Only Child

“Mr. Vision, is Mr. Chenowith expecting your call?”

...

“Hold, please,” she said, sliding out of the chair as Michelle slid in, giving Rejji a “Nice job!” pat on the bottom.

“Mr. Chenowith’s office,” Michelle said.

...

“Oh, Mr. Vision. Thank you so much for calling. May I give you to Mr. Chenowith?”

...

Michelle pointed at me. I took a centering breath, picked up the extension, said, “This is Stan Chenowith. Do I have The Vision himself?”

Rejji dropped to her knees in front of me, hands clasped. Not playing. Praying.

“I can get word to him,” the voice said.

“Oh. All right. Can you tell him we would like to take a meeting with him, concerning backing one of his projects?”

“What do you mean, backing?”

“Well, financing, actually. I don’t know what you know about our—”

“I know how it works,” the voice said, as if I’d offended him. “How did you...I mean, have you seen any of...the work?”

“To be honest, I have not,” I said. “But you know how this industry works. The buzz is that The Vision is going to be very hot. And if you think the elevator’s going up, way up, the ground floor’s the best place to get on.”

“People are talking about...the work?”

“Oh, everybody’s talking about it. Word is, he’s on the edge. New concepts. I’ve heard Blair Witch meets Fight Club; is that outrageous? But, I have to tell you, your client isn’t the easiest man to get hold of.”

“Where would this meeting be?”

“That would be up to him, of course. I’m only calling now because I have to red-eye in tomorrow, and I’d hoped we could get together in the evening. But if that’s not convenient...”

“You’d meet in New York?”

“At the Helmsley Park Lane. On Central Park South,” I said, underlining that I was a Holy Coaster. A New Yorker would have said “Fifty-ninth Street.” “If that would be all right. It’s where I always stay.”

“What time?”

“Any time The Vision wants. We bring more than money to our projects. We bring flexibility.”

“Like nine o’clock?”

“You got it! Just have The Vision come to the front desk and ask for my suite. One of my people will come down to get him. Or would you like us to send a car...?”

“Okay.”

“Okay, you’ll ask The Vision?”

“No. Okay, he’ll be there. I can...I have the authority to make commitments for him.”

“Will you be coming, too, Mr....?”

“Just him,” he said.

“I was afraid you were going to lose him,” Cyn said. “Why didn’t you tell him you’d actually seen his ‘work’?”

“Way too risky,” I told her. “Next thing, he asks me which of the tapes I’ve seen. And, in his mind, he’s wondering how I got them. Besides, it would make sense to him that the ‘word’s out’ without anyone actually seeing product.”

“You’ve got him hooked, honey,” Michelle assured me.

“I would have felt better if he’d let us send that car for him,” I said.

“I know why Vonni had those tapes now. This Vision—he gave them to her. Let her in on his high-concept idea. Because he knew he had her.”

“She wanted it,” the Prof agreed.

“Wanted what, then?” Clarence.

“Wanted to be a star,” Michelle put in. “Or maybe that’s not fair to her. Wanted to be in the movies, anyway. Remember, she was in the drama club....”

“And she left that morning, she told the little boy she was going to be famous,” Cyn put in.

“That tape? The one of her running into nowhere?” I said to them all. “I know what it was now. A rehearsal. Vision wanted her to prove she could act frightened to death. That was her role.”

Nobody said anything.

“That was her role,” I went on. “And right up to the end, she thought she was playing it.”

I was connected to Vision as close as if we shared an artery. Desire and fear warring in both of us, pumping our blood. I could feel him. He wanted it to be true, a Hollywood production company discovering him, making him rich and famous. Power, spreading long sweet shapely legs for him.

But had they really heard of him? And what had they heard?

Come or run?

And me? What if he didn’t show? What if I’d spooked him, given him a head start? How much money did a guy like that have? Did he already have a backup plan, a place to run to?

The door opened. Cyn. Dressed in a black sheath. And Rejji. Nude.

“We couldn’t sleep, either,” Cyn said.

“No!”

“It’ll be subtle,” Giovanni promised me. “I’ve been in plenty of places like this before. The guys who work the desk, they’re used to a little grease.”

“Forget it.”

“You say we don’t know what he looks like...and that’s right. But he doesn’t know us, either. We’ll be in the lobby, just hanging. We scoped it out. The registration desk’s way over to one side; he won’t even look where we’ll be, okay? The desk man gives us the high sign, and...”

“And what? You jump him right there, in front of fifty witnesses, minimum?”

“Come on! I just want to—”

“You just want to fuck this up,” I said, very quiet and calm. “One, he could send someone else. Like a point man, see if this whole thing’s for real. So we have to talk to him, see if he is, understand? Two, you pay a man for a service, doesn’t mean someone else can’t pay him, later, to talk about it. You get all anxious now, you’re going to blow it up.”

“I’ve got to be there,” he said, adamant.

“So you can lose it? Again? You’re putting me in a cross, Giovanni. We needed a public place to meet, the ritzier the better. You see how the joint’s laid out, how many people we’re going to need to make it work. You think you can bang a guy out in a hotel lobby in that neighborhood, and just fade?”

“I’m not going to—”

“You’re not going to be there, period. You said I was driving the car, remember?”

“Burke, listen to me,” he said urgently. “He’s the one. Not the feds, him. I was blind insane to ever think it could be...but who could have ever...I...Burke, he fucking made a movie of my...”

“The only way we’re going to know for sure is if he talks. That’s what I do. What I’m good at. You’re not. You only know the one way,” I said.

“So?” he demanded. “You think he could—?”