Who is the one that will eventually make that decision?" asked the anchor of Inside Story. "Her parents or some other relative?"

"Mich.e.l.le's parents pa.s.sed away a couple of years ago," I said, "and she has no other family. When I got to the hospital, I was told that I was the person to whom she entrusted her emergency medical decisions to. So I suppose if that decision has to be made, I'll be the one to make it."

This answer caused a mild stir. I pointed to the reporter from the Los Angeles Times, but before she could ask her question, someone in the back hollered a question.

"Do you think it's appropriate for you to make that decision?"

Everyone's head swiveled around. It was Jim Van Doren, of course.

"Excuse me?" I said.

"I said, do you feel it's appropriate for you to be the one that makes that decision? Yes, you're her agent, but recently, there's been some questions about your own work and the way you've treated some of your clients. Do you really think it's wise for you to be the one who makes this life-or-death decision?"

Over to the side of me, I could hear Joshua growling lowly. I knew how he felt.

"Listen," I said. "I never asked to be the one Mich.e.l.le gave this responsibility to. Drs. Adams and Mizuhara can tell you how surprised I was when I was told about it. Would I have wanted this responsibility? No. Will I refuse it now? No."

"Uh-huh," Van Doren said. "Are you the beneficiary of her estate?"