Close to the ground Jeff Mariotte

[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.Of those, at least twenty would lose money.The othersmight break even.There were one or two that had a chance of earning.Jack needed a hit.His corporate masters had made it abundantly clear that if he didn’t deliver a hitwithin the next twelve months, he’d be looking for a new job.Twelve months, in terms of producingmotion pictures, was not a lot of time, and he knew that nothing in the works was going to be satisfactoryto them.Therefore, he had to bring something together fast.He had to have a star who could open apicture, and he needed a script that would give it legs.Peter Delano could deliver both of those items.If only he could just ask.“Send me something,” Peter said.“I’d love to take a look.I’m looking for a script for Rob to direct, forone thing.”“I think I have just the thing.It’ll be on your desk tomorrow.”“Looking forward to it,” Peter said.“What’s Blake up to?” Jack asked.Blake Alten could open a picture and keep it open.He was, at lastcount, the biggest action star in the world.His name on a movie was a guarantee of a hundred million inticket sales, minimum.He was one of those people that Jack couldn’t come right out and ask for.“He’s considering options,” Peter said.“You know, he’s always got a pile of great scripts in front ofhim.We’ll be picking something soon.Why, you got something?”“I think of anything, I’ll send it over,” Jack said.“Talk to you soon, okay?”“You got it,” Peter said.He hung up first.But at least he’d taken the call, Jack reflected.There was a rule in Hollywood, and he was dangerouslyclose to becoming personally impacted by it.If you called someone three times and they didn’t call youback, they were a jerk.If you called four times, you were the jerk.It was a tightrope walk.And the ground was a long way down there, with no net.Jack Willits didn’t want to take that fall.Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.htmlLos Angeles was an amazing place.Mordractus had not left Ireland in more than a hundred years.He kept in touch with the world throughtelevision and magazines and movies and the Internet.But to actually drive down the wide boulevards ina rented Rolls-Royce convertible with the top down; to see palm trees reaching into the sky like graspinghands at the ends of long skinny arms; to pass the HOLLYWOOD sign in the hills over-looking the city,and the stacked disks of the Capitol Records building, and the famous names of Sunset and SantaMonica and Doheny and Vine.it’s all a remarkable experience, he thought.He was sorry he hadn’tdone it earlier.Even though he rarely left the castle, he considered himself a fairly modern man.While he had once wornrobes of silk, now he was more comfortable lounging about the drafty castle in a heavy sweater and apair of jeans.He mail-ordered from a variety of sources, and his waist size hadn’t changed in more than ahundred and fifty years.For L.A.he’d left the heavy sweaters behind.He wore a soft cotton polo shirt, dark linen slacks, alightweight jacket of white nubby silk, and deck shoes with no socks.He’d pulled his longish white hairback into a ponytail.He figured that he looked about sixty, which was upsetting because until he’d begunthis whole business with the Summoning, he had been stalled at a healthy thirty-five, in physicalappearance.The only part of him that hadn’t seemed to age were his eyes, which, he’d once been told,looked as if they’d been plucked from clear blue sky.But that compliment hadn’t earned his victim even a second’s hestitation.The sun on his forehead felt glorious.“I should have done this years ago,” Mordractus said.He was walking up Beverly Drive with DavidCurrie, one of the humans who’d accompanied P’wrll here in the first place.Andrew Hitch, his partner,had stayed with the car.P’wrll was back at a rented house in the Hollywood Hills, with the rest of thestaff he’d brought over.Since arriving in the city three weeks before, he’d gotten into the routine oftaking an afternoon stroll through one of the neighborhoods.Yesterday it had been Brentwood, the daybefore that, Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade.Today, Beverly Hills.“It’s right nice, isn’t it?” Currie said.He was English, not Irish, but loyal and resourceful, so Mordractuskept him around.Anyway, his unruly hair was red enough, and his cheeks rosy enough that he couldalmost pass for Irish.Mordractus had a general distrust of the English, and it was more common for himto kill them than hire them, if they happened to cross his path.They won’t be a problem for much longer, though, he thought.No one will.Forget about givingIreland back to the Irish.they can just give it to me.But time enough for that later.For today he was just enjoying the sunshine and the beautiful girls on thestreets, actresses or would-bes, he assumed.Everyone was well dressed, everyone seemed to bewealthy and footloose.Ireland had never been like this, in his memory.Certainly not during the years that he had spent time inthe company of humans, before retreating to the privacy of his island sanctuary to commune with morepowerful beings.A pair of shoes in a shop window caught his attention.They glowed with the sheen of fine leather, andGenerated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.htmllooked as if they’d be supremely comfortable [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

Pokrewne