Dan Wakefield - Selling Out - A Novel

The gold reverberated in the frosty glass mugs of beer, the fluted glasses of wine, those liquid shades of sun, and the customers consuming them, absorbing them, taking them into themselves, letting them circulate, being lifted by their magic, taking on their glow, so the gold of the place was inside the people as well as the room, and Perry felt a part of it, felt it a part of him, not just a visitor now or a tourist, but participant. One of them .

To make it complete was Ravenna, across from him, golden girl, or once a girl grown into goddess now, of this time and place, rising queen resplendent as the light glistened from her long gold hair and smooth gold skin, and she fluently spoke the eloquent, lullaby language of the realm.

“Two hundred thousand, maybe two-fifty, for an overall deal in television with a studio, for a year, I could get you that tomorrow, whenever your own show’s over or your contract is up, whenever you want.”

“Wow.”

The innocent word popped out before he could restrain it.

“But you wouldn’t want that,” Ravenna revealed.

“I wouldn’t?” he asked, wondering. “I mean—well, it sounds OK—but hey—how would I know?” he asked, fumbling.

“You’d have to be ‘exclusive’ to that studio,” she explained. “You wouldn’t be able to entertain offers from anyone else, so your hands would be tied for a year, just for the guarantee of two-fifty.”

“ Oh —well, hell,” he sniffed, shook his head, sighed at the narrow escape, the seemingly golden trap that would have closed on his God-given, constitutionally guaranteed freedom to make more than a mere quarter million in one precious year.

“I don’t want to jostle the Vardeman deal, let’s leave that stand as is.”

Ravenna had of course immediately understood and approved Perry’s decision to give the option to his story “The Springtime Women” to a proven producer of power like Vaughan instead of risking it with Ned Gurney. She was happy to handle the whole matter, including, if need be, explaining to Ned why he wasn’t going to get the rights, when the time came. She was also dying to meet the Vardemans.

“If Vaughan gets that off the ground,” she said, “as I’m sure he will, and you have that credit under your belt, we’ll be talking two-fifty, three for your next feature script.”

Two-fifty, three?

Let’s see. It took two months to write a two-hour pilot, which is about the length of a regular feature film, so—well, figuring it would take more time, a feature after all was an art form, a goddam film , you wanted a little leeway, a little creative breathing space, so double that, say it took four months to do the script, well, you could turn out three a year, which at two-fifty, or three—

Wheee!

Three-quarters of a million, or better still, at the higher rate, which by then would be only deserved, $900,000, or almost a mill—

million a year—

meant—

millionaire —

me!

He raised his glass, the cool gold kissing his lips, gold reflecting back from her shimmering hair, gold pouring in through the windows, shining in the glasses of wine and beer, paving the sawdust floor, golden, gold, up and down and all around, everywhere.

A millionaire needs a staff.

Poor old Charlie Brindle didn’t understand such things. Ravenna not only understood it was necessary, she understood how to do it, whom to hire.

The best.

Reg Melman, the powerful young attorney whose silk shirt unbuttoned to the waist and array of gold chains around his neck made him seem to Perry as if he might be able to grab a microphone and entertain a Vegas nightclub audience with ease, was way overbooked with clients, but as a favor to Ravenna was willing to take on Perry, not even charging a fee but simply taking five percent of all entertainment earnings. That meant Reg had confidence in Perry’s earning potential, or the five percent would hardly make the paperwork worth his time.

Stu Sherman, the suave accountant whose office in one of the towers of Century City on the Avenue of the Stars reminded Perry of an elegant art gallery, served Perrier in fluted glasses while discussing the new client’s overall financial picture.

Perry was grateful that Ravenna had come along to literally hold his hand. She helped translate. When Stu wanted to know if he had his liquid assets in T-Bills or money market or stocks and bonds, Perry looked blankly at Ravenna, who, through a series of gentle questions, was able to ascertain that Perry had $53,000 from his earnings in television thus far in a savings account in his local bank. Perry realized this was like admitting he had put the money in an old sock and hid it under the bed.

“Don’t worry, darling,” Ravenna reassured him, “Stu will get into something useful right away.”

Stu thought the most important thing was to get Perry into a nice little condo that would serve as a shelter against taxes as well as the wind and rain.

“Can I afford that?” Perry asked.

“You can’t afford not to,” Stu advised.

“We’ll see Clarice von Grebhart right away,” announced Ravenna.

“Perfect,” Stu Sherman said.

“Who’s she?” Perry asked.

“The best realtor in Beverly Hills. And the most adorable.”

Clarice was an absolute dream, a puckish, gaminelike, long-legged creature with short, charmingly mussy hair, clad in a thrift-shop Girl Scout uniform and high-heeled red sandals and intriguing dark glasses. She looked more like a movie star than a realtor, but Perry was beginning to observe that many of the women who worked here in everyday jobs, secretarial and sales and clerical, perhaps in defensive reaction, looked more glamorous than most of the actual movie actresses he met.

Clarice, gunning her cute little red convertible all over town, found Perry a terrific little bargain—not in Beverly Hills, of course, which he hardly could afford, but near the little place he and Jane had rented for the summer in the flats of Hollywood. It was a new high rise, a good investment property, and Clarice was able to get the owner down a little so that Perry could pick up a handy little one-bedroom for $249,000. Ravenna whipped out her pocket calculator and figured it would mean Perry would be paying about $3200 a month for his mortgage, but with all his prospects this was quite within reason, especially since it was a tax write-off.

Clarice buzzed them over to the Polo Lounge and they had Mimosas to celebrate. Perry panicked for a moment, realizing he had no furniture and didn’t want to spend the time—that was now more important than the money—to go out and buy it, but Ravenna assured him that was no problem, he could get whatever he wanted through Abbey Rents.

It was easy.

Everything here was easy.

He wondered if Clarice and Ravenna were easy to have, but the truth was Perry was quite happy being with them, being seen with them, without any desire to go to bed with them. In fact, the show was still taking up all the energy he might ordinarily have for sex, which was just as well. That made everything easier, too.

At first Perry didn’t notice anything.

He had come in late to the office after stopping at the escrow company to sign the papers for purchasing his new condo, and was so absorbed in thoughts of his burgeoning personal empire that it wasn’t till he nosed his car into his parking space that he realized something was wrong.

People were running.

Perry’s immediate fear was that the building must be on fire, but as he swung out of his car and looked around he saw no evidence of flames, or even smoke. Besides that, people were not only running out of the building, others were running inside. Everyone looked purposeful but grim, evidently exercising control over some kind of generalized panic.