Agent to the Stars Part 3

Tony Baltz. Gone. He was on his way down anyway, since he was too proud to take the roles that had made him famous in the first place.

Rashaad Creek. Keep. I could work through his mother, who was doing most of the heavy lifting in that partners.h.i.+p, anyway. The unsettling Oedipal overtones to Rashaad's situation had always disturbed me, but now I could finally use them to my advantage.

Elliot Young. Keep. Elliot, bless his heart, was not the brightest of studs. I could sit down with him one afternoon and convince him that by buckling down on the series for a season, it would make the transition to films much more profitable in the long run. Who, knows, it might even be the truth.

Tea Reader. Gone. Thank the Lord almighty.

Mich.e.l.le Beck. Keep. Of course. Mich.e.l.le Beck was my cover: when a client can rake in twelve million per film, an agent can't be faulted for wanting to spend more time concentrating on that client. Also, flying under the radar or not, dropping Mich.e.l.le after today's paycheck would be noticed by someone. Mich.e.l.le and I were bound together for life, or until she pulled a hissy fit and got new representation. If I didn't have her, I would be, as my father liked to say, walking through a thick s.h.a.g carpet of s.h.i.+t. The ambivalence I felt about this fact was staggering in its depth.

The undercard folks were all toast. It didn't really matter who agented them, anyway.

I was finis.h.i.+ng up my client triage when Miranda buzzed me. "Mr. Stein," she said. I could count the times she called me Mr. Stein on one hand, without having to use my thumb or index finger. "Amanda Hewson is here."

"Accompany her in, please, Ms. Escalon," I called Miranda Ms. Escalon even less than she called me Mr. Stein.

Miranda walked in, followed by a gawky blonde who looked like she wasn't old enough to see "R"-rated films without accompaniment. Amanda Hewson had graduated from the mailroom just over a month before. Her two clients were a former Mexican soap opera star who wanted to make it big in Hollywood, but didn't want to learn the English language, and an actor who administered first aid to her after she fainted on mile 4 of the LA Marathon. She represented him, apparently, largely out of grat.i.tude.

She was perfect.

"Amanda," I said, motioning to the chair in front of my desk. "Please sit down." She did. I regarded her the same way Carl regarded me earlier today. It's fair; the distance, careerwise, was not dissimilar.

Amanda was looking around. "Nice office," she said.

My office is a dump.

"It is, isn't it?" I said. "Amanda, do you know why I asked you here?"

"Not really," Amanda confessed. "Ms. Escalon " -- Unseen by Amanda, Miranda crossed her eyes; she didn't appear to cotton to all this formalness -- "said that it was important but didn't say what it was."

I did some more regarding. It was making Amanda nervous, she looked behind her briefly to see if I was actually looking at something behind her, then turned back, t.i.ttered nervously. Her hands, restless in her lap, spasmed lightly.

I looked at Miranda. "You think she's the one?" I asked.

Now it was Miranda's turn to regard Amanda. I have to admit, she did a much scarier regarding. Amanda looked about to wet her pants. "I think so," Miranda said. "At least, she's much better than the other possibles."

I had no idea what Miranda was talking about. Then again, she didn't know what I was talking about either. We were making this up as we went along.

"So, Amanda," I said. "Where'd you go to school?"

"UCLA," she said. "In Westwood," she added. After she said that I could see the thought travel through her head: Moron! We're in LA! He KNOWS where UCLA is! G.o.d! I'm an idiot! Panic can be truly endearing when it's done right.

"Really," I said. "I'm a Bruin myself. How's the high-speed life of an agent treating you these days?"

"Well, really well," she said, with obvious fervor. "I mean, I'm just getting started, so it's a little rough. I think it'll be a few more months before I really get my legs." She smiled brightly. She was so new that she didn't realize that admitting weakness was a mortal sin among agents. I wondered how she got past the screening process. Beside me, I could feel waves of pity emanate from Miranda. Now I knew why she had suggested Amanda -- she was trying to keep this clearly non-cynical young woman from having the stuffing kicked out of her by her more vicious compatriots.

