questioning his competence. They were a very high-flying firm, and he was sure they were charging the Japanese investor a fortune for the audit, but apparently the investor thought it was worth it.
On the second day of the audit, Brianna had a surprise for him when he got home, looking nervous and exhausted. She’d been to see a lawyer, she explained, and she said she wanted a postnup from Victor. She looked very pleased with herself as she said it.
“A postnup?” He looked shocked. “What exactly do you mean?” A cold chill ran down his spine as he said it.
“You know, a postnup. Like a prenup, but after the marriage.”
“We already have a prenup, Brianna. We don’t need a postnup too.” He didn’t like the sound of it at all. It sounded like blackmail to him, or a serious threat at the very least. He had done a prenuptial agreement with her, and she had insisted that he put a sum of money in an account for her before they married. He had been so desperate to marry her that he agreed.
“I’ve already spent most of the money you gave me in the prenup, Victor. I need more. My attorney says that you can give me an amount now, and pay me an additional sum for every year we stay married.” It was like paying her to be married to him, and something told him that the amounts weren’t going to be small.
“Why did you go to an attorney?” he asked her somberly. He wondered if she’d been asking about a divorce but was afraid to tell him. He had given her seven hundred thousand dollars when he married her, and she had spent it in three years, in addition to what she had cost him. He couldn’t imagine what she had spent it on, but she went through money like water. Despite his careful accounting, she constantly slipped through his fingers.
“I just don’t feel comfortable without money of my own,” she said, whining at him. “I don’t want to ask you for everything. If you give me a lump sum now, and pay me an amount every year, I’d feel a lot better,” she said, sidling up to him.
“I honestly don’t think I can afford it right now,” he said sadly. “Some of my investments haven’t been doing well. I’d rather just pay your bills and take care of you, than put a set amount in an account every year.”
Despite the Angelina Jolie-lookalike pout, Brianna set her mouth in a firm line. “I don’t think I can stay married to you if you won’t do that for me,” she said with a nasty undertone in her voice. “If you love me, you’ll do it. You didn’t do anything you promised for my career. This is the least you can do for me. I wouldn’t feel secure without it.”
“And if I don’t, or can’t?” he asked, feeling discouraged and frightened. It was a race he couldn’t keep up with. He had nearly ruined himself for her, and she was insatiable in her demands and need for money. It was why she had married him in the first place. That was finally coming clear even to him now, with her demand for a postnup.
“I’ll have to discuss it with my lawyer and let you know,” she said with something very hard in her eyes. “Think about it, Victor. You don’t have any choice.” She was making her position clear, and he felt desperation clutch his throat. He was sixty-five years old and he didn’t want to lose her. And despite her ulterior motives with him, he had grown attached to her. And how many more women who looked like her were there going to be for him? He felt suddenly tired, defeated, and old.
He sat in his study alone that night, thinking about what she’d said, and he drank too much Johnnie Walker. Brianna went out with her girlfriends and came home at two o’clock in the morning. Victor was passed out on the couch in his study. She looked at him from the doorway and went to bed alone. She didn’t wake him or try to get him into bed. She was sure he would give her what she was asking for. He had no choice if he didn’t want to lose her, and she knew he didn’t. She had him by the throat, or worse.
She heard him in the shower the next morning and left for the gym. And by the time she got back, Victor had left for the office. The independent auditors were still in his conference room, and he was using the opportunity to go over Tallie’s accounts himself. It never hurt to double-check things. And late that afternoon, he came across several entries that confused him. Brigitte paid all of Tallie’s bills, and she was always very organized and careful about it. She recorded the entries in the general ledger, and then turned over the accounts to him. Brigitte signed the checks, and had been doing it for years. What was puzzling him were regular stays at several hotels. It was none of his business what Tallie did and how she spent her money, but he wasn’t aware of why she was staying at various hotels in L.A. And if they were business related, he wanted to take them as deductions.
