My Soul to Keep Page 4

  Sam Menzes and Galaxy Studios also happened to be in charge of Brent’s current project at the time. Brent’s star was on the rise, and the studio wanted to wrap him up. Brent was willing so long as he could direct as well as star. By that point he’d directed two low-budget films, one of which had won at Sundance, and the studio was willing so long as they could keep the budget within bounds and locate a suitable story—or “vehicle.” The studio chief brought him in and had Candace pitch her second concept.

  Initially Brent had trouble getting beyond the young woman’s incredible energy. She did not pitch her story so much as sing her enthusiasm. But the more he listened, the more Brent was certain this was the project he’d been after.

  Her story was about Daniel Boone. Daniel Boone the explorer, the frontiersman, the leader, the hero. She’d created a drama that swept aside decades of revisionism and political correctness. She’d returned the man to the pedestal, and in so doing restored the sense of adventure to America’s history. It was a no-holds-barred return to the heyday of Hollywood epics, told about a man big enough to truly fill the silver screen.

  Sam Menzes saw the story’s potential instantly and wanted it for himself. Sam was notoriously two-faced. He could display all the charm of a snake-oil salesman, wrapped in the skin of a man who ran one of Hollywood’s most powerful studios. But the other face of Menzes was that of pure danger. If a cobra wed a rabid lion, the result would be Sam Menzes in a rage.

  And nothing got Sam so mad as not getting what he wanted.

  Menzes and his team pressured them to wrap it up fast. Overnight Candace Chen went from owning all the rights to her screenplay to holding a check for more money than she’d ever had at one time.

  Brent had been tempted to warn her of what would probably happen next. But Brent had wanted a piece of Candace’s talent as well. So he had kept silent.

  Candace’s next stop was the home office of a major star. The actress was incredibly taken with Candace’s concept about the dancer who loses a leg. She not only wanted to act but direct.

  That was when things started to slide. And when things went bad in Hollywood, they did so in a spectacular fashion.

  The star sent Candace thirty-one pages of alterations. Candace protested to the studio, or tried to, but Sam Menzes was no longer accepting her calls. That was bad enough. But the actress then secretly hired her favorite writer and sent him the same list of alterations. Candace’s rewrite, a heart-wrenching four-month attempt to adapt her story to the star’s requirements, was never even read.

  Instead, the actress’s favorite writer ditched the gentle moral and transformed Candace’s story into a star vehicle.

  Candace had made a few allies inside the studio. One of them secretly gave Candace a copy of the shooting script.

  Candace hired a lawyer. She was savaged but not defeated. She could do nothing about the lost first story. But she wanted her second one back.

  Sam Menzes did not willingly relinquish his hold on the Daniel Boone script. But Candace’s lawyer was a shrewd Hollywood player. The lawyer pushed the only button that would work with Sam; she threatened Menzes with a page-one scandal.

  Sam relented, but he made Candace pay. She was forced to return every cent she had received from the sale of her initial script. Her name was erased from the credits. Her agent dropped her. Candace left Hollywood seriously in debt. She was swiftly forgotten, just another jaded dreamer sent fractured and limping back to America’s hinterland.

  The Candace Chen who returned Brent’s gaze had lines he had never seen before. But the calm was as steady as the surrounding rocks. She asked, “Are you here for Menzes?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “I didn’t think so. But I needed to ask. I heard he did a number on you too.”

  Brent tasted his tea. “You heard right.”

  “I heard something else.” Her gaze was strong enough to trace an artist’s line about his form. “I heard you found God inside.”

  “That’s also correct.”

  “You bring it back outside with you?”

  “So far.”

  She liked that enough to nod. “I lost Him for a while. My faith and my talent were so tight in there, you know, using the gift for His glory—when I walked away from one I walked away from the other.”

  Brent set down his jar. “And now?”

  “I’ve been spending some time reading about the early church. They talk about God speaking in the silence, when you can be quiet enough to listen beyond the realm of words.” Her whole body was nodding now, a soft motion, a gentle cadence. “I try to be ready in case He has something to say. It goes a long way to filling the empty hours.”

  “You’re not writing anymore?”

  She motioned inside the caravan with her chin. “I have a little table facing the window and the sunrise. I get up most mornings and sit there for a while. I finally moved my Bible over there to give me something to do, because I’m sure not writing. Five and a half years I’ve been up here. I still haven’t filled my second notebook.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  She looked at him with eyes that revealed as much as they studied. “What if God doesn’t want me to write anymore?”

  “If I believed that, I’d get up from this bench and walk away and never bother you again. I can’t ever come between a person and God’s will for their life. Not ever again.”

  She drained her mug, pinged one fingernail on the rim, and said, “So why don’t you tell me what it is you’re doing up here.”

  “If it’s okay with you, I’ll lay it out like it happened.”

  When the sun vanished behind the rim of the lava lake, Brent biked back to Eddie’s Dodge. He handed Eddie a note Candace had written and said, “She’ll take me back down when we’re done.”

  Eddie slapped the Dodge into gear. “Way to go, man.”

  “It’s not what you think.”

