There was a knock at his office door. It was only seven-thirty. Michael wasn’t supposed to be here for another half-hour. “Yes?” he said.
The door swung open and his secretary, Judy, stepped into the room. When she saw that he had been studying his wife’s picture, she hesitated, remembering a time years ago when she walked in unannounced and saw tears in his eyes while he held it. She turned to leave. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I was just coming in to catch up on some work. Jim told me you were here.”
She held the current edition of the New York Times in one hand and a steaming cup of coffee in the other. “I was going to give you these.”
Louis replaced Anne’s picture and managed a smile. “Remind me to give you a raise,” he said. “Those are exactly what I need right now. Come in.”
“I think you might find the paper interesting,” Judy said as she crossed the room to his desk. She was an attractive woman in her middle forties, with short blonde hair and a nose that was just saved from being too wide. She had worked for Louis for nearly twenty years and had become rich because of her ability to keep secrets. “Especially the front page and the business section.”
Louis looked up at her, puzzled. “What do you mean?”
Judy placed the coffee down beside him. “This,” she said while handing him the paper. There, on the front page, was a picture of the new Redman
International Building-complete with a close-up of one of the destroyed spotlights. The banner headline read: EXPLOSIVE DAY FOR GEORGE REDMAN
Before Louis could react, Judy was saying, “And here,” as she opened the paper to the business section. There, the headline read:
REDMAN STOCK CONTINUES PLUNGE; PLANS TO TAKE OVER WESTTEX CONFIRMED
Louis skimmed the article that ran beneath the headline before turning to the front page and reading about the three spotlights he had Vincent Spocatti rig with explosives. When he was finished, he looked up at Judy. “And I thought today was going to be a bad day,” he said.
CHAPTER TEN
Michael Archer awoke to the sharp crack of gunfire and the shrill screams of people on the street.
Startled, he sat up in bed and came face to face with his best friend of nearly fourteen years, Rufus, the golden retriever who sat beside him. There was a gnawed plastic dish in his jaws.
Michael slumped back against the mattress and closed his eyes. Already, the morning was warm and muggy. He turned onto his side and looked at what had become his only home-an over-priced one-room apartment on Avenue B that smelled like shit and now was filled with boxes sent from around the world.
Rufus nudged his arm and Michael got up, looking tentatively out the window as he passed it. Down below on the sidewalk, a small crowd of people were gathering around a woman who was face down on the street. Blood was pooling around her head. People were on cell phones, some were taking photos. Welcome to fucking New York, he thought.
Michael took the dish from Rufus’ mouth and filled it with dry dog food. He watched a cockroach scatter across the countertop and the irony that he now was living in this dump was not lost on him.
At thirty-four, he was among the most powerful men in Hollywood. His movies made millions at the box office, he had written six blockbuster novels and he had adapted four of them for the screen-all of which he had starred in and produced. To the public, he not only was a fine actor and writer, but also a respected businessman. Through his novels and movies, he led his fans into another world and gave them the escape they desired. He was their king, their shining star. He was invincible.
They were dead wrong.
The public knew only what Michael Archer allowed them to know. And because of this, they couldn’t know that this was now his life-and it was in danger.
The warnings began as small reminders. After a major purchase, his manager and accountants would call and suggest he curb his spending. “You’re not the government, Michael,” they would say. “Remember, even you have financial limits.”
Michael would nod and listen, but soon he would forget their words and instead remember his beginnings in Hollywood-a time when money was so scarce, he was lucky to eat one meal a day. Then, he hadn’t owned a villa in Italy, a brownstone in Boston, an estate in Beverly Hills. Then, Michael had known nothing but the struggle of day to day life and his seedy apartment in West L.A.
To escape from those days, Michael surrounded himself with luxury, often spending more money in a week than many people made in a year. Never did he think his bank accounts would run dry. Until they did.
He had been two weeks in Cairo, vacationing at a high-end resort, when his business manager phoned to tell him that his bank was about to foreclose on each of his three homes. Going as well were the Ferrari, the Lamborghini, both yachts.
He was incredulous.
“If you don’t have a minimum of $2 million to cover your debts by this Friday, everything will be taken from you.”
“Friday?” Michael said. “That’s three days away.”
“We’ve been warning you, Michael. This isn't a surprise.”
“What are my options?”
“At this point? You’ve got two.”
“What are they?”
“You could go to your father.”
“Fuck that.”
“Or you could gamble.”
“I have no money," he said. "Remember?”
“You could borrow it,” the man said. “A friend of mine runs Aura in Vegas. As a favor to you, I could call and tell him you’re coming for a weekend that you’re a good risk for a loan.”
“And what if I lose and can’t pay back the loan?”
“Then you’ll be in trouble. This is only a suggestion, Michael, and not one that should be taken lightly. You should go to your father. I recommend that-not the gambling.”
But Michael went with the latter.
As promised, borrowing the money was no problem. Paying it back, however, became one. Michael stayed at one of the casino’s black jack tables for hours until he lost it all. Now, he owed Stephano Santiago, owner of the casino and capo di capi of Europe’s most powerful Syndicate, over $900,000. It was blood money and Michael knew that, if he didn’t pay Santiago soon, the man would have him murdered.
A day passed before he received a threatening phone call from one of Santiago’s men. Another day passed and he was on a plane headed East toward Manhattan, where he met with his father for the first time in nearly sixteen years.
Seeing his father after all those years was a shock. Louis was older, grayer, heavier than that day Michael left home-and yet he still was a force. Seated at his desk, immaculate in a black silk suit, Louis looked across the room at his son, his eyes as dark and as judgmental as Michael remembered them to be. It didn’t take long for Michael to feel uncomfortable. Louis always had been able to make him feel inferior just by looking at him.
Reluctantly, he told his father the predicament he was in. And while Louis said he’d take care of everything, there was that tone in his voice, that calm tone his father used whenever he wanted something.
Now, Michael knew it had to do with the photographs he was given of Leana Redman and the appearance he made last night at George Redman’s party. There was a reason his father demanded he meet her and it worried him. His father had a motive behind everything.
He checked his watch and decided he had time to unpack a few more things before meeting with his father. He sat beside Rufus, who knocked his arm with his nose, and reached for a box marked PERSONAL. The first item he pulled from the box was, ironically, his first novel and best-seller.
Michael ran his hand over the faded dust jacket and thought back to when he started the novel. He was eighteen years old, on a bus headed for Hollywood and running away from his father. They had fought the night before and Michael decided then that no matter how hard he tried, he and Louis would never get along. And so he left.