There were a few stays at the Bel-Air, and quite a number at the Chateau Marmont and the Sunset Marquis. The same hotels appeared in Hunt’s accounts as well. Brigitte didn’t pay his bills-he had a bookkeeper he’d had for years. And Victor wondered if they spent romantic nights at hotels, or used the hotels for meetings, but he just wanted to confirm that with Tallie, as long as he was going over her books. He was sure it was nothing important. He also noticed that she was spending a considerable amount of cash, which he didn’t like, because whatever she spent it on, he couldn’t use as a deduction for her taxes, and he wanted to tell her that too. He wanted her to use her credit cards instead of cash.
Victor tried not to think of Brianna as he went over Tallie’s books. What she had said about the postnup was very upsetting. He knew he wasn’t going to be able to give her large amounts, and he was afraid that what he could give her right now wouldn’t impress her. And her request for a postnup had sounded like an ultimatum to him. His personal life was in turmoil. But he had to get this audit taken care of for Tallie and Hunt. He didn’t want to hold up their next picture, or frustrate their very precise Japanese investor. Tallie was counting on him to do it promptly, but it was hard to concentrate while he worried about Brianna.
Victor carefully went over Tallie’s accounts for two weeks and made a list of questions. There were expenditures relating to her daughter, some of which the IRS could have viewed as gifts, in which case Tallie had to pay taxes on them. He didn’t think they could take the Paris apartment as a business-related deduction since she never went there anymore, and up until then they had been. She hadn’t made a film in France in years. And he had a list of other expenditures that he wanted clarification on. The independent audit was to establish her solvency and net worth, but the one Victor was doing was just to make sure that her accounts were in good order, and they were taking deductions properly. Victor was conservative in his approach. He never liked taking too many deductions, if they were questionable, and he wanted to be able to defend all of their positions if they were ever challenged by the IRS. He didn’t want to get anyone in trouble, or let his clients stick their necks out too far. Some of them wanted him to be more aggressive than he thought reasonable, although Tallie never had, but this was a good opportunity to reevaluate their positions, and he was doing the same for Hunt.
Hunt’s bookkeeper’s accounting system was less precise than Brigitte’s. A lot of money came in and a lot went out, but he spent most of it on his credit card, so they had a good record of it. Victor met with him and asked him several questions. It was all very straightforward. And when Victor asked him about the local hotel stays, he said he’d stayed there with Tallie, and once in a while he rented suites at hotels for meetings with out-of-town investors so those were business deductions, and Victor wanted to know which charges were for business if Hunt remembered, and most of the time he did.
It all made sense and Victor was comfortable with the deductions they were taking for him, and they hadn’t put Hunt at risk for an audit. Victor was satisfied with Hunt’s answers, and the accounting firm of the Japanese investor seemed pleased too. They were almost finished at the end of two weeks, and very happy with what they’d seen. It looked like the deal would go forward. All Victor had left to do was ask Tallie similar questions to those he had asked Hunt, just for the sake of clarity in their ledger. And in Tallie’s case, he thought they should be taking more deductions. He also wanted to be sure that they were up to date on her California Use Tax, for things she had purchased out of state or abroad. He checked diligently that Tallie was keeping track of it, and Brigitte was recording it correctly, so Tallie didn’t get hit with penalties later. Most of his questions were about that, money spent on Max, and the considerable amount of cash that Tallie was spending, instead of using her credit cards, which he would have preferred.
He called her on her cell phone on Friday afternoon on the set. She sounded busy and he apologized for bothering her, and told her he had a number of questions to go over with her, to be sure that everything was in order and that he fully understood her expenses in the ledger.
“Can you talk to Brigitte about it?” she asked, sounding distracted. They had fallen slightly behind that week due to bad weather and a lot of changes in the script. She was worried that they were going to go over budget on location.
“I can,” Victor answered her cautiously. Sometimes he drove her crazy, he was such a nitpicker, but that was what she paid him for. She just didn’t have the time to spend on it with him at the moment, or she really didn’t want to. “But I’d rather ask you. You’re the one who’s responsible for your taxes, if Brigitte or I make a mistake. I’d
