leaking water like a Mexican fishing boat.
'We don't have two hundred thousand to pay for an option,' Shane said.
'Tempus omnia revelat.' Wireman sneered. 'Time reveals everything… Catch ya on the flip-flop.' He stood, shot his cuffs, and motioned toward the door.
'Excuse me, we have a counterproposal,' Shane interjected.
Jerry Wireman wrinkled his nose as if the strange smell of decaying flesh had just wafted into his office through the air vent. 'Go.' They no longer merited even a short Latin phrase.
Nicky looked like he was about to start convulsing.
'We'll pay you one hundred thousand for a one-month option,' Shane continued. 'All rights revert back to Mr. Singh at that time. If we have not set the script up at a studio or obtained our financing within a month, we may need another month extension. I'm willing to pay you an additional one hundred thousand for that second month.'
Jerry sat back down behind his desk, grabbed a yellow pad and made some notes. 'Interesting.' He leered. 'So restating it per gradus, what you want, in essence, is a step-deal on a short clock for the same two hundred. I like that. We come off our stated front-end price, and you tighten up the timetable with two option bumps… that could fly. Of course, we're gonna need ten back-end points calculated from first-dollar gross, against a purchase price of two million, or ten percent of the budget, whichever is higher.'
'No problem.'
'And there are some boilerplate creative and approval issues. Nothing too onerous.'
'Let's draw it up,' Shane said.
'What was that name again?'
'Shane Scully.'
'The Big Double S.' Wireman smiled warmly. In seconds, Shane had gone from an extreme annoyance to the Big Double S. Showbiz. 'I like the way you do business, guy,' Wireman enthused. 'Let's get this into memo form and you can write the agency the first check to hold the deal in place.'
'Sounds good,' Shane said.
Then everybody was smiling except for Nicky, who seemed to have turned into stone-hoc tempore.
An hour later Shane had written the check for one hundred thousand, draining the bank account Alexa had just set up. He learned that Michael Fallon was also a CAA client. In fact, Wireman informed them that it was Fallon who had arranged for Rajindi Singh's representation at the agency. Jerry Wireman agreed to arrange a breakfast meeting with Fallon for ten the next morning at the Polo Lounge. Then Shane and Nicky signed the deal memo.
An hour and a half after arriving at CAA, they were walking out of the air-conditioned lion's den, back into the late afternoon L. A. heat, heading toward Nicky's maroon Bentley.
'You have just made the shittiest script deal in the entire one-hundred-year history of moviemaking,' Nicky groused. He was out of his trance, and angry.
'Filmmaking,' Shane corrected. 'And what the hell happened to you? I've seen lawn jockeys with more on their minds.'
'Whatever. One month for a hundred grand, ten gross points against ten percent of the budget for a screenplay that was written by a drooling idiot? We should be put in Bellevue for this deal.'
'Nicky, we're not gonna make the film. It's not ever going to get shot. Got that through your fuzzy head? The hundred grand just ties up the script for a month. After that, I've either got Valentine in jail, or it's over. This is a sting, not a film deal.'
'This is farchadat, is what it is-crazy. When this gets out, my reputation is in the shitter.'
They got into the Bentley and Nicky put it in gear. He looked tiny, peeking over the wheel of the mammoth car. But Shane had to admit he loved the smell of the English leather interior, and made a resolution that, whenever possible from this point forward, he would ride with Nicky.
Then they headed across town to pick up Shane's car at the studio, before going on to the six o'clock A-list party for the New Jersey mobster at the Beverly Hills Hotel.
Chapter 18
Nicky steered Shane through the double doors onto the hotel patio, near a small grassy courtyard. Shafting late-afternoon sunlight cut through the landscaped date palms and splashed the small patio, painting it orange. Waiters in red coats served champagne in fluted glasses and hors d'oeuvres with caviar centers.
Everybody at the party looked as if they were just out of college. Shane guessed the average age to be around twenty-two. Across the patio, Dennis Valentine was working the meager crowd. He seemed angry; his jaw kept clenching.
Shane stood with Nicky, off toward the back of the party near the patio door, observing the New Jersey mobster. He was about Shane's age and had a shock of curly black hair that hung down loosely on his forehead, a bad-boy haircut that Shane was sure Valentine thought the girls adored. He was dressed in a beautiful dove-gray suit, open at the collar. There were plenty of glittering accessories twinkling at his cuffs and on his fingers. He wore gold chains instead of a tie, and his teeth lined up like polished rows of tombstones. He had full, sensuous lips… the guy was a fox… at least a nine.
'Good-looking,' Shane observed.
Nicky scowled. 'He gets more ass than a redneck at a family reunion. Be sure and try the champagne. It's Taittinger.'
'Who are these people?'
'Players… heavy hitters.'
'Do any of them have their driver's licenses yet?'
'It's a young business, bubee. You hit thirty, you're as good as dead at the studios. We make films for preteen puberty cases. That's your audience today, everybody else is just theater-seat garbage. That teen audience skew gives younger executives positions of power.'
After ten minutes, Dennis Valentine was closing in on them. He saw Nicky and a scowl cut deep lines in his handsome tanned face. He excused himself from the group he was talking to and came over.
'What the fuck happened?' he said to Nicky without preamble.
'Whatta you talking about?' Nicky turned pale. Shane thought he might have even flinched when Valentine spoke.
'These people are a buncha secretaries and assistants. Where're the players? It's like every heavy hitter we invited gave their fucking invitation to some flunky.'
'They wouldn't do that,' Nicky hedged.
'That one over there.' He pointed to a pretty dark-haired girl with curly hair and jutting breasts. 'She's a Xerox operator at the William Morris office. She copies scripts to go out to actors. Her boss gave her his invite.'
'Oh, well, I'm sure-'
'And that guy with the eyebrow pierce. He's some agency guy's driver.'
'Look, Dennis, one of the things you're gonna come to learn is that in the biz, these younger assistant-type people will shortly end up in positions of extreme power, and it never hurts to cultivate relationships with up-and- coming-'
'This fucking party is costing me a fortune!' Valentine interrupted. 'I didn't throw it so I could get to know a buncha elevator operators and parking lot attendants.'
'Yes… yes… well, let me get into this, Dennis.'
'I'm gonna beat the cost a this bash outta you, a dollar at a time,' Valentine fumed.
Nicky Marcella had turned the exact same shade of white as the lace cloth decorating the silver hors d'oeuvre tray that was just being thrust in front of them.
Dennis Valentine turned and looked at Shane. 'Jesus. How'd you get in? You already grew up.'
'Dennis, this is my new partner at Cine-Roma, Shane Scully.' Nicky was trembling as Shane stuck out his
