Created By Read Online Free PDF Page A

Andy’s denuded soul. As if he were some kind of satanic muppet. Andy stood and everyone did.
    “Look forward to hearing from you.” Alan was shaking hands.
    “Right,” said Andy. “I’ll call Jordan or Anna, if I can’t get you. I like them, by the way. Terrific agents.”
    Alan nodded, knowing the network was in bed with half his agency’s projects. Everything was packaged so far ahead of time, the agent/network Siamese twin fusion was the thumb-screw carburation that made stuff go. It was simple greed-math; half charm, half ransom note. When the agency wanted the networks to buy a pilot script they represented, the script was positioned to include one or more of the agency’s stars, producers, and directors. In an ideal scenario, it had everything the networks wanted and became an irresistible juggernaut the agency controlled; like the names of powerful johns in a madam’s scheduling book.
    Then, the bully pulpit made two really big fists; if the network wanted to be first in line to bid on the project, they had to give the agency a decent order and time slot. It was more than mere mutualism. It was chic blackmail.
    They were at the door.
    “See much of Eddy anymore?” asked Andy.
    Alan didn’t think Andy even knew Eddy. He’d been Alan’s writing mentor and one of the best all-around writer-producers Alan ever knew. But he pissed all over his own fire with too much Jack Daniel’s and Llama talc. Missed deadlines, got in too many fights. Threw it all away. Now he was in Cedars basically waiting for his remaining healthy cells to up and hit the high road. It was inevitable and Eddy knew it.
    Alan called as often as possible, saw him at least once a week. But it was getting harder. The drugs they chlorinatedhim with made him crazy. Even though they stunned the pain, chemo had sculpted him down to a sickly Lincoln doll and Alan could barely handle it. A guy’s hero deserved better. A guy’s enemy deserved better.
    “You two ever work together?” Alan asked.
    “Once. He fucked-up an M.O.W. we worked on together when I was at Metro,” said Andy. “I hear he’s dying. Too bad. We all get cancelled sooner or later.”
    Yeah, thought Alan as he left and walked around on Melrose to clear his head.
    Sooner or later.

setting
    T he house drowsed above sea, groggy perfection.
    It had been built in the fifties and the real estate agent, a blond bayonet, bloused in Claiborne, told Alan previous owners had included a neurosurgeon, a famous mystery novelist, a feminist lawyer who once punched Dick Cavett in the nuts, and a witless, top-forty-hit-derrick who wrote a song called “Sunshine Lady.”
    The current owner had been aboard the brain trust that invented those big cardboard things you put in your windshield to block the sun. He was currently in the T-shirt racket and worth over twenty million give or take a cotton blend.
    Alan walked around admiring the breathtaking view, hearing waves sledge shore. He passed leather sofas, carved African masks, and framed T-shirt business awards. Started humming “Sunshine Lady,” a cloying, kindergartenmelody he’d always hated. It was about a perfect girl, with a perfect “sunrise smile” and how she was mysteriously abducted by an exquisite sunset that just couldn’t resist her shiny teeth. It had made the top ten in ’82 but got bumped by Melanie’s “I’ve Got a Brand New Pair of Roller Skates”—a more complex achievment.
    The place was exactly what Alan was looking for. Big, airy rooms, light-flooded, accented with white-washed trim. Huge decks off the living room and master, overlooking blueberry sea. There was a fireplace you could look through from both the living and dining rooms, a sandblasted ceiling. Glass blocks that stacked sunlight. It was tasteful, easy to be in. Almost a million. But the way things could go with the pilot, the new deal at Universal, money was coming fast. And he wanted a new place. A new atmosphere. Something