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  “The writer doesn’t think she’s sympathetic.”

  She tensed. The “writer”—Dad’s girlfriend—was not her favorite person. Megan’s coolness was more annoying than her age. “Cheryl Davis would be fabulous, but everyone’s after her.”

  “I’ll lean on Stan.” AJ’s former boss ran William Morris and represented Davis. “In a crisis like this, Jess, a twenty-year relationship is invaluable.”

  She took a long sip of a Diet Coke, building up the courage for a more delicate question. “Have you decided what to do about casting Water, Water Everywhere?” The third film on the J2 slate was a thriller about a young forensic physician at the Centers for Disease Control assigned to track down a terrorist who is poisoning the water supply of major cities.

  “We’ve offered it to Dennis Quaid.”

  “Dennis isn’t available when you want to start.” She noted his suspicious look. “Dad, I know you don’t think Ricky’s right for the part—”

  “Jess! Ricky hasn’t asked about it. Don’t put the idea in his head.”

  “He’s a terrific actor.”

  “I know. I know a hell of a lot more about him than you do.”

  Dad frequently alluded to some secret, but every time she probed, he ducked. Her brother was the same. Their feud had started in Thailand, then got worse after Ricky’s drug bust. Her mission was to get them speaking again. And personal grumps aside, her brother was right for the part. “I gave him the script.”

  “You did what?”

  “I think he likes it.”

  “Keep out of this!”

  During his recuperation, Jess had heard her father yell every day when he couldn’t tie his shoelaces or scratch a mosquito bite. He couldn’t bully her. “You’re wrong.”

  He reached her before she reached the door. “I’m sorry . . . for yelling.”

  She hugged back—no sense being bitchy. “Dad, remember that time you came to camp when Ricky starred in Jesus Christ Superstar?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I hoped that if he did Water, Water it would be like that camp visit again.”

  “Don’t forget, that visit ended badly.” Her father looked sad. “Things happen. Things that can’t be undone.”

  “My ass is getting wet,” Megan complained.

  “I sympathize,” AJ replied. “But I can’t tell this story in a comfortable living room.” So he’d built a campfire in the backyard and put down blankets, but a cold March rain had soaked the grass. AJ stripped off his Navy pea jacket and draped it around her shoulders. He had to be chivalrous because his girlfriend was in a hostile mood. The news about Winger infuriated her. It infuriated him too, but that was the movie business. Maybe her replacement would turn out better. Hell, Warners had hired Clint Eastwood as Dirty Harry only after Frank Sinatra refused the part.

  He’d experienced that kind of serendipity a few hours ago. In order to establish J2 as a factor in Hollywood, he was determined to start four movies in the company’s first year, only none of the other projects in development was ready. But when his daughter mentioned Raquette Lake, AJ flashed on the idea that would round out their schedule. All he needed was a terrific writer to put it down on paper.

  “The story begins at an amusement park in Brooklyn called Coney Island on a summer night in 1948. Thousands of people queue up for rides, munching cotton candy and hanging out. Everyone sweats in the humid heat. Over the ocean thunder booms and lightning flashes.”

  Megan fell under his spell like another kid at camp.

  “A ten-year-old boy heads to Nathan’s, the world-famous hot-dog stand. He holds his dog—his real dog—on a leash, but the mutt catches a whiff of charred beef and breaks free. The boy chases, yelling, ‘Corky, come back!’ They disappear into the Hall of Mirrors. Suddenly, a bolt of electricity strikes the Ferris wheel at its highest point. Bzzzzz! The sound is people being fried in midair.”

  “That’s gross!”

  “No, grotesque. The distinction separates a B movie from a classic. The lightning strikes again in the exact same place, which violates the laws of nature. The Ferris wheel crashes down. A fire breaks out, and the crowd rushes toward the exits in panic. But inside the Hall of Mirrors, disoriented by the reflections and unaware of the fire, the young boy searches for Corky . . .” For the next half hour AJ mesmerized Megan with the story of how the boy died in the fire but returned years later as a grown-up ghost with a mission to haunt visitors to the park.

  “So that’s how you spent your time at that expensive summer camp?” Megan looked quizzical. “It’s such a natural movie idea and you know it so well—why don’t you write it?”

