“Hey, Mr. Jones, is this place bugged?” Dime asks. “It’s okay if it is, I’m just asking. Do you think it’s bugged?” he continues, turning to Billy and Albert as Mr. Jones leaves without saying a word. “I bet it is, hell, I bet it’s wired for video. I bet this is where Norm does his day-shift hookers—”
“David, chill.”
“—um umph, check this action out.” He’s feeling up the daybed, then testing its bounce with his rump. “I could definitely jam some high-dollar ass on this. I betcha anything he’s got it fixed for video—”
“Settle down, Dave, please—”
“—it’s always the billionaires who’re the biggest pervs—”
“—would you shut up, Dave, please, please just shut the fuck up? Please? Can you? Yes? Thank you!”
Dime sits on the edge of the daybed and primly crosses his legs, looks over at Billy, and laughs. Albert looks to Billy and rolls his eyes. Billy has taken the leather chair by the bathroom door, as far out of the line of fire as possible.
“You’re on his team?” Dime snarls.
Albert seems to rear, grizzly-like. “Hell yes, if that’s what it takes to get your picture made.”
“He’s an asshole.”
“And that’s supposed to mean anything? This is business, there’s an asshole every time you pick up the phone. Stop thinking like a twerp and get your head in the game.”
“Oh gee Albert, I’m sorry. I’m really sorry if we’re messing up your brand-new partnership.”
“Tell me this, David, do you think you’re a player? You wanna be a player, you better learn to keep a civil tongue in your head. What you said in there — look, you cannot let emotion escalate into drama, not if you want a deal. You can whine and bitch and argue and everything else, but you cannot blow it up just because you’re pissed off.”
“Like we haven’t heard some rank stuff out of your mouth.”
“That’s different, I know how far I can push. And some of these studio guys, they like the abuse, but you’re punching way above your weight here. Norm doesn’t have to take that kind of shit from you.”
“Norm can lick every pimple on my pretty pink ass.”
“Oh, lovely. Wonderful. I can see how well you’re listening. You know what, maybe Billy should represent the squad in there. How about if you stay here, David, stay here and grow some brains. Billy and I’ll go represent the squad in there.”
“I’m not going back in there,” Billy says, not that anyone’s listening. Dime holds up his hand.
“All right, all right, okay, truce. Okay.” He takes a breath. “Albert, just tell me this — is Norm just fucking with us? Does he really need to bust us down like this, or is he being a corporate dick just because he can?”
Albert leans against the massage table and sucks his lip, considering. “Both, probably. I think he could do a lot better by you guys, no question. Fifty-five hundred is pretty thin. But you’ll have equity.”
“He’ll wanna screw us on that too, that’s the vibe I get from this guy. If he’s doing us on the front end he’ll do us on the back, it’s a matter of principle with this guy.”
“He’s a pretty tough nut, I’ll grant you that. You get in a fight with Norm, you better be wearing a cup, but listen, bottom line? He wants this deal as much as we do. So we just keep him at the table for as long as it takes, when he gets tired enough he’ll come around.”
“Not if he runs out the clock on us. You heard him, he knows what we’re up against. We don’t have unlimited time here.”
“Well, I’ve always viewed your departure as a somewhat artificial deadline anyway. Signatures can be faxed. They can be e-mailed.”
“Not if we’re dead.”
Albert folds his arms and stares glumly at his shoes. A brief, startling vision comes to Billy of big old Albert standing in a rainy field somewhere, head down, shoulders hunched, hands in his pockets, weeping. It has never occurred to him that their producer might be capable of actual tears.
“How about this,” Dime offers, “how about if we hold a gun to his head?”
“Oh David, don’t even talk like that.”
“Hell yeah, vets on the edge, baby! Everybody’s got their breaking point.”
“He’s just kidding,” Billy tells Albert, looking to Dime to make sure.
“Everybody supports the troops,” Dime woofs, “support the troops, support the troops, hell yeah we’re so fucking PROUD of our troops, but when it comes to actual money? Like somebody might have to come out of pocket for the troops? Then all the sudden we’re on everybody’s tight-ass budget. Talk is cheap, I got that, but gimme a break. Talk is cheap but money screams, this is our country, guys. And I fear for it. I think we should all fear for it.”
Albert blinks, unsure how seriously he should take that last part. “Dave, all I can tell you is the only way we’re going to get a deal is to keep talking to this guy. He made his offer, if you don’t like it we’ll make a counter and see what comes back, that’s how it works. But you keep your emotions out of it and focus on the deal, okay? That’s the only way you’re going to get some money for your guys.”
“I need to call them,” Dime says, pulling out his cell.
“So call. I gotta take a leak.”
As soon as Albert’s in the bathroom Billy moves to the other chair, so that he doesn’t have to listen to the movie producer pee. Dime calls Day, and at certain points in the conversation Billy can hear Day’s side as plainly as Dime’s. What the fuck? comes through quite clearly, in addition to fuck that, fuck that shit, and fuck that motherfucking shit. Dime asks Day to poll the rest of the squad, and their answers boom through like the bellowing of cows in a slaughter chute. Billy pulls out his own cell and clicks on. He’s missed calls from Kathryn and the unknown number, and there’s a text from Kathryn as well—
Sending car 4 u tx stadium
CALL HIM 4 meet.
JUST GET IN THE CAR.
Dime clicks off. “They said no.”
“I heard.”
Dime pockets the cell. “Your thoughts, Billy. What do you think we should do.”
Billy shuts his eyes and tries to have coherent thoughts about everything that has happened today. Into the still of his concentration sails the crash of a flushing toilet.
“He’s wrong.”
“Who’s wrong?”
Billy opens his eyes. “Norm. Remember what he said in there, he was like, you guys oughta take the deal because it’s all you’ve got, and something’s better than nothing? But I don’t think so. I think sometimes nothing is better than something. I mean, I’d rather have nothing than let this guy use me like his bitch. Plus”—Billy glances around and lowers his voice, as though the room in fact is bugged—“I just sort of hate the son of a bitch.”
For some reason this is suddenly hilarious to them. Albert emerges from the bathroom to find the two Bravos laughing like baboons.
“Sorry, guy,” Dime tells him, “but fitty-five hundred don’t cut it. And Bravo speaks as one on this.”
Albert pulls a poker face. “Okay, so what cuts it?”
“Hundred thousand up front, then we’re out of Norm’s hair. And he can keep all that wonderful equity for himself.”
“Guys, I think you’re going to have to bend a little bit. What if we — hang on.” His cell is buzzing. “Speak of the devil. Lemme just… Yes, Norm.”
Billy remains in the chair, Dime on the daybed. They listen.