"Well, I hope your legs are ready now, Amanda," I said. "The officers of this corporation" -- I always thought that phrase sounded dramatic, and I was right -- "have instructed me to inaugurate a pilot mentor project for our newest agents, a sort of helping hand to get them up to speed more quickly. Now, I have to emphasize that this is just a pilot program, and highly experimental. In fact, it's a secret --"

Amanda's eyes actually widened. If I were just ten percent less jaded, I think I might have fallen in love.

" -- so you'll have to keep it that way. It's officially unofficial. Understand?"

"Sure, Mr. Stein."

"Call me Tom," I said. "Amanda, what do you think of Tea Reader?"

Her eyes got even wider. Make that five percent less jaded.

Two hours and a Starbucks latte each later, the Officially Unofficial Mentor Project was underway. Under my "supervision," Amanda would take over the day-to-day representation needs of Tea Reader, Tony Baltz, and my undercard clients. For the first month, Amanda would make detailed weekly reports on "our" clients, which I would read and comment on. That would decrease to twice monthly the second month, and monthly thereafter. During this time, any money made from representing these clients would be split between mentor and student. After six months, pending mentor approval, Amanda could represent up to six of these clients full-time, with all commissions and fees going to her from that point forward. To myself, I figured that any clients she didn't want to keep after six months I would drop in any event.

Amanda was happy because even with a reduced commission rate, she stood to make far more money over the next six months than she could have off her own clients, and would get an automatically expanded client list at the end of it. Plus, of course, my invaluable mentoring services. I was happy because I offloaded my clients. The only one who might not be entirely happy with it was Miranda, because she knew that the reports I was supposed to read and comment on were actually going to be read and commented on by her. But she didn't say anything about it. I was going to have to get her raise soon.

Amanda went of in a haze of blissfulness and promises to "get right on it." She was like a Mouseketeer on "Let's Represent Someone" day. I could almost see her skip to her pod. I hoped her first experience with Tea Reader would not send her too much into shock.

"That was a dirty trick," Miranda said to me.

"What do you mean?" I said. "Look at her. What are her chances of getting a decent client list on her own?"

"Not to her," Miranda said. "To me. Now I'm going to have to add babysitting to my list of things to do."

"She'll be fine," I said. "And anyway, I thought you liked her."

"I do like her," Miranda said. "And she will be fine. Eventually." She put her face closer to mine. "But in the short term, I might as well be a crossing guard, for all the hand-holding I'm going to do. Now. I'm off to get your waterbottle." She walked out of the office.

I was going to have to get her a raise very soon.

I knocked on the conference room door. It was unoccupied. I entered the conference room with the water bottle and the dolly, closed the door, locked it behind me.

"You have got to be kidding," Joshua said.

Joshua had returned back to the aquarium and had stayed in the conference room after our meeting was done. My job had been to find a un.o.btrusive way to get him from the conference room to my place. Carl wouldn't tell me how he had gotten Joshua into the building unnoticed, and he wasn't giving me any tips on how to get him out. Think of it as your first challenge, he said. Were I palming off the first known extraterrestrial on a subordinate to take care of, I think I'd be a little more concerned.

"We give you three hours to come up with something, and this is the best you can do," Joshua said. "I'm not scared yet, but I'm getting there."

"I'm sorry," I said. "I had to improvise." I wheeled the bottle over and sat it next to the tank. I had figured that a five-gallon water bottle would be big enough to fit Joshua in. Now I wasn't so sure.

Neither was he. He extended a tendril out of the aquarium and sent it down into the bottle and waved it around, as if to check it for roominess. "How long will it take to get to your place?" he said.

"Probably an hour, maybe more," I said. "I live in La Canada. The 405 will be jammed up, but once we get over to the 210, it should be pretty quick. Is it going to be a problem?"

"Not at all," Joshua said. "Who doesn't enjoy being crammed into a five-gallon plastic bottle for an hour?"