  “I don’t have the time. And you’re a lot more talented. Please.”

  “It’s going to cost you.”

  No doubt of that. His girlfriend was a practical woman.

  CHAPTER 39

  “Five, four, three, two, one . . .” AJ silently counted down until 4:18 A.M. flashed on the alarm clock by his bedside. He’d turned officially fifty—the only male Jastrow to make it. So why wasn’t he celebrating like those nuts in Times Square when the ball rings in the New Year? He put his head on the pillow, but sleep was history.

  In the spare bedroom converted into a gym, AJ extended each stretch until he felt an inch taller, then picked up a pair of free weights and did ten reps to exercise his pectorals. In his youth he’d never cared about the definition of his muscles, but now . . . there was no way he was letting his waist outstrip his chest. Or getting the lard ass of an old man. His legs could carry him to level eight on the StairMaster, although his right knee creaked like an antique rocking chair. In the mirror he gratefully noted a full head of hair, even if it was salt-and-pepper. Battle lines creased his forehead, but all in all, not too shabby for a half century of wear and tear.

  Returning to the bedroom, he listened to Megan murmuring in her sleep. She kicked off the duvet. A tattered Penn crew shirt served as her nightdress. He adored that alabaster body—flashes of it interrupted his train of thought at script meetings. They rarely discussed their age difference, though last night, while watching Johnny Carson, she kidded that if they got married, he’d be seventy when their kids left for college. Her legs scissored, revealing a tuft of black hair. Wake her and start the family now.

  Maybe the reason he wasn’t celebrating fifty was how much game he had left.

  Reaching into his night table, AJ removed a yellowed envelope. It bore the address “Master AJ Jastrow, RLBC, Raquette Lake, New York.” The postmark was August 8, 1945. His father’s handwriting was so big he couldn’t fit many words to a page. “Dear AJ, it’s only been a few weeks since I saw you, but I already can’t wait for camp to end and for you to come home. Mom’s off visiting Grandma in Chicago and I’m just lazing around and playing golf. We’re all waiting for news that the war in Japan is over. Did you hear about the atomic bomb we dropped . . .”

  That was it. The second page was lost. Dad had been in his late thirties when he’d penned the letter—probably sitting at the oak rolltop desk in the den. Less than three years later he would be dead. But in his short years he’d accomplished so much and touched so many. Witness the throngs who’d packed Forest Lawn for his funeral. AJ wondered how many would mourn if he died tomorrow. His father was a loving husband, a dedicated parent, and a war hero who’d nobly served his country. AJ served no one but the people who paid him. As for family, he’d screwed up his marriage and rarely spoke to his son.

  Maybe the reason he wasn’t celebrating fifty was how little he had to show.

  The bedroom window framed a square of night sky. AJ hadn’t prayed on the flight from Lo An when he’d thought he was dying, but now . . . age caused him to hedge his bets. He considered mentioning the environment or world peace—like the Almighty wouldn’t recognize pandering. “Thank you, God, for letting me live this long so I’d appreciate a few more years to get it right. Amen.” Just like in a script—less is more. The rosebushes in the front yard rustled briefly in
the wind. Otherwise, his world remained the same.

  It wasn’t an overdose of butter and garlic but François Volk’s affair with a Vogue cover girl that had prompted Steph to escape on an extended tour of Southeast Asia ten months ago. She’d returned with an inspiration for a new restaurant whose cuisine blended the recipes and culinary techniques of Southeast Asia with the flavors and produce of California. The Siamese Cat was decorated in the colonial style of Saigon under the French. After only four months it had emerged as a trendy L.A. spot.

  AJ and his girlfriend were regulars from the start. Megan looked a bit too Morticia Addams for Steph’s tastes, but her personality was . . . formidable. AJ hung on her every word, but he seemed happy. Thinking back, she remembered that it had been Megan’s idea to hold his fiftieth birthday party at the Cat. The woman was either remarkably secure or slightly perverse to celebrate with her boyfriend’s first wife.

  At Steph’s request, AJ arrived an hour early. They settled into a table beneath a black-and-white photograph of Ho Chi Minh. The waiter served Hanoi hummers—her original cocktail of vodka, lemonade, and cassis. “What’s wrong with me that makes a man leap into bed with another woman?”