  “All I’m saying, you got a lady who lives for privacy to sit and listen this long, you’re good.” He gunned the motor, lifted his arm in a lazy farewell, and bounced out of sight.

  By the time Brent had returned to the trailer, the side of the patio opposite the outdoor kitchen had been transformed. Mosquito nets had been unfurled from the canvas overhang, separating off a sleeping area. A bedroll had been laid out beneath the cabin’s barred front window. The message was clear enough. If a guest stayed for dinner, he stayed the night.

  Candace used a battered wok to cook them a plate of brown rice and chopped vegetables over the butane stove. She slipped the steaming plate in front of him. “You’re telling me they held hands around the boardroom table and prayed?”

  “Not just prayed,” Brent corrected. “Prayed for me.”

  “Get out.”

  “Like it was the most natural thing in the world. Like asking for miracles was what they did every day of the week. Which, to be honest, is what I think may be happening there.” He tasted his meal. “This is great.”

  “Hard to find a fast food that’ll deliver up here. It was either learn to cook or starve.”

  They ate by lantern light. When they finished, Candace relit the stove and put on a pot of water. She spooned in fresh tea leaves, then poured the boiling contents through a strainer. She handed Brent his tea, lowered the lantern flame to a muted glow, and reseated herself.

  Dusk faded with a tropical tardiness. Night came in lazy stages. Yet already the stars were a portrait of wonder. Brent sipped from his Bell jar and studied the woman who stared up at the sky. “What happened to you?”

  She could have brushed him off with all the questions he had yet to answer. Instead, Candace set her tea to one side and said, “I came out here because I was angry and wounded. I stayed because …”

  Brent said softly, “I understand.”

  “Happiness became something that happened to people down below. The ones who stayed in the beachside hotels and managed to keep hold of their dreams. For me, loneliness and misery were
the sweet elixir to life’s wrongs. I know that is too close to crazy to be said out loud.”

  “No, Candace. It doesn’t sound crazy.”

  “What happened to you, Brent?” she asked quietly.

  “I live a small life. I found God. I stayed sober. I learned to be happy with the small triumph of a good day.”

  She turned back to the night sky. “That doesn’t sound small to me. Not at all.”

  A sliver of moon emerged from a horizon of jagged silhouettes. “The day you pitched your story in Menzes’ office, I was stoned as usual,” Brent told her. “I’d gotten up and had a couple of lines with my OJ. Actually they weren’t lines. I used this solid gold nasal spray, as though the rich man’s toys made it all right to stay permanently high. My driver knew to stock the fridge with champagne—it was all I drank in the daytime. I only switched to vodka when the day’s shooting was done.

  “Anyway, it was just another day for me, headed to the studio to hear just another pitch. I was hearing so many back then, they all sort of ran together. Yours didn’t, though. It captured me. And it wasn’t just the story. It was you. When I got back to the limo, I remember sitting there staring down at my hands. The gold coke dispenser in one hand, crystal glass of champagne in the other. What I heard, though, was how you’d talked of God. How the word came out so naturally it was like He was this friend you’d left out in the waiting room. A buddy. I told myself you were just some squirrelly writer, and took another snort. But your voice kept echoing through my head. You and God. Friends.”

  She took her time answering. “I was furious with God when I left LA. He’d given me this gift, then let the world trample on it and on me. Why hadn’t He protected me?”

  Brent saw the words swim through his brain. The Bible passages. The things he might have responded with. Maybe he should have. But what he said was, “I’m so sorry, Candace.”

  “You didn’t stomp on me. It was Sam Menzes.”

  The way she said that name caused his gut to quiver. “I was part of the food chain.”

  She let that slip into the night and disappear. “I got over the anger. I found my way back to God. But I never did recover.” Her face glowed soft and fragile in the lantern light. “I stayed up here because I am still afraid of what life can do to you.”

  She took Brent’s silence as enough of a response to say, “I guess that brings us back to your visit to Nashville.”

  “I guess it does.”

  She sighed her way around until she sat almost primly. Back straight, feet together, hands folded in her lap. Despite the dim light, Brent knew the strength of will it took for her to remain where she was. “So tell.”

  “They are a group of Christian businessmen and professionals from all over the South. They pray for one another. They hold each other accountable. They invest in mission work.” Brent measured the words and kept his tone steady. “This time last year, they felt God calling them to become involved in the entertainment industry.”

  “The group that meets in Nashville?”

  “No, Candace. The group nationwide.”

  “What, they got together somewhere?”

  “No again. They felt God calling to them in these different groups that were meeting in cities all over the country.”

  “All at the same time?”

  “Apparently so.”

  “How many groups are we talking about here?”

  “Over a hundred.” He waited until he was certain her questions were done for the moment. Then, “They have a copy of your script. Jerry Orbain brought it to them. He runs a music video production group, used to direct small-budget productions for Hope-TV.”

  “They went bust.”

  “Actually, the name and the studio were bought by this organization. They want to do your story as their first project. When they prayed over me, they asked for a sign that all this was God’s will. When they were done, I asked for one too.”

  “Did you get it?”

  “I’m still waiting to find out.” Brent took a long breath. “I said I’d get involved if you agreed to come on board. No questions, no objections, no fight. That you’d just walk down this hill and join me in turning your story into a movie.”

