Michael Walsh - Early Warning

And here he was the one-the media mogul in a declining business-who was supposed to be feeling the pinch, not the stars who used to make twenty million a picture, and now were reduced to the relative penury of fourteen million. But it all made sense. When the stars made less, then everybody made less, including the agents, producers, the co-stars, and the writers. Hollywood may be Moscow-on-the-Pacific, at least as far as its social sense of itself was concerned, but in reality it was the purest form of trickle-down capitalism in the country. Sure, it was “high school with money,” but the high-school pecking order made a lot of sense in a Lord of the Flies sort of way; it quickly sorted out the winners from the losers, the beauties from the nerds, the popular kids from the dorks, and those lessons stayed with you a lifetime.

Show people were so easy to manipulate, it was like a vacation.

But on this day Jake Sinclair had no time for self-congratulation. He had a very important meeting with the woman who would be the next president of the United States, especially if she continued to play ball.

He moved quickly from the private elevator through the public halls, where his employees could see him-a general needed to be seen from time to time-and past the ranks of video screens displaying live television feeds, his newspapers’ stories as they were in the process of being written, and the websites that had latterly become such a large part of his operations.

Angela Hassett was waiting for him, standing in his office and watching one of the video feeds intently. When she became president, it was he who would have to show up early for appointments, and get used to being kept waiting, but at the moment he was delivering a Hollywood power message, which was that the more important person in the meeting dictated the schedule and the other person took it and liked it. “Ms. Hassett,” he said as he swept into the room, “so sorry to keep you waiting. You know the traffic in this town.”

Truth was, traffic had nothing to do with it, but Jake Sinclair always liked to make an entrance, and so he affected that L.A. air of frazzled bemusement, as if the torture of being confined in his new Mercedes during the commute from Los Feliz to Century City was akin to spending ten years on Devil’s Island, except you didn’t actually have to do the time. “Can I get you something to-”

“Mr. Sinclair,” she interrupted, “Neither of us has time for coffee, Diet Coke, or bullshit. So let’s get started, shall we? What do you make of what’s going on in New York?”

Angela Hassett was, he had to admit, a rather striking woman. Her photographs didn’t do her justice, and just the way she moved and tossed her head revealed the coquette beneath the frosty exterior. Sinclair understood at once that here was a woman for whom “by any means necessary” was not just a slogan but a way of life. He liked her: they could do business together. They were soul mates.

“A terrible thing, of course,” he said blandly.

“I mean about the cease-fire, or whatever it is. I want to know everything you know about it.”

“Perhaps we should speak privately,” he said. As his people moved toward the door, she flashed the same look at her people, who quickly got the message and similarly headed toward the exits. “I agree,” she said.

The door closed. They were alone. He dropped the pretense of bonhomie. “I don’t know,” he said. “We’re working on it. In fact, we have our best reporters in the field. But I gather the gunmen, whoever they are, have gone to ground.”

“Does Tyler have anything to do with this?”

“How would I know?”

“You’re supposed to be the media mogul, not me. All I’m doing is running for president.”

Her tone was beginning to piss him off. “Then how can I help you, Ms. Hassett?”

She didn’t like his tone any more than he’d liked hers. “There’s no point in wasting any time, Mr. Sinclair,” she said frostily. “We both know why I’m here.”

“Call me Jake-”

“Mr. Sinclair,” she continued, ignoring him. “What we have is strictly a business arrangement at this point. You have something I need and I have something you want. Need and want are not the same thing in order of magnitude, which means that at the moment you have me over a barrel, hierarchically speaking. That will change come November, but for the nonce let us simply say that thus far things have worked out well, I am here to accommodate you.”

Sinclair smiled. He liked a woman-or a man, for that matter-who got right to the point. There would be no time-wasting jockeying as the two adversaries sorted out whose dog was bigger. Things were clear.

“I don’t have to tell you that Jeb Tyler is weak and that he’s in trouble. Neither do I have to tell you why. He’s weak because he’s a fool and a coward. All his life he’s played it safe by playing it down the middle; he thought a smile, a shoeshine, and a nice haircut could take him as far as he wanted to go, and up until last year he was right. But events and circumstances have a way of dislodging the best-laid plans, and now he’s in over his head and sinking rapidly. I can beat him. I know it, you know it, and he knows it. All he needs is a little push.” She glanced at one of the televisions.

“Tell me something I don’t already know.”

“I can guarantee you a place at the table.”

“As I said…”

The coquette disappeared. “Don’t fuck with me, buster. You and I both know that your media empire is being held together with spit and bubblegum, and if you don’t get some tax breaks and subsidies from the feds, you’re screwed.” She gestured around the room, with all its expensive furnishings and its panoramic view of this part of Los Angeles. “You’re William Randolph Hearst minus the girlfriend and the castle, but if things don’t turn around, you’re going to end up just like him-bankrupt and impotent…So now that I’ve got your attention, let’s talk turkey.”

Sinclair wasn’t used to being spoken to like this. Usually, whoever was unfortunate enough to be sitting across from him in a negotiation was the one on the receiving end of the obloquy, but this woman had waltzed into his office and taken command. Jeb Tyler was in more trouble than he knew. “I’m all ears,” he said.

“Good. Here’s my offer. I’m making this only once, so listen carefully.” Abruptly, she rose. “Where’s the bathroom?” she inquired. Sinclair indicated a door off to one side. “Will you follow me, please?”

Puzzled but intrigued, he followed her into the loo. Like any self-respecting executive washroom, it was equipped with a shower, a bidet, and a wide selection of toiletries, only some of which had been filched from various hotels in Cannes and Tokyo.

She closed the door. “Don’t get any bright ideas,” she said, reaching past him and into the shower. With a quick turn of her wrists, she turned the mixer on full force. The water gushed forth, a vivid realization of old man Mulholland’s famous exhortation when he opened the floodgates of the dammed, siphoned water from the Owens Valley and told Los Angeles: “There it is. Take it.”

“It’s not that I don’t trust you,” she said, “but I don’t trust you.” She pulled him close to her. The steam from the hot water was already turning the confined space into a steam bath. Sinclair felt the beads of sweat mingle with the water vapor as it rolled down his face and down his chest.

“All my life, I’ve been fascinated with puzzles,” said Angela Hassett. “Codes, ciphers, what have you. Not crosswords or Sudoku-real puzzles. They were my hobby as a kid and so they’ve remained. In another life, perhaps I would have gone into the CIA or the NSA, but I chose another path.” She moved even closer, so he could hear her over the running water. “Still, my love remains constant.”