  AJ’s head slumped. “Volk . . . again? That fucking frog—”

  “Literally. Please answer my question. Before I divorce him, I need to know if the cheating is his fault. After all, you did the same thing. So did almost every other creep I was serious about. Am I that lousy in bed?”

  “Jesus, Steph. Don’t think that for a second.” He paused, searching for some way to lift her mood. “McQueen had the hots for you. That qualifies you as stone-cold sexy. And you’re the nicest person I know.”

  “But that’s my problem, isn’t it? I’m ‘nice’ in a world where that quality’s gotten the same rap as rice pudding.”

  “Nah. Flashy women walk into your husband’s restaurants, they make no demands, just offers . . . it happens. You have to decide whether to stay with him, but you deserve better.”

  His “Dear Abby” worked. “I’ve got to put my personal touch on your feast, but thank you. You’re a good guy.”

  “I wish.”

  “You can be—when you want to.”

  Ricky stared at a red light on Sunset and Vine, hoping it wouldn’t turn green.

  “What’s he like?”

  The voice surprised him—he’d forgotten there was another person in the car. His date for the evening, a young woman with the solitary name of Rix, had dabbed on enough makeup for it to qualify as clown paint. “Who?”

  “Your dad.”

  “Take the sense of humor of Cliff Huxtable, the moral fiber of Ben Cartwright, and the cardigans of Mr. Rogers . . .”

  “Are you serious?”

  Ricky grunted.

  “So he’s an asshole?”

  “Let’s just say he’s not my favorite parent—and he doesn’t have tough competition.”

  “So why are we going to his party?”

  “My sister and grandmother bugged me. Kind of a powwow.”

  “We can split early to the Palladium. I used to drum for the band that’s playing tonight.”

  Ricky glanced longingly at his glove compartment. In the good old days—was it only a year ago?—he’d kept enough pills in there to get him past the party and through Rix. Someone honked. The light had changed.

  During the past decade AJ had made countless acquaintances but counted few of them as friends. His Rolodex groaned with the names and numbers of a new generation of Hollywood executives, agents, and producers, men and women who were smart and ambitious but seemed more motivated by wealth and fame than passion for film. Because the old black-and-white movies rarely played on TV, few of them had viewed the classics like The Philadelphia Story, All About Eve, or Mr. Smith Goes to Washington that were AJ’s vocabulary. No one recognized the names of Harry Cohn and Adolph Zukor or knew that the studios had once owned theaters. In their minds the film business was born with the release of Star Wars and the founding of CAA.

  Socializing in Hollywood mirrored the modern action movie—loud and relentless. To raise the profile of J2, AJ dutifully trekked to cocktail parties, charity events, and premieres. He made small talk, gathered information, closed deals, and headed home feeling like he needed a shower.

  To keep his fiftieth birthday from descending into a thinly disguised business event, he restricted the guest list to close friends and family. Other than the aggressive videographer, who shot enough tape of people arriving to make a documentary, the evening promised to be intimate. Steph had coordinated the menu and seating arrangements so that he could eat a different course at each of the five guest tables.

  AJ began with crispy California vegetable sushi with a Thai peanut dipping sauce in the company of three mentors, one colleague, and an ex-lover. The babe on Bob Evans’s left arm was proof that he retained the bravado of a studio chief and the looks of a movie star, even though he was merely a struggling producer. The Cotton Club, his bloody, overbudget reunion with Francis Ford Coppola, had flopped at Christmas. “I have a script Mark Canton’s begging me to bring to Warners,” he confided to AJ. “But I’m making it your birthday present.” It was cheaper than a tie or a sweater, but Jessica had covertly read the “gift” last week and judged it dreck. Like Selznick pitching and putting his guts out to Harry Cohn back at Riviera, Evans was fifty-five, broke, and battling. AJ shivered. Producers displayed an alarming tendency to wind up like palooka boxers, tin cups in hand, sporting cauliflower ears from too many hours on the phone.