"You don't have to stay in the bottle once we get to the car," I said. "Once we're out of here, you can spread out." This wrinkle in the plan was as new to me as it was to him. I had a.s.sumed he'd stay in the bottle the whole trip. But my car upholstery was a small price to pay for interplanetary peace. I'd just have to remember to get one of those little pine tree air fresheners.

"Thanks, but no thanks," Joshua said. "The conversation where you try to explain to a highway patrolman why you have 40 pounds of gelatin in your pa.s.senger seat is one I think we'd both rather avoid."

I laughed. "I'm sorry," I said. "I'm sort of amazed you know what a highway patrolman is."

"Why?" Joshua said. "You've been beaming 'CHiPs' into s.p.a.ce for decades." He wiggled his tendril again, and then sighed. He must have picked that up purely as a sonic affectation because he had no lungs from which to exhale. "All right, here I go, " he said, and started putting himself into the bottle.

He came dangerously close to filling up the bottle. In the last few seconds, a thought popped into my skull: I'm going to need another bottle. It didn't occur to me to question the logic of that thought. He was gelatinous, he should be able to divide up. It became academic when he topped out about three millimeters from the top of the mouth of the bottle.

"Comfortable?" I asked.

"Remind me to stuff you into a medium-sized suitcase and ask you that same question," Joshua said. His voice was diminished and tinny, no doubt due to the relatively tiny amount of surface area he had to vibrate.

"Sorry," I said. "Listen, do you need this open? I'm thinking it might be better if I put the top back on this thing."

"Are you out of your mind?" Joshua said. "Keep it open."

"Okay," I said. "I didn't know. I suppose you need to breathe."

"It's not that," Joshua said. "I'm claustrophobic."

"Really?"

"Look," Joshua said. "Just because I come from a highly advanced alien species doesn't mean I can't be intensely neurotic. Can we go now? I already feel like I want to scream."

I hiked the dolly up on its wheels, wheeled over to the door, unlocked it, and headed out into the hallway. It was still early enough in the day that the office was still busy. I was worried that someone might ask me why I was wheeling a five-gallon water bottle around until I remembered that I was on the second floor, the land of senior agents. A senior agent would naturally a.s.sume it was my job to wheel water bottles around. I was probably safe until I hit the lobby.

Which is in fact where I got noticed. As I pa.s.sed the receptionist's desk on the way to the parking lot, some guy at the desk turned around. "Tom Stein?" he asked.

The Just Keep Moving command left my brain a tenth of a second after the Look Around reflex kicked in. By then, of course, it was too late; I had already stopped and looked back. "Yes?"

The man jogged the short distance over and extended his hand. "Glad I caught you," he said, as we shook. "Your a.s.sistant said you had already left."

"I had," I said. "I just had to stop elsewhere and pick something up."

"I can see that," he said, glancing down at the waterbottle. "I guess you've gone past office supplies."

"Who are you?" I asked.

"I'm sorry," he said. "Jim Van Doren. I write for The Biz."

The Biz was a weekly bit of libel written in a snide, knowing sort of tone that implied the folks who slapped together The Biz were just coming from lunch with movie company heads, who couldn't wait to slip them the latest gossip. Neither I nor anyone I knew knew anyone who had ever actually spoken to anyone at the magazine. No one knew how the magazine got written. No one knew anyone who actually would pay to read it.

Van Doren himself was about my age, blond and balding, sort of pudgy. He looked like what happened to former USC frat boys about three months after they realize that their college days were never, ever coming back.

"Van Doren," I said. "No relation to Charles, I a.s.sume."

"The guy from Quiz Show? I wish," Van Doren said. "His dad won a Pulitzer Prize, you know. Wouldn't mind getting one of those myself."

"You'd probably have to work for a magazine that didn't devote six pages to an ill.u.s.trated article about p.o.r.no pictures on the Internet," I said. "You remember, the one where big star's heads were cut and pasted on to pictures of women having s.e.x with dogs and gla.s.s bottles? The one that just about every movie studio in the city sued you over."

"I didn't have anything to do with that story," he said.