  5

  Shari Khan survived the Hollywood jungle because of what she called her hyper senses. She liked to think these catlike qualities were a gift of her Persian grandmother, her father’s mother. Shari stood by the window in the secretary’s office and fingered her favorite brooch, a gold panther with ruby eyes. She wore a Fendi suit of midnight blue, a perfect backdrop for her amulet.

  Shari extended the tip of her tongue, tasting the air. She sensed the same pungent force that had carried her through the past twenty-four hours. The air’s charge was like the instant before lightning struck, so dense she was amazed no one else in the crowded room could taste it. But Shari knew hers was a finely honed talent. She was one in a million. And her time had come.

  “Ms. Khan? Mr. Menzes will see you now.”

  Shari walked through the double doors. The chairman’s aide smirked at her from his position beside the big man’s desk. Shari could guess what he was thinking. She was only a production assistant to Bud Levinson, one of several administrative vice-presidents. The chairman’s aide smirked both because he was higher up the food chain and because he assumed Shari was about to be shot down. Shari had of course been in the president’s office before. But she had never opened her mouth. A PA in Hollywood was expected to remain still, silent, and subservient. Hollywood PAs worked eighty-hour weeks for guppy wages. The fact was, a hundred thousand others would have paid to have Shari’s job.

  As Shari seated herself, the chairman’s aide mouthed, Been nice not knowing you . The aide’s name was Brad. Her first week on the job, Shari had refused his advances in no uncertain terms. Shari was not interested in a relationship with anyone’s aide. A girl had to have standards. Especially in this town. Brad had not taken well to Shari’s turning him down. Now Brad’s expression said it all. He was going to enjoy this. A lot.

  Shari focused on the man seated behind the desk. There would be ample time to scour the aide with her talons once she had passed him on the way up.

  “Ms. Khan, is it? You wanted to see me?”

  “Thank you for your time, Mr. Menzes.” Until last year, Shari had been assistant sales manager to the largest books-on-tape producer in Los Angeles. Shari had taken a cut in salary and an even larger cut in title to work as Bud Levinson’s PA. All for this. The chance to seat herself at the narrow conference table that grew like a thumb from the center of Sam Menzes’ desk. “Something’s come up that I think you’ll agree can’t wait.”

  “You heard from Bud?”

  “He’s still in traction, Mr. Menzes.”

  “How long?”

  “Another three weeks.” If her boss could survive that long. And if the nursing staff didn’t murder him in his sleep. Bud was not being a good patient. Shari had that firsthand.

  “Skiing, right?”

  “Yes, sir. Aspen. Broke his right femur in three places and shattered his hip.”

  Sam Menzes glanced to where his aide sat against the side wall, notebook in hand. “We send flowers?”

  “Twice.”

  “Good. Okay, Ms. Khan. What’s up?”

  Shari took a breath and tasted how the electric force had intensified. The thunderbolt was soon to come crashing down.

  The aide smirked at his notebook. He no doubt expected her to use her boss’s absence to claim she’d received a new job offer, yet she felt loyalty to this company and would so like to stay, if only, yada, yada. Sam Menzes did not pay for loyalty, because loyalty was a flower that did not grow in Hollywood soil. Sam Menzes paid for results. And Brad assumed results were one thing a guppy like Shari Khan could not produce. Only he was dead wrong. Emphasis on the word dead.

  “Iron Feather,” she said. “Our Daniel Boone project.”

  “What about it?”

  “We have comp
etition.”

  Sam Menzes glanced at his aide, who was no longer smiling. The Boone project had been in turnaround for almost two years. Shari knew about the delay but could only make an educated guess about the reasons. It might be problems with the script. Or casting problems had ground things to a halt, if the actor wanted for the role was trapped in a contract with another studio. Delays often bred more delays. Filmdom had another word for longterm turnaround. They called it the boneyard.

  The only thing that had kept this project from being relegated to the boneyard was Sam Menzes. He had a personal interest in this film.

  That the film had finally emerged from turnaround was a carefully guarded secret.

  Unlike most of the other major studios, Sam Menzes bankrolled many of his own films. He often shared risks by drawing in other investors. But not always. Forbes estimated the Menzes fortune at three billion dollars. Sam personally bankrolled films he thought were going to be hits. That meant he could keep hold of lucrative distribution rights and DVD sales rights until the best and most profitable moment to sell. He took a personal hand in selecting stars and green-lighting their contracts. He was a handson CEO. If a director or producer didn’t like it, Sam Menzes was happy to show him the door.

  His level of control meant projects he chose to fund himself could remain highly confidential. Other studios could not rush a competing project into production and siphon off his advance publicity.

  Menzes asked his aide, “Did you tell her about this?”

  Brad stiffened in his chair. “Not a chance!”

  “Actually, sir,” Shari said, “it was through my own confidential source.”

  Menzes looked at her then. Actually looked. His regard seemed purely professional. She wondered if he even noticed she was an attractive young woman with honeyed skin and slanted eyes—the eyes of a cat.

  “Universal finally get their project off the ground?” he asked.