  To his right sat the exception. Ray Stark was the Machiavelli of the movie business. After AJ’s departure from Rastar, however, the Rabbit had failed to find a replacement he could respect and chose instead to tend his sculpture garden and advise AJ on how to run J2. “I did God’s work today—I gave Mike Ovitz a migraine,” Ray announced. “At lunch Redford told me what a miserable time everyone was having making Legal Eagles. I mentioned I’d seen dailies from The Scholarship and Cheryl Davis was so great he should work with her. Bob told Winger, who screamed at Ovitz that he’d screwed her career. The lady’s yours for the stealing, Stan. It would even things up for his poaching Stallone and Fonda.”

  Stan Kamen stood at the peak of the pyramid he’d scaled stone by stone for thirty-five years. He was the soul of William Morris and represented the biggest divas in the business, including Barbra Streisand and his beard for tonight, Diane Keaton. But Hollywood’s pyramid was slick, and Stan was slipping—or being shoved—from his perch by Ovitz and his CAA hordes. “Mike’s a winner. We had him and lost him.”

  “There’s no one from Variety here,” AJ interjected. “Tell it like it is.” Joe Wizan and Julia Phillips joined the chorus. Not by coincidence, each had once been an agent.

  Stan remained politic. “You have to applaud how he’s made it happen on his own.”

  Evans gave the universal symbol for “jerk off.” Kamen joined the laughter, but when his hiccups degenerated into a coughing fit, AJ and Joe helped him to the men’s room. Reports from William Morris headquarters claimed Stan was cracking under the pressure, screaming at assistants and colleagues. There was no justice. Just when his generation should be waltzing gracefully, someone sped up the music and forced it to disco. Wizan wiped the sweat from his old boss’s brow with a dampened towel. The agent had suffered health problems during the past year—a cut that wouldn’t heal, nasty blisters on his back, and now this hacking cough.

  “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” Stan sputtered. “Give me a minute.”

  Reluctantly, they headed back to the dining room. “He looks like hell,” AJ said sadly.

  Wizan thrust himself within inches of his face. “Stan’s killing himself. I don’t want to see that happen to you.”

  “This is my time. I’ve got to push it.”

  Burning in Joe’s eyes was the passion he kept hidden from Hollywood, where people regarded him as a loner living a spartan life. Six months after quitting the presidency
of Fox, Joe was a producer again, listening to the pounding surf outside his Malibu condo rather than the bitching of his bosses. “After a year in that cockamamie job I couldn’t sleep for more than an hour at a time. I lived on Mylanta. Building J-Squared could destroy you. You’re too good for that.” Wizan embraced him so tightly AJ thought he broke a rib.

  Something about the occasion encouraged people to unburden themselves. And there were four courses to go.

  “Were you guys doing drugs?” Julia asked upon their return. Her hair was cut short and spiked, she wore a dress of studded leather and puffed cigarettes like Joan Crawford.

  “Drugs without you? No way,” AJ replied. “What did we miss?”

  “She was nailing Marilyn Bergman and Paula Weinstein,” Ray offered.

  “I founded the Hollywood Women’s Political Committee with them. And they had the nerve to drum me out of my own organization. It’s un-fucking-American. I hate Ronald Reagan as much as those cunts do!” A decade after winning the Academy Award, Julia had lost none of her feistiness but all of her clout. She hadn’t made a movie in five years and scrounged deals from studio chiefs, who avoided her calls like a voice from the grave. Maybe Don Simpson, the hottest producer in town, could survive drug-related transgressions, but the men in power refused to forgive a woman who’d stripped the gears getting to the top.

  AJ did a quick computation. Take all the success, fame, and fortune achieved by the guests at that table, divide it by all their dreams . . . it was a fraction of the contentment they deserved.

  For the next course, AJ savored Stephanie’s Gulf of Tonkin seafood chowder and pesto crostini with the Keikus, who were seated between Michael Douglas and Steve Guttenberg. “Our venture goes well?” Seiji inquired of AJ.

  Koji jumped in. “Super. We got one movie started, another begins next month and a third goes in August. J-Squared is happening.”

  “We’re on schedule, Keiku-san,” AJ declared modestly. “But it will be the first quarter of ‘86 before we can measure results.”

  “All my advisers predicted problems from the start.”