"That's good," I said. "Mich.e.l.le Beck is my client. She was rather unamused by the picture that had her taking it up the back door from George Clooney while eating out Gwenyth Paltrow. As her agent, I'd be required to break your nose on her behalf. Of course, I'd take my ten percent, too." I started walking towards the lobby door.

Van Doren, who was not taking the hint, followed. "Actually, Tom, I knew you were Mich.e.l.le Beck's agent. It's sort of why I came here. Heard that you got her twelve and a half for Earth Resurrected. That's not bad."

I opened the lobby door with one hand and propped it open with my foot as I maneuvered the dolly through the entry way. "The agency hasn't made any announcement about that to the press, much less The Biz," I said. "Where did you hear about it?"

Van Doren grabbed the door and held it for me. "I got it from Brad Turnow's office," he said. "They faxed out an announcement to the press, and I got the figure from his receptionist when I called to follow up."

I made a mental note to have Brad fire his receptionist. "I can't comment about my client's affairs," I said, "If you're looking for something, I'm not going to give it to you."

"I'm not here to do anything on Mich.e.l.le Beck," Van Doren said. "I'm hoping to do a story on you."

"On me?" I said. "Really, Van Doren. I'm not that interesting. And there are no pictures of me on the Net having s.e.x with anyone."

"Look, we know we lost a lot of goodwill on that story," Van Doren said. This statement was on the same level as the captain of the t.i.tanic saying, I guess we've taken on a little water. "We're trying to get away from that sort of thing now. Do some real journalism. The story I'm doing, for example, is 'The Ten Hottest Young Agents in Hollywood.'"

"You getting ten agents to talk to you?" I wheeled over to my car, a Honda Prelude.

"I've got six so far," he said. "including one of your guys here -- Ben Fleck. You know him?"

"I do," I said. "I wouldn't call him one of the ten hottest young agents in Hollywood."

Van Doren grimaced. "Yeah, I know," he said. "Frankly, none of the really good young agents want to talk. That's why I'm really hoping to do something on you. I mean, twelve and a half million! I'd say that makes you the hottest agent in Hollywood at the moment, period. You're the money guy, in all senses of the term. This is cover story material, Tom. You need help getting that in the trunk?" he gestured to the water bottle.

I just did not want this guy here.

"No thanks," I said. "It's going up front."

"Well, here," he said, stepping around to the dolly. "I'll hold this while you get the door open."

What could I do? I gave him the dolly and went to open the pa.s.senger side door. As I opened the door, I realized I was on the wrong side of it; Van Doren would have to put the bottle in. I felt a mild stirring of panic.

Van Doren realized this as well. "I'll get it," he said, and walked around to pick it up. "I don't suppose you have a cap for this -- if you hit a b.u.mp, you're going to get it all over your interior."

"Nope," I said.

Van Doren shrugged. "Your car." He reached down and picked up the bottle, wobbled it slightly, provoking a spike of fear to my mild stirring of panic, turned and maneuvered it onto the pa.s.senger seat. As he stood up, his face was red and blotchy. "Out of shape," he said. "Tom, don't take this wrong, but that water smells a little off. You're not planning to drink it, I hope."

"No," I said. "It's from a sulfur spring one of our agents just got back from. You heat it up and soak in it. Good for the skin. But stinky."

"No kidding," Van Doren said. He leaned against the door, effectively blocking my ability to shut it. "So, Tom, how about it? I think you'd make a great profile. In fact, if everything goes well, I might be able to persuade my editors to drop the other nine hottest young agents out of the story. A cover story, Tom."

On a normal day of my life, I would have wanted to be on the cover of The Biz about as much as I wanted to run my tongue over a cheese grater. Today, with an alien in my pa.s.senger seat and no clue as to my future in the agency, I wanted to be on the cover of The Biz even less than that.

"Thanks, but I'm going to pa.s.s," I said. "I'm not much one for the limelight. I save that for my clients."

"Do you hear yourself?" Van Doren said. "You talk in perfect pull quote nuggets. Come on."

I decided to lie. "I'm late for dinner with my parents," I said, nodding to the door.

He reluctantly backed away. "And concerned about family, too. You're screaming to be made famous, Tom."