“Oh, you smooth-talking man. Are you going to make a PG-13 picture?”
“I certainly plan to. I couldn’t tell you exactly when. If you want to continue your witch hunt, feel free. Meanwhile I’m making money, so don’t act like I’m doing nothing.”
“What about Little Miss Porn Star? You want to give her another scare?”
Mason nodded approvingly. “Just what I was thinking. That’s the problem with this two-week delay. It’s like a reprieve. She feels like she’s off the hook, that nothing’s going to happen until the meeting.”
“Exactly. So what do you want to do?”
“I was thinking we could leak a rumor to the tabloids. Nothing specific, just a hint that there might be dirty pictures in her past.”
Gerard made a face. “You might as well put her video on the Internet. If the gossip columns hint of dirty pictures, the game’s over and she wins. Her publicist can issue a statement that Tessa Tweed has never posed for a nude photo in her life, and if any exist they are the work of unscrupulous people who filmed her without her knowledge by the use of spycams. After that, you’ve completely lost your leverage.”
“Do you have a better idea?”
Gerard smiled. “I might. You want to do me a favor?”
“What’s that?”
“Set the machine up, would you? I want to copy a DVD.”
66
Tessa Bacchetti turned down the covers and climbed into bed. It was only ten-thirty, but she had an early call.
Ben climbed into bed next to her. “Are we getting old, or are we just in the movie business?”
Tessa grinned at him. “I’m in the movie business. You’re getting old.”
“Ah, you saucy wench,” Ben said, kissing her.
“Don’t get excited. I really do have to get to sleep.”
“Serves me right for becoming a producer. I could have been a used-car salesman.”
“Be still, my beating heart,” Tessa said. “What woman could possibly resist?”
Ben fluffed up his pillow. He frowned. “What’s this?”
“What’s what?”
Ben held up a clear plastic jewel case. “It’s a CD-ROM or DVD or something. It’s not labeled. It doesn’t say what it is.”
Tessa felt a cold chill. She didn’t trust herself to speak.
“So how did it get under my pillow?” Ben said.
“I have no idea.”
“Well, that’s mighty odd. What could it possibly be?”
“Maybe it’s some producer trying to attract your attention with a stunt, just someone pitching a project. They probably paid the gardener or someone to sneak it inside and make sure you’d find it. Throw it away.”
“Don’t be silly. If someone was ingenious enough to get past our security system and get in here, I want to know who it is.”
Ben got up and walked toward the TV.
“Are you going to play it now?” Tessa tried to sound tired and put-upon, and to conceal her rising panic. It took every ounce of skill she possessed.
“Damn right I am.”
“Honey, please. I’ve got to get up.”
“Don’t worry. It won’t take more than a minute.”
Ben clicked on the TV. He shoved the disc in the DVD slot and hit Play.
A color picture filled the screen.
Tessa tensed, but it was just a commercial. Ben hadn’t switched the feed over from cable TV to Auxiliary. He did so now.
The color picture was replaced by crackling black and white, the type of blank screen before a dubbed recording came on.
Tessa clenched her fists. She knew she should have told Ben the truth, that secrecy was futile and somehow the situation would come back to haunt her. Now she would have no choice.
The video came on.
The picture was still black and white, but a map of Africa filled the screen. The names Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, and Paul Henreid were imposed over it. They dissolved into the title CASABLANCA.
“Look,” Ben said. “Casablanca. Why would anyone send me this?”
“I have no idea,” Tessa said.
“Maybe the housekeeper? She may have heard me mention it. Well, whoever it is, they have excellent taste. It’s one of my favorite films.”
Ben settled up against the pillows.
“You’re going to watch it?” Tessa said.
“I’ll keep it low.”
“Oh, honey.”
“Turn over. Go to sleep. I’ll probably fall asleep in the first few minutes. I just want to watch.”
Tessa pretended to sleep but couldn’t. She knew in her heart the DVD hadn’t been left by their kindly housekeeper, or even snuck in by an ambitious producer. She lay there on her side, her back toward Ben, watching the TV sideways, out of the corner of her eye. Occasionally she managed to turn in her feigned sleep enough to tell that Ben was still awake watching the movie.
It was excruciating. Tessa lay there, in the dark, bracing herself against the moment the TV screen would suddenly burst into living color, and there she would be, naked to the world.
It never happened.
But it didn’t matter.
By the time Bogie finally said, “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship,” and walked off with Claude Rains, Tessa was a nervous wreck.
67
There was a cell phone in her trailer the next morning. Tessa had sensed there would be. It rang as she came in.
The voice, as usual, was mocking. “Did you enjoy the movie?”
“You son of a bitch!”
“Is that any way to talk? I give you a nice movie to watch, and this is the thanks I get?”
“What are you trying to do?”
“I’m not trying to do anything. Are you trying to do something? You shouldn’t be. I wouldn’t like that very much.”
Tessa said nothing.
“I hope you don’t get the idea that you’re off the hook. You’ve got a lot to worry about, like the next DVD, for instance. You got any requests? How about The Lady Vanishes? That’s a good one. Pretty appropriate, don’t you think, the way your career is going to vanish if you don’t play ball. Wanna watch that one and see if it runs straight through without any ‘commercial interruption’?”